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     SEMI-FINISHED DRAFT - EUSEBIUS' ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

       (Covering the First Three Centuries Of Christianity)
        
       Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert, 1890
             This draft is in the Public Domain
               "Free To Copy, Free To Use"



 This classic book, written by a scholar friend of Emperor Constantine,
 provides the best available history of the first three centuries of
 Christianity. It is filled with the answers to many questions the
 serious Christian may have asked about the early Church.

 After only the Bible itself, this book is perhaps the most important
 book for a Christian to read and understand. 



 NOTE: This draft is offered "as is." There are several known
 typographical errors, and the HTML additions have not yet
 been made. Nevertheless, I am making it available at this time
 because it is very useful, even in its present form.

 
               Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director
                  LoveAllpeople.org

	
PROLEGOMENA.

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF

EUSEBIUS OF C'SAREA.

CHAPTER I.

THE LIFE OF EUSEBIUS.

§ 1. Sources and Literature.

Accents, the pupil and successor of Eusebius in 
the bishopric of C'sarea, wrote a life of the 
latter (Socr. H. E. II. 4) which is unfortunately 
lost. He was a man of ability (Sozomen H. E. III. 
2, IV. 23) and had exceptional opportunities for 
producing a full and accurate account of Eusebius' 
life; the disappearance of his work is therefore 
deeply to be regretted.
Numerous notices of Eusebius are found in the 
works of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Athanasius, 
Jerome, and other writers of his own and 
subsequent ages, to many of which references will 
be made in the following pages. A collection of 
these notices, made by Valesius, is found in 
English translation on p. 57 sq. of this volume. 
The chief source for a knowledge of Eusebius' life 
and character is to be found in his own works. 
These will be discussed below, on p. 26 sq. Of the 
numerous modern works which treat at greater or 
less length of the life of Eusebius I shall 
mention here only those which I have found most 
valuable.
VALESIUS: De vita scriptisque Eusebii Diatribe (in 
his edition of Eusebius' Histaria Eccles.; English 
version in Cruse's translation of the same work). 
CAVE: Lives of the Fathers, II. 95-144 (ed. H. 
Cary, Oxf. 1840).
TILLEMONT: Hist. Eccles. VII. pp. 39-75 (compare 
also his account of the Arians in vol, VI.). 
STROTH: Leben and Schriften des Eusebius (in his 
German translation of the Hist. Eccles.). CLOSS: 
Leben and Schriflen des Eusebius (in his 
translation of the same work).
DANZ: De Eusebio C'sariensi, Historion of the sam' 
Eccles. Scriptore, ejusque fide historica recte 
rians in vol, VI.).and most val'stimanda, Cap. 
II.: de rebus ad Eusebii vitam pertinentibus (pp. 
33-75).
STEIN: Eusebius Bischof von C'sarea. Nach seinem 
Leben, seinen Schriften, and seinem dogmatischen 
Charakter dargestellt (Wurzburg, 1859; full and 
valuable). BRIGHT, in the introduction to his 
edition of Burton's text of the Hist. Eccles. 
(excellent).
LIGHTFOOT (Bishop of Durham): Eusebius of Cesarea, 
in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian 
Biography, vol. II. pp. 308-348. Lightfoot's 
article is a magnificent monument of patristic 
scholarship and contains the best and most 
exhaustive treatment of the life and writings of 
Eusebius that has been written.
The student may be referred finally to all the 
larger histories of the Church (e.g. Schaff, vol. 
III. 871 sqq. and 1034 sq.), which contain more or 
less extended accounts of Eusebius. § 2. Eusebius' 
Birth and Training. His Life in Ca'sarea until the 
Outbreak of the Persecution.
Our author was commonly known among the ancients 
as Eusebius of C'sarea or Eusebius Pamphili. The 
former designation arose from the fact that he was 
bishop of the church in C'sarea for many years; 
the latter from the fact that he was the intimate 
friend and devoted admirer of Pamphilus, a 
presbyter of C'sarea and a martyr. Some such 
specific appellation was

4

necessary to distinguish him from others of the 
same name. Smith and Wace's Dictionary of 
Christian Biography mentions 137 men of the first 
eight centuries who bore the name Eusebius, and of 
these at least forty were contemporaries of our 
author. The best known among them were Eusebius of 
Nicomedia (called by Arius the brother of Eusebius 
of C'sarea), Eusebius of Emesa, and Eusebius of 
Samosata.
The exact date of our author's birth is unknown to 
us, but his Ecclesiastical History contains 
notices which enable us to fix it approximately. 
In H. E. V. 28 he reports that Paul of Samosata 
attempted to revive again in his day 
(<greek>kaq</greek> <greek>hmas</greek>)  the 
heresy of Artemon. But Paul of Samosata was 
deposed from the episcopate of Antioch in 272, and 
was condemned as a heretic at least as early as 
268, so that Eusebius must have been born before 
the latter date, if his words are to be strictly 
interpreted. Again, according to H. E. III. 28, 
Dionysius was bishop of Alexandria in Eusebius' 
time (<greek>kaq</greek> <greek>hmas</greek>). But 
Dionysius was bishop from 247 or 248 to 265, and 
therefore if Eusebius' words are to be interpreted 
strictly here as in the former case, he must have 
been born before 265. On the other hand, inasmuch 
as his death occurred about 340, we cannot throw 
his birth much earlier than 260. It is true that 
the references to Paul and to Dionysius do not 
prove conclusively that Eusebius was alive in 
their day, for his words may have been used in a 
loose sense. But in H. E. VII. 26, just before 
proceeding to give an account of Paul of Samosata, 
he draws the line between his own and the 
preceding generation, declaring that he is now 
about to relate the events of his own age 
(<greek>thn</greek> <greek>kaq</greek> 
<greek>hmas</greek>). This still further confirms 
the other indications, and we shall consequently 
be safe in concluding that Eusebius was born not 
far from the year 260 A.D. His birthplace cannot 
be determined with certainty. The fact that he is 
called "Eusebius the Palestinian" by Marcellus 
(Euseb. lib. adv. Marcell. I. 4), Bash (Lib. ad. 
Amphil. de Spir. Sancto, c. 29), and others, does 
not prove that he was a Palestinian by birth; for 
the epithet may be used to indicate merely his 
place of residence (he was bishop of C'sarea in 
Palestine for many years). Moreover, the argument 
urged by Stein and Lightfoot in support of his 
Palestinian birth, namely, that it was customary 
to elect to the episcopate of any church a native 
of the city in preference to a native of some 
other place, does not count for much. All that 
seems to have been demanded was that a man should 
have been already a member of the particular 
church over which he was to be made bishop, and 
even this rule was not universal (see Bingham's 
Antiquities, II 10, 2 and 3). The fact that he was 
bishop of C'sarea therefore would at most warrant 
us in concluding only that he had made his 
residence in C'sarea for some time previous to his 
election to that office. Nevertheless, although 
neither of these arguments proves his Palestinian 
birth, it is very probable that he was a native of 
that country, or at least of that section. He was 
acquainted with Syriac as well as with Greek, 
which circumstance taken in connection with his 
ignorance of Latin (see below, p. 47) points to 
the region of Syria as his birthplace. Moreover, 
we learn from his own testimony that he was in 
C'sarea while still a youth (Vita Canstantini, I. 
19), and in his epistle to the church of C'sarea 
(see below, p. 16) he says that he was taught the 
creed of the C'sarean church in his childhood (or 
at least at the beginning of his Christian life: 
<greek>en</greek> <greek>th</greek> 
<greek>kathkhsei</greek>), and that he accepted it 
at baptism. It would seem therefore that he must 
have lived while still a child either in C'sarea 
itself, or in the neighborhood, where its creed 
was in use. Although no one therefore (except 
Theodorus Metochita of the fourteenth century, in 
his Cap. Miscell. 17; Migne, Patr. Lat. CXLTV. 
949) directly states that Eusebius was a 
Palestinian by birth, we have every reason to 
suppose him such. His parents are entirely 
unknown. Nicephorus Callistus (H. E. VI. 37) 
reports that his mother was a sister of Pamphilus. 
He does not mention his authority for this 
statement, and it is extremely unlikely, in the 
face of the silence of Eusebius himself and of all 
other writers, that it is true. It is far more 
probable that the relationship was later assumed 
to account for the close intimacy of the two men. 
Arius, in an epistle addressed to Eusebius of 
Nicomedia (contained in Theodoret's Hist. Eccles. 
I. 5), calls Eusebius of C'sarea the latter's 
brother. It is objected to this that Eusebius of 
Nicomedia refers to Eusebius of C'sarea on one 
occasion as his

5

"master" (<greek>tou</greek> 
<greek>despotou</greek>, in his epistle to 
Paulinus contained in Theodoret's Hist. Eccles. I. 
6), and that on the other hand Eusebius of C'sarea 
calls Eusebius of Nicomedia, "the great Eusebius" 
(Euseb. lib. adv. Marcell. I. 4), both of which 
expressions seem inconsistent with brotherhood. 
Lightfoot justly remarks that neither the argument 
itself nor the objections carry much weight. The 
term <greek>adelFos</greek> may well have been 
used to indicate merely theological or 
ecclesiastical association, while on the other 
hand, brotherhood would not exclude the form of 
expression employed by each in speaking of the 
other. Of more weight is the fact that neither 
Eusebius himself nor any historian of that period 
refers to such a relationship, and also the 
unlikelihood that two members of one family should 
bear the same name.
From Eusebius' works we gather that he must have 
received an extensive education both in secular 
philosophy and in Biblical and theological 
science. Although his immense erudition was 
doubtless the result of wide and varied reading 
continued throughout life, it is highly probable 
that he acquired the taste for such reading in his 
youth. Who his early instructors were we do not 
know, and therefore cannot estimate the degree of 
their influence over him. As he was a man, 
however, who cherished deep admiration for those 
whom he regarded as great and good men, and as he 
possessed an unusually acquisitive mind and a 
pliant disposition, we should naturally suppose 
that his instructors must have possessed 
considerable influence over him, and that his 
methods of study in later years must have been 
largely molded by their example and precept. We 
see this exemplified in a remarkable degree in the 
influence exerted over him by Pamphilus, his 
dearest friend, and at the same time the 
preceptor, as it were, of his early manhood. 
Certainly this great bibliopholist must have done 
much to strengthen Eusebius' natural taste for 
omnivorous reading, and the opportunities afforded 
by his grand library for the cultivation of such a 
taste were not lost. To the influence of 
Pamphilus, the devoted admirer and enthusiastic 
champion of Origen, was doubtless due also in 
large measure the deep respect which Eusebius 
showed for that illustrious Father, a respect to 
which we owe one of the most delightful sections 
of his Church History, his long account of Origen 
in the sixth book, and to which in part antiquity 
was indebted for the elaborate Defense of Origen, 
composed by Pamphilus and himself, but 
unfortunately no longer extant. Eusebius certainly 
owed much to the companionship of that eager 
student and noble Christian hero, and he always 
recognized with deep gratitude his indebtedness to 
him. (Compare the account of Pamphilus given below 
in Bk. VII. chap. 32, § 25 sq.) The names of his 
earlier instructors, who were eminently 
successful, at least in fostering his thirst for 
knowledge, are quite unknown to us. His abiding 
admiration for Plato, whom he always placed at the 
head of all philosophers (see Stein, p. 6), would 
lead us to think that he received at least a part 
of his secular training from some ardent 
Platonist, while his intense interest in 
apologetics, which lasted throughout his life, and 
which affected all his works, seems to indicate 
the peculiar bent of his early Christian 
education. Trithemius concluded from a passage in 
his History (VII. 32) that Eusebius was a pupil of 
the learned Dorotheus of Antioch, and Valesius, 
Lightfoot and others are apparently inclined to 
accept his conclusion. But, as Stroth remarks 
(Eusebii Kirchengeschichte, p. xix), all that 
Eusebius says is that he had heard Dorotheus 
expound the Scriptures in the church 
(<greek>toutou</greek> <greek>metriws</greek> 
<greek>tas</greek> <greek>UraFas</greek> 
<greek>eps</greek> <greek>epi</greek> 
<greek>ths</greek> <greek>ekklhsias</greek> 
<greek>dihUoumenou</greek> 
<greek>kathkousamen</greek>), that is, that he had 
heard him preach. To conclude from this statement 
that he was a pupil of Dorotheus is certainly 
quite unwarranted.
Stroth's suggestion that he probably enjoyed the 
instruction of Meletius for seven years during the 
persecution rests upon no good ground, for the 
passage which he relies upon to sustain his 
opinion (E. E. VII. 32. 28) says only that 
Eusebius "observed Meletius well" 
(<greek>katenohsamen</greek>) during those seven 
years.
In C'sarea Eusebius was at one time a presbyter of 
the church, as we may gather from his words in the 
epistle to that church already referred to, where, 
in speaking of the creed, he says, "As we believed 
and taught in the presbytery and in the episcopate 
itself." But the attempt to fix the date of his 
ordination to that office is quite vain. It is 
commonly assumed that he

