169 - the commentary on luke attributed to eusebius of caesarea

Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 169-183 brill.com/vc

VigiliaeChristianae

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700720-12341098

The Commentary on Luke Attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea

A. Whealey216 Stanley Avenue Pacifica, CA 94044 USA

[email protected]

AbstractThe authenticity of a catena on the gospel of Luke (PG 24,529-605), which was attrib-uted to Eusebius of Caesarea by Nicetas of Heraclea, is dubious. One short fragment appears to derive from Procopius of Gazas Commentary on the Octateuch, raising a question about the catenas overall integrity as well as its authenticity. Some of the vocabulary and themes in the longer fragments are more characteristic of Eusebius of Emesa than of Eusebius of Caesarea. Thus the bulk of these fragments were probably written by Eusebius of Emesa, but wrongly attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea because of name confusion in the catenae lemmata.

KeywordsEusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, Nicetas of Heraclea, Jerome, Procopius of Gaza

Among the works dubiously attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea are extracts of a catena of Nicetas of Heracela (PG 24,529-605), which appear to have been drawn from a commentary on the gospel of Luke. However, in his De viris illustribus Jerome mentions no commentary by Eusebius of Caesarea on Luke or any other New Testament book, although he correctly lists exe-getical commentaries by Eusebius on both Isaiah and the Psalms. Since Jerome frequently commented on the Biblical exegesis of his patristic pre-decessors his silence about a commentary on Luke by Eusebius has raised suspicions about the authenticity of Fr.Lc. (PG 24,529-605). After all, Jerome knew Eusebius works quite well; at the time that he wrote De viris illustri-bus in 392 Jerome had translated Eusebius Chronicon and Onomasticon into Latin because of his admiration for Eusebius erudition, and he drew very heavily from Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica for its information on

170 A. Whealey / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 169-183

ante-Nicene Greek Christian writers to use in his own De viris illustribus.1 The reliability of Jeromes information about Eusebius works is borne out by the fact that all of the works that Jerome attributes to Eusebius are indeed known to have been written by him, and that Jerome does not fail to mention any of Eusebius major works. However, it is true that Jeromes list is not comprehensive: he does not include some of Eusebius minor dogmatic and apologetical works such as Contra Hieroclem, Contra Marcel-lum, De ecclesiastica theologia, and De pascha.

Because Jerome fails to mention a commentary on Luke despite the fact that his knowledge of Eusebius works is reliable, and because Fr.Lc. derives from a relatively late catena it is not surprising that it is often ignored as being of doubtful authenticity by scholars in both general and specialized treatments of Eusebius of Caesarea. Johannes Quasten, for example, did not include it among Eusebius works in his Patrology, remarking that although Eusebius wrote voluminous commentaries on the books of the Old Testament. There is no indication that he did the same for the New Testament.2 One exception was D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, who assumed that the passages of Fr.Lc. were from an early work by Eusebius of Caesarea, but who argued that they probably did not derive from an actual commentary on Luke for two reasons, because of their uncharacteristically sparse treat-ment of the third gospel compared to Eusebius quite extensive Biblical exegesis in his undisputably genuine commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms, and because of the silence of Jerome and Photius about a commen-tary on Luke by Eusebius.3 This silence, Wallace-Hadrill argued,

suggests that no such complete commentary existed, and that the text copied by Nicetas into his catena was not in fact a commentary of the usual type. (It would be possible to compile a Johannine catena from patristic sources containing, inter alia, Eusebius comments on fifty or sixty Johannine passages drawn from many of his works. If a later student of such a catena were then to abstract the Eusebian comments and call them Eusebius Commentary on John, he would be making assumptions unwarranted by his text. We have as little reason to credit Eusebius with a Commentary on Luke).4

1)As is well known, Jerome later became much more critical of Eusebius of Caesarea, mainly because he was so strongly influenced by Origen (ep. 119, dated around 406).2)J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 3 (Utrecht, 1966) 337.3)D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, Eusebius of Caesareas Commentary on Luke, its Origin and Early History, Harvard Theological Review 67 (1974) 57.4)Wallace-Hadrill, Commentary on Luke, 57.

The Commentary on Luke Attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea 171

Wallace-Hadrill, however, simply assumed the authenticity of Fr.Lc.; he made no real efffort to demonstrate any stylistic parallels between Euse-bius undisputed works and passages from it, although he did claim to detect an afffinity between the markedly apocalyptic element in many of the passages from Fr.Lc. and a strong apocalyptic element in Eclogae Pro-pheticae (e.p. 1,8; 1,13; 3,42; 4,14).5 He dated Fr.Lc. early because, as he admit-ted, its apocalyptic element is uncharacteristic of Eusebius works as whole.6 He even hypothesized that Fr.Lc. might be the tenth book of Euse-bius early work Generalis elementaria introductio of which the four books of Eclogae Propheticae form the sixth through ninth books, a debatable hypothesis that was followed by T.D. Barnes without critical examination.7 However, the alleged similarities between Eclogae Propheticae and Fr.Lc. are very general; there are very few close verbal parallels. And in fact there are some significant diffferences between the apocalyptic passages of Fr.Lc. and the undisputed works of Eusebius. For example, Eusebius was considerably more circumspect about the terms son of perdition (PG 24,585B; 24,596C), and time of apostasy (PG 24,584C; 585C 588D; 601B, 604B), using them only in direct quotations from the Bible (2 Thess 2,3).8

