This document discusses the dates and editions of Eusebius' Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica works. It examines the commonly held view that the first edition of the Chronici Canones was completed around 303 AD. However, the document argues that there is no solid evidence to definitively date the first edition to 303. While some scholars have pointed to additions in later translations as signs of revisions around 303, the document contends these additions actually relate to later knowledge of events beginning in 303, not the date of the first edition. As such, the date of the first edition remains uncertain based on the available evidence.
This document discusses the dates and editions of Eusebius' Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica works. It examines the commonly held view that the first edition of the Chronici Canones was completed around 303 AD. However, the document argues that there is no solid evidence to definitively date the first edition to 303. While some scholars have pointed to additions in later translations as signs of revisions around 303, the document contends these additions actually relate to later knowledge of events beginning in 303, not the date of the first edition. As such, the date of the first edition remains uncertain based on the available evidence.
This document discusses the dates and editions of Eusebius' Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica works. It examines the commonly held view that the first edition of the Chronici Canones was completed around 303 AD. However, the document argues that there is no solid evidence to definitively date the first edition to 303. While some scholars have pointed to additions in later translations as signs of revisions around 303, the document contends these additions actually relate to later knowledge of events beginning in 303, not the date of the first edition. As such, the date of the first edition remains uncertain based on the available evidence.
This document discusses the dates and editions of Eusebius' Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica works. It examines the commonly held view that the first edition of the Chronici Canones was completed around 303 AD. However, the document argues that there is no solid evidence to definitively date the first edition to 303. While some scholars have pointed to additions in later translations as signs of revisions around 303, the document contends these additions actually relate to later knowledge of events beginning in 303, not the date of the first edition. As such, the date of the first edition remains uncertain based on the available evidence.
ECCLESIASTICA THE earliest evidence we have for the existence of Eusebius' now lost XpoviKoi Kav6ves (Chronici canones or Chronological Tables) conies from other works of Eusebius: the Historia ecclesiastica (HE) (1.1.6), the first edition of which is variously dated between pre-293 and 313 (see below); the preface to book six of the General Elementary Introduction, of which four books (69) survive under the title Eclogae propheticae (PG 22.1023A), dated 303/312; 1 and the Praeparatio Evangelica (10.9.11), dated c.314/318. This early evidence demonstrates that there must have been an edition earlier than the one of 325, where the universal testimony of the surviving witnesses places its conclusion. 2 Until now, there has been no solid evidence to suggest when any such putative first edition may have been produced and consequently there has been much debate and discussion. The following are cited by short title only: Barnes, 'Editions'= T. D. Barnes, 'The Editions of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History', GRBS 21 (1980), 191-201. Barnes, C and E=T. D. Barnes, Comtantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass., 1981). Louth, 'Date'= Andrew Louth, 'The Date of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica', JTS, NS, 41 (1990), 111-23. 1 The tenth and last book of the General Elementary Introductionsurviving as the Commentary on Lukemust date after 309; see D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Eusebius of Caesarea's Commentary on Luke: Its Origin and Early History', HTR 67 (1974). 63. 2 See Alden A. Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition (Lewisburg, PA, 1979), 38, 61, 62-63, 75- F r the conclu- sion in year twenty of Constantine ( =AD 325), see e.g. Eusebius, Chronographia (Greek: John Anthony Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e Codd. Manuscriptis Bibliothecae Regiae Parisiensis, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1839; repr. Hildesheim, 1967), 160.8-9; Armenian translation: Josef Karst (ed.), Eusebius Werke 5: Die Chronik aus dent Armemscken Obersetzt mit textkritischem Commentar (GCS 20; Leipzig, 1911), 62.3-5); Chrordd canones (Latin translation of Jerome: Rudolf Helm (ed.), Eusebius Werke y: Die Chronik des Hieronymus 1 (GCS 47; Berlin, 1984)), 6.17-8, 231'; Chromcon mtscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens (Syriac epitome of the Canones; CSCO 4, Chron. min. 2: Scriptores Syri, series 3, tomus 4, versio, by J.-B. Chabot), 100.22, 32-3; Samuel Aniensis, Summarium temporum, PG 19.665; Chromcon Paschale (Ludwig Dindorf (ed.), CSHB 16 (Bonn, 1832)) s.a. 325, pp. 526.5-6; 527.2-5; and James of Edessa, Chromcon (Syriac continuation of Eusebius; CSCO 6, Chron. min. 3: SS series 3, tomus 4, versio, by E. W. Brooks), 199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 209, 214. C Oxford Unlrenity Press 1997 [Journal of Theological Studies, NS, VoL 48, PL a, October 1997]
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472 R. W. BURGESS I The communis opinio is that the first edition was completed in or around 303. 3 This view was first popularized by an influential article in Pauly-Wissowa by Eduard Schwartz, who believed that the Canones had to date before the Eclogae propheticae, but did not believe that Eusebius could have written such a work during the persecution. He therefore stated that Eusebius had written it or at least collected his materials before 303. 4 The recent currency of 303, however, chiefly depends on an article written by D. S. Wallace-Hadrill in 1955, which was based on the earlier hypo- theses of Joseph Karst, editor of the Armenian translation of the Canones} Wallace-Hadrill accepted Karst's argument that the Armenian translation represented the first edition of this work and that the terminal date of the Armenian Canones, Year 16 of Diocletian (= 300), was thus the concluding date of the first edition. He also attempted to buttress Karst's hypothesis with other evidence for a visible 'joint' between the first and second editions. He cites from Jerome's translation three additions and alterations to the Canones that '[cluster] round the year 303' (pp. 249-50).' However, though these probably are all later addi- tions and alterations, there is no reason why such 'rewriting in 3 For this date, see, for example, Otto Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur 3 (Freiburg, 1923), 248-49; Kirsopp Lake, Eusebius. The Ecclesiastical History 1 (Loeb Classical Library; New York, 1926), xvii; Johannes Quasten, Patrology 3 (Utrecht/Antwerp, i960), 312; Berthold Altaner, Patrology (New York, 1961), 264; Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), p. 32; R. M. Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian (Oxford, 1980), 1; Johannes Karayannopulos and Gflnter WeiQ, Quellenkunde zur Geschichte von Byzanz (324-1453) 2 (Wiesbaden, 1982), 244; Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon (London, 1983), 5; W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (London, 1984), 457, 477, 478; Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (London, 1986), 606; C. Curti in Angelo Di Berardino (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Early Church 1 (New York, 1992), 299; and others cited by Barnes in 'Editions', p. 193, and C and E, p. 341 n. 67. 4 RE 6.1 (1907), p. 1376. 9 D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, 'The Eusebian Chronicle: The Extent and Date of Composition of its Early Editions', jfTS 6 (1955), 248-53 (repeated in his Eusebius of Caesarea (London, i960), 43) and Karst (cit. n. 2), pp. xxx-xxxiii. 6 These are the notice concerning Constantine's accession in the fourth year of the persecution ( = 306) under Year 19 ( = 303), the alteration of the month of the inception of the persecution from April to March under Year 19, and the reference to the martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria in the ninth year of the persecution (t^S November 311) under Year 19 (though Wallace-Hadrill did not know that this is Jerome's error: in Eusebius' original it was dated to Year 17. For a recon- struction of Eusebius' original text for these years, see my paper 'The Chronici canones of Eusebius of Caesarea: Chronology and Content, AD 282-325', which is nearing completion. These entries may appear in Year 19 of Diocletian in Jerome, but only one actually has anything to do with 303.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 473 the light of later knowledge' could or should have occurred only at the end of the first edition. The key point is, in fact, that they all relate to later knowledge concerning the persecution, which began in 303. These entries, therefore, have no bearing on the date of the first edition. Wallace-Hadrill also notes that Eusebius' list of the bishops of apostolic sees stops in 302 (p. 250). This is true, but apart from Rome (for which information would have been difficult for Eusebius to obtain during the persecution), no further bishops were ordained in Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria until about 312/3 (Vitalis, Macarius, and Achillas, respectively). Following Wallace-Hadrill's argument any date as late as 312/3 is therefore possible. But the episcopal lists in both the Canones and the HE purposely cease with the beginning of the persecution, not the end of the first edition of the Canones. Eusebius explicitly says this in the HE (7.32.32 and 8 pref.), though he does not explain why. For some reason apostolic succession was no longer import- ant during the persecution or in its aftermath. If the end of the list simply marked the end of the first edition, there is no reason why Eusebius should not have continued the list in the later editions of both works, especially the HE. Once again, the crux is the beginning of the persecution, not the end of the first edition. Finally, Wallace-Hadrill points to twelve differences between the Armenian translation and Jerome's translation (pp. 251-52), claiming that these arise because each translation represents a distinct editionthe Armenian the first edition, Jerome's Latin the third edition. The argument is irrelevant, however, since none of these twelve items relates to 303. It is further flawed by the fact that the Armenian translation is not a different edition from Jerome's and is not complete as Karst believed; it is simply a defective translation of a composite Armenian/Syriac version of the same 325 edition as Jerome's. 7 The differences that Wallace- 7 In the Armenian translation of the Chronographia, which is Eusebius' lengthy introduction to his sources and establishment of the individual chronologies for the Canones, there is a note that mentions the twentieth year of Constantine (Karst (cit. n. 2), p. 62.3-5, which is the same as the Greek fragment printed by Cramer (cit. n. 2), p. 160.8-9) a n d a n identical Armenian translation was used by Samuel Aniensis in the late-twelfth century for his Armenian chronicle and he records the conclusion of Eusebius' chronicle in 325 as well (fG 19.665). Furthermore, the last entry in the Armenian translation (on Hermon of Jerusalem) appeared under Year 17 of Diocletian in Eusebius' Greek original (see my paper cited in n. 6, above) and has mistakenly slipped back a year, thus avoiding the oblivion shared by the rest of the text after Year 16. Karst claimed that the Armenian translation had been contaminated by the edition of 325. See Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), pp. 59-60, 75.
