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Chapter 5 From Hebrew Wisdom to Christian Hegemony: Eusebius of Caesarea's Apologetics and Panegyrics Born in the 260s C.E., Eusebius was just beginning his literary career when the Great Persecution broke out in 303. Straddling the Constantinian divide, he lived through the persecutions under Galerius and Maximinus Daia as well as Constantine's final victory over Licinius. Eusebius would go on to become the principal historian of both the persecution and the Constantinian revolution. Eusebius's earlier literary efforts, however, and in particular his longest production, the apologetic diptych of the Preparation and Demonstration of the Gospel (PE/DE), were written under the duress and immediate aftermath of the Great Persecution and the anti-Christian propaganda that accompanied it. I begin this chapter by examining the ways in which Eusebius challenged Porphyry 's anti-Christian polemics. Though Eusebius's particular narrative of cultural and religious history was crafted in response to Porphyry and the persecution, it would come to serve as the basis for an ideology of Christian empire for future generations. The Preparation and Demonstration ofthe Gospel:. Eusebius's Response to Porphyry Throughout his career, Eusebius's work had a strong apologetic and polemical aspect. One of his earliest compositions, the Prophetic Extracts, is a collation ofbiblical proof texts accompanied by exegesis designed to serve as a catechetical text for new converts. Eusebius focuses especially on passages in the Hebrew Bible interpreted as predicting the advent of Christ and the spread of Christianity among the gentiles: two sets of arguments that, as we will see, Eusebius would go on to deploy to great effect in his later apologetic works.1 Eusebius is also credited with a work titled Against Hierocles, a rejoinder to Hierocles' anti-Christian pamphlet The Lover of Truth. Recent philological research has, however, brought Eusebius's authorship of this work into question.2 Eusebius was also em- Eusebius's Apologetics and Panegyrics 137 broiled in intra-Christian disputes. When Eusebius's mentor Pamphilus was imprisoned during the persecutions, Eusebius helped him compose the Apology for Origen in response to the anti-Origenist critics.3 He would figure prominently in the theological controversies leading up to and following the Council of Nicaea.4 The great thorn in Eusebius's side, however, was Porphyry.5 According toJerome, Eusebius wrote a twenty-five-book work titled AgainstPorphyry, which is no longer extant.6 This work is usually dated fairly early in Eusebius 's career, likely in the early years of the fourth century.7 This long work must not have been enough to exorcise Eusebius's Porphyrian demons,8 for approximately ten years later Eusebius developed his greatest apologetic project-the massive PE/DE--as a response to Porphyry. There is general consensus in dating its composition to approximately 312-24.9 Based on internal evidence, it appears that Eusebius began writing while persecution was still in force in Palestine but completed the project after Constantine's victories.10 Eusebius advertises the work as a response to any and all critics ofChristianity, or "To show what Christianity is to those who do not know," as he puts it in the work's opening clause (PE 1.1.1). Eusebius goes on to distinguish between two categories of opponents: Greeks and Jews (PE 1.1.11). The PE, as the first volume of Eusebius's apology, is directed toward the former, while the DE is conceived as a response to the latter. Nevertheless, it becomes clear quite early in the PE that Eusebius's main target is more specific. In the second chapter of Book 1, Eusebius imagines the questions "someone" may put to the Christians. In all likelihood someone may first ask, who are we who propose to take up the pen, that is, are we Greeks or Barbarians, or what might there be between these? And what do we call ourselves, not with respect to our name, because that is evident to all, but with respect to our manner and choice of life; for they see that we neither think like Greeks nor adhere to the practices of the Barbarians. Now what is foreign about us and what innovative about our way of life? ... To what punishments may fugitives from ancestral customs, who have become zealots for the foreign mythologies of theJews which are slandered by all, not be subjected? How is it not extremely depraved and reckless to exchange native traditions casually and take up, with unreasonable and unreflective faith, those of the impious enemies...

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