David DeVore: Useful Heretics and Textual Pragmatism in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History

Most scholars of early Christianity treat the boundary between “orthodox” and “heretic” as impermeable and starkly bipolarized. This paper explores one writer and text that quietly but explicitly created passageways through the boundary of heretic and orthodox, suggesting some purposes for which ecclesiastical writers could sneak “heretical” figures into authoritative positions within “orthodox” discourses.While Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History labels “heretics” as “violent wolves” (HE 1.1.1), and treats most “heretics” as demonic, the Caesarean historian is notably kinder to three particular “heretics”—Tatian (HE 4.16.7-9, 4.29), Bardaisan (4.30), and Symmachus (6.17)—and a fourth possible “heretic,” Rhodon (cf. 5.13). Unlike with other “heretics,” Eusebius praises and quotes these figures’ writings; and his profiles of them include neutral description and praise, rather than just invective. What the quartet shares is the authorship of "useful" texts. Whereas Eusebius condemned most apparent doctrinal and ecclesiastical outliers, he sometimes downplayed such deviations for two reasons. First, Eusebius, sensitive to authors quoted by earlier ecclesiastical thinkers, complimented texts treated sympathetically by these thinkers. Second, Eusebius himself found some of these texts useful for his purposes: Tatian offered vivid testimony about Justin’s martyrdom; Tatian and Symmachus edited biblical texts; and Rhodon and Bardaisan rebutted more toxic “heretics” forcefully. Eusebius' boundary-blurring underscores the pragmatism with which he balanced his sometimes-competing historiographical tasks of classifying Christian personalities and indexing ecclesiastical knowledge, slipping useful heresiological, martyrological, apologetic, or biblical knowledge just inside the boundaries of orthodoxy.