6

became presbyter while Agapius was bishop of 
C'sarea, and this is not unlikely, though we 
possess no proof of it (upon Agapius see below, H. 
E. VII. 32, note 39). In his Vita Constantini, I. 
19, Eusebius reports that he saw Constantine for 
the first time in C'sarea in the train of the 
Emperor Diocletian. In his Chron. Eusebius reports 
that Diocletian made an expedition against Egypt, 
which had risen in rebellion in the year 296 A.D., 
and Theophanes, in his Chron., says that 
Constantine accompanied him. It is probable 
therefore that it was at this time that Eusebius 
first saw Constantine in C'sarea, when he was 
either on his way to Egypt, or on his way back 
(see Tillemont's Hist. des Emp., IV. p. 34).
During these years of quiet, before the great 
persecution of Diocletian, which broke out in 303 
A.D., Eusebius' life must have been a very 
pleasant one. Pamphilus' house seems to have been 
a sort of rendezvous for Christian scholars, 
perhaps a regular divinity school; for we learn 
from Eusebius' Martyrs in Palestine (Cureton's 
edition, pp. 13 and 14) that he and a number of 
others, including the martyr Apphianus, were 
living together in one house at the time of the 
persecution, and that the latter was instructed in 
the Scriptures by Pamphilus and acquired from him 
virtuous habits and conduct. The great library of 
Pamphilus would make his house a natural center 
for theological study, and the immense amount of 
work which was done by him, or under his 
direction, in the reproduction of copies of the 
Holy Scriptures, of Origen's works (see Jerome's 
de vir. ill. 75 and 8r, and contra Ruf. I. 9), and 
in other literary employments of the same kind, 
makes it probable that he had gathered about him a 
large circle of friends and students who assisted 
him in his labors and profited by his counsel and 
instruction. Amidst these associations Eusebius 
passed his early manhood, and the intellectual 
stimulus thus given him doubtless had much to do 
with his future career. He was above all a 
literary man, and remained such to the end of his 
life. The pleasant companionships of these days, 
and the mutual interest and sympathy which must 
have bound those fellow-students and 
fellow-disciples of Pamphilus very close together, 
perhaps had much to do with that broad-minded 
spirit of sympathy and tolerance which so 
characterized Eusebius in later years. He was 
always as far as possible from the character of a 
recluse. He seems ever to have been bound by very 
strong ties to the world itself and to his 
fellow-men. Had his earlier days been filled with 
trials and hardships, with the bitterness of 
disappointed hopes and unfulfilled ambitions, with 
harsh experiences of others' selfishness and 
treachery, who shall say that the whole course of 
his life might not have been changed, and his 
writings have exhibited au entirely different 
spirit from that which is now one of their 
greatest charms? Certainly he had during these 
early years in C'sarea large opportunities for 
cultivating that natural trait of admiration for 
other men, which was often so strong as to blind 
him even to their faults, and that natural 
kindness which led him to see good wherever it 
existed in his Christian brethren. At the same 
time these associations must have had considerable 
influence in fostering the apologetic temper. The 
pursuits of the little circle were apparently 
exclusively Christian, and in that day when 
Christianity stood always on its defense, it would 
naturally become to them a sacred duty to 
contribute to that defense and to employ all their 
energies in the task. It has been remarked that 
the apologetic temper is very noticeable in 
Eusebius' writings. It is more than that; we may 
say indeed in general terms that everything he 
wrote was an apology for the faith. His History 
was written avowedly with an apologetic purpose, 
his Chronicle was composed with the same end in 
view. Even when pronouncing a eulogy upon a 
deceased emperor he seized ever), possible 
opportunity to draw from that emperor's career, 
and from the circumstances of his reign, arguments 
for the truth and grandeur of the Christian 
religion. His natural temper of mind and his early 
training may have had much to do with this habit 
of thought, but certainly those years with 
Pamphilus and his friends in C'sarea must have 
emphasized and developed it.
Another characteristic which Pamphilus and the 
circle that surrounded him doubtless did something 
to develop in our author was a certain superiority 
to the trammels of mere traditionalism, or we 
might perhaps better say that they in some measure 
checked the opposite tendency of

7

slavishness to the traditional which seems to have 
been natural to him. Pamphilus' deep reverence for 
Origen proclaims him at once superior to that kind 
of narrow conservatism which led many men as 
learned and doubtless as conscientious as himself 
to pass severe and unconditional condemnation upon 
Origen and all his teaching. The effect of 
championing his cause must have fostered in this 
little circle, which was a very hotbed of 
Origenism, a contempt for the narrow and unfair 
judgments of mere traditionalists, and must have 
led them to seek in some degree the truth solely 
for its own sake, and to become in a measure 
careless of its relation to the views of any 
school or church. It could hardly be otherwise 
than that the free and fearless spirit of Origen 
should leave its impress through his writings upon 
a circle of followers so devoted to him as were 
these C'sarean students. Upon the impressionable 
Eusebius these influences necessarily operated. 
And yet he brought to them no keen speculative 
powers, no deep originality such as Origen himself 
possessed. His was essentially an acquisitive, not 
a productive mind, and hence it was out of the 
question that he should become a second Origen. It 
was quite certain that Origen's influence over him 
would weaken somewhat his confidence in the 
traditional as such,-a confidence which is 
naturally great in such minds as his,-- but at the 
same time would do little to lessen the real power 
of the past over him. He continued to get his 
truth from others, from the great men of the past 
with whom he had lived and upon whose thought he 
had feasted. All that he believed he had drawn 
from them; he produced nothing new for himself, 
and his creed was a traditional creed. And yet he 
had at the same time imbibed from his surroundings 
the habit of questioning and even criticising the 
past, and, in spite of his abiding respect for it, 
had learned to feel that the voice of the many is 
not always the voice of truth, and that the widely 
and anciently accepted is sometimes to be 
corrected by the clearer sight of a single man. 
Though he therefore depended for all he believed 
so completely upon the past, his associations had 
helped to free him from a slavish adherence to all 
that a particular school had accepted, and had 
made him in some small measure an eclectic in his 
relations to doctrines and opinions of earlier 
generations. A notable instance of this 
eclecticism on his part is seen in his treatment 
of the Apocalypse of John. He felt the force of an 
almost universal tradition in favor of its 
apostolic origin, and yet in the face of that he 
could listen to the doubts of Dionysius, and could 
be led by his example, in a case where his own 
dissatisfaction with the book acted as an 
incentive, almost, if not quite, to reject it and 
to ascribe it to another John. Instances of a 
similar mode of conduct on his part are quite 
numerous. While he is always a staunch apologist 
for Christianity, he seldom, if ever, degenerates 
into a mere partisan of any particular school or 
sect.
One thing in fact which is particularly noticeable 
in Eusebius' works is the comparatively small 
amount of time and space which he devotes to 
heretics. With his wide and varied learning and 
his extensive acquaintance with the past, he had 
opportunities for successful heresy hunting such 
as few possessed, and yet he never was a heresy 
hunter in any sense. This is surprising when we 
remember what a fascination this employment had 
for so many scholars of his own age, and when we 
realize that his historical tastes and talents 
would seem to mark him out as just the man for 
that kind of work. May it not be that the lofty 
spirit of Origen, animating that C'sarean school, 
had something to do with the happy fact that he 
became an apologist instead of a mere polemic, 
that he chose the honorable task of writing a 
history of the Church. instead of anticipating 
Epiphanius' Panarium?
It was not that he was not alive to the evils of 
heresy. He shared with nearly all good church-men 
of his age an intense aversion for those who, as 
he believed, had corrupted the true Gospel of 
Christ. Like them he ascribed heresy to the agency 
of the evil one, and was no more able than they to 
see any good in a man whom he looked upon as a 
real heretic, or to do justice in any degree to 
the error which he taught. His condemnations of 
heretics in his Church History are most severe. 
Language is hardly strong enough to express his 
aversion for them. And yet, although he is thus 
most thoroughly the child of his age, the 
difference between him and most of his 
contemporaries is very apparent. He mentions these 
heretics only to dismiss them with dis-

8

approval or condemnation. He seldom, if ever, 
discusses and refutes their views. His interests 
lie evidently in other directions; he is concerned 
with higher things. A still more strongly marked 
difference between himself and many churchmen of 
his age lies in his large liberality towards those 
of his own day who differed with him in minor 
points of faith, and his comparative indifference 
to the divergence of views between the various 
parties in the Church. In all this we believe is 
to be seen not simply the inherent nature of the 
man, but that nature as trained in the school of 
Pamphilus, the disciple of Origen.

§ 3. The Persecution of Diocletian.

In this delightful circle and engaged in such 
congenial tasks, the time must have passed very 
happily for Eusebius, until, in 303, the terrible 
persecution of Diocletian broke upon the Church 
almost like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. The 
causes of the sudden change of policy on 
Diocletian's part, and the terrible havoc wrought 
in the Church, it is not my intention to discuss 
here (see below, Bk. VIII. chap. 2, note 3 sq.). 
We are concerned with the persecution only in so 
far as it bears upon the present subject. In the 
first year of the persecution Procopius, the first 
martyr of Palestine, was put to death at C'sarea 
(Eusebius' Martyrs of Palestine, Cureton's ed. p. 
4), and from that time on that city, which was an 
important Christian center, was the scene of a 
tempest which raged with greater or less violence, 
and with occasional cessations, for seven years. 
Eusebius himself was an eyewitness of many 
martyrdoms there, of which he gives us an account 
in his Martyrs of Palestine. The little circle 
which surrounded Pamphilus did not escape. In the 
third year of the persecution (Mart. of Pal. p. 12 
sq.) a youth named Apphianus, or Epiphanius (the 
former is given in the Greek text, the latter in 
the Syriac), who "resided in the same house with 
us, confirming himself in godly doctrine, and 
being instructed by that perfect martyr, 
Pamphilus" (as Eusebius says), committed an act of 
fanatical daring which caused his arrest and 
martyrdom. It seems that without the knowledge of 
his friends, concealing his design even from those 
who dwelt in the same house with him, he laid hold 
of the hand of the governor, Arbanus, who was upon 
the point of sacrificing, and endeavored to 
dissuade him from offering to "lifeless idols and 
wicked devils." His arrest was of course the 
natural consequence, and he had the glory of 
witnessing a good profession and suffering a 
triumphant death. Although Eusebius speaks with 
such admiration of his conduct, it is quite 
significant of the attitude of himself, and of 
most of the circle of which he was one, that 
Apphianus felt obliged to conceal his purpose from 
them. He doubtless feared that they would not 
permit him to perform the rash act which he 
meditated, and we may conclude from that, that the 
circle in the main was governed by the precepts of 
good common sense, and avoided that fanaticism 
which so frequently led men, as in the present 
case it led Apphianus, to expose themselves 
needlessly, and even to court martyrdom. It is 
plain enough from what we know of Eusebius' 
general character that he himself was too sensible 
to act in that way. It is true that he speaks with 
admiration of Apphianus' conduct, and in H. E. 
VIII. 5, of the equally rash procedure of a 
Nicomedian Christian; but that does not imply that 
he considered their course the wisest one, and 
that he would not rather recommend the employment 
of all proper and honorable precautions for the 
preservation of life. Indeed, in H. E. IV. 15, he 
speaks with evident approval of the prudent course 
pursued by Polycarp in preserving his life so long 
as he could without violating his Christian 
profession, and with manifest disapproval of the 
rash act of the Phrygian Quintus, who 
presumptuously courted martyrdom, only to fail 
when the test itself came. Pamphilus also 
possessed too much sound Christian sense to 
advocate any such fanaticism, or to practice it 
himself, as is plain enough from the fact that he 
was not arrested until the fifth year of the 
persecution. This unhealthy temper of mind in the 
midst of persecution was indeed almost universally 
condemned by the wisest men of the Church, and yet 
the boldness and the very rashness of those who 
thus voluntarily and needlessly threw their lives 
away excited widespread admiration and too often a 
degree

9

of commendation which served only to promote a 
wider growth of the same unhealthy sentiment.
In the fifth year of the persecution Pamphilus was 
arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained 
for two years, when he finally, in the seventh 
year of the persecution, suffered martyrdom with 
eleven others, some of whom were his disciples and 
members of his own household. (Pal. Mart. 
Cureton's ed. p. 36 sq.; H. E. App. chap. 11.) 
During the two years of Pamphilus' imprisonment 
Eusebius spent a great deal of time with him, and 
the two together composed five books of an Apology 
for Origen, to which Eusebius afterward added a 
sixth (see below, p. 36). Danz (p. 37) assumes 
that Eusebius was imprisoned with Pamphilus, which 
is not an unnatural supposition when we consider 
how much they must have been together to compose 
the Apology as they did. There is, however, no 
other evidence that he was thus imprisoned, and in 
the face of Eusebius' own silence it is safer 
perhaps to assume (with most historians) that he 
simply visited Pamphilus in his prison. How it 
happened that Pamphilus and so many of his 
followers were imprisoned and martyred, while 
Eusebius escaped, we cannot tell. In his Martyrs 
of Palestine, chap. 11, he states that Pamphilus 
was the only one of the company of twelve martyrs 
that was a presbyter of the C'sarean church; and 
from the fact that he nowhere mentions the 
martyrdom of others of the presbyters, we may 
conclude that they all escaped. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that Eusebius should have 
done the same. Nevertheless, it is somewhat 
difficult to understand how he could come and go 
so frequently without being arrested and condemned 
to a like fate with the others. It is possible 
that he possessed friends among the authorities 
whose influence procured his safety. This 
supposition finds some support in the fact that he 
had made the acquaintance of Constantine (the 
Greek in Vita Const. I. 19 has 
<greek>egnwmen</greek>, which implies, as Danz 
remarks, that he not only saw, but that he became 
acquainted with Constantine) some years before in 
C'sarea. He could hardly have made his 
acquaintance unless he had some friend among the 
high officials of the city. Influential family 
connections may account in part also for the 
position of prominence which he later acquired at 
the imperial court of Constantine. If he had 
friends in authority in C'sarea during the 
persecution his exemption from arrest is 
satisfactorily accounted for. It has been supposed 
by some that Eusebius denied the faith during the 
terrible persecution, or that he committed some 
other questionable and compromising act of 
concession, and thus escaped martyrdom. In support 
of this is urged the fact that in 335, at the 
council of Tyre, Potamo, bishop of Heraclea, in 
Egypt, addressed Eusebius in the following words: 
"Dost thou sit as judge, O Eusebius; and is 
Athanasius, innocent as he is, judged by thee? Who 
can bear such things? Pray tell me, wast thou not 
with me in prison during the persecution? And I 
lost an eye in behalf of the truth, but thou 
appearest to have received no bodily injury, 
neither hast thou suffered martyrdom, but thou 
hast remained alive with no mutilation. How wast 
thou released from prison unless thou didst 
promise those that put upon us the pressure of 
persecution to do that which is unlawful, or didst 
actually do it?" Eusebius, it seems, did not deny 
the charge, but simply rose in anger and dismissed 
the council with the words, "If ye come hither and 
make such accusations against us, then do your 
accusers speak the truth. For if ye tyrannize 
here, much more do ye in your own country" 
(Epiphan. Har. LXVIII. 8). It must be noticed, 
however, that Potamo does not directly charge 
Eusebius with dishonorable conduct, he simply 
conjectures that he must have acted dishonorably 
in order to escape punishment; as if every one who 
was imprisoned with Potamo must have suffered as 
he did! As Stroth suggests, it is quite possible 
that his peculiarly excitable and violent 
temperament was one of the causes of his own loss. 
He evidently in any case had no knowledge of 
unworthy conduct on Eusebius' part, nor had any 
one else so far as we can judge. For in that age 
of bitter controversy, when men's characters were 
drawn by their opponents in the blackest lines, 
Eusebius must have suffered at the hands of the 
Athanasian party if it had been known that he had 
acted a cowardly part in the persecution. 
Athanasius himself refers to this incident (Contra 
Arian. VIII. 1), but he only says that Eusebius 
was "accused of sacrificing," he does

