Page:Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 1842.djvu/11



ON THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF EUSEBIUS PAMPHILUS,

BY VALESIUS.

TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. E. PARKER,

AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLES 'PROSODY,' 'QUANTITY,' AND 'VERSIFICATION,' IN DR. REES'S CYCLOPÆDIA.

to the testimony of Socrates, a book relative to the life of Eusebius, was written by Acacius, the scholar of that prelate, and his successor in the see of Cæsarea. This book, however, through that negligence in antiquity to which the loss of many others is to be ascribed, is not now extant; but from the testimonies of the several writers that have mentioned Eusebius, no exertions of ours shall be wanting to supply the defect.

It appears that Eusebius was born in Palestine, about the close of the reign of Gallienus. One proof of which is, that by the ancients, particularly by Basilius and Theodoret, he is frequently termed a Palestinian. It is not impossible, indeed, that he might have received that name from his being the bishop of Cæsarea, yet probability is in favour of his having derived it from his country. In short, he himself affirms, that he was educated, and when a youth, dwelt in Palestine, and that there he first saw Constantine, when journeying through Palestine in the suit of Diocletian Augustus. Eusebius, too, after repeating the contents of a law, written in favour of the Christians, by Constantine to the Palestinians, observes, "This letter of the Emperor's is the first sent to us."

On the authority of Eusebius himself, it may be affirmed, that he