The Dates and Editions of Eusebius Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica

THE DATES AND EDITIONS OF EUSEBIUS'
CHRONICI CANONES AND HISTORIA

ECCLESIASTICA
THE earliest evidence we have for the existence of Eusebius' now
lost XpoviKoi Kav6ves (Chronici canones or Chronological Tables)
conies from other works of Eusebius: the Historia ecclesiastica
(HE) (1.1.6), the first edition of which is variously dated between
pre-293 and 313 (see below); the preface to book six of the General
Elementary Introduction, of which four books (69)
survive under the title Eclogae propheticae (PG 22.1023A), dated
303/312;
1
and the Praeparatio Evangelica (10.9.11), dated
c.314/318. This early evidence demonstrates that there must have
been an edition earlier than the one of 325, where the universal
testimony of the surviving witnesses places its conclusion.
2
Until
now, there has been no solid evidence to suggest when any such
putative first edition may have been produced and consequently
there has been much debate and discussion.
The following are cited by short title only:
Barnes, 'Editions'= T. D. Barnes, 'The Editions of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical
History', GRBS 21 (1980), 191-201.
Barnes, C and E=T. D. Barnes, Comtantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.,
1981).
Louth, 'Date'= Andrew Louth, 'The Date of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica',
JTS, NS, 41 (1990), 111-23.
1
The tenth and last book of the General Elementary Introductionsurviving as
the Commentary on Lukemust date after 309; see D. S. Wallace-Hadrill,
'Eusebius of Caesarea's Commentary on Luke: Its Origin and Early History', HTR
67 (1974). 63.
2
See Alden A. Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek
Chronographic Tradition (Lewisburg, PA, 1979), 38, 61, 62-63, 75- F
r
the conclu-
sion in year twenty of Constantine ( =AD 325), see e.g. Eusebius, Chronographia
(Greek: John Anthony Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e Codd. Manuscriptis Bibliothecae
Regiae Parisiensis, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1839; repr. Hildesheim, 1967), 160.8-9;
Armenian translation: Josef Karst (ed.), Eusebius Werke 5: Die Chronik aus dent
Armemscken Obersetzt mit textkritischem Commentar (GCS 20; Leipzig, 1911),
62.3-5); Chrordd canones (Latin translation of Jerome: Rudolf Helm (ed.), Eusebius
Werke y: Die Chronik des Hieronymus
1
(GCS 47; Berlin, 1984)), 6.17-8, 231';
Chromcon mtscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens (Syriac epitome of the
Canones; CSCO 4, Chron. min. 2: Scriptores Syri, series 3, tomus 4, versio, by
J.-B. Chabot), 100.22, 32-3; Samuel Aniensis, Summarium temporum, PG 19.665;
Chromcon Paschale (Ludwig Dindorf (ed.), CSHB 16 (Bonn, 1832)) s.a. 325,
pp. 526.5-6; 527.2-5; and James of Edessa, Chromcon (Syriac continuation of
Eusebius; CSCO 6, Chron. min. 3: SS series 3, tomus 4, versio, by E. W. Brooks),
199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 209, 214.
C Oxford Unlrenity Press 1997
[Journal of Theological Studies, NS, VoL 48, PL a, October 1997]

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472 R. W. BURGESS
I
The communis opinio is that the first edition was completed in
or around 303.
3
This view was first popularized by an influential
article in Pauly-Wissowa by Eduard Schwartz, who believed that
the Canones had to date before the Eclogae propheticae, but did
not believe that Eusebius could have written such a work during
the persecution. He therefore stated that Eusebius had written it
or at least collected his materials before 303.
4
The recent currency
of 303, however, chiefly depends on an article written by D. S.
Wallace-Hadrill in 1955, which was based on the earlier hypo-
theses of Joseph Karst, editor of the Armenian translation of the
Canones} Wallace-Hadrill accepted Karst's argument that the
Armenian translation represented the first edition of this work
and that the terminal date of the Armenian Canones, Year 16
of Diocletian (= 300), was thus the concluding date of the first
edition. He also attempted to buttress Karst's hypothesis with
other evidence for a visible 'joint' between the first and second
editions. He cites from Jerome's translation three additions and
alterations to the Canones that '[cluster] round the year 303'
(pp. 249-50).' However, though these probably are all later addi-
tions and alterations, there is no reason why such 'rewriting in
3
For this date, see, for example, Otto Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen
Literatur 3 (Freiburg, 1923), 248-49; Kirsopp Lake, Eusebius. The Ecclesiastical
History 1 (Loeb Classical Library; New York, 1926), xvii; Johannes Quasten,
Patrology 3 (Utrecht/Antwerp, i960), 312; Berthold Altaner, Patrology (New York,
1961), 264; Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), p. 32; R. M. Grant, Eusebius as Church
Historian (Oxford, 1980), 1; Johannes Karayannopulos and Gflnter WeiQ,
Quellenkunde zur Geschichte von Byzanz (324-1453) 2 (Wiesbaden, 1982), 244;
Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon (London, 1983), 5; W. H. C. Frend,
The Rise of Christianity (London, 1984), 457, 477, 478; Robin Lane Fox, Pagans
and Christians (London, 1986), 606; C. Curti in Angelo Di Berardino (ed.),
Encyclopedia of the Early Church 1 (New York, 1992), 299; and others cited by
Barnes in 'Editions', p. 193, and C and E, p. 341 n. 67.
4
RE 6.1 (1907), p. 1376.
9
D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, 'The Eusebian Chronicle: The Extent and Date of
Composition of its Early Editions', jfTS 6 (1955), 248-53 (repeated in his Eusebius
of Caesarea (London, i960), 43) and Karst (cit. n. 2), pp. xxx-xxxiii.
6
These are the notice concerning Constantine's accession in the fourth year of
the persecution ( = 306) under Year 19 ( = 303), the alteration of the month of the
inception of the persecution from April to March under Year 19, and the reference
to the martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria in the ninth year of the persecution
(t^S November 311) under Year 19 (though Wallace-Hadrill did not know that
this is Jerome's error: in Eusebius' original it was dated to Year 17. For a recon-
struction of Eusebius' original text for these years, see my paper 'The Chronici
canones of Eusebius of Caesarea: Chronology and Content, AD 282-325', which is
nearing completion. These entries may appear in Year 19 of Diocletian in Jerome,
but only one actually has anything to do with 303.

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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA 473
the light of later knowledge' could or should have occurred only
at the end of the first edition. The key point is, in fact, that they
all relate to later knowledge concerning the persecution, which
began in 303. These entries, therefore, have no bearing on the
date of the first edition.
Wallace-Hadrill also notes that Eusebius' list of the bishops of
apostolic sees stops in 302 (p. 250). This is true, but apart from
Rome (for which information would have been difficult for
Eusebius to obtain during the persecution), no further bishops
were ordained in Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria until about
312/3 (Vitalis, Macarius, and Achillas, respectively). Following
Wallace-Hadrill's argument any date as late as 312/3 is therefore
possible. But the episcopal lists in both the Canones and the HE
purposely cease with the beginning of the persecution, not the
end of the first edition of the Canones. Eusebius explicitly says
this in the HE (7.32.32 and 8 pref.), though he does not explain
why. For some reason apostolic succession was no longer import-
ant during the persecution or in its aftermath. If the end of the
list simply marked the end of the first edition, there is no reason
why Eusebius should not have continued the list in the later
editions of both works, especially the HE. Once again, the crux
is the beginning of the persecution, not the end of the first edition.
Finally, Wallace-Hadrill points to twelve differences between
the Armenian translation and Jerome's translation (pp. 251-52),
claiming that these arise because each translation represents a
distinct editionthe Armenian the first edition, Jerome's Latin
the third edition. The argument is irrelevant, however, since none
of these twelve items relates to 303. It is further flawed by the
fact that the Armenian translation is not a different edition from
Jerome's and is not complete as Karst believed; it is simply a
defective translation of a composite Armenian/Syriac version of
the same 325 edition as Jerome's.
7
The differences that Wallace-
7
In the Armenian translation of the Chronographia, which is Eusebius' lengthy
introduction to his sources and establishment of the individual chronologies for
the Canones, there is a note that mentions the twentieth year of Constantine (Karst
(cit. n. 2), p. 62.3-5, which is the same as the Greek fragment printed by Cramer
(cit. n. 2), p. 160.8-9)
a n
d
a n
identical Armenian translation was used by Samuel
Aniensis in the late-twelfth century for his Armenian chronicle and he records the
conclusion of Eusebius' chronicle in 325 as well (fG 19.665). Furthermore, the last
entry in the Armenian translation (on Hermon of Jerusalem) appeared under Year
17 of Diocletian in Eusebius' Greek original (see my paper cited in n. 6, above)
and has mistakenly slipped back a year, thus avoiding the oblivion shared by the
rest of the text after Year 16. Karst claimed that the Armenian translation had
been contaminated by the edition of 325. See Mosshammer (cit. n. 2),
pp. 59-60, 75.

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474 R. W. BURGESS
Hadrill points out (and many others that he does not mention)
arise simply because the Armenian version is not a complete or
accurate translation; its various translators and redactors omitted
and altered textual material and chronological markers through
wilful error, carelessness, or lack of interest (for two examples,
see nn. 19 and 27, below). Unfortunately, on occasion Jerome
made mistakes as well.
8
The major problem with Wallace-Hadrill's argument, however,
is that he claims to accept Karst's conclusions as the foundation
of his own argument, yet redefines them: Karst's hypothesis was
that the first edition ended in Year 16 of Diocletian, that is 300,
but Wallace-Hadrill changes this to 303 (which for some reason
he insists on labelling 'Diocl. 18', when it is in fact 'Diocl. 19').
Karst's entire case rested on the supposition that the Armenian
translation was complete. Wallace-Hadrill abandons that supposi-
tion, stating that the first edition 'did not extend far beyond the
mutilated end of the Armenian text' (p. 250), but in so doing he
unwittingly abandons Karst's entire hypothesis and hence the
foundation of his own: if the Armenian translation does not end
in 300, the evidence shows that it must have concluded in 325
and it is consequently irrelevant to Wallace-Hadrill's argument
for 303. He tries to paper over the gap between 300 and 303 with
a rather nonsensical note'If Diocletian became emperor in 284,
his 16th year is 300, though the Arm. Chron. aligns the regnal
years with the Olympiads so as to make it 303' (p. 248 n. 8)
9
but the fundamental contradiction remains. There is, therefore,

no valid evidence that Eusebius concluded the Canones in or just
before 303.
More recently T. D. Barnes has come out strongly in favour of
277 (Year 2 of Probus) as a terminal date for the Canones and the
early 290s as the date of composition, though this view has not
gained widespread acceptance. This date depends chiefly upon his
early dating of Eusebius' Onomasticon and HE, both of which
must have been written after the Canones}
0
The specific terminal
date of 277 for the Canones follows an earlier suggestion by Rudolf
Helm.
11
The sole direct evidence for this conclusion is the fact
* For the problems with the Armenian translation, see Mosshammer
(cit. n. 2), pp. 6063, 73~79- F
r
Jerome, see R. W. Burgess, 'Jerome and the
Kauergetchichte', Hatoria 44 (1995), 355 n. 31, and my forthcoming paper cited
in n. 6, above. The overall accuracy of Jerome is confirmed by comparison with
the Syriac traditions and other Greek witnesses.
9
In his book (cit. n. 5) he strays even further from his own argument and the
truth: 'the sixteenth year of Diocletian ... in Eusebius' dating is 303' (p. 43).
10
For this, see below, nn. 17 and 29.
11
'Editions', p. 193, and C and E, pp. I I O- I I , 113, and 146.

