E U S E B I U S T H E H I S T O R I A N
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine from about 3 14 to his death in 339, may properly be acknowledged as the second Christian his- torian, the first being Luke. ’ Eusebius’s greatest work is his EccLesiastical History, in which he traces the fortunes of the Christian movement from the time of Christ to the establishment of the peace of the church under Constantine in AD 3 13. When Constantine became ruler of the eastern empire as well as the western (AD 324), a good rapport was established between him and Eusebius, on whose advice in matters ecclesiastical the emperor came increasingly to rely.
Eusebius wrote his History in stages during the first quarter of the fourth century. He had all the material for research available to him in the great church library of Caesarea, which went back to Origen’s day
’ Luke’s claim to be the first is sometimes unjustly challenged; but see A. A. T.
Ehrhardt, ‘The Construction and Purpose of the Acts of the Apostles’ (1958), in 7’hr Framework oftbe New Testament Stories (Manchester, 1964). pp.64- 102; he cites with approval Eduard Meyer’s estimate that Luke ‘figures as the one great historian who joins the last of the genuinely Greek historians, Polybius, to the first great Christian historian, perhaps thegreatest ofall, Eusebius ofCaesarea’(p.64). See J. B. Lightfoot,
‘Eusebius of Caesarea’, DCB II, pp.308-348; D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, E~ehzw of
Carsarea (London, 1960).
T H E C A N O N O F S C R I P T U R E
and had been richly endowed by Eusebius’s mentor Pamphilus (martyred in 309).2 Eusebius was deficient in some of the critical qualities requisite in a first-class historian, but he knew the importance of consulting primary sources, and indeed he introduces frequent quotations from them. We have to thank him for preserving portions of ancient writings (such as Papias’s) which would otherwise be quite lost to us. But where his sources have survived independently, a comparison of their wording with his quotations confirms the accuracy with which he quoted them, and this gives us confidence in the trustworthiness of his quotations from sources which can no longer be consulted. 3
A C K N O W L E D G E D , D I S P U T E D AND SPURIOUS BOOKS
We have already been indebted to Eusebius for information about statements by earlier writers on the Old and New Testament scriptures.
In one place he gives an account of the New Testament writings current throughout the churches in his own time.4 He distinguishes three categories: (1) universally acknowledged, (2) disputed, (3) spurious. Of the universally acknowledged writings he says:
In the first place should be placed the holy tetrad of the gospels.
These are followed by the writing of the Acts of the Apostles.
After this should be reckoned the epistles of Paul. Next after them should he recognized the so-called first epistle ofJohn and likewise that of Peter. In addition to these must be placed, should it seem right, John’s Apocalypse.
(Hebrews must be included among ‘the epistles of Paul’, which Eusebius elsewhere enumerates as fourteen. “) Then he goes on:
’ Eusebius, Hict. Em’. 6.32.3; Jerome, Epistle 34.1; seeP.73.
3 One must recognize his habit of extracting from their contexts just so much of passages quoted from earlier writers as suited his immediate purpose. But J. B.
Lightfoot’s emphatic witness remains valid: ‘In no instance which we can test does Eusebius gizr a doubtftd testimony’ (Emys on ‘Supernatural Rebgion’, p.49; his italics).
’ Hist. Ecci. 3.25. l-7.
5 Hict. El-cl. 3.3.4 f. where he adds that ‘some have rejected the letter to the Hebrews, saying that is is disputed by the church of the Romans as not being by Paul’
(~~6.20). In Hirt. EK/. 6.41.6 he mentions the despoiled believers of Heb. lo:34 as
‘those of whom Paul testified’; in Mart. Pal. 11.9 he couples ‘the heavenly Jerusalem’
of Heb. 12:22 with ‘Jerusalem above’ ofGal. 4:26 as the city ‘ofwhich Paul spoke’.
To the books which are disputed, but recognized by the majority, belong the so-called epistle ofJames and that ofJude, the second epistle of Peter and the so-called second and third epistles of John, whether these are by the evangelist or by someone else with the same name.
