supervision of the copies of the Bible for the use of the churches in Constantinople. At the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of this em peror's reign (336), Eusebius delivered & panegyric decked with the most pompous hyperbole, and after his death, ir literal obedience to the maxim: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum," he glorified his virtues at the expense of veracity and with intentional omission of his faults. With all this, however, he had noble qualities of mind and heart, which in mor quiet times would have been an ornament to any episcopal see And it must be said, to his honor, that he never claimed the favor of the emperor for private ends. The theological and literary value of Eusebius lies in the province of learning. He was an unwearied reader and collector, and probably surpassed all the other church fathers, hardly excepting even Origen and Jerome, in compass of knowledge and of acquaintance with Grecian literature both heathen and Christian; while in originality, vigor, sharpness, and copiousness of thought, he stands far below Origen, Athanasius, Basil, and the two Gregories. His scholarship goes much further in breadth than in depth, and is not controlled and systematized by a philosophical mind or a critical judg ment. Of his works, the historical are by far the most celebrated and the most valuable; to wit, his Ecclesiastical History, his Chronicle, his Life of Constantine, and a tract on the Martyrs of Palestine in the Diocletian persecution. The position of Eusebius, at the close of the period of persecution, and in the opening of the period of the imperial establishment of Christianity, and his employment of many ancient documents, some of which have since been lost, give these works a peculiar value. He is temperate, upon the whole, impartial, and truthloving-rare virtues in an age of intense excitement and polemical zeal like that in which he lived. The fact that he was the first to work this important field of theological study, and for many centuries remained a model in it, justly entitles him to his honorable distinction of Father of Church History. Yet he is neither a critical student nor an elegant writer of history, but only a diligent and learned collector. His Ecclesiastical History, from the birth of Christ to the victory of Constantine over Licinius in 324, gives a colorless, defect ive, incoherent, fragmentary, yet interesting picture of the heroic youth of the church, and owes its incalculable value, not to the historic art of the author, but almost entirely to his copious and mostly literal extracts from foreign, and in some cases now extinct, sources. As concerns the first three centuries, too, it stands alone; for the successors of Eusebius begin their history where he leaves off. His Chronicle consists of an outline-sketch of universal history down to 325, arranged by ages and nations (borrowed largely from the Chronography of Julius Africanus), and an abstract of this universal chronicle in tabular form. The Greek original is lost, with the exception of unconnected fragments by Syncellus; but the second part, containing the chronological tables, was translated and continued by Jerome to 378, and remained for centuries the source of the synchronistic knowledge of history and the basis of historical works in Christendom. Jerome also translated, with several corrections and additions, a useful antiquarian work of Eusebius, the so-called Onomasticon, a description of the places mentioned in the Bible.' In his Life, and still more in his Eulogy, of Constantine, Eusebius has almost entirely forgotten the dignity of the historian in the zeal of the panegyrist. Nevertheless, this work is the chief source of the history of the reign of his imperial friend.' 1 The Greek title was: Χρονικών κανόνων παντοδαπὴ ἱστορία (Hieron. De viris Hustr. e. 81); the Latin is: Chronica Eusebii s. Canones historiæ universe, Hieronymo interprete. See Vallarsi's ed. of Jerome's works, tom. viii. 1-820. Jerome also calls it Temporum librum. It is now known also (since 1818) in an Armenian translation. Most complete edition by Angelo Mai, in Script. vet. nova coll. tom. viii Rom. 1833, republished in Migne's edition of the complete works of Eusebius, tom. i. p. 100 sqq. Περὶ τῶν τοπικῶν ὀνομάτων τῶν ἐν τῇ θείᾳ γραφῇ, De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum, in Jerome's works, tom. iii. 121-290. A new edition, Greek and Latin, by Larsow and Parthey, Berol. 1862. Socrates already observes (in the first book of his Church History) that Euse Dius wrote the Life of Constantine more as a panegyrical oration than as an accurate Next in importance to his historical works are his ap ogetic; namely, his Præparatio evangelica,' and his Demer stratio evangelica. These were both written before 324, and are an arsenal of the apologetic material of the ancient church. The former proposes, in fifteen books, to give a documentary refutation of the heathen religions from Greek writings. The latter gives, in twenty books, of which only the first ten are preserved, the positive argument for the absolute truth of Christianity, from its nature, and from the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Old Testament. The Theophany, in five books, is a popular compend from these two works, and was probably written later, as Epiphanius wrote his Anacephalæosis after the Panarion, for more general use. It is known in the Greek original from fragments only, published by Cardinal Mai,' and now complete in a Syriac version which was discovered in 1839 by Tattam, in a Nitrian monastery, and was account of events. Baronius (Annal. ad an. 824, n. 5) compares the Vita Constantini, not unfitly, with the Cyropædia of Xenophon, who, as Cicero says, “vitam Cyri non tam ad historiæ fidem conscripsit, quam ad effigiem justi principis exhibendam." This is the most charitable construction we can put upon this book, the tone of which is intolerably offensive to a manly and independent spirit acquainted with the crimes of Constantine. But we should remember that stronger men, such as Athanasius, Hilary, and Epiphanius, have overrated Constantine, and called him "most pious" and "of blessed memory." BURCKHARDT, in his work on Constantine, p. 346 and passim, speaks too contemptuously of Eusebius, without any reference to his good qualities and great merits. 