James Corke-Webster - A Literary Historian: Eusebius of Caesarea and the Martyrs of Lyons

Eusebius of Caesarea’s historical writings are the primary gateway through which we approach the first three centuries of the early Christian church. Although Eusebius has received attention from many different angles, insufficient attention has been paid to his writing techniques. My paper here will build on the recent work of two scholars who have drawn attention to Eusebius’ skills of composition. Doron Mendels, in his 1999 work The Media Revolution of Early Christianity, has drawn attention to Eusebius’ skill at massaging his pericopes to suit the context, and his appreciation of the power of martyr stories within narrative for his audience. More recently, in a 2002 article, Erica Carotenuto has argued that Eusebius is demonstrably fabricating an incident in The Martyrs of Palestine, creating a fictional account by combining and repeating material drawn from two other separate stories in that work. 

It is in the light of these insights that I intend to read the intriguing letter from the churches in Lyons and Vienne, an allegedly 2^nd C document which Eusebius says he is simply transmitting in book 5 of his Ecclesiastical History, but which continues to exercise scholars. Having noted the problems of dating inherent in the extant transmission of the letter, and a series of historical criticisms identified by James Thompson back in 1912, I will then demonstrate the literary similarities between this document and martyr stories Eusebius composes for himself (in book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History and The Martyrs of Palestine), in particular his characterisations of the martyrs and the portrait of the “persecuting” governor. The stories about Apphianus (chapter 4) and the companions of Pamphilus (chapter 11) in The Martyrs of Palestine prove particularly interesting parallels. By noting these narrative and linguistic similarities, I suggest, not only will we shed further light on the letter from the churches in Lyons and Vienne, one of the most important documents for our studies of the second century; we will also begin to appreciate better Eusebius’ own style of composition and his particularly literary endeavour.