The Antiquities of the Christian Church

Excerpt from The Antiquities of the Christian Church

In preparing the following summary of the rites and institutions of Ancient Christianity, the author has sought to make it intelligible to the English reader; and, at the same time, to present to the theological student a convenient book of reference, and to the scholar and antiquary a guide in his more extended and original investigations.

German authors, with a provoking reliance upon the scholarship of those who may consult their pages, are accustomed to overspread them with original quotations from the dead languages, and references to writers in every tongue, so that even the practised scholar but darkly threads his way through the endless mazes of their works. Much therefore remains for humbler minds in selecting, arranging, translating and condensing, before the researches of these great men can be made available to the mass of the reading public. This task, in the absence of a belter work, has been attempted in the preparation of the following pages; and in the execution of it the author has endeavored to perform the service only of a translator and compiler.

In the fulfilment of this duty, the original authorities, when introduced into the text, are followed by a translation; but more frequently they are transferred to the margin in the form of notes, or dismissed with a reference to the works from which they were taken, according as their importance seemed to require; and all for the purpose of presenting to the eye of the reader a fair English page.

For the same general reasons, the references are all brought together in an index at the end. These references, in the original, are accumulated to an excess even for German scholarship and scholastic affectation.

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