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that it is in this year that one finds a synchronism of five local
eastern calendarsthose of Antioch, Tyre, Laodicea, Edessa, and
Ascalonwith Year 2 of Probus.
12
The first problem with the
date of 277 is that Eusebius would only have been at most seven-
teen years old when he wrote the chronicle.
13
This is virtually
impossible and Barnes actually posits composition almost fifteen
years later, in the early 290s,
14
yet such a large gap between the
date of composition and the conclusion of the work is most
implausible.
15
Barnes explains the gap by claiming that Eusebius
ended his chronicle in 277 as a compliment to Anatolius, Bishop
of Laodicea (Canones 223
1
), whose famous Easter canon either
began or ended in that year, but he does not explain the connection
between Anatolius and the five local calendars noted by Eusebius.
Unfortunately, there seems little reason why Eusebius would have
ended the Canones, a work of universal Christian history and
chronology, with such an obscure and irrelevant set of local syn-
chronisms, simply because a famous Easter canon began or ended
12
On this synchronism, see the comments of Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), p. 75;
Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 7-9; and Eduard Schwartz, Eusebius Werke 2. Die
Ktrchengeschiehte (GCS 9.3; Leipzig, 1909), ccxlvi-ccxlvii. Mosshammer claims
that this summary 'has no parallel except at the very end of the work', but this is
a misrepresentation of the final supputatio, which records the number of years
elapsed from seven key dates in history to the conclusion of the chronicle. It is
not in any way similar to this list of dates.
11
Born around 260/265;
s e e
Barnes, C and E, p. 277.
14
Barnes actually believes that e.293 is the terminus ante quern (evident from C
and E,pp. 11 o-11, and The New Empire of Constanttne and Diocletian (Cambridge,
Mass., 1982), 215, discussing boundary changes to Palestine c.293 that he uses to
date the Onomasticon (see n. 17, below)), but he is unduly vague about the exact
date of composition: 'he had completed the Chronicle by ... ca 295', 'Editions',
p. 193; 'before the end of the third century', C and E, p. 111; 'at least a decade
earlier [than 303]', p. 113; 'before 300', p. 277; 'c.295', p. 346 n. 10; and 'the 290s',
'Scholarship or Propaganda? Porphyry Against the Christians and its Historical
Setting', BICS 39 (1994). 59-
11
Eusebius' youth in c.280 is noted with some surprise by Brian Croke ('The
Origins of the Christian World Chronicle', in B. Croke and A. M. Emmett (eds.),
History and Historians in Late Antiquity (Sydney, 1983), p. 128 n. 4), who seems
unaware of Barnes' argument for later compilation and assumes that the Canones
would have been completed within a few years of the date of its conclusion (see
also Brian Croke, 'Porphyry's Anti-Christian Chronology', JTS, NS, 34 (1983),
171 and 184). In a later article ('The Era of Porphyry's Anti-Christian Polemic',
JRH 13 (1984-85), 10 n. 53) he suggests the 280s since 'the Chronicle is not the
work of a novice'. Croke's reaction is to be expected since it is unheard of for a
chronicler to conclude an original chronicle ten to fifteen years before the time of
writing. Andrew Louth ('Date', p. 121), with reference to the HE, which Barnes
dates to the same period as the Canones (see III, below), states, 'Eusebius was
then in his twenties, or even passing from his mid-teens to his mid-twenties: one
wonders if he could really have read as much as the Historia Ecclesiastica presup-
poses by then.'

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476 R. W. BURGESS
in that year. It makes no sense for Eusebius to have charted the
history of the world from the birth of Abraham in 2016 BC, only
to ignore the history and chronology of the most recent fifteen
years of Christian growth and advancement as a compliment to
the author of merely one of what must have been many competing
Easter canons. There is no connection between the two works or
the authors, apart from the fact that Eusebius admired Anatolius
(cf. HE 7.32.13-21, where Eusebius quotes from his works,
including the canon, simply as an example of Anatolius' wide
learning), and even if there were, the synchronization would still
be a tribute to Anatolius whether the Catumet ended there or
not.
16
Year 2 of Probus cannot therefore have been the conclusion
of the first edition. Barnes also offers a series of lesser interlocking
arguments in support of a date of composition in the early 290s
but these do not stand up to careful scrutiny.
17
II
Unfortunately, an edition concluding in 303, 300, or 277 suffers
from another more serious problem and that concerns the indica-
tions of the date of composition derived from Eusebius' own
chronology. The key lies in two examples of obvious, and in one
case bizarre, tampering with the regnal year chronology of Carus,
Carinus, and Numerian, and Diocletian. Eusebius assigns the
reign of Carus and his sons only two years instead of three, a
peculiar mistake for a contemporary reign that Eusebius should
have known well.
18
Even more peculiar, he omits the single regnal
year of Constantius I ( = 305), but attributes to the preceding Year
20 of Diocletian ( = 304) two Years of Persecution (2 and 3,
March/April 304 to March/April 306), two Years of Abraham
16
There is also the observation made by Barnes (C and E, p. m ) and R. M.
Grant (cit. n. 3, pp. 7-9), who point to the appearance of the eighty-sixth Jubilee
in the same year of Probus, but what relevance this could have to the calendar
synchronization is unknown.
17
These chiefly concern the argument that the Canona and the HE were written
before the Onomasticon, dated by Barnes to c.293, which is demonstrably false,
since the dedication to Paulinus alone dates the work to .31324. Barnes' greatest
impediment is that he accepts as ultimately Eusebian passages in Jerome's Latin
translation of the preface to the Onomasticon that do not appear in the original
Greek. A number of other problems are discussed by Louth, 'Date', pp. 11820.
18
Since Carus became emperor in the autumn of 282 and Diocletian sole
emperor around the summer of 285 (a period of just under three years), Carus
and his sons should have been allotted three regnal years (for 282, 283, and 284).
For Eusebius' regnal years, see below. That Eusebius knew that they did indeed
reign 'for not three whole years' is demonstrated by HE 7.30.22. The regnal years
in the HE appear to derive (often in an extremely careless manner) from either
the Canona or the same sources as the Canones.

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(2321 and 2322), and two Olympiads (271.1 and 2). Though
Constantius' death appears in the second half of this split regnal
year (Persecution 3, 2322 Abr., and Olymp. 271.2), his regnal year
total, twelve years, only counts Year 20 of Diocletian once (his
accession is dated to Year 9 of Diocletian, though this was altered
by Jerome as was the regnal year total in consequence). This
doubling up of Year 20 appears in Jerome (228
d
~
8
) and is confirmed
by the Years of Abraham in Pseudo-Dionysius, who assigns 2321
Abr. (p. 112.27)
t o
Jerome's entry 228**, the retirement of
Diocletian, and 2322 Abr. (p. 113.1) to entry 228", the death of
Constantius, both in Year 20 of Diocletian.
19
It is also confirmed
by the total number of years of Abraham noted in Eusebius'
supputatio as preserved in the Chron. 724 (p. 100.23): though there
are only 297 regnal years covered between Year 15 of Tiberius
and Year 20 of Constantine (325-28 = 297), Eusebius lists 298
Years of Abraham (23422044 = 298). This attribution of two
calendar years (Years of Persecution), two Years of Abraham, and
two years of an Olympiad to a single regnal year, which itself
represents a single calendar year, is unique in the chronicle. An
explanation of this tampering requires an understanding of
Eusebius' use of regnal years and his regnal year chronology.
20
Throughout the early imperial period, starting with Julius
Caesar's sole rule in 48 BC, Eusebius' regnal-year chronology is
almost perfectly accurate. Each regnal year is treated as the equiva-
19
Jerome's Years of Abraham elsewhere generally agree with those in Pseudo-
Dionysius (J.-B. Chabot (trans.), Chromcon Pseudo-Dionysiamim uulgo dictum,
CSCO 121: 5 5 senes 3, tomus 1, versio; Louvain, 1949), except in a few places
where scribal corruption or simple copying errors are involved. Socrates {HE 1.2)
mentions the death of Constantius (in Eusebius = Year 20
2
), but does not realize
that there are two Olympiads in the one regnal Year (they are only marked every
four years), and so quotes the Olympiad for Year 20', 271.1. This Olympiad agrees
with that for Year 20
1
in Jerome. Chron. Patch. (518.11, with 514.18 and 519.3;
and 524.17, with 524.9) assigns Year 1 of Constantine to Olymp. 271.3 and Year
20 to 276.2, just as in Jerome (though the Olympiads are off by one for the reign
of Diocletian because the Chron. Patch, assigns a correct three years to Carus and
his sons). These agreements show that the Armenian translation is not an accurate
account of the chronological relationship among the regnal years, Years of
Abraham, and Olympiads in Eusebius: e.g. Year 20
1
in Jerome is 2321 Abr. and
Ol. 271.1; in Pt-Dion. is 2321 Abr.; in Socrates, is Ol. 271.1; in Samuel Aniensis
(which is based upon the Armenian translation) is Ol. 271.4 (col. 663); and in the
Armenian translation would be 2323 Abr. and 01. 271.4, if it went that far.
30
It should be noted that Jerome completely altered Eusebius' chronology for
the reign of Constantine to actually count the doubled regnal Year 20 of Diocletian
as two calendar years ( = 305 and 306), and Helm's marginal accounting of years
follows Jerome's sequence not Eusebius'. Eusebius counted Year 1 of Constantine
as 306 and the following years in sequence up to Year 20 in 325. For the details
of this, and what follows below, see my paper cited in n. 6, above.

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478 R. W. BURGESS
lent of a full calendar year, whatever calendar it was that he was
using.
21
In reality, of course, an emperor's first and last regnal
years were only part of a calendar year. When regnal years are
treated only as indivisible full years some accommodation must
be made. Eusebius did this by placing the death of Emperor A
and the accession of Emperor B a year early, so that Emperor B's
first regnal year would correspond to the true calendar year of his
accession. Each emperor's accession immediately follows the death
of his predecessor and the first regnal year of an emperor immedi-
ately follows his accession. Thus the death of Emperor A and the
accession of Emperor B occur in the same year, the last year of
Emperor A, and Emperor B's first regnal year then usually begins
immediately. Eusebius was able to maintain a perfect chronology
throughout the early part of his imperial history because of the
accurate records of the lengths of imperial reigns and detailed
information concerning the years in which the emperors came to
the throne and died. Within the first 260 years he errs only once,
but that error was deliberate and makes no difference to the overall
sum of regnal years.
22
However, once he advanced his chronology
into the third century, he made three serious errors that he did
not fully compensate for and that therefore disrupted his entire
chronological sequence: he assigned Caracalla seven regnal years
instead of six, Philip seven instead of five, and Decius one instead
of two.
23
By the time he reached the accession of Carus in 282 his
chronology was consequently two years ahead of itself: Year 1 of
Carus was the equivalent of 284 instead of 282.
The chronological tampering with the reigns of Carus and his
11
Eusebius derived his accession dates for the emperors from Caesar to
Caracalla, at least, from an Olympiad chronicle that equated each Olympiad with
a Seleucid/Macedonian year that appears to have begun in the middle of September
or perhaps on 1 October.
22
All the emperors between Caesar and Caracalla inclusive, and then
Constantine, have their accessions placed in the correct Olympiad/Seleucid year,
with the exception of Augustus, whose accession was delayed to 45 BC so that the
famous murder of Caesar could appear in the correct 44 BC. If the calendar on
which Eusebius' Olympiad dates were based did begin on 1 October (as it did in
Antioch, for instance, the standard Eastern calendar), the accession of Nerva (18
Sept 96) would have been placed one year too late (97) as well.
21
The same figures for the first two appear in HE 6.21.1 (actually seven years
and six months!) and 39.1. In 7.1.1 he says that Decius reigned 'for not two whole
years', which is correct (about a year and eight months). The one year and three
months of the Canones must therefore be a misreading of the source that he read
more carefully for the HE. The accessions of the following emperors are con-
sequently late: by one year, Macrinus, Elagabalus, Severus Alexander, Maximinus,
Gordian III, Philip; by three years, Decius; by two years, Gallus and Volusianus;
Valerian and Gallienus; Claudius; Aurelian; Tacitus; Probus; Cams, Carinus, and
Numerian; by one year, Diocletian.

