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The Genos of Demons and ‘Ethnic’ Identity in Eusebius' ‘Praeparatio Evangelica’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

HAZEL JOHANNESSEN
HAZEL JOHANNESSEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article offers a new perspective on Eusebius' understanding of Christian identity by demonstrating that in the Praeparatio evangelica he presents human and demonic genē as comparable. Although the prominence of the language of ‘ethnicity’ to describe human groups in the Praeparatio has previously been highlighted, Eusebius' presentation of demons in similar terms has not yet been examined. Eusebius' descriptions of the demonic genos show that he held ‘ethnic’ identity, including Christian identity, to be linked above all to a creature's moral condition and to require the maintenance of particular patterns of behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 For example E. H. Gifford, Preparation for the Gospel, Grand Rapids, Mi 1981, i, p. xvii; Wallace-Hadrill, D. S., Eusebius of Caesarea, London 1960, 139–40Google Scholar; and Foakes-Jackson, F. J., Eusebius of Caesarea: a study of the man and his writings, Cambridge 1933, 128Google Scholar.

2 Examples of studies which rely heavily on the Praeparatio include Johnson, A. P., Ethnicity and argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica, Oxford 2006Google Scholar; ‘Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica as literary experiment’, in Johnson, S. F. (ed.), Greek literature in late antiquity: dynamism, didacticism, classicism, Aldershot 2006, 67–89Google Scholar; and ‘Identity, descent and polemic: ethnic argumentation in Eusebius' Praeparatio evangelica’, JECS xii (2004), 23–56; Ulrich, J., Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden: Studien zur Rolle der Juden in der Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea, Berlin 1999Google Scholar; and Inowlocki, S., ‘Eusebius's appropriation of Moses in an apologetic context’, in Graupner, A. and Woter, M. (eds), Moses in biblical and extra-biblical tradition, Berlin 2007, 241–55Google Scholar.

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4 Johnson, Ethnicity; Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 37–8; Inowlocki, ‘Eusebius's appropriation of Moses’, 241.

5 See, for example, Trompf, G. W., Early Christian historiography: narratives of retributive justice, London 2000, 124–5Google Scholar; Eger, H., ‘Kaiser und Kirche in der Geschichtstheologie Eusebs von Cäsarea’, Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft xxxviii (1939), 97–115Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, Eusebius, 182; Johnson, A. P., ‘The ends of transfiguration: Eusebius’ Commentary on Luke (PG xxiv.549)’, in Johnson, A. P. and Schott, J. M. (eds), Eusebius of Caesarea: tradition and innovations, Cambridge, Ma 2013, 196Google Scholarn. 23; and Barnes, T. D., Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge, Ma 1981, 102, 104–5Google Scholar.

6 Johnson, Ethnicity; Iricinschi, E., ‘Good Hebrew, bad Hebrew: Christians as triton genos in Eusebius’ apologetic writings’, in Inowlocki, S. and Zamagni, C. (eds), Reconsidering Eusebius: collected papers on literary, historical and theological issues, Leiden 2011, 69–86Google Scholar.

7 Johnson, Ethnicity, 17, 24.

8 Inowlocki, S., Eusebius and the Jewish authors: his citation technique in an apologetic context, Leiden 2006, 109–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, Ethnicity, 94–125, 227–32; Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 60, 66; Iricinschi, ‘Good Hebrew’, 69–70.

9 For example, PE vii.6.1. See Johnson, Ethnicity, 107–9, 114–19; Iricinschi, ‘Good Hebrew’, 78; Inowlocki, Jewish authors, 111; and Sirinelli, J., Les Vues historiques d'Eusèbe de Césarée durant la période prénicéene, Dakar 1961, 147–9Google Scholar.

