Exposition of the chronicle of Eusebius Pamphilus

The Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea (Pamphilus) is a significant historical work. The Greek original of this work has survived only in fragments; currently two versions of it are known - in Armenian and Latin translations. The Latin version was made by Bl. Jerome of Stridon, covers only the second half of the work and continued until 378. Researchers suggest that there were 2 editions of the “Chronicle” of Eusebius of Caesarea - the first was written no later than 312, the second was completed in 325, which formed the basis for the version of the blj. Jerome. The purpose of the Chronicle is to prove, through historical comparison, the antiquity of the Jewish people and the Old Testament religion, which is a preparation for the coming of the Savior and for the New Testament. “Chronicle” in the original version consists of 2 parts. Part 1 (“Chronography”) is an introduction to Part 2 and is a brief summary of the history of the most famous peoples of antiquity (Babylonians, Assyrians, Jews, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks). Eusebius writes about states, kings, about the origin of pagan gods, about the beginning and sequence of the Olympics, about the time of the coming and suffering of the Savior, about the persecution of Christians. The 2nd part (“Canons of Times”) consists of synchronistic tables arranged in several columns, each of which traces the history of the ancient kingdoms, starting from the time of Abraham. The Chronicle ends in A.D. 303. This publication presents a Russian translation from the Latin version of the blzh. Hieronymus of Stridon. The presentation begins only from the Nativity of Christ and ends in 329. This is due to the theological and church-historical interest of the translators. *The title of the work in Greek is Χρονικο κανόνες κα ἐπιτομὴ ἱστορίας ῾Ελλήνων τε κα βαρβάρων. Contents Preface bl. Jerome Eusebius Jerome wishes health to his Vincent and Gallienus. It was the ancient custom of scholars that, to exercise the mind, they translated Greek books into Latin, and, what is most difficult, translated the poetic works of famous men into verse. Therefore, our Tullius translated entire books of Plato literally and, having published Aratus of Rome in hexameter, studied the Economics of Xenophon. In this matter, this golden river of eloquence is so often blocked by certain solid and insurmountable obstacles that those who do not know that this is a translation will not believe that it was written by Cicero. For it is difficult for someone who draws a line along someone else’s lines not to step out of them somewhere, and in something well said in a foreign language it is very difficult to preserve the same beauty in translation. Something is indicated by the peculiarity of one word, but I do not have my own to express it and, trying to fully convey the thought, I barely cover a short space in a long circle. What appears before me are jumps in the arrangement of words, dissimilarities in cases, differences in figures, and, finally, the most unique and, so to speak, native kind of language. If I translate literally, it turns out awkward; If, out of necessity, I change anything in the arrangement or in the speech, it will seem that I have stepped back from the duty of a translator. So, my dear Vincent, and you Gallienus, part of my soul, I ask you to read everything that is in this hasty work with the disposition of friends, and not of judges, especially when I dictated to the scribe, as you know, very quickly, and the monuments of the divine books confirm the difficulties of the matter. The LXX published by interpreters does not retain the same beauty in Greek, as a result of which Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion published almost different works in the same work, when one tried to convey word for word, the other followed more of the meaning, and the third diverged little from the ancients. And the fifth, sixth and seventh editions, although it is unknown to which authors they belong, have such a plausible difference (from the previous ones) that they have earned authority without the names of the authors. From here it has come to the point that the sacred books seem less graceful and heavily written, that eloquent people, not knowing that they are translated from Hebrew, looking at the surface and not at the inside, seem to abhor the dirty clothing of speech rather than find a beautiful body of content inside. What is more sweet-sounding than the Psalter? She, like our Flaccus and the Greek Pindar, sometimes flows in iambic verse, sometimes speaks in Alcean verse, sometimes flows majestically in sapphic verse, sometimes appears in hemimeter verse. What is more beautiful than Deuteronomy and the song of Isaiah? What is greater than Solomon, what is more perfect than Job? All this, as Josephus and Origen write, flows smoothly among their (Jews) hexameter and pentameter. But when we read it in Greek, it sounds something different, and when we read it in Latin, it’s completely awkward. And if anyone thinks that the beauty of the language does not change from translation, then let him literally translate Homer into Latin. I’ll say something more: let him translate the same Homer into the prose of his own language: he will see a ridiculous construction and the most elegant poet barely speaking. What is all this for? So that it does not seem surprising to you if somewhere we stumble, if the speech is not lively or rough from consonants or stretched from vowels, then branches out, then is fragmentary due to the very brevity of the content - it did not seem surprising when the most learned people were exhausted in this matter and when, with the general difficulty that we pointed out in every translation, we are confronted with that special difficulty that the history is diverse, contains barbaric names, circumstances unknown to the Latins, inexplicable numbers, that signs (virgulae) are introduced