As for the third category:
Among the books which are spurious should be reckoned the Acts of Paul, 6 the so-called Shepherd, ’ the Apocalypse of Petep and in addition to these the so-called epistle of Barnabas’ and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles, ” and moreover, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, should it seem right. For, as I said, some reject it, while others count it among the acknowledged books.
Some have also included in the list the Gospel according to the Hebrews, ” in which special pleasure is taken by those of the Hebrews who have accepted Christ.
It is evident that by ‘spurious’ Eusebius means little more than uncanonical. Usually the adjective, when used of literature, implies that a work is ascribed (by itself or by others) to an author who did not really compose it (like the gospel or apocalypse ascribed to Peter). I2 But when Eusebius includes the Shepherd among the ‘spurious’ books, he does not suggest that the Shepherd was not actually written b y Hermas-after all, Hermas, the slave, was such an unimportant person that no one would try to gain undeserved credit for a work by ascribing it to him. It is surprising to find John’s Apocalypse listed, not among the disputed books, but both among those universally acknowledged and among the ‘spurious’ books, both times with the qualifying clause ‘should it seem right’. Had Eusebius listed it among the disputed books that would not have been surprising, for it continued to be disputed among some of the eastern churches well after Eusebius’s day. I3 Eusebius’s apparent inconsistency arises from the fact that the Apocalypse was acknowledged by those churches whose opinion he valued most, whereas he himself was unhappy about it-he could not reconcile himself to its millenarian teaching. But
6 Seepp.202, 261. ’ Seepp. 166, 191.
’ See pp. 161, 261. 9 See pp. 122, 191.
‘” Seepp. 191, 194. ” see pp. 191, 194.
‘* The adjective is nothos, literally ‘illegitimate’ or ‘bastard’, as in Heb. 12%.
I3 Seep.213.
when he calls it potentially ‘spurious’, he is not questioning its claim to be the work of one John (cf Rev. 1:4, 9 etc.); he was disposed to accept the opinion of Dionysius of Alexandria that the author was not the apostle and evangelist John but another John, also associated with Ephesus. I4 He would simply prefer it not to be in the canon.
So far (apart from his ambiguous attitude to the Apocalypse) Eusebius’s threefold classification is plain enough. But then he says that the ‘spurious’ books might be ranked with the ‘disputed’ books, and tries, not very clearly, to say why nevertheless he lists them separately. The reason appears to be that, while in his day the
‘spurious’ books were not generally included in the canon, yet they were known and esteemed by many churchmen. If not canonical, they were at least orthodox. This could not be said of some other writings known to Eusebius, which claimed falsely to be the work of apostles and their colleagues, but in fact promoted heterodoxy. Such works, he says:
are brought forward by heretics under the name of the apostles;
they include gospels such as those of Peter, Thomas and Matthias and some others as well, or Acts such as those of Andrew and John and other apostles. None of these has been deemed worthy of citation in the writings of any in the succession of churchmen.
Indeed, the stamp of their phraseology differs widely from the apostolic style, and the opinion and policy of their contents are as dissonant as possible from true orthodoxy, showing clearly that these are the figments of heretics. Therefore they are not to be reckoned even among ‘spurious’ books but must be shunned as altogether wrong and impious.
R E J E C T E D G O S P E L S A N D A C T S
Of the works denounced by Eusebius the Gospel of Peter has a special interest. In the second century it was read and appreciated by Christians who were disposed to take it at face value as composed by Peter. Even Justin Martyr appears to quote it in one place.” Serapion, bishop of
I4 See pp. 195f.
‘s In FM/ Apohgy 36.6, speaking ofthepassion ofchrist, Justin says, ‘And indeed, as the prophet had said, they dragged him and made him sit on the judgment-seat, saying “Judge us”.’ Compare Go~pelo/Prtw 3:6 f. where Jesus’ enemies ‘made him sit on a judgmenr-seat, saying “Judge righteously, 0 king of Israel!“’ The prophet referred to by Justin is Isaiah (~fIs. 58:2). The idea that Jesus was made to sit on the
Antioch towards the end of that century, found that it was held in high esteem in the church of Rhossus, which lay within his jurisdic- tion. To begin with, he was not troubled by this, because he knew the church of Rhossus to be orthodox in its belief. But later reports moved him to examine the work more carefully, and he found that it presented a ‘docetic’ view of the person of Christ- that is, the view that his human nature was only apparent and not real. A substantial fragment of the Gospel of Peter in Greek was identified as part of the contents of a parchment codex discovered in Upper Egypt in 1886;
from this the docetic tendency of the work is evident. Jesus, it is said, remained silent on the cross, ‘as though he felt no pain’. He is not expressly said to have died; rather, ‘he was taken up’. His cry of dereliction is reproduced in the form, ‘My power, my power, you have left me!’ suggesting that at that moment the divine power left the physical shell in which it had been temporarily resident. ”
Having discovered the true nature of the work, Serapion exposed its defects in a treatise entitled Concerning the So-Called Gospel of Peter. ”
As for the Gospel of Thomas mentioned by Eusebius, that seems to be a gnostic work quoted by Hippolytus” and stigmatized as heretical by Origen; I9 its relation to the Gospel of Thomas found among the Nag Hammadi documents in 1945 is uncertain, but they are certainly not identical.20 The Gospel of Matthias is also listed as heretical by Origen;”
its relation to the Traditions of Matthias quoted by Clement of Alexandria is doubtful. **
judgment-seat could have arisen from a mistranslation of John 19: 13 (as though it meant not ‘Pilate sat’ but ‘Pilate made him sit’). But, as L. W. Barnard points out uustin Martyr: his L;f and Thotrght [Cambridge, 19671, p.641, Justin’s reliance on uncanonical material is remarkably scanty compared with his points of agreement with our canonical gospels.
I6 For the Go@’ of Peter see E. Hennecke-W. Schneemelcher-R. McL. Wilson (ed.), Neu~ Tt~tament Apoctypha, I (London, 1963), pp. 179- 187.
” Eusebius, Hirt. Eccl. 6.12.2-6. Ix Hippolytus, Refiltation, 5.7.20.
I9 Origen, Homilies on Lukr, 1.
lo Hippolytus quotes an alleged saying ofJesus from the Naassene G~spel~f Thonm~
‘He who seeks me will find me in children from seven years old, for there concealed I shall be made manifest in the fourteenth age’ (Rrfhation 5.7.20). The Nag Hammadi GM/X( of Thonur (a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus) exhibits signs of Naassene influence (the Naassenes were a gnostic party) but it does not include this saying. See Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, Ntil, Tr~tmmt Apouyph. I, pp.278-307; F. F.
Bruce, Jw/f crud Chvi.rtian 0rigin.l out.~zft. thr Nru, Trrtmnmt (London, ’ 1984), pp. 1 IO- 158.
” Origen, Hovulrrr WI LN&, 1 ‘* Seep.191.
2 0 1
T H E C A N O N O F S C R I P T U R E
There is a group of five books of Acts bearing the names of apostles, dating from the second half of the second century onward- the Acts of Paul, Peter, Andrew, John and Thomas. Of these the last two are definitely gnostic works; the first two belong rather to the category of early Christian fiction, and the Acts of Andrew, while it has been suspected of a gnosticiting tendency, may have been the work of an author who remained within the fellowship of the catholic church.*’
The author of the Acts of Paul, a presbyter in one of the churches of Asia, was deposed from his office for his incursion into fiction. The best-known section of the work, the Acts of Pauland T&la, scandalized Tertullian because it represented Paul as encouraging Thecla, one of his female converts, to teach and even baptize.24 The Acts of Peter is mainly concerned with the last phase of Peter’s life, his closing ministry and martyrdom in Rome, and not least his controversy there with Simon Magus.*’
The Acts ofJohn is ascribed to an author names Leucius (after whom, indeed, all five sets of apocryphal Acts have been called the ‘Leucian Acts’).26 It contains a number of curious anecdotes about the apostle John, who is presented as a gnostic teacher. It includes an interesting gnostic hymn in which Jesus accompanies his disciples, performing a solemn dance at the same time. The hymn has been set to music by Gustav Hoist. One of its quatrains embodies familiar themes from the Fourth Gospel: Jesus says,
I am a lamp to you who see me, I am a mirror to you who know me, I am a door to you who knock on me, I am a way to you the traveller.
