Preface

has never appeared before. The entire merit
that I can claim for this work is this:
that I present to the reader, with the greatest
possible brevity, everything belonging to the history of the
mysteries, which he would otherwise have
encountered only through laborious searching in
separate, scattered pieces. What I have otherwise
supplemented, explained, and corrected through
other authors will be self-evident to everyone
upon reading this book.
In this respect, I believe I deserve the thanks
of the reader; and if the gentlemen reviewers original: Recensenten; the scholarly critics of the 18th century who provided formal assessments of new books.
view my work from this true perspective,
they will find it all the less blameworthy.
It is furthermore my duty to indicate
the sources original: Hülfsquellen used, and to do justice
to those learned men whose works I
have not infrequently used word-for-word.
In the chronological universal history Universalgeschichte: A genre of history popular in the Enlightenment that sought to present the history of all humanity as a single, coherent narrative. and church history,
I have followed the excellent, learned, and
historically-knowledgeable Professor Schröckh in Wittenberg Johann Matthias Schröckh (1733–1808) was a famous historian whose multi-volume works on church history were standard references in the German-speaking world.,
because it seemed to me that one could
rely upon him with certainty. The pa-