andrewcriddle

I'm left wondering whether it may be difficult to get animals to attack an entirely unafraid human.

Without some sort of smell or sign of fear the animal may be worried about a trap.

Andrew Criddle

Philadelphia Lawyer

It seems to me that it is entirely possible that Eusebius' description (minus the explanation of divine intervention) of what occured in the amphitheater is accurate. Predators are used to hunting only certain animals--humans not being among them. Many predators that live in groups (like lions or wolves) only hunt when the "alpha" individual gives the OK. Some predators are also puzzled by prey animals that don't run away from them. I have seen this phenomenon many times on nature shows. I have also seen some guy up in the Arctic scare off polar bears just by acting like a big tough polar bear himself (rising up on his legs, waving his arms, roaring really loudly, standing his ground, etc.). Also, the predators might have been spooked by the large crowd of spectators in the arena. They may also have been freaked out by having been captured and transported a long distance to an area with an unfamiliar climate. I have heard accounts (not sure where) of the Roman handlers killing a goat or something, placing the bloody meat on the end of a stick, and poking the predators with it, in an attempt to get them in the mood for hunting. Anyone who has ever had a pet knows that there can be times when it won't eat (even though it is good health) and there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to get it to change its mind. How much harder must it be to get an animal that, for whatever reason, is not in the mood for hunting to change its mind?

PhilosopherJay

There is no need to either believe that Eusebius is lying or that the event took place as described.
Eusebius is simply relating a memory. We know that memories are quite fallible, often influenced by later information.
Here is a relevent passage from the book "The Myth of Repressed Memory" by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus (St. Martin's Press, New York, pg. 62):

I described a study I'd conducted in which subjects watched a film of a robbery involving a shooting and were then exposed to a television account of the event which contained erroneouos details. When asked to recall what happened during the robbery, many subjects incorporated the erroneous details from the television report into their account. Once these details were inserted into a person's mind through the technique of exposure to post-event information, they were adopted as the truth and protected as fiercely as the "real," original details. Subjects typically resisted any suggestion that their richly detailed memories might have been flawed or contaminated and asserted with great confidence that they saw what they revised and adapted memories told them they saw.

Eusebius lived in a community where stories of heroic Christian martyrs were commonly shared with great approval. Watching people of your faith being torn apart by wild beasts (assuming this did happen and the whole experience was not invented by Eusebius), would have had a rather shocking impact on Eusebius. Shock itself appears to cloud memory. Telling his comrades a true account of this bloody horror would have only discouraged and saddened both Eusebius and them. He must have wanted naturally to add some detail suggesting something hopeful in the event, perhaps one of the animals did hesitate for a split second as one could normally expect of an animal in a strange environment. Replaying the event in his mind, able to stop and consider it at any point, it would be easy to imagine a hesitation whether it occured or not. But if one could ease the pain of a horrible event by saying an animal hestitated for a moment, how much better to say that the animals first growled at their captors before devouring their victims. From there, it is easy to suggest that a supernatural force restrained them.

Or perhaps it was more of a communal invention with one witness saying he saw a hesitation in a beast and a second saying he saw a beast growl at his captures and a third going further and saying that he thought they acted as if an invisible force restrained them.

Years of retelling the "heroic martyr vs the wild beast" tail with increasing approbation for each added miraculous detail can easily account for the description and for Eusebius actually coming to believe this memory himself.

We might go even further and suggest that Eusebius has completely created the memory from a description in a book he read or an old story a Christian told him.

In short, rather than telling the truth or consciously lying, it seems more probable that he is giving an account of a memory that he created to please his Christian community.

My general positition is that we should not believe anything in Eusebius unless we can independently verifiy it from other independent sources.

Warmly,

PhilospherJay

Amaleq13

If these were recently captured and untrained animals, your suggestion might have some merit but I doubt that was the case. The Romans trained and maintained a virtual zoo of animals to carry out their various assigned tasks in the arena. Those who were trained to kill were quite often trained to do so slowly and entirely contrary to their natural instincts.

I agree. It seems entirely possible to me that he is simply interpreting an actual event through his faith. An apparent momentary hesitation on the part of a single animal, over time and through the lense of faith, becomes all the animals being magically prevented from attacking. It seems implied, however, that this prevention was only temporary and that animals eventually did their "job".

:thumbs:

countjulian

On the subject of animals holding back, although I scoff at the idea of miracles, it must be admitted that it was not unheard of. Although Eusebius was no doubt exaggerating, there were other, non-Christian incidences; the one that pops into my head (and I think Roger's, too, since we had a bit of a discussion on this) is Antiochus, a pagan whom the Christians threw to the lions. The beasts refused to touch him (John Ephesus and Sozemenus scurt over this bit quickly) and they ended up having to impale him. By the way, speaking of our old friend Sozy, I have heard that he mentions a group of Arabs who were convinced that they were descended from Ishmael and began worshipping and living as Jews. Do you know where he says this? I have taken an interest in Islamic origins recently, and I think this would be interesting info.

