Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Vincent Twomey on Eusebius, Laus Constantini and Interpretation of Matthew 16:18

  

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)