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sons, and Diocletian is serious and complicated. Why would
Eusebius have fiddled these regnal years in such a bizarre and
obvious manner? The answer arises from the consequence of the
tampering: by cutting Year 3 of Cams, Carinus, and Numerian,
and Year 1 of Constantius, Eusebius was able to shed in a short
space of time the two extra regnal years that he had accumulated
throughout the third century (Year 7 of Caracalla plus Years 6 and
7 of Philip minus Year 2 of Decius). In Year 2 of Cams and his
sons Eusebius' overall regnal year chronology was still out by two
years, having been one, two, or three years ahead of itself for almost
seventy years, yet within twenty-one years, by Year 1 of
Cons tan tine, it was once again synchronized with the overall chro-
nology of calendar years, as it had been in the first and second
centuries. This chronological tampering can only be explained by
the hypothesis that Eusebius was determined to conclude his chro-
nology with a correct overall correlation between calendar and
regnal years (which is, of course, the whole point of compiling such
a chronology). If we look at his entire imperial chronology from
Year 1 of Caesar (=48 BC) to Year 20 of Constantine ( = AD 325)
we can see that Eusebius assigns 373 regnal years to 373 calendar
years. This synchronization is valid back to Year 1 of Constantine
( = 306, thus 354 regnal years over 354 calendar years). Any further
back and the sequence is disrupted, by one year for Diocletian and
by one or two years for much of the rest of the third century. Only
in Year 6 of Caracalla does it come back into synchronization.
For example, as I noted above, in Year 2 of Probus Eusebius
notes the synchronization of five local calendars. In the case of
two of these, Antioch and Edessa, he has in fact noted the date of
the beginning of each era in its correct place. The beginning of the
era of Antioch is noted at is6
b
in 1969 Abr. ( = 48 BC). Eusebius
states that Probus 2 (2295 Abr.) is year 325 of the era of Antioch
(as it is, 277+48), but there are 327 years of Abraham between
the two notices since Probus 2 is the equivalent of 279, not 277
as it should be. He also notes the beginning of the era of Edessa
at i26
h
in 1706 Abr. ( = 311 BC, i.e. the well-known Seleucid era),
stating that Probus 2 is year 588 of the era of Edessa (as it is,
277 + 311), but there are 590 years of Abraham between the two
notices.
24
In the HE (7.32.32) he states that there were 305 years
between the birth of Christ and the inception of the Great
Persecution ( = March/April 303, assigned to 2320 Abr., which is
304), but since he places the incarnation in Year 42 of Augustus,
24
These show that the correlation of these five local eras with Year 2 of Probus
was copied by Eusebius from another work.

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480 R. W. BURGESS
which is 2015 Abr. ( = 2 BC, 2320-2015 = 305), this is one year too
many (302 years + 2 years = 3O4 years, or 2319-2015 = 304)."
As I noted above (n. 21), for the early part of his imperial
chronology, from Caesar to Caracalla, Eusebius had a source that
dated events by Olympiads and this provided him with the correct
year of each emperor's accession. Thus from 48 BC to AD 216 his
imperial chronology is perfectly accurate. From the reign of
Caracalla, however, he had to rely solely on the length of each
emperor's reign in years and months to construct his regnal year
chronology. To this he must have added a local era, such as the
years of Antioch or Edessa, that would have provided known
contemporary dates leading back to a beginning fixed at some
accurately established point in the past. It was while he was using
these sources that his chronology got ahead of the correct calendar
years since he did not know in what year anyone became emperor,
he only knew how long each was emperor (and this information
was often inaccurate). He obviously knew his contemporary chro-
nology and was easily able to equate current regnal years with the
years of his local calendar and then work them backwards with
perfect accuracy. We can see from his preface and supputatio that
he did indeed work his chronologies both backwards and forwards
(Jerome, 10-18, 250). It was only when his inaccurate non-
contemporary history, worked forwards, met his accurate contem-
porary history, worked backwards, that he ran into difficulty: he
faced an overlap of two years.
It is Year 20 of Diocletian that marks this final 'seam' between
Eusebius' accurate contemporary chronology and his inaccurate
non-contemporary chronology. He seems not to have been able
to calculate where the errors of his earlier chronology were and
he could not simply cut two years from the end of Diocletian's
reign. He made his first cut in the reigns of Carus and his sons.
This left one year unaccounted for at the end of Diocletian's reign,
and so rather than cut Diocletian's total, he ingeniously opted to
cut the single regnal year of Constantius (1 May 305 to 25 July
306). In this way Constantine's regnal years could start with Year
1 accurately associated with the equivalent of 306 right after Year
20 of Diocletian, even though Year 20 of Diocletian was the
equivalent of 304 (since Year 1=285). The solution was almost
perfect. Unfortunately for Eusebius, at exactly this point he was
dealing with a subsidiary 'local' chronology, the Years of
Persecution, which extended from Year 19 of Diocletian. When
23
I count two years because Eusebius would have dated the Nativity to
6 January 2 BC not 25 December, which is a western tradition.

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he cut Year i of Constantius, he also cut Year 3 of Persecution.
In order to maintain his overall accounting of regnal years, but
still be able to take account of the cut regnal/persecution year
locally, he added the events of Constantius' sole year as emperor
(the death of Constantius and the accession of Constantine) and
the marker for Year 3 of Persecution to Year 20 of Diocletian,
which was already Year 2. The doubled years of Abraham and
Olympiads are a later compilation error created in the final draft
by mistakenly counting the Year 3 of Persecution as a regnal year,
hence the extra Year of Abraham noted above (p. 477). The Years
of Persecution consequently run correctly in spite of the excised
regnal year, there being ten Years of Persecution between Year 19
of Diocletian (303) and Year 7 of Constantine (312), even though
there are only nine regnal years involved (2 + 7).
Confirmation that this doubling up of dates is in fact an attempt
by Eusebius to maintain what he perceives to be the correct
chronology comes from a similar chronological 'fudge' to be found
at Jerome, 105106. From his research Eusebius knew that the
rebuilding of the Temple took place in the second year of Darius
and Olympiad 65.1 (Chronographia, pp. 57-59 (Karst); Canones,
10.12-3, 18.3-5,
a
d io5a
c
). Unfortunately his Persian chronology
is one year short, so the second year of Darius actually ends up
in Olymp. 64.4. To rectify the situation he repeats Darius' second
year again in Olymp. 65.1, even though the regnal years for the
parallel kingdoms advance one year (Tarquinius Superbus of the
Romans from 27 to 28 and Amyntas of the Macedonians from 33
to 34. Next to the first second year he adds the following note,
Ideo secundus annus bis scribitur, quia unus annus in magorum fra-
trum VII tnensibus computatur (Helm, 105a"; cf. 1048.22-26). This
is essentially the reverse of what I have described above under
Diocletian, an expansion of regnal years rather than a contraction.
If the Canones had been compiled at any date before 306 the
chronology at the end of the work would have come back into
synchronization around the date of composition, as Eusebius tried
to match contemporary chronology worked backwards with non-
contemporary chronology worked forwards. Year 2 of Probus
should be the equivalent of 277 (following Eusebius' method of
placing Year 1 in the year of accession), yet it is in fact the
equivalent of 279. The accession of Carus is also two years late,
284 instead of 282. The reigns of Probus and Carus are therefore
treated just as vaguely and inaccurately as any of the earlier third-
century reigns; there is no evidence of contemporary compilation
around Year 2 of Probus. It cannot be the concluding point of the
first edition. The reign of Diocletian is also out by one year, so

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482 R. W. BURGESS
neither 300 nor 303 can be the concluding point of the first edition.
We have seen above both the lengths that Eusebius went on to
achieve correct contemporary chronological synchronization at the
end of his work and his ability to calculate accurately and record
almost 370 years of imperial chronology. We have no grounds for
assuming that such zeal for chronological accuracy and the accom-
panying skill were lacking in the first edition. The first edition of
the Canones must therefore date after 306, since that is obviously
the seam between contemporary and non-contemporary history.
In the tangled web of controversy concerning the dating of the
Canones and the HE, this chronological observation is the strong-
est evidence yet advanced. And if the Canones must date after
306, then the HE must as well.
I l l
Eusebius states in HE 1.1.6 that his Chronici canones was com-
pleted before the HE, though he gives no indication of the lapse
of time. The nature of the comment suggests that it had been
long enough for the Canones to get into general circulation, since
he is countering a potential criticism of his new work, that it
covers the same ground covered by the Canones. He states that
the Canones was merely an imrofj.^, while the HE had a narrative
that was nXripeard-rq. It is obvious that he has used the Canones as
a source, however summarily, but he has revised some of the
chronology and content as a result of his more extensive and
careful reading, one supposes, though he failed to emend the text
of the Canones in accordance with it, even in his later editions,
probably because of the daunting nature of such a task.
This is an important observation, because it disproves any theory
that holds that there were major differences between editions of
the Canones.
26
A further example confirms this conclusion. In the
Canones he states that there were 406 years between the first
Olympiad (1241 Abr.) and the capture of Troy (835 Abr.) (11.8,
24
See Mosshammer (cit. n. 2), pp. 75: 'a major change in format between the
two versions is not likely. Eusebius had only to add a few pages to the Chronicle,
not rework the whole', and 61, quoting J. K. Fotheringham, 'Aliud est producere,
aliud redigere'. See Croke ('Era', cit. n. 15), pp. 12-13,
es
\>- P- ' 3
:
'Given the
tedium and complexity of copying a chronicle like that of Eusebius, it is scarcely
likely that the whole chronological frame-work set out in the Chronographia was
reworked when the point of the second edition was simply to bring the work
up-to-date, that is by expanding the canons'.

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13; 6oa
c
; 250.10, 14 [1561-1155=406], and 1241-835 =406)," yet
in the Praeparatio Evangelica (written between c.314 and 318) he
twice gives the figure as 408 years (10.9.6 and 7). If, as some claim,
Eusebius had revised the text of the Canones for the edition of 325,
he obviously would have changed his chronology of 406 years to
408 years as part of that revision, to accord with his new calcula-
tions. He obviously did not, which indicates that the chronology
of the 325 edition remained unrevised in the light of new calcula-
tions made in the 310s. As we shall see below, there is no evidence
that he undertook extensive revisions of the HE either.
There are a number of hypotheses concerning the date of the
first edition of the HE, the most common being that it originally
concluded with book seven (c.303, but before the persecution,
thus at the same time as the Canones), with book eight (c.311), or
with book nine (313/14).
28
As I have noted above, T. D. Barnes
argues for a first edition before c.293, concluding, like the chron-
icle, around 277, near the end of book seven. In his view the HE
represents a universal history of the church only down to the late
270s, which must therefore mark the end of the first edition.
29
It
is these early dates especially that must concern us now, for solid
evidence dating the HE before 306 would seriously undermine
the date for the Canones that I am proposing.
The manuscripts reveal traces of editions completed in 313/4,
315/6, and 324/5, and a modification of the 324/5 edition in 326
to remove Crispus (this latter only in the Syriac translation).
30
The evidence for these editions is chiefly the textual variants
arising from later emendation in the early Greek manuscript tradi-
27
The 405 years stated at 86a* is a scribal error on Jerome's part. The Armenian
translation gives 405 years between the two events because it antedates the start
of the Olympiads by one year (1240 Abr. instead of 1241). Jerome's chronology
is confirmed by other witnesses.
M
For various supporters of these views, see Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 191 n. 2
and 199, and C and E, pp. 346-47 n. 10; Quasten (cit. n. 3), pp. 315-16; Wallace-
Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 39-43; Lake (cit. n. 3), pp. xix-xxin; and Louth, 'Date',
pp. 112-13,
I I
4~
I
5. and 122-23. To these can be added Grant (cit. n. 3),
pp. 1415, for a date not much earlier than 303. Grant's reasons for dating the
work to this period are too subjective to be of assistance in this analysis ('an earlier
date rather than a later one would allow adequate time for the changes within the
first seven books which we hope to establish', p. 15). With regard to these changes,
Barnes rightly concludes, 'I do not believe that Grant has established [his conclu-
sions] satisfactorily', CandE, p. 346. See also T. D. Barnes, 'Some Inconsistencies
in Eusebius', JTS, NS, 35 (1984), 470-75.
29
'Editions', pp. 190-201; C and E, pp. m , 128-29, 145-47; and personal
communications.
30
This was first established by Schwartz (cit. n. 12), pp. xlvii-cxlvii, and is
described by Quasten (cit. n. 3), p. 315; Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 196-98; Grant
(cit. n. 3), pp. 10-13; and Louth, 'Date', pp. m- 1 2 , 113-14.

