Eusebius (263–339)

Why I ever purchased this in 2012, I have no idea! Upon finally opening it up on my Kindle, I can tell you that most of the 980 pages were a slog. I did NOT read all 980 pages. I read about 400 pages written by Constantine the Great that deal with self-praise for his successes and his explanation on why he accepted Christianity, why he made it the national religion, and how men and women in the empire would reap the benefits of his conversion. This also included Eusebius' Oration of Praise show more in Honor of Constantine. In the scholarly historical sense, it wasn't "bad." In the enjoyment sense, pffft! There were as many notes as script and often they were more interesting. Off it goes into Kindle space! (The "original" is 32,400 pages, 38 volumes) show less

I read the Church History by Eusebius in this volume (of the Church Fathers set), which covers about 3/5 of the book. I'll read The Life of Constantine (also by Eusebius in this volume) later.

The notes in this volume are prodigious. It would have taken me much longer to finish had I read all the notes. What notes I did read were very informative, I thought.

The translation and notes are old, however. They come from about 1890. I was surprised at how modern-sounding they were however - siding show more with the gnostics, for instance, or discrediting some of the more naive claims of Eusebius for Constantine. Very well done.

This is a good book to read if you want to know about the history of the persecutions of the church in the first three centuries after Christ. It's very graphic and in some places sounds like a modern journalistic expose of the many events. Heresy is the other subject that gets some attention in the book. show less

The first surviving history of the Christian Church is well served by this translation and commentary. Eusebius has the occasional dry passage, but his perspective as a Christian writing about Christians in first three centuries of the Roman Empire more than make up for this.

For my latest history fix, I decided to go way back to the first 300 years after Christ. (Of course, having received this book for Christmas influenced this decision somewhat.) It was interesting and amusing to read about the first centuries of the Christian Church, reading of controversies and heresies that have been revived almost 20 centuries later. Once, Eusebius gets to the years of his life, however, and speaks of the persecutions that some faced, I was reminded that American show more Christians, at least, live in a very different world.
--J. show less