89 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE CHRISTIAN 

 FATHERS. 



" By their fruits ye shall know them." 



The records of the ages, immediately succeeding 

 that of the apostles, are not the less interesting 

 because they are imperfect. If, on the one hand, the 

 church antiquarian finds this period, more than 

 usually clouded and uncertain in its history, ^ he 

 cannot, on the other, but rejoice to mark how fruitful 

 that period in those who became at once, under 

 Divine Grace, the support and ornament of the faith. 

 It spread in their hands through all the fluctuations 

 of secular affairs, and the zeal or apostacy of those 

 who held the reins of state, with an influence, rapid 

 as well as permanent. These brief notices have not, 

 however, been compiled as a subject of ecclesiatical 

 enquiry. The writers of pagan story have found 

 time, without breaking the thread, or injuring the 

 effect of their narrative, to analyze the characters 

 and dispositions of such as engaged on the scene. 

 The importance of the Christian warfare, has, in some 

 respect, been obnoxious to the fame of its comba- 

 tants. As in looking over a wide natural prospect, 

 we are apt, in the expanse of earth and air, to loose 

 sight of its individual features of beauty ; so with 



Note, by the Compilers. — The Compilers of these sketches 

 present them as they will appear in the course of this wonc, with 

 a sincere diffidence to the notice of the Christian reader. Their 

 object in drawing them up has been simply this ; to gather, under 

 one view, some memoirs of the earliest professors of the Cross, 

 especially such as have a claim to authenticity ; and, if the editors 

 congratulate themselves on the site of their imprimatur, it is 

 because that site, abounding as it does in a zeal for Christian 

 doctrine, may reasonably be supposed a sphere where the Christian 

 antiquary cannot be altogether unprofitably employed. They 

 have only to add that the remarks of " religious and useful 

 learning," whether in the form of note or amendment will be at 

 all times admitted, but — and the warning may as well be given 

 — they have neither space nor notice for the drivellings of igno- 

 rance in any shape whatever. 



VOL VI. — 1835. M 



