“Popes” and “Patriarchs,” Power and Pluralism: Reading Eusebius with the Mishnah

• Autores: Michael Rosenberg
• Localización: Journal of early Christian studies: Journal of the North American Patristic Society, ISSN 1067-6341, Nº. 4, 2020, págs. 501-524
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In recent years, scholars of Eusebius have increasingly read his Ecclesiastical History using tools of literary analysis, rather than (or in addition to) historical ones. A similar move has occurred among students of rabbinic literature, who increasingly read the Mishnah as a work of literature rather than (or in addition to) as a legal text. This article attempts to join these two trends through a comparative analysis of two stories of calendar debates, one about the date of Easter, the other over the timing of Yom Kippur, in Eusebius and the Mishnah respectively. Attention to the telling of these tales reveals a similar set of concerns; in particular, both works respond to questions about the maintenance of community in the face of difference, as well as the question of how political and intellectual power should interact with each other. However, while the Eusebian tale tends to favor an embrace of practical pluralism as a means to communal peace, the mishnaic story prefers deference to authority and unanimity of practice. I conclude the essay with a call for scholars to consider the possibility that, beyond this example, Eusebius and rabbinic literature might be worthwhile conversation partners, and that, with appropriate theoretical and practical caution, we might even think about the ways in which ideas may have permeated from rabbinic circles to Eusebius and/or vice versa.