For any student or scholar of Christianity in antiquity Eusebius of Caesarea is a titanic figure. His extensive and varied literary activity includes significant roles as an ecclesiastical historian, panegyrist, textual commentator and hagiographer. To this expansive list C. proposes another epithet: Eusebius the evangelist. This monograph, which emerged out of C.'s Ph.D. thesis at the University of Notre Dame, furnishes Eusebius with this title through a focus on his cross-referential system of Gospel reading known as the Eusebian apparatus. C. opens the volume with the text and translation of Eusebius’ Epistle to Carpianus (pp. xiii–xvi), which serves as a preface to the Caesarean's ten-canon apparatus, a tabular synthesis of Gospel material that presents (as Eusebius terms it in his Epistle) the ways in which the four Gospels are both ‘similar’ (παραπλήσιος) and ‘unique’ (ἰδíως). After the reproduction of this Epistle (prefatory to both Eusebius’ apparatus and C.'s study), the volume comprises an introduction, four central chapters and a brief conclusion. An extensive bibliography and comprehensive indexes are appended to the work.
The project draws on a number of active research areas, contributing to debates around ancient reading and writing practices, early Christian inter-community relationships and the transmission and development of ‘Gospel’ material. C.'s introduction (Chapter 1) harmonises the various threads of his project by moving through the practice of reading itself (both in antiquity and subsequently) to the mechanics of Eusebius’ canon tables and the scholarly landscape in which the present study is situated. C. acknowledges that reading behaviours are notoriously hard to trace through the pages of history; he later affirms R. Chartier's (The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries [1994], pp. 1–2) ‘ephemeral’ sense of reading as ‘a practice that only rarely leaves traces’, but the book rests on the contention that Eusebius’ apparatus ‘transformed Gospel reading’.
With this sense established as the criterion for his rehabilitation of Eusebius as ‘among the evangelists’, the project moves to address the form and use of the Eusebian apparatus throughout history. Chapter 2 considers the technological means through which Eusebius brings about his textual revolution. C. does not dwell on the physical transmission of the document (whether through scrolls or codices etc.), but rather on how the text itself communicates its Gospel synthesis. To that end, the chapter highlights the paratextual qualities of Eusebius’ use of tabular settings. The result of this presentation of a ten-canon table is that the reading experience becomes ‘meaningful’ (p. 36) for the reader. It is not simply a passive reading experience, but demands an active participation in the interpretation and handling of the text. Eusebius, C. suggests, creates a situation where ‘tool merges with text’ (p. 56), and this apparatus becomes a paratextual framework for the production of knowledge, equipping readers with new ways of handling, reading and ultimately understanding the Gospels. The chapter stresses Eusebius’ exploitation of the technology of knowledge presentation, and it is this that produces the particular contribution of Eusebius’ Gospel scholarship in this apparatus.
Chapter 3 explores the phenomenon – and tradition – of Gospel writing. Eusebius’ apparatus is read against the tradition of both Gospel writing and Gospel harmonisation. Within that context, C. focuses on the continuities in Eusebius’ approach in this apparatus, acknowledging that earlier studies have highlighted the differences between earlier attempts by figures such as Mark, Tatian and Ammonius. This conversation, and C.'s lengthy discussion of other Gospel literature, is insightful, and resonates with recent scholarship in the area. C.'s chapter addresses, for example, the contrasting perspectives on early Gospel authorship and dissemination recently advanced by both S. Gathercole (The Gospel and the Gospels: Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books [2022]) and F. Watson (What is a Gospel? [2022]), pushing the conversation beyond its Eusebian focus. The chapter offers the additional benefit of providing non-experts with something of a primer on the debates around both the ‘Synoptic Problem’ and the Longer Ending of Mark; but ultimately C.'s focus is on presenting Eusebius’ efforts as extending ‘existing dynamics of Gospel writing’ (p. 88). It is this that enables C. to place Eusebius among the evangelists. The Eusebian apparatus is not fundamentally a concordance or indexing tool, it is the rewriting of the Gospels themselves using new textual technologies. In tandem with the previous chapter, C. concludes that what is found in this apparatus is, above all else, a ‘Gospel according to Eusebius’ (pp. 90–3).
These first two substantive chapters set the platform for C.'s novel approach to the apparatus, and Chapter 4 turns to explore the implications of treating the Eusebian apparatus as Gospel rewriting. ‘Juxtaposition’ (p. 102) is, readers are told, the key to understanding this project. Eusebius advances within his canon-tables the juxtaposition of both similar and different passages, allowing readers to grasp a sense of coherence in their Gospel reading. This does not, C. is keen to stress, create a harmonisation across the texts of the four Gospels (indeed, through the varied emphases on textual differences Eusebius preserves the distinct character of each Gospel account), but instead allows readers (ancient or modern) to move beyond the idea of Gospel harmony as Eusebius’ central aim. Rather (pp. 116–17) the intellectual scope of Eusebius’ apparatus is shown to be far broader, allowing readers to draw out a deeper sense of the parallels and differences between the four gospels. This chapter creates a sense of expectation among C.'s readers that Chapter 5 – ‘Reading Eusebius’ Gospels’ – directly addresses.
This final significant chapter explores the place of Eusebius’ apparatus throughout history. Since the fourth century the influence of this Eusebian Gospel-tool can be readily explored from Spain to Georgia, and C. charts its intellectual journey across both time and geography through a fascinating survey of its varied employ (pp. 124–36). This survey is followed by an equally diverse examination of how the apparatus has been put to use across these numerous contexts. From exegesis to commentarial and liturgical work, as well as lectionary navigation and textual criticism, Eusebius’ apparatus has left its mark throughout the history of Gospel reading. The chapter is an excellent survey of the material, although the wide scope means that brevity dominates the discussion. C.'s introduction, for example, promised that his approach would provide the use of the Eusebian apparatus within liturgy and textual criticism as additional ‘piece[s] of the puzzle’ of the reception of this text (p. 25). While these are included in Chapter 5, they only receive brief consideration and, given the inclusion of several relevant images supporting C.'s analysis, could have provoked further discussion. Nonetheless, this chapter offers a wonderful sketch of the apparatus at work throughout history and presents a persuasive picture of a reality in which ‘Eusebius also is among the evangelists’ (p. 178).
The volume is meticulously researched and supported throughout by significant footnotes, which provide a wealth of additional material, offering readers a novel presentation of the intellectual contribution and character of one of the best-known early Christian authors. The project engages with numerous contemporary discussions, from the interaction of varied early Christian communities to the development of late antique and medieval reading and writing practices. There is much here for any serious scholar of the intersection between Christianity and the varied intellectual cultures of late antiquity. C.'s study presents a fresh perspective on an often overlooked yet highly influential ancient text, and ought to be well received by both Classicists and Theologians alike.
