The history of the church is not the history of believers, but the history of bishops. Eusebius collected all kinds of information about the change of bishops in various churches since Jesus. In order to fight, the history of the church naturally needs to crusade against pagans and expose their sins. In addition, the struggle against pagans has always been the main line of the history of Eusebius churches, and all previous great persecutions are the focus of the story.
This is because in his view, the fundamental purpose of church history is to prove the long-standing Christian belief and guide readers to convert to Christianity. "Eusebius, the son of Pan Filos, is a very learned man, especially good at persuading readers to convert, even if he can't always point out the correct beliefs."
In Eusebius's works, the Christian church showed its virtue in persecution. Although it is sometimes punished for impure beliefs, it will eventually win. When the enemy fell, Constantine, a powerful winner, and his son Kirispi regained their eastern provinces together, thus unifying the Roman Empire as a whole? Nowadays, people don't have to be afraid of their former oppressors. They celebrate all kinds of wonderful festivals? There are lights everywhere.
People who have been frustrated greet each other with smiles and joy in their eyes. Whether in the city or in the countryside, as they were taught, they sang and danced, first giving glory to the supreme God, and then to the pious emperor and his sons whom God loved. The trouble of forgetting has been forgotten, and all ungodliness has disappeared. People had been eagerly looking forward to the arrival of beautiful things, but now they are enjoying them with joy. "
Yousby also wrote the earliest biography of martyrs, The Story of Palestinian Martyrs. There are two different versions of this biography, the long version and the short version, and the relationship between them is difficult to confirm. The short version may have been originally attached to the eighth volume of the Historical Church. In fact, the gospel is the story of Christ's martyrdom and the best memorial to Jesus.
Biographies of individual martyrs are not uncommon, but Eusebius focused on recording the martyrs of his church from the perspective of the local church. "I hope to record the martyrdom I witnessed and allow me to be one of them. The people of Jerusalem should be proud of them. For everyone's well-being and education, I will talk about the struggle these soldiers are engaged in. "
In addition to biographies of martyrs, another godfather, St. Jerome, absorbed the popular Greek wise culture at that time and drafted biographies of famous Christian writers by imitating the life of philosophers. Legend of the wise, such as Diogenes in the 3rd century? The Records of the Words and Actions of Famous Greek Philosophers written by LaErXiu includes almost all the Greek wise men from Taylor to the Stoic school that was popular at that time. The layout of general articles is based on life, learning from teachers, works, death and people with the same name.
In this paper, the classics are quoted, including a large number of anecdotes, and precious historical materials are preserved. At the beginning of the 5th century, the historian Eunapius (the year of birth and death is unknown) wrote The Tale of the Wise, which introduced the life and works of neo-Platonists in Constantinople and Asia in the 4th century.
St. Jerome's Biography of Famous Christian Writers is purely about Christian writers, starting from the author of the Gospel, writing until now, and ending with his short biography. Generally, the name and position of the person are stated, then the work, and finally the age of the Lord. He introduced 99 Christian writers with extremely clear and concise brushstrokes.
Although many church writers presented books to the emperor, Eusebius was the first writer to preach to the emperor. His biography of Constantine was written in memory of the late emperor after Constantine's death. His works not only defended Constantine and vilified his opponents from the perspective of Christianity, but also successfully shaped Constantine into a king fighting for Christianity by telling the story of "astronomical phenomena" in 3 12 AD.
Since then, God has granted military victory and converted after the victory, which has become a classic image of many medieval kings. Constantine needed Christianity, and Eusebius also needed Constantine to help him enrich the creation of church history. There is a model in the biography of ordinary Christians. Through Eusebius's efforts, the main schools of Christian historiography seem to have more classic texts.
By about 360 AD, Julian (360 AD? He abandoned Christianity, advocated Greek classical culture, despised the shallowness and ignorance of Christians, and advocated the revival of traditional culture and education. Under his influence, Amian (about 330 AD? 400) He created Resgestae a Fine Cornelitacti, with a total of 365,438+0 volumes, from Marcus Cocceius nerva's accession to the throne in 96 AD to the death of Emperor Varan in 378 AD.
The first 13 volumes of the book are scattered, and the existing narrative began in 353 AD. Tacitus was continued because other general history after Tacitus was basically Greek. Although it is Greek, Amian decided to write in Latin. As a battle-hardened soldier, Amian took Xenophon as an example and described the army in detail, giving people a feeling of being there.
Amian is called "the last classical historian" by some scholars. From the historical point of view of the Western Roman Empire, this title is quite reasonable, but from the historical evolution of the Eastern Roman Empire, it is not accurate. After Amitabha, it is not uncommon for writers to imitate classical historians and write history in Greek, but most of their works have not been completely handed down.
For example, Yunabiu wrote the history of monarchy since 270 AD; In his later years, he added a lot of anti-Christian monarch materials. These materials were later used by Zosims (active in the early 6th century) and developed systematically, and a long anti-Christian historical work, Nova Historia, was drafted, covering the fall of Rome in 4 10.
He believes that the fundamental reason for the decline of Rome lies in abandoning the beliefs and gods of ancestors, and Constantine is the chief culprit leading to the decline of Rome. The former has only fragments, while the latter is basically preserved. In addition, Mount Olympus in Thebes (about 4 10) tells the story of the disintegration and restoration of the Western Roman Empire, with a total of 22 volumes telling the story of 407 AD. The historical events of 18 took place in 425, but they did not spread.
Another example is the eight-volume Gothic History of Priscus ofPanium (active around 440 AD). And the 7-volume History of Byzantium by Malchus of Philadephia (active around 470 AD), which has been described since 473 AD? 480 years of history.
It should be said that in the Eastern Empire, the trend of imitating classical writers has been invincible. The most famous historian in the 6th century was Procopius (about 500 AD? 565)。 As the assistant of Roman general Belisarius, he personally experienced the great battle of Justinian conquering the Mediterranean world.
For this reason, he wrote a long historical masterpiece "War History", including Persian War History, Vandal War History and Gothic War History. This work not only provides specific details of the war, but also vividly describes the history and customs of almost all barbarians at that time, making it a necessary desk for understanding the history of Europe in the early 6th century.
Although classical historiography emerges one after another, with Christian education replacing classical education, schools are controlled by monasteries and Anglican churches. Since the 6th century, ancient historiography has gradually faded out of the historical stage, and Christian historiography has absorbed its nutrients to meet the new historical needs and gradually become the mainstream of historiography.
The rise of barbarian kingdoms or empires was in AD 4? /kloc-the political situation in Asia and Europe in the 0/0 century and the corresponding cultural situation are the formation of a unified religious culture. What are the three major religious groups in the world? Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam formally controlled the midwest of the old continent.
Different from the secular polytheistic religious beliefs in the classical period, the new religious beliefs, as a unified monotheistic ideology, have a direct impact on historical writing. Historians in this period are either members of the church themselves, or deeply influenced by religious culture, and even believers who have studied religious issues. Historians in Eurasia inherited ancient historiography based on religious culture, and found a new way to shape new historical traditions in the early Middle Ages, which had far-reaching influence.