Johnny Skeptic

And yet you are not left wondering how a donkey can talk. If the Bible said that an ordinary barnyard pig sprouted wings and flew, you would believe it.

GakuseiDon

Johnny Skeptic, please stop putting words into people's mouths. You did it with me as well, and it is really annoying, not to mention dishonest. You make it sound as though the person had already claimed that position. At least have the decency to ask it as a question.

PhilosopherJay

The passage in question is probably a better example of Eusebius' general style of deception rather than an example of his lying. Look at the material that leads up to the quoted passage:

10 And as other decrees followed the first, directing that those in prison if they would sacrifice should be permitted to depart in freedom, but that those who refused should be harassed with many tortures,41 how could any one, again, number the multitude of martyrs in every province,42 and especially of those in Africa, and Mauritania, and Thebais, and Egypt? From this last country many went into other cities and provinces, and became illustrious through martyrdom.

Chapter VII. The Egyptians in Phoenicia.

1 Those of them that were conspicuous in Palestine we know, as also those that were at Tyre in Phoenicia.43 Who that saw them was not astonished at the numberless stripes, and at the firmness which these truly wonderful athletes of religion exhibited under them? and at their contest, immediately after the scourging, with bloodthirsty wild beasts, as they were cast before leopards and different kinds of bears and wild boars and bulls goaded with fire and red-hot iron? and at the marvelous endurance of these noble men in the face of all sorts of wild beasts?

2 We were present ourselves when these things occurred, and have put on record the divine power of our martyred Saviour Jesus Christ, which was present and manifested itself mightily in the martyrs. For a long time the man-devouring beasts did not dare to touch or draw near the bodies of those dear to God, but rushed upon the others who from the outside irritated and urged them on....

The whole passage is about Egyptian martyrs. The first line at vii.1 is ambiguous. Whom is the "we Know" referring to. When he says "we know" does he mean that "we known the Egyptian martyrs or that we know the people who saw them in Tyre and Palestine? It seems more likely he is referring to the fact that "we know" the people who saw them.

Right after this, we get a paragraph beginning with "We were present ourselves when these things occured." If the "we know" in the previous paragraph refers to the people that saw the martyrs then we may take this section as being a quotation from the people who saw the martyrs.

In other words, Eusebius isn't necessarily saying he himself saw this when he says "we were present," it is more probable that he is quoting a report from the people who was present. He has introduced us to these people who were present in the previous paragraph.

Think of it as being similar to this passage: We know about the men who went to the moon. Who of them was not astonished by the sight of the earth? "We were present when the earth rose in the sky and we wept and trembled at the sight." o\Obviously in this passage the author is not claiming he was one of the astronauts on the moon. It is obvious that he is deducing from the quoted passage the reaction of the astronauts.

In the same way. Eusebius, when he says we know the people who saw the Egyptian martyrs at Tyre and Palestine were astonished, we may assume that he is deducing this from their quoted passage that follows and begins "We were present." Eusebius did not have quotation marks to work with, so we cannot fault him for not using them.

Also note that the use of the term "Holy Athelete" shows that Eusebius is quoting a set speech from another text rather than inventing one. He paraphrases the term in his introduction "truly wonderful athletes of religion." One would expect him to use the simpler term "Holy Athletes" first, rather than a paraphrase of it, if he were not quoting.

Eusebius introduces the eyewitnesses and then introduces their testimony. This is Eusebius' normal technique. We are most probably mistaken if we take this testimony to be Eusebius' own and not the testimony of the eyewitnesses. Eusbius is in no way trying to deceive us into believing that he was present at these events. We are simply misreading the convention of quotation at the time, if we suppose that.

Now, notice that within the testimony there is nothing that directly identifies the testimony as being about the Egyptian martyrs at Tyre and Palestine. Rather it is a general description of a miracle. Most likely it is simply from a book of Christian fairy tales, or a book of Roman gladiator fables. It is hard to tell if Eusebius or his source has added the word "holy" to the word "athelete."

If this is the case, we may not properly accuse Eusebius of lying in this passage. Rather, we may accuse Eusebius of deception in the use of his sources. He takes fictitious narratives out of context and uses them to prove certain things about possibly real (or also fictitious) historical events. That is actually what is most notable and thrilling about his technique for writing history. It is not simple lying but a much purer form of creative deception.

Warmly,

PhilospherJay

S.C.Carlson

Thank you very much for this write-up, which, IMHO, gets right the way in which Eusebius can be deceptive in the use of his sources.

andrewcriddle

AThLEW/AThLHSIS language became conventional in accounts of Christian martyrdoms.

It is right to point out the stereotyped nature of Eusebius' account but I'm not convinced that he depends here on a written source.

Andrew Criddle