10

not venture to affirm that he did sacrifice; and 
thus it is evident that he knew nothing of such an 
act. Moreover, he never calls Eusebius "the 
sacrificer," as he does Asterius, and as he would 
have been sure to do had he possessed evidence 
which warranted him in making the accusation (cf. 
Lightfoot, p. 311). Still further, Eusebius' 
subsequent election to the episcopate of C'sarea, 
where his character and his conduct during the 
persecution must have been well known, and his 
appointment in later life to the important see of 
Antioch, forbid the supposition that he had ever 
acted a cowardly part in time of persecution. And 
finally, it is psychologically impossible that 
Eusebius could have written works so full of 
comfort for, and sympathy with, the suffering 
confessors, and could have spoken so openly and in 
such strong terms of condemnation of the numerous 
defections that occurred during the persecution, 
if he. was conscious of his own guilt. It is quite 
possible, as remarked above, that influential 
friends. protected him without any act of 
compromise on his part; or, supposing him to have 
been imprisoned with Potamo, it may be, as 
Lightfoot suggests, that the close of the 
persecution brought him his release as it did so 
many others. For it would seem natural to refer 
that imprisonment to the latter part of the 
persecution, when in all probability he visited 
Egypt, which was the home of Potamo. We must in 
any case vindicate Eusebius from the unfounded 
charge of cowardice and apostasy; and we ask, with 
Cave, "If every accusation against any man at any 
time were to be believed, who would be guiltless?"
From his History and his Martyrs in Palestine we 
learn that Eusebius was for much of the time in 
the very thick of the fight, and was an eyewitness 
of numerous martyrdoms not only in Palestine, but 
also in Tyre and in Egypt.
The date of his visits to the latter places (H. E. 
VIII. 7, 9) cannot be determined with exactness. 
They are described in connection with what seem to 
be the earlier events of the persecution, and yet 
it is by no means certain that chronological order 
has been observed in the narratives. The 
mutilation of prisoners--such as Potamo 
suffered--seems to have become common only in the 
year 308 and thereafter (see Mason's Persecution 
of Diocletian, p. 281), and hence if Eusebius was 
imprisoned with Potamo during his visit to Egypt, 
as seems most probable, there would be some reason 
for assigning that visit to the later years of the 
persecution. In confirmation of this might be 
urged the improbability that he would leave 
C'sarea while Pamphilus was still alive, either 
before or after the latter's imprisonment, and 
still further his own statement in H. E. VII. 32, 
that he had observed Meletius escaping the fury of 
the persecution for seven years in Palestine. It 
is therefore likely that Eusebius did not make his 
journey to Egypt, which must have occupied some 
time, until toward the very end of the 
persecution, when it raged there with exceeding 
fierceness during the brief outburst of the 
infamous Maximin.

§ 4. Eusebius' Accession to the Bishopric of 
C'sarea.

Not long after the close of the persecution, 
Eusebius became bishop of C'sarea in Palestine, 
his own home, and held the position until his 
death. The exact date of his accession cannot be 
ascertained, indeed we cannot say that it did not 
take place even before the close of the 
persecution, but that is hardly probable; in fact, 
we know of no historian who places it earlier than 
313. His immediate predecessor in the episcopate 
was Agapius, whom he mentions in terms of praise 
in H. E. VII. 32. Some writers have interpolated a 
bishop Agricolaus between Agopins and Eusebius 
(see e.g. Tillemont, Hist. Ecceles. VII. 42), on 
the ground that his name appears in one of the 
lists of those present at the Council of Ancyra 
(c. 314), as bishop of C'sarea in Palestine (see 
Labbei el Cossartii Conc. I. 1475). But, as Hefele 
shows (Conciliengesch. I. 220), this list is of 
late date and not to be relied upon. On the other 
hand, as Lightfoot points out, in the Zibellus 
Synadicus (Conc. I. 1480), where Agricolaus is 
said to have been present at the Council of 
Ancyra, he is called bishop of C'sarea in 
Cappadocia; and this statement is confirmed by a 
Syriac list given in Cowper's Miscellanies, p. 41. 
Though perhaps no great reliance is to be

11

placed upon the correctness of any of these lists, 
the last two may at any rate be set over against 
the first, and we may conclude that there exists 
no ground for assuming that Agapius, who is the 
last C'sarean bishop mentioned by Eusebius, was 
not the latter's immediate predecessor. At what 
time Agapius died we do not know. That he suffered 
martyrdom is hardly likely, in view of Eusebius' 
silence on the subject. It would seem more likely 
that he outlived the persecution. However that may 
be, Eusebius was already bishop at the time of the 
dedication of a new and elegant Church at Tyre 
under the direction of his friend Paulinus, bishop 
of that city. Upon this occasion he delivered an 
address of considerable length, which he has 
inserted in his Ecclesiastical History, Bk. X. 
chap. 4. He does not name himself as its author, 
but the way in which he introduces it, and the 
very fact that he records the whole speech without 
giving the name of the man who delivered it, make 
its origin perfectly plain. Moreover, the last 
sentence of the preceding chapter makes it evident 
that the speaker was a bishop: "Every one of the 
rulers (<greek>arkontwn</greek>) present delivered 
panegyric discourses." The date of the dedication 
of this church is a matter of dispute, though it 
is commonly put in the year 315. It is plain from 
Eusebius' speech that it was uttered before 
Licinius had begun to persecute the Christians, 
and also, as G"rres remarks, at a lime when 
Constantine and Licinius were at least outwardly 
at peace with each other. In the year 314 the two 
emperors went to war, and consequently, if the 
persecution of Licinius began soon after that 
event, as it is commonly supposed to have done, 
the address must have been delivered before 
hostilities opened; that is, at least as early as 
314, and this is the year in which G"rres places 
it (Kritische Untersuchungen ueber die 
licinianische Christenverfolgung, p. 8). But if 
G"rres' date (319 A.D.) for the commencement of 
the persecution be accepted (and though he can 
hardly be said to have proved it, he has urged 
some strong grounds in support of it), then the 
address may have been delivered at almost any time 
between 315 and 319, for, as G"rres himself shows, 
Licinius and Constantine were outwardly at peace 
during the greater part of that time (ib. p. 14, 
sq.). There is nothing in the speech itself which 
prevents this later date, nor is it intrinsically 
improbable that the great basilica reached 
completion only in 315 or later. In fact, it must 
be admitted that Eusebius may have become bishop 
at any time between about 311 and 318.
The persecution of Licinius, which continued until 
his defeat by Constantine, in 323, was but local, 
and seems never to have been very severe. Indeed, 
it did not bear the character of a bloody 
persecution, though a few bishops appear to have 
met their death on one ground or another. 
Palestine and Egypt seem not to have suffered to 
any great extent (see G"rres, ib. p. 32 sq.).
§ 5. The Outbreak of the Arian Controversy. The 
Attitude of Eusebius.
About the year 318, while Alexander was bishop of 
Alexandria, the Arian controversy broke out in 
that city, and the whole Eastern Church was soon 
involved in the strife. We cannot enter here into 
a discussion of Arius' views; but in order to 
understand the rapidity with which the Arian party 
grew, and the strong hold which it possessed from 
the very start in Syria and Asia Minor, we must 
remember that Arius was not himself the author of 
that system which we know as Arianism, but that he 
learned the essentials of it from his instructor 
Lucian. The latter was one of the most learned men 
of his age in the Oriental Church, and rounded an 
exegetico-theological school in Antioch, which for 
a number of years stood outside of the communion 
of the orthodox Church in that city, but shortly 
before the martyrdom of Lucian himself (which took 
place in 311 or 312) made its peace with the 
Church, and was recognized by it. He was held in 
the highest reverence by his disciples, and 
exerted a great influence over them even after his 
death. Among them were such men as Arius, Eusebius 
of Nicomedia, Asterius, and others who were 
afterward known as staunch Arianists. According to 
Harnack the chief points in the system of Lucian 
and his disciples were the creation of the Son, 
the denial of his co-eternity with the Father, and 
his immutability acquired by persistent progress 
and steadfastness. His doctrine, which differed

12

from that of Paul of Samosata chiefly in the fact 
that it was not a man but a created heavenly being 
who became "Lord," was evidently the result of a 
combination of the teaching of Paul and of Origen. 
It will be seen that we have here, at least in 
germ, all the essential elements of Arianism 
proper: the creation of the Son out of nothing, 
and consequently the conclusion that there was a 
time when he was not; the distinction of his 
essence from that of the Father, but at the same 
time the emphasis upon the fact that he "was not 
created as the other creatures," and is therefore 
to be sharply distinguished from them. There was 
little for Arius to do but to combine the elements 
given by Lucian in a more complete and 
well-ordered system, and then to bring that system 
forward clearly and publicly, and endeavor to make 
it the faith of the Church at large. His 
christology was essentially opposed to the 
Alexandrian, and it was natural that he should 
soon come into conflict with that church, of which 
he was a presbyter (upon Lucian's teaching and its 
relation to Arianism, see Harnack's 
Dogmengeschichte, II. p. 183 sq.).
Socrates (H. E. I. 5 sq.), Sozomen (H. E. I. 15) 
and Theodoret (H. E. I. 2 sq.), all of whom give 
accounts of the rise of Arianism, differ as to the 
immediate occasion of the controversy, but agree 
that Arius was excommunicated by a council 
convened at Alexandria, and that both he and the 
bishop Alexander sent letters to other churches, 
the latter defending his own course, the former 
complaining of his harsh treatment, and 
endeavoring to secure adherents to his doctrine. 
Eusebius of Nicomedia at once became his firm 
supporter, and was one of the leading figures on 
the Arian side throughout the entire controversy. 
His influential position as bishop of Nicomedia, 
the imperial residence, and later of 
Constantinople, was of great advantage to the 
Arian cause, especially toward the close of 
Constantine's reign. From a letter addressed by 
this Eusebius to Paulinus of Tyre (Theodoret, H. 
E. I. 6) we learn that Eusebius of C'sarea was 
quite zealous in behalf of the Arian cause. The 
exact date of the letter we do not know, but it 
must have been written at an early stage of the 
controversy. Arius himself, in an epistle 
addressed to Eusebius of Nicomedia (Theodoret, H. 
E. I. 5), claims Eusebius of C'sarea among others 
as accepting at least one of his fundamental 
doctrines ("And since Eusebius, your brother in 
C'sarea, and Theodotus, and Paulinus, and 
Athanasius, and Gregory, and 'tius, and all the 
bishops of the East say that God existed before 
the Son, they have been condemned," etc.). More 
than this, Sozomen (H. E. I. 15 ) informs us that 
Eusebius of C'sarea and two other bishops, having 
been appealed to by Arius for "permission for 
himself and his adherents, as he had already 
attained the rank of presbyter, to form the people 
who were with them into a church," concurred with 
others "who were assembled in Palestine," in 
granting the petition of Arius, and permitting him 
to assemble the people as before; but they 
"enjoined submission to Alexander, and commanded 
Arius to strive incessantly to be restored to 
peace and communion with him." The addition of the 
last sentence is noticeable, as showing that they 
did not care to support a presbyter in open and 
persistent rebellion against his bishop. A 
fragment of a letter written by our Eusebius to 
Alexander is still extant, and is preserved in the 
proceedings of the Second Council of Nic'a, Act. 
VI. Tom. V. (Labbei et Cossartii Conc. VII. col. 
497). In this epistle Eusebius strongly 
remonstrates with Alexander for having 
misrepresented the views of Arius. Still further, 
in his epistle to Alexander of Constantinople, 
Alexander of Alexandria (Theodoret, H. E. I. 4) 
complains of three Syrian bishops "who side with 
them [i.e. the Arians] and excite them to plunge 
deeper and deeper into iniquity." The reference 
here is commonly supposed to be to Eusebius of 
C'sarean, and his two friends Paulinus of Tyre and 
Theodotus of Laodicea, who are known to have shown 
favor to Arius. It is probable, though not 
certain, that our Eusebius is one of the persons 
meant. Finally, many of the Fathers (above all 
Jerome and Photius), and in addition to them the 
Second Council of Nic'a, directly accuse Eusebius 
of holding the Arian heresy, as may be seen by 
examining the testimonies quoted below on p. 67 
sq. In agreement with these early Fathers, many 
modern historians have attacked Eusebius with 
great severity, and have endeavored to show that 
the opinion that he was an Arian is supported by 
his own writings. Among those who have judged him 
most harshly are Baronins (ad ann. 340, c. 38 
sq.), Petavius

