FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W2772028362> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W2772028362 endingPage "660" @default.
• W2772028362 startingPage "658" @default.
• W2772028362 abstract "Reviewed by: The Demonic in the Political Thought of Eusebius of Caesarea by Hazel Johannessen David J. DeVore Hazel Johannessen The Demonic in the Political Thought of Eusebius of Caesarea Oxford Early Christian Studies Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016 Pp. xvi + 243. $95.00. Eusebius’s voluminous writings constitute the most extensive discourses about Christianity in the early fourth century. Unfortunately, the Caesarean scholar has long been described as promoting opportunistic apologetics, ruthless Constantinian politics, and a triumphalist realized eschatology at what was seen as a uniquely secure moment for Christians in the Roman Empire. As Hazel Johannessen’s new study demonstrates, however, these assessments rely on selective readings of Eusebius’s works. Although Johannessen claims modestly to cast her net after Eusebian demonology, her attentive identification and interpretation of numerous demonic appearances in Eusebius’s works, in sensitive dialogue with contemporary demonological discourses, yields persuasive revisions of the broader cosmology, anthropology, and political thought of this crucial scholar. Johannessen’s arguments unfold over six chapters bracketed with an introduction and a brief conclusion. Her foundational first chapter, an up-to-date and judicious overview of Eusebius’s works, highlights the varied social circumstances [End Page 658] and differing audiences of the Ecclesiastical History, Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelica, Life of Constantine, and In Praise of Constantine. (The only conspicuously absent scholarship is the introduction to the new commentary on the History edited by Sébastien Morlet and Lorenzo Perrone.) Despite Johannessen’s warning not to expect consistency from works written over a quarter century, Chapters Two and Three sketch “a remarkably consistent picture of demons” (73–74). For Eusebius, demons are material beings, envious, deceitful, dark, irrational, enslaving, and barbaric—fitting foot soldiers for Satan and appropriate adversaries for the angels who face them in a bipolarized cosmos. While these conclusions will hardly surprise students of ancient demonology, Johannessen refutes recent scholarship by showing that Eusebius did not view demons as having retreated at the incarnation, as Eusebius makes this point just twice, whilst trumpeting a contemporaneous elimination of human sacrifice (PE 4.15–17) and the death of the god Pan (PE 5.17). To the contrary Eusebius repeatedly described demons as otherwise active into his own day (146–49 with 87–89). Johannessen explores the implications of Eusebius’s demonology in Chapters Four through Six. On the subject of free will and responsibility, Johannessen puts the traditional view of Eusebius as an advocate of both on a firmer historical footing. Seconding the Stoics and Origen that human souls had free choice (proairesis) as a consequence of their rationality, her Eusebius enjoins humans to resist demonic temptation through intellectual and ascetic training. On historical theology, Johannessen notes that, where Eusebius famously credits civilizing progress to God, demons’ agency has degraded civilized order repeatedly—and potentially could again even after the best of circumstances. Demons’ instruments of devastation include powerful institutional heads, especially Roman emperors, whom Eusebius perceived as determining the empire’s stance toward the church. In order to resist demonic influence, Christian leaders must inculcate Christ’s more ethical teaching. Because Constantine was the most prominent Christian leader, Johannessen argues, his imitation of the divine disseminates the divine virtues that restrain demons. Constantine thus becomes not a harbinger of a realized eschatology, but a foil for the tyrants who empower demons in their realms; Eusebius’s portraits of both Constantine and anti-Christian rulers such as Licinius aim to dissuade future rulers from submission to demons. When Eusebius’s demonology comes into focus, Johannessen shows, the Caesarean scholar projects caution rather than triumphalism, subtlety rather than bombast, distance from rather than fealty toward Roman imperialism, and an enduring pedagogical program rather than reactive polemics. Disagreements will of course arise even from sympathetic critics. For example, Johannessen could perhaps have emphasized Eusebius’s role as an educator more, given Johnson’s and Morlet’s demonstrations that much of the scholar’s oeuvre reflects a pedagogical purpose (cf. 161). The pervasive role of demons in Eusebius’s pedagogical projects surely reflects his concern with an enduring threat. In accepting Aaron Johnson’s argument that Eusebius “refused to celebrate the empire itself unreservedly as long as its leadership remained..." @default.
• W2772028362 created "2017-12-22" @default.
• W2772028362 creator A5075122890 @default.
• W2772028362 date "2017-01-01" @default.
• W2772028362 modified "2023-10-17" @default.
• W2772028362 title "The Demonic in the Political Thought of Eusebius of Caesarea by Hazel Johannessen" @default.
• W2772028362 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2017.0068" @default.
• W2772028362 hasPublicationYear "2017" @default.
• W2772028362 type Work @default.
• W2772028362 sameAs 2772028362 @default.
• W2772028362 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W2772028362 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W2772028362 hasAuthorship W2772028362A5075122890 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C111936747 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C24667770 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C27206212 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C2775868214 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C2778509408 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C506520463 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C74916050 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C94625758 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C111936747 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C124952713 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C138885662 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C142362112 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C17744445 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C199539241 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C24667770 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C27206212 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C2775868214 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C2778509408 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C506520463 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C74916050 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C94625758 @default.
• W2772028362 hasConceptScore W2772028362C95457728 @default.
• W2772028362 hasIssue "4" @default.
• W2772028362 hasLocation W27720283621 @default.
• W2772028362 hasOpenAccess W2772028362 @default.
• W2772028362 hasPrimaryLocation W27720283621 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W1990534912 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2057565394 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2112602199 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2322819907 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2515742577 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2590860474 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2615479252 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2794826391 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W2901915191 @default.
• W2772028362 hasRelatedWork W4205187297 @default.
• W2772028362 hasVolume "25" @default.
• W2772028362 isParatext "false" @default.
• W2772028362 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W2772028362 magId "2772028362" @default.
• W2772028362 workType "article" @default.