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474 R. W. BURGESS Hadrill points out (and many others that he does not mention) arise simply because the Armenian version is not a complete or accurate translation; its various translators and redactors omitted and altered textual material and chronological markers through wilful error, carelessness, or lack of interest (for two examples, see nn. 19 and 27, below). Unfortunately, on occasion Jerome made mistakes as well. 8 The major problem with Wallace-Hadrill's argument, however, is that he claims to accept Karst's conclusions as the foundation of his own argument, yet redefines them: Karst's hypothesis was that the first edition ended in Year 16 of Diocletian, that is 300, but Wallace-Hadrill changes this to 303 (which for some reason he insists on labelling 'Diocl. 18', when it is in fact 'Diocl. 19'). Karst's entire case rested on the supposition that the Armenian translation was complete. Wallace-Hadrill abandons that supposi- tion, stating that the first edition 'did not extend far beyond the mutilated end of the Armenian text' (p. 250), but in so doing he unwittingly abandons Karst's entire hypothesis and hence the foundation of his own: if the Armenian translation does not end in 300, the evidence shows that it must have concluded in 325 and it is consequently irrelevant to Wallace-Hadrill's argument for 303. He tries to paper over the gap between 300 and 303 with a rather nonsensical note'If Diocletian became emperor in 284, his 16th year is 300, though the Arm. Chron. aligns the regnal years with the Olympiads so as to make it 303' (p. 248 n. 8) 9
but the fundamental contradiction remains. There is, therefore,
no valid evidence that Eusebius concluded the Canones in or just before 303. More recently T. D. Barnes has come out strongly in favour of 277 (Year 2 of Probus) as a terminal date for the Canones and the early 290s as the date of composition, though this view has not gained widespread acceptance. This date depends chiefly upon his early dating of Eusebius' Onomasticon and HE, both of which must have been written after the Canones} 0 The specific terminal date of 277 for the Canones follows an earlier suggestion by Rudolf Helm. 11 The sole direct evidence for this conclusion is the fact * For the problems with the Armenian translation, see Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), pp. 6063, 73~79- F r Jerome, see R. W. Burgess, 'Jerome and the Kauergetchichte', Hatoria 44 (1995), 355 n. 31, and my forthcoming paper cited in n. 6, above. The overall accuracy of Jerome is confirmed by comparison with the Syriac traditions and other Greek witnesses. 9 In his book (cit. n. 5) he strays even further from his own argument and the truth: 'the sixteenth year of Diocletian ... in Eusebius' dating is 303' (p. 43). 10 For this, see below, nn. 17 and 29. 11 'Editions', p. 193, and C and E, pp. I I O- I I , 113, and 146.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 475 that it is in this year that one finds a synchronism of five local eastern calendarsthose of Antioch, Tyre, Laodicea, Edessa, and Ascalonwith Year 2 of Probus. 12 The first problem with the date of 277 is that Eusebius would only have been at most seven- teen years old when he wrote the chronicle. 13 This is virtually impossible and Barnes actually posits composition almost fifteen years later, in the early 290s, 14 yet such a large gap between the date of composition and the conclusion of the work is most implausible. 15 Barnes explains the gap by claiming that Eusebius ended his chronicle in 277 as a compliment to Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea (Canones 223 1 ), whose famous Easter canon either began or ended in that year, but he does not explain the connection between Anatolius and the five local calendars noted by Eusebius. Unfortunately, there seems little reason why Eusebius would have ended the Canones, a work of universal Christian history and chronology, with such an obscure and irrelevant set of local syn- chronisms, simply because a famous Easter canon began or ended 12 On this synchronism, see the comments of Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), p. 75; Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 7-9; and Eduard Schwartz, Eusebius Werke 2. Die Ktrchengeschiehte (GCS 9.3; Leipzig, 1909), ccxlvi-ccxlvii. Mosshammer claims that this summary 'has no parallel except at the very end of the work', but this is a misrepresentation of the final supputatio, which records the number of years elapsed from seven key dates in history to the conclusion of the chronicle. It is not in any way similar to this list of dates. 11 Born around 260/265; s e e Barnes, C and E, p. 277. 14 Barnes actually believes that e.293 is the terminus ante quern (evident from C and E,pp. 11 o-11, and The New Empire of Constanttne and Diocletian (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 215, discussing boundary changes to Palestine c.293 that he uses to date the Onomasticon (see n. 17, below)), but he is unduly vague about the exact date of composition: 'he had completed the Chronicle by ... ca 295', 'Editions', p. 193; 'before the end of the third century', C and E, p. 111; 'at least a decade earlier [than 303]', p. 113; 'before 300', p. 277; 'c.295', p. 346 n. 10; and 'the 290s', 'Scholarship or Propaganda? Porphyry Against the Christians and its Historical Setting', BICS 39 (1994). 59- 11 Eusebius' youth in c.280 is noted with some surprise by Brian Croke ('The Origins of the Christian World Chronicle', in B. Croke and A. M. Emmett (eds.), History and Historians in Late Antiquity (Sydney, 1983), p. 128 n. 4), who seems unaware of Barnes' argument for later compilation and assumes that the Canones would have been completed within a few years of the date of its conclusion (see also Brian Croke, 'Porphyry's Anti-Christian Chronology', JTS, NS, 34 (1983), 171 and 184). In a later article ('The Era of Porphyry's Anti-Christian Polemic', JRH 13 (1984-85), 10 n. 53) he suggests the 280s since 'the Chronicle is not the work of a novice'. Croke's reaction is to be expected since it is unheard of for a chronicler to conclude an original chronicle ten to fifteen years before the time of writing. Andrew Louth ('Date', p. 121), with reference to the HE, which Barnes dates to the same period as the Canones (see III, below), states, 'Eusebius was then in his twenties, or even passing from his mid-teens to his mid-twenties: one wonders if he could really have read as much as the Historia Ecclesiastica presup- poses by then.'
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476 R. W. BURGESS in that year. It makes no sense for Eusebius to have charted the history of the world from the birth of Abraham in 2016 BC, only to ignore the history and chronology of the most recent fifteen years of Christian growth and advancement as a compliment to the author of merely one of what must have been many competing Easter canons. There is no connection between the two works or the authors, apart from the fact that Eusebius admired Anatolius (cf. HE 7.32.13-21, where Eusebius quotes from his works, including the canon, simply as an example of Anatolius' wide learning), and even if there were, the synchronization would still be a tribute to Anatolius whether the Catumet ended there or not. 16 Year 2 of Probus cannot therefore have been the conclusion of the first edition. Barnes also offers a series of lesser interlocking arguments in support of a date of composition in the early 290s but these do not stand up to careful scrutiny. 17 II Unfortunately, an edition concluding in 303, 300, or 277 suffers from another more serious problem and that concerns the indica- tions of the date of composition derived from Eusebius' own chronology. The key lies in two examples of obvious, and in one case bizarre, tampering with the regnal year chronology of Carus, Carinus, and Numerian, and Diocletian. Eusebius assigns the reign of Carus and his sons only two years instead of three, a peculiar mistake for a contemporary reign that Eusebius should have known well. 18 Even more peculiar, he omits the single regnal year of Constantius I ( = 305), but attributes to the preceding Year 20 of Diocletian ( = 304) two Years of Persecution (2 and 3, March/April 304 to March/April 306), two Years of Abraham 16 There is also the observation made by Barnes (C and E, p. m ) and R. M. Grant (cit. n. 3, pp. 7-9), who point to the appearance of the eighty-sixth Jubilee in the same year of Probus, but what relevance this could have to the calendar synchronization is unknown. 17 These chiefly concern the argument that the Canona and the HE were written before the Onomasticon, dated by Barnes to c.293, which is demonstrably false, since the dedication to Paulinus alone dates the work to .31324. Barnes' greatest impediment is that he accepts as ultimately Eusebian passages in Jerome's Latin translation of the preface to the Onomasticon that do not appear in the original Greek. A number of other problems are discussed by Louth, 'Date', pp. 11820. 18 Since Carus became emperor in the autumn of 282 and Diocletian sole emperor around the summer of 285 (a period of just under three years), Carus and his sons should have been allotted three regnal years (for 282, 283, and 284). For Eusebius' regnal years, see below. That Eusebius knew that they did indeed reign 'for not three whole years' is demonstrated by HE 7.30.22. The regnal years in the HE appear to derive (often in an extremely careless manner) from either the Canona or the same sources as the Canones.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 477 (2321 and 2322), and two Olympiads (271.1 and 2). Though Constantius' death appears in the second half of this split regnal year (Persecution 3, 2322 Abr., and Olymp. 271.2), his regnal year total, twelve years, only counts Year 20 of Diocletian once (his accession is dated to Year 9 of Diocletian, though this was altered by Jerome as was the regnal year total in consequence). This doubling up of Year 20 appears in Jerome (228 d ~ 8 ) and is confirmed by the Years of Abraham in Pseudo-Dionysius, who assigns 2321 Abr. (p. 112.27) t o Jerome's entry 228**, the retirement of Diocletian, and 2322 Abr. (p. 113.1) to entry 228", the death of Constantius, both in Year 20 of Diocletian. 19 It is also confirmed by the total number of years of Abraham noted in Eusebius' supputatio as preserved in the Chron. 724 (p. 100.23): though there are only 297 regnal years covered between Year 15 of Tiberius and Year 20 of Constantine (325-28 = 297), Eusebius lists 298 Years of Abraham (23422044 = 298). This attribution of two calendar years (Years of Persecution), two Years of Abraham, and two years of an Olympiad to a single regnal year, which itself represents a single calendar year, is unique in the chronicle. An explanation of this tampering requires an understanding of Eusebius' use of regnal years and his regnal year chronology. 20 Throughout the early imperial period, starting with Julius Caesar's sole rule in 48 BC, Eusebius' regnal-year chronology is almost perfectly accurate. Each regnal year is treated as the equiva- 19 Jerome's Years of Abraham elsewhere generally agree with those in Pseudo- Dionysius (J.-B. Chabot (trans.), Chromcon Pseudo-Dionysiamim uulgo dictum, CSCO 121: 5 5 senes 3, tomus 1, versio; Louvain, 1949), except in a few places where scribal corruption or simple copying errors are involved. Socrates {HE 1.2) mentions the death of Constantius (in Eusebius = Year 20 2 ), but does not realize that there are two Olympiads in the one regnal Year (they are only marked every four years), and so quotes the Olympiad for Year 20', 271.1. This Olympiad agrees with that for Year 20 1 in Jerome. Chron. Patch. (518.11, with 514.18 and 519.3; and 524.17, with 524.9) assigns Year 1 of Constantine to Olymp. 271.3 and Year 20 to 276.2, just as in Jerome (though the Olympiads are off by one for the reign of Diocletian because the Chron. Patch, assigns a correct three years to Carus and his sons). These agreements show that the Armenian translation is not an accurate account of the chronological relationship among the regnal years, Years of Abraham, and Olympiads in Eusebius: e.g. Year 20 1 in Jerome is 2321 Abr. and Ol. 271.1; in Pt-Dion. is 2321 Abr.; in Socrates, is Ol. 271.1; in Samuel Aniensis (which is based upon the Armenian translation) is Ol. 271.4 (col. 663); and in the Armenian translation would be 2323 Abr. and 01. 271.4, if it went that far. 30 It should be noted that Jerome completely altered Eusebius' chronology for the reign of Constantine to actually count the doubled regnal Year 20 of Diocletian as two calendar years ( = 305 and 306), and Helm's marginal accounting of years follows Jerome's sequence not Eusebius'. Eusebius counted Year 1 of Constantine as 306 and the following years in sequence up to Year 20 in 325. For the details of this, and what follows below, see my paper cited in n. 6, above.
