. PATRISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY.
1. The Christian Synthesis of the History of the Past — One of the most effective agen cies in allaying suspicion and attracting con verts to a movement is the ability to point to a glorious past. The Christians felt this keenly, and, having adopted the sacred books of the Jews as the official record of their antecedents, they were faced with the immediate and press ing necessity of giving to ancient Hebrew his tory a prestige which it had entirely lacked in the works of pagan historians, who had assigned to the history of the Jewish people only that slender allotment of space and attention to which their inconspicuous political history had entitled them. Therefore, the two world his tories, which had already been produced by Dio dorus Siculus and Pompeius Trogus, and which were immensely superior to any universal tory compiled by Patristic historians, were terly unsuited to the requirements of Christian propaganda. Neither was the general Jewish history of Josephus acceptable. for, while it exaggerated tremendously the role of the Jews, it was distinctly antagonistic to the Christians. Therefore, the Christian "literati" set about to produce a synthesis of the past which would give due weight to the alleged glories of He brew antiquity and would, at :he same time, show why the Jews were no longer worthy of their heritage, which had now passed to the Christians. The first writer to essay the task was Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 180-250) who composed a history of the world in five books bringing the story to 221 A.D. In this he tried to harmonize and synchronize Hebrew and Christian history with that of the four great successive pagan monarchies — the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman. This was carried further in the of Eusebius (c. 260-340), and Jerome was able to find scrip tural sanction for this synthesis in the prophecy contained in the last chapters of Daniel. °That long history," says Professor Burr, °which was now their preamble was the sacred story of the chosen people, with its Jacob's ladder forever linking earth to heaven. The central actor was Jehovah, now the God of all the earth. About that story and its culmination all other history must now fall into place; and from the sacred record — for the record too is sacred — may be learned the plans of the Omnipotent. It was Jerome who now found them in the interpreta tions and the visions of Daniel — in the image with head of gold and belly of brass, in the four great beasts that came up out of the sea and from his day on almost to ours the chang ing empires of earth have been forced to find a place within that scheme. Whatever in non
sacred annals was found in conflict with Holy Writ must be discarded. What was left must be adjusted to its words. Man's career on earth became a fall. Nor might human wit exalt itself : Pythagoras and Plato had learned from Moses; Seneca from Paul.* The Chris tian synthesis received its great philosophic statement and defense in Augustine's
An important part of the Christian synthe sis was the synchronizing of the events an the history of the Gentile and Hebrew nations and the establishment of an official Christian chro nology. The initial step was taken in this proc ess by Julius Africanus in his In this, the period of the creation was set as having occurred 5499 years before Christ, and subsequent events in world history were dated through an ingenious combination of the various Systems of chronology used by the different nations. Eusebius expanded the work of Afri canus in his famous (Chronicle,) in which he epitomized universal history in a set of parallel synoptic and synchronous chronological tables giving the reigns of the rulers of the °four great monarchies') synchronized with the events of Hebrew history. °In these tables,* says President White, °Moses, Joshua and Bacchus, — Deborah, Orpheus and the Amazons,— Abi melech, the Sphinx, and Oedipus, appear to gether as personages equally real, and their positions in chronology equally ascertained.* The chronology of Eusebius was adopted by Jerome in his (Chronicle,' and in Jerome's ver sion it became the authoritative Christian chronology until it was slightly revised by Scal iger in 1583 and Usher in 1650. It entered sys tematic church history in the Tripar tita' of Cassiodorns and was the introduction to every authentic mediaeval chronicle.