Our Present Object: Dynamic and Powerful Eschatology Alongside Dynamic and Powerful Political Ideology in the Historical Work of Eusebius and His Continuators

This study identifies and expounds upon two key constituent elements in the work of the historians of the Eusebian tradition; eschatology and political ideology. Using the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Theodoret as its essential primary documents, the study demonstrates that in the content of each historical work there resides a dynamic and powerful eschatology which is also accompanied by a dynamic and powerful political ideology in every instance. Though it is impossible to objectively prove that such a coincidence is absolutely interrelated, the study suggests in a compelling way, and based on the research, that a causal relationship is very likely. In a secondary way, the study is also a witness to an emergent understanding that in Late Antiquity there was a revisioning of eschatology among the theologians of the Early Church which turned from a predominantly apocalyptic understanding of eschatology to one more grounded in history and, more importantly, the historiography of Early Christiainity. Such a discovery also lends credence to the notion that the historians of the Eusebian school were not only historians, but historical theologians seeking to shape the Church in the context of her new confidence.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD