Selected Works and Letters

Содержание Translator’s Preface. Although, according to the plan of this “Library,” Commentaries on Holy Scripture are omitted, and the field of selection is thus somewhat lessened, it has been no easy matter to decide which of St. Ambrose’s many treatises should be chosen and which omitted. Obviously the great work on the Faith, De Fide, must be included, and this implied the addition of that on the Holy Spirit. Then the treatise on the Duties of the Clergy, as throwing much light on the ideas of the Fourth Century as to what was expected of ecclesiastics, seemed to claim a place. And after these the difficulty becomes very great. It is unfortunate that the limitations of space do not admit of the inclusion of all the dogmatic and ascetic treatises. Similarly, one would have been glad to insert the addresses on the deaths of the two Emperors Valentinian and Theodosius. More, also, of his letters might well have been added, though, as they have appeared in full in the Oxford “Library of the Fathers,” this is a matter for less regret. As will be seen, I have availed myself of the assistance of my son, the Rev. E. de Romestin, of New College, and of the Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth, of Merton College, each of whom took high honours in the Theological School at Oxford. The work has been carried out under some difficulties, and not the least has been the loss in travelling of a considerable portion of the manuscript, the whole of which had to be translated anew. Or “Gentiles.” The Christians regarded themselves as placed in the world much as the Hebrews had been planted in the midst of the “nations round about.” The Latin word is natura, which, at first sight, seems less abstruse and metaphysical than the Greek οὐσία In the original Catholic, i.e. “Catholics.” Heresies might become widespread–the Arian heresy, indeed, counted numerous adherents in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries–but they took their rise in some member or other of the ecclesiastical body, in some one of the many local churches which together made up the one œcumenical church. On the other hand, the primitive teaching, received from the apostolic age, had been delivered without differen c e in every place to which it had penetrated. It was acknowledged and established before sects and heresies; its original was divine, theirs only human; it rested on the rock of Christ’s authority, speaking through His apostles, whilst they were built on the sands of preeminence in sophistry and captious interpretation; it was for all times and places, therefore, but they were only for a season. In this belief those who clave to the teaching of the apostles claimed for themselves the name of “Catholics,” and for the œcumenical church of which they were members that of “Catholic and Apostolic.” To avoid any misunderstanding, I have used the term “orthodox,” which will stand very well for “Catholic,” inasmuch as “the right faith” is for all, without difference, to hold–in a word, universal, or, as it is in Greek, καθ᾽ ὅλου The disasters here alluded to are the rout of the Roman army, in 378 a.d. That is, in respect of substance or nature, though the Persons must be distinguished. Вам может быть интересно: