Dr. Bright's lectures-on which the present work is basedwere carefully written out (although in delivering them he never adhered strictly to the text) in a series of ten note-books, of which the first is dated in 1870 and the eighth in 1873; the ninth and tenth bear no date, but internal evidence shows that the ninth was not completed before 1880 at the earliest. In all of them the narrative occupies the right-hand page, while the left-hand page is devoted to references and to quotations from original documents. In all of them new matter was from time to time incorporated in the narrative or added on the opposite page: but in the earlier there are abundant traces of a further and systematic revision, which was apparently undertaken in direct preparation for the printing of these volumes; and the discrepancy between the proofs as we received them and even the later note-books shows that a somewhat similar though less drastic revision must have been continued on the type-written sheets. The last note-book ends with the close of Chapter XLVII.: and for the two concluding chapters we have had at our disposal no other material than the printed slips. It is possible that the account of the Council of Chalcedon was only put on paper for the purpose of the present book. Before Dr. Bright's death the whole work had been typewritten; and pp. 1-320 of the first volume had received his final corrections and had been printed off. When therefore Dr. Bright asked me on his death-bed to be responsible for the publication, it seemed an easy task; but when we came to read over the pages already printed, we were compelled to recognize, as the list of errata will prove, that it had been with a rather failing eye and hand that Dr. Bright had worked at the end. Consequently it has been necessary—and this must be our excuse for the delay in publication-to examine the rest of the work carefully; to check statements by reference to the original manuscript and (occasionally) to the authorities on which they were based; to remove certain inconsistencies which had been caused by additions made at the last moment; at times to re-arrange the order of the material. The greater part of this task has been undertaken by Mr. C. H. Turner of Magdalen College, Assistant Lecturer to Dr. Bright during the years 1888-1901, whom I cannot adequately thank for the care with which he has executed it; but we have also been greatly helped by the Rev. R. G. Fookes, of Lea Rectory, Gainsborough, who has undertaken the laborious task of preparing the Index out of affectionate devotion to his friend and teacher. In one of his later poems, Dr. Bright gave touching expression to the dread which all must fear of the limitations of old age— "of the inward change On mind and will and feelings wrought; The stiffness that impedes the thought: The lapse of joy from less to less, The daily deepening loneliness." But to his despondent mood the answer seemed to come from the Psalmist's words, "They also shall bring forth more fruit in their age; "A voice responds: It need not be: These words have found a fulfilment already in the painstaking and unselfish efforts which others have made to render this book worthy of him and of its subject; and they will find a fuller response yet in many who will read it and catch some of the writer's enthusiasm for the Church and its Truth. WALTER LOCK. KEBLE COLLEGE, August 16, 1902. 28, line 1, add inverted commas after "Londinensi, 28, line 17, for "Adelphius," read "Adelfius," as in line 2. 54, line 11, for "pursuit," read "dispute." 68, line 38, for "Alexandria and Arius," read "Alexander and Arius." 77, line 1, for "much altered," read " must attend." 78, line 26, for "Heracles," read "Heraclea." 228, line 36, for "thought it their duty," read "thought it his duty." ,, 249, lines 10-12, read "This was the Homoean' theory, called 'Acacian' from Acacius, bishop of Cæsarea, its chief representative." 252, line 20, for "as," read " 260, line 15, for "Homoousion," read "the Homoousion." 280, line 16, for "the library of the Louvre," read "the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris." 280, line 22, for "this," read "thus." 291, line 15, for "these orthodox," read "those orthodox." ,, 301, line 33, for "grotesqne," read "grotesque." 306, line 6, for "campaign," read "campaigns." 311, line 21, for "Dorotorum," read "Dorostorum." 318, lines 39, 40, for "on one hand," read "on the one hand." THE AGE OF THE FATHERS CHAPTER I. THE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY. THE close of the last great Heathen persecution is naturally called the close of the primitive period of Church history. It is not without a deep moral significance that the supreme effort of the pagan world-power to trample out the life of the Kingdom that is not of this world should bear the name of Diocletian, rather than of its true originator Galerius. The able and far-sighted founder of a new Imperial system, affecting as he did on all occasions, in Gibbon's phrase, "the calm dignity" of a "Jove-like" ruler, in whom was represented the ascendency of reason over impulse, was long reluctant to inaugurate a new persecution against a large body of his subjects, whose religion had for more than forty years been formally recognised as licita, that is, as permissible under Roman law, and whose traditional "pertinacity pertinacity" had been proved in its previous collisions with the government. At last, indeed, he yielded to the urgency of Galerius, the savage-minded ex-herdsman whose domineering temper had begun to overawe him, and whose pagan superstition was an incentive to the worst barbarity against Christians; and having taken his resolve, he showed himself bent on suppressing the Church's worship not only by destroying buildings and annulling rights, but by crowding the prisons with all its ministers, and endeavouring by torture to make them apostatize. But he did not retain the Imperial power for more than two years and some two months VOL. I. B |