Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea was born around 260/265 and died 339/340). He was also known as Eusebius Pamphili, a Roman historian and Christian polemicist of Greek descent.. He was a scholar of the Biblical canon and is regarded as an extremely well learned Christian of his time. He became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima about 314. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel, and On Discrepancies between the Gospels, studies of the Biblical text. He produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs.
He followed much of the teachings of Origen and would have opposed Calvin, since he held that men were sinners by their own free choice and not by the necessity of their natures. The historian Edward Gibbon refers to Eusebius as the 'gravest of the ecclesiastical historians'[1] He also suggests that Eusebius was more concerned with the passing political concerns of his time than his duty as a reliable historian. In a chapter heading of Praeparatio evangelica (Book XII, Chapter 31 Eusebius wrote "That it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment."
He was also quite the preterist seeing the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the ceasing of the Mosaic worship, and the subjection of the whole Jewish race to its enemies as the proofs that the times had come already which had ben spoken of in prophecy.[2]
To Eusebius Christ is God but is seen by him as a ray of that eternal light. He appears to limit in a way that expressly distinguishes the Son as distinct from Father in that a ray of the sun would also be distinct from its source the sun. He seems intent upon emphasizing the difference of the persons of the Trinity and maintaining their subordination of the Son who is the Logos, or Word, to God.
He appears to do the same thing with the relation of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity to that of the Son to the Father. These same views see traceable to Origen.
Alexander of Alexandria sought to excommunicate him as a heretic until Eusebius submitted and agreed to the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicea in 325.
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Footnotes
- ↑ History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol II, Chapter XVI
- ↑ "The Holy Scriptures foretell that there will be unmistakable signs of the Coming of Christ. Now there were among the Hebrews three outstanding offices of dignity, which made the nation famous, firstly the kingship, secondly that of prophet, and lastly the high priesthood. The prophecies said that the abolition and complete destruction of all these three together would be the sign of the presence of the Christ. And that the proofs that the times had come, would lie in the ceasing of the Mosaic worship, the desolation of Jerusalem and its Temple, and the subjection of the whole Jewish race to its enemies...The holy oracles foretold that all these changes, which had not been made in the days of the prophets of old, would take place at the coming of the Christ, which I will presently shew to have been fulfilled as never before in accordance with the predictions." (Demonstratio Evangelica VIII)