Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/757

Rh E U R E U S 721 EURYDICE. See ORPHEUS. EURYMEDON, an Athenian general, who, in the 5th year of the Peloponnesian war, 428 B.C., was sent by the Athenians, with a fleet of 60 vessels, to intercept the Peloponnesian fleet which was sailing to attack Corcyra, at that lime rendered defenceless through internal feuds. On his arrival he found that Nicostratus with a small squadron from Naupactus had placed the island in security, but he took the command of the combined fleet, which, however, the absence of the enemy prevented from achieving any other end than merely to countenance and support by its presence the cruelties inflicted by the democratic party on their political opponents. In the following summer, in joint command along with Hipponicus of the land forces of the Athenians, he, in concert with the fleet commanded by Nicias, ravaged the district of Tanagra ; and in 425 B.C., conjointly with Sophocles, he was sent in command of an expedition destined for Sicily. After leaving they learned that the enemy s fleet was at Corcyra, but they were delayed by stormy weather from arriving there in time to attack them. They had been commanded in any case to touch at Corcyra, in order to deliver the democratic party from the attacks of the oligarchical exiles, who had taken up a posi tion on a hill near the city, and were threatening it with cap ture. On the arrival of the Athenian fleet the oligarchical leaders surrendered themselves on condition that they should be sent to Athens to be judged ; but they were treacherously induced to make an attempt to escape, and on that account were delivered up to the fury of their opponents. Eury- medon then proceeded to Sicily, but immediately on his arrival there a pacification was concluded by Hermocrates, to which Euryrnedon and Sophocles were induced to agree. The terms of the pacification did not, however, satisfy the Athenians, who attributed its conclusion to bribery, and punished two of the chief agents in the negotiation by banishment, while Eurymedon was sentenced to pay a heavy fine. In 414 Eurymedon, sent with Demosthenes to reinforce the Athenians at the siege of Syracuse, was defeated and slain in the first of two battles fought before EURYSTHEUS. See HERCULES. EUSEBIUS, of Csesarea, surnamed Pamphili, i.e., the friend of Pamphilus, and well known as the father of eccle siastical history, was born probably in Palestine about the year 265. The date of his birth is, however, uncertain, and varies between 260 and 270. We know little of his youth beyond the fact that he was a diligent student of sacred literature, his biography by his episcopal successor Acacius having perished. It was as a student, and probably as holding some inferior office in the church at Ceesarea, that lie became connected with Pamphilus who was at the head of a theological school there, and devoted himself to the collection of a church library, especially to the care and de fence of the writings of his great master Origen. In the course of the Diocletian persecution, which broke out in 303, Pamphilus was imprisoned for two years, and finally suffered martyrdom. During the time of his imprisonment (307-9) Eusebius distinguished himself by assiduous devo tion to his friend, spent days with him in affectionate in tercourse, and is supposed to have actively assisted him in the preparation of an apology for Origen s teaching, which survives in the Latin of Rufinus (Routh, Reliq., iv. 339). After the death of Pamphilus Eusebius withdrew to Tyre, where he was kindly received by the Bishop Paulinus, and afterwards, while the Diocletian persecution still raged, went to Egypt, where he was imprisoned, but soon released. His release at the time suggested an accusation made against him more than twenty years afterwards by Potamon, the fiery bishop of Heraclea, that he had apostatized. &quot; Who art thou, Eusebius/ exclaimed Potamon at the famous council of Tyre, which condemned Athanasius, &quot; to judge the innocent Athanasius. Didst thou not sit with me in prison in the time of the tyrants ? They plucked out my eye for my confession of the truth; tbou earnest forth un hurt. How didst thou escape 1&quot; The coarseness of the accusation, however, was only in the spirit of the times, and it rests on no evidence whatever. The elevation of Eusebius to the see of Caesarea so soon afterwards, in 315 at latest probably 313 is of itself sufficent to dispose of any such charge. Here Eusebius laboured and became a conspicuous figure in the church till the year of his death, 340. The patriarchate of Antioch was put within his offer in 331, but he preferred the less eminent sphere associated with his early studies and friends, and as probably more con genial to his literary tastes and pursuits. The character of Eusebius, both as a man and a theo logian, is intimately bound up with the part which he took at the council of Nicoea, and afterwards in the great controversy connected with the work of that council. His conduct and his views have been differently judged, according to the estimate which later critics have formed of the merits of this controversy, and the dogmatic prejudices which on one side or the other it is apt to engender. Dr Newman, for example, in his history of the Arians in the 4th century, speaks of him as &quot;openly siding with the Arians, and sanc tioning and sharing their deeds of violence,&quot; whrle most Anglican scholars, from Bull and Cave to Dr Samuel Lee of Cambridge, who translated the Tlicophania of Eusebius in 1843 from a recently recovered Syriac MS., have warmly defended his orthodox)&quot;. The same division of opinion regarding him has prevailed more or less in other quarters, and even in the age succeeding his own. It is only in the scientific theology of Germany, and especially in Dorner s great work on the Person of Christ, that his true theological position can be said to have been made clear. He was certainly not Arian, however he may have defended Arius personally, any more than he was Athanasian. He was really the representative of the indeterminate theology of the church on the great point in dispute, before the lines of controversy on the one side and the other had hardened into the formula? which have become identified with the two positions known as Arianism and Athanasianism. To judge and still more to condemn him from one side or the other is to mistake the law of the historical development cf dogma, and to apply to him conclusions which belong to a later type of thought than that in which lie had been trained. This will be best seen by a brief explanation of his stand-point, both personal and theological, throughout the controversy. When the Arian controversy broke forth, about 319, Arius, who possibly may have known something of Eusebius during his stay in Egypt, besought his interven tion to pacify the misunderstanding between him and his bishop, Alexander. Eusebius responded so far as to write two letters to Alexander explaining that Arius was misrepre sented (Fragm. in Mansi, xiii. 316). This fact is of interest, as showing his natural attitude in the controversy before the calling of the council of Nicaaa. At this council he attended as the special friend of Constantine, whom he was appointed to receive with a panegyrical oration, and at whose right hand he enjoyed the honour of sitting. Not only so, but he prepared and submitted the first draft of the creed which was afterwards, with well-known and significant additions, adopted by the council. The whole difference between Eusebius and the Athanasians centred in these additions, and in fact in the famous expression &quot;Homoousion&quot; &quot; of the same substance&quot; which was judged necessary by the council to express the true relation of the Father and the Son. He resisted this expression to the last, and. only at length accepted it and subscribed the creed YT1T. 91