Introduction to This Volume
How this book is arranged
This is the seventeenth volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, the Martyrs and the Life of Constantine, from the period about AD 303 – 339.
Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.
The translations
The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. The modern English version prepared for SermonIndex is used for Church History (Eusebius of Caesarea); the other works are printed in older public-domain translations.
Short notes by the translator appear at the foot of the page of the modern English versions. They explain a difficult word, name a person or place, point to a parallel elsewhere, or say where the modern English departs from the earlier translation. They are numbered afresh for each work.
Scripture references
In the works printed in modern English, passages that quote or clearly echo the Bible are marked in brackets at the end of the section. These references are an aid to the reader, not a complete list: some parallels are not marked, and a marked passage may be a loose quotation or an echo rather than an exact match. The older translations are not marked in this way. The Scripture Index at the end of the book lists the marked references and the pages on which they are found.
In this volume
Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine from about AD 314 until his death about AD 339. He is called the father of church history, and he was a scholar, an apologist and a biographer of the emperor Constantine.
Eusebius’s Life of Constantine is printed here with two orations: his own Oration in Praise of Constantine, delivered for the thirtieth year of the emperor’s reign, and the Oration of the Emperor Constantine to the assembly of the saints, which Eusebius attached to his Life.
Dates and authorship
Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.