ABSTRACT

At the very time when Lactantius was composing his VI' 1110rtibus Perst:cutorum, Euscbius, Bishop of Cresarea in Palestine, himself als,) olle of Constantine's great administrators, was 1'1IdeavouTing to give an account of Christianity from its beginnings ill Greek, or more accurately, to make 11 careful choice and a suitable elassification of the documents handed down by tradition. The attitude of mind in which he pursued his task was not essentially different from that of Lactantius. In the llIind of Euscbius, ecclesiastical history was evangelical proof (Jr a particular kind. It was an account

of the stages by which the Church, firmly established upon the tradition embodied in the Bishops, and illuminated by the Holy Spirit which spoke through her foremost men, had successively passed, before her Providential reconciliation with the Roman power. And in the attempts of dissident sects, Eusebius always perceived the hand of the devil greedy for the ruin of souls, who used every endeavour to arrive at his hateful end. Such had been the innermost tendency of Christian history when, emerging from purely chronological investigations to which it had hitherto confined itself, it conceived higher ambitions j such it was to remain during the passage of time, setting forth the Divine will by recording the facts by which this will had been manifested. Lactantius had his share in impressing this character upon it. The De 111.ortibus Persecutorum marks a date.