Church History 12 – Eusebius of Caesarea (263AD – 339AD)

Butterfly Bush

The big idea this week is how the church began to change after Constantine came to power.  Surviving documents seem to indicate that the church thought more highly than it ought of Constantine.   Below is an excerpt from Eusebius of Caesarea’s ‘Church History:'

‘But Constantine, the mightiest victor, adorned with every virtue of piety, together with his son Crispus, a most God-beloved prince, and in all respects like his father, recovered the East which belonged to them; and they formed one united Roman empire as of old, bringing under their peaceful sway the whole world from the rising of the sun to the opposite quarter, both north and south, even to the extremities of the declining day.  All fear therefore of those who had formerly afflicted them was taken away from men, and they celebrated splendid and festive days. Everything was filled with light, and those who before were downcast beheld each other with smiling faces and beaming eyes. With dances and hymns, in city and country, they glorified first of all God the universal King, because they had been thus taught, and then the pious emperor with his God-beloved children.’

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.toc.html

It was Eusebius and his teachers who wrote down the history of the early church.

Gonzalez:  ‘Without it, a great deal of the story that we have been telling would have been lost.  It was Eusebius who collected, organized, and published practically all that is now known of many persons and episodes in the life of the early church.’

But it is not so simple to judge Eusebius.  Consider the quote above from his ‘Church History.’  The lens with which he viewed the world was scarred.  Persecutions and church burnings were the norm heretofore.  When Constantine came to power Eusebius’ worldview changed.

Gonzalez:  ‘From the point of view of Eusebius and his surviving companions, what was taking place was a direct intervention by God, something similar to the events of the Exodus…Constantine, and he alone, remained as God’s chosen instrument.’

I am reminded of how it must have felt for many black people in this country when Barrack Obama was elected President of the United States.   I sat next to a beautiful young black woman on a flight from somewhere near the end of the campaign.  While I did not support Obama’s political views, I was struck by how meaningful his election would be to this woman. 

From time to time, I have caught glimpses of what is must be like to be black in this country.  While things are much better than the 1960’s racism still exists.  I have seen black men pulled over by the police who in my view did not deserve to be pulled over.

 All this to say, that the lens with which many people view Barrack Obama is shaped by how they have been treated in history is the same in my view as how Eusebius viewed Constantine’s rise to power.

Gonzalez goes on to say that since Eusebius viewed Constantine as an instrument of God, ‘he did not hesitate to support the emperor.’

In his thinking and writing, Eusebius certainly had an agenda.  He did not simply seek to state the facts of history. 

Gonzalez:  ‘What Eusebius then did was to bring together these various ideas, showing them at working in the verifiable facts of the history of both the church and the Empire.  This history that thus resulted was no mere collection of data of antiquarian interest, but rather a further demonstration of the truth of Christianity, which is the culmination of human history.’

Gonzalez:  ‘He seems to have been aware of some of Constantine’s shortcomings, especially his irascible and sometimes even bloodthirsty temperament.  But in order not to weaken his argument, Eusebius simply remains silent about such things.’

And so we are reminded of these things to see how according to Gonzalez ‘Christian theology was being shaped by the new circumstances, even to the point of abandoning some of its traditional themes.’

Gonzalez gives three examples to show this line of thinking.

‘First of all, it is clear that, in the New Testament…it was affirmed that the Gospel was first of all good news to the poor, and that the rich had particular difficulty in hearing it and receiving it….But now beginning with Constantine, riches and pomp came to be seen as signs of divine favor.

Eusebius described with great joy and pride the ornate churches that were being built.  But the net result of those buildings, and of the liturgy that evolved to fit them, was the development of a clerical aristocracy.

Finally, the scheme of history that Eusebius  developed led him to set aside the fundamental theme of early Christian preaching:  the coming of the Kingdom of God…there was a tendency to set aside or to postpone the hope of the early church, that its Lord would return in the clouds to establish a Kingdom of peace and justice.’

There was a giddy feeling among Christians during the early years of Constantine’s rule.  Gonzalez says, ‘Eusebius is not the creator of what we have called ‘official theology,’ but rather the mouthpiece of the thousands of Christians, who like him, were overawed by God’s mercy in finally delivering the church from persecution.’

Source:  Justo L. Gonzalez from ‘The Story of Christianity, Volume 1, the Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation’