PREFACE TO THE THIRD REVISION.
This third x'olume covers the eventful period of Christian emperors, patriarchs, and oecumenical councils, from Constantine the Great to Gregory the Great. It completes the History of Ancient Christianity, which is the common inheritance of Greek, Latin, and Evangelical Christendom.
The first edition was published in 1867, and has not undergone any important changes. But in the revision of 1884 the more recent literature was added in an Appendix, pp. 1029-1039.
In this edition the Appendix has been revised and enriched with the latest literature. A few changes have also been made in the text to conform it to the present state of research (e.g.^ pp. 29, 353, 688, 689).
New York, July, 1889.
THE AUTHOR.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
While preparing this part of my Church History for the press, I was deprived of the stimulus of an active professorship, and 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. But, on the other hand, I had the great advantage of free access to several of the best libraries. I am especially 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 ancient church history.
I have used different editions of the fathers (generally the Benedictine), but they are carefully indicated when they vary in the division of chapters and sections, or in the numbering of ora-
viii FKOM THE preface to the first edition.
tions and epistles, as in the works of Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, Augustin, and Leo. In addition to the primary sources, I have constantly consulted the later historians, German, French, and English.
During the progress of the work I was filled with growing admiration for the great scholars of the seventeenth century, and early part of the eighteenth, who have with amazing industry and patience collected the raw material from the quarries, and investigated every nook and corner of Christian antiquity. I need only refer to the Benedictixk 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 Gallaxdi, Dupix, Ceillier, Oudin, Cave, Fabricius, in patristics and literary history ; to Petau's Theologica dogmata, Tillemont's Memoircs, Bull's Befensio Fidei Nicmioe., Bingham's Antiquities, Walcii's Ketzerhistorie. In learning, acumen, and reverent spirit, these and similar works are fully equal, if not superior, to the best productions of modern scholars ; while the latter excel in critical sifting, philosophical grasp, and artistic reproduction of the material, and especially in that impartiality and freedom, without which there can be no true history. Thus times and talents supplement each other.
The work has been truly a labor of love, which carries in it its own exceeding great reward. For nothing can be more delightful and profitable than to revive, for the benefit of the living generation, the memory of those great and good men who were God's own chosen instruments in expounding the divine truths, and in spreading the blessings, of Christianity over the face of the earth.
PHILIP SCHAFF.
New York, November 8, 1866.
CONTENTS.
THIRD PERIOD. NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHEISTIANITY.
FROM CONSTANTINE THE GREAT TO GREGORY THE GREAT, a.d, 311-590.
Sources and Literature, 1
§ 1. Introduction and General View, 4
CHAPTER L
DOWNFALL OF HEATHENISM AND VICTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRK.
Sources and Litemture, 10
§2. Constantine the Great: A.D. 306-337, 11
§3. Tlie Sons of Constantine: A. D. 337-361, 37
§ 4. Julian the Apostate, and the Reaction of Paganism : a. d. 361-363, . 3'J
§5. From Jovian to Theodosius : a. d. 363-392, 53
§6. Theodosius the Great and his Successors : a. d. 392-550, ... 63