Fragments of Greek Patristics in Eusebius's Historia ecclesiastica and Their Readers in the Latin West

Abstract: The study of the reception of ante-Nicene Greek patristics in western Europe has focused almost exclusively on individual authors like Origen of Alexandria, whose works were rendered into Latin in late antiquity and well known among early medieval readers. This article draws attention to a neglected corpus of ancient Christian excerpts that were translated from Greek into Latin as part of the textual fabric of Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia ecclesiastica . It catalogues the Greek patristic fragments in Eusebius's historical project and considers the value and impact of two modes of transmission that introduced them to audiences in the Latin west: Jerome's De viris illustribus and Rufinus's Latin translation of the Historia ecclesiastica . While the utility of De viris illustribus as a practical guide to ancient Christian literature was limited, Rufinus's translation provided western audiences with firsthand access to an unparalleled repository of ante-Nicene writings, albeit in fragments. As case studies from Canterbury and Lorsch show, early medieval readers of the Latin Eusebius studied these patristic excerpts avidly with the assistance of finding aids and interpretative glosses, though they sometimes struggled to make sense of Latin cognates for Greek names and terms whose original meaning had been lost in time.