6. THE CONTENTS. In his first sentence Eusebius shows us that the proper title of his proposed work as a whole is The Demonstration of the Gospel ( Αποδειξις Ευαγγελικη ), of which the first part ( Προπαρασκευη της Ευαγγελικης Αποδειξεως , or more briefly Ευαγγελικη Προπαρασκευη ) is intended to explain beforehand the objections which are likely to be urged against the Christians and their religion by both Greeks and Jews.
These objections refer to three main points:----
(i) The abandonment of the ancestral religion of the Greeks (5 a 2).
(ii) The acceptance of the foreign doctrines of the Barbarians, i. e. Jews (5 b).
(iii) The inconsistency of rejecting the Jewish sacrifices, rites, and general manner of life, while appropriating their sacred Scriptures and promised blessings (5 c).
The third point, however, is not included in the Preparation for the reason stated in the closing sentence (856 a 6), but is left for consideration in the Demonstration.
The fifteen books containing the discussion of the first two points are divided into five groups of three each, and this distribution is clearly indicated at the beginning of each group in Books I, IV, VII, X, XIII, while in the first chapter of Book XV we have a clear summary of the whole preceding argument, showing how the several divisions have been treated each in three books.
The first three books discuss the threefold system of Pagan Theology, Mythical, Allegorical, and Political (788 b 3-d 3). The next three, IV-VI, give an account of the chief oracles, of the worship of daemons, and of the various opinions of Greek philosophers on the doctrines of Fate and Free Will.
Books VII-IX give reasons for preferring the religion of the Hebrews founded chiefly on the testimony of various authors to the excellency of their Scriptures and the truth of their history. |xix
In Books X-XII Eusebius argues that the Greeks had borrowed from the older theology and philosophy of the Hebrews, dwelling especially on the supposed dependence of Plato upon Moses.
In the last three books the comparison of Plato with Moses is continued, and the mutual contradictions of other Greek philosophers, especially the Peripatetics and Stoics, are exposed and criticized.
A like orderly arrangement is observed in the smaller divisions of each group.
Book I. After stating the general purpose and plan of his intended work (chapters 1-5), Eusebius takes a brief survey of the earliest notions of the origin of the world, of mankind, and of the gods from the writings of Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Xenophon, Plato, and Porphyry (chapters 6-9, 17 b-30 d), showing that a simpler worship of sun, moon, and stars had preceded the endless theogonies and bloody sacrifices of the manifold forms of superstition among the heathen nations. The remainder of the book (31 a-42 d) is occupied by Philo's translation of Sanchuniathon's account of the Phoenician theology.
In Book II the religions of Egypt and of Greece are described in the words of Diodorus and of Clement of Alexandria; after which Eusebius himself states his reasons for rejecting both the gross legends of the older mythology and the physical explanations by which later philosophers endeavoured to throw a decent veil of allegorical interpretation over the shameless obscenities of their ancestral religion, and ends the book by a description of the comparatively purer religion of Rome from Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
In Book III the physical explanations of the Greeks and the allegorical theology of the Egyptians are further described in the language of Plutarch, Diodorus, and Porphyry, with brief criticisms by Eusebius himself (chapters 1-8). Then after quoting the Orphic Hymn, in which Zeus is described as the All, both body and soul |xx of the universe, with Porphyry's comments upon it, Eusebius proceeds 'to examine quietly and at leisure what after all the verses declare Zeus to be' (102 a). On this passage Gesner founded a charge of forgery against our author, whom he supposed to have introduced the verses in order to show that the Orphic poem taught the existence of the One true God, and even Cudworth strangely fell into the same error (Intellectual System, iv. 17). Fortunately Eusebius, while refuting Porphyry, has given us his own interpretation of the verses, showing at considerable length (102a-108a) that they represent the world as a great animal to which the name of Zeus is applied, his mind being nothing else than the ether. Compare Valckenaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo, xxvi. After quoting Porphyry again on the physical theologies of Greece and Egypt (108b-117d), Eusebius himself exposes their contradictions and absurdities in the five remaining chapters of the book (118 a-127 c).
In the second group of three books (IV-VI) he passes on from the mythical and physical systems of Greek theology to the political forms of religion upheld and enforced by the laws of the several states.
Books IV and V are mainly occupied with discussions on the oracles and their pretended prophecies and healings, which are attributed both by Eusebius and by the witnesses whom he quotes to the activity of evil daemons. The evidence on these subjects is for the most part taken from Porphyry's work On the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, fragments of which are preserved by Eusebius, and his extant and well-known work On Abstinence from Animal Food. The last nine chapters are devoted to the subject of human sacrifices, the chief witnesses being Porphyry, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Diodorus Siculus.
In Book V the nature and operation of daemons, the incantations by which they may be controlled, and their regard for the images in which they are supposed to be |xxi present, are described in extracts from Plutarch On the Cessation of Oracles, from Porphyry's works already mentioned, and from his Epistle to Anebo. The latter half of the book is occupied by a most interesting and witty satire upon the oracles from the work of Oenomaus entitled The Detection of Impostors.
Book VI is devoted to the subject of Fate and Free Will in connexion with astrology, the evidence being supplied by Porphyry, Oenomaus, Diogenianus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Bardesanes the Syrian, and Origen.
In the sixth chapter we have a good specimen of the clear argumentative style of Eusebius himself: with much force and earnestness he defends 'the freedom of the Will against the fatalism of pagan religion,' and especially of the Stoic philosophy.' By the independence with which he maintains the cause of Liberty, Morality, and Duty it is evident that no such teaching as that of Pelagius had as yet disturbed men's minds, or called forth the decisions of the Church on the doctrines of grace' (Dictionnaire des Sciences philosophiques, ii. 340).
The next group consisting of Books VII-IX deals with the religion of the Hebrews.
Of Book VII the first half (298 d-322 d) is the work of Eusebius himself, describing the lives and religion of the Patriarchs, and the doctrines of Moses and the Prophets on Divine Providence, on God as the First Cause of the Universe, and on the Word as the Second Cause. In the latter half of the book the same subjects are illustrated from Jewish and Christian authors, Philo, Dionysius of Alexandria, Origen, and Methodius.
Beck VIII consists of the history of the Septuagint as described by Aristeas, of quotations concerning the Exodus and the Law from Philo, Josephus, and Eleazar the High Priest, on the Biblical anthropomorphisms from Aristobulus, and two accounts of the Essenes from Philo, followed by his views of Creation, and of Providence.
Book IX contains the testimony of heathen writers |xxii who have made mention of the Jews, a third account of the Essenes by Porphyry, quotations by Josephus from Hecataeus of Abdera, Clearchus the Peripatetic, Choerilus the poet, Abydenus, author of the Assyrian History, the Sibyl, and others on the Deluge and Tower of Babel. The remaining twenty-six chapters of the book are chiefly occupied by several important extracts from the work of Alexander Polyhistor, Concerning the Jews, which include long passages from the Iambic poems of Theo-dotus and Ezekiel on events in Jewish history, the spurious letters of Solomon to Vaphres king of Egypt, and Suron (Hiram) of Tyre; with descriptions of Jerusalem and other matters by various authors.
In the next group, Books X-XII, Eusebius gives examples from Clement, Porphyry, and Diodorus of the plagiarism of Greek authors both from each other and, as they argue, from the much older Scriptures of the Hebrews. The testimony to their antiquity is drawn from the Chronography of Africanus, and from Tatian, Clement, and Josephus.