Translations of Christian Literature. General Editors: W. J. Sparrow-Simpson, D.D., W. K. Lowther Clarke, B.D. Series I Greek Texts. The Proof of the Gospel. Vol. I. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London. The Macmillan Company. New York. 1920.
It is a high privilege to have been allowed to provide a translation of the Demonstratio; for in default of a better it must for some time fill the vacant place in English bookshelves beside the noble edition of the Praeparatio, which was the work of Archdeacon Gifford's declining years.
Yet it is an appalling thought that this translation, continuing as it does the work of Gifford, should in any sense be thought to seek comparison with it. The writer has but endeavoured according to his powers, and amid other absorbing duties, to fill a recognized gap, by giving a faithful rendering of the words of Eusebius, so that it may be possible for the English student to become acquainted with all that remains of the work to which the Praeparation was the Introduction.
He has erred perhaps rather in the direction of literal exactness than of free paraphrase, especially in doctrinal sections, thinking it primarily necessary to make it clear what Eusebius actually said.
Limitations of space have made it impossible to reproduce the long passages from the Old Testament upon which Eusebius based his arguments. To have retained them in full would have been interesting because of their variations from the text of the LXX : but this consideration was hardly important enough to make their inclusion essential.
The translator would gratefully record his indebtedness to the Rev. W. K. Lowther Clarke, the Secretary of S.P.C.K., for his constant interest, scholarly guidance, and invaluable suggestions during the progress of the work: but for his help it would be far more imperfect than it is.
W. J. FERRAR.
East Finchley. Easter, 1920.
The Demonstratio Evangelica (Ευαγγελικης Αποδειξεως δεκα λογοι) originally consisted of twenty books, of which only ten remain. It was the concluding portion of the complete work, which included the Praeparatio. At the beginning of the latter Eusebius stated his object to be “to shew the nature of Christianity to those who know not what it means”1 the purpose of its pages was to give an answer to all reasonable questions both from Jewish or Greek inquirers about Christianity, and its relation to other religions. Thus the Praeparatio was intended to be “a guide, by occupying the place of elementary instruction and introduction, and suiting itself to our recent converts from among the heathen.”2
The Demonstratio, Eusebius promises in the same passage, will go further. It will adapt itself “to those who have passed beyond this, and are already in a state prepared for the reception of the higher truths.” It will “convey the exact knowledge of the most stringent proofs of God's mysterious dispensation in regard to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”3 All apologetics, no doubt, have a double object, to convince the unbeliever and to strengthen the faithful. And it would certainly be an error to discriminate the stress on either of these objects too sharply in the case of any particular work. It is true from Justin to Butler that evidential works circulate as widely (or indeed more widely) in the Church as manuals of teaching than in the world as weapons of defence. But we can recognize a difference of |x emphasis in the tone and scope of apologetic works, dependent on the circumstances and environment of the age of their production, which inclines the balance perceptibly either in the direction of apology proper, or in that of dogmatic instruction. The Demonstratio then would seem to be of the latter class, rather than of the former. It is a manual of instruction for the faithful, rather than a challenge to the unbelieving.
This impression, however, must be balanced by the fact that certain sections of the argument seem to be deliberately planned to convince the unbeliever, notably where Eusebius restricts himself to unfolding the unique beauty of our Lord's Humanity in His Life and Work; and while reserving his “prophetic” arguments for the edification of the faithful, speaks of Him from the human and historic level, ως περι ανδρος κοινου, και τοις λοιποις παραπλησιου (102 b). Or when in the same book he constructs his powerful reductio ad absurdum of the suggestion that Christ was a wizard or a charlatan.
The studied statements at the opening of the whole work give then the impression that the central object of Eusebius, in relation to the circumstances of his time, differed materially from that of the earlier Apologists like Justin and Aristides. They provided a reasoned defence of Christianity for the consideration of the rulers of the heathen world, and endeavoured to meet the. subtle criticism of pagan philosophers with convincing force. He aims primarily at strengthening the convictions of those already convinced. He desires to provide a completer enlightenment for those who are already members of the Church of Christ.
Though certain passages both in the Praeparatio and the Demonstratio speak of pagan persecution in the present tense (Praep. Ev. 584 a, b, Dem. 82 c), and if the tense is pressed must have been written before the close of the Diocletian and Galerian Terror by the Edict of Milan, A.D. 312 (Eus., H.E. x. 5), other passages present the picture, frequent in the earlier apologies, of a Church at peace and developing in all parts of the Empire (Praep. Ev. 9 d, Dem. 103 c, 138 b). This discrepancy we will examine below. But assuming that the work appeared after the persecution it will be recognized that the moment was |xi opportune for the publication of a book, “shewing what Christianity is to them that do not know,” and for offering a deep and sound foundation for the faith of the half-convinced. For years the martyrs had been prominent in the world's eyes. The Church as a whole had been super naturally loyal. The future seemed to be with the no longer despised Christians. There must have been many thoughtful people ready to examine their claims, and to inquire into the secret of their constancy. Many again, conquered by the bright spectacle of their endurance, had already entered the Church's gate led chiefly by faith and hope, and were now ripe to sit at the feet of teachers who could philosophically unveil her heavenly knowledge.
Nor should we suppose that, though the Imperial Government had decided that the coercion of so powerful a mass of conviction was impossible, the prejudice of pagan priest hoods and of the leaders of philosophy was inclined to yield without every effort that criticism, ridicule, and conservative tradition could exert. Celsus had been followed as protagonist against Christianity by Porphyry, and it was against him that the polemical weapons of the Demonstratio were forged. Porphyry had a very intimate knowledge of the Christian faith. He had possibly been a convert (Soc., H.E. iii. 23) and a pupil of Origen (Eus., H.E. vi. 19). He had written a book, Contra Christianos, full of acute criticisms, some of which the mind of the later Church has justified and accepted. There are quotations from this work in Praep. Ev. 28 c, 29 b, 179 d, 237 a to 241 b; and allusions to Porphyry in Praep. Ev. 143 c, 144 b, 190 a; Dem. Ev. 134. The high level of the attack would account for the comprehensiveness, the massive learning, and the dignity of the rejoinder, which gathers together and sums up the labours of previous Apologists. But, as we shall see, Eusebius did not set out to refute the arguments of Porphyry point by point, as Origen dealt with Celsus, or Justin with the Jew Trypho. He preferred to confront followers of the acute critic with the fact of Christianity as a blessed and growing power. He aimed at showing the supernatural agreement of its Founder's life and death with the prophecies. He felt that on the flowing tide of divine power he could afford to disregard the eddying currents that ran impotently across it. Eusebius indeed wrote a |xii definite rejoinder to Porphyry, the κατὰ Πορφορίου, a work in twenty-five books; this in all probability was later in his life.4 In this book it is quite likely that he attempted to meet the objections of Porphyry seriatim. His aim in the Demonstraiio was of a more general character.
