Chapter 4 considers Eusebius’ treatment of asceticism. Countering common assumptions about Eusebius’ enthusiasm for acts of physical hardship, it argues that in the History renunciation, sexual continence, and voluntary poverty are applauded only in educational settings and when they contribute to an ethic of community support. When they become extreme or prove detrimental to the community Eusebius is critical. He promotes instead a brand of intellectual, philosophical asceticism characterised by self-control. Eusebius envisages two paths for Christian life, with asceticism suitable only for a small intellectual elite whose ascetic lifestyle complemented their philosophical study. Eusebius thus reappropriated the volatile authority of those Christians of the second and third century famous for their virginity, fasting, etc., and the literature that celebrated them, both of which imagined Christianity in opposition to the Roman Empire; he aligned them instead with traditional elite Graeco-Roman attitudes that were suspicious of immoderate behaviour and its associations with isolationism, misanthropy, and subversion (charges that had also been levelled at Christianity by its elite critics). Finally, Eusebius’ presentation of asceticism was designed to showcase Christians’ self-control, a crucial factor in Roman constructions of authority. It thus forms the second virtue in Eusebius’ rhetoric of intellectual and moral authority.