E-text prepared by Al Haines Transcriber's notes: Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section. In the original book, its various chapters' subsections were denoted with the "section" symbol (iso-8859-1 character 167). In this e-text, that symbol has been replaced with the word "SECTION". Where two of these symbols were together, they have been replaced with the word "SECTIONS". In the original book, footnotes in a chapter were numbered from 1 to 9. If a chapter had more than 9 footnotes, the numbering sequence was repeated, resulting in several footnotes with the same number. In this e-book, all footnotes have been re-numbered sequentially from 1. Footnotes have been moved to the end of their respective chapters. The original book had many side-notes in its pages' left or right margin areas. Some of these sidenotes were at the beginning of a paragraph, and in this e-text, are placed to precede their host paragraph. Some were placed elsewhere alongside a paragraph, in relation to what the sidenote referred to inside the paragraph. These have been placed into the paragraph near where they were in the original book. Some sidenotes were split into two or more parts, distributed down the margin of their host paragraph. Occasionally, such multi-part sidenotes had sections in adjacent paragraphs. If all parts of such sidenotes were within a single paragraph, they were treated as separate sidenotes, unless that meant the splitting of sentences, in which case they were amalgamated into a single sidenote and positioned near where their first section was. If a multi-part sidenote had sections in adjacent paragraphs, those sections were treated as if they belonged to their host paragraph. Sidenotes inside paragraphs are always placed between sentences. All sidenotes have been enclosed in square brackets, and preceded with "Sidenote:". A KEY TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHURCH HISTORY [Ancient] Edited by JOHN HENRY BLUNT, M.A. Editor of "The Dictionary of Theology," "The Annotated Book of Common Prayer;" Author of "Household Theology," Etc. Etc. _"This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations._"--St. Matt. xxiv. 14 Rivingtons Waterloo Place, London Oxford, and Cambridge MDCCCLXXVII [New Edition] PREFACE This Volume offers to the reader a short and condensed account of the origin, growth, and condition of the Church in all parts of the world, from the time of our Lord down to the end of the fifteenth century, the narrative being compressed into as small a compass as is consistent with a readable form.