A more obvious diffference between the supposedly apocalyptic pas-sages of Eclogae Propheticae and Fr.Lc. is that the former focus exclusively on interpreting Old Testament verses, while the latter focus on interpreting New Testament eschatological parables (Lk 12,37; 12,39; 12,42; 12,45; 14,16; 14,18; 17,26; 17,31; 17,34; 19,12-13; 21,26-28), rarely even citing the Old Testa-ment to illuminate them. And in general Old Testament citations in Fr.Lc. are relatively sparse and unvaried compared to the number and variety of Old Testament citations in Eusebius works centered on Bible interpreta-tion, not only his two commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms, but also Demonstratio Evangelica, Eclogae Propheticae and, most significantly, Quaestiones ad Stephanum, which like Fr.Lc., is a work of New Testament exegesis. The relatively few Old Testament citations in Fr.Lc. dispropor-tionately derive from the Christologically-interpreted son of man refer-ence of Dan 7,13, cited three times, which is literally reproduced in the New Testament (Lk 21,27), and from the Psalms, cited fifteen times, which,

5)Wallace-Hadrill, Commentary on Luke, 59-60.6)Wallace-Hadrill, Commentary on Luke, 59, 63.7)T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Harvard University, 1981) 334 n. 135.8)PG 23,785A, Comm. Ps. 70,17 (LXX). Another probable direct quotation of 2 Thess 2,3 by Eusebius of Caesarea is a fragment from the lost fifteenth book of Demonstratio Evangelica which comments on Dan 7,18.


because of their role in church liturgy,9 tended to be better known to Chris-tians than other parts of the Old Testament. All other Old Testament books combined are only cited fifteen times, as many times as the Psalms. In con-trast, the combined fragments of Quaestiones ad Stephanum, which are slightly shorter than Fr.Lc., cite Old Testament books other than the Psalms thirty nine times, and the Psalms sixteen times.10

Like Wallace-Hadrill, Cardinal Mai claimed to see parallels between Fr.Lc. and other texts by Eusebius, namely the Greek fragments of Theo-phania, which he edited and which were reproduced in Mignes Patrologia Graeca. Eduard Schwartz followed Mai in this assumption, hypothesizing that the two sets of fragments derived from the same work.11 However, Wallace-Hadrill pointed out that not only is there little linguistic similar-ity between these two sets of texts, but that some of the fragments of the Migne-Mai edition purporting to derive from Theophania are completely absent from the undisputably authentic Syriac translation of Theophania, raising a question about whether they are correctly attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea.12 Schwartz attempted to account for the absence in the Syriac Theophania of some of the Greek fragments edited by Mai by postulating a second edition of Theophania. He justified this hypothesis with reference to the fact that some of the fragments are labeled .13 However, even if the fragments of the Greek Theophania edited by Mai that are missing in the Syriac Theophania do indeed derive from a second edition of the work by Eusebius, it certainly does not follow from this that Fr.Lc. is part of this work.14

9)Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 3, 37.10)The Biblical citations of the Migne edition for both Fr.Lc. and Quaestiones ad Stephanum (PG 22,880-936; PG 22,957-972) are followed. Because PG 22,901BC and 968BC contain over-lapping material quoting Ps 88:4-52 and Sam 7:14, these quotations were counted only once. According to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Fr.Lc. contains 16,330 words, while the two extant fragments of Quaestiones ad Stephanum (PG 22,880-936; PG 22,957-972) contain a combined total of 15,420 words.11)Schwartz, Griechische Geschichtsschreiber (Leipzig, 1957) 588-589. Barnes complicates matters further by combining this hypothesis with Wallace-Hadrills hypothesis that Fr.Lc. derives from the tenth book of Eusebius Generalis elementaria introductio, assuming, with-out good evidence, that both the Greek fragments of the hypothetical second edition of Theophania and Fr.Lc. were from this lost tenth book (Barnes, Eusebius and Constantine, 170-171, 362). 12)Wallace-Hadrill, Commentary on Luke, 62. 13)Schwartz, Griechische Geschichtsschreiber, 586-88.14)The question of whether those Greek fragments attributed to Theophania that are absent in the Syriac Theophania are indeed by Eusebius of Caesarea cannot be addressed here.


