Eusebius of Caesarea. Who was Eusebius of Caesarea?

Eusebius of Caesarea was born around 265. He received the name “Christian Herodotus” because of his importance as a church historian. In 313, he was made bishop of Caesarea, and from 323, with the rise of Constantine as the sole emperor in the empire, he began to gain significant influence.

From 0296 AD, Eusebius, the Bishop of God, is known to have enriched, together with Pamphilus, the library of Origen of Caesarea. During the persecution of 303-310, Eusebius fled across the empire to escape with his life. He was a priest.

On the Arian question, he is a supporter of moderate Arianism. He disagreed with the “homoousios” formula, which he considered beneficial to the Sabellians. He signed the procedure of the First Ecumenical Council (325), participated in the Council of Antioch (330), and was the opponent of St. Athanasius at the Council of Tyre (335). In 336, Eusebius gave a speech on the 30th anniversary of the emperor’s reign.

Who was Eusebius of Caesarea?

St. Eusebius, knowing St. Meletius, Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, to be a true believer and to hold fully to the teaching laid down at the first Council held at Nicaea, advised all to elect Meletius to the patriarchate.

Saint Eusebius was bishop in Samosata, the city under the Patriarchate of Antioch. He was an upright man and full of zeal for God, and he was steadfast, courageous, and unmoved in his excellent confession at a time when the heresy of Arian was growing strong and injuring many. The Church of Christ was troubled by him like a ship amid a stormy sea.

When Eudoxia, patriarch of Antioch, the heretic of one mind with the Arians, came to the throne of the patriarchate of Constantinople for wealth, a synod was held in Antioch by all the bishops of Syria to elect another patriarch in place of Eudoxia.

Biography of Eusebius of Caesarea

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Biblical places from the times of Eusebius of Caesarea

Was Eusebius a biblical critic?

He left his “10 Tables” or “Canons of Concordance,” an ingenious work where, by dividing the four Gospels into short sections or chapters and referring to these chapters, he made it easy to compare the Gospel stories.

Eusebius was among the greatest critics of the Bible, continuing the philological tradition of Origen. Together with Pamphilus, he founded a philological workshop for copying and reconstructing manuscripts. Together with Pamphili, he revised the manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures.

His extensive and largely lost work is mentioned in three catalogs: one on Photius, one on Jerome, and one on Embed-Jesus.

At what times did Eusebius live?

He lived in the days of Emperor Constantine, the son of Constantine the Great. He was bishop in Samosata under the Patriarchate of Antioch, being closely acquainted with Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianz.

Eusebius of Caesarea He lived when the followers of Arian occupied most of the bishoprics of the East when the bishops of the excellent faith at Nicaea were banished and sent into exile, at a time when the emperors themselves were Arians.

St. Eusebius of Samosata showed himself as an unshakable pillar of Orthodoxy in these troubled circumstances of struggle and barbarity. His love for true faith is first seen in the election of St. Meletius as Patriarch of Antioch.

Where was Eusebius of Caesarea enslaved?

Full of zeal for the service of Christ, Eusebius dressed in the robes of the Host and went through the cities of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, as far as the Euphrates, appointing priests and bishops and strengthening in their souls the true faith. In the year 365, a synod of bishops gathered in Antioch, and all church teaching was established at the Council of Nicaea.

According to the Bible, under Emperor Valens, Eusebius was banished to Thrace, near the Danube. This news caused great disturbance among the people of the city, who loved and honored their bishop. And a great crowd arose and wanted to prevent the fulfillment of the emperor’s will. But the good bishop, not wanting to shed blood for him, urged them to remain silent, putting their hope in God, who watches over all.

In 379, after the death of Valens, Eusebius returned from exile and continued his apostolic journeys. But a heretic woman, seeing him in the street, struck him on the head, and shortly afterward, he gave his soul into the hands of the Lord, praying that the murderous woman would be forgiven.

Key Verse related to Eusebius of Caesarea

“I have read the writings and teachings of the heretics, polluting my soul for a while with their abominable notions, though deriving this benefit: I was able to refute them for myself and loathe them even more.”

Eusebius

What did St. Eusebius urge Saint Meletius to do?

He spent with his woman in pure virginity under the guise of companionship, as a brother to his sister. Eusebius was also rich in many other good works, for which he was honored with the archpriest ordinance from God and men. He had a great love for both St. Meletius and St. Eusebius and was a thoughtful friend to them, fighting with them to spread good faith.

At the urging of St. Eusebius, St. Meletius assembled a local synod in Antioch, attended by twenty-seven bishops, among whom Eusebius was first after Meletius. Being led into the wedding chamber, he advised his bride to the unblemished guardianship of maidenhood.

