Eusebius vs. Sacred Space

As we read in One City, Three Faiths, during the period in which Constantine became emperor of the West, a historian named Eusebius was the bishop of Caesarea (a city not far from Jerusalem) and one of Constantine's most ardent supporters - seeing Constantine as a "second Abraham" and someone who would restore the "purity" of the monotheistic church. To that end, he felt that the paganism that had overrun Jerusalem ("Aelia" at the time), represented by showy shrines and theaters, were against the doctrine of God; as such, he opposed the establishment of temples and holy places (Armstrong 175). To quote him:

"I, giving freedom to all, teach men not to look for God in a corner of the earth, nor in mountains, nor in temples made with hands, but that each should worship and adore him at home" (Ibid., 1:6:40).

Rather than seek God in potential sacred spaces, he felt it more pertinent that one find God in "souls purified and prepared with clear and rational minds" (Ibid., 5,Preface 29). This disdain for holy places, combined with a fundamental disagreement between Eusebius and Athanasius (fellow theologian and eventual patriarch of Alexandra) about whether Jesus's most important achievement was salvation or revelation (Armstrong 177), ultimately brought Eusebius into conflict with Constantine when the latter desired to unearth and excavate the Tomb of Christ (Armstrong 179).

Many Christians, like Eusebius, had initially "thought they were above this type of piety", in the sense that they did not think creating mythology around a particular location, turning it into a "symbolic center", and treating it as a particular spot of divine power was in-line with the vision of Christianity as a purely spiritual faith (Armstrong 183). However, Christians felt a "shock of recognition", felt "compelled to root themselves in a physical place", and chose to "appropriate this sacred area" (Armstrong 184). So, Christians as a whole were beginning to warm to the idea of sacred space, but what about Eusebius?

While Eusebius's views did not completely reverse from visiting the newly-excavated Tomb of Christ, Eusebius was struck by its nature as a theophany - a manifestation of something previously inaccessible. He was completely uninterested in the Rock of Golgotha, which marked Christ's burial, but rather the cave's nature as representing the resurrection of Christ (Armstrong 184). As noted by Armstrong, "seeing this place bridged the gap between past and present in a way that mere hearsay could not do. Eusebius acknowledged that the sight of the tomb 'spoke louder than all words'" (Armstrong 185). 

As noted in a thesis written by Stephen David Green, "it would have been impossible to miss [the Rock of Golgotha] with even a basic understanding ... Eusebius, then, must have intentionally left out one of the key components of the Holy Sepulchre". Instead of referring to it as the tomb of the death of Christ, he elected to refer to it only as the cave of the resurrection (Green 55). Even in a later speech, Eusebius chose not to mention Christ's death at all but rather to focus on its importance to his resurrection and victory (Green 56). In this sense, it is clear that Eusebius came to view the Tomb of Christ as a sacred space, representing the sacred moment of Christ's resurrection and Heaven meeting Earth, but not for any reasons relating to Christ's death or burial.

Green, S. D. (2018). Christians and Jerusalem in the Fourth Century CE: a Study of Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, and the Bordeaux Pilgrim (Doctoral dissertation, Portland State University).

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