Nicomedia, the chief and ringleader of the whole faction, presided. In addition to the accusation advanced at this assembly by Cyrus, bishop of the Beræans, against Eustathius, of maintaining the impious doctrine of Sabellius, another* was devised against him of incontinency, and he was therefore expelled from his diocese. On this account, a very impetuous tumult arose at Antioch. The people, divided into two factions, the one requesting that the episcopacy of the Antiochian church might be conferred on Eusebius of Cæsarea, the other, that Eustathius their bishop might be restored, would have resorted to measures of violence, had not the fear and authority of the emperor and judges prevented it. The sedition being at length subdued, and Eustathius banished, our Eusebius, though entreated both by the people, and the bishops that were present, to undertake the administration of the church at Antioch, nevertheless refused. And, when the bishops by letters written to Constantine, had acquainted him with their own vote, and with the suffrages of the people, Eusebius wrote his letters also to that prince, who highly commended his resolution.

Eustathius, having been in this manner deposed,† in the year 330, the Arians turned the violence of their fury on Athanasius; and in the prince's presence they complained first of his ordination; secondly, that he had exacted the impost of a linen garment from the provincials; thirdly, that he had broken a sacred cup; and lastly, that he had murdered one Arsenius, a bishop. Constantine, wearied with these vexatious litigations, appointed a council in the city of Tyre, and directed Athanasius the bishop to proceed there, to have his cause tried. In that synod, Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea, whom Constantine had desired should be present, sat amongst others, as judge. Potamo bishop of Heracleopolis, who had come with Athanasius the bishop and some Egyptian prelates, seeing him sitting in the council, is said to have addressed him in these words: "Is it fit, Eusebius, that you should sit, and that the innocent Athanasius should stand to be judged by you? Who can endure this? Were you not in custody with me, during the time of the persecution? And I truly, in defence of the truth, lost an eye; but you are injured in no part of your body, neither did you undergo martyrdom, but are alive and whole. In what manner did you escape out of prison, unless you promised to our persecutors that you would commit the detestable§ thing? And perhaps you have done it." This is related by Epiphanius, in the heresy of the Meletians. Hence it appears, that they are mistaken who affirm, that Eusebius had sacrificed to idols, and that he had been convicted of the fact in the Tyrian synod. For Potamo The story is given in Theodoret's Eccles. Hist. book i. chap. xxi. edit. Vales. + See Life of Constantine, book iii. chap. lix.

This calumny, the Meletians, instigated by Eusebius of Nicomedia, invented; as Athanasius tells us in his Apology to Constantine. See his works, tom. i. 1 778. Edit. Paris, 1627.

That is, to sacrifice to idols.

did not attest that Eusebius had sacrificed to idols, but only that being dismissed from prison safe and well, it afforded ground of suspicion. It was, however, evidently possible that Eusebius might have been liberated from confinement in a manner very different from that of Potamo's insinuation. From the words of Epiphanius, it seems to be inferred that Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea presided at this synod; for he adds, that Eusebius being previously affected in hearing the accusation against him by Potamo, dismissed the council. Yet by other writers we are informed, that not Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea, but Eusebius of Nicomedia, presided at the Tyrian synod.*

After that council, all the bishops who had assembled at Tyre, repaired, by the emperor's orders, to Jerusalem, to celebrate the consecration of the great church, which Constantine in honour of Christ had erected in that place. There our Eusebius graced the solemnity, by the several sermons he delivered. And when the emperor, by very strict letters, had summoned the bishops to his own court, that in his presence they might give an account of their fraudulent and litigious conduct towards Athanasius, our Eusebius, with five others, went to Constantinople, and furnished that prince with a statement of the whole transaction. Here also, in the palace, he delivered his tricennalian oration, which the emperor heard with the utmost joy, not so much on account of any praises to himself, as on account of the praises of God, celebrated by Eusebius throughout the whole of that oration. This oration was the second delivered by Eusebius in that palace. For he had before made an oration there, concerning the sepulchre of our Lord, which the emperor heard standing; nor could he, though repeatedly entreated by Eusebius, be persuaded to sit in the chair placed for him, alleging that it was fit that discourses concerning God should be heard in that posture.