13

(Dogm. Theol. de Trin. I. c. 11 sq.), Scaliger (In 
Elencho Trih'resii, c. 27, and De emendatione 
temporum, Bk. VI. c. 1), Mosheim (Ecclesiastical 
History, Murdock's translation, I. p. 287 sq.), 
Montfaucon (Pr'lim. in Comment. ad Psalm. c. VI.), 
and Tillemont (H. E. VII. p. 67 sq. 2d ed.).
On the other hand, as may be seen from the 
testimonies in Eusebius' favor, quoted below on, 
p. 57 sq., many of the Fathers, who were 
themselves orthodox, looked upon Eusebius as 
likewise sound on the subject of the Trinity. He 
has been defended in modern times against the 
charge of Arianism by a great many prominent 
scholars; among others by Valesius in his Life 
Eusebius, by Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. II. 9. 20, III. 
9. 3, 11), Cave (Lives of the Fathers, II. p. 135 
sq.), Fabricius (Bibl. Gr'c. VI. p. 32 sq.), Dupin 
(Bibl. Eccles. IL p. 7 sq.), and most fully and 
carefully by Lee in his prolegomena to his edition 
of Eusebius' Theaphania, p. xxiv. sq. Lightfoot 
also defends him against the charge of heresy, as 
do a great many other writers whom it is not 
necessary to mention here. Confronted with such 
diversity of opinion, both ancient and modern, 
what are we to conclude? It is useless to 
endeavor, as Lee does, to clear Eusebius of all 
sympathy with and leaning toward Arianism. It is 
impossible to explain such widespread and 
continued condemnation of him by acknowledging 
only that there are many expressions in his works 
which are in themselves perfectly orthodox but 
capable of being wrested in such a way as to 
produce a suspicion of possible Arianistic 
tendencies, for there are such expressions in the 
works of multitudes of ancient writers whose 
orthodoxy has never been questioned. Nor can the 
widespread belief that he was an Arian be 
explained by admitting that he was for a time the 
personal friend of Arius, but denying that he 
accepted, or in any way sympathized with his views 
(cf. Newman's Arians, p. 262). There are in fact 
certain fragments of epistles extant, which are, 
to say the least, decidedly Arianistic in their 
modes of expression, and these must be reckoned 
with in forming an opinion of Eusebius' views; for 
there is no reason to deny, as Lee does, that they 
are from Eusebius' own hand. On the other hand, to 
maintain, with some of the Fathers and many of the 
moderns, that Eusebius was and continued through 
life a genuine Arian, will not do in the face of 
the facts that contemporary and later Fathers were 
divided as to his orthodoxy, that he was honored 
highly by the Church of subsequent centuries, 
except at certain periods, and was even canonized 
(see Lightfoot's article, p. 348), that he 
solemnly signed the Nicene Creed, which contained 
an express condemnation of the distinctive 
doctrines of Arius, and finally that at least in 
his later works he is thoroughly orthodox in his 
expressions, and is explicit in his rejection of 
the two main theses of the Arians,--that there was 
a time when the Son of God was not, and that he 
was produced out of nothing. It is impossible to 
enter here into a detailed discussion of such 
passages in Eusebius' works as bear upon the 
subject under dispute. Lee has considered many of 
them at great length, and the reader may be 
referred to him for further information.
A careful examination of them will, I believe, 
serve to convince the candid student that there is 
a distinction to be drawn between those works 
written before the rise of Arius, those written 
between that time and the Council of Nic'a, and 
those written after the latter. It has been very 
common to draw a distinction between those works 
written before and those written after the 
Council, but no one, so far as I know, has 
distinguished those productions of Eusebius' pen 
which appeared between 318 and 325, and which were 
caused by the controversy itself, from all his 
other writings. And yet such a distinction seems 
to furnish the key to the problem. Eusebius' 
opponents have drawn their strongest arguments 
from the epistles which Eusebius wrote to 
Alexander and to Euphration; his defenders have 
drawn their arguments chiefly from the works which 
he produced subsequent to the year 325; while the 
exact bearing of the expressions used in his works 
produced before the controversy broke out has 
always been a matter of sharp dispute. Lee has 
abundantly shown his Contra Marcel., his De Eccl. 
Theol., his Thephania (which was written after the 
Council of Nic'a, and not, as Lee supposes, before 
it), and other later works, to be thoroughly 
orthodox and to contain nothing which a 
trinitarian might not have written. In his Hist. 
Eccl., Pr'paratio Evang., Demanstratio Evang., and 
other earlier works,

14

although we find some expressions employed which 
it would not have been possible for an orthodox 
trinitarian to use after the Council of Nic'a, at 
least without careful limitation to guard against 
misapprehension, there is nothing even in these 
works which requires us to believe that he 
accepted the doctrines of Arius' predecessor, 
Lucian of Antioch; that is, there is nothing 
distinctly and positively Arianistic about them, 
although there are occasional expressions which 
might lead the reader to expect that the writer 
would become an Arian if he ever learned of Arius' 
doctrines. But if there is seen to be a lack of 
emphasis upon the divinity of the Son, or rather a 
lack of clearness in the conception of the nature 
of that divinity, it must be remembered that there 
was at this time no especial reason for 
emphasizing and defining it, but there was on the 
contrary very good reason for laying particular 
stress upon the subordination of the Son over 
against Sabellianism, which was so widely 
prevalent during the third century, and which was 
exerting an influence even over many orthodox 
theologians who did not consciously accept 
Sabellianistic tenets. That Eusebius was a decided 
subordinationist must be plain to every one that 
reads his works with care, especially his earlier 
ones. It would be surprising if he had not been, 
for he was born at a time when Sabellianism 
(monarchianism) was felt to be the greatest danger 
to which orthodox christology was exposed, and he 
was trained under the influence of the followers 
of Origen, who had made it one of his chief aims 
to emphasize the subordination of the Son over 
against that very monarchianism. [1] The same 
subordinationism may be clearly seen in the 
writings of Dionysius of Alexandria and of Gregory 
Thaumaturgus, two of Origen's greatest disciples. 
It must not be forgotten that at the beginning of 
the fourth century the problem of how to preserve 
the Godhood of Christ and at the same time his 
subordination to the Father (in opposition to the 
monarchianists) had not been solved. Eusebius in 
his earlier writings shows that he holds both (he 
cannot be convicted of denying Christ's divinity), 
but that he is as far from a solution of the 
problem, and is just as uncertain in regard to the 
exact relation of Father and Son, as Tertullian, 
Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius, and Gregory 
Thaumaturgus were; is just as inconsistent in his 
modes of expression as they, and yet no more so 
(see Harnack's Dogmengeschichte, I. pp. 628 sq. 
and 634 sq., for an exposition of the opinions of 
these other Fathers on the subject). Eusebius, 
with the same immature and undeveloped views which 
were held all through the third century, wrote 
those earlier works which have given rise to so 
much dispute between those who accuse him of 
Arianism and those who defend him against the 
charge. When he wrote them he was neither Arian 
nor Athanasian, and for that reason passages may 
be found in them which if written after the 
Council of Nicaea might prove him an Arian, and 
other passages which might as truly prove him an 
Athanasian, just as in the writings of Origen were 
found by both parties passages to support their 
views, and in Gregory Thaumaturgus passages 
apparently teaching Arianism, and others teaching 
its opposite, Sabellianism (see Harnack, ib. p. 
646).
Let us suppose now that Eusebius, holding fast to 
the divinity of Christ, and yet convinced just as 
firmly of his subordination to the Father, becomes 
acquainted through Arius, or other like-minded 
disciples of Lucian of Antioch, with a doctrine 
which seems to preserve the Godhood, while at the 
same time emphasizing strongly the subordination 
of the Son, and which formulates the relation of 
Father and Son in a clear and rational manner. 
That he should accept such a doctrine eagerly is 
just what we should expect, and just what we find 
him doing. In his epistles to Alexander and 
Euphration, he shows himself an Arian, and Arius 
and his followers were quite

15

right in claiming him as a supporter. There is 
that in the epistles which is to be found nowhere 
in his previous writings, and which distinctly 
separates him from the orthodox party. How then 
are we to explain the fact that a few years later 
he signed the Nicene creed and anathematized the 
doctrines of Arius? Before we can understand his 
conduct, it is necessary to examine carefully the 
two epistles in question. Such an examination will 
show us that what Eusebius is defending in them is 
not genuine Arianism. He evidently thinks that it 
is, evidently supposes that he and Arius are in 
complete agreement upon the subjects under 
discussion; but he is mistaken. The extant 
fragments of the two epistles are given below on 
p. 70. It will be seen that Eusebius in them 
defends the Arian doctrine that there was a time 
when the Son of God was not. It will be seen also 
that he finds fault with Alexander for 
representing the Arians as teaching that the "Son 
of God was made out of nothing, like all 
creatures," and contends that Arius teaches that 
the Son of God was begotten, and that he was not 
produced like all creatures. We know that the 
Arians very commonly applied the word "begotten" 
to Christ, using it in such cases as synonymous 
with "created," and thus not implying, as the 
Athanasians did when they used the word, that he 
was of one substance with the Father (compare, for 
instance, the explanation of the meaning of the 
term given by Eusebius of Nicomedia in his epistle 
to Paulinns; Theod. H. E. I. 6). It is evident 
that the use of this word had deceived our 
Eusebius, and that he was led by it to think that 
they taught that the Son was of the Father in a 
peculiar sense, and did in reality partake in some 
way of essential Godhood. And indeed it is not at 
all surprising that the words of Arius, in his 
epistle to Alexander of Alexandria (see Athan. Ep. 
de conc. Arim. et Seleuc., chap. II. § 3; Oxford 
edition of Athanasius' Tracts against Arianism, P. 
97), quoted by Eusebius in his epistle to the same 
Alexander, should give Eusebius that impression. 
The words are as follows: "The God of the law, and 
of the prophets, and of the New Testament before 
eternal ages begat an only-begotten Son, through 
whom also He made the ages and the universe. And 
He begat him not in appearance, but in truth, and 
subjected him to his own will, unchangeable and 
immutable, a perfect creature of God, but not as 
one of the creatures." Arius' use here of the word 
"begat," and his qualification of the word 
"creature" by the adjective "perfect," and by the 
statement that he was "not as one of the 
creatures" naturally tended to make Eusebius 
think. that Arius acknowledged a real divinity of 
the Son, and that appeared to him to be all that 
was necessary. Meanwhile Alexander in his epistle 
to Alexander of Constantinople (Theod. H. E. I. 4) 
had, as Eusebius says, misstated Arius' opinion, 
or at least had attributed to him the belief that 
Christ was "made like all other men that have ever 
been born," whereas Arius expressly disclaims such 
a belief. Alexander undoubtedly thought that that 
was the legitimate result to which the other views 
of Arius must lead; but Eusebius did not think so, 
and felt himself called upon to remonstrate with 
Alexander for what seemed to him the latter's 
unfairness in the matter.
When we examine the C'sarean creed[1] which 
Eusebius presented to the Council as a fair 
statement of his belief, we find nothing in it 
inconsistent with the acceptance of the kind of 
Arianism which he defends in his epistle to 
Alexander, and which he evidently supposed to be 
practically the Arianism of Arius himself. In his 
epistle to Euphration, however, Eusebius seems at 
first glance to go further and to give up the real 
divinity of the Son. His words are, "Since the Son 
is himself God, but not true God." But we have no 
right to interpret these words, torn as they are 
from the context which might make their meaning 
perfectly plain, without due regard to Eusebius' 
belief expressed elsewhere in this epistle, and in 
his epistle to Alexander which was evidently 
written about the same time. In the epistle to 
Alexander he clearly reveals a belief in the real 
divinity of the Son, while in the other fragment 
of his epistle to Euphration he dwells upon the 
subordination of the Son and approves the Arian 
opinion, which he had defended also in the other 
epistle, that the "Father was before the Son." The 
expression, "not true God" (a very common Arian 
expression; see Athan. Orat. c. Arian. I. 6) seems 
therefore to have been

16

used by Eusebius to express a belief, not that the 
Son did not possess real divinity (as the genuine 
Arians used it), but that he was not equal to the 
Father, who, to Eusebius' thought, was "true God." 
He indeed expressly calls the Son 
<greek>qeos</greek>, which shows -- when the sense 
in which he elsewhere uses the word is considered 
-- that he certainly did believe him to partake of 
Godhood, though, in some mysterious way, in a 
smaller degree, or in a less complete manner than 
the Father. That Eusebius misunderstood Arius, and 
did not perceive that he actually denied all real 
deity to the Son, was due doubtless in part to his 
lack of theological insight (Eusebius was never a 
great theologian), in part to his habitual dread 
of Sabellianism (of which Arius had accused 
Alexander, and toward which Eusebius evidently 
thought that the latter was tending), which led 
him to look with great favor upon the pronounced 
subordinationism of Arius, and thus to overlook 
the dangerous extreme to which Arius carried that 
subordinationism.
We are now, the writer hopes, prepared to admit 
that Eusebius, after the breaking out of the Arian 
controversy, became an Arian, as he understood 
Arianism, and supported that party with 
considerable vigor; and that not as a result of 
mere personal friendship, but of theological 
conviction. At the same time, he was then, as 
always, a peace-loving man, and while lending 
Arius his approval and support, he united with 
other Palestinian bishops in enjoining upon him 
submission to his bishop (Sozomen, H. E. I. 15). 
As an Arian, then, and yet possessed with the 
desire of securing, if it were possible, peace and 
harmony between the two factions, Eusebius 
appeared at the Council of Nic'a, and there signed 
a creed containing Athanasian doctrine and 
anathematizing the chief tenets of Arius. How are 
we to explain his conduct? We shall, perhaps, do 
best to let him explain his own conduct. In his 
letter to the church of C'sarea (preserved by 
Socrates, H. E. I. 8, as well as by other 
authors), he writes as follows:--
"What was transacted concerning ecclesiastical 
faith at the Great Council assembled at Nic'a you 
have probably learned, Beloved, from other 
sources, rumour being wont to precede the accurate 
account of what is doing. But lest in such reports 
the circumstances of the case have been 
misrepresented, we have been obliged to transmit 
to you, first, the formula of faith presented by 
ourselves; and next, the second, which the Fathers 
put forth with some additions to our words. Our 
own paper, then, which was read in the presence of 
our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good 
and unexceptionable, ran thus:--
"'As we have received from the Bishops who 
preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and 
when we received the Holy Layer, and as we have 
learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we 
believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the 
Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time 
present, we report to you our faith, and it is 
this:--
"'We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the 
Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in 
One Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from 
God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Son 
Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, 
before all the ages, begotten from the Father, by 
whom also all things were made; who for our 
salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and 
suffered, and rose again the third day, and 
ascended to the Father, and will come again in 
glory to judge quick and dead, And we believe also 
in One Holy Ghost; believing each of These to be 
and to exist, the Father truly Father, and the Son 
truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as 
also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the 
preaching, said, Go, teach all nations, 
anathematizing every godless heresy. That this we 
have ever thought from our heart and soul, from 
the time we recollect ourselves, and now think and 
say in truth, before God Almighty and our Lord 
Jesus Christ do we witness, being able by proofs 
to show and to convince you, that, even in times 
past, such has been our belief and preaching.'
"On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no 
room for contradiction appeared; but our most 
pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that 
it comprised most orthodox statements. He 
confessed, moreover, that such were his own 
sentiments; and he advised all present to agree to 
it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to 
them, with the insertion of the single word, 'One 
in substance' (<greek>omoousios</greek>), which, 
moreover, he interpreted as not in the sense of 
the affections of bodies, nor as if the Son 
subsisted from the Father, in the way of division, 
or any sever-

