The Work Was Really Eusebius’s

Shall I say plainly what you intended, my most simple-minded friend? Do you think we can believe that you unknowingly gave the martyr’s name to the book of a man who was a heretic, and so made the ignorant, through their trust in Christ’s witness, into defenders of Origen? Considering the learning you are famous for, so that you are praised throughout the West as a distinguished writer and the men of your party all speak of you as their chorus leader, I will not suppose that you are ignorant of Eusebius’s Catalogue, which states that the martyr Pamphilus never wrote a single book. Eusebius himself, the lover and companion of Pamphilus and the herald of his praises, wrote three books in elegant language containing the life of Pamphilus. In them he extols other traits of his character with extraordinary praise, and lauds his humility to the skies. But about his literary interests he writes as follows in the third book: “What lover of books was there who did not find a friend in Pamphilus? If he knew of any of them being in need of the necessities of life, he helped them as fully as he could. He would not only lend them copies of the Holy Scriptures to read, but would give them most readily, and not only to men but to women also, if he saw that they were devoted to reading. So he kept a store of manuscripts, so that he could give them to those who wanted them whenever the occasion called for it. He himself, however, wrote nothing whatever of his own, except private letters he sent to his friends, so humble was his opinion of himself. But he studied the treatises of the old writers with the greatest diligence, and was constantly occupied in meditating on them.” [a]