To sum up, it was the cessation of persecution, the profound impression made on the educated and uneducated alike by the imperial change of front, the proud sense within the Church itself that its patience had triumphed, combined with the presence of the opposing criticism of the cultured, which may be said to have been the occasion for the great literary effort, which is called by Lightfoot “probably the most important apologetic work of the Early Church.”5
This question is involved in conflicting internal evidence. Is the Demonstratio earlier or later than the History, which is generally dated A.D. 325? The passage ει γουν τι δυναται η ημετερα ιστοπια (Dem. 273 d) proves nothing, for we must translate with Lightfoot, not “my history,” but “my personal observation.” Neither can the passage in the History (H.E. i. 2 ad fin.) be safely regarded as referring to the Demonstratio. There is a direct reference to the Quaestiones ad Stephanum in Dem. 353 c, but this does not prove that the whole of the latter work was anterior to the Demonstratio, for the Quaestiones have a cross-reference to the Demonstratio in col. 912 - ωσπερ ουν συνεστησαμεν εν ταις ευαγγελικαις αποδειξεσιν. It is suggested by Lightfoot that this part of the Quaestiones, the epitome or εκλογη εν συντομω, was added at a later date, in which case the Demonstratio would come between the Quaestiones and the Epitome.
Evidence from the mention of contemporary events is again conflicting, if we are seeking the date of the work as a whole. There is an obvious contrast between passages that speak of the Church as still undergoing persecution, e. g. Dem. 119 b, ο και εστιν εις δευρο θεωρουντας ενεργουμενον, ef. 182 d (εισετι και νυν) and 82 c, and those which in the manner of the earlier Apologists represent it as progressing and flourishing - e.g. Dem. 103 c and Praep. Ev. 9 d. The |xiii usual explanation of these discrepancies is to suppose that different sections of the work took shape at different times, the former towards the end of the Terror, the latter after its conclusion. (Gifford, Praeparatio, Tom. iii. pars. i. p. xii.)
But there seems nothing unreasonable in supposing that an historical writer, engaged in defending Christianity on the ground of its endurance and success, while surveying in one coup d'oeil the three centuries of its past struggle, might very naturally refer to a persecution, that had but recently relaxed its pressure, as present. If this be thought probable we may consider the whole work to have been written between A.D. 314 and A.D. 318. For the more than probable allusion in Praep. Ev. 135 c to the punishment by Licinius of the Antiochene theosophical impostors, described in H.E. ix. 11, would place the date after A.D. 314, whereas the theological language would seem to be too unguarded to allow it to be likely that it was penned near the time when the decision of the Arian controversy was imminent. And Arius was already attracting attention in A.D. 319. (Bright: Church of the Fathers, i. 56.)
Books I and II form an Introduction, for the opening of Book III regards them as “prolegomena.” They describe the simplicity of Christian teaching, challenge the assumption that Christianity rests not on reason but on faith, and in claiming to use the Jewish scriptures, while rejecting the Jewish religion, establish the thesis that Christianity is a republication of the primitive religion of the patriarchs, from which the Mosaic religion was a declension, allowed by God because of the deterioration of the Jews under the assaults of the daemons during their exile in Egypt. Abundant prophetic evidence is given in Book II, that the coming of Messiah would synchronize with the downfall of the Jewish state, and the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Book III treats of Christ's Humanity, and is perhaps the most modern part of the argument. By an elaborate rc.ditdio ul. absitrdum the impossibility of Jesus Christ being aught but Perfect Man and Divine also is dramatically and cogently shown. |xiv
Books IV and V deal with the Divinity of Christ as Son and Logos, and it is in them that passages of an Arian ring have roused the anger of orthodox commentators.
Book VI and the following books deal with our Lord's Incarnate life as the fulfilment of prophecy. Book X reaches the Passion and is especially occupied with Judas and the Betrayal.
We may suppose with Lightfoot that the remainder of the work shewed the agreement of the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the foundation and growth of the Church with the predictions of the Jewish prophets.
A fragment of Book XV relates to the four kingdoms of the Book of Daniel, and suggests that that section of the work dealt with the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church.
The Demonstratio comes at the end of a long series of apologetical works, and embodies and codifies their results. It is the work of a man of extraordinarily wide scholarship, which marshals and buttresses with additional support the “loci communes” of his predecessors. Eusebius is no adventurer breaking fresh ground.
A comparison of the Demonstratio with the Trypho or the contra Celsum reveals only a more systematic application of the argument from prophecy used by Justin and Origen. In some cases the prophecies are explained in almost identical language. We may instance the exegesis of Psalm xxii. in Book X with that of Justin, in Trypho, cc. 98-106, the references to Isaiah vii. 14, where he uses the language of Origen, contra Celsum, i. 35, points out that Jesus Christ alone suits the passage, and quotes Deut. xxii. 23, 24 in support of the translation of νεανις. The question of the Christian's rejection of the Jewish Law and his acceptance of the Jewish scriptures had been handled by Justin, and the most striking portion of the Demonstratio, the argument in Book III, that Christ was no sorcerer, may be said to have been suggested by Origen, contra Celsum, ii. 48, and Justin, 1st Apol. c. 30. His explanation of the Old Testament Theophanies is that of the earlier Apologists, his insistence that Christianity rests on reason as well as |xv faith, and his allegorical method, are plainly those of Origen and the Alexandrian school. It could hardly have been otherwise. After two centuries of defensive warfare against Jews and Greeks, the lines of controversy were clearly defined, and the apologetic writer but reiterated in a new form against the critics of his own day, what his predecessors hud said against a previous generation of critics. His “loci communes” were well known to the Catechist, just as the ordinary course of instruction to candidates for Confirmation follows a definite line to-day. The most he could achieve was to present in a systematic form such a codification of existing arguments as the circle around him required.
Yet the Praeparatio opens with a remarkable claim to originality of method. Eusebius contrasts the “more logical” nature of his proofs with “refutations and contradictions of opposing arguments, exegesis of scripture, and controversial advocacy” (Praep. Ev. i. 3). Here alluding to a mass of evidential literature he proposes to reject “all deceitful and sophistical plausibilities” in favour of the evidence of the fulfilment of the Jewish prophecies in Christ, and the developing life of His Church. But this is very much what the earlier Apologists set out to do. In what sense can Eusebius say: “The purpose, however, which we have in hand is to be worked out in a way of our own” (Praep. Ev. 7 a)?
Lightfoot argues that Eusebius is referring to the use of lengthy quotations, by means of which religious ideals, that clash with Christianity, may be allowed to speak for themselves, as is stated in Praep. Ev. 16 d. “I shall not set down my own words, but those of the very persons who have taken the deepest interest in the worship of them whom they call Gods.” But he admits that there was little originality in this method of controversy. It had been employed by the earlier Apologists.
The real claim of Eusebius seems to be made clear by the context. He quotes 1 Cor. ii. 14; iii. 6; and 2 Cor. iii. 5 as guides for avoiding “deceitful and sophistical plausibilities” and for the use of proofs free from ambiguity. And he contrasts the value of “words” with that of the evidence of “works” on which he prefers to rely. By “works” he means the power of Christ as a living, moving |xvi energy in human life. The exact fulfilment of Christ's anticipations, the triumph of His Church as foretold in Matt. xvi. 18, the fate of the Jews, and the wonderful fulfilment of the predictions of the Hebrew prophets are the “works” upon which Eusebius proposes to base his “demonstration.”
