One of the most fascinating periods in history is the first part of the Christian era. Its importance to Latter-day Saints is perhaps surpassed only by our ignorance of it. Yet there were historians who wrote during those centuries, historians who plainly and tragically
One of the most fascinating periods in history is the first part of the Christian era. Its importance to Latter-day Saints is perhaps surpassed only by our ignorance of it. Yet there were historians who wrote during those centuries, historians who plainly and tragically portrayed the fate of the church established by the Lord during his ministry. Eusebius, one of the earliest Christian historians, actually witnessed and wrote of the beginnings of the great apostasy that ultimately made necessary the restoration of the gospel.
Eusebius was born about A.D. 260, probably in Caesarea, a Mediterranean port west and a bit south of the Sea of Galilee. He distinguished himself as a scholar while young, was imprisoned for his religious views in 309 and again in 311, and in 314 was made Bishop of Caesarea. There he had access to a large library, founded by Pamphilus; in addition, there was available to him the library at Jerusalem. He was a thorough and accurate writer who nevertheless produced no fewer than forty-six works. He died in 339 or 340, two or three years after the death of the Emperor Constantine, whom he admired greatly and whom he had baptized. One of Eusebius’s major endeavors was the ten-volume Ecclesiastical History, probably written just prior to 326, in which he records the events in the church from the death of the apostles to the triumph of Constantine.
One of the distinguishing features of Mormonism is its concept of the relationship of Christ, God the Father, and this earth; for instance, our knowledge that the God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, the God of Israel, was in reality Jesus Christ. This knowledge was shared by Eusebius and has since been lost in the general confusion about the nature of the Trinity. He says:
“The Marshal and Fashioner of the universe gave up to Christ Himself, … His first-begotten, the making of subordinate beings, and discussed with Him the creation of man: ‘For God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness.’
“This saying is confirmed by another of the prophets, who in hymns deifies him thus:
The Father and Maker he introduces as giving commands like a supreme ruler by an imperial fiat; the divine Word, who holds the second place to Him—none other than the One whom we proclaim—as subserving his Father’s behests.” 1
“But it is obvious that they knew God’s Christ Himself, since He appeared to Abraham, instructed Isaac, spoke to Israel, and conversed freely with Moses and the prophets who came later, as I have already shown. … Obviously we must regard the religion proclaimed in recent years to all nations through Christ’s teaching as none other than the first, most ancient, and most primitive of all religions, discovered by Abraham … [to whom] an oracle was announced … by God—Christ Himself, the Word of God—who showed Himself to him.” 2
This concept of Christ and of the eternity of the gospel is excitingly familiar and beautifully clear to the Latter-day Saint reader. However, one translator of Eusebius, an Anglican, summarizes current secular ignorance as he admits:
“Eusebius’s view that the O.T. theophanies were appearances of Christ (in human form though not yet born a man) seems impossible to us. But have we yet solved the problem of reconciling the stories of encounters between men and the Deity with St. John’s assertion that no man has ever seen God?” 3
In a passage that clearly demonstrates both his understanding of the nature of Christ and the process of apostasy that was beginning to enter into the church and that was destined to culminate in the loss of this precious knowledge, Eusebius writes:
“Beryllus, … Bishop of Bostra in Arabia, perverted the true doctrine of the Church and tried to bring in ideas alien to the Faith, actually asserting that our Savior and Lord did not pre-exist in His own form of being before He made His home among men, and had no divinity of His own but only the Father’s dwelling in Him.” 4
One of the offices in the priesthood that is misunderstood by almost as many Mormons as gentiles is the calling of the seventy. Whether Eusebius really understood their function is not clear. However, he occasionally refers to them, collectively and individually:
“There is evidence that Matthias, who took Judas’s place in the list of apostles, and the other man honoured like him in the drawing of lots, had both been called to be among the seventy. Thaddeus, again, is said to have been one of them. … In addition to the Seventy there were other disciples of the Saviour.” 5
Eusebius quotes a fascinating little story about the missionary work and healings performed by “Thaddeus, one of the Seventy” after the crucifixion of the Savior, indicating that the calling of seventy was a fixture in the most primitive church, and that the responsibilities of this office did not terminate with the first mission on which the Lord sent the seventies. (See Luke 10:1–12.)
Eusebius quotes Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 150–215) in a passage where reference is made to the seventy:
“James the Righteous, John, and Peter were entrusted by the Lord after his resurrection with the higher knowledge. They imparted it to the other apostles, and the other apostles to the Seventy, one of whom was Barnabas.” 6
As we look back across seventeen c