The opening of Preface
The English reader is here presented with a translation of the ninth edition of a work which first appeared in 1849, and has obtained a most distinguished place, it might be said almost a monopoly, as a text-book of Church History in the German Universities. Since 1850, when the second edition was issued, an English translation of which has been widely used in Britain and America, Dr. Kurtz has given great attention to the improvement of his book. The increase of size has not been caused by wordy amplification, but by an urgent necessity felt by the author as he used the vast materials that recent years have spread out before the historical student. In 1870 Dr. Kurtz retired from his professorship, and has conscientiously devoted himself to bring up each successive edition of his text-book to the point reached by the very latest scholarship of his own and other lands. In his Preface to the ninth edition of 1885 he claims to have made very special improvements on the presentation of the history of the first three centuries, where ample use is made of the brilliant researches of Harnack and other distinguished scholars of the day.