The Online Library of Liberty

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• Prefatory Note
• Introduction
• I.: On Catechetical Instruction
• II.: Character, Authorship, and Date of the Treatise “on the Mysteries” (de Mysteriis)
• III.: Character, Authorship, and Date of the Treatise “on the Sacraments” (de Sacramentis)
• IV.: The Rites of Baptism and Confirmation
• V.: The Lessons From the Scriptures
• VI.: The Liturgy
• VII.: Eucharistic Doctrine
• VIII.: The Biblical Text
• IX.: Editions
• Concerning the Mysteries
• Concerning the Sacraments

PREFATORY NOTE

The translation of the two treatises contained in the present volume was undertaken by the Rev. T. Thompson at the request of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and was in preparation at the time of his death in the spring of 1917. Mr. Thompson had for some years contemplated the preparation of an edition of the original text of the treatise On the Sacraments, and had dealt with some of the liturgical problems involved in both treatises in his valuable little book On the Offices of Baptism and Confirmation, in the Cambridge Handbooks of Liturgical Study. To that book the present editor has made constant reference in preparing the Introduction and Notes.

The manuscript of the translation left by Mr. Thompson was complete as far as Book vi, ch. 2, §9 of the work On the Sacraments. The remaining sections have been translated by Mr. F. H. Colson, late Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, who has also assisted in the revision of the whole translation and contributed suggestions towards the interpretation of various passages. Some notes on the treatise On the Mysteries, which appear to have been intended for publication, have been incorporated and bear the initial [T]. Use has also been made of the materials collected by Mr. Thompson for notes on the second of the treatises here translated. To Mr. W. C. Bishop I am indebted for some helpful suggestions, and for allowing me to consult him on some points connected with the system of lessons at Milan. To Dr. H. J. White, of King’s College, London, I owe a similar debt of gratitude for information with regard to the text of the Biblical quotations in the treatises. The Index has been prepared by Mrs. Thompson.

The task of preparing this little volume for the Press has been welcomed by the present editor as enabling him to offer a small tribute of affection and esteem for one whose friendship recalls, amid other happy memories, a common association in those liturgical and patristic studies with which the present volume is concerned.

J. H. S.