How dear and acceptable our Eusebius was to Constantine, may be known both from the facts we have narrated, as well as from many other circumstances. For he both received many letters from him, as may be seen in the books already mentioned, and was not unfrequently sent for to the palace, where he was entertained at table, and honoured with familiar conversation. Constantine, moreover, related to our Eusebius, the vision of the cross seen by him when on his expedition against Maxentius; and showed to him, as Eusebius informs § us, the labarum || that he had ordered to be made to represent

Is it not a possible case that both presided? viz., First, Eusebius of Cæsarea, until the insult he sustained in the disparagement of his character by Potamo's insinuation. Feeling then, that his character stood arraigned by that insinuation, that he judged it expedient either to dismiss the council, or at least to leave it to the presidential jurisdiction of one less objectionable to Potamo, viz., to Eusebius of Nicomedia.

+ According to his own testimony, in his fourth book, concerning the Life of Constantine, chap. xlvi.

As Eusebius relates in the 33d chapter of the Life of Constantine, lib. iv. book iv. || An imperial standard.

Life of Constantine, book i. c. xxviii. xxx.

the likeness of that cross. Constantine also committed to Eusebius, since he knew him to be most skilful in Biblical knowledge, the care and superintendency of transcribing copies of the Scriptures, which he wanted for the accommodation of the churches he had built at Constantinople. Lastly, the book concerning the Feast of Easter, dedicated to him by our Eusebius, was a present to Constantine, so acceptable, that he ordered its immediate translation into Latin; and by letter entreated Eusebius, that he would communicate, as soon as possible, works of this nature, with which he was engaged, to those concerned in the study of sacred literature.

About the same time, Eusebius dedicated a small book to the emperor Constantine, in which was comprised his description of the Jerusalem church, and of the gifts that had been consecrated there,which book, together with his tricennalian oration, he placed at the close of his Life of Constantine. This book is not now extant. At the same time, Eusebius wrote five books against Marcellus; of which the three last, "De Ecclesiasticâ Theologiâ," he dedicated to Flaccillus bishop of Antioch. Flaccillus entered on that bishopric, a little before the synod of Tyre, which was convened in the consulate of Constantius and Albinus, A. D. 335. It is certain that Eusebius, in his First Book+ writes in express words, that Marcellus had been deservedly condemned by the church. Now Marcellus was first condemned in the synod held at Constantinople, by those very bishops that had consecrated Constantine's church at Jerusalem, in the year of Christ 335, or, according to Baronius, 336. Socrates, indeed, acknowledges only three books written by Eusebius against Marcellus, namely, those entitled, "De Ecclesiasticâ Theologiâ;" but the whole work by Eusebius, against Marcellus, comprised Five Books. The last books written by Eusebius, seem to be the four on the life of Constantine; for they were written after the death of that emperor, whom Eusebius did not long survive. He died about the beginning of the reign of Constantius Augustus, a little before the death of Constantine the Younger, which happened, according to the testimony of Socrates' Second§ Book, when Acindynus and Proculus were consuls, A. D. 340.

We cannot admit, what Scaliger || has affirmed, that Eusebius's books against Porphyry, were written under Constantius, the son of Constantine the Great, especially since this is confirmed by the testimony of no ancient writer. Besides, in what is immediately after asserted by Scaliger, that Eusebius wrote his three ** last books of the "Evangelic Demonstration," against Porphyry, there is an evident

In his Animadversions on Eusebius, page 250, last edit. ** Namely, the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth.

error. St. Jerome says, indeed, that Eusebius in three volumes, (that is, in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth,) answered Porphyry, who in the Twelfth and Thirteenth of those books which he published against the Christians, had attempted to confute the book of the prophet Daniel. St. Jerome, however, does not mean, as Scaliger thought, Eusebius's Books on Evangelic Demonstration, but the books he wrote against Porphyry, entitled, according to Photius's Bibliotheca, éyxov kaì ánoλoylas, Refutation and Defence. We are also persuaded that Eusebius wrote these books after his Ecclesiastical History; because Eusebius, in the Sixth Book + of his Ecclesiastical History, where he quotes a notorious passage from Porphyry,‡ makes no allusion to any books he had written against him, though he is always sufficiently careful to quote his own works, and thereupon refers the reader to the study of them.

