Ethnic Argumentation in Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio Evangelica

Aaron Johnson - University of Colorado, Boulder

The notion of Christianity as an ethnos (nation) was an important mode of conceiving of Christian identity in the formative years of the Christian movement. This understanding played an important role in many early apologists. Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio Evangelicais particularly indebted to such a notion in the structuring of its argument.

The Praeparatio Evangelica, written c.315AD, has often been marginalized as an apologetic endeavor, its usefulness being relegated to its extensive quotation of otherwise lost or fragmentary works. I contend that Eusebius' understanding of Christianity as an ethnos and his construal of the other nations (the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews and Jews) plays a central role in the structure of his work. Each nation is framed within a narrative of descent, based upon a founder and important forefathers, narrating migrations of key individuals with their particular customs and theologies, and delineating the character traits distinctive of the members of each nation. For the present paper, I will focus upon the first narrative of descent (of two), which begins with an account of the Phoenician nation and its distinctive theology and way of life (PE 1.9.19). Eusebius then crosses over to the Egyptian nation, noting its beliefs and customs. From these two nations, certain practices and ways of thinking about the gods "migrated" to the Greeks in the migrations of Cadmus (from Phoenicia) and Orpheus (from Egypt). In construing the narrative of descent in this way, Eusebius' story is able to make sense of the apparent relationships between the ways of life and religious thought of various nations. Also, such a narrative of descent can wield polemical force in relating the theologies of one nation (the Greeks) to those of other nations (the Phoenicians and Egyptians), which are generally considered by the readers to be characteristically barbarian, irrational, and full of confused superstition. I argue that this manner of "ethnic argumentation" is central to the Praeparatio Evangelica as a whole.