Prophyry and Bishop Eusebius

Porphyry was a "pagan" Neoplatonic philosopher who had studied both the Old and New Testaments. He had decided that the Book of Daniel had not been written when claimed but during the time of the Maccabaean revolts. Porphyry found that the genealogies of Matthew and Luke conflicted with each other, and he had pointed to their conflicting descriptions of Jesus' infancy. Against the claim that the apostles were infallible, Porphyry had asked why then did Peter and Paul quarrel. Porpyhry was a neo-Platonist. He believed that God was the author of good and therefore that the idea of God's eternal punishment was nonsense. Porphyry believed that good came to people through their connecting themselves with God. He believed that people could see only a part of the whole but that it was their duty to wed their minds to God as best they could. Evil, he believed, came from people deviating from an awareness of God.

Bishop Eusebius was a scholar of history and theology. With Porphyry in mind, but few referrals to Porphyry, Eusibius wrote 25 books against paganism. History, wrote Eusibius, was a struggle between divine authority and a multiplicity of demonic influences that had taken the form of paganism. Seeing paganism as a deviation from devotion to the "One True God," he claimed that in reality it was atheism. Believing in the authority of One True God, Eusebius saw the existence of many states and rulers as the work of the devil. This multiplicity of rule he called "polyarchy." He described history as moving with divine purpose from polyarchy to an era in which all political authority united into a singular authority emanating from God: the authority of the Roman Emperor, Constantine.

According to Eusebius, Jewish religion, Greek philosophy and Roman law had come together to enable the Christian revelation to take root and to grow to maturity. He wrote that if Christ had been born into the world at any other time, the world would not have been able to receive him. Before Jesus, according to Eusebius, cities were at war against cities, nations at war against nations, and life was "being wasted and spent in all manner of confusion." Eusebius wrote (in Praeparatio Evangelica, I, c, 4) that "in the days when the demons tyrannized over all the nations," humanity had "rushed madly into mutual slaughter," enslaving one another and "wasting one another's cities with sieges." Then, according to Eusebius, came the disappearance of the Jewish state and the coming of the Roman Empire, as prophesied in the Bible. According to Eusebius, Rome's rise as an empire was a part of a divine plan, as was the coming to power of Augustus Caesar, who, he wrote, brought "mastery over the nations." With Caesar, wrote Eusebius, the multitude of rulers for the most part disappeared and peace covered all of the earth, again as prophesied in the Bible. Then, according to Eusebius, Augustus prepared the way for the birth of Jesus Christ. This, he wrote (in Praeparatio Evangelica, I, c. 4) was when "the fortunes of Rome reached their zenith."

Eusebius wrote that, with Constantine, nations "found rest and respite from their ancient miseries." He wrote that government as practiced by Constantine was "a system and method of government for all states." Its rival, political equality and democracy, he described as "polyarchy" and as "anarchy and dissension rather than a form of government." Supporting a singular theocratic authority, Eusebius wrote that there is "one God -- not two or three or more." (Tricennial Oration, c. I:6)

Eusebius wrote approvingly of Constantine schooling his sons "into harmony with the reins of inspired unison and concord." Constantine had passed his rule to his three sons. The empire was to be divided among them, and the harmony about which Eusebius wrote would soon be tested by events.