At long last, I've finished what is, effectively, the historical preface of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. A quick glance at the text below might cause my readers to wonder what took for so long, but a more careful look will reveal that most of this passage is one very long sentence. Even though this passage is, in essence, a list of the topics of Eusebius' history, the complexity of this sentence made me slow down considerably to try to understand the grammar. It really wasn't until today that the passage has pulled together...somewhat.
I have
decided to record the following things in writing[1]:
the teachings of the holy disciples from the time of the savior stretching to
our own time; how many and of what sort of things are recorded to have been undertaken
in ecclesiastical history; how many were there who ruled conspicuously and
stood out especially in the most famous dioceses; how many were there in each
generation who defended the divine word without writing or in books; , the
times when, who and how many were there who, because of their desire for error,
driven toward revolution to its logical end, proclaim themselves the promoter of
the falsely-named knowledge, unsparingly as strong wolves ravaging the flock of
Christ[2]; in
addition to these matters, what happened to the Jewish people from the moment
of their plot against our Savior; in how many wars, in what sort of wars and
the times when the divine Word was made war upon; and how great were the people
who passed from time to time through contest of blood and torture; in addition
to these, the martyrdoms of our own days and the gracious and favourable help
of our Savior. I will begin from no other place than the first provision
relating to our Lord and God, Jesus Christ.
References haven't changed from the first post, although I have been consulting my best Greek grammar quite a lot on this entry:
H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1920
[1] This
clause is postponed in the Greek to the end of this very long list of topics.
The most likely reason for this word arrangement is that Eusebius wants his
topics to be front and centre, so he postponed his more prosaic decision to
write to the end of the sentences. It is an excellent example what an inflected
language can do to word order that uninflected languages can’t. It doesn’t make
it very easy to read though.
[2]
The falsely-named knowledge is a reference to Gnostic Christians, alluding to
the title of Irenaeus of Lyons work, On the Detection and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So Called.
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