EUSEBIO di EMESA. — Born at Edessa, he was elected bishop of Emesa because of his knowledge of the Greek and Syriac languages. The Semitic style is still expressed in his rhetoric. Little interested in theological problems, primarily an exegete of Sacred Scripture of the Antiochene type (St. Jerome says that he saw his tomb in Antioch), and a disciple of Eusebius of Caesarea, he was included by St. Jerome among the Arians, but was not accused of heresy by St. Epiphanius, probably because of his traditionalism, his interest in holy places, and his asceticism. He died around 359.
Until a short time ago, only a few fragments of his works preserved by Theodoret and certain Syriac authors were known; the discovery of 17 homilies by E. in a Latin translation
(4th–5th centuries) by Fr. A. Wilmart, in a manuscript at Troyes (the same manuscript no. 523, once in the possession of Clairvaux Abbey, which also contains Tertullian, De Baptismo) will offer, when the complete text is published, the possibility of placing E.’s figure and work more accurately within his time.
BIBL.: A. Wilmart, Le souvenir d'Eusebe d'Eusebe. Un discours en l'honneur des sorates d'Antioche, Bironce, Prudace et Damotie (= apasculum 6), in Analecta Bollandiana, 38 (1920), p. 241 ff.; ed. Un discours théologique d'Eusebe d'Eusebe. Le fils imues de Fère (= apasculum 3), in Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 22 (1920-21), p. 72 ff. On the question of the authenticity of the 17 treatises cf. J. Marin, La collection gallicane dite d'Eusebe d'Eusebe et les problèmes qui s'y rattachent, in Zeitsch. für die neutrischen Wissenschaft, 34 (1936), pp. 91-111; E.-M. Bustaert, L'authenticité des 17 apascades d'Eusebe d'Eusebe, in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 43 (1948), pp. 1-89. Exegetical fragments also in K. Staab, Paulus hominuitare aus der pretenischen Kirche, Münster 1933, p. 46 ff.; B. Devreesse, in Revue biblique, 43 (1936), pp. 201-11; A. Sauter, Observations on the Pseudo Eusebius collection of Gallicans Sermons, in The Journal of theological Studies, 41 (1946), pp. 47-57. On Jerome’s reading of E., V. P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident, Paris 1943, p. 86 n. 2, p. 105, n. 11, p. 106 ff. Erik Peterson
