Gibbon

(Decline and Fall, ii, 79) says that: ‘“ Eusebius _ himself indirectly confe es that he has related that which might redound to the glory, and suppre ed all that could tend to the dis- ‘grace, of religion.” Bar on i us was a sincere ‘Christian, yet he calls Eusebius a “falsifier of history, a wily sycophant, consummate hypocrite, and time-serving persecutor.” Eusebius heads one chapter (Prep. Evang, xii, 31) with the monstrous title, “How far it may _ be lawful and fitting to use falsehoods, as a medicine for the advantage of those who require such a method.” [It is a question of textual criticism whether he was responsible for such words.—Ep.] Hence _ arose the theory of “ pious fraud,” among those who attempt to justify such language. We search in vain for reliable chronology in regard to this father of history. Bishop Light foot admits that his writings “are perplexing and contradictory.” We cannot even prove that he exerted the influence that he claims over the great emperor. Yet we depend _mainly on him for the history of Christianity before his time; and ‘without him we should know nothing of Papias, Polycarp, John the Elder, and other early Christian worthies: or of synods and councils ‘down to 825 a.c., which decided for us the creeds, canons, and ' dogmas of later ages. _ Eutycheans. Followers of Eutikhés, abbot of a monastery in Constantinople, who denied that Christ had more than one nature, He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 a.c.: but in the 6th century his doctrines were further advocated by Jacob _Baradeus, who convinced the Kopts and the Armenians, as well as the greater part of the Syrian Christians, who were called, after him, “Jacobites.” Thus all the Asiatic Churches—except the Nestor i ans —became Monophysites, or believers in a single divine nature of Christ, which Greeks and Latins have alike denied since the question was first raised, Eve.