EUSEBIUS
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EUSEBIUS
idea, and further suggests that the shorter form must
have been jomed to the Church Historj' by some copy-
ist who had access to Eusebius's MSS. Harnack
(Chronologie, 11, 115) holds to the priority of the
longer form, but he thinks that the shorter form was
composed almost at the same time for readers of the
Church History. — (4) The Chronicle (see separate arti-
cle, EcsEBius. Chronicle of). — (5) The Church His-
tory. It would be difficult to overestimate the obliga-
tion which posterity is under to Eusebius for this
monumental work. Li-inng during the period of
transition, when the old order was changing and all
connected with it was passing into oblivion, he came
forward at the critical moment with liis immense
stores of learning and preserved priceless treasures of
Christian antiquity. This is the great merit of the
Church History. It is not a literary work which can be
read with any pleasure for the sake of its style. Euse-
bius's "diction", as Photius said, "is never pleasant
nor clear". Neither is it the work of a great thinker.
But it is a storehouse of information collected by an
indefatigable student. Still, great as was Eusebius's
learning, it had its limitations. He is provokingly ill-
informed about the West. That he knows very little
about Tertullian or St. Cj-prian is due, no doubt, to his
scant knowledge of Latin; but in the case of a Greek
WTiter, like Hippoh'-tus, we can only suppose that his
works somehow failed to make their way to the libra-
ries of the East. Eusebius's good faith and sincerity
has been amply ^andicated by Lightfoot. Gibbon's
celebrated sneer, about a writer "who indirectly con-
fesses that he has related whatever might redound to
the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could
tend to the disgrace, of religion", can be sufficiently
met by referring to the passages (H. E., VIII, ii; Mart.
Pal. c". 12) on which it is based. Eusebius does not
"indirectly confess", but openly avows, that he
passes over certain scandals, and he enumerates them
and denounces them. " Xor again", to quote Light-
foot, " can the special charges against liis honour as a
narrator be sustained. There is no ground whatever
for the charge that Eusebius forged or interpolated the
passage from Josephus relating to our Lord quoted in
H. E., I, 11, though Heinichen is disposed to entertain
the charge. Inasmuch as this passage is contained in
all our MSS., and there is sufficient evidence that other
interpolations (though not this) were introduced into
the text of Josephus long before his time (see Orig., c.
Cels., I, 47, Delarue's note) no suspicion can justly
attach to Eusebius himself. Another interpolation in
the Jewish historian, which he quotes elsewhere (11,
23), was certainly known to Origen (1. c). Doubtless
also the omission of the owl in the account of Herod
Agrippa's death (H. E., 11, 10) was already in some
texts of Josephus (Ant., XIX. 8, 2). The manner in
which Eusebius deals with his numerous quotations
elsewhere, where we can test his honesty, is a sufficient
vindication again.st this unjust charge" (L., p. 325).
The notices in the Church Historj' bearing on the \ew Testament Canon are so important that a word must be said about the rule followed by Eusebius in what he recorded and what he left unrecorded. Speaking generally, his principle seems to have been to quote testimonies for and against those books only whose claims to a place in the Canon had been dis- puted. In the case of undisputed books he gave any interesting information concerning their composition which he had come across in his reading. The subject was most carefully investigated by Lightfoot in an article in "The Contemporary" (January, 1S75, re- printed in "Essays on Supernatural Religion"), enti- tled "The Silence of Eusebius". In regard to the Gospel of St. John, Lightfoot concludes: " The silence of Eusebius respecting early witnesses to the Fourth (Jospel is an evidence in its favour." For the episco- pal lists in the Church History, see article on the Chronicle. The tenth book of the Church History
records the defeat of Licinius in 323, and must have
been completed before the death and disgrace of
Crispus in 326, for it refers to liim as Constantine's
"most pious son". The ninth book was compiled
between the defeat of Maxentius in 312, and Constan-
tine's first rupture with Licinius in 314.
(6) The Life of Constantine, in four books. This work has been most unjustly blamed, from the time of Socrates downwards, because it is a panegjTic rather than a history. If ever there was a man under an obligation to respect the maxim, De mortuis nil nisi bonia}!, this man was Eusebius, writing the Life of Constantine within three years after his death (337). This Life is especially valuable because of the account it gives of the Council of Xiccea and the earlier phases of the Arian controversy. It is well to remember that one of our chief sources of information for the history of that council is a book written to magnify Constantine.
B. Apologetic. — (7) Against Hierocles. Hierocles, who, as governor in Bithj-nia and in Egypt, was a cruel enemy of the Christians during the persecution, before the persecution had attacked them with the pen. There was nothing original about his work ex- cept the use he made of Philostratus's Life of .\pollo- nius of Tyana to institute a comparison between our Lord and .\pollonius in favour of the latter. In his reply Eusebius confined himself to this one point. — (S) " Against Porphyry", a work in twenty-five books of which not a fragment survives. — (9) The " Pritpar- atio Evangelica", in fifteen books. — (10) The " De- monstratio Evangelica", in twenty books, of which the last ten, with the exception of a fragment of the fifteenth, are lost. The object of these two treatises, which should be regarded as two parts of one compre- hensive work, was to justify the Christian in rejecting the religion and philosophy of the Greeks in favour of that of the Hebrews, and then to justify him in not observing the Jewish manner of life. The " Pra-para- tio" is devoted to the first of these objects. The fol- lowing summary of its contents is taken from Mr. Gifford's introduction to his translation of the " Prce- paratio ": " The first three books discuss the threefold system of Pagan Theologj', Mythical, Allegorical, and Political. The next three, IV-VI, give an account of the chief oracles, of the worship of daemons, and of the various opinions of Greek Philosophers on the doc- trines of Fate and Free Will. Books ATI-IX give rea- sons for preferring the religion of the Hebrews founded chiefly on the testimony of various authors to the ex- cellency of their Scriptures and the truth of their his- tory. In Books X-XII Eusebius argues that the Greeks had borrowed from the older theology and philosophy of the Hebrews, dwelling especially on the supposed dependence of Plato upon Moses. In the last three books the comparison of Moses with Plato is continued, and the mutual contradictions of other Greek Philosophers, especially the Peripatetics and Stoics, are exposed and criticized."
The " Praeparatio" is a gigantic feat of erudition, and, according to Harnack (Chronologie, II, p. 120), was, like many of Eusebius's other works, actually composed during the stress of the persecution. It ranks, with the Chronicle, second only to the Church History in importance, because of its copious extracts from ancient authors whose works have perished. The first book of the Demonstratio chiefly deals with the temporary character of the Mosaic Law. In the second the prophecies concerning the vocation of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews are dis- cussed. In the remaimng eight the testimonies of the prophets concerning Christ are treated of.
We now pass to three books, of which nothing is known save that thej' were read by Photius, viz. (11), The " Pra'paratio Ecclesiastica", (12) the "Demon- stratio Ecclesiastica", and (13) Two Books of Objec- tion and Defence, of which, from Photius's account, there seem to have been two separate editions. (14)
