THE Hibbert Trustees cannot add this volume to their series without a few lines of grateful acknowledgment. It is impossible to forget either the courteous readiness with which the accomplished author undertook the task originally, or the admirable qualities he brought to it. When he died without completing the MS. for the press, the anxiety of the Trustees was at once relieved by the kind effort of his family to obtain adequate assistance. The public will learn from the Preface how much had to be done, and will join the Trustees in grateful appreciation of the services of the gentlemen who responded to the occasion. That Dr. Hatch's friend, Dr. Fairbairn, consented to edit the volume, with the valuable aid of Mr. Bartlet and Professor Sanday, was an ample pledge that the want would be most efficiently met. To those gentlemen the Trustees are greatly indebted for the learned and earnest care with which the laborious revision was made. THE INFLUENCE OF GREEK IDEAS UPON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. BY THE LATE EDWIN HATCH, D.D. = READER IN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. 1907. [All Rights reserved.] 627 H361i 1907 PREFACE. THE fittest introduction to these Lectures will be a few words of explanation. Before his death, Dr. Hatch had written out and sent to press the first eight Lectures. Of these he had corrected six, while the proofs of the seventh and eighth, with some corrections in his own hand, were found among his papers. As regards these two, the duties of the editor were simple: he had only to correct them for the press. But as regards the remaining four Lectures, the work was much more arduous and responsible. A continuous MS., or even a connected outline of any one of the Lectures, could not be said to exist. The Lectures had indeed been delivered a year and a half before, but the delivery had been as it were of selected passages, with the connections orally supplied, while the Lecturer did not always follow the order of his notes, or, as we know from the Lectures he himself prepared for the press, the one into which he meant to work his finished material. What came into the editor's hands was a series of note |