The Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius
not with oil made of material substances, but with the divine oil of gladness. It thus indicates his especial honor, far superior to and different from that of those who, as types, were of old anointed in a more material way.
16. And elsewhere the same writer speaks of him as follows: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool”;10 and, “Out of the womb, before the morning star, have I begotten thee. The Lord hath sworn and he will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedec.”11
17. But this Melchizedec is introduced in the Holy Scriptures as a priest of the most high God,12 not consecrated by any anointing oil, especially prepared, and not even belonging by descent to the priesthood of the Jews. Wherefore after his order, but not after the order of the others, who received symbols and types, was our Saviour proclaimed, with an appeal to an oath, Christ and priest.
18. History, therefore, does not relate that he was anointed corporeally by the Jews, nor that he belonged to the lineage of priests, but that he came into existence from God himself before the morning star, that is before the organization of the world, and that he obtained an immortal and undecaying priesthood for eternal ages.
19. But it is a great and convincing proof of his incorporeal and divine unction that he alone of all those who have ever existed is even to the present day called Christ by all men throughout the world, and is confessed and witnessed to under this name, and is commemorated both by Greeks and Barbarians and even to this day is honored as a King by his followers throughout the world, and is admired as more than a prophet, and is glorified as the true and only high priest of God.13 And besides all this, as the pre-existent Word of God, called into being before all ages, he has received august honor from the Father, and is worshiped as God.
20. But most wonderful of all is the fact that we who have consecrated ourselves to him, honor him not only with our voices and with the sound of words, but also with complete elevation of soul, so that we choose to give testimony unto him rather than to preserve our own lives.
21. I have of necessity prefaced my history with these matters in order that no one, judging from the date of his incarnation, may think that our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the Christ, has but recently come into being.
1 Compare the Dem. Evang. iv. 17. 2 Ex. xxv. 40. 3 “Eusebius here has in mind the passages Lev. iv. 5, 16, and Lev. vi. 22, where the LXX. reads ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ χριστός: The priest, the anointed one” (Closs). The Authorized Version reads, The priest that was anointed; the Revised Version, The anointed priest. 4 A few mss., followed by Laemmer and Heinichen, read here Ναυῇ, but the best mss. followed by the majority of editors read ᾽Αυσῇ, which is a corruption of the name Oshea, which means “Salvation,” and which Joshua bore before his name was changed, by the addition of a syllable, to Jehoshua=Joshua=Jesus, meaning “God’s salvation” (Num. xiii. 16). Jerome (de vir. ill. c. I.) speaks of this corruption as existing in Greek and Latin mss. of the Scriptures, and as having no sense, and contends that Osee is the proper form, Osee meaning “Salvator.” The same corruption (Auses) occurs also in Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iii. 16, and Adv. Jud. 9 (where the English translator, as Crusè also does in the present passage, in both cases departs from the original, and renders ‘Oshea,’ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. Ed. III. p. 334, 335, and 163), and in Lactantius, Institutes, iv. 17. 5 Lam. iv. 20. 6 Ps. ii. 1, 2. 7 Ps. ii. 7, 8. 8 Isa. lxi. 1. Eusebius as usual follows the LXX., which in this case differs somewhat from the Hebrew, and hence the translation differs from the English version. The LXX., however, contains an extra clause which Eusebius omits. See Heinichen’s edition, Vol. I. p. 21, note 49. 9 Ps. xlv. 6, 7. 10 Ps. cx. 1. 11 Ps. cx. 4. 12 See Gen. xiv. 18; Heb. v. 6, 10; vi. 20; viii. 13 Eusebius, in this chapter and in the Dem. Evang. IV. 15, is the first of the Fathers to mention the three offices of Christ.
Chapter IV.—The Religion Proclaimed by Him to All Nations Was Neither New Nor Strange.
1. But that no one may suppose that his doctrine is new and strange, as if it were framed by a man of recent origin, differing in no respect from other men, let us now briefly consider this point also.
2. It is admitted that when in recent times the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ had become known to all men there immediately made its appearance a new nation; a nation confessedly not small, and not dwelling in some corner of the earth, but the most numerous and pious of all nations,1 indestructible and unconquerable, because it always receives assistance from God. This nation, thus suddenly appearing at the time appointed by the inscrutable counsel of God, is the one which has been honored by all with the name of Christ.
3. One of the prophets, when he saw beforehand with the eye of the Divine Spirit that which was to be, was so astonished at it that he cried out, “Who hath heard of such things, and who hath spoken thus? Hath the earth brought forth in one day, and hath a nation been born at once?”2 And the same prophet gives a hint also of the name by which the nation was to be called, when he says, “Those that serve me shall be called by a new name, which shall be blessed upon the earth.”3
4. But although it is clear that we are new and that this new name of Christians has really but recently been known among all nations, nevertheless our life and our conduct, with our doctrines of religion, have not been lately invented by us, but from the first creation of man, so to speak, have been established by the natural understanding of divinely favored men of old. That this is so we shall show in the following way.
5. That the Hebrew nation is not new, but is universally honored on account of its antiquity, is known to all. The books and writings of this people contain accounts of ancient men, rare indeed and few in number, but nevertheless distinguished for piety and righteousness and every other virtue. Of these, some excellent men lived before the flood, others of the sons and descendants of Noah lived after it, among them Abraham, whom the Hebrews celebrate as their own founder and forefather.
6. If any one should assert that all those who have enjoyed the testimony of righteousness, from Abraham himself back to the first man, were Christians in fact if not in name, he would not go beyond the truth.4
7. For that which the name indicates, that the Christian man, through the knowledge and the teaching of Christ, is distinguished for temperance and righteousness, for patience in life and manly virtue, and for a profession of piety toward the