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.
In the exercise of that discretion which has been allowed him, the
translator has ventured upon an innovation, which he trusts will be
generally recognised as a very important improvement. The German edition
has frequently pages devoted to the literature of the larger divisions,
and a considerable space is thus occupied at the beginning of most of
the ordinary sections, as well as at the close of many of the sub-
sections. The books named in these lists are almost exclusively German
works and articles that have appeared in German periodicals. Experience
has shown that the reproduction of such lists in an English edition is
utterly useless to the ordinary student and extremely repulsive to the
reader, as it seriously interferes with the continuity of the text. The
translator has therefore ventured wholly to cancel these lists,
substituting carefully selected standard English works known to himself
from which detailed information on the subjects treated of in the
several paragraphs may be obtained. These he has named in footnotes at
the places where such references seemed to be necessary and most likely
to be useful. Those students who know German so thoroughly as to be able
to refer to books and articles by German specialists will find no
difficulty in using the German edition of Kurtz, in which copious lists
of such literature are given.
The first English volume is a reproduction without retrenchment of the
original; but in the second volume an endeavour has been made to render
the text-book more convenient and serviceable to British and American
students by slightly abridging some of those paragraphs which give
minute details of the Reformation work in various German provinces.
But even there care has been taken not to omit any fact of interest or
importance. No pains have been spared to give the English edition a form
that may entitle it to occupy that front rank among students’ text-books
of Church History which the original undoubtedly holds in Germany.