Reconsidering Eusebius

Drawing on history, philology, literature, archeology, and theology, this book offers new approaches to Eusebius' well and less known writings as well as to his unique contribution to late antique culture.

Presents a radical new reading of how Christian history was rewritten in the fourth century to suit its circumstances under Rome.

El volumen recoge catorce estudios que contrastan las obras historiográficas de Amiano Marcelino y de Eusebio de Cesarea: ambas coinciden en sentido amplio en el siglo IV d.C. y representan dos mundos religiosos, lingüísticos y literarios diferentes. El propósito de tal comparación no es la mera identificación de las diferencias de estilo, expectativas, público, método y escala, o una evaluación de méritos artísticos o de rigor histórico, aspectos tratados eventual y parcialmente en los capítulos, o la identificación de coincidencias entre la visión que ambos tienen de su propio proyecto literario. Dos estudios de conjunto se centran respectivamente en Eusebio de Cesarea y Amiano Marcelino, a los que se suman es capítulos centrados en la interpretación de pasajes particulares o de una determinada técnica literaria especialmente representativa de un autor o visión historiográfica, de modo que el volumen en su conjunto permite profundizar en los rasgos generales de continuidad y discontinuidad de la cultura literaria de la Antigüedad Tardía.

From Constantinople to the Frontier: The City and the Cities provides twenty-five articles addressing the concept of centres and peripheries in the late antique and Byzantine worlds, focusing on urban aspects of this paradigm between the fourth and thirteenth centuries.

The transformation from the classical period to the medieval has long been associated with the rise of Christianity. This association has deeply influenced the way that modern audiences imagine the separation of the classical world from its medieval and early modern successors. The role played in this transformation by Constantine as the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire has also profoundly shaped the manner in which we frame Late Antiquity and successive periods as distinctively Christian. The modern demarcation of the post-classical period is often inseparable from the reign of Constantine. The attention given to Constantine as a liminal figure in this historical transformation is understandable. Constantine’s support of Christianity provided the religion with unprecedented public respectability and public expressions of that support opened previously unimagined channels of social, political and economic influence to Christians and non-Christians alike. The exact nature of Constantine’s involvement or intervention has been the subject of continuous and densely argued debate. Interpretations of the motives and sincerity of his conversion to Christianity have characterized, with various results, explanations of everything from the religious culture of the late Roman state to the dynamics of ecclesiastical politics. What receives less-frequent attention is the fact that our modern appreciation of Constantine as a pivotal historical figure is itself a direct result of the manner in which Constantine’s memory was constructed by the human imagination over the course of centuries. This volume offers a series of snapshots of moments in that process from the fourth to the sixteenth century.

The theory of apokatastasis (restoration), most famously defended by the Alexandrian exegete, philosopher and theologian Origen, has its roots in both Greek philosophy and Jewish-Christian Scriptures and literature, and became a major theologico-soteriological doctrine in patristics. This monograph—the first comprehensive, systematic scholarly study of the history of the Christian apokatastasis doctrine—argues its presence and Christological and Biblical foundation in numerous Christian thinkers, including Syriac, and analyses its origins, meaning, and development over eight centuries, from the New Testament to Eriugena, the last patristic philosopher. Surprises await readers of this book, which results from fifteen years of research. For instance, they will discover that even Augustine, in his anti-Manichaean phase, supported the theory of universal restoration.

“In the world but not of it”—an expression that has been interpreted in a multitude of ways. With the publication of Rod Dreher’s much-debated book The Benedict Option in 2017, the question of just how the church is to exist “in but not of the world” is once again on the minds of many. To provide answers true to the context in which the Western church now finds itself, it is worth first investigating how the question has been answered in the past. In determining what to do today, it helps to understand how we got here in the first place. At the beginning of the fourth century, people were persecuted for being Christians; by the end of the fourth century, people were persecuted for not being Christians. This book is an academic investigation of how three paradigmatic theologians interpreted this so-called Constantinian shift: Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–339), Augustine of Hippo (354–430), and John Howard Yoder (1927–1997). Surprising similarities between the theology of Eusebius and Yoder become apparent, and underlying theological structures of how to interpret what it looks like to be a community that follows Christ are revealed.

In the generation after Constantine the Great elevated Christianity to a dominant position in the Roman Empire, his nephew, the Emperor Julian, sought to reinstate the old gods to their former place of prominence—in the face of intense opposition from the newly powerful Christian church. In early 363 c.e., while living in Syrian Antioch, Julian redoubled his efforts to hellenize the Roman Empire by turning to an unlikely source: the Jews. With a war against Persia on the horizon, Julian thought it crucial that all Romans propitiate the true gods and gain their favor through proper practice. To convince his people, he drew on Jews, whom he characterized as Judeans, using their scriptures, institutions, practices, and heroes sometimes as sources for his program and often as models to emulate. In The Specter of the Jews, Ari Finkelstein examines Julian’s writings and views on Jews as Judeans, a venerable group whose religious practices and values would help delegitimize Christianity and, surprisingly, shape a new imperial Hellenic pagan identity.