10 PE vii.8.37. See Johnson, Ethnicity, 119, and Sirinelli, Vues historiques, 147.

11 PE ii.1.51–5. See Johnson, Ethnicity, 55–93, and Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 70.

12 PE xi.8.1. See Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 79, and Johnson, Ethnicity, 130–6.

13 Johnson, Ethnicity, 58–9; Inowlocki, Jewish authors, 109–10; Iricinschi, ‘Good Hebrew’, 71.

14 Johnson, Ethnicity, 232; Inowlocki, Jewish authors, 109.

15 Buell, D. K., Why this new race? Ethnic reasoning in early Christianity, New York 2005, 2Google Scholar; cf. her ‘Rethinking the relevance of race for early Christian self-definition’, HTR xciv (2001), 449–76, and ‘Race and universalism in early Christianity’, JECS x (2002), 429–68.

16 Idem, ‘Rethinking’, 451, 473, and Why?, 35.

17 Idem, ‘Rethinking’, 451. Johnson notes that Eusebius similarly believed that people could switch ethnic groups: Ethnicity, 54.

18 Buell, ‘Rethinking’, 473, cf. Why?, 2–3.

19 Idem, ‘Rethinking’, 473; cf. Johnson, Ethnicity, 198–200.

20 Buell, ‘Rethinking’, 449–53; Hall, J. M., Ethnic identity in Greek antiquity, Cambridge 1997, 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, Ethnicity, 25–33.

21 Hall, Ethnic identity, 1.

22 Ibid. 2. See also the discussion in Johnson, Ethnicity, 25–33.

23 Johnson, Ethnicity, 33–4.

24 Hall, Ethnic identity, 34–6; Johnson, Ethnicity, 25; Buell, ‘Rethinking’, 456 n. 20.

25 Hall, Ethnic identity, 34.

26 A. P. Johnson has demonstrated this in the case of Porphyry: Religion and identity in Porphyry of Tyre: the limits of Hellenism in late antiquity, Cambridge 2013, 192.

27 Johnson recognises this in Ethnicity, 25, 33.

28 As by Johnson, Ethnicity. G. W. H. Lampe offers ‘family’, ‘class’ or ‘race’ for γένος and ‘nation’ or ‘people’ for ἔθνος: A patristic Greek lexicon, Oxford 1961 at pp. 313, 407 respectively.

29 I am heavily indebted to Johnson's detailed study of these terms in the Praeparatio: Ethnicity, 33–54.

30 Ibid. 54.

31 Hall, Ethnic identity, 35; Johnson, Ethnicity, 35.

32 Johnson, Ethnicity, 50, citing PE i.5.10; cf. n. 28 above.

33 Johnson, Ethnicity, 35.

34 Ibid. 48–51. This is also true of other early Christian writers: Buell, Why?, 2, and ‘Race and universalism’, 433.

35 For example genos: PE i.9.15; vii.6.1; ix.10.1; ethnos: PE i.3.13; viii.10.18; xii.47.1.

36 Johnson finds it ‘disappointing’ that there are so few references to Christianity as either an ethnos or a genos in the Praeparatio, although given that this work is primarily concerned with outlining the identities of Christianity's ‘others’, rather than of Christianity itself, he suggests that this is far from surprising: Ethnicity, 221.

37 PE i.4.11.

38 For example PE i.2.1; i.2.4; i.5.10.

39 See, for example, PE iv.5.1; iv.5.5; xiii.15.1; xiii.15.7.

40 Notable exceptions include S. L. Coggan, ‘Pandaemonia: a study of Eusebius’ recasting of Plutarch's story of the “death of great Pan”’, unpubl. PhD diss. Syracuse 1992, and the brief remarks of Johnson at Ethnicity, 163–70. However, both focus on Eusebius' polemical use of the demonic to attack the foundations of pagan religion and therefore miss the opportunity to explore how Eusebius' understanding of demons interacted with his thought on other topics.

41 See, for example, Chesnut, G. F., The first Christian histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius, Paris 1977, 163Google Scholar.

42 MacMullen, R. suggested that beliefs in demons and magic led to ‘a darkness of irrationality’, although he was prepared to acknowledge that Christian thinkers including Eusebius shared such beliefs: ‘Constantine and the miraculous’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies ix (1968), 92Google Scholar. For the early modern period Stuart Clark has noted that earlier scholars often considered the topics of witchcraft and demonology to be ‘somehow peculiar and historically unassimilable’: Thinking with demons: the idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe, Oxford 1997, p. viii.

