Eusebius’ Corpus

“having plucked like flowers from a meadow the appropriate passages from ancient writers, we shall endeavor to embody the whole in an historical narrative”

Eusebius, Church History I.1.5 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain).public domain

In the gameEusebius copied his evidence in rather than summarising it — letters, imperial edicts, lists of bishops, whole treatises by men whose books are otherwise gone. Most of what anybody knows about the first three centuries survives because he pasted it into this one.

“this too has been disputed by some, and on their account cannot be placed among the acknowledged books… This will serve to show the divine writings that are undisputed as well as those that are not universally acknowledged.”

Eusebius, Church History III.25.6–7 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

In the gameEusebius sorted the books in circulation into three piles and wrote the piles down: acknowledged, disputed, and put forward by heretics. The Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas are in the third pile, named, in the early fourth century. It is the earliest surviving list that does the sorting out loud.

“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

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.

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.

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.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”

Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“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

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.

“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

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.

“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

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.