But even so it can hardly be said that there was anything novel in such an intention, looking back to the apologies of Justin, Athenagoras, Aristides and Tatian. There is a series of chapters in Justin which reads almost like an outline sketch of the Demonstratio. Eusebius, therefore, can hardly have meant that the method which he adopted was new in the sense that it had not been used before. What then did he mean? Surely he must have had in his mind the methods or evidential writers of his own day. He must have been thinking of dialectical encounters with literary opponents. He may only have intended to stress his determination to abstain in the Demonstratio from meeting the objections of Porphyry and his followers point by point, as Origen had dealt with Celsus. If the method of Origen had made a deep impression on the educated world, and if Eusebius was regarded in any sense as belonging to the school of Origen, it was natural for him to state definitely that he proposed in his new work to follow a different course from Origen's. Origen's method was to follow every turn of the trail of a slippery foe: his opponent, so to say, made the game. Eusebius wished it to be understood that he started with a well-ordered programme of Scriptural exposition, and did not intend to be drawn aside into detailed controversy on points that had been raised by individual controversialists.
This intention, however fitfully and diffusely it is carried through, can never be said to be lost sight of in the Demonstratio. We have a constant recurrence to the massive evidence of a growing and flourishing Church, a changed society, a converted character. The heart of the argument is the connection of this external evidence with the Divine and Human Person of Christ.
The lever that is intended to move the mind to realize the uniqueness of Christ is the exposition of a series of prophecies, whose selection, systematic arrangement and treatment confers on Eusebius, if not the crown of originality, |xvii at least the praise of having carefully codified the work of his predecessors.
The Demonstratio then, like all the best apologetic work of the early Church, is based on the continuous living evidence of the action of a Divine Power. “The help,” says Eusebius, “which comes down from the God of the Universe supplies to the teaching and Name of our Saviour its irresistible and invincible force, and its victorious power against its enemies” (Praep. Ev. 9 d).
Compared with the Octavius, the Trypho, or the contra Celsum the Demonstratio may seem cold and academic, for it lacks the charm and interest of the dialogue-form. Where they are redolent of the open air, and the marketplace, it suggests the lecture-hall and the pulpit. Much of the warmth, directness, and reality has evaporated from the appeal of Eusebius. These are obvious criticisms. But it must be remembered that Eusebius wrote for the cultured people of his own age. His method and manner are less perhaps the result of his own temperament than the production of a stately and courtly entourage. As the heir of the apologetic of the market-place, and of a struggling sect of believers, he was called by the genius of his own time to reproduce in a polished and rhetorical style, for an educated circle, the old arguments which had welled forth from the lips of the infant Church in spontaneous freedom and life. There can be no doubt that the world for which they were intended received in the Praeparatio and the Demonstratio what was for it the most unanswerable defence of the Christian Religion.
The Third Book of the Demonstratio seems to claim special consideration. As a piece of apologetic it is extraordinarily full and to the point. It seizes the real salients in the evidential controversy, and is occupied with topics which must always come foremost in the defence of Christianity. It is no argument in the air, it comes down to meet the ordinary unbeliever in the crowd, and begins by speaking to him of Christ as “one bearing ordinary humanity and like the rest.” Upon the acknowledged basis of the beauty of His human life, and the perfection of His ethical teaching |xviii better understood and more universally acknowledged by non-Christians in the modern world than they were then except by a few thinkers like Porphyry, the argument passes to the Miracles, which are the evidence that Christ is something more than human, to hypotheses which professed to account for them, viz. invention and sorcery, and to the question of the credibility of the witnesses to our Lord's abnormal acts. It is remarkable that one who could be so diffuse should, in so short a space, have combined so many arguments in one connected scheme; and still more that he should have made central the points that are central, viz. the historical Person of Christ, His Ethics, His miraculous Power, and the credibility of the Gospel-writers, treated as involving generally all belief in witness to historical facts.
The great mass of the Demonstratio is an elaborate rechauffee of past apologetics, but in this book we feel the touch of something fresh, free, original, something that springs from keen, personal interest, warm perception, and ardent conviction. It is not sword-play, but actual warfare, and there are rapier-strokes of satire, which the hand of Swift might have dealt. In literary quality, as well as in appositeness to the subject discussed, the book is remarkable. Its finish, completeness in itself, and contrast with the Demonstratio as a whole might suggest that it was a separate essay, written in actual controversy with an opponent who drew out Eusebius' keenest logic and dialectical skill, and that this essay was eventually incorporated in the greater but more academic work.
Its argument may be summarized as follows:
87-102 Jesus claimed in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke iv. 21) to be the fulfilment of the prophecy of a Saviour (Isa. lxi. i). Moses' prophecy of a successor “like himself” (Deut. xviii. 15), who should come at the fall of the Jewish kingdom (Gen. xlix. 10), Isaiah's “Root of Jesse” (Isa. xi. 1), Micah's prediction of Bethlehem (Micah v. 2), Isaiah's “suffering servant” (Isa. liii. 3-8), who died that He might rise to rule over the world through His Church, are only fulfilled in Christ.
102-107c Reply to attacks upon Christ as (i) deceiver; (ii) wizard.- First on the basis of mere humanity (ως περι κοινου και τοις λοιποις παραβλησιου) Christ must be realized as the best |xix man who ever lived. Consider the ethical outcome of His teaching, in purity, meekness, sanity of mind, benevolence, love of truth. He called back the lost ideals of Abraham, and gave them to the whole world; their value is admitted, for even the Greek oracles praise Abraham's monotheism. He abjured a sacrificial worship, but so did Porphyry (de Abst. ii. 34) and Apollonius of Tyana. He taught that the world was created and would one day be destroyed, even as Plato did, and also the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, and thus made His poor disciples wiser than supercilious philosophers, who seem proud to claim identity with the flea, the worm, and the fly. He stressed a divine judgment, punishment, and an eternal life with God. He recognized angels and daemons, helpers and foes of the soul just as the Hebrews did. All this is ethically sound.
107d-125b But there was a divine side to Christ, as is shown by His Miracles of mercy and love; He died voluntarily, rose again, and ascended to heaven. The miraculous in the life of Christ is in line with the miraculous in Christianity. Those who deny it must either prove that it was invented, or the result of sorcery. Now the type of teaching Christ gave His disciples is utterly opposed to their inventing falsehoods. It was ascetic, and made truth and purity the first essentials of conduct. If you admit the fanciful hypothesis that He really taught them fraud and specious lying you are landed in absurdities. Deceit could afford no corporate cohesion, κακω κακος ου φιλος, ουδε αγαθω: and again, what had they to expect but a death like His? After His death, too, they only honoured Him the more! They were even ready to die for Him. It is inconceivable that they knew Him to be really vicious. And equally impossible that, if they were, they should propose to convert the whole world, and actually do so, poor and uneducated as they were. You must imagine them meeting secretly after the Crucifixion, admitting Christ's deceit, and yet conspiring to propagate the Gospel-story: “Let us see,” they say, “that our freak lasts even to death. There is nothing ridiculous in dying for nothing at all.” “What could be finer than to make both gods and men our enemies for no possible reason? . . . And suppose we convince no one. we shall have the satisfaction of drawing |xx down upon ourselves in return for our inventions the retribution for our deceit.” Such theories are ridiculous, for there is no doubt that persecution and death faced the Apostles. Yet there was no traitor among them after the Ascension. And they actually succeeded in their adventure. Now this hypothesis of a conspiracy to deceive might be used with equal force with regard to Moses, or the Greek philosophers, and indeed all those whose lives history records.
