PREFACE

“THE following work,” in the words of its author, “is neither a romance nor a history in the form of a romance, but a ‘piece of biography,’ containing, therefore, good and evil intermingled, as they were developed in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian church. To exhibit truth and facts, irrespective of the pleasure or pain they might produce, was the design of the narrator.”

The translators believe this work to be adapted in character and style to the general reader no less than to the professional scholar, and are confident that the subject itself, and the happy treatment of it by Perthes, will render this volume an acceptable offering to the reading public. While its pages are eminently truthful and instructive, they also breathe a catholic spirit, and contain nothing at which any Christian may justly be offended.

In translating it has been our aim to give the sense of the original in plain, intelligible English. A few passages, mostly containing local references, have been omitted. An occasional note has also been inserted, and a closing chapter, drawn from Paniel’s History of Christian Eloquence,1 has been added to the original work.

This book is now sent forth to the public, with the hope that it may serve to awaken a fresh interest in the early history of the Christian church, and especially in the life and labors of one of its chiefest ornaments, well denominated by Neander, the CHRISTIAN HERO.

TRANSLATORS.