Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I:
The Church History of Eusebius.: Section 5

§5. Literature.

The literature upon Eusebius’ History is very extensive. Many of the editions already mentioned discuss, in their prolegomena, the History itself and Eusebius’ character as a historian, as do also all the lives of Eusebius referred to above, and all the larger histories of the Church. In addition to these we have numerous important monographs and essays, of which the following may be mentioned here: Möller, de Fide Eusebii in rebus christianis enarrandis, Havn. 1813; Danz, de Eusebio Cæsariensi Hist. Ecclesiasticæ Scriptore, Jenæ, 1815. This was mentioned in Chapter I. as containing a valuable discussion of the life of Eusebius. Its chief importance lies in its treatment of the sources of the Church History, to which the author devotes the whole of p. 56 Chap. III. which bears the title, de fontibus, quibus usus, historiam ecclesiasticam conscripsit Eusebius, pp. 76–144. Kestner, de Eusebii Historiæ Eccles. conditoris auctoritate, et fide diplomatica, sive de ejus Fontibus et Ratione qua eis usus est, Gottingæ, 1816; and by the same author, Ueber die Einseitigkeit und Partheiligkeit des Eusebius als Geschichtschreibers, Jenæ, 1819; Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Historiæ Eccles. Eusebianæ, Londini Gothorum, 1826; Reinstra, de Fontibus, ex quibus Historiæ Eccles. opus hausit Eusebius Pamphili, et de Ratione, qua iis usus est, Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1833; F. C. Baur, Comparatur Eusebius Historiæ Eccles. Parens cum Parente Historiæ Herodoto, Tüb. 1834; and pp. 9–26 of the same author’s Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung, Tüb. 1852; Dowling, Introduction to the Critical Study of Eccles. History, London, 1838, pp. 11–18; Hély, Eusèbe de Césarée, premier Historien de l’Église, Paris, 1877; J. Burckhardt, Zeit Constantins, 2d ed. 1880, pp. 307 sq. Burckhardt depreciates Eusebius’ value and questions his veracity. The review articles that have been written on Eusebius’ History are legion. I shall mention only Engelhardt’s Eusebius als Kirchengeschichtschreiber, in the Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. 1852, pp. 652–657; and Jachmann’s Bemerkungen über die Kirchengeschichte des Eusebius, ib. 1839, II. pp. 10–60. The latter contains one of the most unsparing attacks upon Eusebius’ honesty that has ever been made (see above, p. 49).