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332, the Questions addressed to Stephanus and to Marinus, and others, would leave an irreparable blank if they were obliterated. His more technical treatises have the same permanent value. The Canons and Sections have not been superseded for their particular purpose.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 than has Eusebius by his great erudition. In the History, Chronicle, and Preparation, he has preserved a vast amount of early literature in three several spheres, which would otherwise have been irrecoverably lost. Moreover, he deserves the highest credit for his keen insight as to what would have permanent interest. He, and he only, has preserved the past in all its phases, in history, in doctrine, in criticism, even in topography, for the instruction of the future.

This is his real title to greatness. As an expositor of facts, an abstract thinker, or a master of style, it would be absurd to compare him with the great names of classical antiquity. His merits and his faults have been already indicated. His gigantic learning was his master rather than his slave. He had great conceptions, which he was unable adequately to carry out. He had valuable detached thoughts, but fails in continuity of argument. He was most laborious, yet most desultory. He accumulated materials with great diligence; but was loose, perfunctory, and uncritical in their use. His style is especially vicious. When his theme seems to him to demand a lofty flight of rhetoric, as in his Life of Constantine, his language becomes turgid and unnatural.

He is before all things an apologist. His great services in this respect are emphasized by Evagrius (H. E. i. 1, πείθειν οἷός το εἶναι τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας θρησκεύειν τὰ ἡμέτερα); and doubtless his directly apologetic writings were much more effective than at this distance of time we can realize. Whatever subject he touches, his thoughts seem to pour instinctively into this same channel. If he treats of chronology, a main purpose is to shew the superior antiquity of the Hebrew oracles to the wisdom of the Greeks. If he writes a history of the church, it is because he sees in the course of events a vindication of the Divine Word. Even in an encomium of a sovereign, he soars aloft at once into the region of theology, for he sees in the subject of his panegyric the instrument of a higher power for the fulfilment of a divine economy. In so essentially technical a task as the division of the Gospels into sections, his underlying desire is to vindicate the essential unity of the evangelical narratives against gainsayers. This character as an apologist was due partly to the epoch in which he lived, and partly to his individual temper and circumstances. He stood, as it were, on the frontier line between two ages, with one foot in the Hellenism of the past and the other in the Christianity of the future, and by his very position was constrained to discuss their mutual relations. He was equally learned in the wisdom of the Greeks and in the Scriptures, while his breadth of sympathy and moderation of temper fitted him beyond most of his contemporaries for tracing their conflicts and coincidences. Like St. Paul on Mars' Hill, he sought the elements of truth in pre-existing philosophical systems or popular religious; and thus obtaining a foothold, worked onward in his assault upon paganism. The Greek apologists of the 2nd and 3rd cents. all, without exception, took up this position. Eusebius, through his illustrious spiritual ancestors, Origen and Pamphilus, had inherited this tradition from Alexandria. It was the only method which could achieve success in apologetics while Christianity stood face to face with still powerful forms of heathen worship. It is the only method which can hope for victory now, when once again the Gospel is confronted with the widespread religions of India and the farther East.

If we may judge from the silence of his contemporaries—and silence in this case is an important witness—Eusebius commanded general respect by his personal character. With the single exception of the taunt of Potammon, mentioned already, not a word of accusation is levelled against him in an age when theological controversy was peculiarly reckless and acrimonious. His relations to Pamphilus shew a strongly affectionate disposition; and it is more than probable that he was drawn into those public acts from which his reputation has suffered most by the loyalty of private friendship. His moderation is especially praised by the emperor Constantine; and his speculative opinions, as well as his personal acts, bear out this commendation. His was a life which was before all things laborious and self-denying. He was not only the most learned and prolific writer of his age; but he administered the affairs of an important diocese, and took an active part in all great questions which agitated the church.

His admiration for Constantine may be excessive, but is not difficult to understand. Constantine was unquestionably one of the very greatest emperors of Rome. His commanding personality must have been irresistible; and is enhanced by his deference towards the leading Christian bishops. He carried out a change in the relations between the church and the state incomparably greater than any before or after. Eusebius delighted to place Augustus and Constantine in juxtaposition. During the one reign the Word had appeared in the flesh; during the other He had triumphed over the world. The one reign was the counterpart and complement of the other.

A discussion of the theological opinions of Eusebius is impossible within our limits. Readers are referred to Baronius (ad ann. 340, c. 38 seq.), Petavius (Dogm. Theol. de Trin. lib. i. cap. xi. seq.), Montfaucon (Praelim. in Comm. ad Psalm. c. vi.), and Tillemont (H. E. vii. pp. 67 seq.) among those who have assailed, and Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 9. 20, iii. 9. 3, 11), Cave (Hist. Lit. ii. app. pp. 42 seq.), and Lee (Theophania, pp. xxiv. seq.) among those who have defended his opinions, from the orthodox point of view. A convenient summary of the controversy will be found in Stein, pp. 117 seq. His orthodoxy cannot be hastily denied. Dr. Newman, who cannot be accused of unduly