43 Kalleres, D. S., ‘Demons and divine illumination: a consideration of eight prayers by Gregory of Nazianzus’, Vigiliae Christianae lxi (2007), 157–88Google Scholar.

44 Clark, Thinking with demons, p. viii.

45 Smith, G. A., ‘How thin is a demon?’, JECS xvi (2008), 479–512Google Scholar.

46 For a useful survey of Platonic demonology see Timotin, A., La Démonologie platonicienne: histoire de la notion de daimon de Platon aux derniers néoplatoniciennes, Leiden 2012Google Scholar. The key passage on demons as messengers was Plato, Symposium 202d–e.

47 On the ‘gods’ as ‘demons’ see Psalm xcv (xcvi).5, discussed by Origen, Contra Celsum 3.2; 1 Corinthians x.20; Justin 1 Apologia 5.2; and Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 8, 18. The literature on the development of early Christian ideas about demons and the devil is now extensive. Highlights include Flint, V., ‘The demonisation of magic and sorcery in late antiquity: Christian redefinitions of pagan religions’, in Flint, V., Gordon, R., Luck, G. and Ogden, D., Witchcraft and magic in Europe: ancient Greece and Rome, London 1999, 277–348Google Scholar; Pagels, E., ‘Christian apologists and “the fall of the angels”: an attack on Roman imperial power?’, HTR lxxviii (1985), 301–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The origin of Satan, New York 1995; and Reed, A. Y., Fallen angels and the history of Judaism and Christianity: the reception of Enochic literature, Cambridge 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Cf. Brakke, D., Demons and the making of the monk: spiritual combat in early Christianity, Cambridge, Ma 2006, 5Google Scholar. Brakke, for the same reason, also prefers the translation ‘demon’. On Eusebius' unambiguous view of demonic malevolence see p. 11 below.

49 Smith, ‘How thin?’, 482.

50 PE v.2.1.

51 Origen, Exhortation to martyrdom 45, cited in Smith, ‘How thin?’, 483. Further parallels between the views of Origen and Eusebius will be discussed in greater detail at pp. 14–16 below.

52 PE v.2.1.

53 Johnson, Ethnicity, 36.

54 Ibid. 48.

55 Iricinschi, ‘Good Hebrew’, 72; Johnson, Ethnicity, 48.

56 Johnson, Ethnicity, 48, 114–16.

57 Ibid. 48; Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 61–3.

58 See n. 5 above.

59 PE xiii.15.1, cf. vii.16.2; vii.16.7.

60 PE iv.5.4.

61 PE iv.5.5.

62 PE vii.6.1.

63 For example Johnson, Ethnicity, 108, and Inowlocki, ‘Eusebius's appropriation of Moses’, 246.

64 Johnson, Ethnicity, 227–32.

65 For the full range of meanings of this term see H. G. Liddell and R. Scott (eds), A Greek–English lexicon, 9th edn, rev. H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie, Oxford 1996, 1827.

66 Johnson similarly noted this: Ethnicity, 119.

67 PE vii.8.20–1; xi.6.39.

68 PE xi.6.39.

69 PE vii.8.21.

70 Johnson, Ethnicity, 115, citing De migratione Abrahami 20.

71 Johnson, Ethnicity, 116.

72 PE iv.5.4.

73 Ibid.

74 Plato, Cratylus 398b. For discussion of the alternative etymologies of both Plato and Eusebius see Riley, G. J., ‘Demon’, in Van Der Toorn, K., Becking, B. and Van Der Horst, P. W. (eds), Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible, Leiden 1995, 445–55Google Scholar.

75 PE vii.16.2.

76 PE iv.5.1; iv.5.4; xiii.15.1.

77 PE iv.5.4.

78 PE vii.16.10.

79 Ibid; cf. Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.42.2. I am grateful to the anonymous reader for this Journal for highlighting this parallel with Porphyry.