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484 R. W. BURGESS
tion: minor tampering for political reasons in most places and the
rewriting of book eight in 315/6 to compensate for the removal of
the short recension of the Martyrs of Palestine (see Appendix 1).
There is no trace in the manuscripts of any edition earlier than
313, especially in books six and seven, where the supposed differ-
ences between the earlier and later editions were great (see below),
even though Barnes' putative first edition of before c.293
w a s m
circulation for almost twenty years and that of c.303 for ten years,
certainly long enough to leave some trace in a tradition that can
otherwise distinguish editions completed fewer than five and ten
years apart. This lack of manuscript evidence makes an edition
before 313 most doubtful.
31
Adding to this doubt are the obvious later references scattered
throughout books one to seven.
32
None of these references suggests
a date later than the end of book nine, which corresponds to the
manuscript evidence, an important agreement that seems to have
been overlooked. A number of these references indicate other
works that Eusebius had written, such as the Eclogue propheticae
(303/312; 1.2.27) and the Life of Pamphilus (310/311; 6.32.3;
7.32.25), or works of others that did not appear until later, such
as the forged Acts of Pilate (probably c.311; 1.9.34,
I X
-9)F the
Doctrine of Addai (c.300; 1.13), and Porphyry's Against the
Christians (c.300 (or perhaps c.275); 6.19. 2-11). Nowhere does
Eusebius refer to works written after 313. Louth notes that
Eusebius' account of Origen, which takes up much of book six
(roughly 1-6, 8, 14-19, 21, 23-28, 30, 32-33, 36-39 of 46 chap-
ters), refers three times to Pamphilus and Eusebius' Defence of
Origen (6.23.4, 33-4. 36.4) and almost certainly derives from it,
though it was not written until 308/3 io.
33
If this material had not
originally existed, book six would be much shorter indeed and
would lack its central unifying focus. In books one to seven
Eusebius also makes reference to later events, especially the Great
11
On this, see also Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), p. 607.
12
Barnes provides lists in 'Editions', p. 201 n. 28, and C and E, pp. 146, 346
n. 10, and 355 nn. 166-67, 17. '72= 1.1.2, 2.14-16, 2.27, 9.3-4, 11.9, 13; 4.7.14;
6.19.2-15, 23.3-4, 3*-3. 33-4. 36.4-7; 7.18.3, 30 index and chapter heading, 30.22,
31, 32.1-4, 22-32. To these can be added 7.11.26 (on the persecution) and 7.30.21
(which refers ahead to 8.1.79). Yet Barnes claims that Eusebius only 'slightly
retouched' the first seven books when he created the second edition (C and E,
p. 149). As a general, though not invariable, principle, I agree with G. A.
Williamson in the preface to his Penguin translation of the HE: 'in the absence of
textual evidence that they are afterthoughts we ought to treat all references to late
events as proof of late writing' (p. 21).
" 'Date', pp. 121-22. See also Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), pp. 607 and 774 n. 33. See
Wallace-Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 160-65, who derives all or parts of 1-3, 8, 15-16,
18-19, 23. *8. 3. 33. 36, 37, and 39 from the Defence of Origen.

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Persecution: 1.1.2; 7.11.26; 7.30.22; 7.32.1, 4, 25, 28, 29, 31. The
reference to Peter of Alexandria at 7.32.31, for example, can hardly
be an addition made at the same time as 9.6.2 (the correct chrono-
logical place for the notice), since it contains more information
than the later note. Its appearance does, however, make perfect
sense if Eusebius wrote books seven to nine as a single block
(though most of the current book eight is a later addition, includ-
ing the reference to Peter in 8.13.7), commenting on Peter as he
came up in the narrative, directly or through association. So
numerous and so integral to the content and structure of the
history are all these passages that if we were to accept them as
later additions, the only possible hypothesis would be that they
were included as part of a complete rewriting of almost the entire
work for the edition of 313/4, not as part of a simple revision to
keep the work up to date. Yet apart from the replacement of book
eight there is no evidence for alteration or revision on this scale
in later editions.
Like book six, book seven could hardly have existed as it does
now simply with the later references removed, 'ending almost
exactly where the first edition of the Chronicle ended' with a
reference to the death of Aurelian, the accession of Probus
(7.30.22), a section on two recent bishops of Laodicea (32.521),
and 'a brief statement of the names of the bishops who occupied
the principal sees at the time of writing'.
34
Those who argue for
a date of c.303 must also explain why Eusebius would have con-
cluded his history with the beginning of the persecution in
March/April 303, a perverse and ignoble conclusion for such a
work (unless he happened to finish it in January or February!). It
should also be noted that Eusebius' list of emperors at 7.30.22
omits Tacitus and Florianus, short-lived Augusti of 275-76,
incorporating their regnal year into Aurelian's total. It appears to
be a deliberate simplification and as such is understandable in
313, almost forty years later, but is rather harder to explain in the
early 290s or even in 303. An early date of composition can only
be maintained by positing massive revision at a later dateespeci-
ally to books six and sevenrevision for which there is no
evidence. The same problems exist for an edition concluding with
book eight.
35
14
Barnes, 'Editions', p. 200, and C and E, pp. 129 and 145-46.
13
The view of, for instance, Schwartz (cit. n. 12), pp. lv-lvi, and H. J. Lawlor
in Hugh Jackson Lawlor and John Ernest Leonard Oulton (trans.), Ewebius,
Bishop of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of Palestine 2
(London, 1928), pp. 3-6. This hypothesis rests almost exclusively on an inconclus-
ive comparison of the wording between the preface (1.1.2) and passages of books
seven and eight (7.32.32, 8.1.1, 16.1).

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486 R. W. BURGESS
No one has produced any evidence that any passage outside of
book eight is in fact a later addition, apart from the hypothesis of
an early edition itself, which is simply petitio principii, arising out
of the need to dispense with evidence contradicting an early edi-
tion. This is, I believe, the Achilles heel of any argument that
places the composition of the HE before 313: there is no evidence
that Eusebius ever carried out massive revisions of the sort
required for the argument of an edition earlier than 313/4 and the
burden of proof must lie with those who claim that he did.
I can find no solid, objective evidence to suggest an edition
earlier than 313, which would therefore be identical to Barnes'
'second edition': books one to seven, the preface to eight with the
short recension of the Martyrs of Palestine, Galerius' edict (the
'palinode'), the 'appendix', and book nine.
36
If this is so, and the
first edition of the HE was written in 313/4, then there is nothing
to contradict the dating of the Canones proposed above and its
first edition must therefore date between 306 and 313/4.
IV
The reference to the Canones in the preface to book one of the
Eclogae propheticae, that is to book six of the General Elementary
Introduction, provides a general confirmation of this date for the
Canones. This work could date to any period of general persecution
between March/April 303 and May 311, and December 311 and
May 313, since it refers to the suppression of Christian worship
and the detention of bishops, though Eusebius was imprisoned
for a time during the second bout of persecution, making this
later period less likely. As noted above (n. 1), book ten of this
work would seem to date after 309. Whatever the date, Eusebius'
careful explanation of his methodology in composing and arran-
ging the Canones implies that he was still in the process of complet-
ing the work and that the reader would have to take his word for
it that he had proved the antiquity of Moses and the succeeding
prophets.
37
It seems obvious from this unique descriptive refer-
ence that Eusebius did not expect his readers to be familiar with
the work; it is quite different from his reference to the Canones at
the beginning of the HE, where he assumes that his audience is
familiar with it, just three or four years later. We unfortunately
34
Barnes, 'Editions', p. 201. This is the conclusion of J. B. Lightfoot and B. F.
Westcott s.v. 'Eusebius', in William Smith and Henry Wace (eds.), A Dictionary
of Christian Biography, Literatures, Sects and Doctrines 2 (London, 1880), 322-23
(which is accepted in principle by Lawlor (cit. n. 35), p. 3), Lane Fox (cit. n. 3),
p. 608, and Louth, 'Date', p. 123, among others.
17
He starts off with 'Let it be known ..

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cannot tell how much further than Moses he had got when he
was writing this part of the General Elementary Introduction. Since
we cannot date the General Elementary Introduction with any great
precision, it cannot help with a specific date for the Canones, but
the two works do appear to have been contemporary, which is an
important confirmation of the general date of the Canones put
forward here.
Eusebius' stress on the Years of Persecution, which start from
the beginning of the persecution in Caesarea in March/April 303,
and their use as the basic chronological system in both the Canones
and the Martyrs of Palestine, in contrast to their very infrequent
appearance in the HE (7.32.31 (ninth year); 8.13.10 (second year);
16.1 (tenth and eighth years)),
38
suggests a close correlation in
conception between the first two works. Eusebius' expedient of
doubling up the second and third Years of Persecution, rather
than just omitting the system altogether and avoiding the entire
problem, suggests that this section was written at a time when he
believed that a close accounting of the individual years of the
persecution was of great importance. The evidence of the different
uses of this system in the existing book eight of the HE (it does
not appear in book nine) and the two recensions of the Martyrs
(on which, see Appendix 1) indicates that this would have been
before 313/4, probably at the same time as the Martyrs was being
completed. If the Canones and the Martyrs are seen as comple-
mentary, it would help to explain why Eusebius makes no mention
of events during the persecution in the Canones apart from the
deaths and accessions of emperors.
39
This really only makes sense
if he was relying (or expecting to rely) on another narrative (the
Martyrs) to provide the details. One can hardly imagine Eusebius'
concluding the Canones at a date before the Martyrs and not
commenting in some way on the persecution he saw around him.
The HE, on the other hand, presupposes both works and is an
advance on both: a full narrative of Christian events, instead of
an epitome, with a revised chronology, combined with an epitom-
ized and rewritten version of the Martyrs as one of its chapters.
" The first two of these resemble entries in the Canones, 227* and 228
d
(the
martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria and the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian).
n
For this, see my paper cited in n. 6, above.

