well known and recognized by most,” implying also that they were read in the churches.(219) It is somewhat remarkable that Eusebius does not mention the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians in this list. But he speaks of it in another place as a production whose authenticity was generally acknowledged,(220) and of its public use in most churches both formerly and in his own time. This wide-spread reading of it did not _necessarily_ imply canonicity; but the mode in which Eusebius characterizes it, and its extensive use in public, favor the idea that in many churches it was almost put on equality with the productions commonly regarded as authoritative. The canonical list was not fixed immovably in the time of Eusebius. Opinions about books varied, as they had done before. The testimony of Eusebius regarding the canon, important as it is, has less weight because of the historian’s credulity. One who believed in the authenticity of Abgar’s letters to Christ, and in the canon of the four gospels at the time of Trajan, cannot take rank as a judicious collector or sifter of facts. About 332 A.D. the Emperor Constantine entrusted Eusebius with the commission to make out a complete collection of the sacred Christian writings for the use of the Catholic Church. How this order was executed we are not told. But Credner is probably correct in saying that the code consisted of all that is now in the New Testament except the Revelation. The fifty copies which were made must have supplied Constantinople and the Greek Church for a considerable time with an authoritative canon. Eusebius’s catalogue agrees in substance with that of Origen’s. The historian followed ecclesiastical tradition. He inquired diligently into the prevailing opinions of the Christian churches and writers, with the views held by others before and contemporaneously with himself, but could not attain to a decided result. His hesitation stood in the way of a clear, firm, view of the question. The tradition respecting certain books was still wavering, and he was unable to fix it. Authority fettered his independent judgment. That he was inconsistent and confused does not need to be shown.