“The questions I would ask them are these: whether any other deceiver… is ever reported to have become as a teacher the cause of meekness, sweet reasonableness, purity, and every virtue in those that he deceived?”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.3 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain).public domain
“He commanded them besides all this to hold so fast to truth, that so far from swearing falsely they should not need to swear at all.”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.5 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Loftier Morality
EthicsArgument · power 50 · 100% accurate
In the gameEusebius sets Christ’s moral teaching beside every other teacher’s and lets the comparison stand. An argument that has to concede the point sometimes has nothing at all to say next — the foe may be left FROZEN.
Learned byProof of the Gospel (Lv 1)
“Christianity is neither a form of Hellenism, nor of Judaism, but… a religion with its own characteristic stamp, and… not anything novel or original, but something of the greatest antiquity, something natural and familiar to the godly men before the times of Moses.”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 1.2 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Elder Faith
HistoryArgument · power 60 · 100% accurate
In the gameThe charge is that the faith is new, and therefore false. Eusebius answers by going further back than his accusers can: this is the religion of the patriarchs, older than Moses, older than the law, older than the nations bringing the charge.
Learned byProof of the Gospel (Lv 11)
Strong against
×2Ancestral Customan argument · why?
Eusebius turns the charge around. The faith is not new. It is the faith of Abraham and the patriarchs, older than Rome and older than Moses.
“For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice.”
Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39 (trans. Roberts & Donaldson, ANF 1, public domain).public domain
“If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings, — what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew.”
Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39 (trans. Roberts & Donaldson, ANF 1, public domain).public domain
“Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered… For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.”
Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.15 (trans. Roberts & Donaldson, ANF 1, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Living Voice
HistoryArgument · power 72 · 100% accurate
In the gamePapias would rather ask a man who had heard the apostles than read a book about them — so he asked, and Eusebius wrote it down. Testimony taken first-hand often finds the telling detail.
Learned byEusebius: Fragments (Lv 16)
“Now if any Greek is the accuser, let him realize that his accusations would not please his own teachers, who, it may be, assisted by us, for they have come after us in time, have expressed such sentiments as these in their writings.”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.3 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain).public domain
“To the supreme God, as a certain wise man has said, we must neither offer by fire, nor dedicate any of the things known by sense… By pure silence and pure thoughts of Him we will worship Him.”
Porphyry, On Vegetarianism 2.34 — named as such and quoted by Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.3 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain). The same Porphyry wrote fifteen books against the Christians.public domain
“If then these are the conclusions of eminent Greek philosophers and theologians, how could he be a deceiver who delivers to his pupils not words only but acts, which are far more important than words, to perform, by which they may serve God according to right reason?”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.3 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Called as Witness
RationalityArgument · power 62 · 100% accurate
In the gameCall a witness the room already respects, even one who is no friend of yours. Testimony from someone the accuser trusts cannot be dismissed as special pleading. Sometimes lowers the foe’s Contend.
Learned byProof of the Gospel (Lv 17)
Strong against
×2The True Wordan argument · why?
Call a witness the room already respects, even one who is no friend of the church. Testimony from an opponent is hard to wave away.
The Proof of the Gospel spends eight of its ten surviving books doing one thing: setting a Hebrew prophecy beside the event, and then doing it again. No single sentence carries the case, which is rather the point of it.
See Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel, books 1–10 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920). Described, not quoted — the sentence above is the game’s own.
How it works in the game: the move Prophecy Fulfilled
Biblical TheologyArgument · power 85 · 90% accurate
In the gameProphecy after prophecy set beside the gospels: the town, the mother, the years, the death, the scattering. The number of fulfilments is the argument.
Learned byProof of the Gospel (Lv 20), Eusebius’ Corpus (Lv 46)
Strong against
×2"Your God Let Rome Fall"an argument · why?
Eusebius set each prophecy beside its fulfilment. The God who foretold Christ’s coming rules all of history, including the rise and fall of Rome.
“being Greeks by race, and Greeks by sentiment, and gathered out of all sorts of nations, like the chosen men of a newly enlisted army, we have become deserters from the superstition of our ancestors”
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.2 (trans. E. H. Gifford, 1903, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Deserters, and Gladly
HistoryArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate
In the gameThe charge is that Christians are traitors twice over — Greeks who abandoned the Greeks, borrowers who will not keep the Jewish law they borrowed from. Eusebius does not deny one word of it. He concedes the whole indictment in his first pages and spends fifteen books arguing that leaving was right.
Learned byPreparation (Lv 22), Eusebius’ Corpus (Lv 42)
“We will extend our lies not only to men of our own race, but go forth to all men, and fill the whole world with our fabrications about him.”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.5 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain) — the apostles’ imaginary conspiracy meeting, written to be laughed at.public domain
“For what could be finer than to make both gods and men our enemies for no reason at all, and to have no enjoyment of any kind, to have no profit of our dear ones, to make no money, to have no hope of anything good at all, but just to be deceived and to deceive without aim or object?”
Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 3.5 (trans. W. J. Ferrar, 1920, public domain) — the same imagined speech, further in.public domain
How it works in the game: the move Sarcasm
RationalityArgument · power 60 · 95% accurate
In the gameSay the argument back to it, straight-faced and in full, until the shape of it does the refuting. Often finds the telling stroke — and occasionally goes too far and misses.
Learned byProof of the Gospel (Lv 24)
“But I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.”
Gaius of Rome, as quoted in Eusebius, Church History II.25.7 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Trophies of the Apostles
HistoryArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate
In the gameThe oldest answer of all to "you made it up": the graves are in the city, and you can walk to them this afternoon. Gaius says it to a Montanist around A.D. 200 and Eusebius copies it down because it is checkable.
Learned byEusebius’ Corpus (Lv 52)
“But when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people”
Eusebius, Church History VIII.1.7 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move We Fell Into Laxity
EthicsArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate
In the gameBefore describing the persecution, Eusebius says whose fault he thinks it was, and he names his own side. A record that includes your own disgrace is better evidence than one that does not.
Learned byEusebius’ Corpus (Lv 58)
“we no longer perceive the lofty arm and the celestial right hand of our all-gracious God and universal King by hearsay merely or report, but observe so to speak in very deed and with our own eyes that the declarations recorded long ago are faithful and true”
Eusebius, Oration at the Dedication of the Church at Tyre, in Church History X.4 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Not by Hearsay
RationalityArgument · power 94 · 95% accurate
In the gameThe difference between a thing reported and a thing watched. Eusebius had read the promises for forty years and then stood in a rebuilt church and said the reading and the seeing had finally met.
Learned byEusebius’ Corpus (Lv 66)
