IV. Dogmatic Works.
General Elementary Introduction (E katholou stoicheiodes eisagoge). This work consisted of ten books, as we learn from a reference to it in the Eclogae Propheticae, IV. 35. It was apparently a general introduction to the study of theology, and covered a great variety of subjects. Five brief fragments have been preserved, all of them apparently from the first book, which must have dealt largely with general principles of ethics. The fragments were published by Mai (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 316), and are reprinted by Migne (Opera, IV. 1271 sq.). In addition to these fragments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth books of the work are extant under the title:
Prophetical Extracts (Prophetikai 'Eklogai). Although this formed a part of the larger work, it is complete in itself, and circulated independently of the rest of the Introduction. It contains extracts of prophetical passages from the Old Testament relating to the person and work of Christ, accompanied by explanatory notes. It is divided into four books, the first containing extracts from the historical Scriptures, the second from the Psalms, the third from the other poetical books and from the prophets, the fourth from Isaiah alone. The personality of the Logos is the main topic of the work, which is thus essentially dogmatic, rather than apologetic, as it might at first glance seem to be. It was composed during the persecution, which is clearly referred to in Book I. chap. 8 as still raging; it must have been written therefore between 303 and 313. The date of these books, of course, fixes the date of the General Introduction, of which they formed a part. The Eclogae are referred to in the History, I. 2. On the other hand, they mention the Chronicle as a work already written (I. 1: Opera, p. 1023); a reference which goes to prove that there were two editions of the Chronicle (see above, p. 31). The four books of the Prophetical Extracts were first published by Gaisford in 1842 (Oxford) from a Vienna ms. The ms. is mutilated in many places, and the beginning, including the title of the work, is wanting. Migne has reprinted Gaisford's edition in the Opera, IV. 1017 sq.
On the Paschal Festival (peri tes tou p?scha he& 231;rtes). This work, as Eusebius informs us in his Vita Const. IV. 34, was addressed to the Emperor Constantine, who commends it very highly in an epistle to Eusebius preserved in the Vita Const. IV. 35. From this epistle we learn, moreover, that the work had been translated into Latin. It is no longer extant in its entirety, but a considerable fragment of it was discovered by Mai in Nicetas' Catena on Luke, and published by him in his Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. p. 208 sq. The extant portion of it contains twelve chapters, devoted partly to a discussion of the nature of the Passover and its typical significance, partly to an account of the settlement of the paschal question at the Council of Nicaea, and partly to an argument against the necessity of celebrating the paschal feast at the time of the Jewish Passover, based on the ground that Christ himself did not keep the Passover on the same day as the Jews.
Jerome, although he does not mention this work in his catalogue of Eusebius' writings (de vir. ill. 81), elsewhere (ib. 61) states that Eusebius composed a paschal canon with a cycle of nineteen years. This cycle may have been published (as Lightfoot remarks) as a part of the writing under discussion. The date of the work cannot be determined with exactness. It was written after the Council of Nicaea, and, as would seem from the connection in which it is mentioned in the Vita Constantini, before the Emperor's tricennalia (335 a.d.), but not very long before. The extant fragment, as published by Mai, is reprinted by Migne in the Opera, VI. 693-706.
