Roger Pearse

We can see that Eusebius, after quoting Plato, says that the scriptures use this approach. If we presume pseudos means 'lie' here, we are obliged to suppose him to believe that the scriptures are lies; if we presume it means 'fiction', then he merely thinks that they use parables.

The latter approach is unremarkable; the former is so contrary to the rest of his writings that I think we should require more evidence than just a single ambiguous word, in my humble opinion.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I certainly modified my view in the course of that discussion, but not quite like that. I moved from the general position that they were not authorial, to the position that they might be. The problem is that 'chapter headings' is an under-researched field, and no certain knowledge seems available.

What Richard pointed out was that Greek histories habitually had summaries at the front (which is true), and he treated these as equivalent to chapter headings (which is much less certain). He presumed that such were usually authorial, on the basis that Pliny's Natural History has a whole book of them, which are certainly authorial as Pliny says himself in his preface.

The words which we find as the 'chapter heading' of 12.31 are part of the summary which is prefixed to each book of the PE. I don't know of any evidence that tells us whether such summaries were habitually split up and put at the chapter positions in the medieval manuscripts. The field, as far as I can tell, is largely open for a scholar to examine. A colloquium at Chantilly 10 years ago discussed this question, with regard to those titles in Pliny, and reported bitterly that editors of the editions are 'fort discret' as to whether the manuscripts have numerals and text at the relevant places.

While scanning Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on John, I found an interesting statement in the preface:

The subjoined subscription of the chapters, will shew the subjects over which our discourse extends, to which we have also annexed numbers, that what is sought may be readily found by the readers.

Now this is almost a century later than Eusebius. Cyril would hardly have remarked on this, if it were commonplace. On the Latin side, we have the City of God by Augustine in a manuscript which is more or less contemporary (5th century), which is undivided. The divisions and chapter titles appear a century later, in the 6th century.

As far as I know, the chapter titles and divisions in ancient works are thus later. They are often supplied from the summaries, naturally enough.

Are those summaries authorial? I don't know that the work exists to determine this. But... I think that scholars tend to suggest in passing that the summaries in the Church History are indeed by Eusebius. Eusebius was generally fairly advanced in his technique -- does the habit of extensive verbatim citation start with him? his creation of a unified chronology would be another instance -- and anyway in the Church History he may be mimicking the format of the Greek historians. On other works I have been able to find no certain information. The summaries on the Vita Constantini (which was unpublished at Eusebius' death) seem to be considered dubious.

In short, I think Stephen's statement is correct. But Richard was right to draw my attention to the existence of possibly authorial summaries. It is a commonplace that the 'chapter titles are not authorial but added by later scribes', and I thought this at the time. I'm not now sure that it is a true commonplace. But what there is not is certainty that the text is authorial, and there is more or less certainty that it did not appear in the text at the place specified.

There are some notes on chapter titles which I made here. They are inconclusive. Even the best editions go all vague when it comes to chapter titles.

The colloquium papers were published as "Titres et articulations du texte dans les oeuvres antiques: Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly 13-15 décembre 1994. Ed. J.-C. Fredouille &c. Paris (1997)".

If anyone knows more, of course, I am all ears. In case anyone wonders what my preference is, I would prefer to believe that the summaries are authorial, since I dislike inventing third-parties to compose bits of a work without evidence. On the other hand, as an amateur, I'd rather not bluntly contradict the mass of scholars, even if I have doubts here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

I looked up that hoary thread, and this is what Roger had to say in his last post on it (next to last in the entire thread, page 4):

FYI.

Ben.

hatsoff

I'd like to hear about that in his own words (translated of course) before I decide what to make of it. Is it in his Church History? If so, you can find the full text here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm

Diogenes the Cynic

Ecclesiastical History 8:7

Roger Pearse

Isn't it rather hard to call a man a liar who claims to have personally witnessed a miracle, purely on the grounds that we don't believe in miracles?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

yalla

How would you characterize Eusebius' claim in Ecc His as above Roger?
It's a serious question I'm not trying to be challenging, just curious.
Do you accept that which he describes as "real"?
What do you suggest his motive[s] were in describing what he claimed to see in the manner he chose?
Do you accept his claim that a miracle occurred?
cheers
yalla
Edited to add
Just to be fair and make a committment myself, I tend to dismiss miracles, don't bother with ''naturalistic'' rationalizations and thus would see the above as either delusional or a lie.

Roger Pearse

Thanks for clarifying that -- one does get silly queries of this kind. I'll try to do my best!

I don't see why not, unless one has some sort of prejudice against such things. But whether you or I would have reported it in such terms, if we were there, I'm not sure.

Eusebius' motives for writing? Does he not tell us this himself -- to encourage Christians by giving examples of virtuous conduct, and to show that the persecution that had just happened had taken place because of the misdeeds of Christians and churchmen? Something like that?

One thing that makes me a little cautious, is that this book of the HE is not actually part of the history. It's an abbreviation of a separate, longer work, called The Martyrs of Palestine. This is a work of hagiography, not history. I do not understand the canons of this genre of literature, and I am very wary of making some category mistakes. I know that the criteria for statements are different. (I'm not sure whether this passage is to be found also in the long version). We all tend to think that "Saints' lives" are just fairytales, since we don't understand the literary genre. So I'm not sure whether we can fairly ask these questions (that's a genuine expression of ignorance, not an evasion) of that portion of the work.

I appreciate the honesty. I think this view would be pretty common among people brought up in the 20th century (less so in other periods of history, past and no doubt future). I have these prejudices too, of course. But I tend to think that I should be extremely reluctant to dismiss texts because they do not fit my expectations.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

So any miracle that appears in the Bible automatically happened because it appears in the Bible, right, Roger? Even if miracles are reasonably possible, which miracles occurred at which places at which times? Why was God so selective regarding where he performed miracles? Why did he prefer the Middle East? Possibly because the Jews chose themselves to be God's favorite people and didn't want God to reveal himself to anyone outside of the Middle East, and because Christians pirated the Old Testament and created another false religion?

Why in the world would any skeptic object to miracles? Who wouldn't want a God, an advanced alien being, or possibly a beautiful witch like Samantha Stevens, to be available to help us with our many problems? If I believed that there was only a 10% chance that miracles exist, I would go out of my way to research the matter thoroughly and hope that I would discover that they exist.

Your scholarship is impressive, but may I ask you of what good is scholarship regarding the issue of whether God is good, or whether he is an evil God who is masquerading as a good God and plans to send everyone to hell?

Diogenes the Cynic

If someone claims to have witnessed an impossible event, the available explanations do not include the possibility that he is relating the literal truth. He may not be "lying" in a deliberate sense but the other options would include delusion, hallucination, misunderstanding of what he saw or deception of the storyteller by others.

In Eusebius' story above, it may be that he was simply exaggerating and attributing religious significance to something he witnessed which was far more mundane than what he describes...sort of a 4th century equivalent of pointing to the sky after a touchdown.