Section 16
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LIFE OF EUSEBIUS. IX then, Eusebius attests that Pamphilus was then first known to him, it is sufficiently evident, that family alliance was not the tie that connected them. In those times occurred that most severe persecution of the Chris tians, which was begun J]>y_JDiocletiaii, and by his successors con tinued unto the Jenth year. During this persecution, Eusebius, at that time being a presbyter of the church of Csesarea, abode almost constantly in that city, and by continual exhortations, instructed many persons in order to martyrdom. Amongst whom was Apphianus, a noble youth, whose illustrious fortitude in martyrdom is related in Eusebius's book concerning the martyrs of Palestine. In the same year Pamphilus was cast into prison, where he spent two whole years in bonds. During which time, Eusebius by no means deserted his friend and companion, but visited him continually, and in the prison wrote, together with him, five books in defence of Origen ; but the sixth and last book of that work, he finished after the death of Pamphilus. — That whole work was by Eusebius and Pam philus dedicated* to Christian confessors,! living in the mines of Pa lestine. In the time of this persecution, on account, probably, of some urgent affairs of the church, Eusebius wejit to Tyre. During his residence there, he witnessed | the glorious martyrdom of five Egyptian Christians ; and afterwards, on his arrival in Egypt and Thebais, the persecution then prevailing there, he § beheld the admi rable constancy of many martyrs of both sexes. Some have in sinuated that Eusebius, to exempt himself in this persecution, from the troubles of a prison, sacrificed to idols ; and that this was ob jected against him, as will be hereafter related, by the Egyptian bishops and confessors, in the synod at Tyre. But we doubt not that this is false, and that it was a calumny forged by the ene* This is affirmed by Photius in his Bibliotheca, chap. 118. •{• Though the word here employed by Valesius, is confessorea, yet there cannot be the least doubt, that the characters to whom he alludes were very different from those which a more recent application of the term might intimate. Confessores were simply persons that had confessed and acknowledged openly, during the time of the persecution, that they were Christians, and would not, to save either their lives or property, deny their Master or his sacred cause. They were decided cha racters, tenaces propositi. This term was employed by Valesius, who lived in an age of the church when its use was popular. + Eusebius informs us of this in his Eighth Book, chap. 7. § This he relates in the ninth chapter of the same Book.