Despite the lack of close linguistic parallels between the genuine works of Eusebius and the passages of Fr.Lc. that were singled out by Wallace-Had-rill, Mai and Schwartz, there certainly is one portion of Fr.Lc. that contains a direct quote from one of Eusebius works. This is a passage about a bronze statue in Paneas near a house supposed to have belonged to the hemorrhag-ing woman whom Jesus healed (Lk 8,43). The statue depicted the woman kneeling and supplicating a male figure who, they say, bore the likeness of Jesus. Maximin removed it due to his own impiety (PG 24,541D-544A). This passage follows the wording of h.e. 7,18,1-3 almost verbatim, except that in his Historia Ecclesiastica Eusebius says nothing at all about Maxi-min removing the statue, leaving his readers with the impression that the statue still existed. However, this quotation of Historia Ecclesiastica is not good evidence that Eusebius himself wrote Fr.Lc.; it could rather be evi-dence that its author simply excerpted and adapted Historia Ecclesiastica for his own work. And in fact the diffferences between the two passages about the statues fate suggest that the latter is more likely.

For while in Historia Ecclesiastica Eusebius says that the statue lasted to his own day and that he saw it himself when he was in Paneas ( ), in PG 24,541D-544A the author brings the reader up to date by noting that the statue was removed by Maximin, which cannot have happened later than 313 when Maximin died, and most likely occurred shortly after he was pro-claimed Caesar sometime between 305 and 308.15 Yet even the final edition of Historia Ecclesiastica, which was issued by Eusebius just before 325,16 was never updated to refer to this subsequent removal of the statue by Maximin. Now those who have accepted the authenticity of Fr.Lc. assume that it dates from early in Eusebius career because of its relatively simple language and its predilection for the sort of eschatological ideas that Euse-bius later eschewed. Yet it is odd that Eusebius would refer to the offficial removal of the statue sometime before 313 in a work that he wrote before Historia Ecclesiastica, while in the final version of Historia Ecclesiastica, completed just before 325, Eusebius says nothing at all about this.

15)T.D. Barnes dates this event to 305 (Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 26, 144), while Wallace-Hadrill to dates it to 308 (Eusebius of Caesarea (London, 1960), 51).16)The dating of the various editions of Historia Ecclesiastica, the earliest of which is believed to cover only Books 1-8, is complex. There is evidence for at least two diffferent edi-tions of Historia Ecclesiastica (E. Schwartz, Eusebius Werke 3. Kirchengeschichte. GCS (Leipzig 1901) lxi-cxlvii), but none of the works manuscripts indicates that it ever contained a refer-ence to Maximins removal of the statue.


Another fragment where an author has excerpted and adapted one of Eusebius works is PG 24,532B-D, which argues that the throne of David in Lk 1,19 is a typological reference to Christ rather than to the literal throne of the historical King David. The argument as a whole derives from Quaes-tiones ad Stephanum, and one phrase ( ) is an almost verbatim excerpt from QSteph 15,5,102.17 However, PG 24,532B-D, like the fragment about the Paneas statue, betrays evidence of having been modified by a later author, for it adds that the new people, Jacob by adop-tion, who are Christians, will rule forever over the old people, Jacob by descent, who are Jews. This is a statement that Eusebius of Caesarea him-self does not make in Quaestiones ad Stephanum, and it sounds very much like the assertion of an author who lived after the offficial Roman sponsor-ship of Christianity was much firmer on the ground than when Eusebius composed Quaestiones ad Stephanum, which is one of his earliest works.18

In PG 24,548A the author has adapted another of Eusebius works, namely Chronicon, which must be the source of his erroneous assertion that Agrippa as well as Archelaus was King Herods son.19 PG 24,540B-541A contains Old Testament exegesis and language very typical of Eusebius of Caesarea: for prophecy, a word which does not appear elsewhere in Fr.Lc., and . However, no extant works of Eusebius are the obvious source of this passage, so if it is an excerpt or citation of one of Eusebius works, it is unclear which one it is. Moreover, the portion of this fragment containing the Eusebian language (PG 24,540B line 22-541A line 13), which treats the parable of the two sons (Mt 21,28-31), looks very much like an intrusion into the rest of the fragment (PG 24,540B lines 17-20; 541A lines 13-26), which treats an entirely diffferent gospel passage, namely Lk 7,29-30. Notably, the portion of the fragment on the passage from Luke does not contain language particularly typical of Eusebius of Caesarea. Thus the entire fragment (PG 24,540A line 17-541A line 26) may be a conflation of

17)The numbering of the edition followed is Claudio Zamagni, Eusbe de Csare, Questions vangliques. SC 523 (Paris, 2008). 18)Schwartz, Griechische Geschichtsschreiber, 522. The Latin translator of this passage has assumed that it is Christ (ille rex) who will rule forever over the old people (PG 24,531C) but this translation is unwarranted by the Greek text (PG 24,532C).19)In fact, Agrippa I was King Herods grandson (Josephus, B.J. 1,255). In Jeromes transla-tion the relevant passage (anno Abrahae 2052) reads Agrippa filius Herodis regis accusator Herodis Tetrarchae Romam profectus a Tiberio in vincula conicitur. Edition consulted is Alfred Schoene, Eusebi Chronicorum libri duo (Frankfurt, 1967; reprint).


two diffferent catenae fragments, only one of which has drawn on an unknown work of Eusebius of Caesarea.