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488 R. W. BURGESS
VI
A date for the Canones between 306 and 313 is further confirmed
by Eusebius' own comments on its genesis and by its strong apolo-
getic nature. In his preface to the Canones (reproduced and trans-
lated in Appendix 2, below) Eusebius makes it clear that it was
Porphyry of Tyre's contradiction of established Christian and
Jewish chronologies regarding ^ Muiaiws ipxaidrns in book four of
his Kara Xpiartavwv (Against the Christians) that led him to under-
take his own chronological researches in the first place.
40
Eusebius'
researches revealed that both were incorrect, and he drives the
point home again and again throughout his preface. The question
of Moses also appears in the preface to the Chronographia, where
it is listed as the first goal of his work (Arm. i . i 6- i 8 = Grk.
167.1820 (see n. 2)). The importance of Porphyry's chronology
for the date of Moses is emphasized again in Eusebius' discussion
in the Praeparatio Evangelica, where he quotes Porphyry first and
analyses his chronology for Moses at length (10.9.11-25),
41
before
going on to quote and analyse the Mosaic chronologies of Africanus
(chapter ten), Tatian (chapter eleven), Clement (chapter twelve),
and Josephus (chapter thirteen), four of the five Christian and
Jewish authors he quotes in the preface to the Canones (only Justus
is missing). The discussion of his own methods (deriving from his
preface to the Canones) covers only 9.210. Thrice in Praeparatio
40
Because he dates the Canones about ten years before the appearance of Against
the Christians Barnes denies that Eusebius used Porphyry in his first edition (C
and E, p. 113, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14), 64; cf. however, p. 59 of the latter
article and idem, 'Pagan Perceptions of Christianity', in I. Hazlett (ed. ), Early
Christianity. Origins and Evolution to AH. 600. In Honour of W. H. C. Frend
(London, 1991), 239- 40) . Thi s causes hi m a number of difficulties, not least that
he must posit Eusebius' use of Porphyry for the first time in the latter half of 325,
not even a year after Constantine's order calling for the burning of all copies of
the work and his prescription of the death penalty for anyone who possessed a
copy of it (on which, see Barnes, C and E, p. 211, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14),
p. 53). Thi s hypothesis also requires improbably extensive revision to the Canones
(see above). Barnes' supporti ng argument based on Eusebius' methods of quoting
the Canones in the Praeparatio Evangelica is contradicted by the very authority he
cites (Karl Mras (ed.), Eusebius Werke 8: Die Praeparatio Evangelica ( GCS 43. 2;
Berlin, 1956), 466). My date for the Canones woul d remove perhaps the largest
obstacle to Barnes' dating of Against the Christians to c.300, instead of the more
widely accepted c.275 (see n. 45, below).
41
Hi s use of Porphyry in Praeparatio 10.9 is rather different from that in the
Canones. He quotes hi m chiefly to demonstrate that even a pagan author admitted
the antiquity of Moses and then as a whi ppi ng boy to show that his chronology
was incorrect. There is no reference to the inoXoyta ('admission', 'confession') of
Porphyry in the preface to the Canones, yet it appears twice in the Praeparatio
(10.9.11 and 25; see also 11, 17, and 23) and is the key to hi s quotation of Porphyry
in that work.

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10.9 he refers to ^ Mwoews hpxa-i6-rqs (chapter nine title, 9.1, 9.11;
see also 9- i 7
:
\_IJop^>vpios] naXai.6rf.pov TOV Moiaea ouviorqaiv) and
states that it was proven in his Canones. The discussion of the
antiquity of Moses in the Praeparatio also links with the Eclogae
propheticae, where he says, -H)v Mwvaiws xai row ef ainov irpo^tjTatv
&px<"dnji Si' avrwv [i.e. the Chroma, canones] napeorrjaapev (fG
22.1024A). Nowhere else does Eusebius refer to the conclusions
or proofs of the Canones.
Eusebius' preface shows that he is clearly initiating a dialogue
with Jewish, pagan, and even earlier Christian historians and apolo-
gists over what was probably the most fundamental chronological
crux of Jewish and early Christian apologetic.
42
In fact, the first
word of the preface, and thus of the Canones as a whole, is Mtovaia.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that the question of the
antiquity of Moses provided the original impetus for Eusebius to
compose his work of chronography and that Porphyry's variant
chronology in his Against the Christians was a key factor in the
genesis of Eusebius' interest in Christian chronology and an import-
ant source for the development of the rest of the work.
43
In its very
genesis, then, the Canones was intended to refute the historical and
chronological evidence presented by the pagan historian Porphyry
in his Against the Christians and was therefore intended as a work
of apologetic.
44
Such a purpose accords more with the period of
306 to 313 than the early 290s or even the years before 303,
especially if Porphyry's Against the Christians dates to the last years
of Porphyry's life, c.300305, as Barnes maintains.
45
42
See, for example, Josephus, Against Apion 1.104, 2.154-56, 168, 279-81;
Justin, Apologia 1.44.8, 59-60; Ps-Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos 9-13, 25-26, 31;
Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 31, 3641; Theophilus, ad Autolicum 3.2021, 29; and
Clement, Stromata 1.101-70 (21-26). On these, see the analysis of P. Antonio
Casamassa, Gli apologisti greet (Rome, 1944), 22-24, 67, 95-96, 118-19, 142-44,
19899. See also Jean Pepin, 'Le "Challenge" Homere-MoTse aux premiers siecles
Chretiens', Revue des sciences religieuses 29 (1955), 105-22, esp. 105-14; and Richard
Goulet, 'Porphyre et la datation de MoTse', Revue de I'histoire des religions 192
0977). 137-64, esp. 137-41 and 142-44.
41
See, for example, Jean Sinnelli, Let vues historiques d'Eusibe de Cesarte durant
la piriode premctenne (Dakar, 1961), 54: 'la fixation de la date de Molse [est] le
facteur primordial parmi ceux qui ont amene Eusebe a ce projet', and William
Adler, 'Eusebius' Chronicle and its Legacy', in Harold W. Attridge and Gohei
Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Leiden, 1092), 475, 'Eusebius had
two purposes in writing his chronicle. The first was to demonstrate, through
chronological comparisons, that Moses and Abraham were men of the remote past'.
44
See also the quotation from Adler in n. 50 below. On Eusebius and his use
of Porphyry for the first edition of the Canones, see the clear treatment of Croke,
'Era' (cit. n. 15), 10-13.
41
'Porphyry Against the Christians: Date and the Attribution of Fragments',
JTS, NS, 24 (1973), esp. 433-42, and 'Scholarship' (cit. n. 14), 53-65.

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490 R. W. BURGESS
Barnes, because he dates the Canones to the early 290s when
Christianity was secure, widely accepted, and prospering as never
before, denies this apologetic aspect of the Canones:
There is ... no reason to infer from the preface (or from any other part
of the work) that Eusebius composed the Chronicle mainly as a historical
apologia for Christianity. The Chronicle may be interpreted rather as
primarily a work of pure scholarship.
4
*
Barnes' overall view is summarized well by Averil Cameron in
her review of Constantine and Eusebius:
The Ecclesiastical History and the Chronicle were both begun, on B.'s
view, in an uncontentious mood of scholarship, not written from the first
for apologetic or polemical purposes. Above all, this Eusebius is primarily
a scholar, not a propagandist. So the central chapters of the book can be
taken to support the reliance placed on Eusebius in the rest of it.
47
Unfortunately for Barnes' argument the apologetic aspects of the
Canones are manifest, as we have just seen, and multifarious.
48
44
C and E, p. 113. Like Barnes (see n. 40 above) Joseph-Rheal Laurin
(Orientations mattresses des apologistes chritiens de lyo it 361 (Analecta Gregoriana
61; Rome, 1954)) claims that the references to Porphyry and his work were added
to a later edition (pp. 11112: 'a l'epoque de la premiere edition, Eusebe ignorait
le Kata Kristiandn') and he claims that the Canones was not a work of apologetic
(pp. 106-13), but he is surprisingly ill-informed about the chronicle and Christian
chronography in general. For instance, quoting Jerome's translation of Eusebius'
preface'Nam Moyses, licet junior supra dictis [Semiramis and Abraham] sit, ab
omnibus tamen, quos Graeci antiquissimos putant, senior deprehenditur, Homero
scilicet et Hesiodo Troianoque bello' (Helm, 9.1114)he says 'Cette facon de
presenter l'argument est plus evidemment apologetique, mais nous n'avons la
qu'un Eusebe remanie par Jerdme. On aurait tort, croyons-nous, de tirer la pensee
eusebienne d'une preface ou le traducteur a tant brode autour du texte original'
(p. 112). Eusebius' Greek original of this passage, preserved by Syncellus (Alden
A. Mosshammer (ed.), Georgii Syncelli Ecloga chronographica (Leipzig, 1984),
74.11-13), reads as follows: tlpov ... Muivoda &i, ^IAOATJ&US dmiv, rovrwv [Semiramis
and Abraham] ixkv vtwrtpov, rutv Si nap*
w
EAXrjuiv ipxanoXoyovfiivtov &ndvraiv irpeoflvTa-
TOV, 'Opujpov Xtyw KCU 'HoidSov, xai afntiiv y< rSni Tpwixwv.
47
'Constantinus Christianus', JRS 73 (1983), 188.
41
For the various apologetic aspects discussed below, the reader is referred to
the following useful discussions: Croke, 'Origins' (cit. n. 15), pp. 120-24, 126;
Laurin (cit. n. 46), pp. 106-10; Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second
Century (London, 1988), 57, 125-27, 155-56, 194-95; William Adler, Time
Immemorial. Archaic History and its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius
Africanus to George Syncellus. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 26 (Washington. D.C.,
1989), 1820, 40-42, 6971; idem, 'Eusebius' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43), pp. 46872,
478-81; Wallace-Hadrill (cit. n. 5), pp. 168-78, 182-83, 185-89; Glenn F.
Chesnut, The First Christian Histories. Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and
Evagrius (Paris, 1977), 92-108, 133-74; Sirinelli (cit. n. 43), 38-41, 46-59,
497-515; Hendnkus Berkhof, Die Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea (Amsterdam,
939), 53-6o; and Raffaele Farina, L'Impero e I'imperatore cristiano in Eusebio di
Cesarea (Zurich, 1966).

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Chronology had long been an important tool in the arsenal of
Christian apologists and Christian apologetic chronography had its
roots in Jewish apologetic, the best known example probably being
Josephus' Against Apion. Eusebius was aware of this and in the
Canones he mentions Josephus and his chronologies in 7.15, 55a
0
,
113", i74
d
(=175.11-23), 178", i8i
d
, 185', 187", and 191
s
. The
famous Christian apologists Justin, Tatian, Theophilus, Clement
of Alexandria, Hippolytus, and Julius Africanus all used chronology
as an apologetic weapon in their works and not only does Eusebius
mention Tatian, Clement, and Africanus in the preface to the
Canones (see Appendix 2=Jerome, 7.15) and the chronologies of
Africanus at 86b
11
*, 113', and 214, and of Clement at 100a" and
iO5b
d
, but the entire chronological structure of the Canones is
clearly based on the supputationes of such apologists as Theophilus,
ad Autolycum 3.28, and Clement, Stromata 1.101-45. Eusebius was
thus fully aware of his predecessors' work and followed in their
footsteps both in method and in aims.
49
Indeed, he could hardly
have disassociated himself from that tradition and any reader would
have immediately seen his work as a part of it. In essence, that was
the purpose of Christian chronography. Like earlier apologists
nXelaroi OXXoi as Eusebius himself says (Praeparatio 10.9.1)
Eusebius uses chronology to prove the greater antiquity of the
Jewish patriarchs in comparison to the Greek gods and heroes,
especially with respect to Abraham, the 'first Christian' (see Jerome,
243
d
, cf. 34a*),
50
and to Moses, who predated all pagan gods, heroes,
and philosophers (as discussed above; see Jerome, 9.1110.4 and
12.514.15, and Praeparatio 10.913).
49
See Adl er, ' Eusebi us' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43) , p. 468; W. H. C. Frend,
' Constanti ne and Eusebi us' , JEH 33 (1982), 591: ' In all Christian (and Jewi sh)
historical wri ti ng there was an apologetic edge. Chroni cl es were ai med at demon-
strating the antiquity of Christianity (or Judai sm) compared wi th pagan religions,
and this is what Eusebi us i ntended in his historical writings'; and Berkhof (cit.
n. 48), p. 60: ' Di e Chronol ogi c ist also ein Zwei g der Apol ogi e. Da liegt der Grand,
daB Eusebi us sich so ei ngehend mi t ihr befafit hat'.
50
See HE 1.4; Wal l ace-Hadri l l (cit. n. 5), p. 181, and Adl er, Time Immemorial
(cit. n. 48), pp. 6970, esp. n. 105: ' Eusebi us' deci si on to begi n wi t h Abraham,
and not s ome more remote event or person, shows ... that in the Canones Eusebi us
the historian had prevailed over Eusebi us the apologist. It woul d have been
di ssembl i ng if Eusebi us had on the one hand pol emi ci zed against the errors and
flaws of non-bi bl i cal sources, and then overl ooked the similar probl ems in Hebrew
archaic history. Gel zer suggests as wel l that Eusebi us' sensitivities to chronol ogi cal
probl ems had been sharpened by his learned opponent Porphyry, a scholar who
was skilled in i denti fyi ng i nconsi stenci es in biblical chronol ogy' . Thi s comment is
echoed by Sirinelli (cit. n. 43), p. 52: ' Eusebe ici est avant tout un hi stori en, pl us
qu' un apologiste'. Furthermore, by placing Abraham, Ni nus , and Semi rami s ' uno
eodemque t empore in libelli fronte', as Eusebi us says in the translation of Jerome
( 16. 13- 14) , he coul d i mmedi atel y refute Porphyry' s chronol ogy.

