But before the closing words of this paragraph, whatever be its meaning, be acknowledged as the genuine and undoubted production of Eusebius, I would suggest the careful weighing of some considerations, which appear to me to involve serious difficulties.
1. First, through all the voluminous works of Eusebius, I have found in no single passage any allusion to the prayers of saints departed, or to their ministering offices in our behalf, though numberless openings show themselves for the natural introduction of such a subject.
2. Secondly, among all the various works and treatises of Eusebius, I have not found one which is closed by any termination of the kind; on the contrary, they all end with remarkable suddenness and abruptness, precisely as this comment would end, were the sentence under consideration removed. Each, indeed, of the books of his Ecclesiastical History, is followed by a notice of the close of the book, in some cases too that notice involving a religious sentiment: for example, at the close of the 10th book we read: "With the help of God, the end of the tenth book." But that these are appendages made by an editor or scribe is evident in itself, and moreover in many instances is shown by such sentences as these, "And this we have found in a certain copy in the 8th volume:" "This is in some copies, as if omitted from the 8th book." I find no one instance of Eusebius bringing a chapter or a treatise to its close by any religious sentiment, or any termination of the nature here contemplated.
It is also difficult to conceive that any author, having the flow and connexion of the whole passage present to his mind, would himself have appended this ejaculation as we now find it. We know that editors and scribes often attached a sentiment of their own to the closing words of an author. And it seems far more probable, that a scribe not having the full drift of the argument mainly before him, but catching the expression, "heavenly vision," appended such an ejaculation. That the writer himself should introduce such a sentence by the connecting link of a relative pronoun feminine, which must of necessity be referred, not as the grammatical construction would suggest to the feminine noun preceding it,—not to any word expressed or understood in the intervening clause preceding it,—not to the last word in the sentence even before that intervening clause, nor yet to the principal and leading subject immediately under discussion and thrice repeated,—but to a noun incidentally introduced, seems, to say the least, strange and unnatural. "And they shall be for a spectacle to all flesh. To what flesh? Altogether to that which shall be somewhere punished? Nay, to that which shall of the heavenly vision be deemed worthy, concerning WHICH it was said before, All FLESH shall come to worship before me, of which may we also be deemed worthy by the prayers and intercessions of all the saints. Amen." But the classical reader will appreciate these remarks more satisfactorily by examining them with reference to the passage in the original language.
[Greek: Kai esontai eis orasin pasaei sarki. poiai de sarki; ae pantos pou taei kolasthaesomenaei; taes de epouraniou theas kataxiothaesomenaei peri HAES anotero elegeto aexei pasa sarx tou proskunaesai enopion mou, HAES kai haemeis axiotheiaemen euchais kai presbeiais panton ton hagion, amaen.]
Note.—Page 181.
ATHANASIUS.
In the text I observed that some Roman Catholic writers of the present day had cited the homily there shown to be utterly spurious, as the genuine work of St. Athanasius, and as recording his testimony in defence of the invocation of Saints. The passage there referred to Dr. Wiseman thus introduces, and comments upon.
"St. Athanasius, the most zealous and strenuous supporter that the Church ever possessed of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and consequently of his infinite superiority over all the saints, thus enthusiastically addresses his ever-blessed Mother: 'Hear now, O daughter of David; incline thine ear to our prayers. We raise our cry to thee. Remember us, O most holy Virgin, and for the feeble eulogiums we give thee, grant us great gifts from the treasures of thy graces, thou who art full of grace. Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Queen and mother of God, intercede for us.' Mark well," continues Dr. Wiseman, "these words; 'grant us great gifts, from the treasures of thy graces;' as if he hoped directly to receive them from her. Do Catholics use stronger words than these? Or did St. Athanasius think or speak with us, or with Protestants?"
In answer to these questions I reply with sure and certain confidence, first, that the genuine words of St. Athanasius himself prove him to have spoken and thought with the Anglican Church, and not with the Roman Church on the invocation of saints and angels, and the blessed Virgin Mary; and secondly, that whatever words Roman Catholics use, whether stronger or not than these, these words on which the above questions are put, never came forth from the pen of St. Athanasius. Their spuriousness is not a question of doubt or difficulty. It has been shown in the text that the whole homily has been for ages utterly repudiated, as a work falsely attributed to St. Athanasius. It is indeed very disheartening to those, whose object is the discovery and the establishment of the truth, to find works cited in evidence as the genuine productions of primitive Christian teachers, which have been so long ago, and so repeatedly, and that not by members of another communion, but by the most learned men of the Church of Rome, adjudged to be spurious. I do not mean that I think it not fully competent for a writer of the present day to call in question, and overrule and set aside the decisions of former editors, as to the genuine or the spurious character of any work. On the contrary I am persuaded that a field is open in that department of theology, which would richly repay all the time and labour and expense, which persons well qualified for the task could bestow upon its culture. What I lament is this, that after a work has been deliberately condemned as unquestionably spurious, by competent and accredited judges for two centuries and a half at the least, that very work should be now cited as genuine and conclusive evidence, without any the most distant allusion to the judgment which had condemned it, or even to any suspicion of its being a forgery. In this instance, also, Dr. Wiseman has implicitly followed the compilation of Messrs. Berington and Kirk. This is evident, because the extract, as it stands word for word the same in his Lectures and their compilation, is not found as one passage in the spurious homily, but is made up of sentences selected from different clauses, and put together so as to make one paragraph. It is worthy of notice, that in quoting their authority, both Dr. Wiseman, and those whom he follows, refer us to the very volume in which the Benedictine editors declare that there was no learned man, who did not pronounce the work to be spurious; and in which also they quote at length the letter of Baronius which had proved it to be a forgery. [Dr. Wiseman's Lectures, vol. ii. p. 108, from Berington and Kirk, p. 430, 431.]