A clearer allusion to one of Eusebius works appears in a short fragment (PG 24,529A), where, on commenting on Lk 1,3, the author remarks that King Herods father Antipater was an Ascalonite temple slave and his mother Cyprin was an Arab, which claim is used to prove that Jews were free and autonomous until the time of Christ, when they supposedly for the first time came under a foreign ruler. This passage ultimately derives from d.e. 8,1,43-44.20 However, like PG 24,548A this passage is only an adap-tation rather than excerpt of one of Eusebius works. Moreover, the passage is almost exactly the same as that appearing in Procopius of Gazas Com-mentary on the Octateuch.21 In fact, it is far closer to Procopius wording than to the wording of d.e. 8,1,43-44, which is believed to have been used by Procopius for his Commentary on the Octateuch.22 This calls into question the attribution of this particular fragment directly to Eusebius of Caesarea, and it indicates that not all of the fragments of Fr.Lc. derive from a single author, since none of its other fragments seem to derive from Procopius. The shorter fragments in particular are more likely to be of heterogeneous origin than the longer ones, which do contain certain common vocabulary and themes. The prevalence of common vocabulary and themes is an indi-cation that fragments PG 24,533C-539A; 544A-548A; 549D-555B; 560-561A, which treat the beatitudes and some of Jesus commandments about his followers conduct, are by a single author, and that fragments PG 24,561-566B and PG 24,572B-604C, which focus particularly on several eschato-logical parables, are also by a single author.

However, the author of these longer fragments is not Eusebius of Cae-sarea. For there are some prominent themes and terms in them that are

20)It is unlikely to derive from Chronicon, the relevant passage of which reads in Jeromes translation (anno Abrahae 1983) Herodes Antipatri Ascalonitae et matris Cypridis Arabicae filius a Romanis Iudaeorum suscipit principatum...non deficiet princeps ex Iuda neque dux de femoribus eius, donec veniat cui repositum est. For this passage, unlike d.e. 8,1,43-44, does not refer to Antipater being a temple slave. And the passage cannot derive from Historia Ecclesiastica because this work does not mention Cyprin by name (h.e. 7,6,2-3; 7,7,11).21)I. Heikel. Eusebius Werke 6. Demonstratio Evangelica. GCS (Leipzig, 1913) 498.22)The ultimate source of the claim that Antipater was an Ascalonite temple slave is Julius Africanus (apud h.e. 7,6,2-3; 7,7,11), while the ultimate source of the name Cyprin for King Herods mother is Josephus (B.J. 1,181; J.A. 14,121). However, the fact that PG 24,529 mixes these two pieces of information deriving from two separate sources makes it almost certain that its author used Eusebius, who used both sources, rather than that he independently used these two separate sources.


unparalleled in Eusebius undisputed works. Most notably, although Euse-bius does assume that giving to the needy is laudable (d.e. 3,3,1; Theoph. 5,14), the extended exaltation of voluntary poverty as a positive virtue in PG 24,533C-536D and PG 24,544-545D and PG 24,560CD cannot be found in Eusebius extant works. Christian poverty was not a topic that much ani-mated Eusebius: the terms or even (PG 24,533D; 536D; 544D; 545BC; 560D) can hardly be found in his undisputed works.23 Even though Eusebius does note that the apostles were poor (d.e. 3,6,22; 3,5,60; 3,5,74-75), following an (d.e. 3,5,37;), he mentions this not so much because it is inherently admirable, as because it proves that Jesus could not have been a deceiver, since the apostles would not have endured privation for someone that they knew to be a fraud. And in none of his undisputed extant works does Eusebius comment explicitly on Lk 6,20, blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of God. In Demonstratio Evangelica, (d.e. 3,3,1), Eclogae Propheticae (e.p. 4,31; PG 24,1253D-1256A), Commentarii in Isaiam,24 and Commentarii in Psalmos Eusebius prefers to cite Matthews more metaphorical version of this beatitude, which refers to the poor in spirit (Mt 5,3) rather than the literal poor. Moreover, this is done to prove that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah 61,1 and several passages in the Psalms.25 When citing Matthews version of the beatitude Eusebius hardly comments on the subject of the poor themselves, who they are, and in what way they are considered blessed. Evidently, this topic was of little literary interest to him. The contrast with the author of the fragments PG 24,533C-539A (on Lk 6,20), 544D-545D (on Lk 9,3) and 560CD (on Lk 12,34) could hardly be greater.

