Ecclesiastical History

1He says he does not know who the author of the Maccabean books is. Yet he judges the first book worthy of acceptance, as narrating in agreement with the prophecies of Daniel (Daniel 8; Daniel 11), and as relating with great foresight how the wickedness of men drove the affairs of the Jews to the extreme of evils, and how again the virtue of men raised them up, and then they won power against their enemies and the temple was cleansed of Hellenic pollutions.

The second book, he says, does not show the same author; it is a synopsis of what Jason of Cyrene wrote in five discourses, reporting the war that Judas Maccabeus fought against Antiochus Epiphanes and against his son surnamed Eupator. The third he rejects, calling it monstrous and relating nothing like the first. The fourth he himself agrees was written by Josephus, yet he says it is not so much a history as an encomium, narrating the affairs of Eleazar and the seven Maccabean boys.

Of Phlegon, as Philostorgius says: the disasters that fell upon the Jews Phlegon and Dio mention only briefly, inserting them as a digression in their own narratives; for of those things that draw toward piety and the other virtue, neither this writer nor they are shown to have taken any care. Josephus, on the contrary, seems fearful and cautious lest he give offense to the Greeks.

As for the rest, and so far as history is concerned, Philostorgius praises Eusebius the son of Pamphilus, yet says that he errs concerning piety. Explaining the fault, the writer — himself of the opposite party — says that Eusebius held the divine to be unknown and incomprehensible, and that he goes wrong in other such matters as well. He also bears witness that Eusebius brought his own historical memoirs down only as far as the succession of the sons of Constantine the Great.

This same writer says that when the votes for the high priesthood were going toward Arius, Arius preferred Alexander to himself and arranged that they should come round to him. He says that a certain Alexander, a presbyter nicknamed Baukalis — so called because a mass of overgrown flesh heaped on his back resembled the shape of an earthen jar, which people in those parts are accustomed to call baukalai — held the second rank and began the cause from which the quarrel between bishop Alexander and Arius broke out, and that from there the proclamation of the homoousion was devised.

Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, he says, was appointed king for valor in the upper Gauls, in which are also the so-called Alps — hard countries to enter and approach; what were once called Galatiai people now name Galliai (Gaul). Constantius died in the place called Eboracum (York); there Constantine his son, having fled Diocletian's plot in a remarkable escape, found him sick, buried him at his death, and was established as successor to the kingdom.

He also records, agreeing with the others, that Constantine the Great's change from Hellenic worship to Christianity had as its cause the victory over Maxentius.