A Major Breakthrough (Thanks to Eusebius)

I’ve made a major breakthrough while studying the writings of Eusebius.

Eusebius was a Christian historian who was Bishop of Caesarea and lived from 260 to 339 a.d.. His most famous work, “Church History” traced the rise of Christianity from the time of the first apostles to the time of Constantine.

He is a highly esteemed historian… very trustworthy.

One cool thing about “Church History” is he dates all his history by weaving in details about the Roman emperors’ reigns (typically focusing on the persecution of Christians during their reigns) as well as those of the Judean prefects. In other words, we can trust his datings of all his events since they is dated and corroborated by other non-Christian historical records.

I’ve made a major breakthrough while studying the writings of Eusebius.

He is a highly esteemed historian… very trustworthy. He pulls from multiple non biblical sources (literally he sifted through a mountain of material) to show the true historicity of the New Testament, always being honest about who he is quoting, and quotes a TON of Josephus and Tacitus.

Here’s what caught me by surprise:

Eusebius, writing this in the early 300’s a.d., prior to the Council of Nicea when the canon was formed, reported on all of the early writings in the church, and whether or not they were recognized as canonical amongst the early church, how certain we were about the author, and so on.

For example, he affirms the 4 gospels are written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that Luke wrote Acts, and affirms that Paul wrote most of the epistles.

He says that some of the disputed works (yet known to most) are James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John. He says the fake ones are the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache (the teachings of the apostles). He says that some accept Revelation and some don’t. Same thing for Hebrews. These last two are “classified with the disputed books those not canonical yet familiar to most church writers”.

Then this is important. He says:

“Writings published by heretics under the names of the apostles, such as the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias, and others, or the Acts of Andrew, John, and other apostles have never been cited by any in the succession of church writers.”

(It’s funny that he actually questions several books that eventually did make it into the New Testament, but in so doing, provides even greater testimony to the most important texts, the gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters, and shows them to be that much more trustworthy.)

Here’s my point…

Don’t you think it’s interesting that Eusebius, historian through and through knows that certain works are authentic and trustworthy, works titled by nobodies like Luke and Mark, and yet he knows that others, supposedly authored by Peter, Andrew or Thomas, are false?

There would be no pressing reason to point out the apocryphal texts as heretical. They don’t blast Jesus or claim he didn’t really raise from the dead, or some great offense like that. So why single them out as being heretical?

I think I know why…

Because the true authors of the New Testament really were that widely known, and the events in these apocryphal texts were widely known to be false.

And how could Eusebius possibly know the contents of these works are false unless what really happened and what was recorded in the canonical gospels was common knowledge amongst all Christians? In other words, it really did happen the way the gospels record it, and anything that popped up and said otherwise was easily dismissed as a lie.

Keep in mind that Eusebius quotes a ton of early Christian writers like Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria. He lists the lineage of every freaking bishop in every major city in the Christian world for the first 300 years after Christ, for Pete’s sake. This guy has the pulse of the church.