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478 R. W. BURGESS lent of a full calendar year, whatever calendar it was that he was using. 21 In reality, of course, an emperor's first and last regnal years were only part of a calendar year. When regnal years are treated only as indivisible full years some accommodation must be made. Eusebius did this by placing the death of Emperor A and the accession of Emperor B a year early, so that Emperor B's first regnal year would correspond to the true calendar year of his accession. Each emperor's accession immediately follows the death of his predecessor and the first regnal year of an emperor immedi- ately follows his accession. Thus the death of Emperor A and the accession of Emperor B occur in the same year, the last year of Emperor A, and Emperor B's first regnal year then usually begins immediately. Eusebius was able to maintain a perfect chronology throughout the early part of his imperial history because of the accurate records of the lengths of imperial reigns and detailed information concerning the years in which the emperors came to the throne and died. Within the first 260 years he errs only once, but that error was deliberate and makes no difference to the overall sum of regnal years. 22 However, once he advanced his chronology into the third century, he made three serious errors that he did not fully compensate for and that therefore disrupted his entire chronological sequence: he assigned Caracalla seven regnal years instead of six, Philip seven instead of five, and Decius one instead of two. 23 By the time he reached the accession of Carus in 282 his chronology was consequently two years ahead of itself: Year 1 of Carus was the equivalent of 284 instead of 282. The chronological tampering with the reigns of Carus and his 11 Eusebius derived his accession dates for the emperors from Caesar to Caracalla, at least, from an Olympiad chronicle that equated each Olympiad with a Seleucid/Macedonian year that appears to have begun in the middle of September or perhaps on 1 October. 22 All the emperors between Caesar and Caracalla inclusive, and then Constantine, have their accessions placed in the correct Olympiad/Seleucid year, with the exception of Augustus, whose accession was delayed to 45 BC so that the famous murder of Caesar could appear in the correct 44 BC. If the calendar on which Eusebius' Olympiad dates were based did begin on 1 October (as it did in Antioch, for instance, the standard Eastern calendar), the accession of Nerva (18 Sept 96) would have been placed one year too late (97) as well. 21 The same figures for the first two appear in HE 6.21.1 (actually seven years and six months!) and 39.1. In 7.1.1 he says that Decius reigned 'for not two whole years', which is correct (about a year and eight months). The one year and three months of the Canones must therefore be a misreading of the source that he read more carefully for the HE. The accessions of the following emperors are con- sequently late: by one year, Macrinus, Elagabalus, Severus Alexander, Maximinus, Gordian III, Philip; by three years, Decius; by two years, Gallus and Volusianus; Valerian and Gallienus; Claudius; Aurelian; Tacitus; Probus; Cams, Carinus, and Numerian; by one year, Diocletian.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 479 sons, and Diocletian is serious and complicated. Why would Eusebius have fiddled these regnal years in such a bizarre and obvious manner? The answer arises from the consequence of the tampering: by cutting Year 3 of Cams, Carinus, and Numerian, and Year 1 of Constantius, Eusebius was able to shed in a short space of time the two extra regnal years that he had accumulated throughout the third century (Year 7 of Caracalla plus Years 6 and 7 of Philip minus Year 2 of Decius). In Year 2 of Cams and his sons Eusebius' overall regnal year chronology was still out by two years, having been one, two, or three years ahead of itself for almost seventy years, yet within twenty-one years, by Year 1 of Cons tan tine, it was once again synchronized with the overall chro- nology of calendar years, as it had been in the first and second centuries. This chronological tampering can only be explained by the hypothesis that Eusebius was determined to conclude his chro- nology with a correct overall correlation between calendar and regnal years (which is, of course, the whole point of compiling such a chronology). If we look at his entire imperial chronology from Year 1 of Caesar (=48 BC) to Year 20 of Constantine ( = AD 325) we can see that Eusebius assigns 373 regnal years to 373 calendar years. This synchronization is valid back to Year 1 of Constantine ( = 306, thus 354 regnal years over 354 calendar years). Any further back and the sequence is disrupted, by one year for Diocletian and by one or two years for much of the rest of the third century. Only in Year 6 of Caracalla does it come back into synchronization. For example, as I noted above, in Year 2 of Probus Eusebius notes the synchronization of five local calendars. In the case of two of these, Antioch and Edessa, he has in fact noted the date of the beginning of each era in its correct place. The beginning of the era of Antioch is noted at is6 b in 1969 Abr. ( = 48 BC). Eusebius states that Probus 2 (2295 Abr.) is year 325 of the era of Antioch (as it is, 277+48), but there are 327 years of Abraham between the two notices since Probus 2 is the equivalent of 279, not 277 as it should be. He also notes the beginning of the era of Edessa at i26 h in 1706 Abr. ( = 311 BC, i.e. the well-known Seleucid era), stating that Probus 2 is year 588 of the era of Edessa (as it is, 277 + 311), but there are 590 years of Abraham between the two notices. 24 In the HE (7.32.32) he states that there were 305 years between the birth of Christ and the inception of the Great Persecution ( = March/April 303, assigned to 2320 Abr., which is 304), but since he places the incarnation in Year 42 of Augustus, 24 These show that the correlation of these five local eras with Year 2 of Probus was copied by Eusebius from another work.
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480 R. W. BURGESS which is 2015 Abr. ( = 2 BC, 2320-2015 = 305), this is one year too many (302 years + 2 years = 3O4 years, or 2319-2015 = 304)." As I noted above (n. 21), for the early part of his imperial chronology, from Caesar to Caracalla, Eusebius had a source that dated events by Olympiads and this provided him with the correct year of each emperor's accession. Thus from 48 BC to AD 216 his imperial chronology is perfectly accurate. From the reign of Caracalla, however, he had to rely solely on the length of each emperor's reign in years and months to construct his regnal year chronology. To this he must have added a local era, such as the years of Antioch or Edessa, that would have provided known contemporary dates leading back to a beginning fixed at some accurately established point in the past. It was while he was using these sources that his chronology got ahead of the correct calendar years since he did not know in what year anyone became emperor, he only knew how long each was emperor (and this information was often inaccurate). He obviously knew his contemporary chro- nology and was easily able to equate current regnal years with the years of his local calendar and then work them backwards with perfect accuracy. We can see from his preface and supputatio that he did indeed work his chronologies both backwards and forwards (Jerome, 10-18, 250). It was only when his inaccurate non- contemporary history, worked forwards, met his accurate contem- porary history, worked backwards, that he ran into difficulty: he faced an overlap of two years. It is Year 20 of Diocletian that marks this final 'seam' between Eusebius' accurate contemporary chronology and his inaccurate non-contemporary chronology. He seems not to have been able to calculate where the errors of his earlier chronology were and he could not simply cut two years from the end of Diocletian's reign. He made his first cut in the reigns of Carus and his sons. This left one year unaccounted for at the end of Diocletian's reign, and so rather than cut Diocletian's total, he ingeniously opted to cut the single regnal year of Constantius (1 May 305 to 25 July 306). In this way Constantine's regnal years could start with Year 1 accurately associated with the equivalent of 306 right after Year 20 of Diocletian, even though Year 20 of Diocletian was the equivalent of 304 (since Year 1=285). The solution was almost perfect. Unfortunately for Eusebius, at exactly this point he was dealing with a subsidiary 'local' chronology, the Years of Persecution, which extended from Year 19 of Diocletian. When 23 I count two years because Eusebius would have dated the Nativity to 6 January 2 BC not 25 December, which is a western tradition.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 481 he cut Year i of Constantius, he also cut Year 3 of Persecution. In order to maintain his overall accounting of regnal years, but still be able to take account of the cut regnal/persecution year locally, he added the events of Constantius' sole year as emperor (the death of Constantius and the accession of Constantine) and the marker for Year 3 of Persecution to Year 20 of Diocletian, which was already Year 2. The doubled years of Abraham and Olympiads are a later compilation error created in the final draft by mistakenly counting the Year 3 of Persecution as a regnal year, hence the extra Year of Abraham noted above (p. 477). The Years of Persecution consequently run correctly in spite of the excised regnal year, there being ten Years of Persecution between Year 19 of Diocletian (303) and Year 7 of Constantine (312), even though there are only nine regnal years involved (2 + 7). Confirmation that this doubling up of dates is in fact an attempt by Eusebius to maintain what he perceives to be the correct chronology comes from a similar chronological 'fudge' to be found at Jerome, 105106. From his research Eusebius knew that the rebuilding of the Temple took place in the second year of Darius and Olympiad 65.1 (Chronographia, pp. 57-59 (Karst); Canones, 10.12-3, 18.3-5, a d io5a c ). Unfortunately his Persian chronology is one year short, so the second year of Darius actually ends up in Olymp. 64.4. To rectify the situation he repeats Darius' second year again in Olymp. 65.1, even though the regnal years for the parallel kingdoms advance one year (Tarquinius Superbus of the Romans from 27 to 28 and Amyntas of the Macedonians from 33 to 34. Next to the first second year he adds the following note, Ideo secundus annus bis scribitur, quia unus annus in magorum fra- trum VII tnensibus computatur (Helm, 105a"; cf. 1048.22-26). This is essentially the reverse of what I have described above under Diocletian, an expansion of regnal years rather than a contraction. If the Canones had been compiled at any date before 306 the chronology at the end of the work would have come back into synchronization around the date of composition, as Eusebius tried to match contemporary chronology worked backwards with non- contemporary chronology worked forwards. Year 2 of Probus should be the equivalent of 277 (following Eusebius' method of placing Year 1 in the year of accession), yet it is in fact the equivalent of 279. The accession of Carus is also two years late, 284 instead of 282. The reigns of Probus and Carus are therefore treated just as vaguely and inaccurately as any of the earlier third- century reigns; there is no evidence of contemporary compilation around Year 2 of Probus. It cannot be the concluding point of the first edition. The reign of Diocletian is also out by one year, so
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482 R. W. BURGESS neither 300 nor 303 can be the concluding point of the first edition. We have seen above both the lengths that Eusebius went on to achieve correct contemporary chronological synchronization at the end of his work and his ability to calculate accurately and record almost 370 years of imperial chronology. We have no grounds for assuming that such zeal for chronological accuracy and the accom- panying skill were lacking in the first edition. The first edition of the Canones must therefore date after 306, since that is obviously the seam between contemporary and non-contemporary history. In the tangled web of controversy concerning the dating of the Canones and the HE, this chronological observation is the strong- est evidence yet advanced. And if the Canones must date after 306, then the HE must as well. I l l Eusebius states in HE 1.1.6 that his Chronici canones was com- pleted before the HE, though he gives no indication of the lapse of time. The nature of the comment suggests that it had been long enough for the Canones to get into general circulation, since he is countering a potential criticism of his new work, that it covers the same ground covered by the Canones. He states that the Canones was merely an imrofj.^, while the HE had a narrative that was nXripeard-rq. It is obvious that he has used the Canones as a source, however summarily, but he has revised some of the chronology and content as a result of his more extensive and careful reading, one supposes, though he failed to emend the text of the Canones in accordance with it, even in his later editions, probably because of the daunting nature of such a task. This is an important observation, because it disproves any theory that holds that there were major differences between editions of the Canones. 26 A further example confirms this conclusion. In the Canones he states that there were 406 years between the first Olympiad (1241 Abr.) and the capture of Troy (835 Abr.) (11.8, 24 See Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), pp. 75: 'a major change in format between the two versions is not likely. Eusebius had only to add a few pages to the Chronicle, not rework the whole', and 61, quoting J. K. Fotheringham, 'Aliud est producere, aliud redigere'. See Croke ('Era', cit. n. 15), pp. 12-13, es \>- P- ' 3 : 'Given the tedium and complexity of copying a chronicle like that of Eusebius, it is scarcely likely that the whole chronological frame-work set out in the Chronographia was reworked when the point of the second edition was simply to bring the work up-to-date, that is by expanding the canons'.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 483 13; 6oa c ; 250.10, 14 [1561-1155=406], and 1241-835 =406)," yet in the Praeparatio Evangelica (written between c.314 and 318) he twice gives the figure as 408 years (10.9.6 and 7). If, as some claim, Eusebius had revised the text of the Canones for the edition of 325, he obviously would have changed his chronology of 406 years to 408 years as part of that revision, to accord with his new calcula- tions. He obviously did not, which indicates that the chronology of the 325 edition remained unrevised in the light of new calcula- tions made in the 310s. As we shall see below, there is no evidence that he undertook extensive revisions of the HE either. There are a number of hypotheses concerning the date of the first edition of the HE, the most common being that it originally concluded with book seven (c.303, but before the persecution, thus at the same time as the Canones), with book eight (c.311), or with book nine (313/14). 28 As I have noted above, T. D. Barnes argues for a first edition before c.293, concluding, like the chron- icle, around 277, near the end of book seven. In his view the HE represents a universal history of the church only down to the late 270s, which must therefore mark the end of the first edition. 29 It is these early dates especially that must concern us now, for solid evidence dating the HE before 306 would seriously undermine the date for the Canones that I am proposing. The manuscripts reveal traces of editions completed in 313/4, 315/6, and 324/5, and a modification of the 324/5 edition in 326 to remove Crispus (this latter only in the Syriac translation). 30 The evidence for these editions is chiefly the textual variants arising from later emendation in the early Greek manuscript tradi- 27 The 405 years stated at 86a* is a scribal error on Jerome's part. The Armenian translation gives 405 years between the two events because it antedates the start of the Olympiads by one year (1240 Abr. instead of 1241). Jerome's chronology is confirmed by other witnesses. M For various supporters of these views, see Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 191 n. 2 and 199, and C and E, pp. 346-47 n. 10; Quasten (cit. n. 3), pp. 315-16; Wallace- Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 39-43; Lake (cit. n. 3), pp. xix-xxin; and Louth, 'Date', pp. 112-13, I I 4~ I 5. and 122-23. To these can be added Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 1415, for a date not much earlier than 303. Grant's reasons for dating the work to this period are too subjective to be of assistance in this analysis ('an earlier date rather than a later one would allow adequate time for the changes within the first seven books which we hope to establish', p. 15). With regard to these changes, Barnes rightly concludes, 'I do not believe that Grant has established [his conclu- sions] satisfactorily', CandE, p. 346. See also T. D. Barnes, 'Some Inconsistencies in Eusebius', JTS, NS, 35 (1984), 470-75. 29 'Editions', pp. 190-201; C and E, pp. m , 128-29, 145-47; and personal communications. 30 This was first established by Schwartz (cit. n. 12), pp. xlvii-cxlvii, and is described by Quasten (cit. n. 3), p. 315; Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 196-98; Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 10-13; and Louth, 'Date', pp. m- 1 2 , 113-14.
