Gregory Robbins : ‘Finding Similar Things’: Anomalies in Eusebius’ Sections and Canons

Recently, a great deal of appreciation has been lavished upon Eusebius of Caesarea for his manipulation of the codex format as evidenced in his Chronicle, the Canon Tables and the Psalm Tables. These required elaborate page layout, coordinated use of red and black ink, and continual attention to non-textual details. In his Letter to Carpianus, Eusebius says that by using the tables one could find in the Gospels “relevant passages which they treated of similar things” (τα παραπλήσια), Similar in what way? The Eusebian canon tables are generally presented as if they were intended to provide a do-it-yourself harmony or synopsis. This implies that Eusebius assumed his parallels presented different versions of the same incident orsaying. While the major portion of the evidence is consistent with such an assumption, some of the canon assignments made by Eusebius are startling, forced, or even contradictory. In a 1965 article published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly (27.3: 250-56), Harvey K. McArthur characterized Eusebius’ apparatus as having a different function: “His system represented a primitive form of Marginal References.” Marginal reference to what end? This communication returns to McArthur’s observations and insights to explore not only the anomalies of Eusebius’ sections and canons, but to proffer a theological rationale for them – a desire to appropriate the Fourth Gospel as essential voice in the evangelical “symphony.”