Also, at that local synod of Antioch, the holy fathers commanded all to confess of one being the Son with the Father, and the faith was decided upon at the first synod of Nicaea.

When did Eusebius die?

Meeting death is inevitable, but how it happens depends on each of us. If for some it is disappearance into nothingness, for others it practically does not exist, being nothing but asleep. What makes the difference? Paradoxically, life. More precisely, the way we go through it. The word “death” has multiple meanings.

Eusebius fell asleep in the Lord around 0339 or 0340. Because of certain realities, Orthodoxy calls the deceased more suggestively: senseless. It follows the teaching of Christ, who says of a deceased child, “she is not dead, but sleeping,” then speaks to the dead young man of Nain, “Young man, I say to you, get up,” and when he hears of the death of his friend Lazarus he says “I am going to wake him.”

At first glance, it translates as “cessation of life,” that is, the disappearance of that unseen force that sets in motion the whole “machinery of the body” and holds together all its constituent elements.

How did Eusebius die?

Because after the death of the Holy and Great Emperor Constantine, his son Constantius, who the heresy of Arian had deceived, had taken the kingdom of the East and had greatly helped the Arians and fought for them, doing much persecution and evil to the faithful. Then also, St. Eusebius suffered much grief from the Arians.

Saint Eusebius died because he was hanged upside down and cut to pieces with an ax. St. Eusebius, the great God-pleaser, died a mutilated death at the hands of the Aryans for the sake of the Son of God, who is of one being and one nature with the Father.

For after the death of the Holy and Great Emperor Constantine, his son Constantius, who was deceived by the heresy of Arian, took the kingdom of the East and immensely helped the Arians and fought for them, doing much persecution and evil to the faithful. Then also, St. Eusebius suffered much grief from the Arians.

The History of Saint Eusebius of Caesarea

Where this curate was born and his parents, his history does not show. Thus he first went to a monastery where he became a monk. Then he climbed to the top of a mountain, and there he made himself a small stone enclosure, within which the happy man was without shelter or shade.

He had a leather coat, and his food was chickpeas and milled grains; sometimes, he ate dried figs.

And when many people came to him and disturbed his peace, he went to a monastery nearby and made himself a little enclosure in the corner of the wall; he went there to relieve himself according to his daily need. He lived over ninety years with such hardships and then moved to the Lord.

Primary Takeaways

Variations utilized in English incorporate Esabio, Esavio, Esavius, Eusebio, Eusebio, Eusaio, Eusavio, Eusebios, Euseby, Eusebio, and Eusebius. Eusebio (Spanish), Eusebio (Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish), and Eusébio (Portuguese) are unfamiliar variations of Eusebius.
He at absolutely no point in the future safeguards Arian principles in his works, but he never turns into an Athanasian in his accentuation upon the homoousion.
But the truth is that in that epistle, Arius diligently dodges such most loved Arian phrases as could stress the distinctions between himself and Alexander. Eusebius appears to have kept away from them for a similar explanation.

Conclusion

Some similar scholar and ministerial student of history John Henry Newman, comprehend Eusebius’ explanation that he had heard Dorotheus of Tire “clarify the Scriptures shrewdly in the Church” to show that Eusebius was Dorotheus’ understudy while the cleric was an occupant in Antioch; others, similar to the researcher D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, consider the expression too vague to even think about supporting the contention.

He says toward the end of his epistle to the Cæsarean church that he had not been familiar with utilizing such articulations as “In the past, he was not,” “He came to be from nothing,” and so on. Furthermore, there is no obvious explanation for the uncertainty he talks about. Indeed, even in his epistles to Alexander and Euphration, he doesn’t utilize those expressions (however, he guards the regulation instructed by the first of them), nor does Arius himself, in the epistle to Alexander, after that Eusebius based his insight into the framework, utilize those articulations, even though he also shows a similar principle.

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Quizlet about Eusebius of Caesarea

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Bibliography

Carriker, A. J. (2003). The library of Eusebius of Caesarea. Brill.
Barnes, T. D. (2009). Eusebius of Caesarea. The Expository Times, 121(1), 1-14.
Van Nuffelen, P. (2011). Eusebius of Caesarea and the Concept of Paganism. In The Archaeology of Late Antique’Paganism’ (pp. 87-109). Brill.
Kelly, C. (2020). The shape of the past: Eusebius of Caesarea and Old Testament history. Unclassical Traditions, 1, 13-27.
Johannessen, H. (2016). The demonic in the political thought of Eusebius of Caesarea. Oxford University Press.