We avail ourselves of the present opportunity to make some remarks relative to Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, the chief subject of our present labour and exertions. Much, indeed, had been written by our Eusebius, both against Jews and Heathens, to the edification of the orthodox and general church, and in confirmation of the verity of the Christian faith: nevertheless, amongst all his books, his Ecclesiastical History deservedly stands pre-eminent. For before Eusebius, many had written in defence of Christianity, and had, by the most satisfactory arguments, refuted the Jews on the one hand and the Heathens on the other, but not one, before Eusebius, had delivered to posterity a history of ecclesiastic affairs. On which account, therefore, because Eusebius, not only was the first to show this example, but has transmitted to us what he undertook, in a state so complete and perfect, he is entitled to the greater commendation. Though many, it is true, induced by his example, have since his time, furnished accounts of ecclesiastical affairs, yet they have not only uniformly commenced their histories from the times of Eusebius, but have left him to be the undisputed voucher of the period of which he yet remains the exclusive historian. And if any one be entitled to the epithet of the Father of Ecclesiastical History, it certainly belongs to him.

By what preliminary circumstances Eusebius was led to this undertaking, it is not difficult to conjecture. Having in his Chronological Canons accurately stated the time of the advent and passion of Jesus Christ, the names of the several bishops that had presided in the four principal churches, and of the eminent characters therein, and having also detailed an account of the successive heresies and persecutions, he was, as it were, led by insensible degrees to write an Ecclesiastical History, to furnish a full developement of what had been but briefly sketched in his Chronological Canons. This, indeed, is expressly

In his preface to his Commentary on Daniel.

+ Chap. xix. p. 266.

Canon Chronicus.

From Porphyry's third book against the Christians.

confirmed by Eusebius in his preface to that work; where he also implores the forbearance of the candid reader, if his work should be found less substantial, for he was the first who had devoted himself to the inquiry, and had to commence a path unbeaten by previous footsteps. Though this, it is true, in the view of some, may appear not so much an apology, as an indirect device of acquiring praise.

Though it is evident from Eusebius's own testimony, that he wrote his Ecclesiastical History, after his Chronological Canons, it is remarkable that the twentieth year + of Constantine is a limit common to both those works. Nor is it less singular, that, though the Nicene Council was held in that year, yet no mention is made of it in either work. But in his Chronicle, at the fifteenth year of Constantine, we read that "Alexander is ordained the nineteenth bishop of the Alexandrian church, by whom Arius the presbyter being expelled, associates many in his own impiety. A synod, therefore, of three hundred and eighteen bishops, convened at Nice, a city of Bithynia, by their agreement on the term opoovaios, (consubstantial, or co-essential) suppressed all the devices of the heretics." It is sufficiently evident that these words were not written by Eusebius, but by St. Jerome, who in Eusebius's Chronicle inserted many passages of his own. For, not to mention that this reference to the Nicene Council is inserted in a place with which it has no proper connexion, who could believe that Eusebius would thus write concerning Arius, or should have inserted the term oμoovoios in his own Chronicle; which word, as we shall hereafter state, was not satisfactory to him. Was it likely that Eusebius should, in the Chronicle, state that three hundred and eighteen bishops were present at the Nicene synod, and in his Third Book on the Life of Constantine, say expressly that something more than two hundred and fifty sat in that council? We have no doubt, however, that the Ecclesiastical History was not completely finished by Eusebius till some years after the council at Nice. But when Eusebius had determined, as he states in the beginning of his history, to close his narrative with that era of peace which shone from heaven on the church after the persecution of Diocletian, he carefully avoided all mention of the Nicene synod, lest he should be obliged to describe the seditions of Bishops quarrelling among themselves. Because writers of history ought especially to be careful that their work concludes with some glorious event, as Dionysius Halicarnassus had long before intimated in his comparison of Herodotus and Thucydides. Now what event more illustrious could have been desired by Eusebius, than that repose, which after a most sanguinary persecution, had been restored to the Christians by Constantine; when, the persecutors being every where extinct, and Licinius himself at length removed, no fear remained of such evils as had been experienced. This epoch, therefore, rather than that of the Nicene council, afforded ti. e. A. D. 325.

Book i. chapter i.

On Constantine's Vicennalia, that is, on the twentieth year of his empire.