17

ance; for that the immaterial and intellectual and 
incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any 
corporeal affection, but that it became us to 
conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable 
manner. And such were the theological remarks of 
our most wise and most religious Emperor; but 
they, with a view to the addition of 'One in 
substance,' drew up the following formula:--
"'We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, 
Maker of all things visible and invisible:-- And 
in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten 
of the Father, Only-begotten, that is, from the 
Substance of the Father; God from God, Light from 
Light, very God from very God, begotten, not made, 
One in substance with the Father, by whom all 
things were made, both things in heaven and things 
in earth; who for us men and for our salvation 
came down and was made flesh, was made man, 
suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended 
into heaven, and cometh to judge quick and dead.
"'And in the Holy Ghost. But those who say, "Once 
He was not," and "Before His generation He was 
not," and "He came to be from nothing," or those 
who pretend that the Son of God is "Of other 
subsistence or substance," or "created," or 
"alterable," or "mutable," the Catholic Church 
anathematizes.'
"On their dictating this formula, we did not let 
it pass without inquiry in what sense they 
introduced of the substance of the Father' and 
'one in substance with the Father.' Accordingly 
questions and explanations took place, and the 
meaning of the words underwent the scrutiny of 
reason. And they professed that the phrase 'of the 
substance' was indicative of the Son's being 
indeed from the Father, yet without being as if a 
part of Him. And with this understanding we 
thought good to assent to the sense of such 
religious doctrine, teaching, as it did, that the 
Son was from the Father, not, however, a part of 
His substance. On this account we assented to the 
sense ourselves, without declining even the term 
'One in substance,' peace being the object which 
we set before us, and steadfastness in the 
orthodox view. In the same way we also admitted 
'begotten, not made'; since the Council alleged 
that 'made' was an appellative common to the other 
creatures which came to be through the Son, to 
whom the Son had no likeness. Wherefore, said 
they, He was not a work resembling the things 
which through Him came to be, but was of a 
substance which is too high for the level of any 
work, and which the Divine oracles teach to have 
been generated from the Father, the mode of 
generation being inscrutable and incalculable to 
every generated nature. And so, too, on 
examination there are grounds for saying that the 
Son is 'one in substance' with the Father; not in 
the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He 
is not such by division of substance, or by 
severance; no, nor by any affection, or 
alteration, or changing of the Father's substance 
and power (since from all such the ingenerate 
nature of the Father is alien), but because 'one 
in substance with the Father' suggests that the 
Son of God bears no resemblance to the generated 
creatures, but that to His Father alone who begat 
Him is He in every way assimilated, and that He is 
not of any other subsistence and substance, but 
from the Father.
"To which term also, thus interpreted, it appeared 
well to assent; since we were aware that, even 
among the ancients, some learned and illustrious 
Bishops and writers have used the term 'one in 
substance' in their theological teaching 
concerning the Father and Son. So much, then, be 
said concerning the faith which was published; to 
which all of us assented, not without inquiry, but 
according to the specified senses, mentioned 
before the most religious Emperor himself, and 
justified by the fore-mentioned considerations. 
And as to the anathematism published by them at 
the end of the Faith, it did not pain us, because 
it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from 
which almost all the confusion and disorder of the 
Church have come. Since, then, no divinely 
inspired Scripture has used the phrases, 'out of 
nothing' and 'once He was not,' and the rest which 
follow, there appeared no ground for using or 
teaching them; to which also we assented as a good 
decision, since it had not been our custom 
hitherto to use these terms. Moreover, to 
anathematize 'Before His generation He was not' 
did not seem preposterous, in that it is confessed 
by all that the Son of God was before the 
generation according to the flesh. Nay, our most 
religious Emperor did at the time prove, in a 
speech, that He was in being even according to His 
divine generation which is before all ages, since 
even before he was generated

18

in energy, He was in virtue with the Father 
ingenerately, the Father being always Father, as 
King always and Saviour always, having all things 
in virtue, and being always in the same respects 
and in the same way. This we have been forced to 
transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you 
the deliberation of our inquiry and assent, and 
how reasonably we resisted even to the last 
minute, as long as we were offended at statements 
which differed from our own, but received without 
contention what no longer pained us, as soon as, 
on a candid examination of the sense of the words, 
they appeared to us to coincide with what we 
ourselves have professed in the faith which we 
have already published."[1]
It will be seen that while the expressions "of the 
substance of the Father," "begotten not made," and 
"One in substance," or "consubstantial with the 
Father," are all explicitly anti-Arianistic, yet 
none of them contradicts the doctrines held by 
Eusebius before the Council, so far as we can 
learn them from his epistles to Alexander and 
Euphration and from the C'sarean creed. His own 
explanation of those expressions, which it is to 
be observed was the explanation given by the 
Council itself, and which therefore he was fully 
warranted in accepting,--even though it may not 
have been so rigid as to satisfy an 
Athanasius,--shows us how this is. He had believed 
before that the Son partook of the Godhood in very 
truth, that He was "begotten," and therefore "not 
made," if "made" implied something different from 
"begotten," as the Nicene Fathers held that it 
did; and he had believed before that the "Son of 
God has no resemblance to created' things, but is 
in every respect like the Father only who begat 
him, and that He is of no other substance or 
essence than the Father," and therefore if that 
was what the word "Consubstantial" 
(<greek>omoousios</greek>) meant he could not do 
otherwise than accept that too.
It is clear that the dread of Sabellianism was 
still before the eyes of Eusebius, and was the 
cause of his hesitation in assenting to the 
various changes, especially to the use of the word 
<greek>ouoousios</greek>, which had been a 
Sabellian word and had been rejected on that 
account by the Synod of Antioch, at which Paul of 
Samosata had been condemned some sixty years 
before.
It still remains to explain Eusebius' sanction of 
the anathemas attached to the creed which 
expressly condemn at least one of the beliefs 
which he had himself formerly held, viz.: that the 
"Father was before the Son," or as he puts it 
elsewhere, that "He who is begat him who was not." 
The knot might of course be simply cut by 
supposing an act of hypocrisy on his part, but the 
writer is convinced that such a conclusion does 
violence to all that we know of Eusebius and of 
his subsequent treatment of the questions involved 
in this discussion. It is quite possible to 
suppose that a real change of opinion on his part 
took place during the sessions of the Council. 
Indeed when we realize how imperfect and incorrect 
a conception of Arianism he had before the Council 
began, and how clearly its true bearing was there 
brought out by its enemies, we can see that he 
could not do otherwise than change; that he must 
have become either an out and-out Arian, or an 
opponent of Arianism as he did. When he learned, 
and learned for the first time, that Arianism 
meant the denial of all essential divinity to 
Christ, and when he saw that it involved the 
ascription of mutability and of other finite 
attributes to him, he must either change entirely 
his views on those points or he must leave the 
Arian party. To him who with all his 
subordinationism had laid in all his writings so 
much stress on the divinity of the Word (even 
though he had not realized exactly what that 
divinity involved) it would have been a revolution 
in his Christian life and faith to have admitted 
what he now learned that Arianism involved. 
Sabellianism had been his dread, but now this new 
fear, which had aroused so large a portion of the 
Church, seized him too, and he felt that stand 
must be made against this too great separation of 
Father and Son, which was leading to dangerous 
results. Under the pressure of this fear it is not 
surprising that he should become convinced that 
the Arian formula--"there was a time when the Son 
was not "--involved serious consequences, and that 
Alexander and his followers should have succeeded 
in pointing out to him its untruth, because it led 
necessarily to a false conclusion. It is not 
surprising, moreover, that they should have 
succeeded in explaining to him at least

19

partially their belief, which, as his epistle to 
Alexander shows, had before been absolutely 
incomprehensible, that the Son was generated from 
all eternity, and that therefore the Father did 
not exist before him in a temporal sense.
He says toward the close of his epistle to the 
C'sarean church that he had not been accustomed to 
use such expressions as "There was a time when he 
was not," "He came to be from nothing," etc. And 
there is no reason to doubt that he speaks the 
truth. Even in his epistles to Alexander and 
Euphration he does not use those phrases (though 
he does defend the doctrine taught by the first of 
them), nor does Arius himself, in the epistle to 
Alexander upon which Eusebius apparently based his 
knowledge of the system, use those expressions, 
although he too teaches the same doctrine. The 
fact is that in that epistle Arius studiously 
avoids such favorite Arian phrases as might 
emphasize the differences between himself and 
Alexander, and Eusebius seems to have avoided them 
for the same reason. We conclude then that 
Eusebius was not an Arian (nor an adherent of 
Lucian) before 318, that soon after that date he 
became an Arian in the sense in which he 
understood Arianism, but that during the Council 
of Nic'a he ceased to be one in any sense. His 
writings in later years confirm the course of 
doctrinal development which we have supposed went 
on in his mind. He never again defends Arian 
doctrines in his works, and yet he never becomes 
an Athanasian in his emphasis upon the 
<greek>omoousion</greek>. In fact he represents a 
mild orthodoxy, which is always orthodox- when 
measured by the Nicene creed as interpreted by the 
Nicene Council--and yet is always mild. Moreover, 
he never acquired an affection for the word 
<greek>omoousios</greek>, which to his mind was 
bound up with too many evil associations ever to 
have a pleasant sound to him. He therefore 
studiously avoided it in his own writings, 
although clearly showing that he believed fully in 
what the Nicene Council had explained it to mean. 
It must be remembered that during many years of 
his later life he was engaged in controversy with 
Marcellus, a thorough-going Sabellian, who had 
been at the time of the Council one of the 
strongest of Athanasius' colleagues. In his 
contest with him it was again anti-Sabellianistic 
polemics which absorbed him and increased his 
distaste for <greek>omoousion</greek> and 
minimized his emphasis upon the distinctively 
anti-Arianistie doctrines formulated at Nic'a. For 
any except the very wisest minds it was a matter 
of enormous difficulty to steer between the two 
extremes in those times of strife; and while 
combating Sabeilianism not to fall into Arianism, 
and while combating the latter not to be engulfed 
in the former. That Eusebius under the constant 
pressure of the one fell into the other at one 
time, and was in occasional danger of falling into 
it again in later years, can hardly be cited as an 
evidence either of wrong heart or of weak head. An 
Athanasius he was not, but neither was he an 
unsteady weather-cock, or an hypocritical 
time-server.

§ 6. The Council of Niccea.

At the Council of Nic'a, which met pursuant to an 
imperial summons in the year 315 Ensebius played a 
very prominent part. A description of the opening 
scenes of the Council is given in his Vita 
Constantini, III. 10 sq. After the Emperor had 
entered in pomp and had taken his seat, a bishop 
who sat next to him upon his right arose and 
delivered in his honor the opening oration, to 
which the Emperor replied in a brief Latin 
address. There can be no doubt that this bishop 
was our Eusebius. Sozomen (H. E. I. 19) states it 
directly; and Eusebius, although he does not name 
the speaker, yet refers to him, as he had referred 
to the orator at the dedication of Paulinus' 
church at Tyre, in such a way as to make it clear 
that it was himself; and moreover in his Fita 
Constantini, I. 1, he mentions the fact that he 
had in the midst of an assembly of the servants of 
God addressed an oration to the Emperor on the 
occasion of the latter's vicennalia, i.e. in 325 
A.D. On the other hand, however, Theodoret (H. E. 
I. 7) states that this opening oration was 
delivered by Eustathius, bishop of Antioch; while 
Theodore of Mopsuestia and Philostorgius 
(according to Nicetas Choniates, Thes. de arthod. 
rid. V. 7) assign it to Alexander of Alexandria. 
As Lightfoot suggests, it is possible to explain 
the discrepancy in the reports by

20

supposing that Eustathius and Alexander, the two 
great patriarchs, first addressed a few words to 
the Emperor and that then Eusebius delivered the 
regular oration. This supposition is not at all 
unlikely, for it would be quite proper for the two 
highest ecclesiastics present to welcome the 
Emperor formally in behalf of the assembled 
prelates, before the regular oration was delivered 
by Eusebius. At the same time, the supposition 
that one or the other of the two great patriarchs 
must have delivered the opening address was such a 
natural one that it may have been adopted by 
Theodoret and the other writers referred to 
without any historical basis. It is in any case 
certain that the regular oration was delivered by 
Eusebius himself (see the convincing arguments 
adduced by Stroth, p. xxvii. sq.). This oration is 
no longer extant, but an idea of its character may 
be formed from the address delivered by Eusebius 
at the Emperor's tricennalia (which is still 
extant under the title De laudibus Canstantini; 
see below, p. 43) and from the general tone of his 
Life of Constantine. It was avowedly a panegyric, 
and undoubtedly as fulsome as it was possible to 
make it, and his powers in that direction were by 
no means slight.
That Eusebius, instead of the bishop of some more 
prominent church, should have been selected to 
deliver the opening address, may have been in part 
owing to his recognized standing as the most 
learned man and the most famous writer in the 
Church, in part to the fact that he was not as 
pronounced a partisan as some of his distinguished 
brethren; for instance, Alexander of Alexandria, 
and Eusebius of Nicomedia; and finally in some 
measure to his intimate relations with the 
Emperor. How and when his intimacy with the latter 
grew up we do not know. As already remarked, he 
seems to have become personally acquainted with 
him many years before, when Constantine passed 
through C'sarea in the train of Diocletian, and it 
may be that a mutual friendship, which was so 
marked in later years, began at that time. However 
that may be, Eusebius seems to have possessed 
special advantages of one kind or another, 
enabling him to come into personal contact with 
official circles, and once introduced to imperial 
notice, his wide learning, sound common sense, 
genial temper and broad charity would insure him 
the friendship of the Emperor himself, or of any 
other worthy officer of state. We have no record 
of an intimacy between Constantine and Eusebius 
before the Council of Nic'a, but many clear 
intimations of it after that time. In fact, it is 
evident that during the last decade at least of 
the Emperor's life, few, if any, bishops stood 
higher in his esteem or enjoyed a larger measure 
of his confidence. Compare for instance the 
records of their conversations (contained in the 
Vita Canstantini, I. 28 and II. 9), of their 
correspondence (ib. II. 46, III. 61, IV. 35 and 
36), and the words of Constantine himself (ib. 
III. 60). The marked attention paid by him to the 
speeches delivered by Eusebius in his presence 
(ib. IV. 33 and 46) is also to be noticed. 
Eusebius' intimacy with the imperial family is 
shown likewise in the tone of the letter which he 
wrote to Constantia, the sister of Constantine and 
wife of Licinius, in regard to a likeness of 
Christ which she had asked him to send her. The 
frankness and freedom with which he remonstrates 
with her for what he considers mistaken zeal on 
her part, reveal a degree of familiarity which 
could have come only from long and cordial 
relations between himself and his royal 
correspondent. Whatever other reasons therefore 
may have combined to indicate Eusebius as the most 
fitting person to deliver the oration in honor of 
the Emperor at the Council of Nic'a, there can be 
little doubt that Constantine's personal 
friendship for him had much to do with his 
selection. The action of the Council on the 
subject of Arianism, and Eusebius' conduct in the 
matter, have already been discussed. Of the 
bishops assembled at the Council, not far from 
three hundred in number (the reports of 
eye-witnesses vary from two hundred and fifty to 
three hundred and eighteen), all but two signed 
the Nicene creed as adopted by the Council. These 
two, both of them Egyptians, were banished with 
Arius to Illyria, while Eusebius of Nicomedia, and 
Theognis of Nic'a, who subscribed the creed itself 
but refused to assent to its anathemas, were also 
banished for a time, but soon yielded, and were 
restored to their churches.
Into the other purposes for which the Nicene 
Council was called,--the settlement of the dispute 
respecting the time of observing Easter and the 
healing of the Meletian schism,--it is not neces-

