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 charges against his honour as a narrator be sustained. There is no ground whatever for the surmise that Eusebius forged or interpolated the passage from Josephus relating to our Lord, quoted in H. E. i. 11, though Heinichen (iii. pp. 623 seq., Melet. ii.) is disposed to entertain the charge. The passage is contained in all our extant MSS., and there is sufficient evidence that other interpolations (though not this) were introduced into the text of Josephus long before this time (see Orig. c. Cels. i. 47, Delarue's note). Another interpolation in Josephus which Eusebius quotes (ii. 23) was certainly known to Origen (l.c.). Doubtless also the omission of the owl in the account of Herod Agrippa's death (H. E. ii. 10) was already in some texts of Josephus (Ant. xix. 8, 2). The manner in which Eusebius deals with his very numerous quotations elsewhere, where we can test his honesty, sufficiently vindicates him from this unjust charge.

Moreover, Eusebius is generally careful to collect the best evidence accessible, and also to distinguish between different kinds of evidence. "Almost every page witnesses to the zeal with which he collected testimonies from writers who lived at the time of the events which he describes. For the sixth and seventh books he evidently rejoices to be able to use for the foundation of his narrative the contemporary letters of Dionysius; 'Dionysius, our great bp. of Alexandria,' he writes, 'will again help me by his own words in the composition of my seventh book of the history, since he relates in order the events of his own time in the letters which he has left' (vii. praef.). . . . In accordance with this instinctive desire for original testimony, Eusebius scrupulously distinguishes facts which rest on documentary from those which rest on oral evidence. Some things he relates on the authority of a 'general' (iii. 11, 36) or 'old report' (iii. 19, 20) or from tradition (i. 7, ii. 9, vi. 2, etc.). In the lists of successions he is careful to notice where written records failed him. 'I could not,' he says, 'by any means find the chronology of the bps. of Jerusalem preserved in writing; thus much only I received from written sources, that there were fifteen bishops in succession up to the date of the siege under Hadrian, etc.' (iv. 5)." [] "There is nothing like hearing the actual words" of the writer, he says again and again (i. 23, iii. 32, vii. 23; cf. iv. 23), when introducing a quotation. His general sincerity and good faith seem, therefore, clear. But his intellectual qualifications were in many respects defective. His credulity, indeed, has frequently been much exaggerated. "Undoubtedly he relates many incidents which may seem to us incredible, but, when he does so, he gives the evidence on which they are recommended to him. At one time it is the express testimony of some well-known writer, at another a general belief, at another an old tradition, at another his own observation (v. 7, vi. 9, vii. 17, 18)." [] In the most remarkable passage bearing on the question he recounts his own experience during the last persecution in Palestine (Mart. Pal. 9). "There can be no doubt about the occurrence which Eusebius here describes, and it does not appear that he can be reproached for adding the interpretation which his countrymen placed upon it. What he vouches for we can accept as truth; what he records as a popular comment leaves his historical veracity and judgment unimpaired." [] Even Gibbon (c. xvi.) describes the character of Eusebius as "less tinctured with credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries." A far more serious drawback is the loose and uncritical spirit in which he sometimes deals with his materials. This shews itself in diverse ways. (a) He is not always to be trusted in his discrimination of genuine and spurious documents. As regards the canon of Scripture indeed he takes special pains; lays down certain principles which shall guide him in the production of testimonies; and on the whole adheres to these principles with fidelity (see Contemp. Rev. Jan. 1875, pp. 169 seq.). Yet elsewhere he adduces as genuine the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus (i. 13), though never treating it as canonical Scripture. The unworthy suspicion that Eusebius forged this correspondence which he asserted to be a translation of a Syriac original found in the archives of Edessa has been refuted by the discovery and publication of the original Syriac (The Doctrine of Addai the Apostle with an English Translation and Notes by G. Phillips, Lond. 1876; see Zahn, ''Götting. Gel. Anz. Feb. 6, 1877, pp. 161 seq.; Contemp. Rev. May 1877, p. 1137; a portion of this work had been published some time before in Cureton's Ancient Syriac Documents'', pp. 6 seq., Lond. 1864). Not his honesty, but his critical discernment was at fault. Yet we cannot be severe upon him for maintaining a position which, however untenable, has commended itself to Cave (H. L. i. p. 2), Grabe (''Spic. Patr. i. pp. 1 seq.), and other writers of this stamp, as defensible. This, moreover, is the most flagrant instance of misappreciation. On the whole, considering the great mass of spurious documents current in his age, we may well admire his discrimination, as e.g.'' in the case of the numerous Clementine writings (iii. 16, 38), alleging the presence or absence of external testimony for his decisions. Pearson's eulogy (''Vind. Ign. i. 8) on Eusebius, though exaggerated, is not undeserved. He is generally a safe guide in discriminating between the genuine and the spurious. (b'') He is often careless in his manner of quoting. His quotations from Irenaeus, for instance, lose much of their significance, even for his own purpose, by abstraction from their context (v. 8). His quotations from Papias (iii. 39) and from Hegesippus (iii. 32, iv. 22) are tantalizing by their brevity, for the exact bearing of the words could only have been learnt from their context. But, except in the passages from Josephus (where the blame, as we have seen, belongs elsewhere), the quotations themselves are given with fair accuracy. (c) He draws hasty and unwarranted inferences from his authorities, and is loose in interpreting their bearing. This is his weakest point as a critical historian. Thus he quotes Josephus respecting the census of Quirinus and the insurrections of Theudas and of Judas the Galilean, as if he agreed in all respects with the accounts in St. Luke, and does not notice