CHAPTER I.

FROM THE TIME OF THE APOSTLES TO THE COUNCIL

OF CHALCEDON.

SECTION I.

TO THE COUNCIL OF NICE, 325.

THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS-HEGESIPPUS-JULIUS AFRICANUS

EUSEBIUS.

I LEAVE to the Biblical critic the historical books of the sacred volume. The respect due to the inspired writings which form the canon of the New Testament, forbids my classing them with human records. I merely I merely observe that the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apostolical Epistles, afford ample and infallible information respecting the life and death of the Saviour, and the planting of the Christian Church; and at once pass on to the legitimate objects of the present inquiry.

The genius and circumstances of primitive Christianity were alike adverse to the production of any

very early history of the Church. Dead to the world, and engaged by the active duties and exercises of their holy calling, the first Christians were little likely to be under the influence of the mixed feelings, which usually originate literary undertakings; and insecurity and persecution were little favourable to composition and study. A season of action and of suffering was no time for the pursuits of literature. All they wrote was strictly of a moral nature. In the inspired writings of the New Testament, which were gradually communicated to all the Churches, they had a sufficient account of the origin and first establishment of the faith. In the eye of Christian humility, their own labours and sufferings were scarcely worth recording. The succession of the Bishops, and the acts of the Martyrs were at all events sufficient to establish their catholicity, and enliven their Christian courage. Their brief creeds were easily retained in the memory; and their cause was pleaded before the world by the converted philosophers and advocates, who were but too happy to employ in the service of the Church the acuteness and eloquence which they had learned to practise in the schools and the forum.

The latter part of the second century, however, produced a writer who is generally considered as the first historian of the Church. HEGESIPPUS',

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1 Hegesippus, vicinus Apostolicorum temporum, omnes a passione Domini, usque ad suam ætatem, Ecclesiasticorum actuum texens historias, multaque ad utilitatem legentium per

who appears to have flourished about A.D. 1701, "recorded in five books an unsophisticated account of the apostolical preaching in a very simple style"." A few fragments 3 only of his work have come down to us; and these, however interesting and valuable, throw no light on the form and method of the work to which they belonged. The chronicle of JULIUS AFRICANUS also, which was written towards the beginning of the third century, seems to have partaken of the nature of a Church-history. But it no

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tinentia hinc inde congregans, quinque libros composuit sermone simplici: ut quorum vitam sectabatur, dicendi quoque exprimeret characterem. S. Hieron. de Script. Eccles. cap. 22. But Jerome seems to have known nothing of Hegesippus but what he learned from Eusebius.

1 Fabr. Bibl. Græc. tom. v. p. 188. Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. ch. xiv. Works, vol. ii. p. 141. ed. 1788.

2 Ἐν τούτοις ἐγνωρίζετο Ἡγήσιππος, οὗ πλείσταις ἤδη πρότερον κεχρήμεθα φωναῖς· ὡς ἂν ἐκ τῆς αὐτοῦ παραδόσεως τινὰ τῶν κατὰ τοὺς ̓Αποστόλους παρατιθέμενοι, ἐν πέντε δὴ οὖν συγγράμμασιν οὗτος, τὴν ἀπλανῆ παράδοσιν τοῦ ̓Αποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος ἁπλουστάτῃ συντάξει γραφῆς ὑπομνηματισάμενος. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 8. p. 150. Edit. Reading.

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These fragments are enumerated by Cave, (Hist. Lit. an. 170) and have been collected by Grabe, (Spicil. tom. ii. p. 205-213) Gallandius, (Bibl. PP. tom. ii.) and Dr. Routh, Reliq. Sacr. tom. i.

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Τοῦ δ ̓ αὐτοῦ ̓Αφρικανοῦ καὶ ἄλλα τὸν ἀριθμὸν πέντε χρονογραφιῶν ἦλθεν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐπ ̓ ἀκριβὲς πεπονημένα σπουδάσματα. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. 31. p. 295. Julius Africanus, cujus quinque de temporibus exstant volumina. S. Hieron. de Script. Eccles. cap. 63.

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longer exists entire 1; and it is not easy to detect the portions of it which appear to have been inserted in the compilations of later annalists".

From this period, the materials of Ecclesiastical history are abundant. Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and several other Christian writers, throw much light on the condition of the Church in those early times. But with the exception of the two authors whom I have mentioned, no one appears to have treated the subject in a separate work. For the chronicle of Judas, which we know only by name,

It was read by Photius, who thus describes the author: Ἔστι δὲ σύντομος μὲν, ἀλλὰ μηδὲν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἱστορηθῆναι παραλιμπάνων. ἄρχεται δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Μωσαϊκῆς κοσμογονίας, καὶ κάτεισιν ἕως τῆς Χριστοῦ παρουσίας· ἐπιτροχάδην δὲ διαλαμβάνει καὶ τὰ ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ μεχρὶ τῆς Μακρίνου τοῦ Ῥωμαίων βασιλέως βασιλείας. Bibl. Cod. xxxiv. p. 9. ed. 1601.

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Cave, Hist. Lit. an. 220; Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. ch. xxxvii. Works, vol. ii. p. 435; Galland. Bibl. PP. tom. ii. Routh, tom. ii.

3 Ex illo licet hodie deperdito multa Eusebius in suo Chronico et Syncellus, Jo. Malala, Theophanes, Cedrenus aliique Chronologi, atque in his auctor Chronici Paschalis quod Alexandrinum vulgo vocant, tum latino-barbarus scriptor excerptorum utilissimorum ex Eusebio, Africano, et aliis, quæ Scaliger edidit ad calcem Chronici Hieronymiani, p. 58 sq. Fabr. Bibl. Græc. ν. 269.

4 Ἰούδας συγγραφέων ἕτερος, εἰς τὰς παρὰ τῷ Δανιὴλ ἑβδομήκοντα ἑβδομάδας ἐγγράφως διαλεχθεὶς, ἐπὶ τὸ δέκατον τῆς Σεβήρου βασιλείας ἵστησι τὴν χρονογραφίαν, ὃς καὶ τὴν θρυλλουμένην τοῦ ̓Αντιχρίστου παρουσίαν ἤδη τότε πλησιάζειν ᾤετο