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484 R. W. BURGESS tion: minor tampering for political reasons in most places and the rewriting of book eight in 315/6 to compensate for the removal of the short recension of the Martyrs of Palestine (see Appendix 1). There is no trace in the manuscripts of any edition earlier than 313, especially in books six and seven, where the supposed differ- ences between the earlier and later editions were great (see below), even though Barnes' putative first edition of before c.293 w a s m circulation for almost twenty years and that of c.303 for ten years, certainly long enough to leave some trace in a tradition that can otherwise distinguish editions completed fewer than five and ten years apart. This lack of manuscript evidence makes an edition before 313 most doubtful. 31 Adding to this doubt are the obvious later references scattered throughout books one to seven. 32 None of these references suggests a date later than the end of book nine, which corresponds to the manuscript evidence, an important agreement that seems to have been overlooked. A number of these references indicate other works that Eusebius had written, such as the Eclogue propheticae (303/312; 1.2.27) and the Life of Pamphilus (310/311; 6.32.3; 7.32.25), or works of others that did not appear until later, such as the forged Acts of Pilate (probably c.311; 1.9.34, I X -9)F the Doctrine of Addai (c.300; 1.13), and Porphyry's Against the Christians (c.300 (or perhaps c.275); 6.19. 2-11). Nowhere does Eusebius refer to works written after 313. Louth notes that Eusebius' account of Origen, which takes up much of book six (roughly 1-6, 8, 14-19, 21, 23-28, 30, 32-33, 36-39 of 46 chap- ters), refers three times to Pamphilus and Eusebius' Defence of Origen (6.23.4, 33-4. 36.4) and almost certainly derives from it, though it was not written until 308/3 io. 33 If this material had not originally existed, book six would be much shorter indeed and would lack its central unifying focus. In books one to seven Eusebius also makes reference to later events, especially the Great 11 On this, see also Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), p. 607. 12 Barnes provides lists in 'Editions', p. 201 n. 28, and C and E, pp. 146, 346 n. 10, and 355 nn. 166-67, 17. '72= 1.1.2, 2.14-16, 2.27, 9.3-4, 11.9, 13; 4.7.14; 6.19.2-15, 23.3-4, 3*-3. 33-4. 36.4-7; 7.18.3, 30 index and chapter heading, 30.22, 31, 32.1-4, 22-32. To these can be added 7.11.26 (on the persecution) and 7.30.21 (which refers ahead to 8.1.79). Yet Barnes claims that Eusebius only 'slightly retouched' the first seven books when he created the second edition (C and E, p. 149). As a general, though not invariable, principle, I agree with G. A. Williamson in the preface to his Penguin translation of the HE: 'in the absence of textual evidence that they are afterthoughts we ought to treat all references to late events as proof of late writing' (p. 21). " 'Date', pp. 121-22. See also Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), pp. 607 and 774 n. 33. See Wallace-Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 160-65, who derives all or parts of 1-3, 8, 15-16, 18-19, 23. *8. 3. 33. 36, 37, and 39 from the Defence of Origen.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 485 Persecution: 1.1.2; 7.11.26; 7.30.22; 7.32.1, 4, 25, 28, 29, 31. The reference to Peter of Alexandria at 7.32.31, for example, can hardly be an addition made at the same time as 9.6.2 (the correct chrono- logical place for the notice), since it contains more information than the later note. Its appearance does, however, make perfect sense if Eusebius wrote books seven to nine as a single block (though most of the current book eight is a later addition, includ- ing the reference to Peter in 8.13.7), commenting on Peter as he came up in the narrative, directly or through association. So numerous and so integral to the content and structure of the history are all these passages that if we were to accept them as later additions, the only possible hypothesis would be that they were included as part of a complete rewriting of almost the entire work for the edition of 313/4, not as part of a simple revision to keep the work up to date. Yet apart from the replacement of book eight there is no evidence for alteration or revision on this scale in later editions. Like book six, book seven could hardly have existed as it does now simply with the later references removed, 'ending almost exactly where the first edition of the Chronicle ended' with a reference to the death of Aurelian, the accession of Probus (7.30.22), a section on two recent bishops of Laodicea (32.521), and 'a brief statement of the names of the bishops who occupied the principal sees at the time of writing'. 34 Those who argue for a date of c.303 must also explain why Eusebius would have con- cluded his history with the beginning of the persecution in March/April 303, a perverse and ignoble conclusion for such a work (unless he happened to finish it in January or February!). It should also be noted that Eusebius' list of emperors at 7.30.22 omits Tacitus and Florianus, short-lived Augusti of 275-76, incorporating their regnal year into Aurelian's total. It appears to be a deliberate simplification and as such is understandable in 313, almost forty years later, but is rather harder to explain in the early 290s or even in 303. An early date of composition can only be maintained by positing massive revision at a later dateespeci- ally to books six and sevenrevision for which there is no evidence. The same problems exist for an edition concluding with book eight. 35 14 Barnes, 'Editions', p. 200, and C and E, pp. 129 and 145-46. 13 The view of, for instance, Schwartz (cit. n. 12), pp. lv-lvi, and H. J. Lawlor in Hugh Jackson Lawlor and John Ernest Leonard Oulton (trans.), Ewebius, Bishop of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of Palestine 2 (London, 1928), pp. 3-6. This hypothesis rests almost exclusively on an inconclus- ive comparison of the wording between the preface (1.1.2) and passages of books seven and eight (7.32.32, 8.1.1, 16.1).
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486 R. W. BURGESS No one has produced any evidence that any passage outside of book eight is in fact a later addition, apart from the hypothesis of an early edition itself, which is simply petitio principii, arising out of the need to dispense with evidence contradicting an early edi- tion. This is, I believe, the Achilles heel of any argument that places the composition of the HE before 313: there is no evidence that Eusebius ever carried out massive revisions of the sort required for the argument of an edition earlier than 313/4 and the burden of proof must lie with those who claim that he did. I can find no solid, objective evidence to suggest an edition earlier than 313, which would therefore be identical to Barnes' 'second edition': books one to seven, the preface to eight with the short recension of the Martyrs of Palestine, Galerius' edict (the 'palinode'), the 'appendix', and book nine. 36 If this is so, and the first edition of the HE was written in 313/4, then there is nothing to contradict the dating of the Canones proposed above and its first edition must therefore date between 306 and 313/4. IV The reference to the Canones in the preface to book one of the Eclogae propheticae, that is to book six of the General Elementary Introduction, provides a general confirmation of this date for the Canones. This work could date to any period of general persecution between March/April 303 and May 311, and December 311 and May 313, since it refers to the suppression of Christian worship and the detention of bishops, though Eusebius was imprisoned for a time during the second bout of persecution, making this later period less likely. As noted above (n. 1), book ten of this work would seem to date after 309. Whatever the date, Eusebius' careful explanation of his methodology in composing and arran- ging the Canones implies that he was still in the process of complet- ing the work and that the reader would have to take his word for it that he had proved the antiquity of Moses and the succeeding prophets. 37 It seems obvious from this unique descriptive refer- ence that Eusebius did not expect his readers to be familiar with the work; it is quite different from his reference to the Canones at the beginning of the HE, where he assumes that his audience is familiar with it, just three or four years later. We unfortunately 34 Barnes, 'Editions', p. 201. This is the conclusion of J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott s.v. 'Eusebius', in William Smith and Henry Wace (eds.), A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literatures, Sects and Doctrines 2 (London, 1880), 322-23 (which is accepted in principle by Lawlor (cit. n. 35), p. 3), Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), p. 608, and Louth, 'Date', p. 123, among others. 17 He starts off with 'Let it be known ..
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 487 cannot tell how much further than Moses he had got when he was writing this part of the General Elementary Introduction. Since we cannot date the General Elementary Introduction with any great precision, it cannot help with a specific date for the Canones, but the two works do appear to have been contemporary, which is an important confirmation of the general date of the Canones put forward here. Eusebius' stress on the Years of Persecution, which start from the beginning of the persecution in Caesarea in March/April 303, and their use as the basic chronological system in both the Canones and the Martyrs of Palestine, in contrast to their very infrequent appearance in the HE (7.32.31 (ninth year); 8.13.10 (second year); 16.1 (tenth and eighth years)), 38 suggests a close correlation in conception between the first two works. Eusebius' expedient of doubling up the second and third Years of Persecution, rather than just omitting the system altogether and avoiding the entire problem, suggests that this section was written at a time when he believed that a close accounting of the individual years of the persecution was of great importance. The evidence of the different uses of this system in the existing book eight of the HE (it does not appear in book nine) and the two recensions of the Martyrs (on which, see Appendix 1) indicates that this would have been before 313/4, probably at the same time as the Martyrs was being completed. If the Canones and the Martyrs are seen as comple- mentary, it would help to explain why Eusebius makes no mention of events during the persecution in the Canones apart from the deaths and accessions of emperors. 39 This really only makes sense if he was relying (or expecting to rely) on another narrative (the Martyrs) to provide the details. One can hardly imagine Eusebius' concluding the Canones at a date before the Martyrs and not commenting in some way on the persecution he saw around him. The HE, on the other hand, presupposes both works and is an advance on both: a full narrative of Christian events, instead of an epitome, with a revised chronology, combined with an epitom- ized and rewritten version of the Martyrs as one of its chapters. " The first two of these resemble entries in the Canones, 227* and 228 d (the martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria and the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian). n For this, see my paper cited in n. 6, above.