At the end of each ‘I am’ statement the disciples make the response
‘Amen’. 27
In the Acts of Thomas the apostle Thomas is described as visiting
*’ See Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, New Testament Apoc’ypha, II (London, 1965), pp.392-395.
a See p.261’> see also E. M. Howe, ‘Interpretations of Paul in The Acts o/Pauiand T/m/a’, in Pardine St//dies, ed. D. A. Hagner and M. J. Harris (Exeter/Grand Rapids, 198OA pp.33-49.
” Seep. 163.
26 So Photius, Bibhtheca, 114. The five circulated among the Manichaeans as an Acts-corpus. The Gelasian decree (see pp. 234f.), among its ‘books not to be received’, includes ‘all the books which Leucius, the devil’s disciple, has made’ (5.4.4).
” See Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, Nrul Testament Apocrypha, II, pp. 188- 259 (the hymn is translated on pp.228-232).
2 0 2
India. ** It is extant in Syriac; it is full of legend but certainly indicates that Christianity had been carried to India by the time the work was composed (about the middle of the third century). As is well known, the Mar Thoma Christians, with their Syriac liturgy, maintain their vigorous life and witness in India to the present day. We have to thank the Acts of Thomas for preserving the Hymn of the Pearl, a poem by the gnostic teacher Bardaisan, the founder of Christian Syriac literature.
This poem tells the allegorical story of the soul that went down to Egypt for the sake of the one pearl: it has been called, despite its gnostic orientation, ‘the most noble poem of Christian Antiquity’.
That was the judgment of F. C. Burkitt, who added, ‘it is worth while to learn Syriac, so as to be able to read it in the original’.29
C O N S T A N T I N E ’ S F I F T Y B I B L E S
Eusebius may have performed a special service towards the fixing of the Christian canon of scripture. Not long after Constantine inaugu- rated his new capital at Constantinople on the site of ancient Byzantium
(AD 330), he wrote to Eusebius, asking him to have fifty copies of the Christian scriptures (both Testaments in Greek)prepared for the use of the churches in the city. The emperor’s letter is preserved in Eusebius’s Life of Constantine, a panegyric composed soon after Constantine’s death in 337. 3o The fifty copies were to be made on good parchment by trained scribes: the emperor would defray the entire cost and authorize the use of two public carriages to transport the copies to Constantinople. Eusebius proceeded without delay to comply with the emperor’s request: the scriptures were prepared as specified and senr in ‘magnificent and elaborately bound volumes’.3’
*’ See Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, New Testament Apoqpha, II, pp.425-
53 1 (G. Bornkamm, who edits the A& o/Thomas for this compilation, is the leading world-authority on it).
29 F. C.Burkitt, Ear/y Christianity outside the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1899),
p.61. The hymn is translated in Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, II, pp.498-504.
30 Life of Coutantine, 4.36.
3’ Lz$ ofConstantine, 4.37. The volumes are further said ro have been ‘in threefold and fourfold form’. The meaning of these words is disputed: they may have been written with three columns to a page (like Codex Vaticanus) or four (like Codex Sinaitictu); or the point may be that they were sent to the emperor three or four at a time. For the former suggestion see K Lake, ‘The Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts and the Copies sent by Eusebius to Coristantinople’, HTR 11 (19181, pp.32-35; for the latter, see T. C. Skeat, ‘The Use of Dictation in Ancient Book-Production’, Pmtredqs ofthe Brutish A~dewy 42 (1956). pp. 179-208 (especially pp. 195- 197).
