But the body of the work has been translated from manuscript by Dr. Some portions I have myself reproduced in English, and have made considerable additions throughout in the final revision of the copy for the press. I have prepared the work in German, and have sent the copy to Leipsic, where a German edition will appear simultaneously with the American. Yeomans, of Rochester, for his invaluable assistance in bringing these volumes before the public in a far better English dress than I could have given them myself. I must again express my profound obligation to my friend, the Rev. Whether, and how far, I have succeeded in this, competent judges will decide. With all due regard for the labors of distinguished predecessors and contemporaries, I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, to combine fulness of matter with condensation in form and clearness of style, and to present a truthful and lively picture of the age of Christian emperors, patriarchs, and ecumenical Councils. Thus times and talents supplement each other. In learning, acumen, judgment, and reverent spirit, these and similar works are fully equal, if not superior, to the best productions of the modern Teutonic press while we cheerfully concede to the latter the superiority in critical sifting, philosophical grasp, artistic reproduction of the material, and in impartiality and freedom of spirit, without which there can be no true history. I need only refer to the Benedictine editors of the fathers to the Bollandists, in the department of hagiography to Mansi and Hardouin, in the collection of the Acts of Councils to Gallandi, Dupin, Ceillier, Oudin, Cave, Fabricius, in patristics and literary history to Petau’s Theologica dogmata, Tillemont’s Mémoires, Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicaenae, Bingham’s Antiquities, Walch’s Ketzerhistorie. In the progress of the work I have been filled with growing admiration for the great scholars of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century, who have with amazing industry and patience collected the raw material from the quarries, and investigated every nook and corner of Christian Antiquity. In addition to the primary sources, I have constantly consulted the later historians, German, French, and English. I have used different editions of the fathers (generally the Benedictine), but these I have carefully indicated when they vary in the division of chapters and sections, or in the numbering of orations and epistles, as in the works of Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, Augustine, and Leo. Especially am I indebted to the Astor Library, and the Union Theological Seminary Library of New York, which are provided with complete sets of the Greek and Latin fathers, and nearly all other important sources of the history of the first six centuries. But, on the other hand, I have had the great advantage of constant and free access to several of the best libraries of the country. In preparing this part of my Church History for the press, I have been deprived of the stimulus of an active professorship, and been much interrupted in consequence of other labors, a visit to Europe, and the loss of a part of the manuscript, which had to be rewritten. This accounts for the continuous paging of the second and third volumes. It was intended at first to condense the third period into one volume, but regard to symmetry made it necessary to divide it into two volumes of equal size with the first which appeared several years ago. This concludes my history of Ancient Christianity. With sincere thanks to God for continued health and strength, I offer to the public a history of the eventful period of the Church from the beginning of the fourth century to the close of the sixth.
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