The simplicity, devotion, and ascetic lives of the Apostles guarantee their honesty. They faced all for truth and the Name of Christ. The Gospels reveal their modesty and straightforwardness in unexpected ways. It has been well said: “We must put complete confidence in the disciples of Jesus, or none at all”; distrust of them logically means distrust of all writers. Why allow invidious distinctions? The Passion is the crowning crux, how could they have invented a story which would handicap all their efforts? That they gave a true account of it really authenticates their accounts of the Miracles, and glorious manifestations of Christ.
The evidence of Josephus, too, may be called in with good effect. (See note on this passage.)
125b-141a Against the alternative view that Christ was a sorcerer.- The suggestion is opposed to the whole trend of His teaching and manner of life. He was unworldly, pure, and retiring; sorcerers are the reverse. If He had been one His followers would have resembled Him, but the great mark of the whole Christian Church is its abhorrence of magic. No Christian has ever admitted himself to be a sorcerer even to escape death. And this argument may be extended-in all ways the virtues of Christians vouch for the character of their Master. They afford “clear evidence of the nurture of His words.” The Greeks boast of the self-sacrifice of Democritus and Krates, but Christian zealots can be counted by the myriad. They know what Plato alone knew about God, but he was confessedly unable to make God known, whereas it is the common task of the Christians.
But was Christ's sorcery self-taught, or learned from others ? If the former then it showed something of the nature of supernatural power, if the latter, meaning that He was taught it in Egypt, what a strange thing that Christ |xxi should so utterly outstrip His teachers, and institute a new nation and new laws, as He has done. Once more note that He paid no court to the daemons, and that they even now shudder at His Name. Think of His union with the Father, His purity, justice and truth, His perfect character, and you will laugh at the suggestion. The very drumons hear witness to him in the Oracles quoted by Porphyry as “a man signal in holiness.” His grandeur is shown by His choice of poor men for apostles, “because maybe he had in mind to do the most unlikely things.” And what a design it was-to rule the whole world! And His followers were to do the work simply “in His Name.” That alone explains their success. They had to preach the paradox, that God came on an embassy in a human body, and died on a Cross! The only explanation of their success is His co-operation with them, for the Gospel in itself is not plausible. The Power He gave them to work miracles amazed their hearers, and induced them to yield to the message: without His Power they could never have succeeded.
And you may add to this the providential preparation of the world for the preaching of the Gospel through the establishment of the Roman Empire, whose Heads both by their leniency and severity have assisted the divine purpose of spreading the Gospel. 141a
Such a summary as the above is but a sorry skeleton. It is void of all the life and vividness, the subtle turns, the satirical touches of the argument. But it reveals on what ground the writer really rested in his defence of Christianity. His apology is seen to be not abstract and a priori, but almost modern in its hold on historical fact. Let us consider the points that stand out.
(i) There is the argument from Prophecy. It is fashionable to say that the Apologists were deluded in their persistent efforts to link the Gospel facts with prophetic predictions. No doubt they were in a sense deluded, and the greater part of the Demonstratio is a monument to the delusion. But yet, though the method is changed, there is still an argument from prophecy. The lines of optimistic hope for mankind that run through the Hebrew prophets |xxii do meet at the feet of Christ. He alone satisfies their majestic anticipations.
“We may say,” writes Prof. W. E. Barnes, in his essay On the Permanent Value of the Old Testament,6 “that the prophets saw, each under a form suited to his own age, a vision of God's presence with men, realised to a new degree, and 'specialised' (if the word may be used) in Israel through the instrumentality of a visible leader of Israel. The ideas of a chosen people and of a chosen leader upon whom the Spirit of God rests are found in those prophetic passages.” The prophecies to which he alludes are Micah iv. 8 to v. 6; Isa. ix. 1-7, xi. i-io, Hi. 13 to liii. 12; Jer. xxiii. 15, 16. It is worthy of remark that in selecting five passages of typical Messianic prophecy, the fourth-century and the twentieth-century scholar choose three out of the five the same.
(ii) The historical Personality of Jesus as perfect Man stands out in a very modern way. The εν ανθρωποις πολιτευσαμενον και παθοντα of the Creed of Caesarea, upon which Eusebius had been brought up, had not failed of its effect; neither had his patient study of the Gospels. Whatever his theory of the union of the Divinity with the Humanity, he had a very clear and a very true conception of the Humanity of our Lord. He speaks of the Man Christ Jesus almost as One Whom he has known. Ho follows Him on His works of mercy. He catches the spirit of His words. He feels their supreme truth, their unexampled beauty, their divine audacity, their kingly authority. He imagines correctly Christ's effect upon His followers, he argues back from the ideals of the followers to the uniqueness of the Master.
It is quite remarkable that Eusebius should start with the human Christ, and describe him as the best man that ever lived, before introducing the conception forced upon him by the Miracles that He was divine as well. It was the method of the Master Himself, and therefore the right one.
(iii) Eusebius' view of the value of the witness of the writers of the Gospels, and of the first teachers of Christianity, has been a feature of many volumes of evidences to |xxiii the days of Butler and Paley and our own time. But it may be doubted whether the argument from the simplicity and transparent honesty of these “unlearned and ignorant men” has ever been more cogently put, their bravery, their persistence, their devotion, their facing the certainty of “labours, dangers and sufferings,” the magnificence of the design with which they set out, the paradox they were called to preach, the divine power that made them triumph.
In the last fifty years of New Testament criticism how often has it been evident that these books and their writers were being put to tests, from which all other records were exempt. This, too, Eusebius deprecated. Criticism should treat all alike, and to treat all as the Gospels have been treated would leave history a mass of questionable documents and disputed statements.
