Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine from about 313 until his death around 339. Trained in the library founded there by followers of Origen, he wrote widely as a historian, biblical scholar and apologist, and he was an adviser and admirer of the emperor Constantine.

His Ecclesiastical History, the first full history of the church, earned him the title 'father of church history.' His Chronicle set the histories of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks and Romans in parallel columns. The Greek original is mostly lost; it survives in an Armenian translation, in Jerome's Latin version, and in excerpts by later writers, especially George Syncellus.

Because Eusebius quoted earlier authors at length, he is one of the main channels through which the lost works of the Egyptian priest Manetho and the Babylonian priest Berossus survive. His versions of their king lists often disagree with those of Julius Africanus, and scholars compare the two to reconstruct the originals.