80 Johnson, Ethnicity, 39.

81 Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 60, 63; cf. Johnson, Ethnicity, 40, 106.

82 PE vii.8.30.

83 Ulrich, Euseb und die Juden, 63; Johnson, Ethnicity, 40.

84 Johnson, Ethnicity, 54.

85 Lampe, Lexicon, 1133–4.

86 See, for example, Gifford, Preparation, 214 (PE v.9.12), 266 (PE vi.6.34), 274 (PE vi.6.72).

87 Frede, M., A free will: origins of the notion in ancient thought, ed. Long, A. A., Berkeley 2011Google Scholar; cf. Sorabji, R., Emotion and peace of mind: from Stoic agitation to Christian temptation, Oxford 2000Google Scholar; Bobzien, S., ‘The inadvertent conception and late birth of the free will problem’, Phronesis xliii (1998), 133–75Google Scholar.

88 For example PE vi.6.41; vi.6.63; vi.6.72; vii.18.8.

89 DE iv.1.4. Eusebius, Die demonstratio evangelica, ed. I. A. Heikel, Eusebius Werke, iv, GCS xxiii, Leipzig 1913.

90 PE vi.6.1.

91 Ibid.

92 Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 7, ed. E. Schwartz, Leipzig 1888.

93 PE i.2.1.

94 Ibid.

95 On this see Cox, P., Biography in late antiquity: a quest for the holy man, Berkeley 1983, 69–101Google Scholar.

96 On the library and associated scholarship at Caesarea see Carriker, A. J., The library of Eusebius of Caesarea, Leiden 2003, 1–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Grafton, A. and Williams, M., Christianity and the transformation of the book: Origen, Eusebius and the library of Caesarea, Cambridge, Ma 2006Google Scholar. On Eusebius' attitude towards the legacy of Origen see most recently Penland, E. C., ‘The history of the Caesarean present: Eusebius and narratives of Origen’, in Johnson, A. P. and Schott, J. M. (eds), Eusebius of Caesarea: tradition and innovations, Cambridge, Ma 2013, 83–95Google Scholar.

97 De principiis ii.9.6: Origène, Traité des principes, ed. with introduction and translation by H. Crouzel and M. Simonetti, SC cclii–ccliii, cclxviii–cclxix, Paris 1978–80; cf. De principiis i.6.3.

98 ‘arbitrii liberi, libertas uoluntatis’: De principiis ii.9.6. On Origen's cosmology see Muehlberger, E., Angels in late ancient Christianity, Oxford 2013, 33–4Google Scholar.

99 Buell, Why?, 126.

100 Ibid. 123–6, citing De principiis ii.9.5–6; iii.1.23; cf. Buell, ‘Rethinking’, 470–1.

101 De principiis iii.1.23.

102 Buell, Why?, 125–6.

103 De principiis i.5.1–5.

104 Muehlberger, Angels, 34.

105 De principiis i.8.4.

106 Ibid. i.5.5.

107 DE iv.1.4.

108 PE vii.18.9–10. The parallels between the views on apokatastasis of Eusebius and Origen are examined by Ramelli, I., The Christian doctrine of apokatastasis: a critical assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena, Leiden 2013, 307–31Google Scholar.

109 This was previously highlighted by Johnson, Ethnicity, esp. pp. 93, 109–10.

110 Buell, ‘Rethinking’, 451, and Why?, 138–65.

111 Johnson, Ethnicity, 213–14.

112 For examples see n. 5, above.

113 For dating see Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 277–9.

114 For example Eger, ‘Kaiser und Kirche’, and Tabbernee, W., ‘Eusebius’ “theology of persecution”: as seen in the various drafts of his Church history’, JECS v (1997), 319–34Google Scholar.

115 Vita Constantini iv.54.2; Eusebius, Uber das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, ed. F. Winkelmann, Eusebius Werke, i, 2nd edn, GCS vii, Berlin 1975.