(iv) There is an ethical stress of deep significance in the whole book. The Humanity of Christ and His teaching are made to challenge the unbeliever first of all by their moral value; it is claimed for them that they satisfy, and more than satisfy, human aspirations after goodness. The Miracles are presented as worked for moral ends. It is the ethical interest that gives the fire of indignation and the sting of satire to the arguments that Christ is neither charlatan nor sorcerer. Again and again the purity and self-control, the justice and love of truth, the unselfishness and benevolence of the Christian teaching, and of its result in countless lives that philosophy would have been powerless to affect, are dwelt upon. As we have seen, Eusebius reads back from the lives of Christians the character of Christ - that is to say, he finds in actual life around him something of the moral ideal that he knows to be summed up in Christ from Whom the life of men around receives it. He shews throughout a very real appreciation of the bearing of faith on conduct. The life of the Christian is the ultimate Court of Appeal for the reality of Christ. Ethical value demonstrates a divine power as its spring and source. They that overcome the world prove the truth of the Gospel. Eusebius is defending the Gospel of a divine Christ; the merely human Christ is One Whose character implies the divine as well; and He is the source and stay of moral progress. Eusebius realized this; the |xxiv world of our day doubts it. But as has been well said: “There is no proof that the ethical principles have existed effectively in the past except in connection with Christian doctrine, so there is little probability that they can ever exist in the future, for the mass of men at least, except in dependence on a living Christ.”7
Eusebius was in his day the leading representative of ecclesiastical conservatism. That is to say, his theology was, allowing for the difference of period, almost precisely that of Origen. For as Dr. Bigg 8 has remarked : “What struck later ages as the novelty and audacity of Origen's doctrine was in truth its archaism and conservatism.” This system of doctrine had captured the Eastern Church, and men like Eusebius had absorbed it from the lips of those who had sat at the feet of Origen himself. It was in accord with the general outlook of cultured men. It appeared to be the logical development of orthodox thought. It is true that elements that had been prominent in heretical teaching were included in it, but they were the good elements, and their carefully limited position in the system made them innocuous. It was the unfolding of the Logos-doctrine on a basis loyal to Scripture and the Rule of Faith. The Logos-theology was the natural way then to think about the immanence of God. It had been appropriated for the Christian Religion long ago by the Apologists. The theology based upon it stood not only for a fascinating idealistic faith, but also for (the strongest bulwark against what orthodoxy dreaded most-the heresies which tended to make the divine Persons but temporary manifestations of one Godhead, viz. Modalism or Sabellianism. The Logos-theology stressed the unchangeable-ness of the Father, and His distinction from the Son, one in essence though They might be. For the moment the distinction of the Son from the Father was more important to the Church than the question how far such a distinction implied subordination and inferiority. Justin had not |xxv shirked the phrase δευτερος θεος, neither did Origen. As Dr. Sanday has said: “The reaction against Sabellianism (which became a general term including all forms of Monarchianism) had not a little to do with the exaggerations on the other side; and in particular the dread of this form of error contributed to the rapid rise and spread of Arianism.”9 The point where Arianism touched this established and somewhat quiescent theology was exactly where Origen had discouraged speculation. He had given to the Church the doctrine of the eternal generation, but pronounced its comprehension beyond human reason. Arians claimed the right to open a door that was shut. But the disciples of Origen were not perhaps so much disposed to quarrel with adventurers into the uncharted realms “of the ineffable relations of the Godhead before the remotest beginnings of time,”10 provided they held some form of the Logos-doctrine, as they were to withstand those who rejected it altogether. And their own language is to a later age sometimes indistinguishable from Arianism. Of such a theology the doctrinal parts of the Demonstratio may be considered representative. Let us briefly examine it.
As Harnack says : “Eusebius was more convinced than Origen that the idea of deity was completely exhausted in that of the strictly one and unchangeable ον the πρωτη ουσια; he separated the δευτερος θεος much further from God than the Apologists.”11 We therefore find the utmost emphasis laid on the Absolute Character of Cod the Unbegotten. He is “the One αρχη born before the first, earlier than the Monad” (745 b). He precedes the Son in existence (147), is “the greater God, and as such alone holds the name in His own right” (κυριως) (226). He is as the Sun to the world, too mighty to mingle with created things directly, requiring a Mediator, through whom to create and govern the created world (154).
Therefore by His own will He begets the Logos, “the first-born Wisdom altogether formed of Wisdom, and Reason and Mind, or rather Wisdom itself, Reason itself, and Mind itself” (146,1). He “alone bears the inconceivable image in Himself through which He is God, and also because of |xxvi His appointment to guide the Universe” (146 c); i.e. He is divine by essence as well as by office.
Eusebius uses the well-worn similes of the Apologists: the relation of the Father to the Son is as light to its ray, as myrrh to its scent, as a king to his portrait. But there is the important difference sufficiently stressed, that having been begotten the Son exists apart from the Father in His own essence (147). Yet worship is due to Him as δευτερος θεος because the greater God dwells in Him (226 d), as the image of a king is honoured not for its own sake, but for the sake of the king. So the words, “They shall know Thee the only true God” cannot be referred to the Logos or Holy Spirit, but only to the Unbegotten (231).
In the work of creation He stands “midway between the begotten and the Unbegotten.” As with Origen and the Neoplatonists He is the “idea of the world,” the basis (θεμελιος) for all created things (213). And it is because of His connection with the world that lower predicates are attached to Him - He is now God's δημιουργημα (146 b) and υπουργος (257 b) ; the “second cause ” (216 b); “a second Lord” (227 d), and is said “to have attained secondary honours” (δευτερειων ηξιωσθαι) (227 d). So the Father is “Lord and God” of the Son (233 a).
In the Incarnation Eusebius teaches the distinctive doctrine of Origen that the Logos associates Himself with a pure, unfallen human soul. “He remains Himself immaterial and unembodied as He was before with the Father” (169 b). “No evil deed can harm Him, because He is not really embodied” (168). “He shared His own gifts with men, and received nothing in return” (ib.).
His Body is hut the earthen lamp through which His light shines (188). He comes to republish the true doctrine, from which man has fallen away through the deceptions of the dnemons, to establish a Church to preach it, and to bring man back to God. Once Eusebius uses the word συναποθεοω, “to deify men with Himself” as the object of the Incarnation (170). Five reasons are given for the Death on the Cross (167). It is chiefly the decisive triumph over the daemons, but it is also an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of men. “He offered Himself and the Humanity He assumed to the higher and greater God.” In His earthly life Christ now revealed the Humanity and |xxvii now the Divinity (165); and it is possible for Eusebius, leaving the Logos in the background, to devote part of a Book to meeting the common man on his own ground, and to treat of the perfection of Christ's life and teaching as merely human.
The missing Books no doubt dealt with the Risen and Ascended Christ, and the Holy Spirit. There are only hints on these topics in the Books before us. He is “Priest of the obedient to the Father” (164 d). There is a passage (220 a) which especially rouses the anger of de Billy, a famous student of the Greek Fathers in the sixteenth century. It is the interpretation of Ps. cix. : “The Lord said unto My Lord,” where the first Lord is said to mean the Father, and the second the Son, Who is thus confessed by the Holy Spirit in David, to be his Lord: “Quod quidem credere quid aliud est quam horrendae impietatis crimine se astringere!” (Billius, Obs. Sac. I. 29, p. 48).
It is clear that the theology of Origen is presented here either directly or by implication: Origen taught that God is the only real essence, that by the necessity of His Nature He reveals Himself; that by an act of will He eternally begets the Logos, which is His Consciousness, and also the Idea of the World; that the Logos being the Image of God is essentially God, not begotten in time nor out of the nonexistent; that He is no impersonal Force, but a Second Person in the Godhead. That as the Idea of the World He is subordinate, and in His office to creation both κτισμα and δημιουργημα; that His Incarnation is a Union (almost docetic) with an unfallen soul, with which He lives and which He draws up to Himself by bonds of mutual love; that His work on earth is chiefly the republication of truth to enlighten men blinded by daemons; that His Death was complete Victory over them, and also sacrificial; that the Humanity was gradually deified until at last the man Jesus passed into the Logos, and that this deification is the destiny of all who share the Logos now.
Such is a bald summary of perhaps the greatest theological system of antiquity, and it is obvious how it lies behind and beneath all that Eusebius says. Like Origen, he rests on Biblical exegesis and is dominated by the Rule of Faith; like Origen, he refrains from speculation on the mystery of the coming-into-being (ουσιωσις) of the Logos. He expresses |xxviii the point-of-view of a dominant theology in an assured tone. He speaks as one who voices the opinion of the great mass of cultured believers; for Origen was in possession, and Arius and the Homoousians were alike innovators.