In addition, Eusebius does not use the term soldiers of the kingdom of God (or heaven) (PG 24,536C; 546B-D; 553BC), nor does he often apply the word soldier to the apostles and their successors (PG 24,553C), as we find throughout PG 24,545B-C; 549D-552A; 555C. Martyrs are the only church members regularly referred to by Eusebius as soldiers (h.e. 8,4,3; 10,4,15; 10,4,29). Also the angelology of Fr.Lc. is not typical of Eusebius of Caesarea.

23)No examples of were found in Eusebius extant works. In a Greek fragment from the longer recension of Martyribus Palestinae 11,3 it is remarked in passing that Pam-philus followed an but this point is not elaborated upon. 24)Comm. Is. 2,51. Edition consulted is J. Ziegler, Eusebius Werke. Jesaiakommentar. GCS (Berlin, 1975).25)PG 23,761D (referencing Ps 68,30-31 (LXX)); 796B (referencing Ps 71,3 (LXX); 809C (refer-encing Ps 71,12 (LXX) and Is 61,1); 865B (referencing Ps 73,19-21 and Is 61,1); 1029B (referencing Ps 85,1 (LXX)).


The idea expressed in PG 24,564A and PG 24,604B that an angel receives each soul at death does not appear in Eusebius undisputed works, which rarely refer to personal angels, as opposed to Biblical or cosmological angels. Even more uncharacteristic is the claim at PG 24,605C that the angels who used to dwell in the Temple tore its curtain at Jesus crucifixion (Lk 23,45). In Demonstratio Evangelica (d.e. 8,2,111-122) and Eclogae Prophet-icae (e.p. 3,46 (PG 22,1189C)), Eusebius says nothing about such angels in the Temple tearing its curtain at Jesus crucifixion. Instead, according to him, the veil was torn when a certain divine Power supervising the Temple and the holy of holies abandoned its libation and sacrifice (d.e. 8,2,111), and in both passages he cites Josephus account of a preternatural voice announcing abandonment of the Temple (B.J. 6,299) to support this idea of Temple sacrifice being abandoned by God. Moreover, the wording of Euse-bius account in d.e. 8,2,112-122 and p.e. 3,46 does not in any noticeable way resemble the account of PG 24,605BC.

Also uncharacteristic of Eusebius early works are the most common epi-thets used for Jesus in Fr.Lc.: an unmodified , an unmodified , and an unmodified . In his early works Eusebius greatly prefers our Savior ( or occasionally ) and our Savior and Lord ( ) over an unmodified . For exam-ple, in Quaestiones ad Stephanum, which is an early work of Eusebius of comparable length to Fr.Lc. that was also transmitted indirectly in catenae, some form of our Savior or our Savior and Lord appears at least eighteen times,26 while an unmodified appears only five times. In contrast, an unmodified appears more than forty times in Fr.Lc. while our Savior appears only once in the same work (PG 24,596B).27 In Quaestiones

26)QSteph 1,2,17; 1,12,286; 2,4,56; 6,1,17; 7,2,56; 7,6,138; 9,1,1; 9,3,35; 10,3,77; 15,4,78; 15,4,81; 15,5,93; 15,5,103; 16,1,5; 16,2,27; 16,3,35; 16,4,57, and PG 22,969C. There are two manuscript sources of Quaestiones ad Stephanum, the so-called Ekloge, which is cited according to the edition of Zamagni, Questions vangliques, and the catena of Nicetas of Heraclea, which is cited according to Mignes edition.27)Furthermore, in the fourth book of Eclogae Propheticae, which, according to Wallace-Hadrills conjecture, immediately preceded Fr.Lc. as part of his Generalis elementaria intro-ductio, Eusebius uses our Savior or our Savior and Lord over thirty times, while he uses an unmodified only about eight times. In the first book of Demonstratio Evangelica, which forms part of the work most likely to have been written after Generalis elementaria introductio, Eusebius uses our Savior or our Savior and Lord about twenty six times and an unmodified only about three times. If Eusebius of Caesarea wrote Fr.Lc. between the fourth book of Eclogae and the first book Demonstratio, as Wallace-Hadrill suggests, why did he alter this stylistic usage so much?


ad Stephanum Eusebius uses for Jesus twice (QSteph 8,4), but only when applying to Jesus an Old Testament quotation that uses this title,28 while as a substitute for Jesus without any Old Testament allusion appears at least ten times in Fr.Lc.29 Moreover, a free-standing for Jesus (PG 24,581D; 593A; 604B; 605B) is not used in Eusebius early works. Eusebius does use for Jesus very rarely in some later works, how-ever, not as free-standing epithet but rather modified or coupled with other titles for Jesus: for example, (Comm. Ps. PG 23, 237; l. C. 17,4); (Theol. Eccl. 1,9,3), and (v. C. 3,12,5).

