THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 300

Eusebius and the Latin Medieval Chronicle

20.8. Eusebius and the Latin Medieval Chronicle

There are already anticipations in the fourth century of the marvellous scheme of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth, whereof the chief features were a two-storied firmament and a great northern mountain to hide the sun by night — all duly supported by scriptural quotations. The results to which Greek speculation had by a supreme intellectual effort arrived were cast aside in favour of the wildest Eastern fancies, because these latter had the apparent sanction of Genesis and the Psalms. The heliocentric theory of the universe, which although not universally admitted had at least been propounded and warmly supported, was deliberately refused, first on the authority of Aristotle, and a system adopted which led the world astray until Galileo. Genesis demanded that the earth should be the centre, and the sun and stars lights for man’s convenience.

Again, the notion of a spherical earth was favoured in classical antiquity even by geocentricians. But the words of Psalmist, Prophet, and Apostle required a flat earth over which the heavens could be stretched like a tent, and the believers in a globe with antipodes were scouted with arguments borrowed from Lucretius the epicurean and materialist. Augustine denies the possibility not of a rotund earth but of human existence at the antipodes. "There was only one pair of original ancestors, and it was inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants." The logic is fair enough; the false premiss arises from the worship of the letter. The fact is that while as spiritual teachers the fathers are unrivalled, common sense interpretation is rare enough in our period; it is not often that we find such sober judgment as is shewn by Basil. "What is meant," he writes (Horn, in Ps. xxviii), "by the voice of the Lord? Are we to understand thereby a disturbance caused in the air by the vocal organs?"

Is it not rather a lively image, a clear and sensible vision imprinted on the mind of those to whom God wishes to communicate His thought, a vision analogous to that which is imprinted on our mind when we dream? In a connexion with the unquestioning trust in the letter of Scripture as the touch-stone for all matters of knowledge some mention must be made of attempts to adjust universal history by the standard of Biblical dates, although the results, in one instance at least, bear witness to no uncritical credulity but to a singular freedom from prejudice and to love of truth.

The science of comparative chronography, so greatly developed by the Byzantines, was really founded by Sextus Julius Africanus in the early third century. The beginning which he made was carried out with far greater knowledge and with the use of much better material by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (A.D. 265-338). Former critics were inclined to belittle Eusebius's work and qualify him as a dishonest writer who perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms (so Niebuhr and Bunsen). It is certainly true that he manipulates the figures supplied by his authorities and employs conjecture and analogy to control the incredible length of their time-periods. But his reductions are all worked in the sight of the reader, who if he cannot allow the main contention, viz. the infallibility of the Biblical numbers, must confess the honesty of the method and the soundness of the process.

In dealing with Hebrew chronology Eusebius shews candour and judgment. There was need of both, for even when the discrepancies between the Hebrew and the LXX texts were removed by claiming for the latter a higher inspiration, there remained contradictions enough between the covers of the Greek Bible. For instance, the time between the Exodus and Solomon's Temple is different in Acts and Judges from what it is in Kings. On this point Eusebius, after a fair and sensible discussion, decided boldly and to the dismay of his contemporaries against St Paul in favour of the shorter period, remarking that the Apostle's business was to teach the way of salvation and not accurate chronology. The effect of this decision is to lessen the antiquity of Moses by 283 years. This was clean against the whole tendency of previous apologists, who desired to establish the seniority of the Hebrew over all other lawgivers and philosophers. Eusebius, although conscious that the reversal of preconceived opinion demands some apology, is content to place Moses after Inachus.

The work in which these novel conclusions were set forth consists of two parts, of which the first (Chronographia) contains the historical material — extracts from profane and sacred writers — for the synthetic treatment of the second part (Canones). Here the lists of the world's rulers are displayed in parallel columns shewing at a glance with whom any given monarch is contemporary. Sidenotes accompany the lists, marking the main events of history, and a separate column gives the years of the world's age, reckoned from the birth of Abraham. The choice of this event as the starting point of the Synchronism distinguishes the work of Eusebius from that of his predecessors and does great credit to his historical sense and honesty. As a Christian he felt that his standard of measurement must be the record of the scriptures; but as a historian he saw that history really begins with Abraham, the earlier chapters of Genesis being intended for edification rather than instruction.

At a time when the Jews were a despised race, it was no slight achievement to place their history on a footing with that of proud and powerful monarchies, and although Eusebius's work cannot at all points stand the test of modern science, it is of permanent value to-day both as a source of information and as a model of historical research. The Canons were translated by Jerome and thus obtained at once, even in the West, a position of undisputed authority. The Latin medieval chronicle is founded on Eusebius, whose name, together with his translator's, quite overshadowed all other workers in the same field whether earlier or later, such as Africanus or Sulpicius Severus.

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