21

sary to enter here. We have no record of the part 
which Eusebius took in these transactions. 
Lightfoot has abundantly shown (p. 313 sq.) that 
the common supposition that Eusebius was the 
author of the paschal cycle of nineteen years is 
false, and that there is no reason to suppose that 
he had anything particular to do with the decision 
of the paschal question at this Council. § 7. 
Continuance of the Arian Controversy. Eusebius' 
Relations to the Two Parties.
The Council of Nic'a did not bring the Arian 
controversy to an end. The orthodox party was 
victorious, it is true, but the Arians were still 
determined, and could not give up their enmity 
against the opponents of Arius, and their hope 
that they might in the end turn the tables on 
their antagonists. Meanwhile, within a few years 
after the Council, a quarrel broke out between our 
Eusebius and Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, a 
resolute supporter of Nicene orthodoxy. According 
to Socrates (H. E. I. 23) and Sozomen (H. E. II. 
18) Eustathius accused Eusebius of perverting the 
Nicene doctrines, while Eusebius denied the 
charge, and in turn taxed Eustathius with 
Sabellianism. The quarrel finally became so 
serious that it was deemed necessary to summon a 
Council for the investigation of Eustathius' 
orthodoxy and the settlement of the dispute. This 
Council met in Antioch in 330 A.D. (see Tillemont, 
VII. p. 651 sq., for a discussion of the date), 
and was made up chiefly of bishops of Arian or 
semi-Arian tendencies. This fact, however, brings 
no discredit upon Eusebius. The Council was held 
in another province, and he can have had nothing 
to do with its composition. In fact, convened, as 
it was, in Eustathius' own city, it must have been 
legally organized; and indeed Eustathius himself 
acknowledged its jurisdiction by appearing before 
it to answer the charges made against him. 
Theodoret's absurd account of the origin of the 
synod and of the accusations brought against 
Eustathius (H. E. I. 21) bears upon its face the 
stamp of falsehood, and is, as Hefele has shown 
(Canciliengeschichte, I. 451), hopelessly in error 
in its chronology. It is therefore to be rejected 
as quite worthless. The decision of the Council 
doubtless fairly represented the views of the 
majority of the bishops of that section, for we 
know that Arianism had a very strong hold there. 
To think of a packed Council and of illegal 
methods of procedure in procuring the verdict 
against Eustathius is both unnecessary and 
unwarrantable. The result of the Council was the 
deposition of Eustathius from his bishopric and 
his banishment by the Emperor to Illyria, where he 
afterward died. There is a division of opinion 
among our sources in regard to the immediate 
successor of Eustathius. All of them agree that 
Eusebius was asked to become bishop of Antioch, 
but that he refused the honor, and that Euphronius 
was chosen in his stead. Socrates and Sozomen, 
however, inform us that the election of Eusebius 
took place immediately after the deposition of 
Eustathius, while Theodoret (H. E. I. 22) names 
Eulalius as Eustathius' immediate successor, and 
states that he lived but a short time, and that 
Eusebius was then asked to succeed him. Theodoret 
is Supported by Jerome (Chron., year of Abr. 2345) 
and by Philostorgius (H. E. III. 15), both of whom 
insert a bishop Eulalius between Eustathius and 
Euphronius. It is easier to suppose that Socrates 
and Sozomen may have omitted so unimportant a name 
at this point than that the other three witnesses 
inserted it without warrant. Socrates indeed 
implies in the same chapter that his knowledge of 
these affairs is limited, and it is not surprising 
that Eusebius' election, which caused a great 
stir, should have been connected in the mind of 
later writers immediately with Eustathius' 
deposition, and the intermediate steps forgotten. 
It seems probable, therefore, that immediately 
after the condemnation of Eustathius, Eulalius was 
appointed in his place, perhaps by the same 
Council, and that after his death, a few months 
later, Eusebius, who had meanwhile gone back to 
C'sarea, was elected in due order by another 
Council of neighboring bishops summoned for the 
purpose, and that he was supported by a large 
party of citizens. It is noticeable that the 
letter written by the Emperor to the Council, 
which wished to transfer Eusebius to Antioch (see 
Vita Const. III. 62), mentions in its salutation 
the names of five bishops, but among them is only 
one (Theodotus who is elsewhere named as present 
at the Council which deposed Eusta-

22

thius, while Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis 
of Nic'a, as well as others whom we know to have 
been on hand on that occasion, are not referred to 
by the Emperor. This fact certainly seems to point 
to a different council.
It is greatly to Eusebius' credit that he refused 
the call extended to him. Had he been governed 
simply by selfish ambition he would certainly have 
accepted it, for the patriarchate of Antioch stood 
at that time next to Alexandria in point of honor 
in the Eastern Church. The Emperor commended him 
very highly for his decision, in his epistles to 
the people of Antioch and to the Council (Vita 
Const. III. 60, 62 ), and in that to Eusebius 
himself (ib. III. 61). He saw in it a desire on 
Eusebius' part to observe the ancient canon of the 
Church, which forbade the transfer of a bishop 
from one see to another. But that in itself can 
hardly have been sufficient to deter the latter 
from accepting the high honor offered him, for it 
was broken without scruple on all sides. It is 
more probable that he saw that the schism of the 
Antiochenes would be embittered by the induction 
into the bishopric of that church of Eustathius' 
chief opponent, and that he did not feel that he 
had a right so to divide the Church of God. 
Eusebius' general character, as known to us, 
justifies us in supposing that this high motive 
had much to do with his decision. We may suppose 
also that so difficult a place can have had no 
very great attractions for a man of his age and of 
his peace-loving disposition and scholarly tastes. 
In C'sarea he had spent his life; there he had the 
great library of Pamphilus at his disposal, and 
leisure to pursue his literary work. In Antioch he 
would have found himself compelled to plunge into 
the midst of quarrels and seditions of all kinds, 
and would have been obliged to devote his entire 
attention to the performance of his official 
duties. His own tastes therefore must have 
conspired with his sense of duty to lead him to 
reject the proffered call and to remain in the 
somewhat humbler station which he already 
occupied.
Not long after the deposition of Eustathius, the 
Arians and their sympathizers began to work more 
energetically to accomplish the ruin of 
Athanasius, their greatest foe. He had become 
Alexander's successor as bishop of Alexandria in 
the year 326, and was the acknowledged head of the 
orthodox party. If he could be brought into 
discredit, there might be hopes of restoring Arius 
to his position in Alexandria, and of securing for 
Arianism a recognition, and finally a dominating 
influence in the church at large. To the overthrow 
of Athanasius therefore all good Arians bent their 
energies. They found ready accomplices in the 
schismatical Meletians of Egypt, who were bitter 
enemies of the orthodox church of Alexandria. It 
was useless to accuse Athanasius of heterodoxy; he 
was too widely known as the pillar of the orthodox 
faith. Charges must be framed of another sort, and 
of a sort to stir up the anger of the Emperor 
against him. The Arians therefore and the 
Meletians began to spread the most vile and at the 
same time absurd stories about Athanasius (see 
especially the latter's Apol. c. Arian. § 59 sq.). 
These at last became so notorious that the Emperor 
summoned Athanasius to appear and make his defense 
before a council of bishops to be held in C'sarea 
(Sozomen, H. E. II. 25; Theodoret, H. E. I. 28). 
Athanasius, however, fearing that the Council 
would be composed wholly of his enemies, and that 
it would therefore be impossible to secure fair 
play, excused himself and remained away. But in 
the following year (see Sozomen, H. E. II, 25) he 
received from the Emperor a summons to appear 
before a council at Tyre. The summons was too 
peremptory to admit of a refusal, and Athanasius 
therefore attended, accompanied by many of his 
devoted adherents (see Sozomen, ib.; Theodoret, H. 
E. I. 30; Socrates, H. E. I. 28; Athanasius, Apol. 
c. Arian. § 71 sq.; Eusebius, Vita Const. IV. 41 
sq., and Epiphanius, H'r. LXVIII. 8). After a 
time, perceiving that he had no chance of 
receiving fair play, he suddenly withdrew from the 
Council and proceeded directly to Constantinople, 
in order to lay his case before the Emperor 
himself, and to induce the latter to allow him to 
meet his accusers in his presence, and plead his 
cause before him. There was nothing for the Synod 
to do after his flight but to sustain the charges 
brought against him, some of which he had not 
stayed to refute, and to pass condemnation upon 
him. Besides various immoral and sacrilegious 
deeds of which he was accused, his refusal to 
appear before the Council of

23

C'sarea the previous year was made an important 
item of the prosecution. It was during this 
Council that Potamo flung at Eusebius the taunt of 
cowardice, to which reference was made above, and 
which doubtless did much to confirm Eusebius' 
distrust of and hostility to the Athanasian 
party-Whether Eusebius of C'sarea, as is commonly 
supposed, or Eusebius of Nicomedia, or some other 
bishop, presided at this Council we are not able 
to determine. The account of Epiphanius seems to 
imply that the former was presiding at the time 
that Potamo made his untimely accusation. Our 
sources are, most of them, silent on the matter, 
but according to Valesius, Eusebius of Nicomedia 
is named by some of them, but which they are I 
have not been able to discover. We learn from 
Socrates (H. E. I. 28), as well as from other 
sources, that this Synod of Tyre was held in the 
thirtieth year of Constantine's reign, that is, 
between July, 334, and July, 335. As the Council 
was closed only in time for the bishops to reach 
Jerusalem by July, 335, it is probable that it was 
convened in 335 rather than in 334. From Sozomen 
(H. E. II. 25) we learn also that the Synod of 
C'sarea had been held the preceding year, 
therefore in 333 or 334 (the latter being the date 
commonly given by historians). While the Council 
of Tyre was still in session, the bishops were 
commanded by Constantine to proceed immediately to 
Jerusalem to take part in the approaching festival 
to be held there on the occasion of his 
tricennalia. The scene was one of great splendor. 
Bishops were present from all parts of the world, 
and the occasion was marked by the dedication of 
the new and magnificent basilica which Constantine 
had erected upon the site of Calvary (Theodoret, 
I. 31; Socrates, I. 28 and 33; Sozomen, II. 26; 
Eusebius, Vita Canst. IV. 41 and 43). The bishops 
gathered in Jerusalem at this time held another 
synod before separating. In this they completed 
the work begun at Tyre, by re-admitting Arius and 
his adherents to the communion of the Church (see 
Socrates, 1. 33, and Sozomen, II. 27). According 
to Sozomen the Emperor, having been induced to 
recall Arius from banishment in order to 
reconsider his case, was presented by the latter 
with a confession of faith, which was so worded as 
to convince Constantine of his orthodoxy. He 
therefore sent Arius and his companion Euzoius to 
the bishops assembled in Jerusalem with the 
request that they would examine the confession, 
and if they were satisfied with its orthodoxy 
would re-admit them to communion. The Council, 
which was composed largely of Arius' friends and 
sympathizers, was only too glad to accede to the 
Emperor's request.
Meanwhile Athanasius had induced Constantine, out 
of a sense of justice, to summon the bishops that 
had condemned him at Tyre to give an account of 
their proceedings before the Emperor himself at 
Constantinople. This unexpected, and, doubtless, 
not altogether welcome summons came while the 
bishops were at Jerusalem, and the majority of 
them at once returned home in alarm, while only a 
few answered the call and repaired to 
Constantinople. Among these were Eusebius of 
Nicomedia, Theognis of Nic'a, Patrophilus of 
Scythopolis, and other prominent Arians, and with 
them our Eusebius (Athanasius, Apol. c. Arian. §§ 
86 and 87; Socrates, I. 33-35; Sozomen, II. 28). 
The accusers of Athanasius said nothing on this 
occasion in regard to his alleged immoralities, 
for which he had been condemned at Tyre, but made 
another equally trivial accusation against him, 
and the result was his banishment to Gaul. Whether 
Constantine banished him because he believed the 
charge brought against him, or because he wished 
to preserve him from the machinations of his 
enemies (as asserted by his son Constantine, and 
apparently believed by Athanasius himself; see his 
Apol. c. Arian. § 87), or because he thought that 
Athanasius' absence would allay the troubles in 
the Alexandrian church we do not know. The latter 
supposition seems most probable. In any case he 
was not recalled from banishment until after 
Constantine's death. Our Eusebius has been 
severely condemned by many historians for the part 
taken by him in the Eustathian controversy and 
especially in the war against Athanasius. In 
justice to him a word or two must be spoken in his 
defense. So far as his relations to Eustathius are 
concerned, it is to be noticed that the latter 
commenced the controversy by accusing Eusebius of 
heterodoxy. Eusebius himself did not begin the 
quarrel, and very likely had no desire to engage 
in any such doctrinal strife; but he was compelled 
to defend him-

