Ecclesiastical History

Page 6

...[translators], preserving therein the grace, style, and glory of the ancestors in their translation; so that those who wish to benefit from the knowledge of the book may profit from the new version which was placed into the original text. Whereas the ancient translation we have arranged below in small print, so that inquiring Armenophiles Armenophiles: scholars and enthusiasts of Armenian language and culture may also gain a taste of that version. There were also, in our ancient copies, missing pages here and there; we have left them as they are, noted only in the commentary. For although many chapters of the book existed scattered in various Charentir Charentir: A "Selected Discourses" collection or anthology of ecclesiastical and hagiographic writings and in the collections of the ancestors, yet we did not make haste regarding those, but followed only one copy that was found among our manuscripts. This was done until, in time, having encountered an even more choice manuscript, we—or perhaps others—might be able to offer a more correct reading to philologists, according to the authentic meanings of the translators.

These are the principal works of Eusebius which we now have in hand. But there are also other various minor writings and letters, about which we consider it superfluous to dwell at length in this place. These are the things he wrote during his lifetime, which glorify his name; but not so with the things he did. For as much as he stood glorious in his expertise, so much did he go astray in the affairs and circumstances of his life.

In the turmoil of the Arians Arians: Followers of Arius, who taught that Jesus Christ was a created being, subordinate to God the Father; a view declared heretical at the Council of Nicaea, he did not know how to keep himself on the right path, but either through the disease of ambition or by flattery—which you may see fully in his Life of Constantine Eusebius's panegyric biography of Emperor Constantine the Great, which often borders on excessive praise., addressed to that same Emperor—he always stood in support not so much of the sect itself as of the sectarians. For it appears that even at the Council of Nicaea The first ecumenical council of the Christian Church in 325 AD, which established the orthodox creed. he accepted the term "Consubstantial" original: "Hamagoy" (Համագոյ); the Armenian equivalent of the Greek Homoousios, meaning "of the same substance" or "of one essence" with the Father., although in this book and elsewhere he does not...