Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/27



adequate and independent history of the Greek and Eastern Churches would begin with the origin of Christianity, and trace from its commencement the development of the faith, which arose in the East and flourished for a considerable time most conspicuously in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt. But since two previous volumes of this Series have been devoted to the earlier periods of General Church History, the present writer is relieved from the necessity of treating the first three centuries with any fulness of detail. Here the only requisite will be to take a rapid survey of the story viewed from the standpoint of the East, remembering that for our present purpose the centre of gravity is at Antioch, Ephesus, or Alexandria, rather than at Rome or Carthage. When, however, we come to the fourth century the scale of proportion must be reversed, and subjects which the exigencies of space only permitted to be discussed with comparative brevity in the volume on The Ancient Catholic Church will now demand a somewhat more extensive exposition. The age of the great Fathers, with its essentially Oriental controversies on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, is by far the most important epoch in the whole history