Section 30
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.07% accurate
LIFE OF EUSEBIUS. xxiii he speaks to the following effect : "As not inquiring into truths which admit of investigation, is indolence, so prying into others, where the scrutiny is inexpedient, is audacity. Into what truths ought we then to search ? Those which we find recorded in the Scriptures. But what we do hot find recorded there, let us not search after. For had the knowledge of them been incumbent on us, the Holy Spirit would doubtless have placed them there." Shortly after, he says : " Let us not hazard ourselves in such a risk, but speak safely ; and let not any thing that is written be blotted out." And in the end of his oration, he thus expresses himself: " Speak what is written, and the strife will be abandoned." In which passages, Eusebius, no doubt, alludes to the word 'o^oouo-.os. Finally, we now advert to the testimonies of the ancients concern ing Eusebius. Here one thing is to be observed, namely, however various the opinions of men have been, relative to the accuracy of the religious sentiments of Eusebius, all however, have unani mously esteemed him as a person of the most profound learning. To this we have to mention one solitary exception, Joseph Scaliger, who within the memory of our fathers, impelled by the current of teme rity, and relish for vituperation, endeavoured to filch from Eusebius those literary honours, which even his adversaries never dared to im pugn. Scaliger's words,* we have inserted amongst the testimonies of the ancients, not as any proof of our value of his judgment on this point, but for the accommodation of those desirous of knowing them, and with the design that his unwarrantable detraction might meet with the exposure it deserved ; who having resolved to write a commentary on the Chronological Canon of Eusebius, does not hesi tate to arraign St. Jerome himself, because he speaks of Eusebius as a most learned character. On Scaliger's opinion, we had at first de termined to bestow a more ample refutation ; but this we shall defer, until more leisure on the one hand, or a more urgent claim on the part of the reader, on the other, shall again call our attention to the subject. * See Scaliger's Blench. Trihseres. chap. 27 ; and book 6 de Emend. Temp, chap. 1, about the end : and his Animadversions on Eusebius's Chronicle, page 8.