A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

300 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[274]In the third period are to be placed the beginnings of theMiddle Ages, as the German invaders had long before 500 establishedtheir kingdoms and had begun to dominate the affairsof the West. But the connection of the Church of the West, orrather of Italy, with the East was long so close that the conditionof the Church is more that of a dissolution of the ancient imperialState Church than of a building up of the mediæval Church. Atthe same time, the transition to the Middle Ages, so far as theChurch is concerned at least, takes place under the influence ofthe ancient tradition, and institutions are established in which theleading elements, taken from ancient life, are not yet transformedby Germanic ideas. The East knew no Middle Age. For a historyof the Eastern Church other divisions would have to be made, butin a history in which, for practical reasons, the development istraced in Western Christianity, the affairs of the Eastern Churchmust be treated as subordinate to those of Western Christianity.For the second division of the history of ancient Christianity,the principal sources available in English are the translations inA Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of theChristian Church. Edited by Ph. Schaff and H. Wace. TheFirst Series of this collection (PNF, ser. I) contains the principalworks of Augustine and Chrysostom. The Second Series (PNF,ser. II) is for historical study even more valuable, and gives, generallywith very able introductions and excellent bibliographies,the most important works of many of the leading patristic writers,including the principal ecclesiastical historians, as well asAthanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil theGreat, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome, Rufinus,Cassian, Vincent of Lérins, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great,and others. These translations are in part fresh versions, and inpart older versions but slightly, if at all, revised, taken from theLibrary of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior tothe Division of the East and West, Oxford, 1838, et seq.For the period before the outbreak of the great christological