The Creed of the Church of Caesarea, which Eusehius presented at Nicaea as an eirenicon to be accepted by both parties, embodied this theology. “It bears,” says Dr. Bright, “a considerable resemblance to that which the Council ultimately framed: it was emphatic on the personal distinctions in the Holy Trinity, asserting each Person to be and to exist as truly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; it recognizes “One Lord Jesus Christ as 'the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Only-begotten Son, First-born of all Creation, Begotten before all ages, and through Whom all things come into being,' and it mentioned also His becoming 'incarnate for our salvation, His Life among men, His Passion, Resurrection on the third day, Ascension to the Father, and future Coming in glory to judge (the) quick and dead,' and concluded as then quoted, with 'We believe also in one Holy Spirit'; yet it was not sufficiently explicit as to the main point at stake, His eternal relation to the Father.” 12
This deficiency was to be supplied by the inclusion of the Homoousion. The Son must be defined as “of the same essence” as the Father. No statement that He was begotten before time was adequate. The Logos must be distinctly separated from the created Universe. And this the Homoousion alone would effect for minds of that day. But it was unfortunately a suspected term. It had been anathematized at the Council of Antioch (A.D. 269) when employed by Paul of Samosata. Athanasius used it sparingly in its hour of victory. Later on the Semi-Arians rejected it as savouring of Sabellianism. No wonder it seemed to steady conservatives like Eusebius, who did not wish to define the ineffable, to head straight for Modalistic views. How could two “of the same essence” be aught but one under different aspects? The doctrinal trend of Eusebius, as Harnack recognizes, was to widen the gulf between the πρωτη αιτια and the Logos, rather than to lessen it. The |xxix Homoousion seemed perilously like filling it up. But with the necessary limitations he could conscientiously sign it. Safeguarded from Sabellian implications it was harmless. The theology of the Demonstratio shows quite clearly how and in what sense the word could be used credally by an exponent of the Origenic theology without any violence to conscience. It makes his attitude throughout the momentous days at Nicea intelligible and creditable to him as a peacemaker. The letter 13 he wrote to his diocese becomes no mere shuffling apology, but an honest statement. He makes it perfectly clear in what sense he understands the Homoousion. He explains that he has signed on the representation of the Emperor that “consubstantial” implied nothing physical, but must be regarded as having “a divine and mysterious signification.” Thus, he says that it does not imply that the Son is “a part of the Father,” nor does “Begotten, not made,” mean more than that the Son does not form part of the created Universe, and “does not resemble in any respect the creatures which He has made, but that to the Father alone, Who begat Him, He is in all points perfectly like; for He is of the essence and of the substance of none save the Father.”
He also said that he agreed to the anathemas on those who said that the Son “came out of the non-existent,” or that “there was a time when He was not,” because of the un-Scriptural nature of such expressions. Finally, he definitely asserted that the new formula was in agreement with the Creed that he had originally proposed.
Acquaintance with the Demonstratio guarantees the sincerity of the statement. If the Homoousion was to be understood as explained by Constantine, signing it involved no violent wrench with the past. It was capable of being transplanted into the creed of Eusebius. Even Origen had used the word in the sense now applied to it. If Eusebius signed with reluctance, he signed with sincerity.
There is a statement of Harnack's that the Logos-doctrine as held by Eusebius “effaced the historical Christ.” It would give the impression that theologians of the school of Origen necessarily followed the Gnostics |xxx in all their flights. If Hellenic speculation had been the only wing of their theology, they might logically have held a faith of mere abstractions. But the school, like its master, was marked by its devotion to Scriptural exegesis. It was Biblical to the core. Hence such a statement as Harnack's in the face of the earlier part of the Demonstratio appears grotesque and exaggerated. At any rate Eusebius' hold on the Gospel history was firm and sure. No one can read the third Book without realizing that Eusebius had an interest in the earthly life of our Lord that effectually neutralized the dangers of Gnostic abstract speculation. He had an evangelical sense of the value of all the words and deeds of the Incarnate Christ. His picture of Jesus Christ is not a mass of high-sounding phrases and Biblical images, it is the work of a pastor of souls, who, however abstract his formal theology may be, understands quite well, that it is the concrete historical facts that move men, not the philosophical theories that underlie them, and that the Word took flesh and wrought the Creed of Creeds, that He might enter in at the doors, not only of the lowly, but of all who are formed of human elements.
It will be useful, perhaps, to bring together here the passages in the Demonstratio which allude to the Eucharist. They are all incidental to the argument, and therefore doctrinally all the more interesting. They express the common sense of the Eastern Church on the subject in a spontaneous way.
(i) 37 b. sqq.-Jesus the Lamb of God by His sacrifice frees us from the Mosaic Law. “We are therefore right in celebrating daily His memory, and the Memorial of His Body and Blood (την τουτου μνημην του τε σωματος αυτου και του αιματος την υπομνησιν οσημεραι επιτελουντες).” “Thus we enter on a greater sacrifice and priestly act (θυσια and ιερουργια) than that of the ancients.” The earlier sacrifices were “weak and beggarly elements,” mere symbols and images (συμβολα και εικονες), not embracing truth itself.
We notice here the use of the words μνημη, υπομνησις, θυσια and ιερουργια, and the application of συμβολα και |xxxi εικονες in a depreciatory sense to the Jewish sacrifices, as not “embracing the truth.” The words are later on applied to the Sacraments, in the sense that they do embrace truth. (See Note on passage.)
A little lower it proceeds -
“We have received through Christ's mystic dispensation the symbols that are true, and archetypal of the images that preceded them” (τα αληθη και των εικονων τα αρχετυπα). For Christ offered to the Father “a wonderful sacrifice and unique victim” (θυμα και σφαγιον), and “delivered us a memory (μνημη) to offgr continually to God in place of a sacrifice (προσφερειν αντι θυσιας).”
This (μνημη is “celebrated on a table by means of the symbols of His Body and His saving Blood (επι τραπεζης δια συμβολων του τε σωματος αυτου και του σωτηριου αιματος).” It fulfils Ps. xxiii. 5. “Thus in our rites we have been taught to offer through our whole lives bloodless and reasonable and acceptable sacrifices through His Supreme High Priest.” (Cf. Pss. 1. 14, 15; cxli. 2; li. 17; Mal. i. 11.) It is our sacrifice of praise: “we sacrifice in a new way according to the new covenant, the pure sacrifice.” “A contrite heart” has been called a sacrifice to God (Ps. li. 17). And we burn the incense, “the sweet-smelling fruit of excellent theology, offering it by means of our prayers.” “So we sacrifice and burn incense, celebrating the memory of the great sacrifice in the mysteries which He has delivered to us, and bringing to God our Thanksgiving for our Salvation (την υπερ σωτηριας ημων ευχαριστιαν) by means of pious hymns and prayers, dedicating ourselves wholly to Him and His High Priest, the Word Himself, making our offering in body and soul (ανακειμενοι).”
Here we have συμβολον used in the sacramental sense; and the inner nature of the sacrifice is stressed; the real sacrifice is the contrite heart offered through the Great High Priest, and the incense (non-existent materially in the service then) is the θεολογια of the worshipper. It is a choral, prayerful self-dedication and Eucharist.
(ii) 223 b. - Christ fulfilled the priesthood of Melchizedek, not Aaron. “And our Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, after the manner of Melchizedek still even now accomplishes by means of His ministers the rites of His |xxxii priestly work amongst men.” Like Melchizedek, Christ first and His priests after Him “accomplishing their spiritual sacrificial work according to the laws of the Church, represent with wine and bread the mysteries of His Body and saving Blood” (οινω και αρτω του τε σωματος αυτου και του σωτηριου αιματος αινιττονται τα μυστηρια).
(iii) 380 d. - The expressions in Zech. ix. 9 and 15, are allusions to the Eucharist, and point to the joy given by the mystic wine, and the glory and purity of the mystic food. “For He delivered the symbols (συμβολα) of His divine dispensation to his disciples, bidding them make the image of His own Body (την εικονα του ιδιου σωματος ποιεσθαι).” Rejecting the Mosaic sacrifices, He delivered them bread to use as a symbol of His Body (αρτω χρησθαι συμβολω του ιδιου σωματος).
This further illustrates the use of συμβολον.
We gather from these passages: - (i) That the Mosaic Sacrifice, the Sacrifice on the Cross, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice are intimately related. The latter is a Memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross in a far higher sense than the Jewish sacrifices were foreshadowings uf it. They were but symbols that were unreal, the Eucharist is a symbol but it “embraces reality,” i.e. it includes what it represents. It is the archetype of which they were symbols.
(ii) The Eucharist is nothing, if it is not inward. It is a means for the offering of a contrite heart, and the incense of true knowledge of God. It is no mere outward act; in and through the outward act is the inner oblation.
(iii) Though in line with the Mosaic system the Eucharist is far more in line with the primeval offering of blessing made by Melehizedek with bread and wine, not with animal victims.
(iv) The Eucharist we gather was celebrated daily, and with music.
[Cf. Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, London, 1909, vol. i 109-111. A. Harnack, History of Dogma, iv. 291.]
§ 8. MSS., ETC.
The earliest MS. of the Demonstratio is the Codex known as the Medicean or “Parisinus 469,” of the twelfth century, |xxxiii registered in the Catalogue of the Library of Paris, vol. ii. p. 65. It is deficient at the beginning and end, beginning with the words η παιδισκη σοι, p. 17, and ending at της σωτηρος ημων παρακελευσεως, p. 688. These deficiencies were supplied by J. A. Fabricius in his Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, qui veritatem religionis Christianae adversos atheos . . . asseruerunt, who used a copy that had been made by Stephen Bergler, at Hamburg, in 1725, from a MS. in the possession of Nicholas Mavrocordato, Prince of Wallachia, who collected many Greek MSS. from Mount Athos and other monasteries. The MS. was unfortunately lost at the death of the Prince. Bergler gave no information about its age or condition. It was almost certain that it was either derived from Parisinus 469 before its mutilation, or from a MS. of the same family.
There are four other MSS. of the Demonstratio at Paris, parchments of the sixteenth century numbered 470, 471, 472 and 473 in the Catalogue, vol. ii. pp. 65, 66. And there is at St. John's College, Oxford, a parchment MS. of the fifteenth century (No. 41 in the Catalogue of O. Coxius, p. 12). As all these have the same deficiencies, there is little doubt that they come from the common source, Parisinus 469.
There is a sixth MS. in the Ambrosian Library, at Milan, of the fifteenth century, of the same family (Montfaucon in Bibliothcca Bibliothecarum, vol. i. p. 527). And a seventh was possessed by T. F. Mirandola, and was used by Donatus of Verona for his Latin version, first published at Rome in 1498.
Of the four later Paris MSS., 473 bears the date 1543, and was written at Venice (or 1533 according to Montfaucon, Diario Italico, p. 408) by Valeriano of Forli. One of the four was no doubt the foundation of Stephen's Paris edition of 1548.
The Oxford MS. was collated by Gaisford with this edition of Robert Stephen in 1548 with the minutest care. But in the opinion of Dindorf his work added little to the elucidation of the text, beyond the correction of a few slight mistakes of copying, the divergencies in the quotations from the LXX being probably changes made by later scribes in order to bring the quotations into agreement with the accepted text. |xxxiv
Dindorf's conclusion is that a satisfactory text is secured by the use of the Parisinus 469, on which his own edition (Teubner series) is based. It is, he says, comparatively free from the errors of transcribers, with the exception of some lacunae; (pp. 195 d, 210 a, 217 b), and from the frequent interpolations of the Praeparatio and the History, because the Demonstratio, having fewer readers, was seldom copied. There is, therefore, little room in the study of the text for conjectural emendation.
The first Edition of the Greek was that of Robert Stephen, 1548.
Viguier's Praeparatio was published at Paris in 1628, with the Demonstratio and other works of Eusebius, and the Latin translation of Donatus.
Gaisford's edition (2 vols., Oxford) appeared in 1852 with critical apparatus and the same Latin translation.
The Demonstratio forms vol. xxii. of the Greek Patrology of Migne (1857), who uses the Paris edition of 1628 with the same translation.
The most recent text is W. Dindorf's in the Teubner Series (Leipzig, 1867), from whose Preface the data of the above are drawn.
The Latin version of Donatus (Rome, 1498) was reprinted at Basle in 1542, 1549, 1559 and 1570, and with the Scholia of J. J. Grynaeus at Paris in 1587. It is remarkable for its omissions and alterations of passages doctrinally suspected.
The present translation is made from the text of Gaisford (Oxford, 1852), with reference to Migne.
The Contents of the First Book of the Proof of the Gospel of Our Saviour
1. The Object and Contents of the Work. 2. The Character of the Christian Religion. 3. That the System of Moses was not Suitable for All Nations. 4. Why is it we reject the Jews' Way of Life, though we accept their Writings? 5. The Character of the New Covenant of Christ. |xxxv 6. The Nature of the Life according to the New Covenant proclaimed by Christ. 7. How Christ having first fulfilled the Law of Moses became the Introducer of a New and Fresh System. 8. That the Christian Life is of Two Distinct Characters. 9. Why a Numerous Offspring is not as Great a Concern to us as it was to them of Old Time. 10. Why we are not bidden to burn Incense and to sacrifice the Fruits of the Earth to God, as were the Men of Old Time.
The Contents of Book II
1. That we have not embraced the Prophetic Hooks of the Hebrews without Aim and Object. 2. That their Prophets gave their Host Predictions for us of the Foreign Nations.
1, 2, 3. From Genesis. 4. From Deuteronomy. 5. From Psalm xxi. 6. From Psalm xlvi. 7. From Psalm lxxxv. 8. From Psalm xcv. 9. From Zechariah. 10, 11. From Isaiah.
3. That the same Prophets foretold that at the Coming of Christ All Nations would learn the Knowledge and Holiness of the God, Who formerly was only known to the Hebrews.
12. From Psalm ii. 13. From Psalm lxxi. 14. From Psalm xcvii. 15. From Genesis. 16, 17. From Zephaniah. 18. From Zecheriah. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. From Isaiah.