into the content and numbers, so that it is almost more difficult to recognize the method of reading than to achieve an understanding of what is being read. And in order to be clearly indicated to which date each historical piece of news belongs, let the reader take note of the following marks. If the news should be attributed to the first date of the initially designated reign, then let the reader pay attention to the first letter in the presentation of the news, and if he sees that it is written in red lead, then let him know that the news should be attached to the time or year indicated by the number, similarly written in the same red lead. And if he sees that the number is not written with red lead alone, but mixed with black, then the news refers to the number of the second line. And if the entry should be attributed to the number of the third line, then he will see that the middle of the number is depicted in pure red lead, and the rest in ink alone. The fourth line of numbers will not have anything from red lead, but that the news should relate to it, a sign of this will be that the first letter in the presentation of the news is made from red lead, and unlike the above signs, there will be no special sign in the numbers themselves. And if the letter is not written in red lead, but mixed in black and red, then the number depicted in red will indicate the fifth line of numbers. And in a similar way, the sixth line of the number will be designated by two-color letters as the second, the seventh as the third, and the eighth as the fourth. And when neither the numbers nor the presentation of the news contain any of the above signs, then what is noticed will refer to the ninth line. However, not all of these signs need to be found when the number of lines with numbers is smaller. Therefore, I consider it necessary to warn that as something is written, in this form, the differences in colors are preserved, so that no one thinks that this is required only by a groundless whim of the eye and, avoiding tediousness when writing, does not introduce a labyrinth of errors. For it was carefully worked out that the lines of reigns, almost mixed due to their extreme proximity, were distinguished by the difference in color, and the same place of color as indicated in the first list was retained by the subsequent one 2 . It is not unknown to me that there are many who, with the usual passion, scold everyone, which can only be avoided by someone who does not write anything, and they will sink their teeth into this work: they will shout against the chronology, distort the sequence, reject events, criticize every syllable, and what usually happens most often, attribute the negligence of copyists to the authors. I could eliminate them with my advice - don’t read if you don’t like it, but I prefer to let them go after briefly satisfying them, so that they would place the same trust in the author of this work as the Greeks, and regarding the new thing we introduced, they would know that it was borrowed from other most reliable men. For it should be taken into account that I fulfilled the duty of both a translator and partly an independent writer, since I conveyed the Greek in the most faithful way and added something that seemed to me to be omitted, especially in Roman history, which Eusebius, the author of this book, not only did not know, as a most learned one, but, it seems to me, as someone who wrote in Greek, he abbreviated it as not particularly important for the Greeks. So from Ninus and Abraham to the taking of Troy is a purely translation from Greek. From Troy to the twentieth year of Constantine, a lot has been added and then combined (with the testimony of Eusebius), which we have carefully borrowed from Tranquillus and other famous historians. And from the above-mentioned year of Constantine to the consulate of the Augusti Valens VI and Valentinian, everything is mine. Satisfied with this ending, I left the rest of Gratian and Theodosius for the style of a more extensive history - not because I was afraid to write about the living freely and fairly, for the fear of God drives out the fear of man, but because when barbarians are still rampant in our land, everything is not reliable. We translate the chronicle of Eusebius according to Jerome’s account, starting only from the Nativity of Christ, bearing in mind theological and church-historical interest, which the previous part of the chronicle does not represent. On the same basis, we consider it possible to omit in the translation the chronological indication of the years from Abraham, according to the Olympiads and according to the years of the reign of the kings of Judah (before the destruction of Jerusalem) and limit ourselves to Christian chronology. Asterisks indicate testimony of dubious authenticity that is found in all lists of the chronicle according to the presentation of the bl. Jerome. Note Editorials. To explain all these instructions, Bl. Jerome should note that the chronicle of Eusebius sets out a chronological table and, in places, adds historical notes to the table of the reigns of one or another dynasty or king, and the chronological table is expressed by a series of numbers that appeared in the first editions without division, for example. for 1217–1219 from Abraham thus: 20... 14... 14... 26... 38... 25... 20... 26... 17... 21... 15... 15... 27... 39 .. 1... 21... 27... 18... 22... 16... 16... 28... 40... 2... 22... 28... 19... and after the first row of numbers a historical note is added: “Μεθ’ ὀν β’, Ὀσώρθον ἔτη θ‘. Ον Ἡρακλέα Αἰγύπτιοι ἐκάλεσαν" (πο Greek fragment). Nine numbers indicate the years of the reign of the kings of Media, Lacedaemon, Macedonia, Judea, Israel, Egypt, Latin, Athens and Corinth. In order to determine which number the historical note refers to (in this case, the sixth line of numbers to 25), and those special signs were needed. depicting numbers and the first letter of historical news, which Bl. Jerome indicates. You might be interested in: