DEFENSIO FIDEI NICENE. A DEFENCE OF. THE NICENE CREED, OUT OF THE EXTANT WRITINGS OF THE CATHOLICK DOCTORS, WHO FLOURISHED DURING THE THREE FIRST CENTURIES ADVERTISEMENT. THE circumstances which led to the composition of this Work, and the history of its completion and publication, are fully narrated by Bp. Bull in the Preface to the Reader, pp. i. &c., and by Nelson in his life of Bp. Bull, pp. 239, &c., in which there is also a valuable review of the state of the controversy at that time. An account of the successive editions will be found in Dr. Burton's Preface to the 8vo. edition of the Works, first published in Oxford in 1827. The text of that edition has been followed in the present Translation, and the additional notes which it contains have also been translated; those of Dr. Burton being distinguished by the letter B. His notes, and the references added by him, as well as the few additional references and observations which are introduced in the notes to this Translation, are included in brackets. Grabe's longer Annotations are removed from the places which they occupy in the Oxford edition, at the ends of the several chapters, to an Appendix at the end of the Work, in order not to interrupt the continuity of the original Treatise. The paging of the folio edition of Grabe, and of the 8vo. of 1827, are retained in the margin, the latter being included in brackets. The passages quoted from the fathers are preserved in the original language as notes, and in a few places the context has been added. There was a translation of this and of Bp. Bull's other Works on the Trinity by Dr. F. Holland, in two volumes 8vo. A.D. 1725. This has been consulted by the translator, but so little use has been made of it, that the present must be considered as an independent version. The Indices and List of Authors for this and the other Works on the Holy Trinity, will be placed at the end of the volumes, as in Dr. Burton's 8vo. edition of the originals. |