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488 R. W. BURGESS VI A date for the Canones between 306 and 313 is further confirmed by Eusebius' own comments on its genesis and by its strong apolo- getic nature. In his preface to the Canones (reproduced and trans- lated in Appendix 2, below) Eusebius makes it clear that it was Porphyry of Tyre's contradiction of established Christian and Jewish chronologies regarding ^ Muiaiws ipxaidrns in book four of his Kara Xpiartavwv (Against the Christians) that led him to under- take his own chronological researches in the first place. 40 Eusebius' researches revealed that both were incorrect, and he drives the point home again and again throughout his preface. The question of Moses also appears in the preface to the Chronographia, where it is listed as the first goal of his work (Arm. i . i 6- i 8 = Grk. 167.1820 (see n. 2)). The importance of Porphyry's chronology for the date of Moses is emphasized again in Eusebius' discussion in the Praeparatio Evangelica, where he quotes Porphyry first and analyses his chronology for Moses at length (10.9.11-25), 41 before going on to quote and analyse the Mosaic chronologies of Africanus (chapter ten), Tatian (chapter eleven), Clement (chapter twelve), and Josephus (chapter thirteen), four of the five Christian and Jewish authors he quotes in the preface to the Canones (only Justus is missing). The discussion of his own methods (deriving from his preface to the Canones) covers only 9.210. Thrice in Praeparatio 40 Because he dates the Canones about ten years before the appearance of Against the Christians Barnes denies that Eusebius used Porphyry in his first edition (C and E, p. 113, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14), 64; cf. however, p. 59 of the latter article and idem, 'Pagan Perceptions of Christianity', in I. Hazlett (ed. ), Early Christianity. Origins and Evolution to AH. 600. In Honour of W. H. C. Frend (London, 1991), 239- 40) . Thi s causes hi m a number of difficulties, not least that he must posit Eusebius' use of Porphyry for the first time in the latter half of 325, not even a year after Constantine's order calling for the burning of all copies of the work and his prescription of the death penalty for anyone who possessed a copy of it (on which, see Barnes, C and E, p. 211, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14), p. 53). Thi s hypothesis also requires improbably extensive revision to the Canones (see above). Barnes' supporti ng argument based on Eusebius' methods of quoting the Canones in the Praeparatio Evangelica is contradicted by the very authority he cites (Karl Mras (ed.), Eusebius Werke 8: Die Praeparatio Evangelica ( GCS 43. 2; Berlin, 1956), 466). My date for the Canones woul d remove perhaps the largest obstacle to Barnes' dating of Against the Christians to c.300, instead of the more widely accepted c.275 (see n. 45, below). 41 Hi s use of Porphyry in Praeparatio 10.9 is rather different from that in the Canones. He quotes hi m chiefly to demonstrate that even a pagan author admitted the antiquity of Moses and then as a whi ppi ng boy to show that his chronology was incorrect. There is no reference to the inoXoyta ('admission', 'confession') of Porphyry in the preface to the Canones, yet it appears twice in the Praeparatio (10.9.11 and 25; see also 11, 17, and 23) and is the key to hi s quotation of Porphyry in that work.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 489 10.9 he refers to ^ Mwoews hpxa-i6-rqs (chapter nine title, 9.1, 9.11; see also 9- i 7 : \_IJop^>vpios] naXai.6rf.pov TOV Moiaea ouviorqaiv) and states that it was proven in his Canones. The discussion of the antiquity of Moses in the Praeparatio also links with the Eclogae propheticae, where he says, -H)v Mwvaiws xai row ef ainov irpo^tjTatv &px<"dnji Si' avrwv [i.e. the Chroma, canones] napeorrjaapev (fG 22.1024A). Nowhere else does Eusebius refer to the conclusions or proofs of the Canones. Eusebius' preface shows that he is clearly initiating a dialogue with Jewish, pagan, and even earlier Christian historians and apolo- gists over what was probably the most fundamental chronological crux of Jewish and early Christian apologetic. 42 In fact, the first word of the preface, and thus of the Canones as a whole, is Mtovaia. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the question of the antiquity of Moses provided the original impetus for Eusebius to compose his work of chronography and that Porphyry's variant chronology in his Against the Christians was a key factor in the genesis of Eusebius' interest in Christian chronology and an import- ant source for the development of the rest of the work. 43 In its very genesis, then, the Canones was intended to refute the historical and chronological evidence presented by the pagan historian Porphyry in his Against the Christians and was therefore intended as a work of apologetic. 44 Such a purpose accords more with the period of 306 to 313 than the early 290s or even the years before 303, especially if Porphyry's Against the Christians dates to the last years of Porphyry's life, c.300305, as Barnes maintains. 45 42 See, for example, Josephus, Against Apion 1.104, 2.154-56, 168, 279-81; Justin, Apologia 1.44.8, 59-60; Ps-Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos 9-13, 25-26, 31; Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 31, 3641; Theophilus, ad Autolicum 3.2021, 29; and Clement, Stromata 1.101-70 (21-26). On these, see the analysis of P. Antonio Casamassa, Gli apologisti greet (Rome, 1944), 22-24, 67, 95-96, 118-19, 142-44, 19899. See also Jean Pepin, 'Le "Challenge" Homere-MoTse aux premiers siecles Chretiens', Revue des sciences religieuses 29 (1955), 105-22, esp. 105-14; and Richard Goulet, 'Porphyre et la datation de MoTse', Revue de I'histoire des religions 192 0977). 137-64, esp. 137-41 and 142-44. 41 See, for example, Jean Sinnelli, Let vues historiques d'Eusibe de Cesarte durant la piriode premctenne (Dakar, 1961), 54: 'la fixation de la date de Molse [est] le facteur primordial parmi ceux qui ont amene Eusebe a ce projet', and William Adler, 'Eusebius' Chronicle and its Legacy', in Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Leiden, 1092), 475, 'Eusebius had two purposes in writing his chronicle. The first was to demonstrate, through chronological comparisons, that Moses and Abraham were men of the remote past'. 44 See also the quotation from Adler in n. 50 below. On Eusebius and his use of Porphyry for the first edition of the Canones, see the clear treatment of Croke, 'Era' (cit. n. 15), 10-13. 41 'Porphyry Against the Christians: Date and the Attribution of Fragments', JTS, NS, 24 (1973), esp. 433-42, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14), 53-65.
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490 R. W. BURGESS Barnes, because he dates the Canones to the early 290s when Christianity was secure, widely accepted, and prospering as never before, denies this apologetic aspect of the Canones: There is ... no reason to infer from the preface (or from any other part of the work) that Eusebius composed the Chronicle mainly as a historical apologia for Christianity. The Chronicle may be interpreted rather as primarily a work of pure scholarship. 4 * Barnes' overall view is summarized well by Averil Cameron in her review of Constantine and Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History and the Chronicle were both begun, on B.'s view, in an uncontentious mood of scholarship, not written from the first for apologetic or polemical purposes. Above all, this Eusebius is primarily a scholar, not a propagandist. So the central chapters of the book can be taken to support the reliance placed on Eusebius in the rest of it. 47 Unfortunately for Barnes' argument the apologetic aspects of the Canones are manifest, as we have just seen, and multifarious. 48 44 C and E, p. 113. Like Barnes (see n. 40 above) Joseph-Rheal Laurin (Orientations mattresses des apologistes chritiens de lyo it 361 (Analecta Gregoriana 61; Rome, 1954)) claims that the references to Porphyry and his work were added to a later edition (pp. 11112: 'a l'epoque de la premiere edition, Eusebe ignorait le Kata Kristiandn') and he claims that the Canones was not a work of apologetic (pp. 106-13), but he is surprisingly ill-informed about the chronicle and Christian chronography in general. For instance, quoting Jerome's translation of Eusebius' preface'Nam Moyses, licet junior supra dictis [Semiramis and Abraham] sit, ab omnibus tamen, quos Graeci antiquissimos putant, senior deprehenditur, Homero scilicet et Hesiodo Troianoque bello' (Helm, 9.1114)he says 'Cette facon de presenter l'argument est plus evidemment apologetique, mais nous n'avons la qu'un Eusebe remanie par Jerdme. On aurait tort, croyons-nous, de tirer la pensee eusebienne d'une preface ou le traducteur a tant brode autour du texte original' (p. 112). Eusebius' Greek original of this passage, preserved by Syncellus (Alden A. Mosshammer (ed.), Georgii Syncelli Ecloga chronographica (Leipzig, 1984), 74.11-13), reads as follows: tlpov ... Muivoda &i, ^IAOATJ&US dmiv, rovrwv [Semiramis and Abraham] ixkv vtwrtpov, rutv Si nap* w EAXrjuiv ipxanoXoyovfiivtov &ndvraiv irpeoflvTa- TOV, 'Opujpov Xtyw KCU 'HoidSov, xai afntiiv y< rSni Tpwixwv. 47 'Constantinus Christianus', JRS 73 (1983), 188. 41 For the various apologetic aspects discussed below, the reader is referred to the following useful discussions: Croke, 'Origins' (cit. n. 15), pp. 120-24, 126; Laurin (cit. n. 46), pp. 106-10; Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century (London, 1988), 57, 125-27, 155-56, 194-95; William Adler, Time Immemorial. Archaic History and its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 26 (Washington. D.C., 1989), 1820, 40-42, 6971; idem, 'Eusebius' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43), pp. 46872, 478-81; Wallace-Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 168-78, 182-83, 185-89; Glenn F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories. Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (Paris, 1977), 92-108, 133-74; Sirinelli (cit. n. 43), 38-41, 46-59, 497-515; Hendnkus Berkhof, Die Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea (Amsterdam, 939), 53-6o; and Raffaele Farina, L'Impero e I'imperatore cristiano in Eusebio di Cesarea (Zurich, 1966).
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 491 Chronology had long been an important tool in the arsenal of Christian apologists and Christian apologetic chronography had its roots in Jewish apologetic, the best known example probably being Josephus' Against Apion. Eusebius was aware of this and in the Canones he mentions Josephus and his chronologies in 7.15, 55a 0 , 113", i74 d (=175.11-23), 178", i8i d , 185', 187", and 191 s . The famous Christian apologists Justin, Tatian, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, and Julius Africanus all used chronology as an apologetic weapon in their works and not only does Eusebius mention Tatian, Clement, and Africanus in the preface to the Canones (see Appendix 2=Jerome, 7.15) and the chronologies of Africanus at 86b 11 *, 113', and 214, and of Clement at 100a" and iO5b d , but the entire chronological structure of the Canones is clearly based on the supputationes of such apologists as Theophilus, ad Autolycum 3.28, and Clement, Stromata 1.101-45. Eusebius was thus fully aware of his predecessors' work and followed in their footsteps both in method and in aims. 49 Indeed, he could hardly have disassociated himself from that tradition and any reader would have immediately seen his work as a part of it. In essence, that was the purpose of Christian chronography. Like earlier apologists nXelaroi OXXoi as Eusebius himself says (Praeparatio 10.9.1) Eusebius uses chronology to prove the greater antiquity of the Jewish patriarchs in comparison to the Greek gods and heroes, especially with respect to Abraham, the 'first Christian' (see Jerome, 243 d , cf. 34a*), 50 and to Moses, who predated all pagan gods, heroes, and philosophers (as discussed above; see Jerome, 9.1110.4 and 12.514.15, and Praeparatio 10.913). 49 See Adl er, ' Eusebi us' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43) , p. 468; W. H. C. Frend, ' Constanti ne and Eusebi us' , JEH 33 (1982), 591: ' In all Christian (and Jewi sh) historical wri ti ng there was an apologetic edge. Chroni cl es were ai med at demon- strating the antiquity of Christianity (or Judai sm) compared wi th pagan religions, and this is what Eusebi us i ntended in his historical writings'; and Berkhof (cit. n. 48), p. 60: ' Di e Chronol ogi c ist also ein Zwei g der Apol ogi e. Da liegt der Grand, daB Eusebi us sich so ei ngehend mi t ihr befafit hat'. 50 See HE 1.4; Wal l ace-Hadri l l (cit. n. 5), p. 181, and Adl er, Time Immemorial (cit. n. 48), pp. 6970, esp. n. 105: ' Eusebi us' deci si on to begi n wi t h Abraham, and not s ome more remote event or person, shows ... that in the Canones Eusebi us the historian had prevailed over Eusebi us the apologist. It woul d have been di ssembl i ng if Eusebi us had on the one hand pol emi ci zed against the errors and flaws of non-bi bl i cal sources, and then overl ooked the similar probl ems in Hebrew archaic history. Gel zer suggests as wel l that Eusebi us' sensitivities to chronol ogi cal probl ems had been sharpened by his learned opponent Porphyry, a scholar who was skilled in i denti fyi ng i nconsi stenci es in biblical chronol ogy' . Thi s comment is echoed by Sirinelli (cit. n. 43), p. 52: ' Eusebe ici est avant tout un hi stori en, pl us qu' un apologiste'. Furthermore, by placing Abraham, Ni nus , and Semi rami s ' uno eodemque t empore in libelli fronte', as Eusebi us says in the translation of Jerome ( 16. 13- 14) , he coul d i mmedi atel y refute Porphyry' s chronol ogy.