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492 R. W. BURGESS
Eusebius also explicitly used his new chronological reckoning
to combat, rather than further, the immensely popular and widely
accepted chiliastic views of contemporary Christians, especially
the popular calculations of Julius Africanus, by reducing the age
of the world by three hundred years and refusing to start his
chronology with Creation (Chronographia, 1.25-2.6 (Karst)).
51
In
the end, however, it was Eusebius' variant chronology that led to
the disappearance of his work, for many later chroniclers attacked
and reworked his chronology, including Diodorus of Tarsus,
Annianus, Panodorus, Andronicus, and James of Edessa, often to
suit the standard date of c.AM 5500 for the Incarnation. Indeed,
Eusebius' negative attitude towards millenarianism would seem
to have developed as a reaction against the millennial expectations
of many during the Great Persecution and out of his own apoca-
lyptic fears that arose during the persecution and that are mani-
fested in the Eclogae propheticae.
52
Other clearly apologetic aspects
of the work include the Euhemerizing interpretation of Greek
mythology evident throughout his discussion of early Greek his-
tory and the constant stress on the accuracy and truth of the Bible
in comparison with the uncertain and conflicting nature of pagan
historians and their chronologies,
53
both aspects aimed at sym-
pathetic pagan readers;
54
the implicitly negative stress on Jewish
chronology (Jerome, 22a" (the beginning of Jubilee 41, thus two
51
By placing the birth of Christ only 5199 years after Creation, Eusebius is the
only eastern chronographer of his time to reject the six thousand year eschatology
popularized by Africanus that placed the birth of Christ in anno mundi 5500; see
Cyril Mango, Byzantium. The Empire of New Rome (London, 1980), 192, and
Richard Landes, 'Lest the Millennium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and
the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100-800 CE', in Werner Verbeke, Daniel
Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen (eds.), The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in
the Middle Ages (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series I/Studia XV; Leuven, 1988),
138-39, 141-51, 163-64. On Eusebius' anti-chiliastic views, see Frank S.
Thielman, 'Another Look at the Eschatology of Eusebius of Caesarea', Vigiliae
Christianae 41 (1987), 226-37, esp. 235. On both the question of Moses and
millennialism, see William Adler, "The Origins of the Proto-Heresies: Fragments
from a Chronicle in the First Book of Epiphanius' Panariori, JTS, NS, 41
(1990), 498.
11
See Barnes, C and E, p. 168, and Thielman (cit. n. 51). These hostile views
appear in the HE as well: 3.39.11-13.
" Esp. Jerome, 66a' and 86a
d
, and e.g. 26b', 40b', 50b", 53b"
1
, 55b", 56b';
Hercules: 40b",
4 3
b
k
, 49b
1
, 51b", s6b^, 57b
c
, 59b', 59b* (=4ob
h
), 6ob
d
( =
1574-1196 BC); Homer: 63b*
1
, 66a', 69b', 7i b
b
(=1160-1017 BC); Hesiod: 7ib
b
,
84b', 87b' (=1017-767 BC); Carthage: 58b', 69b', 71b
0
, 8i b
b
( = 1214-850 BC).
The same argument against Greek history is made by Josephus, Against Apion,
I-I5-27. 37-38.
54
On sympathetic pagans as a likely audience for Eusebius' apologetic, see
Barnes, C and E, pp. 168-69, 178.

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thousand years from Adam
55
), 46a" (Jubilee 51), 73a
b
(Jubilee 61),
109" (Jubilee 71), 174" (Jubilee 81; the beginning of Christ's
ministry), 223
11
(Jubilee 86), Chron. 724 101.1-2 (Jubilee 86));
56
the importance of the Incarnation and crucifixion for world history
(Jerome, 243
d
, 34a*, 160-61, 169, 173-75);" the importance of
unbroken apostolic succession (all bishops of Rome, Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria are named and numbered until the perse-
cution; see HE 1.1.1, 7.32.32, 8. pref.); and the conclusion of the
work with Constantine and the great peace that he brought.
58
It
is easy to see that the Canones made a suitable companion piece
to his General Elementary Introduction, which he worked on at the
same time as the Canones but which was begun and finished
slightly earlier.
59
It was also a necessary prolegomenon for
Eusebius' major apologetic works of the 310s, the Praeparatio
Evangelica and the Demonstratio Evangelica, for, as Barnes
says, these two works consider the relationship of Christianity to
Greco-Roman civilization and culture, and its relationship to
59
By Eusebius' calculations, this point is 3,229 years from Adam (see Jerome,
250.2223 = 3,184 years to Abraham plus forty-five years), though the first indica-
tion of Eusebius' chronology does not appear until Jerome, 46a' (the death of
Moses is 3,730 years from Adam).
54
See Grant (cit. n. 3), p. 8, who cites the contemporary apocalyptic view
expressed in the Babylonian Talmud that the world would last eighty-five Jubilees
and a portion of the eighty-sixth; Landes (cit. n. 51), p. 206 and n. 8; and Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities 1.13 and 16; 20.261, and Against Apion 1.1, 36, and 39, who
says that the Old Testament recounts the history of five thousand years, of which
just under three thousand are covered by the Pentateuch and 2,000 since Moses
(see previous note). For the Chron. 724 (the famous Syriac epitome of the Canones,
which contains Eusebius' reference to the eighty-sixth Jubilee in his final supputa-
tio), see Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinent, CSCO 4, Chron.
min. 2: Scriptores Syri, series 3, tomus 4, versio, by J.-B. Chabot.
17
See Chesnut (cit. n. 48), pp. 98-108 (the graphic presentation of the replace-
ment of polytheism and polyarchy by monotheism and monarchy through the
reduction of multiple columns to one), and James T. Shotwell, 'Christianity and
History, III. Chronology and Church History', Journal of Philosophy, Psychology
and Scientific Methods 17 (1920), 14647 (who is correct in claiming that 'this
view of universal history places Eusebius on a distinctly higher plane than that of
a mere apologist', p. 147 n. 13). Abraham had initiated the first covenant, Christ
the second (Jerome, 24a
d
), hence the importance of the two figures for the Canones
and its chronological structure; see also Barnes, C and E, pp. 171-72. In another
argument aimed at pagan readers, Eusebius quotes from the pagan historian
Phlegon of Tralles concerning a solar eclipse and an earthquake in Bithynia that
destroyed Nicaea at the time of the crucifixion, S nai owf&ti rots ntpi T& ndBos TOO
aurrfjpos ijiuuv oviifUf}T]K6oiv (Greek: Syncellus, 394.2-12; Latin: Jerome, 174**, who
alters the year of this entry).
91
Obviously only a feature of the final edition.
59
For a discussion of the Eclogae propheticae, books six to nine of the General
Elementary Introduction, see Barnes, C and E, pp. 167-74.

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494 R. W. BURGESS
Judaism,
40
the two fundamental structural pillars of the Chronici
canones. A date of 306/313 clearly and closely links the Canones
with these fundamental works of Christian apologetic.
A final important aspect of the apologetic nature of the Canones,
as well as the HE and the Martyrs of Palestine, is historical
revisionism. Although, as I have argued above, Eusebius made no
major revisions to any of these three works apart from the replace-
ment of a large part of book eight of the HE to make it less
parochial, he did make a number of smaller alterations. A large
proportion of these alterations were of a political nature, to bring
his narrative into accord with contemporary political realities. For
the Canones, this meant removing a reference to Crispus' accession
as Caesar after his execution in May 326. This entailed another
'edition' after that of c.July/August 325, though Eusebius did not
continue his chronology beyond the symbolically important Year
20 of Constantine. For the Martyrs, it meant shifting more of the
blame for the persecution onto Maximinus and heaping extra
abuse upon him that would have been dangerous during his life-
time. For the HE, it meant the purging of Crispus after his death,
as in the Canones, and the addition of invective against and the
reduction of the historical r61e of the persecutor Licinius.
61
In
Eusebius' eyes, history served ecclesiastical and political necessity
first, and the truth (as we would see it) second, where possible.
For example, as far as the final editions of the Canones and the
HE were concerned, Crispus had never existed.
I can do no better than quote W. H. C. Frend, who has clearly
seen the genesis and deeply interconnected nature of Eusebius'
literary output of this period:
Like his opponents, he was also profoundly influenced and stimulated by
Porphyry's attack on Christianity. In the Preparation for the Gospel,
written c. 312-20," he quotes him no less than ninety-six timesmore
than any other single author. The Preparation formed part of a systematic
and comprehensive defence of Christianity, which had opened with the
60
C and E, p. 178. See also pp. 171- 72 and 184- 85: ' [ The] central thesi s [of
the Preparation for the Gospel and the Proof of the Gospel] is one whi ch the
Ecclesiastical History [and, one shoul d add, the Canones] had stated succi nctl y and
whi ch the Prophetic Extracts began to refine and devel op ... What is Christianity?
In Eusebi us' vi ew, it is the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs, and hence not onl y
true but primeval. And around this central idea Eusebi us has constructed a detailed
interpretation of the course of human history from the Fall to hi s own day'.
61
For the Canones, see my forthcomi ng paper a t e d in n. 6. For the Martyrs
and the HE, see Barnes, 'Editions', pp. 194- 95
a n
d 196- 98, and C and E, p. 155.
62
Barnes dates this work to C.314-C.318 and the Proof of the Gospel to
c.3i8-e.323 (C and E, p. 278).

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CHRONICI CANONES/HISTORIAECCLESIASTICA 495
Chronicle, continued with the two books Against Hierocles,*
3
and included
the Prophetic Extracts (the justification of the Christian argument from
prophecy), the Ecclesiastical History, and finally, the Proof of the Gospel.
This gigantic task of antipagan apologetic was to occupy some twenty
years of Eusebius's life from c. 302 to 320 and in this time he witnessed
the victory of his cause.
64
That some of Eusebius' methods and conclusions should prove
him to be more than a mere apologist, but a scholar and historian
unique to his age,
65
in no way diminishes the apologetic purpose
of the Canones or the fact that Eusebius saw history and chrono-
logy chiefly as weapons for defending the faith during and after
the Great Persecution. The difficulty in interpretation arises from
the fact that Eusebius is the watershed between the strictly apolo-
getic chronography of the past and the more scholarly and provid-
entialist history of the future that he himself helped to usher in.
VII
In the light of sections II to VI, above, the most obvious choice
for a concluding date after 306 and before 313, is 311, the conclu-
sion of the first wave of persecution and the time that Eusebius
had already completed the General Elementary Introduction and
was just completing the Martyrs of Palestine.
66
If so, did Eusebius
conceive, research, compile, and compose the Canones in the
period of May to November/December of 311, while he was
composing the Martyrs} That is quite possiblethere is enough
timebut perhaps not likely. The work of the Canones itself
would not have taken much more than a few months of solid work
to compile, calculate, and copy out, and it was in fact the second
of two chronological works, the first being the Chronographia,
though this would have not taken much more than a few weeks
to compile and copy, once the research had been done. We can
only guess when Eusebius conceived the idea of composing the
Chronographia and the Canones. There is, of course, no reason
why he could not have started the work in the dark days of
sporadic persecution between, say, 300 and early 303 (if Against
63
Barnes (' Schol arshi p' (cit. n. 14), p. 60) notes with agreement a recent st udy
by T. HSgg that suggests that this work was written by a different Eusebi us.
64
W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity ( London, 1984), 478. For Eusebi us
as an apologist rather than a historian, see R. M. Grant, "The Us es of Hi st ory in
the Church before Ni caea' , Studia Patristica 9. 2 ( TU 108; Berlin, 1972), 177;
Adl er, ' Eusebi us' Chronicle' (cit. n. 43) , p. 469; and Averil Cameron, The Later
Roman Empire ( London, 1993), 18.
65
At illustrated by Sirinelli (cit. n. 43). See also the quotations in nn. 50 and 57.
" To the best of my knowledge, no one has suggested this date before. On the
date of the Martyrs, see Appendix 1, below.