If Fr.Lc. is not by Eusebius of Caesarea, who might be its author? The most plausible candidate for the longer fragments is Eusebius of Emesa. First, Eusebius of Emesa was both influenced by Eusebius of Caesarea,30 and yet unwilling to credit him by name in any of his extant works.31 This silent influence could explain the unacknowledged use of h.e. 7,18,1-3 at PG 24,541C-544A, Quaestiones ad Stephanum at PG 24,532C, or Chronicon at PG 24,548AB, as well as other possible but less obvious parallels between Euse-bius of Caesareas works and Fr.Lc. Second, misattribution of Eusebius of Emesas works to Eusebius of Caesarea and vice versa was common. One entire collection of the Emesenes sermons that were translated into Latin in late antiquity was misattributed to Eusebius of Caesarea.32 Conversely, several catena fragments attributed to Eusebius of Emesa are actually from the works of Eusebius of Caesarea. In his edition of the Emesenes works surviving in Eastern languages, E.M. Buytaert noted that a comment on Isa-iah attributed by several catenae to the Emesene is actually from Eusebius of Caesareas Commentarii in Isaiam.33 In addition, Buytaert overlooked several other cases of catenae fragments attributed to the Emesene that are

28)Here Eusebius calls the in Ps 131,1-5 a reference to Bethlehem ( ).29)In PG 24,544A; 545B; 545D; 549A; 556B; 557C; 561C; 561D; 593D-596A; and 604B the title clearly refers to Jesus. In addition, in PG 24,565B and PG 24,564C probably refers to Jesus, and both 24,564A and 24,564D use for Jesus. 30)Quasten, Patrology, 349.31) Even in his treatise Adversus Sabellium, which is thought to obliquely laud Eusebius of Caesarea, the Caesarean is never named by the Emesene but is rather referred to as beatus ille vir (E.M. Buytaert, Eusbe dmse, Discours conservs en Latin, 2 Vols. (Louvain, 1953) 1:105,112, 122. 32)Quasten, Patrology, 350.33)E.M. Buytaert, Lhritage littraire dEusbe dmse (Louvain, 1949) 173.


in fact by the Caesarean.34 Confusion between the two Eusebiuses in the catenae is hardly surprising given that lemmata frequently read Eusebius without any specification as to which Eusebius is meant.35 This has impli-cations for the question whether Fr.Lc. as a whole is correctly attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea since it derives from a catena as well.

Unfortunately, very little of Eusebius of Emesas work in Greek has survived, which makes diffficult any stylistic comparison between Fr.Lc. and the Emesenes genuine works. The sole intact Greek work by Euse-bius of Emesa is PG 31,1476-1488, a short homily on repentance that was misattributed to the more famous and more orthodox Basil of Caesarea.36 There also survive some passages of De arbitrio, a dogmatic work quoted by Theodoret in Eranistes. Despite their brevity, it is suggestive that these two Greek remnants of the Emesene use a simple unmodified (De poenitencia 4, 10),37 (De arbitrio 1, 4, 5), and (De poeni-tencia, 11)38 as titles for Jesus, for, as already noted, these epithets are more characteristic of Fr.Lc. than of Eusebius of Caesareas undisputed works. And throughout the Latin versions of Eusebius of Emesas works one finds as titles of Jesus Salvator without noster, Dominus,39 and Magister,40 which must be a translation of .

34)Fragments 59 (on Gen 49,8-10) and Fragment 60 (on Gen 49,11) are attributed to the Emesene (Buytaert, Lhritage, 120*-122*), but they actually derive from respectively d.e. 8,1,39-40 and d.e. 8,1,73. Fragments 10, 11 and 13 of a hypothetical commentary on Numbers attributed to the Emesene (Buytaert, Lhritage, 138*-139*), derive respectively from d.e. 9,3,4, d.e. 9,3,7-8, and d.e. 9,1,16, and d.e. 9,1,7. The reconstruction of Eusebius of Emesas commentary on Genesis based on a partial Armenian translation of it has revealed that Buytaert erroneously assumed that a few other fragments of this commentary were cor-rectly attributed to Eusebius of Emesa. This fact highlights the precariousness of catenae attributions in general, including Fr.Lc. For this updated reconstruction integrating the extant Armenian and Greek fragments see R.B. ter Haar Romeny, A Syrian in Greek Dress (Leiden, 1997)156-443.35)Buytaert, Lhritage, 95*-139* notes.36)The best edition of this work, cited by its Latin title De poenitencia, is now in Buytaert, Lhritage, 16*-29.* Subsequent citations of this work follow the numbering as it appears in this edition.37)Buytaert, Lhritage, 17*, 21.*38)Buytaert, Lhritage, 23.*39)Out of more than seventy uses of Dominus for Jesus in the second volume of the Latin versions of Eusebius of Emesas sermons, only one is modified by noster (De mandato Domini, 8). 40)Buytaert, Eusbe dmse, 2: 318.


