The Eccesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus

Review of this book from Wikipedia: The Church History of Eusebius (the Bishop of Caesarea) was a 4th-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Early Christianity from the 1st century to the 4th century. It was written in Koine Greek, and survives also in Latin, Syriac and Armenian manuscripts. The result was the first full-length historical narrative written from a Christian point of view. Eusebius' Chronicle, which attempted to lay out a comparative timeline of pagan and Old Testament history, set the model for the other historiographical genre, the medieval chronicle or universal history. Eusebius had access to the Theological Library of Caesarea and made use of many ecclesiastical monuments and documents, acts of the martyrs, letters, extracts from earlier Christian writings, lists of bishops, and similar sources, often quoting the originals at great length so that his work contains materials not elsewhere preserved. It is therefore of historical value, though it pretends neither to completeness nor to the observance of due proportion in the treatment of the subject-matter. Nor does it present in a connected and systematic way the history of the early Christian Church. It is to no small extent a vindication of the Christian religion, though the author did not primarily intend it as such. Eusebius has been often accused of intentional falsification of the truth; in judging persons or facts he is not entirely unbiased. Eusebius attempted according to his own declaration to present the history of the Church from the apostles to his own time, with special regard to the following points: 1. the successions of bishops in the principal sees; 2. the history of Christian teachers; 3. the history of heresies; 4. the history of the Jews; 5. the relations to the heathen; 6. the martyrdoms. He grouped his material according to the reigns of the emperors, presenting it as he found it in his sources. The contents are as follows: Book I: detailed introduction on Jesus Christ; Book II: The history of the apostolic time to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; Book III: The following time to Trajan; Books IV and V: approximately the 2nd century; Book VI: The time from Septimius Severus to Decius; Book VII: extends to the outbreak of the persecution under Diocletian; Book VIII: more of this persecution; Book IX: history to Constantine's victory over Maxentius in the West and over Maximinus in the East; Book X: The reestablishment of the churches and the rebellion and conquest of Licinius.