Excerpt from Early History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2: From Its Foundation to the End of the Fifth Century I prefaced my first volume with the mention of Eusebius. And it is again under the patronage of the Bishop of Caesarea that the present one begins. The last three books of his Ecclesiastical History, and the four books of his Life of Constantine deal with nearly the whole of the subject-matter of my first five chapters. Faithful to his custom of reproducing his authorities, Eusebius has preserved to us, for the time in which he himself lived, a great number of official documents. We should have been glad if he had more often given expression to his own recollections and impressions; but unfortunately, the nearer the events which he relates approach to his own time, the more afraid he seems to be of seeing them clearly, and above all of relating them. With the exception of the general glorification of the Church, and the special eulogy of Constantine, everything else in his pages is enveloped in so much reserve, with so many oratorical safeguards, and so many things hinted at rather than affirmed, that we have often a difficulty in finding out what he really means. After Eusebius, the history of the Church remained for a long time neglected, Rufinus of Aquileia was the first to give himself anew to the task. To his translation of the Ecclesiastical History executed at the time when Alaric was devastating Italy, he added two supplementary books, in which the narrative was continued to the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395). His work is a sufficiently mediocre production, hastily put together and devoid of interest save for the last pages, where the author relates events of which he had himself been witness. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."