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492 R. W. BURGESS Eusebius also explicitly used his new chronological reckoning to combat, rather than further, the immensely popular and widely accepted chiliastic views of contemporary Christians, especially the popular calculations of Julius Africanus, by reducing the age of the world by three hundred years and refusing to start his chronology with Creation (Chronographia, 1.25-2.6 (Karst)). 51 In the end, however, it was Eusebius' variant chronology that led to the disappearance of his work, for many later chroniclers attacked and reworked his chronology, including Diodorus of Tarsus, Annianus, Panodorus, Andronicus, and James of Edessa, often to suit the standard date of c.AM 5500 for the Incarnation. Indeed, Eusebius' negative attitude towards millenarianism would seem to have developed as a reaction against the millennial expectations of many during the Great Persecution and out of his own apoca- lyptic fears that arose during the persecution and that are mani- fested in the Eclogae propheticae. 52 Other clearly apologetic aspects of the work include the Euhemerizing interpretation of Greek mythology evident throughout his discussion of early Greek his- tory and the constant stress on the accuracy and truth of the Bible in comparison with the uncertain and conflicting nature of pagan historians and their chronologies, 53 both aspects aimed at sym- pathetic pagan readers; 54 the implicitly negative stress on Jewish chronology (Jerome, 22a" (the beginning of Jubilee 41, thus two 51 By placing the birth of Christ only 5199 years after Creation, Eusebius is the only eastern chronographer of his time to reject the six thousand year eschatology popularized by Africanus that placed the birth of Christ in anno mundi 5500; see Cyril Mango, Byzantium. The Empire of New Rome (London, 1980), 192, and Richard Landes, 'Lest the Millennium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100-800 CE', in Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen (eds.), The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series I/Studia XV; Leuven, 1988), 138-39, 141-51, 163-64. On Eusebius' anti-chiliastic views, see Frank S. Thielman, 'Another Look at the Eschatology of Eusebius of Caesarea', Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987), 226-37, esp. 235. On both the question of Moses and millennialism, see William Adler, "The Origins of the Proto-Heresies: Fragments from a Chronicle in the First Book of Epiphanius' Panariori, JTS, NS, 41 (1990), 498. 11 See Barnes, C and E, p. 168, and Thielman (cit. n. 51). These hostile views appear in the HE as well: 3.39.11-13. " Esp. Jerome, 66a' and 86a d , and e.g. 26b', 40b', 50b", 53b" 1 , 55b", 56b'; Hercules: 40b", 4 3 b k , 49b 1 , 51b", s6b^, 57b c , 59b', 59b* (=4ob h ), 6ob d ( = 1574-1196 BC); Homer: 63b* 1 , 66a', 69b', 7i b b (=1160-1017 BC); Hesiod: 7ib b , 84b', 87b' (=1017-767 BC); Carthage: 58b', 69b', 71b 0 , 8i b b ( = 1214-850 BC). The same argument against Greek history is made by Josephus, Against Apion, I-I5-27. 37-38. 54 On sympathetic pagans as a likely audience for Eusebius' apologetic, see Barnes, C and E, pp. 168-69, 178.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 493 thousand years from Adam 55 ), 46a" (Jubilee 51), 73a b (Jubilee 61), 109" (Jubilee 71), 174" (Jubilee 81; the beginning of Christ's ministry), 223 11 (Jubilee 86), Chron. 724 101.1-2 (Jubilee 86)); 56 the importance of the Incarnation and crucifixion for world history (Jerome, 243 d , 34a*, 160-61, 169, 173-75);" the importance of unbroken apostolic succession (all bishops of Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria are named and numbered until the perse- cution; see HE 1.1.1, 7.32.32, 8. pref.); and the conclusion of the work with Constantine and the great peace that he brought. 58 It is easy to see that the Canones made a suitable companion piece to his General Elementary Introduction, which he worked on at the same time as the Canones but which was begun and finished slightly earlier. 59 It was also a necessary prolegomenon for Eusebius' major apologetic works of the 310s, the Praeparatio Evangelica and the Demonstratio Evangelica, for, as Barnes says, these two works consider the relationship of Christianity to Greco-Roman civilization and culture, and its relationship to 59 By Eusebius' calculations, this point is 3,229 years from Adam (see Jerome, 250.2223 = 3,184 years to Abraham plus forty-five years), though the first indica- tion of Eusebius' chronology does not appear until Jerome, 46a' (the death of Moses is 3,730 years from Adam). 54 See Grant (cit. n. 3), p. 8, who cites the contemporary apocalyptic view expressed in the Babylonian Talmud that the world would last eighty-five Jubilees and a portion of the eighty-sixth; Landes (cit. n. 51), p. 206 and n. 8; and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.13 and 16; 20.261, and Against Apion 1.1, 36, and 39, who says that the Old Testament recounts the history of five thousand years, of which just under three thousand are covered by the Pentateuch and 2,000 since Moses (see previous note). For the Chron. 724 (the famous Syriac epitome of the Canones, which contains Eusebius' reference to the eighty-sixth Jubilee in his final supputa- tio), see Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinent, CSCO 4, Chron. min. 2: Scriptores Syri, series 3, tomus 4, versio, by J.-B. Chabot. 17 See Chesnut (cit. n. 48), pp. 98-108 (the graphic presentation of the replace- ment of polytheism and polyarchy by monotheism and monarchy through the reduction of multiple columns to one), and James T. Shotwell, 'Christianity and History, III. Chronology and Church History', Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 17 (1920), 14647 (who is correct in claiming that 'this view of universal history places Eusebius on a distinctly higher plane than that of a mere apologist', p. 147 n. 13). Abraham had initiated the first covenant, Christ the second (Jerome, 24a d ), hence the importance of the two figures for the Canones and its chronological structure; see also Barnes, C and E, pp. 171-72. In another argument aimed at pagan readers, Eusebius quotes from the pagan historian Phlegon of Tralles concerning a solar eclipse and an earthquake in Bithynia that destroyed Nicaea at the time of the crucifixion, S nai owf&ti rots ntpi T& ndBos TOO aurrfjpos ijiuuv oviifUf}T]K6oiv (Greek: Syncellus, 394.2-12; Latin: Jerome, 174**, who alters the year of this entry). 91 Obviously only a feature of the final edition. 59 For a discussion of the Eclogae propheticae, books six to nine of the General Elementary Introduction, see Barnes, C and E, pp. 167-74.
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494 R. W. BURGESS Judaism, 40 the two fundamental structural pillars of the Chronici canones. A date of 306/313 clearly and closely links the Canones with these fundamental works of Christian apologetic. A final important aspect of the apologetic nature of the Canones, as well as the HE and the Martyrs of Palestine, is historical revisionism. Although, as I have argued above, Eusebius made no major revisions to any of these three works apart from the replace- ment of a large part of book eight of the HE to make it less parochial, he did make a number of smaller alterations. A large proportion of these alterations were of a political nature, to bring his narrative into accord with contemporary political realities. For the Canones, this meant removing a reference to Crispus' accession as Caesar after his execution in May 326. This entailed another 'edition' after that of c.July/August 325, though Eusebius did not continue his chronology beyond the symbolically important Year 20 of Constantine. For the Martyrs, it meant shifting more of the blame for the persecution onto Maximinus and heaping extra abuse upon him that would have been dangerous during his life- time. For the HE, it meant the purging of Crispus after his death, as in the Canones, and the addition of invective against and the reduction of the historical r61e of the persecutor Licinius. 61 In Eusebius' eyes, history served ecclesiastical and political necessity first, and the truth (as we would see it) second, where possible. For example, as far as the final editions of the Canones and the HE were concerned, Crispus had never existed. I can do no better than quote W. H. C. Frend, who has clearly seen the genesis and deeply interconnected nature of Eusebius' literary output of this period: Like his opponents, he was also profoundly influenced and stimulated by Porphyry's attack on Christianity. In the Preparation for the Gospel, written c. 312-20," he quotes him no less than ninety-six timesmore than any other single author. The Preparation formed part of a systematic and comprehensive defence of Christianity, which had opened with the 60 C and E, p. 178. See also pp. 171- 72 and 184- 85: ' [ The] central thesi s [of the Preparation for the Gospel and the Proof of the Gospel] is one whi ch the Ecclesiastical History [and, one shoul d add, the Canones] had stated succi nctl y and whi ch the Prophetic Extracts began to refine and devel op ... What is Christianity? In Eusebi us' vi ew, it is the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs, and hence not onl y true but primeval. And around this central idea Eusebi us has constructed a detailed interpretation of the course of human history from the Fall to hi s own day'. 61 For the Canones, see my forthcomi ng paper a t e d in n. 6. For the Martyrs and the HE, see Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 194- 95 a n d 196- 98, and C and E, p. 155. 62 Barnes dates this work to C.314-C.318 and the Proof of the Gospel to c.3i8-e.323 (C and E, p. 278).