Moreover, in the many extant Latin versions of the Emesenes works there are some thematic common points with Fr.Lc. For example, Eusebius of Emesa, like the author of Fr.Lc., was much more apt to extol the virtue of voluntary poverty (adversus Sabellium 1; De virginibus 4; De quinque pani-bus 3; De apostolis et fide 1,31, 33; 2,1-2; De avaritia 13-17; 24-25; De mandato Domini 25-27) than Eusebius of Caesarea. In particular, the Emesene calls those believers to whom Jesus grants spiritual rather than monetary gifts successors of the apostles (De avaritia 13). This is reminiscent of the author of PG 24,534C-540A; 545C-D; 549D-553C, who likens the apostles and their successors (PG 24,553C) to soldiers of the kingdom of God because of their . And Eusebius of Emesa compares exemplary Christians to soldiers: not only are martyrs soldiers but so are the virgins of the church, Christian women who choose not to marry (De martyribus 20; De virginibus 21). Angels in general feature frequently in Eusebius of Emesas works,41 and in them angels have a personal relationship with the believer (De fide, 36; De resurrectione 2,1; De poenitencia 10),42 unlike in the works of Eusebius of Caesarea. In addition, the paucity of Old Testament citation in Fr.Lc. in general is also characteristic of Eusebius of Emesas sermons of gospel exegesis, namely De arbore fici, De quinque panibus, De eo quod ait Dominus, and De mandato Domini. As already indicated, this stands in con-trast to Eusebius of Caesareas exegesis, with its very marked tendency to interpret the New Testament through the lens of the Old Testament.

And there are other parallels with Eusebius of Emesas works. In the par-able of the minas (Lk 19,12-27), the author stresses that the disciples are given one mina each, since there is one teaching for all, one faith, and one baptism (PG 24,592A). This recalls what Robert Winn has noted as Euse-bius of Emesas insistence on unity in the church, as he puts it in De aposto-lis et fide 1,36 there is one Lord, one shepherd, one priest, one body, one head, one church.43 Winn has also pointed out that Eusebius of Emesa had a predilection for (virtus) as a Christological title;44 in accordance with this the author at PG 24,565D refers to Christ as . Finally, the metaphor of the apostles and their successors as fishers of men, referred to at PG 24,544B, appears over and over again in Eusebius of

41) Buytaert, Eusbe dmse, 2: 318.42)Buytaert, Lhritage, 22.*43)Robert E. Winn, The Church of Virgins and Martyrs: Ecclesiastical Identity in the Ser-mons of Eusebius of Emesa, Journal of Early Christian Studies 11,3 (2003) 316.44)Winn, Church of Virgins and Martyrs, 324 esp. n. 41.


Emesas sermons (De arbitrio, 28; De arbore fici 27; De apostolis et fide, 1,16, 20-24; De Petro, 11; De resurrectione 2,36; De incorporali 4,19).45

If Eusebius of Emesa wrote the longer fragments in Fr.Lc. why does Jerome not clearly refer to a commentary on Luke by him, mentioning only short homilies on the gospels in De viris illustribus? One possibility is that Fr.Lc. derive from homilies that were delivered sequentially on individual verses of Luke, like Origens series of homilies on Luke, rather than from one running commentary on Luke. An observation that might favor the hypothesis that Fr.Lc. derive from the short homilies on the gospels men-tioned by Jerome is that, like Eusebius of Emesas sermons, some of the fragments use first or second person pronouns, as if an actual audience was being addressed.46 It is also suggestive that the longer fragments of Fr.Lc. do compare passages of Luke to parallels with Matthew with some regularity, a possible indication that they were culled from a commentary or perhaps a series of homilies that originally treated at least one other gospel besides Luke.47 However, it is of course also possible that Jeromes short homilies on the gospels refer not to Fr.Lc. at all, but only to sermons like De arbore fici, in which Eusebius of Emesa treats single parables from the gospels.48

In any case, it should be noted that Jeromes list of works in De viris illus-tribus by Eusebius of Emesa is far from comprehensive. The catenae and a partial Armenian translation have revealed that Eusebius of Emesa wrote a commentary on Genesis and possibly on the rest of the Pentateuch as well,49 yet Jerome does not mention this in De viris illustribus, nor does Jerome mention a number of Eusebius of Emesas longer dogmatic works either, such as De incorporali, De resurrectione or De arbitrio, even though

