Eusebius of Caesarea: Text and Tradition in Late Ancient Christianity

FAIN: FB-55603-11

Jeremy M. Schott
Trustees of Indiana University (Charlotte, NC 28223-0001)

This intellectual biography of Eusebius of Caesarea [c.260-339 CE] offers a major reassessment of one of the most significant figures in the history of late antiquity and reveals this “father of church history” as a pivotal, though neglected, figure in the history of western literature, aesthetics, and intellectual culture. My study fills a crucial gap by offering the first focused study of Eusebius as a reader and writer. I examine Eusebius’s development of specific theoretical and practical approaches to textuality, and in turn, show how these strategies shaped subsequent readers and writers, both within and outside of the Christian tradition. By examining the aesthetics and metaphysics of textuality in Eusebius’s work, this study contributes to discussions across the humanities, particularly the history of the book and the historiography of literary and linguistic theory.