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496 R. W. BURGESS
the Christians had appeared by then), but perhaps he first
embarked on his researches after the lull in local persecution that
began in mid-308, or even before. Between that date and the end
of persecution in May of 311, there was relative peace in Caesarea,
with the exception of one particularly fierce bout of persecution
between November 309 and March 310.
67
Thus we could place
the work between 308 and 311, with completion after May 311.
My feeling is that the bulk of the final compilation belongs after
the death of Galerius. The persecution obviously did not prevent
him from writing the General Elementary Introduction, the Life of
Patnphilus, and the conclusion of the Defence of Origen, as well as
compiling the Martyrs of Palestine, so there is no reason why he
could not have researched and compiled the Canones during the
persecution as well. It is not a tremendously large output and is
mostly compilation.
A date of 311 for the Canones immediately changes our entire
view of the work and its purpose. The same also holds true for
the HE. Neither was written in the halcyon days of the 280s or
290s when Eusebius saw nothing but advancement and prosperity
for Christianity as a fully accepted part of Roman society through-
out the Empire. Neither was written in the darkening days before
the Great Persecution, as sporadic persecution and hatred began
to flair up again. Therefore neither the Canones nor the HE are
'contemporary evidence for the standing of the Christian church
in Roman society in the late third century' nor do they 'reflect
the optimistic assumptions of a Christian writing in the reign of
Diocletian before persecution threatened.'
68
The Canones was
written during the persecution itself and finished off in its immedi-
ate aftermath, at a time when Christianity had suffered its greatest
trials, was at its weakest ebb, and was seeking to re-establish itself
as a normal and accepted part of daily life once again, knowing
that it had emerged victorious, but unsure of the future. The
work must be seen and interpreted in this light, in the light of
persecution narrowly survived, propaganda, and apologetic, not
of confidence, peace, and pure scholarship as has been argued by
Barnes.
69
The acceptance of the apologetic nature of the Canones
is of fundamental importance for our understanding of Eusebius
and the reign of Cons tan tine, for Barnes' interpretation and use
67
Martyrs 9.1-11.30; Barnes, C and E, pp. 153-54.
u
T. D. Barnes, 'Some Inconsistencies in Eusebius', JTS, NS, 35 (1984), 471,
and C and E, p. 146.
69
E.g. Barnes, C and E, pp. 113-20, and 126-47. As Robin Lane Fox states
with regard to the HE, 'We misjudge the work and its achievement if we detach
it from its times' ((cit. n. 3), p. 608).

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of Eusebius depend upon Eusebius' scholarly approach to history.
If Eusebius is proved to be an apologist first and a scholar second,
important aspects of Barnes' interpretation of Eusebius and
Constantine are thrown into doubt.
The Canones is therefore a fundamentally backward-looking
document, not forward-looking, as it would have been had it been
written before the persecution. Porphyry's learned attack on
Christianity, the persecution, and the reaction of other Christians
and sympathetic pagans to those two were therefore key factors
in its genesis. Eusebius' response to Porphyry had to be of equal
or greater authority, it had to be as comprehensive, it had to be
based on history, especially pagan history, and it had to defend
the chronology of the Bible and earlier Jewish and Christian
chronography, while correcting them at the same time. In seeking
to counter Porphyry, Eusebius drew upon Christian apologetic
literature and history to create something that had never existed
before: a Christian chronicle, a work that surpassed the narrow
confines of a straight rebuttal to Porphyry by providing Eusebius'
readers with the history of Christianity, the proof of its antiquity,
a demonstration of the uncertainty of pagan history and chrono-
logy, the truth and concordance of the holy Scriptures, an argu-
ment against the obviously strong feelings of millenarianism
engendered by the persecution, and examples of the impact of
God's providence on human history at a time when holy Scripture
was no doubt hard to come by and many individual battles of
Christian and pagan were still to be fought for many years to
come. As such it was a fitting companion piece to the General
Elementary Introduction. And like the Canones the HE, too, should
be seen as a product of persecution and its aftermath.
VIII
The conception and development of the HE seem to arise out
of the nexus of the Martyrs and the Canones. The Martyrs was
probably the first work of the three that Eusebius embarked on,
a contemporary collection of martyr acts that Eusebius probably
began to record in rough form within a few years of the outbreak
of the persecution in 303. The genesis of the Canones derived
from the apologetic need for a chronology to combat the appear-
ance (or perhaps reappearance) of Porphyry in the early years of
the persecution. The General Elementary Introduction picked up
the exegetical and prophetic aspects of Christian apologetic as a
counterpoint to the bare chronology of the Canones. I believe that
it was while working on these three projectsthe Martyrs, the

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498 R. W. BURGESS
General Elementary Introduction, and the Canonesthat Eusebius
first conceived the idea of a detailed history of the Church, separate
from 'Roman' history, which was essentially collections of imperial
biographies. In a sense it was a case of extending the narrative
structure and individual focus of the Martyrs (and other martyr
acts) backwards in time using the chronological structure and
outline of the Canones, with any non-ecclesiastical material
removed: apostolic succession, Christian leaders and heroes, her-
etics, the downfall of the Jews, Christian martyrs, and the persecu-
tion and its aftermath (HE 1.1.1-2, a list, it should be noted, that
covers only books one to nine). It was his work on the Canones
(prompted originally by the apologetic question of Moses) that
first drew his attention to Christians as separate historical entities
whose writings and actions could be researched and described
within the confines of contemporary historiography, much as the
Jews had been described in the past. He simply took the bare
outline that he had produced in tabular form and expanded it into
a narrative, concentrating on individuals he had already named,
those who had made the church great and those who had caused
it to suffer, both from within and from without. Such a project
required further detailed research, of course, and this explains
many of the differences between the Canones and the HE.
70
As I suggest below (Appendix 1), work on the first edition of
the Martyrs was stopped, perhaps by Eusebius' developing ideas
on the HE, since he does not seem to have published his first
edition, which he had concluded in mid-3
x l
>
a n
d book eight of
the first edition of the HE was essentially a reworked version of
the Martyrs with a supporting framework at the beginning and the
end. I would suggest that Eusebius probably began to conceive
and research the HE around 310, if not perhaps before. With the
conclusion of the persecution (or so he thought) he realized that
the Church's victory in the face of an all-out persecution made a
perfect conclusion for his developing history and so he decided
to combine the two narrative histories into one, finishing his
history with a version of the Martyrs. Renewed persecution pre-
vented him from continuing work on the HE and in 313 he
finished the work as far as book nine. Without the Canones and
the Martyrs, therefore, the HE would not have been possible.
On this hypothesis the original purpose of the HE was to
describe the strength and the uninterrupted and unbroken spread
of Christianity in the Roman world before the Great Persecution
of 303, the earlier persecutions that foreshadowed the Great
70
See Barnes (cit. n. 68), p. 472.

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Persecution, the brave and learned men who counted amongst
Christian heroes, and thoseJew, pagan, or Christian heretic
who had tried, but failed, to harm it in the past. Amidst the
greatest attempt to eradicate Christianity, the HE was a summary
of everything that the Church had been and how all the courage
of the past had been manifested in the present-day martyrs of
Palestine. It was thus the Church's past that had allowed it to
survive the present. After the final victory in 313, it became a
triumphant account of how the faith had grown to the point where
even the combined might of the emperors could not extinguish
it. As originally conceived an entire book out of eight, and in the
first edition of 313 two books of nine, just under about twenty
percent of the total text, were devoted to the persecution, which
was merely eight and then finally ten years out of about 315. The
persecution was obviously intended as the climax and focal point
of the entire work. The preface to book eight refers to the previous
seven books as narrating the history of apostolic succession and
the eighth as beginning the history of Eusebius' own time, by
which he means the persecution. Seven books of apostolic succes-
sion mirror the seven days of creation, and the culmination of the
narrative is the Great Persecution, the deaths of the persecutors,
and the final victory of Christianity (books eight and nine). Such
a structure is supported by the programmatic preface in 1.1 (as
noted above) and the conclusion to book seven, which links to the
preface of book eight and provides a chronological summary from
the Incarnation to the outbreak of the persecution, thus unifying
the first seven books of the early history of the Church, the history
of the Church's past, and linking it to the time of the persecution,
the recounting of its immediate present. Books eight and nine
then form another unit (perhaps originally a single book) with a
single preface recounting the persecution and its ultimate failure.
The shift from the past to the present also involves a shift from
a universal context to a more local one, and this is not unusual in
histories or chronicles that make a pretense of universality while
trying to treat recent or local events as well, especially those
written outside of important centres, like Rome or Constantinople.
This method of composition, the grafting of an account of the
persecution in Palestine onto a universal history of the Church,
is what has given the work its odd structure, a structure that has
caused Barnes and others to suspect an edition ending in c.280 or
a little later. Eusebius' narrative of universal church history
which I believe is more the result of an accident of the preservation
of certain documents within Eusebius' easy reach than of any
attempt on his part to present such a 'universal history'comes

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500 R. W. BURGESS
to an end in the reign of Probus with an account of Manicheism
(7.31). In 7.32 Eusebius simply mentions and describes a great
number of local ecclesiastics, all of whom were active in the 280s,
290s, and on into the time of the persecution, such as Dorotheus,
a presbyter in the time of Cyril of Antioch, bishop for twenty
years in the 270s, 280s, and 290s; Stephen and Theodotus of
Laodicea, who were bishops in succession from the 280s; Agapius
of Caesarea, who died before 303; Pamphilus, who was martyred
in 310; Pierius and Meletius, of whom Meletius survived into the
persecution and Pierius survived beyond; Achillas, presbyter
under Theonas of Alexandria (elected 281) and (it seems) later
short-lived bishop of Alexandria (312-13); and Peter of
Alexandria, elected in 301 and martyred on 25 November 311.
71
This local focus sets the scene for book eight. Not much of great
moment was happening in the Church at the time, so there was
little Eusebius could say, and judging from HE 8.1.7-9 there was
not much he wanted to say. And, as Barnes himself notes, 'In
conformity with tradition, Eusebius remained silent about the
deeds and achievements of living contemporaries'.
72
It seems that
he was unwilling to go into any detail concerning the church's
internal conflicts in the years before the persecution. But more
important, he seems to have run out of written sources and was
relying chiefly on his own recollections, hence the focus on a few
strictly local individuals. In view of my proposed date of composi-
tion, this need not cause any worry or surprise. After the letters
of Dionysius ^264) run out (7.1, 311, 2026), he has a dossier
relating to Paul of Samosata (2730.19), a written source for
Anatolius and Eusebius in Alexandria (32.5-12), and the writings
of Anatolius (32.13-21). The rest is his own (basically lists of
bishops and stories of local ecclesiastics: 7.2, 12-19; 30.20-23; 31;
32.14, 2232)." For book eight and much of book nine he could
rely on his own eye-witness testimony and the testimony of other
eyewitness (parochial though these were), but there was a gap
covering twenty-five years or so before the persecution that he
did not (and could not) narrate in detail from his own certain
knowledge or from any written sources. One can see this lull in
the Canones more vividly, where there is nothing concerning non-
secular history apart from the episcopal lists and the persecution
of Veturius (=HE 8.1.7) between a notice on the Manichees (3
Probus = 278) and the beginning of the persecution ( = 303). Again,
we see no attempt by Eusebius to fill any such gaps in his narrative
71
Barnes excises all these references as later additions. See n. 32, above.
71
C mdE, p. 129.
73
See Grant (cit. n. 3), pp. 9, 14, 20-21, and Barnes, C and E, pp. 143-46.

