principles. The full moral consequences of the teaching would only then
be seen, if ever a generation should grow up, moulded altogether under
its influences.




II. THE SILENCE OF EUSEBIUS.

[JANUARY, 1875.]


'It is very important,' says the author of _Supernatural Religion_, when
commencing his critical investigations, 'that the silence of early
writers should receive as much attention as any supposed allusions to
the Gospels.' [32:1] In the present article I shall act upon this
suggestion. In one province more especially, relating to the external
evidences for the Gospels, silence occupies a prominent place. This
mysterious oracle will be interrogated, and, unless I am mistaken, the
response elicited will not be at all ambiguous.

To EUSEBIUS we are indebted for almost all that we know of the lost
ecclesiastical literature of the second century. This literature was
very considerable. The Expositions of Papias, in five books, and the
Ecclesiastical History of Hegesippus, likewise in five books, must have
been full of important matter bearing on our subject. The very numerous
works of Melito and Claudius Apollinaris, of which Eusebius has
preserved imperfect lists [32:2], ranged over the wide domain of
theology, of morals, of exegesis, of apologetics, of ecclesiastical
order; and here again a flood of light would probably have been poured