§ 161. EUSEBTUS OF C^SAEEA. 877
histor}', but only a diligent and learned collector. His Ecele siastical History, from tlie birth of Christ to the victory of Constantino over Licinius in 324, gives a colorless, defective, incoherent, fragmentary, yet interesting picture of the heroic youth of tlie church, and owes its incalculable value, not to the historic art of the author, but almost entirely to his copious and mostly literal extracts from foreign, and in some cases now extinct, sources. As concerns the first three centuries, too, it stands-alone ; for the successors of Eusebius begin their history where he leaves off.
His Chronicle consists of an outline-sketch of universal history down to 325, arranged by ages and nations (borrowed largely ft-om the Chronography of Julius Africanus), and an abstract of this universal chronicle in tabular form. The Greek original is lost, with the exception of unconnected fragments by Syncellus ; but the second part, containing the chronological tables, was translated and continued by Jerome to 378, and remained for centuries the source of the synchronistic knowledge of history and the basis of historical works in Christendom.' Jerome also translated, with several corrections and additions, a useful antiquarian work of Eusebius, the so-called Onomasticon, a description of the places mentioned in the Bible.^
In his Life, and still more in his Eulogy, of Constantino, Eusebius has almost entirely forgotten the dignity of the historian in the zeal of the panegyrist. Nevertheless, this work is the chief source of the history of the reign of his imperial friend,'
* The Greek title was : XpoviKocv KavSvwv iravroda-rri} IrrTopia (Hieron, De viria iHustr. c. 81); the Latin is: Chronica Eusebii s. Canones hlstoriae universae, Hieronymo interprete. See Vallarsi's ed. of Jerome's works, torn. viii. 1-820. Jerome also calls it Temporum librum. It is now knov^n also (since 1818) in an Armenian translation. Most complete edition by Angelo Mai, in Script, vet. nova coll. tom. riii Rom. 1833, republished in Migne's edition of the complete works of Eusebius, tom. L p. 100 sqq,
^ Tlepl Twi/ TOWI.KUIV hvoixa-Tciiv rSiv iv rj? ^ela •ypa(py, De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum, in Jerome's works, tom. iii. 121-290. A new edition, Greek and Latin, by Larsow and Parthey, Berol. 1862.
' Socrates already observes (in the first book of his Church History) that Euseoius wrote the Life of Constantine more as a panegyrical oration than aa an accural*
878 TIIIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Next in importance to his historical works are his a}»oi ogetie; namely, liis ProBjyaratio evangelical and his DemC'r\f stratio evancjelica? These were both written before 324, and are an arsenal of the apologetic material of the ancient church. The former proposes, in fifteen books, to give a docnmeutary refutation of the heathen reliirions from Greek writings. The latter giv^es, in twenty books, of which only the first ten are preserved, the positive argument for the absolute truth of Christianity, from its nature, and from the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Old Testament. The Theophany^ in five books, is a popular compend from these two works, and was probably written later, as Epiphanius wrote his Anacephalteosis after the Panarion, for more general use.' It is known in the tirreek original fi-om fragments only, published by Cardinal Mai,* and now complete in a Syriac version which was discovered in 1839 by Tattam, in a Nitrian monastery, and was
account of events. Baronius (Annal. ad an. 324, n. 5) compares the Vita Constantini, not unfitly, with the Cyropaedia of Xenophon, who, as Cicero says, "Titam Cyri non tam ad historiae fidem conscripsit, quam ad eflSgiem justi principis exhibendam." Tliis is the most charitable construction we can put upon this book, the tone of which is intolerably offensive to a manly and independent spirit acquainted with the crimes of Constantine. But we should remember that strongei men, such as Athanasius, Hilary, and Epiphanius, have overrated Constantine, and called him "most pious" and "of blessed memory." Burckhardt, in his work on Constantine, p. 846 and passim, speaks too contemptuously of Eusebius, without any reference to iiis irood (jualities and great merits.
' Best edited by Thomas Gaisford, Oxon. 1843, 4 vols. 8vo. In Migne's edition it forms tom. iii.
* Likewise edited by Gaisford, Oxf. 1852, 2 vols. Svo. In Migne's edition tom. iv.
' Dr. Sam. Lee, however, is of the opposite o{)inion, see p. xxii. of the Preface to his translation. " It appears probable to me," he says, " that this more popular and more useful work [the Theophania] was first composed and published, and that the other two [the Prieparatio, and the Demonstratio Evangolica] — illustrating, ae Ihey generally do, some particular points only — argued in order in our work — were reserved for the reading and occasional writing of our author during a considerable jumber of years, as well for the satisfaction of his own mhid, as for the generaj reading of the learned. It appears probable to me, therefore, that this waj one of the first productions of Eusebius, if not the first after the persecutions ceased."
* In the fourth volume of the Novas Patrura Bibliothcca;, Rem. 1847, pp 108-156, reprinted in Migne'd edition of the works of Euaebius, tom, v. f09 •qq.