EUSEBIUS: SON OF PAMPHILUS ¹

THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL

BOOK 1

INTRODUCTION ²

SEE now, Theodotus,³ miracle of bishops, holy man of God, I am carrying through⁴ this great work with the help of God and our Saviour the Word of God, after completing at the cost of great labour my Preparation for the Gospel {2} in fifteen books.

Grant then, dear friend, my request, and labour with rue henceforward in your prayers in my effort to present the Proof of the Gospel from the prophecies extant among the Hebrews from the earliest times. I propose to adopt this method. I propose to use as witnesses those men, beloved by God, whose fame you know to be far-spread in the world: {2} Moses, I mean, and his successors, who shone forth with resplendent godliness, and the blessed prophets and sacred writers. I propose to shew, by quotations from them, how they forestalled events that came to the light long ages after their time, the actual - 2 -  circumstances of the Saviour's own presentment of the Gospel, and the things which in our own day are being fulfilled by the Holy Spirit before our very eyes. It shall be my task to prove that they saw that which was not present as present, and that which as yet was not in existence as actually existing; and not only this, but that they foretold in writing the events of the future for posterity, so that by their help others can even now know what is coming, and look forward daily to the fulfilment of their oracles. What sort of fulfilment, do you ask? {3} They are fulfilled in countless and all kinds of ways, and amid all circumstances, both generally and in minute detail, in the lives of individual men, and in their corporate life, now nationally in the course of Hebrew history, and now in that of foreign nations. Such things as civic revolutions, changes of times, national vicissitudes, the coming of foretold prosperity, the assaults of adversity, the enslaving of races, the besieging of cities, the downfall and restoration of whole states, and countless other things that were to take place a long time after, were foretold by these writers.

But it is not now the time for me to provide full proof of this. I will postpone most of it for the present, and perhaps, from the truth of what I shall put before you, there will be some guarantee of the possibility of proving what is passed over in silence.