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIAECCLESIASTICA 495 Chronicle, continued with the two books Against Hierocles,* 3 and included the Prophetic Extracts (the justification of the Christian argument from prophecy), the Ecclesiastical History, and finally, the Proof of the Gospel. This gigantic task of antipagan apologetic was to occupy some twenty years of Eusebius's life from c. 302 to 320 and in this time he witnessed the victory of his cause. 64 That some of Eusebius' methods and conclusions should prove him to be more than a mere apologist, but a scholar and historian unique to his age, 65 in no way diminishes the apologetic purpose of the Canones or the fact that Eusebius saw history and chrono- logy chiefly as weapons for defending the faith during and after the Great Persecution. The difficulty in interpretation arises from the fact that Eusebius is the watershed between the strictly apolo- getic chronography of the past and the more scholarly and provid- entialist history of the future that he himself helped to usher in. VII In the light of sections II to VI, above, the most obvious choice for a concluding date after 306 and before 313, is 311, the conclu- sion of the first wave of persecution and the time that Eusebius had already completed the General Elementary Introduction and was just completing the Martyrs of Palestine. 66 If so, did Eusebius conceive, research, compile, and compose the Canones in the period of May to November/December of 311, while he was composing the Martyrs} That is quite possiblethere is enough timebut perhaps not likely. The work of the Canones itself would not have taken much more than a few months of solid work to compile, calculate, and copy out, and it was in fact the second of two chronological works, the first being the Chronographia, though this would have not taken much more than a few weeks to compile and copy, once the research had been done. We can only guess when Eusebius conceived the idea of composing the Chronographia and the Canones. There is, of course, no reason why he could not have started the work in the dark days of sporadic persecution between, say, 300 and early 303 (if Against 63 Barnes (' Schol arshi p' (cit. n. 14), p. 60) notes with agreement a recent st udy by T. HSgg that suggests that this work was written by a different Eusebi us. 64 W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity ( London, 1984), 478. For Eusebi us as an apologist rather than a historian, see R. M. Grant, "The Us es of Hi st ory in the Church before Ni caea' , Studia Patristica 9. 2 ( TU 108; Berlin, 1972), 177; Adl er, ' Eusebi us' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43) , p. 469; and Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire ( London, 1993), 18. 65 At illustrated by Sirinelli (cit. n. 43). See also the quotations in nn. 50 and 57. " To the best of my knowledge, no one has suggested this date before. On the date of the Martyrs, see Appendix 1, below.
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496 R. W. BURGESS the Christians had appeared by then), but perhaps he first embarked on his researches after the lull in local persecution that began in mid-308, or even before. Between that date and the end of persecution in May of 311, there was relative peace in Caesarea, with the exception of one particularly fierce bout of persecution between November 309 and March 310. 67 Thus we could place the work between 308 and 311, with completion after May 311. My feeling is that the bulk of the final compilation belongs after the death of Galerius. The persecution obviously did not prevent him from writing the General Elementary Introduction, the Life of Patnphilus, and the conclusion of the Defence of Origen, as well as compiling the Martyrs of Palestine, so there is no reason why he could not have researched and compiled the Canones during the persecution as well. It is not a tremendously large output and is mostly compilation. A date of 311 for the Canones immediately changes our entire view of the work and its purpose. The same also holds true for the HE. Neither was written in the halcyon days of the 280s or 290s when Eusebius saw nothing but advancement and prosperity for Christianity as a fully accepted part of Roman society through- out the Empire. Neither was written in the darkening days before the Great Persecution, as sporadic persecution and hatred began to flair up again. Therefore neither the Canones nor the HE are 'contemporary evidence for the standing of the Christian church in Roman society in the late third century' nor do they 'reflect the optimistic assumptions of a Christian writing in the reign of Diocletian before persecution threatened.' 68 The Canones was written during the persecution itself and finished off in its immedi- ate aftermath, at a time when Christianity had suffered its greatest trials, was at its weakest ebb, and was seeking to re-establish itself as a normal and accepted part of daily life once again, knowing that it had emerged victorious, but unsure of the future. The work must be seen and interpreted in this light, in the light of persecution narrowly survived, propaganda, and apologetic, not of confidence, peace, and pure scholarship as has been argued by Barnes. 69 The acceptance of the apologetic nature of the Canones is of fundamental importance for our understanding of Eusebius and the reign of Cons tan tine, for Barnes' interpretation and use 67 Martyrs 9.1-11.30; Barnes, C and E, pp. 153-54. u T. D. Barnes, 'Some Inconsistencies in Eusebius', JTS, NS, 35 (1984), 471, and C and E, p. 146. 69 E.g. Barnes, C and E, pp. 113-20, and 126-47. As Robin Lane Fox states with regard to the HE, 'We misjudge the work and its achievement if we detach it from its times' ((cit. n. 3), p. 608).
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 497 of Eusebius depend upon Eusebius' scholarly approach to history. If Eusebius is proved to be an apologist first and a scholar second, important aspects of Barnes' interpretation of Eusebius and Constantine are thrown into doubt. The Canones is therefore a fundamentally backward-looking document, not forward-looking, as it would have been had it been written before the persecution. Porphyry's learned attack on Christianity, the persecution, and the reaction of other Christians and sympathetic pagans to those two were therefore key factors in its genesis. Eusebius' response to Porphyry had to be of equal or greater authority, it had to be as comprehensive, it had to be based on history, especially pagan history, and it had to defend the chronology of the Bible and earlier Jewish and Christian chronography, while correcting them at the same time. In seeking to counter Porphyry, Eusebius drew upon Christian apologetic literature and history to create something that had never existed before: a Christian chronicle, a work that surpassed the narrow confines of a straight rebuttal to Porphyry by providing Eusebius' readers with the history of Christianity, the proof of its antiquity, a demonstration of the uncertainty of pagan history and chrono- logy, the truth and concordance of the holy Scriptures, an argu- ment against the obviously strong feelings of millenarianism engendered by the persecution, and examples of the impact of God's providence on human history at a time when holy Scripture was no doubt hard to come by and many individual battles of Christian and pagan were still to be fought for many years to come. As such it was a fitting companion piece to the General Elementary Introduction. And like the Canones the HE, too, should be seen as a product of persecution and its aftermath. VIII The conception and development of the HE seem to arise out of the nexus of the Martyrs and the Canones. The Martyrs was probably the first work of the three that Eusebius embarked on, a contemporary collection of martyr acts that Eusebius probably began to record in rough form within a few years of the outbreak of the persecution in 303. The genesis of the Canones derived from the apologetic need for a chronology to combat the appear- ance (or perhaps reappearance) of Porphyry in the early years of the persecution. The General Elementary Introduction picked up the exegetical and prophetic aspects of Christian apologetic as a counterpoint to the bare chronology of the Canones. I believe that it was while working on these three projectsthe Martyrs, the
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498 R. W. BURGESS General Elementary Introduction, and the Canonesthat Eusebius first conceived the idea of a detailed history of the Church, separate from 'Roman' history, which was essentially collections of imperial biographies. In a sense it was a case of extending the narrative structure and individual focus of the Martyrs (and other martyr acts) backwards in time using the chronological structure and outline of the Canones, with any non-ecclesiastical material removed: apostolic succession, Christian leaders and heroes, her- etics, the downfall of the Jews, Christian martyrs, and the persecu- tion and its aftermath (HE 1.1.1-2, a list, it should be noted, that covers only books one to nine). It was his work on the Canones (prompted originally by the apologetic question of Moses) that first drew his attention to Christians as separate historical entities whose writings and actions could be researched and described within the confines of contemporary historiography, much as the Jews had been described in the past. He simply took the bare outline that he had produced in tabular form and expanded it into a narrative, concentrating on individuals he had already named, those who had made the church great and those who had caused it to suffer, both from within and from without. Such a project required further detailed research, of course, and this explains many of the differences between the Canones and the HE. 70 As I suggest below (Appendix 1), work on the first edition of the Martyrs was stopped, perhaps by Eusebius' developing ideas on the HE, since he does not seem to have published his first edition, which he had concluded in mid-3 x l > a n d book eight of the first edition of the HE was essentially a reworked version of the Martyrs with a supporting framework at the beginning and the end. I would suggest that Eusebius probably began to conceive and research the HE around 310, if not perhaps before. With the conclusion of the persecution (or so he thought) he realized that the Church's victory in the face of an all-out persecution made a perfect conclusion for his developing history and so he decided to combine the two narrative histories into one, finishing his history with a version of the Martyrs. Renewed persecution pre- vented him from continuing work on the HE and in 313 he finished the work as far as book nine. Without the Canones and the Martyrs, therefore, the HE would not have been possible. On this hypothesis the original purpose of the HE was to describe the strength and the uninterrupted and unbroken spread of Christianity in the Roman world before the Great Persecution of 303, the earlier persecutions that foreshadowed the Great 70 See Barnes (cit. n. 68), p. 472.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 499 Persecution, the brave and learned men who counted amongst Christian heroes, and thoseJew, pagan, or Christian heretic who had tried, but failed, to harm it in the past. Amidst the greatest attempt to eradicate Christianity, the HE was a summary of everything that the Church had been and how all the courage of the past had been manifested in the present-day martyrs of Palestine. It was thus the Church's past that had allowed it to survive the present. After the final victory in 313, it became a triumphant account of how the faith had grown to the point where even the combined might of the emperors could not extinguish it. As originally conceived an entire book out of eight, and in the first edition of 313 two books of nine, just under about twenty percent of the total text, were devoted to the persecution, which was merely eight and then finally ten years out of about 315. The persecution was obviously intended as the climax and focal point of the entire work. The preface to book eight refers to the previous seven books as narrating the history of apostolic succession and the eighth as beginning the history of Eusebius' own time, by which he means the persecution. Seven books of apostolic succes- sion mirror the seven days of creation, and the culmination of the narrative is the Great Persecution, the deaths of the persecutors, and the final victory of Christianity (books eight and nine). Such a structure is supported by the programmatic preface in 1.1 (as noted above) and the conclusion to book seven, which links to the preface of book eight and provides a chronological summary from the Incarnation to the outbreak of the persecution, thus unifying the first seven books of the early history of the Church, the history of the Church's past, and linking it to the time of the persecution, the recounting of its immediate present. Books eight and nine then form another unit (perhaps originally a single book) with a single preface recounting the persecution and its ultimate failure. The shift from the past to the present also involves a shift from a universal context to a more local one, and this is not unusual in histories or chronicles that make a pretense of universality while trying to treat recent or local events as well, especially those written outside of important centres, like Rome or Constantinople. This method of composition, the grafting of an account of the persecution in Palestine onto a universal history of the Church, is what has given the work its odd structure, a structure that has caused Barnes and others to suspect an edition ending in c.280 or a little later. Eusebius' narrative of universal church history which I believe is more the result of an accident of the preservation of certain documents within Eusebius' easy reach than of any attempt on his part to present such a 'universal history'comes
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500 R. W. BURGESS to an end in the reign of Probus with an account of Manicheism (7.31). In 7.32 Eusebius simply mentions and describes a great number of local ecclesiastics, all of whom were active in the 280s, 290s, and on into the time of the persecution, such as Dorotheus, a presbyter in the time of Cyril of Antioch, bishop for twenty years in the 270s, 280s, and 290s; Stephen and Theodotus of Laodicea, who were bishops in succession from the 280s; Agapius of Caesarea, who died before 303; Pamphilus, who was martyred in 310; Pierius and Meletius, of whom Meletius survived into the persecution and Pierius survived beyond; Achillas, presbyter under Theonas of Alexandria (elected 281) and (it seems) later short-lived bishop of Alexandria (312-13); and Peter of Alexandria, elected in 301 and martyred on 25 November 311. 71 This local focus sets the scene for book eight. Not much of great moment was happening in the Church at the time, so there was little Eusebius could say, and judging from HE 8.1.7-9 there was not much he wanted to say. And, as Barnes himself notes, 'In conformity with tradition, Eusebius remained silent about the deeds and achievements of living contemporaries'. 72 It seems that he was unwilling to go into any detail concerning the church's internal conflicts in the years before the persecution. But more important, he seems to have run out of written sources and was relying chiefly on his own recollections, hence the focus on a few strictly local individuals. In view of my proposed date of composi- tion, this need not cause any worry or surprise. After the letters of Dionysius ^264) run out (7.1, 311, 2026), he has a dossier relating to Paul of Samosata (2730.19), a written source for Anatolius and Eusebius in Alexandria (32.5-12), and the writings of Anatolius (32.13-21). The rest is his own (basically lists of bishops and stories of local ecclesiastics: 7.2, 12-19; 30.20-23; 31; 32.14, 2232)." For book eight and much of book nine he could rely on his own eye-witness testimony and the testimony of other eyewitness (parochial though these were), but there was a gap covering twenty-five years or so before the persecution that he did not (and could not) narrate in detail from his own certain knowledge or from any written sources. One can see this lull in the Canones more vividly, where there is nothing concerning non- secular history apart from the episcopal lists and the persecution of Veturius (=HE 8.1.7) between a notice on the Manichees (3 Probus = 278) and the beginning of the persecution ( = 303). Again, we see no attempt by Eusebius to fill any such gaps in his narrative 71 Barnes excises all these references as later additions. See n. 32, above. 71 C mdE, p. 129. 73 See Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 9, 14, 20-21, and Barnes, C and E, pp. 143-46.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 501 in later editions of the Canones or the HE. Since the original book eight concentrated only on Palestine and book nine chiefly on a few areas of the Levant (with an interesting section on the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, just north of Rome), the concluding sec- tions of book seven, with their obvious local character and thus narrowing focus, act as a prelude to what comes later. The outlook of the work begins to change with Eusebius' shift to the narration of events of his own time (7.27). It is these factors that account for the peculiar shift near the end of book seven, from a universal history of the Church to a local history of the persecution. We can thus account for the change in focus at the end of book seven of the HE without having to posit an edition that ended in 277 or 303. IX To keep his Canones up-to-date with the HE and the final end of the persecution Eusebius probably produced a second edition in 313. There is no evidence for this but it seems likely. For this putative second edition he would have added Years 7 and 8 of Constantine 74 to the end of the work, two entries on the deaths of Maxentius and Maximinus, a concluding comment on the return of peace by Constantine (and Licinius?), two additional notes concerning the martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria (under Year 17 of Diocletian) and the accession of Constantine in the fourth year of persecution (under Year 19), and the correction from Year 6 to Year 8 of Constantine in the chronological termini noted in various places throughout the Chronographia and the Canones. There may have been a third edition of 315/6, to match the second edition of the HE, but there is no evidence for it. The final edition of the HE seems to have been undertaken somewhat earlier than that of the Canones. The former concludes with the defeat (death?) of Licinius (19 Sept 324), while the latter was not completed until after Constantine's vicennalia on 25 July 325. Interestingly, neither work mentions the Council of Nicaea 74 We do not in fact know whose regnal years followed Diocletian's in the original edition. I have always discussed the text as it now stands, but there is a possibility that Years 1 to 6 of Constantine could originally have been Years 2 to 7 of Galerius, the first year trimmed much as the first year of Septimius Severus is trimmed to accommodate Pertinax (see Jerome's translation, p. 210). However, after the death of Galerius, who was technically the senior Augustus, there was no 'new' emperor, as there always had been in the past, whose regnal years could start from Year 1 for 311. In the summer of 311 it would have made more sense to Eusebius as a chronographer (not to mention as a Christian) to follow the regnal years of Constantius and Constantine (who were non-persecutors) right from the death of Diocletian, and this is what I think happened.
