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| But the work was really Eusebius's, who tells us that Pamphilus wrote nothing. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
9. Am I to say plainly what
your intention was, my most simple-minded friend? Do you think that we
can believe that you unwittingly gave the name of the martyr to the
book of a man who was a heretic, and thus made the ignorant, through
their trust in Christ’s witness, become the defenders of Origen?
Considering the erudition for which you are renowned, for which you are
praised throughout the West as an illustrious litterateur,3014 so that the men of your party all speak of
you as their Coryphæus, I will not suppose that you are ignorant
of Eusebius’3015
3015 Συντάγμα. No work of Eusebius appears to have borne this title. The
work alluded to is either the Life of Pamphilus or the Book
On the Martyrs of Palestine. | Catalogue, which
states the fact that the martyr Pamphilus never wrote a single book.3016
3016 “The existence of a work which consisted mainly of extracts
from Origen with Comments, and of which he was only the joint author,
is quite reconcilable with this statement. Indeed, the very form of the
expression in the original, corresponding to ‘ipse
quidem’ ‘proprii’ was probably chosen so as to
exclude this work of compilation and partnership.” Lightfoot,
Art. Eusebius of Cæsarea, in Dict. of Christian
Biography. | Eusebius himself, the lover and companion
of Pamphilus, and the herald of his praises, wrote three books in
elegant language containing the life of Pamphilus. In these he extols
other traits of his character with extraordinary encomiums, and praises
to the sky his humility; but on his literary interests he writes as
follows in the third book: “What lover of books was there who did
not find a friend in Pamphilus? If he knew of any of them being in want
of the necessaries of life, he helped them to the full extent of his
power. He would not only lend them copies of the Holy Scriptures to
read, but would give them most readily, and that not only to men, but
to women also if he saw that they were given to reading. He therefore
kept a store of manuscripts, so that he might be able to give them to
those who wished for them whenever occasion demanded. He himself
however, wrote nothing whatever of his own, except private letters
which he sent to his friends, so humble was his estimate of himself.
But the treatises of the old writers he studied with the greatest
diligence, and was constantly occupied in meditation upon
them.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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