The final
text is from Laus Constantini—a work which is closely related to the Theophany
. . . More specifically, the text is taken from the second half of the Laus,
which is a treatise composed by Eusebius for presentation to the Emperor on the
occasion of the Dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem
(335).
The treatise
open with the declared intention of Eusebius “to stand as interpreter of thy (=
Constantine’s) designs, to explain the counsels of a soul devoted to the love
of God”. He continues: “I propose to teach all men, what all should know who
care to understand the principles on which our Saviour employs his power”, (LC
11,7) i.e. the reason for the Incarnation of the pre-existent Logos. In other
words, he wishes to show Constantine’s place in the design of God for the salvation
of the world. Thus the work reaches its climax when Eusebius, having described
the coincidence of the Pax Romana with the Advent of Christ, when “two roots of
blessing, the Roman Empire and the doctrine of Christian piety, spring up
together for the benefit of man”, (LC 16,4) jumps to the contemporary history
of the Church (when these two roots were absorbed into one under Constantine).
There is a situation of the post-persecution Church is depicted as the final
proof of God’s power at work in the world. The destruction of the Temple and
the Jewish Race, which Eusebius contrasted with the foundation of the Apostolic
Church at Rome in the original History, is here contrasted with the
attempted destruction of the Church by the persecutors which failed and in fact
ushered in the new era in the history of the Church and of the world:
Respecting the
temple of these wicked men, our Saviour said: “Your house is left unto you
desolate” (Mt 23,38): and, “There shall not be left one stone upon another in
this place, that shall not be thrown down” (Mt 24,2, paraphrased). And again,
of his church he says: “I will built my church upon a rock, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16,18). (LC 17,8)
The latter
text reminds Eusebius of the promise to Petr and thus he continues:
How
wondrous, too, must that power be deemed which summoned obscure and unlettered
men form their fisher’s trade, and made them the legislators and instructors of
the human race! (LC 17,9)
He then
goes on to couple the promise to Peter (Mt 16,18) just mentioned with the
prophecy of Our Lord in Mt 10,18 that his disciples would be brought before
kings and rulers for their confession of His name. (LC 17,10) and to show their
real fulfilment in the recent martyrs who are now considered the (real) successors
of the Apostles. (LC 17,11) Then form the triumph of the martyrs Eusebius
makes the sudden transition to Constantine, who, by implication is the
successor par excellence of Constantine, who, by implication, is the
successor par excellence of the apostles, since he has triumphed over every
enemy. (LC 17,11) Finally Eusebius reaches the climax of his exposition with a
rhetorical reference to the Pax Romana as the final manifestation of God’s
Power working in history (LC 17,11)—not the Pax Augustana but the Pax
Constantiniana. (LC 17,14)
In this
passage, then, the Rock, on which the Church is built is first and foremost the
Power of God and in a secondary or derivative sense the instruments He uses to
achieve His purpose. Peter and the Apostles who first proclaimed his Law, then
the heroic martyrs who endured the attacks of the adversaries through His power
and thus triumphed over them, and finally Constantine, who conquered every
enemy through the Power of God and definitively established the universal Peace
foretold by the prophets. (Vincent Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos: The Primacy
of Rome as Reflected in the Church History of Eusebius and the Historico-Apologetic
Writings of Saint Athanasius the Great [Münster: Aschendorff, 1982], 227-29)
