Preparation

Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel), c. 315

Eusebius of Caesarea

Fifteen books of the other side’s own words, kept safe by the man arguing against them.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 196
Stat total: 278

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina78

Contend76

Defend68

Popularity56

Total278

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 78

Fifteen books, entire — and stuffed with other people’s, quoted at length.

Contend 76

Eusebius argues by producing the evidence rather than by describing it, which is slower and much harder to answer.

Popularity 56

Read mostly by specialists, and mostly for the pagan authors it preserves.

Cited for this book

Eusebius wrote the Preparation for the Gospel in fifteen books, to clear away objections before making his positive case. He quotes pagan writers so fully that some of them survive only in his book. He begins by admitting the charge against Christians: we were Greeks, and we left the old gods.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Quadra→
Lv 14

Eusebius: Fragments→
Lv 22

Preparation

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
22	Deserters, and Gladly	History	Argument	88	100%	10
24	Not an Unreasoning Faith	Rationality	Argument	80	100%	15
26	Quote Him In Full	Rationality	Type shift	—	—	5
27	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
27	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
50	Speak Greek	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“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

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.

“we have not devoted ourselves to an unreasoning faith, but to wise and profitable doctrines which contain the way of true religion”
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.5 (trans. E. H. Gifford, 1903, public domain).public domain

Not an Unreasoning Faith

RationalityArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameEusebius states the standard the next fifteen books are to be judged by, and it is the same one Peter set: be ready to give an answer. He is writing for readers who will follow a demonstration, and he says so before he starts.

“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.

Affirm

Status

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.