wrote his life, and took upon himself the surname of Pamphilus. That his admiration also of Origen did not diminish with increasing years, we find ample proof in his Ecclesiastical History, and in his succeeding works. He was by far the most learned bishop of his time; and, what is greater praise, he was moderate and unaspiring, in an age of clerical violence and ambition. Though the favorite of Constantine, he never abused his influence either for personal or party purposes; and when the great bishopric of Antioch was offered him, on the deposition of Eustathius, he declined exchanging his own diocess of Cesarea, for that of all the East, the third for dignity in christendom.

The latter part of his life was disturbed by the unholy and cruel contest which began to rage between the Arians and Trinitarians; in which he often concurred in the measures of the former, though he did not approve their doctrine. They were, in his time, the injured party. Whether his views on the contested question itself, were fully orthodox, is disputed; and it is certain that in the famous council of Nice, he not only urged the petulant bishops to adopt such a Declaration of Faith as both parties could receive, but that he also refused to subscribe their Creed, except with an interpretation of his own.20

VIII. The Arian controversy, to which we have just alluded, began, at Alexandria, about A. D. 317, bringing a dark cloud over the church, in the very morning of her political establishment. It spread,

20. Jortin (Remarks on Eccl. Hist. Vol. iii.) treats largely and impartially of Eusebius's character.

instantly, like a conflagration, over all Egypt, and soon involved Europe and Asia. The great and imposing synod of all christendom, which assembled, A. D. 325, at Nice, in Asia Minor, was called together, by the Emperor, with the vain hope of determining this dispute; but, though it managed to decide against Arius, by an almost unanimous decree, that the Son was CONSUBSTANTIAL with the Father, it resulted only in dignifying the contention, and enraging the temper of the partisans. These separated into three divisions: the Consubstantialists, or patrons of the Nicene Creed; the Semi-Arians, a sort of imperfect trinitarians; and the Arians, who held that Christ was a created being. A most disgraceful scene followed, till toward the close of this century. Council against council assembled, and deliberately opposed falsehood to falsehood, and fraud to fraud; deposition and excommunication were decreed, as either party gained a momentary ascendancy in the church; the imperial authority obsequiously enforced the mad decrees alternately of each sect, till it filled the deserts of Egypt, and the remote regions of the empire with exiled bishops; and the furious rabble, on both sides, resorted at length, to riots and massacres, to gratify their revenge, or to exercise their malicious zeal. The heathens, from whom the power of persecution had been so lately wrested, might have consoled themselves, in prospect of its being more effectually exerted in the self-destroying hands of a divided and factious national church.

A. D. 320, to 360.

Into this scene of contention we must now follow the history of Origen's doctrine. It does not, indeed, appear to have been, at first, so deeply implicated as some writers represent. The virulent attacks from which Pamphilus and Eusebius had defended him, seem to have subsided; and all the concern that his name, or his writings, had with the grand controversy, till some time past the middle of this century, may be described in a few words. As his great authority would give considerable advantage to any cause in which it was exerted, the several parties gladly availed themselves of it, whenever it could be brought to operate in their favor; but on the contrary, when it seemed to oppose their views, they would naturally endeavor to depreciate it. The Arians, however, do not appear to have been very confident of securing the patronage of his name, though some of them claimed him for their own. But of the two other parties, the Semi-Arians were generally his professed admirers; and the Consubstantialists, also, appealed to his testimony, as full and explicit upon their own side. So far as we know, only one of them, Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, incidentally impeached the soundness of his faith concerning the trinity.21 This was about A. D. 330. But he was an author whose complaint could have little weight, as it was suspected that his zeal against the damnable heresy of Arius, had precipitated him, on the other hand, into the perdition of Sabellianism. We must, here, digress

21. Eusebii Contra Marcell. Lib. i. See Du Pin's Biblioth. Patr. Art. Eusebius Pamphilus.

so far as to mention that Marcellus seems also to have held the doctrine of universal salvation, as at least to have used its language.22 To return, however, to the Arian controversy: The guardian genius of the Nicene faith, the great and intrepid Athanasius, always quoted Origen as orthodox; Hilary of Poictiers in France, the ablest and most active defender of the same faith, in the West, became an imitator of his writings; and so did Eusebius Vercellensis, 23 another Athanasian bishop of distinction, who presided over the churches scattered round the sources of the modern Po, in Italy. This example of their leaders was followed by most of the party. Some years afterwards, or about A. D. 370, when Basil the Great, Didymus, and the two Gregories Nazianzen and Nyssen, stood at the head of the Consubstantialists in the East, we find them among Origen's warmest admirers, defending him from the occasional claims of the Arians. This sketch, though brief, is a pretty full account of the treatment his name experienced in the Arian dispute, till A. D. 360, and indeed till several years later.

IX. On certain other subjects, however, not immediately connected with the main controversy, he was once attacked, during this period, with a very angry spirit, by Eustathius, an eminent orthodox bishop of the East. This prelate had been translated from the bishopric of Beroa, the modern Aleppo, to the great see of Antioch, about the time of the Nicene council;

22. Neander Allgem. Geschichte der Christl. Ral. und Kirche, Band ii. s. 609. He quotes Eusebius contra Marcell. Lib. ii. cap. 2 and 4; which I have not seen.

23. Hieronymi Epist. lxxiv. ad Augustin. Tom. iv. Part. ii. p. 627; and Epist. xxxvi. ad Vigilant. p. 276.

but in A. D. 330, he was deposed by an Arian faction, and, as we have observed, his archbishopric was offered, though in vain, to Eusebius Pamphilus, who had concurred with his adversaries. Whether it was after this deposition, that Eustathius made his attack upon Origen, cannot be determined; nor whether it was his motive to mortify his hated rival of Cesarea, by bringing a general odium on the favorite father, whom that learned historian had so highly extolled. But he published, at what time is unknown,24 a treatise against Origen, in which he assailed him with much asperity, and foolishly charged him with lying against the Scriptures, and with endeavoring to introduce idolatry and magic into the church. The professed object of his book was, like that of the Pythoness of Methodius, to prove that it was not the soul of the prophet Samuel, that the Witch of Endor raised, as Origen had somewhere asserted, but only a phantom, produced by the imposture of the devil. He frequently takes occasion, however, to rail against several other notions of Origen, particularly against his views of the resurrection, and his extravagant allegories. Of the latter he recites and misrepresents numerous instances, with the manifest design to expose his doctrine in the worst possible light; but in all this learned bishop's reproaches, which fell even upon Origen's style of writing, Universalism, it seems, escaped with impunity.25 And what is equally re

24. There is much uncertainty in the history of Eustathius. Some think he died about A. D. 337; others, that he lived till about A. D. 360. See Cave, Hist. Literaria, and Du Pin's Bibliotheca Patr. Art. Eustathius.

25. Eustath. de Engrastrimytho, adverses Origenem. I have not