DEDICATION.

glory and shine in that title. Since these things are truly so, Reverend Father-in-law original: "Venerande Socer"; "Socer" refers to the author's father-in-law, suggesting a close familial and intellectual relationship, even if not everyone pays equal attention to this fact, I believed I would be performing a task neither useless nor unwelcome to fair judges of such matters if I were to demonstrate (as I have attempted in these books) that the Early Christian Church The author uses the term "Primaeva" to refer to the church of the first few centuries, which was born from the Synagogue and should be called its daughter, conformed itself as much as possible to the customs of the Synagogues in its Governance Regimen: the administrative and hierarchical structure of the church and its Ceremonies.

Since I could not carry out this plan unless I both defined the Form of Governance of the Ancient Synagogues and described their Sacred Rites, I believed it was my primary task not to treat those subjects in a superficial manner. Instead, as my interest grew during the progress of the Work, I also set about declaring the Names and Structure of the Synagogues themselves, and investigating their Origin, moved by both the relevance and the utility of the topic.

Regarding the diligence I have applied in preparing these books, I would prefer that You, Honored Father-in-law, and those experts who are accustomed to judging my labors with a fair mind alongside you, gather it from reading them, rather than that I proclaim it with the boastfulness of empty words. If I should seem to have achieved too little to those most learned men, who are able to devote themselves to literary studies in such a way that [the use] of their leisure...