Introductory Notes.
Dedication.
To the Right Rev. The Lord Bishop of Chester.
My Dear Lord,
I am gratified to have your permission to dedicate this volume to your Lordship. It is the fruit of some two years' leisure labour. Every man's occupation spares to him some leipsana chronou; and thirty years ago you taught me, at Oxford, how to husband these opportunities in the pleasant studies of Biblical and Theological Science. For that and many other kindnesses I cannot cease to be thankful to you.
But, besides this private motive, I have in your Lordship's own past course an additional incentive for resorting to you on this occasion. You, until lately, presided over the theological studies of our great University; and you have given great encouragement to patristic literature by your excellent edition of the Apostolic Fathers. 1 To whom could I more becomingly present this humble effort to make more generally known the great merits of perhaps the greatest work of the first of the Latin Fathers than to yourself?
I remain, with much respect,
My dear Lord,
Very faithfully yours,
Peter Holmes.
Mannamead, Plymouth, 2
March, 1868.
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[The name of Bishop Jacobson was often introduced in our first volume, in notes to the Apostolic Fathers. He has recently "fallen asleep," after a life of exemplary labour "with good report of all men and of the Truth itself." His learning and piety were adorned by a profound humility, which gave a primitive cast to his character. At the Lambeth Conference, having the honour to sit at his side, I observed his extreme modesty. He rarely rose to speak, though he sometimes honoured me with words in a whisper, which the whole assembly would have rejoiced to hear. Like his great predecessor, Pearson, in many respects, the mere filings and clippings of his thoughts were gold-dust.] ↩
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[Dr. Holmes is described, in the Edinburgh Edition, as "Domestic Chaplain to the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Rothes." He was B.A. (Oxon.) in 1840, and took orders that year. Was Head-Master of Plymouth Grammar School at one time, and among his very valuable and learned works should be mentioned, as very useful to the reader of this series, his Translation of Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (two vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1851), and of the same great author's Judicium Ecclesiae Catholicae, 8vo. Oxford, 1855.] ↩
