Eusebius of Caesarea was one of the most significant and voluminous contributors to the development of late antique literary culture. Despite his significance, Eusebius has tended to receive attention more as a source for histories of early Christianity and the Constantinian empire than as a writer and thinker in his own right. He was a compiler and copyist of pagan and Christian texts, collator of a massive chronographical work, commentator on scriptural texts, author of apologetic, historical, educational, and biographical works, and custodian of one of the greatest libraries in the ancient world. As such, Eusebius merits a primary place in our appreciation of the literary culture of late antiquity for both his self-conscious conveyance of multiple traditions and his fostering of innovative literary and intellectual trajectories. By focusing on the full range of Eusebius's literary corpus, the collection of essays in Eusebius of Caesarea offers new and innovative studies that will change the ways classicists, theologians, and ancient historians think about this major figure.

Known as the "Father of Church History," Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity's early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new "nation," the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius's text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period-across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries-until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius's vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.