Church History (Historia Ecclesiastica)

which is only intended to introduce the study of the KG, but does not claim to discuss in detail all the questions that can be linked to the lists of the KG: a critical excursus on the canon was, of course, unavoidable.

As I have discussed in more detail in the Pauly-Wissowa RE 6, 1395 ff and in my lecture on Church History [News of the Göttingen Society of Sciences, Business Communications 1908, 106 ff], the KG of Eusebius is a complicated work, which was indeed written down quickly on the basis of long-collected material, but is structured with no mean art, which requires careful immersion by the reader: it is treated unjustly and leads to disastrous errors if it is only looked up and not read. In order to open it to modern understanding, which does not easily find its way into the literary forms of antiquity, I have added a section on the economy of the KG, which I hope fulfills its purpose of orienting the reader regarding the whole and the particular intentions of Eusebius, which are often only recognizable from the disposition of the work.

The index of proper names aims to give the entries completely; that human errors have occurred to me and that I have overlooked this or that, I will not deny. Only the excerpts from preserved writers such as Philo, Josephus, Justin, and Clement are not indexed. Likewise, I have left these excerpts out of the word index; this index itself does not aim for the completeness of a concordance in any case, but rather to compile what seemed important to me.

In closing, it remains my pleasant duty to thank the Berlin Academy, especially the Church Fathers Commission, for the munificence with which they enabled me to collect the material for the edition, mostly on my own travels; furthermore, the administrations of the libraries in Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Oxford, and London, which granted me access to their treasures or sent me photographs; finally, Messrs. Wendland and v. Wilamowitz for their support in the lengthy business of proofreading; the special merits that G. Mercati has earned regarding the text of Rufinus have already been mentioned in the introductory remarks to the second part. Finally, may the reader not begrudge the editor if he does not take leave without emotion from a work that has accompanied him for almost 28 years, from the days of his youth into mature manhood.

Freiburg i./B., April 1909