24

self, and in doing so he could not do otherwise 
than accuse Eustathius of Sabellianism; for if the 
latter was not satisfied with Eusebius' orthodoxy, 
which Eusebius himself believed to be truly 
Nicene, then he must be leaning too far toward the 
other extreme; that is, toward Sabellianism. There 
is no reason to doubt that Eusebius was perfectly 
straightforward and honorable throughout the whole 
controversy, and at the Council of Antioch itself. 
That he was not actuated by unworthy motives, or 
by a desire for revenge, is evinced by his 
rejection of the proffered call to Antioch, the 
acceptance of which would have given him so good 
an opportunity to triumph over his fallen enemy. 
It must be admitted, in fact, that Eusebius comes 
out of this controversy without a stain of any 
kind upon his character. He honestly believed 
Eustathius to be a Sabellian, and he acted 
accordingly.
Eusebius has been blamed still more severely for 
his treatment of Athanasius. But again the facts 
must be looked at impartially. It is necessary 
always to remember that Sabellianism was in the 
beginning and remained throughout his life the 
heresy which he most dreaded, and which he had 
perhaps most reason to dread. He must, even at the 
Council of Nic'a, have suspected Athanasius, who 
laid so much stress upon the unity of essence on 
the part of Father and Son, of a leaning toward 
Sabellianistic principles; and this suspicion must 
have been increased when he discovered, as he 
believed, that Athanasitis' most staunch 
supporter, Eustathius, was a genuine Sabellian. 
Moreover, on the other side, it is to be 
remembered that Eusebius of Nicomedia, and all the 
other leading Arians, had signed the Nicene creed 
and had proclaimed themselves thoroughly in 
sympathy with its teaching. Our Eusebius, knowing 
the change that had taken place in his own mind 
upon the controverted points, may well have 
believed that their views had undergone even a 
greater change, and that they were perfectly 
honest in their protestations of orthodoxy. And 
finally, when Arius himself presented a confession 
of faith which led the Emperor, who had had a 
personal interview with him, to believe that he 
had altered his views and was in complete harmony 
with the Nicene faith, it is not surprising that 
our Eusebius, who was naturally unsuspicious, 
conciliatory and peace-loving, should think the 
same thing, and be glad to receive Arius back into 
communion, while at the same time remaining 
perfectly loyal to the orthodoxy of the Nicene 
creed which he had subscribed. Meanwhile his 
suspicions of the Arian party being in large 
measure allayed, and his distrust of the orthodoxy 
of Athanasius and of his adherents being increased 
by the course of events, it was only natural that 
he should lend more or less credence to the 
calumnies which were so industriously circulated 
against Athanasius. To charge him with dishonesty 
for being influenced by these reports, which seem 
to us so absurd and palpably calumnious, is quite 
unwarranted. Constantine, who was, if not a 
theologian, at least a clear-headed and 
sharp-sighted man, believed them, and why should 
Eusebius not have done the same? The incident 
which took place at the Council of Tyre in 
connection with Potamo and himself was important; 
for whatever doubts he may have had up to that 
time as to the truth of the accusations made 
against Athanasius and his adherents, Potamo's 
conduct convinced him that the charges of tyranny 
and high-handed dealing brought against the whole 
party were quite true. It could not be otherwise 
than that he should believe that the good of the 
Alexandrian church, and therefore of the Church at 
large, demanded the deposition of the seditious 
and tyrannous archbishop, who was at the same time 
quite probably Sabellianistic in his tendencies. 
It must in justice be noted that there is not the 
slightest reason to suppose that our Eusebius had 
anything to do with the dishonorable intrigues of 
the Arian party throughout this controversy. 
Athanasius, who cannot say enough in condemnation 
of the tactics of Eusebius of Nicomedia and his 
supporters, never mentions Eusebius of C'sarea in 
a tone of bitterness. He refers to him 
occasionally as a member of the opposite party, 
but he has no complaints to utter against him, as 
he has against the others. This is very 
significant, and should put an end to all 
suspicions of unworthy conduct on Eusebius' part. 
It is to be observed that the latter, though 
having good cause as he believed to condemn 
Athanasius and his adherents, never acted as a 
leader in the war against them. His name, if 
mentioned at all, occurs always toward the end of 
the list as one of

25

the minor combatants, although his position and 
his learning would have entitled him to take the 
most prominent position in the whole affair, if he 
had cared to. He was but true to his general 
character in shrinking from such a controversy, 
and in taking part in it only in so far as his 
conscience compelled him to. We may suspect indeed 
that he would not have made one of the small party 
that repaired to Constantinople in response to the 
Emperor's imperious summons had it not been for 
the celebration of Constantine's tricennalia, 
which was taking place there at the time, and at 
which he delivered, on the special invitation of 
the Emperor and in his presence, one of his 
greatest orations. Certain it is, from the account 
which he gives in his Vita Constantini, that both 
in Constantinople and in Jerusalem the festival of 
the tricennalia, with its attendant ceremonies, 
interested him much more than did the condemnation 
of Athanasius.

§ 8. Eusebius and Marcellus.

It was during this visit to Constantinople that 
another synod was held, at which Eusebius was 
present, and the result of which was the 
condemnation and deposition of the bishop 
Marcellus of Ancyra (see Socrates, I. 36; Sozomen, 
II. 33; Eusebius, Contra Marc. II. 4). The 
attitude of our Eusebius toward Marcellus is again 
significant of his theological tendencies. 
Marcellus had written a book against Asterius, a 
prominent Arian, in which, in his zeal for the 
Nicene orthodoxy, he had laid himself open to the 
charge of Sabellianism. On this account he was 
deposed by the Constantinopolitan Synod, and our 
Eusebius was urged to write a work exposing his 
errors and defending the action of the Council. As 
a consequence he composed his two works against 
Marcelins which will be described later. That 
Eusebius, if not in the case of Athanasius and 
possibly not in that of Eustathius, had at least 
in the present case good ground for the belief 
that Marcellus was a Sabellian, or Sabellianistic 
in tendency, is abundantly proved by the citations 
which he makes from Marcellus' own works; and, 
moreover, his judgment and that of the Synod was 
later confirmed even by Athanasius himself. Though 
not suspecting Marcellus for some time, Athanasius 
finally became convinced that he had deviated from 
the path of orthodoxy, and, as Newman has shown 
(in his introduction to Athanasius' fourth 
discourse against the Arians, Oxford Library of 
the Fathers, vol. 19, p. 503 sq.), directed that 
discourse against his errors and those of his 
followers.
The controversy with Marcellus seems to have been 
the last in which Eusebius was engaged, and it was 
opposition to the dreaded heresy of Sabellius 
which moved him here as in all the other cases. It 
is important to emphasize, however, what is often 
overlooked, that though Eusebius during these 
years was so continuously engaged in controversy 
with one or another of the members of the 
anti-Arian party, there is no evidence that he 
ever deviated from the doctrinal position which he 
took at the Council of Nic'a. After that date it 
was never Arianism which he consciously supported; 
it was never the Nicene orthodoxy which he 
opposed. He supported those members of the old 
Arian party who had signed the Nicene creed and 
protested that they accepted its teaching, against 
those members of the opposite party whom he 
believed to be drifting toward Sabellianism, or 
acting tyrannously and unjustly toward their 
opponents. The anti-Sabellianistic interest 
influenced him all the time, but his post-Nicene 
writings contain no evidence that he had fallen 
back into the Arianizing position which he had 
held before 325. They reveal, on the contrary, a 
fair type of orthodoxy, colored only by its 
decidedly anti-Sabellian emphasis.

§ 9. The Death of Eusebius.

In less than two years after the celebration of 
his tricennalia, on May 22, 337 A.D., the great 
Constantine breathed his last, in Nicomedia, his 
former Capital. Eusebius, already an old man, 
produced a lasting testimonial of his own 
unbounded affection and admiration for the first 
Christian emperor, in his Life of Constantine. 
Soon afterward he followed his imperial friend at 
the

26

advanced age of nearly, if not quite, eighty 
years. The exact date of his death is unknown, but 
it can be fixed approximately. We know from 
Sozomen (H. E. III. 5) that in the summer of 341, 
when a council was held at Antioch (on the date of 
the Council, which we are able to fix with great 
exactness, see Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. p. 502 
sq.) Acacius, Eusebius' successor, was already 
bishop of C'sarea. Socrates (H. E. II. 4) and 
Sozomen (H. E. III. 5) both mention the death of 
Eusebius and place it shortly before the death of 
Constantine the younger, which took place early in 
340 (see Tillemont's Hist. des Emp. IV. p. 357 
sq.), and after the intrigues had begun which 
resulted in Athanasius' second banishment. We are 
thus led to place Eusebius' death late in the year 
339, or early in the year 340 (cf. Lightfoot's 
article, p. 318).

CHAPTER II.

THE WRITINGS OF EUSEBIUS. § I. Eusebius as a 
Writer.
EUSEBIUS was one of the most voluminous writers of 
antiquity, and his labors covered almost every 
field of theological learning. In the words of 
Lightfoot he was "historian, apologist, 
topographer, exegete, critic, preacher, dogmatic 
writer, in turn." It is as an historian that he is 
best known, but the importance of his historical 
writings should not cause us to overlook, as 
modern scholars have been prone to do, his 
invaluable productions in other departments. 
Light-foot passes a very just judgment upon the 
importance of his works in the following words: 
"If the permanent utility of an author's labors 
may be taken as a test of literary excellence, 
Eusebius will hold a very high place indeed. The 
Ecclesiastical History is absolutely unique and 
indispensable. The Chronicle is the vast 
storehouse of information relating to the ancient 
monarchies of the world. The Preparation and 
Demonstration are the most important contributions 
to theology in their own province. Even the minor 
works, such as the Martyrs of Palestine, the Life 
of Constantine, the Questions addressed to 
Stephanus and to Marinus, and others, would leave 
an irreparable blank, if they were obliterated. 
And the same permanent value attaches also to his 
more technical treatises. The Canons and Sections 
have never yet been superseded for their 
particular purpose. The Topography of Palestine is 
the most important contribution to our knowledge 
in its own department. In short, no ancient 
ecclesiastical writer has laid posterity under 
heavier obligations."
If we look in Eusebius' works for evidences of 
brilliant genius we shall be disappointed. He did 
not possess a great creative mind like Origen's or 
Augustine's. His claim to greatness rests upon his 
vast erudition and his sterling sense. His powers 
of acquisition were remarkable and his diligence 
in study unwearied. He had at his command 
undoubtedly more acquired material than any man of 
his age, and he possessed that true literary and 
historical instinct which enabled him to select 
from his vast stores of knowledge those things 
which it was most worth his while to tell to the 
world. His writings therefore remain valuable 
while the works of many others, perhaps no less 
richly equipped than himself for the mission of 
adding to the sum of human knowledge, are entirely 
forgotten. He thus had the ability to do more than 
acquire; he had the ability to impart to others 
the very best of that which he acquired, and to 
make it useful to them. There is not in his 
writings the brilliancy which we find in some 
others, there is not the same sparkle and 
freshness of new and suggestive thought, there is 
not the same impress of an overmastering 
individuality which transforms everything it 
touches. There is, however, a true and solid merit 
which marks his works almost without exception, 
and raises them above the commonplace. His 
exegesis is superior to that of most of his 
contemporaries, and his apologetics is marked by 
fairness of statement, breadth of treatment, and 
instinctive appreciation of the difference between 
the important and the unimportant points under 
discussion, which give to his apologetic works a

27

permanent value. His wide acquaintance, too, with 
other systems than his own, and with the products 
of Pagan as well as Christian thought, enabled him 
to see things in their proper relations and to 
furnish a treatment of the great themes of 
Christianity adapted to the wants of those who had 
looked beyond the confines of a single school. At 
the same time it must be acknowledged that he was 
not always equal to the grand opportunities which 
his acquaintance with the works and lives of other 
men and other peoples opened before him. He does 
not always reveal the possession of that high 
quality of genius which is able to interpret the 
most various forces and to discover the higher 
principles of unity which alone make them 
intelligible; indeed, he often loses himself 
completely in a wilderness of thoughts and notions 
which have come to him from other men and other 
ages, and the result is dire confusion.
We shall be disappointed, too, if we seek in the 
works of Eusebius for evidences of a refined 
literary taste, or for any of the charms which 
attach to the writings of a great master of 
composition. His style is, as a rule, involved and 
obscure, often painfully rambling and incoherent. 
This quality is due in large part to the 
desultoriness of his thinking. He did not often 
enough clearly define and draw the boundaries of 
his subject before beginning to write upon it. He 
apparently did much of his thinking after he had 
taken pen in hand, and did not subject what he had 
thus produced to a sufficiently careful revision, 
if to any revision at all. Thoughts and 
suggestions poured in upon him while he was 
writing; and he was not always able to resist the 
temptation to insert them as they came, often to 
the utter perversion of his train of thought, and 
to the ruin of the coherency and perspicuity of 
his style. It must be acknowledged, too, that his 
literary taste was, on the whole, decidedly 
vicious. Whenever a flight of eloquence is 
attempted by him, as it is altogether too often, 
his style becomes hopelessly turgid and 
pretentious. At such times his skill in mixing 
metaphors is something astounding (compare, for 
instance, H. E. II. 14). On the other hand, his 
works contain not a few passages of real beauty. 
This is especially true of his Martyrs of 
Palestine, where his enthusiastic admiration for 
and deep sympathy with the heroes of the faith 
cause him often to forget himself and to describe 
their sufferings in language of genuine fire or 
pathos. At times, too, when he has a sharply 
defined and absorbing aim in mind, and when the 
subject with which he is dealing does not seem to 
him to demand rhetorical adornment, he is simple 
and direct enough in his language, showing in such 
cases that his commonly defective style is not so 
much the consequence of an inadequate command of 
the Greek tongue as of desultory thinking and 
vicious literary taste.
But while we find much to criticise in Eusebius' 
writings, we ought not to fail to give him due 
credit for the conscientiousness and faithfulness 
with which he did his work. He wrote often, it is 
true, too rapidly for the good of his style, and 
he did not always revise his works as carefully as 
he should have done; but we seldom detect undue 
haste in the collection of materials or 
carelessness and negligence in the use of them. He 
seems to have felt constantly the responsibilities 
which rested upon him as a scholar and writer, and 
to have done his best to meet those 
responsibilities. It is impossible to avoid 
contrasting him in this respect with the most 
learned man of the ancient Latin Church, St. 
Jerome. The haste and carelessness with which the 
latter composed his De Viris Illustribus, and with 
which he translated and continued Eusebius' 
Chronicle, remain an everlasting disgrace to him. 
An examination of those and of some others of 
Jerome's works must tend to raise Eusebius greatly 
in our esteem. He was at least conscientious and 
honest in his work, and never allowed himself to 
palm off ignorance as knowledge, or to deceive his 
readers by sophistries, misstatements, and pure 
inventions. He aimed to put the reader into 
possession of the knowledge which he had himself 
acquired, but was always conscientious enough to 
stop there, and not attempt to make fancy play the 
r"le of fact.
One other point, which was mentioned some pages 
back, and to which Lightfoot calls particular 
attention, should be referred to here, because of 
its bearing upon the character of Eusebius' 
writings. He was, above all things, an apologist; 
and the apologetic aim governed both the selection 
of his subjects and method of his treatment. He 
composed none of his works with a

28

purely scientific aim. He thought always of the 
practical result to be attained, and his selection 
of material and his choice of method were governed 
by that. And yet we must recognize the fact that 
this aim was never narrowing in its effects. He 
took a broad view of apologetics, and in his lofty 
conception of the Christian religion he believed 
that every field of knowledge might be laid under 
tribute to it. He was bold enough to be confident 
that history, philosophy, and science all 
contribute to our understanding and appreciation 
of divine truth; and so history and philosophy and 
science were studied and handled by him freely and 
fearlessly. He did not feel the need of distorting 
truth of any kind because it might work injury to 
the religion which he professed. On the contrary, 
he had a sublime faith which led him to believe 
that all truth must have its place and its 
mission, and that the cause of Christianity will 
be benefited by its discovery and diffusion. As an 
apologist, therefore, all fields of knowledge had 
an interest for him; and he was saved that 
pettiness of mind and narrowness of outlook which 
are sometimes characteristic of those who write 
with a purely practical motive.