4. That the Call of the Gentiles coming to pass through Christ, there would be a Decline in the Jewish Nation from its Godly Holiness.
24, 25. From Jeremiah. 26. From Amos. 27. From Mienh. 28. From Zecheriah. |xxxvi 29. From Malachi. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35. From Isaiah.
5. That the Divine Promises did not extend to the whole Jewish Nation, but only to a few of them.
36, 37, 38, 39, 40,41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49. From Isaiah. 50, 51. From Micah. 52. From Zephaniah. 53. From Zechariah. 54, 55. From Jeremiah. 56, 57, 58, 59, 60. From Ezekiel.
The Contents of Book III
1. That the Prophets made Mention of the Gospel of Christ. 2. That they prophesied of Christ. 3. How we should reply to those who suppose Him to have been a Deceiver. 4. Of His Diviner Works. 5. Against those that disbelieve the Account of our Saviour's Miracles, given by His Disciples. 6. That He worked not His Miracles by Sorcery, but by Divine Virtue and Power. 7. That from this Working they who love Truth perceive also the Power of His Divinity.
The Contents of Book IV
1. Of the Mystical Dispensation of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Son of God. 2. That we hold that the Son of God was before the Whole Creation. 3. That we rightly teach that there are not many Sons of the Supreme God, but One only, God of God. 4. That the Only-begotten Son of God must be considered necessarily anterior to the Whole Universe. 5. That we hold that there are Numberless Divine Created Powers, but One alone of the Son, whereby we describe Him as the Image of God the Father. 6. That from the First Constitution of the Universe, the |xxxvii Christ of God has been the Invisible Guardian of Godly Souls. 7. That to the Hebrews alone of Old was the Knowledge of the True God revealed, being known by the Manifestation of Christ. 8. That the Other Nations assigned to Certain Angels, worshipped the Stars of Heaven. 9. Of the Hostile Power opposed to God, and of its Ruler, and how the Whole Race of Mankind was in Subjection thereto. 10. That the Only-Begotten Son of God of Necessity made His Entry among Mankind. 11. That He passed through the Life of Men. 12. That the Laws of Loving-kindness called Him even to them that had been long Dead. 13. That even when He was made Man He continued in the Nature that cannot suffer, nor be harmed, nor be embodied. 14. That renewing Humanity He afforded to us all the Hope of Eternal Good. 15. What the Advent of Christ is meant to shew forth, and that He is called God and Lord, and High Priest of the God of the Universe by the Hebrew Prophets. 16. In which Prophetic Scriptures the Christ is foretold by Name.
From Psalm ii. From Psalm xix. From Psalm xxvii. From Psalm lxxxiii. From Psalm lxxxviii. From Psalm cxxxi. From Amos. From Habakkuk. From the Lamentations of Jeremiah. From the First Hook of Kings. From Psalm xlv.
17. That the Name of Jesus was also honoured among the Ancient Saints.
From Exodus. From Zechariah. |xxxviii
The Contents of Book V
How the Hebrew Prophets predicted the Future, and shed the Light of True Theology. And how many Prophetic Voices made Mention of the Divine Pre-existence of the Saviour.
1. From the Proverbs. 2. From Psalm xlv. 3. Psalm cix. 4. Isaiah. 5. Psalm xxxii. 6. Isaiah. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Genesis. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Exodus. 18. From Numbers. 19. Joshua, son of Nave. 20. Job. 21. Psalm xc. 22. Hosea. 23. Amos. 24. Obadiah. 25, 26, 27. Zechariah. 28, 29. Malachi. Jeremiah
The Contents of Book VI
Of His Sojourn among Men from the following Scriptures.
1. From Psalm xvii. 2. From Psalm xlvi. 3. From Psalm xlix. 4. From Psalm lxxxiii. 5. From Psalm xcv. 6. From Psalm xcvii. 7. From Psalm cvi. 8. From Psalms cxvi. and cxvii. 9. From Psalm cxliii. 10. From Psalm cxlvii. 11. From the Second Book of Kings. 12. From the Third Book of Kings. 13. From Micah. 14. From Habakkuk. |xxxix 15. From the same. 16, 17, 18. From Zechariah. 19. From Baruch. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. From Isaiah.
The Contents of Book VII
1. What the Character of God's Sojourn among Men was from the following Scriptures.
1, 2, 3. From Isaiah.
2. Where it was prophesied that Christ should be horn.
4. From Micah. 5. From Psalm cxxxi.
3. From what Tribe it was announced that He should spring from the following Scriptures.
6. From the Second Book of Chronicles. 7. From Psalm lxxi. 8. From Isaiah. 9. From Jeremiah. 10. From Genesis.
The Contents of Book VIII
Of the Date of His appearing among Men from the following Scriptures.
1. From Genesis. 2. From Daniel. 3. From Micah. 4. From Zechariah. 5. From Isaiah.
The Contents of Book IX
Of the Things to be done in Connection with His Incarnation from the following Scriptures.
1. From Numbers. 2. From Isaiah. 3. From Numbers. 4. From Hosea. 5, 6. From Isaiah. 7. From Psalm xc. 8. From Isaiah. |xl 9. From Psalm lxvii. 10. From Isaiah. 11. From Deuteronomy. 12. From Job. 13, 14, 15, 16. From Isaiah. 17. From Zechariah. 18. From Psalm cxvii.
The Contents of Book X
Of the Conspiracy of Judas the Traitor and those with Him. to be formed against Christ, from the following Scriptures.
1. From Psalm xl. 2. From Psalm liv. 3. From Psalm cviii. 4. From Zechariah. 5. From Jeremiah.
Of the Events at the Time of His Passion.
6. From Amos. 7. From Zechariah. 8. From Psalm xxi.
The above list of chapters was given at the beginning of each book. It was lost from the Paris Codex for Book I together with the first pages of that book, and from the copies, one of which Robert Stephen used in his edition of 1545. In the Paris edition of 1628, the editor composed the headings of the first three chapters, and supplied the others from a second catalogue, which is given at the head of each chapter throughout the work. Though no doubt the catalogue was complete in the Mavrocordato Codex, Stephen Bergler omitted to give it in the portion of the work which he supplied for the edition of Fabricius.
The headings of the separate chapters, which are in our translation given in their places and form a second catalogue, are much fuller than the introductory list, being enriched by outlines of the prophetic passages that are used.
[Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end]
1. [1] Gifford, Praeparatio Evangelica, p. i. a, hereafter often cited as G.P.E.
2. [2] G.P.E., p. 3 b.
3. [3] G.P.E., p. 3 c.
4. [1] Lightfoot, D.C.B. ii. 329.
5. [2] Ibid. 331.
6. [1] Cambridge Theological Essays (London 1906), p. 350.
7. [1] J. F. Bethune-Baker, “Christian Doctrines and their Ethical Significance,” in Cambridge Theological Essays (London 1906), p. 571.
8. [2] C. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria.
9. [1] Christologies, Ancient and Modern, p. 40.
10. [2] Stanley, Eastern Church, iii. 80.
11. [3] History of Dogma, iii. 136 (note).
12. [1] W. Bright, Church of the Fathers, i. vi. 88. The creed is given. Theodoret, H. E. i. 1.
13. [1] Theodoret, H.E. i. 12.