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Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3
Complete historical editorial footnotes. These notes retain the original edition’s wording; individual note authors are unspecified.
English translation and editorial credits: Rev. Arthur Cushman McGiffert (Ph.D.).
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“Eusebius here has in mind the passages Lev. iv. 5, 16, and Lev. vi. 22, where the LXX. reads ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ χριστός: The priest, the anointed one” (Closs). The Authorized Version reads, The priest that was anointed; the Revised Version, The anointed priest.
Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3, editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
2. Moses was the first to make known the name of Christ as a name especially august and glorious. When he delivered types and symbols of heavenly things, and mysterious images, in accordance with the oracle which said to him, “Look that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shown thee in the mount,” he consecrated a man high priest of God, in so far as that was possible, and him he called Christ. And thus to this dignity of the high priesthood, which in his opinion surpassed the most honorable position among men, he attached for the sake of honor and glory the name of Christ.
A few mss., followed by Laemmer and Heinichen, read here Ναυῇ, but the best mss. followed by the majority of editors read ᾽Αυσῇ, which is a corruption of the name Oshea, which means “Salvation,” and which Joshua bore before his name was changed, by the addition of a syllable, to Jehoshua=Joshua=Jesus, meaning “God’s salvation” (Num. xiii. 16). Jerome (de vir. ill. c. I.) speaks of this corruption as existing in Greek and Latin mss. of the Scriptures, and as having no sense, and contends that Osee is the proper form, Osee meaning “Salvator.” The same corruption (Auses) occurs also in Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iii. 16, and Adv. Jud. 9 (where the English translator, as Crusè also does in the present passage, in both cases departs from the original, and renders ‘Oshea,’ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. Ed. III. p. 334, 335, and 163), and in Lactantius, Institutes, iv. 17.
Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source
4. His successor, therefore, who had not hitherto borne the name Jesus, but had been called by another name, Auses, which had been given him by his parents, he now called Jesus, bestowing the name upon him as a gift of honor, far greater than any kingly diadem. For Jesus himself, the son of Nave, bore a resemblance to our Saviour in the fact that he alone, after Moses and after the completion of the symbolical worship which had been transmitted by him, succeeded to the government of the true and pure religion.
Isa. lxi. 1. Eusebius as usual follows the LXX., which in this case differs somewhat from the Hebrew, and hence the translation differs from the English version. The LXX., however, contains an extra clause which Eusebius omits. See Heinichen’s edition, Vol. I. p. 21, note 49.
Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3, editorial note cite_note-8 · Original source
13. And he was not anointed with oil prepared from material substances, but, as befits divinity, with the divine Spirit himself, by participation in the unbegotten deity of the Father. And this is taught also again by Isaiah, who exclaims, as if in the person of Christ himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore hath he anointed me. He hath sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim deliverance to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind.”
Eusebius, in this chapter and in the Dem. Evang. IV. 15, is the first of the Fathers to mention the three offices of Christ.
Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3, editorial note cite_note-13 · Original source
19. But it is a great and convincing proof of his incorporeal and divine unction that he alone of all those who have ever existed is even to the present day called Christ by all men throughout the world, and is confessed and witnessed to under this name, and is commemorated both by Greeks and Barbarians and even to this day is honored as a King by his followers throughout the world, and is admired as more than a prophet, and is glorified as the true and only high priest of God. And besides all this, as the pre-existent Word of God, called into being before all ages, he has received august honor from the Father, and is worshiped as God.
Compare the Dem. Evang. iv. 17.
Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.; original source section: Chapter 3, editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source
1. It is now the proper place to show that the very name Jesus and also the name Christ were honored by the ancient prophets beloved of God.