'Best edited by THOMAS GAISFORD, Oxon. 1843, 4 vols. 8vo. In Migne's edition it forms tom. iii. • Likewise edited by GAISFORD, Oxf. 1852, 2 vols. 8vo. In Migne's edition tom. iv. 'Dr. Sam. Lee, however, is of the opposite opinion, see p. xxii. of the Preface to his translation. "It appears probable to me," he says, "that this more popular and more useful work [the Theophania] was first composed and published, and that the other two [the Præparatio, and the Demonstratio Evangelica]-illustrating, as they generally do, some particular points only-argued in order in our work-were reserved for the reading and occasional writing of our author during a considerable Jumber of years, as well for the satisfaction of his own mind, as for the general reading of the learned. It appears probable to me, therefore, that this was one of the first productions of Eusebius, if not the first after the persecutions ceased." In the fourth volume of the Nova Patrum Bibliothecæ, Rcm. 1847, pp 108-156, reprinted in Migne's edition of the works of Eusebius, tom. v. 609 #qq. edited by Samuel Lee at London in 1842. To this class also belongs his apologetic tract Against Hierocles.' Of much less importance are the two dogmatic works of Eusebius: Against Marcellus, and Upon the Church Theology (likewise against Marcellus), in favor of the hypostatical existence of the Son.' His Commentaries on several books of the Bible (Isaiah, Psalms, Luke) pursue, without independence, and without knowledge of the Hebrew, the allegorical method of Origen.* To these are to be added, finally, some works in Biblical Introduction and Archæology, the Onomasticon, already alluded to, a sort of sacred geography, and fragments of an enthusi astic Apology for Origen, a juvenile work which he and Pam philus jointly produced before 309, and which, in the Origenistic controversy, was the target of the bitterest shots of Epiphanius and Jerome.' § 162. The Church Historians after Eusebius. I. The Church Histories of SOCRATES, SOZOMEN, THEODORET, EVAGRIUS, PHILOSTORGIUS, and THEODORUS LECTOR have been edited, with the Eccles. Hist. of Eusebius, by Valesius, Par. 1659-'73, in 3 vols. (defective reprint, Frankf. a. M. 1672-'79); best ed., Cambridge, 1720, and again 1746, in 3 vols., with improvements and additions by Guil. Reading. Best English translation by Meredith, Hanmer, and Wye 'Also in English, under the title: On the Theophania, or Divine Manifestation of our Saviour Jesus Christ, by Eusebius, translated into English, with Notes, from an ancient Syriac Version of the Greek original, now lost; to which is prefixed a Vindication of the orthodoxy, and prophetical views, of that distinguished writer, by Sam. Lee, D. D., Cambr. 1843. The MS. of this work is deposited in the British Museum; it was written at Edessa in the Estranghelo, or old church-handwriting of the Syrians, on very fine and well-prepared skin. Dr. Lee assigns it to the year 411 (1. c. p. xii.). ' In Migne's edition, tom. iv. 795-868. ' In Migne's edition, tom. vi. p. 707 sqq. 4 Angelo Mai has published new fragments of Commentaries of Eusebius on the Psalms and on the Gospel of Luke in Novæ Patrum Bibliothecæ, trm. iv. p. 77 sqq. and p. 160 sqq., and republished in Migne's ed. vol. vi. • The sixth book was added by Eusebius alone after the death of his friend. The first book is still extant in the Latin version of Rufinus, and some extracts in Photius. Saltonstall, Cambr. 1683, 1692, and London, 1709. New ed. in Bohn's II. F. A. HOLZHAUSEN: De fontibus, quibus Socrates, Sozomenus, ac Theodoretus in scribenda historia sacra usi sunt. Gött. 1825. G. DANGERS De fontibus, indole et dignitate librorum Theod. Lectoris et Evagrii. Gött. 1841. J. G. DOWLING: An Introduction to the Critical Study of Eccl. History. Lond. 1838, p. 34 ff. F. CHR. BAUR: Die Epocher der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung. Tüb. 1852, pp. 7–32. Comp. P. SCHAFF: History of the Apostolic Church, Gen. Introd. p. 52 f. EUSEBIUS, without intending it, founded a school of church historians, who continued the thread of his story from Constantine the Great to the close of the sixth century, and, like him, limited themselves to a simple, credulous narration of external facts, and a collection of valuable documents, without an inkling of the critical sifting, philosophical mastery, and artistic reproduction of material, which we find in Thucydides and Tacitus among the classics, and in many a modern historian. None of them touched the history of the first three centuries; Eusebius was supposed to have done here all that could be desired. The histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret run nearly parallel, but without mutual acquaintance or dependence, and their contents are very similar.' Evagrius carried the narrative down to the close of the sixth century. All of them combine ecclesiastical and political history, which after Constantine were inseparably interwoven in the East; and (with the exception of Philostorgius) all occupy essentially the same orthodox stand-point. They ignore the Western church, except where it comes in contact with the East. These successors of Eusebius are: SOCRATES, an attorney or scholasticus in Constantinople, born in 380. His work, in seven books, covers the period from 306 to 439, and is valuable for its numerous extracts 'The frequent supposition (of Valois with others) that Sozomen wrote to com plete Socrates, and Theodoret to complete both, cannot be proved. The authors seem independent of one another. Theodoret says in the Procemium: "Since Eusebius of Palestine, commencing his history with the holy apostles, has described the events of the church to the reign of the God-beloved Constantine, I have begun my history where he ended his." He makes no mention of any other writers on the same subject. Nor does Sozomen, 1. i. c. 1, where he alludes to his predecessors Valesius charges Sozomen with plagiarism. |