Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/12

 vi  for those of our own Church, and deserve accordingly some special  treatment. It was thought, therefore, that a Dictionary of Christian Biography which confined itself to this formative and authoritative period  of the Church's history would be of special interest and service, not only  to the clergy, but also to the Christian laity and to students for Holy Orders.

But the limitation of such a work to this period at once disembarrassed our pages of the mass of Teutonic, and sometimes almost pagan, names with which, after the settlement of the barbarians in Europe, we were overwhelmed; and thus of itself rendered it possible to bring the work into much narrower compass. Moreover, a mass of insignificant names, which the principles of scholarly completeness obliged us to introduce into the larger Dictionary, were not needed for the wider circle now in contemplation. They were useful and necessary for purposes of learned reference, but they cast no light on the course and meaning of Church history for ordinary readers. We have had to exercise a discretion (which may sometimes seem to have been arbitrary) in selecting, for instance, from the 596 Johns just mentioned those which were the most valuable for such readers as we had in view; and for the manner in which we have exercised that discretion we must trust ourselves to the indulgent judgment of our readers. The publisher gave us generous limits; but it seemed to him and to ourselves indispensable for the general usefulness of the Dictionary that it should be restricted to one volume; and we were thus, with respect to the minor names, obliged to omit many which, though of some interest, seemed to be such as could be best dispensed with.

By omissions of this nature we have secured an object which will, we are sure, be felt to be of inestimable value. We have been able to retain, with no material abbreviation, the admirable articles on the great characters of early Church history and literature which were contributed, with an unselfish devotion which can never be sufficiently acknowledged, by the great scholars who have been the glory of the last generation or two of English Church scholarship, and some of whom are happily still among us. To mention only some of the great contributors who have passed away, such articles as those of Bp. Westcott on Clement of Alexandria and Origen, Bp. Lightfoot on Eusebius, Archbp. Benson on St. Cyprian, Dr. Bright on St. Athanasius and kindred subjects, Dr. Salmon on varied subjects of the first importance, Bp. Stubbs on early English history, and some by the learned Professor Lipsius of Jena, have a permanent value, as the appreciations of great characters and moments of Church history and literature by scholars and divines who have never been surpassed, and will hardly be equalled again, in English sacred learning. We deemed it one of the greatest services which such a work as this could render that it should make accessible to the wide circle in question these unique masterpieces of patristic and historical study. It has therefore been one of our first objects to avoid, as far as possible, any abbreviation of the body of these articles. We have occasionally ventured on slight verbal condensation in secondary passages, and we have omitted some purely technical discussions of textual points, and of editions. But in the main the reader is here placed in possession, within the compass of a moderate volume, of what will probably be allowed to be at once the most valuable and the most interesting series of monographs, on the chief characters and incidents of early Church history, ever contributed to a single undertaking by a band of Christian scholars. We feel it no more than a duty to pay this tribute of gratitude and admiration  to the great divines, to whose devotion and learning all that is permanently valuable in these pages is due, and we are confident that their monographs,