45)Numerous passages referring more obliquely to this theme can be found in Eusbe dmse, 2: 322. Eusebius of Caesareas rare treatment of the fishers of men theme (Theoph. 4.6; Greek Fragment 6 in H. Gressmann, Eusebius Werke 3. Die Theophanie. GCS (Leipzig, 1904)) is very stylistically labored compared to the simple wording of these passages in Euse-bius of Emesas sermons and in PG 24,543B. 46)PG 24,552C-553A; 556; 562D-565D; 576D; 581; 583D; 593A; 597C.47)PG 24,533C-537A; 540A; 544D; 546B; 568A; 576A; 581A; 588B; 600A. These frequent com-parisons to Matthew prompted Mignes editor to hypothesize that Fr.Lc. were drawn from a work that treated more than one gospel (PG 24,533-536 n. 45, 46 and 48; 24,557-558 n. 59; 24,567-68 n. 61).48)De quinque panibus, de eo quod ait Dominus, de mandato Domini are other examples of sermons that treat single parables from the gospels. 49)Buytaert, Lhritage, 15; 38-41. Judging from Syriac sources, this commentary may have taken the form of a series of questions and answers. For the partial Armenian translation see R.B. ter Haar Romeny, A Syrian in Greek Dress, 25-26.


the latter was well-known enough to be quoted by Theodoret. These facts prove that Jerome did not make a very concerted efffort to give a full account of Eusebius of Emesas works in De viris illustribus. Therefore his failure to clearly indicate in this work that Eusebius of Emesa wrote a commentary on Luke, unlike his silence about a commentary on Luke by Eusebius of Caesarea, about whose works he is far more thorough, cannot be consid-ered significant evidence against the Emesenes authorship of most of the fragments of Fr.Lc. In addition, since Jerome himself never wrote a com-mentary on Luke he had little occasion to mention any works by Eusebius of Emesa on this gospel. In contrast, the fact that Jerome himself wrote a commentary on Galatians prompted him to mention in its prologue and in De viris illustribus that Eusebius of Emesa wrote his own commentary on Galatians.50

Before concluding, the question as to whether the author of the longer fragments of Fr.Lc. is the same as the author who adapted Historia Ecclesi-astica, Chronicon and Quaestiones ad Stephanum in the shorter fragments (PG 24,532B-D; 541D-544A; 548A) should be addressed. It is certainly chron-ologically possible that Eusebius of Emesa was the author responsible for these adaptations of the Caesareans works,51 and it is known that Eusebius of Emesa was generally influenced by the Caesarean. Yet these adaptations are almost slavishly dependent on the Caesareans works compared to the longer fragments. As we have seen, the ideas in the longer fragments, par-ticularly concerning poverty and the end times, difffer considerably from those of Eusebius of Caesarea. This suggests that the shorter fragments may have been misattributed to Eusebius of Caesarea by a catenist who recog-nized their Eusebian content, while the more lengthy fragments were mis-attributed to the Caesarean because of name confusion with the Emesene. As already mentioned, one of the fragments whose Eusebian content caused misattribution to Eusebius of Caesarea himself is apparently derived

50)Likewise, although Jeromes composition of Liber quaestionum hebraicarum in Genesim prompted him to refer to a comment of Eusebius of Emesa on Genesis that probably was taken from his commentary on this Old Testament book (Buytaert, Lhritage, 15), he did not mention this commentary in De viris illustribus. This is one more indication that he did not attempt to treat Eusebius of Emesas works comprehensively De viris illustribus.51)One of these shorter fragments (PG 24,532C), which alludes to the Jews being ruled for-ever by Christians, is reminiscent of the rhetoric of Eusebius of Emesa in De arbitrio, 27 that no Christian should enter a synagogue now that the emperor religiosus et pius et Deum colens et Christum adorans habetur et videt[tur] christianus; cum tanta pars orbis praeventa iam est religiositate; cum serviunt Iudaei dispersi.


from Procopius of Gazas Commentary on the Octateuch. This indicates that not all of the fragments should necessarily be attributed to a single author.

There are marked diffferences in the vocabulary, themes, and use of the Old Testament between most of the fragments of Fr.Lc. and the undisputed works of Eusebius of Caesarea. In addition, the lack of ancient attestation for a commentary on Luke by Eusebius of Caesarea weighs against the attri-bution of Fr.Lc. to him. The fact that an eleventh century catena attributes Fr.Lc. to the Caesarean is hardly strong evidence for his authorship since catena lemmata were so frequently confused in transmission. In addition, at least one short fragment appears to derive from Procopius of Gaza, rais-ing a question whether all the fragments derive from a single author. At least three of the shorter fragments appear to have been written by a later author who adapted select passages from works by Eusebius of Caesarea. The most plausible author of the longer fragments is Eusebius of Emesa.

/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 150 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 550 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 2400 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /PDFX1a:2001 ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError false /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox false /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (GWG_GenericCMYK) /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False

/Description > /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ > /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles false /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (2.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> ]>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice

169 - the commentary on luke attributed to eusebius of caesarea

Documents

eusebius of emesa

characteristic of eusebius

eusebius chronicon

eusebius erudition

eusebius of caesareaa

knowledge of eusebius

eusebius major works

eusebius minor dogmatic