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502 R. W. BURGESS (JuneJuly 325). For the final edition of 325 he added regnal years 9 to 20 of Constantine, six or seven historical entries, 75 removed the reference to Licinius (if it existed) from the concluding note of the edition of 313, and updated his chronological termini to Year 20 of Constantine. At some point after May 326 he had Crispus' name removed from the note concerning his accession under Year 11 (see above). Each new edition would have taken Eusebius no more than a day to prepare but the impact of that final edition of 325/6 was enormous, for it was translated by Jerome into Latin and became the foundation for our understand- ing and chronology of ancient history right down to the present day: 'It is doubtful if any other history has ever exercised an influence comparable to that which it has had upon the western world'. 76 R. W. BURGESS APPENDIX I: THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE The Martyrs of Palestine exists in two recensions, a short version with no beginning or end that was obviously once a part of the HE and a long version that is a self-contained, independent work with a beginning and an end. 77 The inescapable conclusion con- cerning these two recensions is that a version of the long recension was completed in 311; that it was adapted and heavily revised for inclusion as book eight in the first edition of the HE (313/4); that this short version was removed from the second edition of the HE (315/6) and replaced by a more comprehensive account of the persecution to 311; and that the long version was lightly revised to account for political changes since the original composition and reissued in a second edition. The only problem with this reconstruction is that in HE 8.13.7 Eusebius states, with respect to Palestinian martyrs, TOVTOVS Kai rots pe6' i}/i&? yvwpifjLOvs 81' kripas noi.TJaofj.ai ypa<frf)s. It is clear from the context that he is referring to the Martyrs. These words were part of the second edition of 315/6, long after the supposed date of the composition of the Martyrs in 311. As Andrew Louth 79 Accessi ons of Cri spus and Constanti ne II as Caesars, the persecuti on of Li ci ni us, the martyrdom of Basil of Amasi a, the excommuni cati on of Anus (?), the accessi on of Constanti us II as Caesar, the defeat and death of Li ci ni us, and the vicennalia of Constanti ne. 76 Shotwel l (cit. n. 57), p. 145. 77 See Barnes, ' Edi ti ons' , pp. 193- 96; C and E, pp. 148- 50, 155- 58; and Barnes (cit. n. 68) , pp. 470- 71, whose concl usi ons, fol l owi ng those of Li ghtfoot (cit. n. 36), pp. 310- 21 and Lawlor (cit. n. 35), pp. 7 - 9 , cannot, I bel i eve, be avoi ded.
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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 503 states, this amounts to a real conflict in the evidence. 78 Added to this is the peculiarity of Eusebius' method of composition. Why would he have simply taken an earlier workthe Martyrs shortened it, and made it such a substantial part of a new work (the first edition of the HE) only two or three years later? This seems extremely odd, amounting in fact to self-plagiarism. A possible solution to this perplexing situation is that Eusebius completed the Martyrs in 311 but had failed to publish or circulate it (or perhaps just circulate it widely) when the persecutions started up again in November of 311. 79 Perhaps his intention was to continue the work when the persecution finally ended and he could include all of the martyrs. By the time the persecutions were finally over in 313 he had decided to include the Martyrs in the HE rather than update and publish it separately. Perhaps by 311 he had already decided to cannibalize it for the HE and did not publish it for that reason. Whatever the date and circum- stances, it seems reasonable to assume that the Martyrs' new role as book eight of the developing HE kept it from being published as a separate work before c.316. There was, therefore, no self- plagiarism. Once the sections on the Palestinian martyrs had been removed from book eight for the second edition of the HE, Eusebius simply pulled out the original work, updated a number of references to the dead Maximinus, and published it as it was, without updating it, since everything he wanted to say had been said in the HE and he had not been in Palestine for much of the second half of the persecution. 80 As we have seen with the HE and the Canones above, Eusebius spent very little time on his revisions, if he bothered to revise at all. This hypothesis thus explains the peculiarities noted above and is consistent with Eusebius' known methods. APPENDIX 2: THE BEGINNING OF EUSEBIUS' PREFACE TO THE CHRONICI CANONES Muivaia yivos 'EfipaZov, irpotfnfTwv airdvrwv irpurrov, iLfufii TOO awriipos ^fiCiV, \tyat hi TOCI XpiaroO, hyjfyi re rijs row iOvoiv Si' abrob Bcoyvwaias Kai \6yia Beta ypcufrlj irapaSeSaiKdra, rois xpoVois aKfidaai Kara "Iva\ov au> avSpes v irai&evaei yvoipifioi, KXrjfi-ns, A<j>piKav6s, Ta.Tia.vds ro6 KaO' \6yov, TUIV rt kx irtpiTOfit/s 'Iwarfmroi Kai 'Iofjoros, ISiws iKaaros rfp> &T iK iraXai&s {moax<uv laropias. "Iva-xos Si T&V 'IXUIKWV treaiv iirraKooiois n Louth, 'Date', p. 116. 79 Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), p. 608, suggests that it was 'already prepared, but perhaps not circulated'. This, of course, left the Canones without any companion text to fill in the blanks of the persecution (see above). * Barnes, C and E, pp. 148-49.
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504 R. W. BURGESS npf.oflf.va. 'EXXrjviKwy Si $i\oo6$wv, Sorts mni tp> iicfivos &rijp 6 Hp KOB' fjfi&v ovoxfvi/v npo^pXij/jLevos, b> rfi 8' rf/s tls fidrqv airrCt irovT)9ticrqs xa8' f/fjuhv \nro84ottas npo raiv Eefitpdfitajs xp6va>v TOV Mwvoia. ytvioBai <f>rjai' PaaiXfvei Si 'Aaavpiwv 4] Stfxipafiii irpiaBev treat v npds rots p'. ware that Kara rotnov T&V Tpwttcwv Mtavaia irptofivTfpov v KOX W frcotv. 'Eyw Si ntpt iroAAoO TOV hXqBf) \6yov Ti\uapxvos (cat TO hxptfits AvixveOaai Std <mouS>)y npohdi\n\v ivBev bpftrjOtis tv /xiv rfj itpd raimjy awrd(ci 8Aoj imropilfiiv hpavrih xp6v<x>v &.vaypa<f>as owt\t&iirp> navrolas, jSaatAct'a; re XaXSaiwv, Aaavptwv, MrfSwv, IJepa&v, AVSOJV, 'EfipaXwv, AXyvmuov, 'Afhjvalwv, Apyttcov, EiKvtavuov, AaKt&atfiovtwv, KoptvdCwv, GfrraX&v, Ma.KfS6vwv, AarCvwv, cits vorepov ycyovcv tiriitXrjv ivofia 'PwyMtof 6fioi> yivovrat it'. 'Ev Si TO) nap6mi iiri TO abrd TOVS xpdvovs ovva.ya.yibv KO.1 iminapadeis kic napaXX-jkov TOV nap' iicdoTai iBvct T W fr&v itptOpdv xpovixod Kavdvos ovvratv Syncellus, Ecloga Chronographia (Mosshammer, 73.11-74.3). Moses, a man of the Hebrew race, was the first of all the prophets to hand down in writing the oracles and divine proph- ecies about our Saviour, I mean Christ, and about the nations' knowledge of God that came about through Him. Men distingu- ished for their teaching, such as Clement, Africanus, and Tatian among Christians and Josephus and Justus among the Jews, have said that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus, each in his own way furnishing proof from ancient history. Now Inachus preceded the Trojan War by 700 years. But of the pagan philosophers, whoever that man was who put forth that written attack against us asserts in the fourth book of that work that he fruitlessly laboured upon against us that Moses existed before the time of Semiramis. Now Semiramis ruled the Assyrians 150 years before Inachus. According to him, therefore, Moses predates the Trojan war by 850 years. Now since I consider historical truthfulness and accuracy to be matters of great importance I proposed to investigate this matter with great effort. This was my starting point. In the first volume of this work by furnishing myself with the raw material [necessary for such a study] I gathered together all sorts of chronological records and the kingdoms of the Chaldaeans, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Lydians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Athenians, Argives, Sicyonians, Spartans, Corinthians, Thessalians, Macedonians, and Latins (who were later called the Romans)fifteen altogether. In this volume I have collected these chronologies in the same place and contrasted in parallel columns the numbers of years, [which I have placed] beside each nation. In so doing I compiled a chronological table...
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Journal of The American Oriental Society Volume 117 Issue 2 1997 (Doi 10.2307/605488) Dov Gera and Wayne Horowitz - Antiochus IV in Life and Death - Evidence From The Babylonian Astronomical Diaries