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in later editions of the Canones or the HE. Since the original book
eight concentrated only on Palestine and book nine chiefly on a
few areas of the Levant (with an interesting section on the Battle
of the Milvian Bridge, just north of Rome), the concluding sec-
tions of book seven, with their obvious local character and thus
narrowing focus, act as a prelude to what comes later. The outlook
of the work begins to change with Eusebius' shift to the narration
of events of his own time (7.27). It is these factors that account
for the peculiar shift near the end of book seven, from a universal
history of the Church to a local history of the persecution. We
can thus account for the change in focus at the end of book seven
of the HE without having to posit an edition that ended in 277
or 303.
IX
To keep his Canones up-to-date with the HE and the final end
of the persecution Eusebius probably produced a second edition
in 313. There is no evidence for this but it seems likely. For this
putative second edition he would have added Years 7 and 8 of
Constantine
74
to the end of the work, two entries on the deaths
of Maxentius and Maximinus, a concluding comment on the
return of peace by Constantine (and Licinius?), two additional
notes concerning the martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria (under
Year 17 of Diocletian) and the accession of Constantine in the
fourth year of persecution (under Year 19), and the correction
from Year 6 to Year 8 of Constantine in the chronological termini
noted in various places throughout the Chronographia and the
Canones. There may have been a third edition of 315/6, to match
the second edition of the HE, but there is no evidence for it. The
final edition of the HE seems to have been undertaken somewhat
earlier than that of the Canones. The former concludes with the
defeat (death?) of Licinius (19 Sept 324), while the latter was not
completed until after Constantine's vicennalia on 25 July 325.
Interestingly, neither work mentions the Council of Nicaea
74
We do not in fact know whose regnal years followed Diocletian's in the
original edition. I have always discussed the text as it now stands, but there is a
possibility that Years 1 to 6 of Constantine could originally have been Years 2 to
7 of Galerius, the first year trimmed much as the first year of Septimius Severus
is trimmed to accommodate Pertinax (see Jerome's translation, p. 210). However,
after the death of Galerius, who was technically the senior Augustus, there was
no 'new' emperor, as there always had been in the past, whose regnal years could
start from Year 1 for 311. In the summer of 311 it would have made more sense
to Eusebius as a chronographer (not to mention as a Christian) to follow the regnal
years of Constantius and Constantine (who were non-persecutors) right from the
death of Diocletian, and this is what I think happened.

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502 R. W. BURGESS
(JuneJuly 325). For the final edition of 325 he added regnal years
9 to 20 of Constantine, six or seven historical entries,
75
removed
the reference to Licinius (if it existed) from the concluding note
of the edition of 313, and updated his chronological termini to
Year 20 of Constantine. At some point after May 326 he had
Crispus' name removed from the note concerning his accession
under Year 11 (see above). Each new edition would have taken
Eusebius no more than a day to prepare but the impact of that
final edition of 325/6 was enormous, for it was translated by
Jerome into Latin and became the foundation for our understand-
ing and chronology of ancient history right down to the present
day: 'It is doubtful if any other history has ever exercised an
influence comparable to that which it has had upon the western
world'.
76
R. W. BURGESS
APPENDIX I: THE MARTYRS OF PALESTINE
The Martyrs of Palestine exists in two recensions, a short version
with no beginning or end that was obviously once a part of the
HE and a long version that is a self-contained, independent work
with a beginning and an end.
77
The inescapable conclusion con-
cerning these two recensions is that a version of the long recension
was completed in 311; that it was adapted and heavily revised for
inclusion as book eight in the first edition of the HE (313/4); that
this short version was removed from the second edition of the HE
(315/6) and replaced by a more comprehensive account of the
persecution to 311; and that the long version was lightly revised
to account for political changes since the original composition and
reissued in a second edition.
The only problem with this reconstruction is that in HE 8.13.7
Eusebius states, with respect to Palestinian martyrs, TOVTOVS Kai
rots pe6' i}/i&? yvwpifjLOvs 81' kripas noi.TJaofj.ai ypa<frf)s. It is clear from
the context that he is referring to the Martyrs. These words were
part of the second edition of 315/6, long after the supposed date
of the composition of the Martyrs in 311. As Andrew Louth
79
Accessi ons of Cri spus and Constanti ne II as Caesars, the persecuti on of
Li ci ni us, the martyrdom of Basil of Amasi a, the excommuni cati on of Anus (?),
the accessi on of Constanti us II as Caesar, the defeat and death of Li ci ni us, and
the vicennalia of Constanti ne.
76
Shotwel l (cit. n. 57), p. 145.
77
See Barnes, ' Edi ti ons' , pp. 193- 96; C and E, pp. 148- 50, 155- 58; and Barnes
(cit. n. 68) , pp. 470- 71, whose concl usi ons, fol l owi ng those of Li ghtfoot (cit. n. 36),
pp. 310- 21 and Lawlor (cit. n. 35), pp. 7 - 9 , cannot, I bel i eve, be avoi ded.

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states, this amounts to a real conflict in the evidence.
78
Added to
this is the peculiarity of Eusebius' method of composition. Why
would he have simply taken an earlier workthe Martyrs
shortened it, and made it such a substantial part of a new work
(the first edition of the HE) only two or three years later? This
seems extremely odd, amounting in fact to self-plagiarism.
A possible solution to this perplexing situation is that Eusebius
completed the Martyrs in 311 but had failed to publish or circulate
it (or perhaps just circulate it widely) when the persecutions
started up again in November of 311.
79
Perhaps his intention was
to continue the work when the persecution finally ended and he
could include all of the martyrs. By the time the persecutions
were finally over in 313 he had decided to include the Martyrs in
the HE rather than update and publish it separately. Perhaps by
311 he had already decided to cannibalize it for the HE and did
not publish it for that reason. Whatever the date and circum-
stances, it seems reasonable to assume that the Martyrs' new role
as book eight of the developing HE kept it from being published
as a separate work before c.316. There was, therefore, no self-
plagiarism. Once the sections on the Palestinian martyrs had been
removed from book eight for the second edition of the HE,
Eusebius simply pulled out the original work, updated a number
of references to the dead Maximinus, and published it as it was,
without updating it, since everything he wanted to say had been
said in the HE and he had not been in Palestine for much of the
second half of the persecution.
80
As we have seen with the HE
and the Canones above, Eusebius spent very little time on his
revisions, if he bothered to revise at all. This hypothesis thus
explains the peculiarities noted above and is consistent with
Eusebius' known methods.
APPENDIX 2: THE BEGINNING OF EUSEBIUS' PREFACE TO
THE CHRONICI CANONES
Muivaia yivos 'EfipaZov, irpotfnfTwv airdvrwv irpurrov, iLfufii TOO awriipos ^fiCiV,
\tyat hi TOCI XpiaroO, hyjfyi re rijs row iOvoiv Si' abrob Bcoyvwaias
Kai \6yia Beta ypcufrlj irapaSeSaiKdra, rois xpoVois aKfidaai Kara "Iva\ov
au> avSpes v irai&evaei yvoipifioi, KXrjfi-ns, A<j>piKav6s, Ta.Tia.vds ro6 KaO'
\6yov, TUIV rt kx irtpiTOfit/s 'Iwarfmroi Kai 'Iofjoros, ISiws iKaaros rfp> &T
iK iraXai&s {moax<uv laropias. "Iva-xos Si T&V 'IXUIKWV treaiv iirraKooiois
n
Louth, 'Date', p. 116.
79
Lane Fox (cit. n. 3), p. 608, suggests that it was 'already prepared, but perhaps
not circulated'. This, of course, left the Canones without any companion text to
fill in the blanks of the persecution (see above).
* Barnes, C and E, pp. 148-49.

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504 R. W. BURGESS
npf.oflf.va. 'EXXrjviKwy Si $i\oo6$wv, Sorts mni tp> iicfivos &rijp 6 Hp KOB'
fjfi&v ovoxfvi/v npo^pXij/jLevos, b> rfi 8' rf/s tls fidrqv airrCt irovT)9ticrqs xa8'
f/fjuhv \nro84ottas npo raiv Eefitpdfitajs xp6va>v TOV Mwvoia. ytvioBai <f>rjai'
PaaiXfvei Si 'Aaavpiwv 4] Stfxipafiii irpiaBev treat v npds rots p'. ware that
Kara rotnov T&V Tpwttcwv Mtavaia irptofivTfpov v KOX W frcotv.
'Eyw Si ntpt iroAAoO TOV hXqBf) \6yov Ti\uapxvos (cat TO hxptfits AvixveOaai
Std <mouS>)y npohdi\n\v ivBev bpftrjOtis tv /xiv rfj itpd raimjy awrd(ci 8Aoj
imropilfiiv hpavrih xp6v<x>v &.vaypa<f>as owt\t&iirp> navrolas, jSaatAct'a; re
XaXSaiwv, Aaavptwv, MrfSwv, IJepa&v, AVSOJV, 'EfipaXwv, AXyvmuov, 'Afhjvalwv,
Apyttcov, EiKvtavuov, AaKt&atfiovtwv, KoptvdCwv, GfrraX&v, Ma.KfS6vwv,
AarCvwv, cits vorepov ycyovcv tiriitXrjv ivofia 'PwyMtof 6fioi> yivovrat it'.
'Ev Si TO) nap6mi iiri TO abrd TOVS xpdvovs ovva.ya.yibv KO.1 iminapadeis kic
napaXX-jkov TOV nap' iicdoTai iBvct T W fr&v itptOpdv xpovixod Kavdvos ovvratv
Syncellus, Ecloga Chronographia (Mosshammer, 73.11-74.3).
Moses, a man of the Hebrew race, was the first of all the
prophets to hand down in writing the oracles and divine proph-
ecies about our Saviour, I mean Christ, and about the nations'
knowledge of God that came about through Him. Men distingu-
ished for their teaching, such as Clement, Africanus, and Tatian
among Christians and Josephus and Justus among the Jews, have
said that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus, each in his own
way furnishing proof from ancient history. Now Inachus preceded
the Trojan War by 700 years. But of the pagan philosophers,
whoever that man was who put forth that written attack against
us asserts in the fourth book of that work that he fruitlessly
laboured upon against us that Moses existed before the time of
Semiramis. Now Semiramis ruled the Assyrians 150 years before
Inachus. According to him, therefore, Moses predates the Trojan
war by 850 years.
Now since I consider historical truthfulness and accuracy to be
matters of great importance I proposed to investigate this matter
with great effort. This was my starting point. In the first volume
of this work by furnishing myself with the raw material [necessary
for such a study] I gathered together all sorts of chronological
records and the kingdoms of the Chaldaeans, Assyrians, Medes,
Persians, Lydians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Athenians, Argives,
Sicyonians, Spartans, Corinthians, Thessalians, Macedonians,
and Latins (who were later called the Romans)fifteen altogether.
In this volume I have collected these chronologies in the same
place and contrasted in parallel columns the numbers of years,
[which I have placed] beside each nation. In so doing I compiled
a chronological table...

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The Dates and Editions of Eusebius Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica

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THE DATES AND EDITIONS OF EUSEBIUS'

CHRONICI CANONES AND HISTORIA

but the fundamental contradiction remains. There is, therefore,

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