203
There are several unanswered questions about these sumptuous copies. (We may reflect, in passing, that only a quarter of a century earlier the Christian scriptures were being assiduously sought out and destroyed by imperial authority.)32 What type of text was used in these copies? It has frequently been surmised that the Vatican and Sinaitic codices of the Greek scriptures (dne of them, if not both) are survivors from this consignment. That is unlikely: apart from some indications that the Vatican codex may have been produced in Egypt, they are our two chief witnesses to what is called the Alexandrian text type, and there is no indication that his text type was current in Constantinople and its neighbourhood in the period following 330.
(Nevertheless, these two codices may give one a good idea of the appearance of the copies which were made for Constantine.) If a guess may be hazarded, it is more likely that the fifty copies exhibited the text of the recent edition of Lucian of Antioch (martyred in 3 12), the ancestor of the Byzantine or ‘majority’ text.33 If they did, this would help to explain the popularity of this form of text in Constantinople and the whole area of Christendom under its influence from the late fourth century on, a popularity which led to its becoming in fact the majority text and to its being called by many students nowadays the Byzantine text. (But the New Testament text used by Eusebius himself belongs neither to the Alexandrian nor to the Byzantine type.)34
A more important question for our present purpose is: which books-and, in particular, which New Testament books-were included in these copies? We are not told, but the answer is not seriously in doubt. The copies contained all the books which Eusebius lists as universally acknowledged (including Hebrews, of course, but also including Revelation) and the five catholic epistles which he lists as disputed by some- in short, the same twenty-seven books as appear in our copies of the New Testament today. The emperor might not be greatly concerned about the particular type of text used for the copies-variations between text types make little difference to the general wording- but he would discover rather quickly if a book which he believed to be part of the scriptures had been left out. As for Revelation, it is clear that Constantine attached high importance to it:
” See pp. 2 l6f.
” See B. M. Metzger, ‘The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible’, Chuptevs in the Hirtory o/New TrJtmmt Textd Crztzcim, NTE 4 (Leiden, 1963), pp. 1-41.
‘4 Eusebius, as might be expected, seems to use a form of the Caesarean text type.
E U S E B I U S O F C A E S A R E A
he used its imagery for purposes of his own imperial propaganda.35 Eusebius personally might have preferred to omit it, but it was the emperor’s preference, not his own, that he had to consider on this occasion. If these copies did indeed contain the twenty-seven books, no more and no less, that would have provided a considerable impetus towards the acceptance of the now familiar New Testament canon.
A related, though less important, question concerns the order of the New Testament books in those copies. Most probably the order was that followed in Eusebius’s own list of the books: the four gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles with Hebrews, the catholic epistles, Revelation. ,This is the order which was to become standard in manuscripts of the Greek New Testament; it superseded the order exhibited in the great uncial codices, in which the catholic epistles come immediately after Acts.
It is difficult, then, to accept the conclusion of one scholar, that the New Testament canon was still ‘in the process of formation’ in Eusebius’s mind.36 Eusebius’s canon deviated from the consensus of his ecclesiastical milieu only in respect of the Apocalypse, and he knew his mind very well on that.
T H E E A R L Y UNCIAL!?,
The mention of the great uncials makes this a convenient point to list their New Testament contents, as their Old Testament contents have been listed above:37
Sinaiticus
(4th
century).Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1
Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 35 See C. Odahl, ‘The Use of Apocalyptic Imagery in Constantine’s Christian Propaganda’, Centerpoint-The JoumaI of Interu’isciplinary Studies 4, Spring 1982, City University of New York, cited by W. R. Farmer,jeJw and the CoJpei (Philadelphia, 1982), pp.273-275, nn.139, 154. Onpp.184-187 ofFarmer’swork thereisagood discussion of Constantine’s influence on the definitive form and status of the New Testament. See also K. L. Carroll, ‘Toward a Commonly Received New Testament’, BJRL 44 (1961-2), pp.327-349 (especially p.341).
36 A. C. Sundberg, Jr., ‘Canon Muratori-A Fourth-Century List’, HTR 66 (1973A p.29.
” See pp. 69f.