§ 2. Catalogue of his Works.

There is no absolutely complete edition of 
Eusebius' extant works. The only one which can lay 
claim even to relative completeness is that of 
Migne: Eusebii Pamphili, C'sarea Palestin' 
Episcopi, Opera omnia qu' extant, curis variorum, 
nempe: Henrici Valesii, Francisci Vigeri, Bernardi 
Montfauconii, Card. Angelo Maii edita; collegit et 
denuo recognovit J. P. Migne. Par. 1857. 6 vols 
(tom. XIX.-XXIV. of Migne's Patrologia Gr'ca). 
This edition omits the works which are extant only 
in Syriac versions, also the Topica, and some 
brief but important Greek fragments (among them 
the epistles to Alexander and Euphration). The 
edition, however, is invaluable and cannot be 
dispensed with. References to it (under the simple 
title Opera) will be given below in connection 
with those works which it contains. Many of 
Eusebius' writings, especially the historical, 
have been published separately. Such editions will 
be mentioned in their proper place in the 
Catalogue.
More or less incomplete lists of our author's 
writings are given by Jerome (De vir. ill. 87); by 
Nicephorus Callistus (H. E. VI. 37); by Ebedjesu 
(in Assemani's Bibl. Orient. III. p. 18 sq.); by 
Photius (Bibl. 9-13, 27, 39, 127); and by Suidas 
(who simply copies the Greek version of Jerome). 
Among modern works all the lives of Eusebius 
referred to in the previous chapter give more or 
less extended catalogues of his writings. In 
addition to the works mentioned there, valuable 
lists are also found in Lardner's Credibility, 
Part II chap. 72, and especially in Fabricius' 
Bibl. Gr'ca (ed. 1714), vol. VI. p. 30 sq.
The writings of Eusebius that are known to us, 
extant and non-extant, may be classified for 
convenience' sake under the following heads: I. 
Historical. II. Apologetic. III. Polemic. IV. 
Dogmatic. V. Critical and Exegetical. VI. Biblical 
Dictionaries. VII. Orations. VIII. Epistles. IX. 
Spurious or doubtful works. The classification is 
necessarily somewhat artificial, and claims to be 
neither exhaustive nor exclusive. [1]

1. HISTORICAL WORKS.

Life   of Pamphilus (<greek>h</greek> 
<greek>tou</greek> II<greek>amfilou</greek> 
<greek>biou</greek> <greek>analrafh</greek>;  see 
H. E. VI. 32). Eusebius himself refers to this 
work in four passages (H. E. VI. 32, VII. 32, 
VIII. 13, and Mart. Pal. c. In the last he informs 
us that it consisted of three books. The work is 
mentioned also more than once by Jerome (De vir. 
ill. 81; Ep. ad Marcellam, Migne's ed. Ep. 34; 
Contra Ruf. I. 9), who speaks of it in terms of 
praise, and in the last passage gives a brief 
extract from the third book, which is, so far as 
known, the only extant fragment of the work. The 
date of its composition can be fixed within 
comparatively narrow limits. It must of course 
have been written before the shorter recension of 
the Martyrs of Palestine, which contains a 
reference to it (on its relation to the

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longer recension, which does not mention it, see 
below, p. 30), and also before the History (i.e. 
as early as 313 A.D. (?), see below, p. 45). On 
the other hand, it was written after Pamphilus' 
death (see H. E. VII. 32, 25), which occurred in 
310.
Martyrs of Palestine (<greek>peri</greek> 
<greek>tpn</greek> <greek>en</greek> 
II<greek>alaistanh</greek> 
<greek>marturhsantwn</greek>). This work is extant 
in two recensions, a longer and a shorter. The 
longer has been preserved entire only in a Syriac 
version, which was published, with English 
translation and notes, by Cureton in 1861. A 
fragment of the original Greek of this work as 
preserved by Sirecon Metaphrastes had previously 
been published by Papebroch in the Acta Sanctorum 
(June, tom. I. p. 64; reprinted by Fabricius, II. 
p. 217), but had been erroneously regarded as an 
extract. from Eusebius' Life Cureton's publication 
of the Syriac version of the Martyrs of Palestine 
showed that it was a part of the original of that 
work. There are extant also, in Latin, the Acts of 
St. Procopius, which were published by Valesius 
(in his edition of Eusebius' Hist. Eccles. in a 
note on the first chapter of the Mart. Pal.; 
reprinted by Cureton, Mart. Pal. p. 50 sq.). 
Moreover, according to Cureton, Assemani's Acta 
SS. Martyrum Orient el Occidentalium, part II. p. 
169 sq. (Rom', 1748) contains another Syriac 
version of considerable portions of this same 
work. The Syriac version published by Cureton was 
made within less than a century after the 
composition of the original work (the manuscript 
of it dates from 411 A.D.; see Cureton, ib., 
preface, p. i.), perhaps within a few years after 
it, and there is every reason to suppose that it 
represents that original with considerable 
exactness. That Eusebius himself was the author of 
the original cannot be doubted. In addition to 
this longer recension there is extant in Greek a 
shorter form of the same work which is found 
attached to the Ecclesiastical History in most 
MSS. of the latter. In some of them it is placed 
between the eighth and ninth books, in others at 
the close of the tenth book, while one MS. inserts 
it in the middle of VIII. 13. In some of the most 
important MSS. it is wanting entirely, as likewise 
in the translation of Rufinus, and, according to 
Lightfoot, in the Syriac version of the History. 
Most editions of Eusebius' History print it at the 
close of the eighth book. Migne gives it 
separately in Opera, II. 1457 sq. In the present 
volume the translation of it is given as an 
appendix to the eighth book, on p. 342 sq.
There can be no doubt that the shorter form is 
younger than the longer. The mention of the Life 
of Pamphilus which is contained in the shorter, 
but is not found in the corresponding passage of 
the longer form would seem to indicate that the 
former was a remodeling of the latter rather than 
the latter of the former (see below, p. 30). 
Moreover, as Cureton and Lightfoot both point out, 
the difference between the two works both in 
substance and in method is such as to make it 
clear that the shorter form is a revised 
abridgment of the longer. That Eusebius himself 
was the author of the shorter as well as of the 
longer form is shown by the fact that not only in 
the passages common to both recensions, but also 
in those peculiar to the shorter one, the author 
speaks in the same person and as an eye-witness of 
many of the events which he records. And still 
further, in Chap. 11 he speaks of having himself 
written the Life of Pamphilus in three books, a 
notice which is wanting in the longer form and 
therefore must emanate from the hand of the author 
of the shorter. It is interesting to inquire after 
Eusebius' motive in publishing an abridged edition 
of this work. Cureton supposes that he condensed 
it simply for the purpose of inserting it in the 
second edition of his History. Lightfoot, on the 
other hand, suggests that it may have formed "part 
of a larger work, in which the sufferings of the 
martyrs were set off against the deaths of the 
persecutors," and he is inclined to see in the 
brief appendix to the eighth book of the History 
(translated below on p. 340) "a fragment of the 
second part of the treatise of which the Martyrs 
of Palestine in the shorter recension formed the 
first." The suggestion is, to say the least, very 
plausible. If it be true, the attachment of the 
shorter form of the Martyrs of Palestine to the 
Ecclesiastical History was probably the work, not 
of Eusebius himself, but of some copyist or 
copyists, and the disagreement among the various 
MSS. as to its position in the History is more 
easily explained on this supposition than on 
Cureton's theory that it was attached to a later 
edition of the latter work by Eusebius himself.

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The date at which the Martyrs of Palestine was 
composed cannot be determined with certainty. It 
was at any rate not published until after the 
first nine books of the Ecclesiastical History 
(i.e. not before 313, see below, p. 45), for it is 
referred to as a projected work in H. E. VIII. 13. 
7. On the other hand, the accounts contained in 
the longer recension bear many marks of having 
been composed on the spot, while the impressions 
left by the martyrdoms witnessed by the author 
were still fresh upon him. Moreover, it is 
noticeable that in connection with the account of 
Pamphilus' martyrdom, given in the shorter 
recension, reference is made to the Life of 
Pamphilus as a book already published, while in 
the corresponding account in the longer recension 
no such book is referred to. This would seem to 
indicate that the Life of Pamphilus was written 
after the longer, but before the shorter recension 
of the Martyrs. But on the other hand the Life was 
written before the Ecclesiastical History (see 
above, p. 29), and consequently before the 
publication of either recension of the Martyrs. 
May it not be that the accounts of the various 
martyrdoms were written, at least some of them, 
during the persecution, but that they were not 
arranged, completed, and published until 313, or 
later? If this be admitted we may suppose that the 
account of Pamphilus' martyrdom was written soon 
after his death and before the Life was begun. 
When it was later embodied with the other accounts 
in the one work On the Martyrs of Palestine it may 
have been left just as it was, and it may not have 
occurred to the author to insert a reference to 
the Life of Pamphilus which had meanwhile been 
published. But when he came to abridge and in part 
rewrite for a new edition the accounts of the 
various martyrdoms contained in the work On 
Martyrs he would quite naturally refer the reader 
to the Life for fuller particulars.
If we then suppose that the greater part of the 
longer recension of the Martyrs was already 
complete before the end of the persecution, it is 
natural to conclude that the whole work was 
published at an early date, probably as soon as 
possible after the first edition of the History. 
How much later the abridgment was made we cannot 
tell. [1]
The differences between the two recensions lie 
chiefly in the greater fullness of detail on the 
part of the longer one. The arrangement and 
general mode of treatment is the same in both. 
They contain accounts of the Martyrs that suffered 
in Palestine during the years 303-310, most of 
whom Eusebius himself saw. Collection of Ancient 
Martyrdoms (<greek>arkaiwn</greek> 
<greek>marturiwn</greek> <greek>sunagwgh</greek>). 
This work is mentioned by Eusebius in his H. E. 
IV. 15, V. pr'f., 4, 21. These notices indicate 
that it was not an original

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composition, but simply a compilation; a 
collection of extant accounts of martyrdoms which 
had taken place before Eusebius' day. The work is 
no longer extant, but the accounts of the 
martyrdom of Pamphilus and others at Smyrna, of 
the persecution in Lyons and Vienne, and of the 
defense of Apollonius in Rome, which Eusebius 
inserts in his Ecclesiastical History (IV. xS, V. 
1, V. 21), are taken, as he informs us, from this 
collection. As to the time of compilation, we can 
say only that it antedates the composition of the 
earlier books of the History (on whose date, see 
below, p. 45).
Chronicle (<greek>kronikoi</greek> 
<greek>kanones</greek>). Eusebius refers to this 
work in his Church History (I. 1), in his 
Pr'paratio Evang. X. 9, and at the beginning of 
his Eclog' prophetica'. It is divided into two 
books, the first of which consists of an epitome 
of universal history drawn from various sources, 
the second of chronological tables, which "exhibit 
in parallel columns the succession of the rulers 
of different nations in such a way that the reader 
can see at a glance with whom any given monarch 
was contemporary." The tables "are accompanied by 
notes, marking the years of some of the more 
remarkable historical events, these notes also 
constituting an epitome of history." Eusebius was 
not the first Christian writer to compose a work 
on universal chronology. Julius Africanus had 
published a similar work early in the third 
century, and from that Eusebius drew his model and 
a large part of the material for his own work. At 
the same time his Chronicle is more than a simple 
revision of Africanus' work, and contains the 
result of much independent investigation on his 
own part. The work of Africanus is no longer 
extant, and that of Eusebius was likewise lost for 
a great many centuries, being superseded by a 
revised Latin edition, issued by Jerome. Jerome's 
edition, which comprises only the second book of 
Eusebius' Chronicle, is a translation of the 
original work, enlarged by notices taken from 
various writers concerning human history, and 
containing a continuation of the chronology down 
to his own time. This, together with numerous 
Greek fragments preserved by various ancient 
writers, constituted our only source for a 
knowledge of the original work, until late in the 
last century an Armenian translation of the whole 
work was discovered and published in two volumes 
by J. B. Aucher: Venice, 1818. The Armenian 
translation contains a great many errors and not a 
few lacun', but it is our most valuable source for 
a knowledge of the original work.
The aim of the Chronicle was, above all, 
apologetic, the author wishing to prove by means 
of it that the Jewish religion, of which the 
Christian was the legitimate continuation, was 
older than the oldest of heathen cults, and thus 
deprive pagan opponents of their taunt of novelty, 
so commonly hurled against Christianity. As early 
as the second century, the Christian apologists 
had emphasized the antiquity of Judaism; but 
Julius Africanus was th