Folio. (LXXX),807,(1 blank),(23 index),(1) p. Overlapping vellum 34 cm (Ref: VD17 23:297069D; Hoffmann 2,107) (Details: Latin translation only. Woodcut printer's mark on the title; 'From 1496 until the seventeenth century, the Petris printed in Basel, and for three generations--Adam Petri, Heinrich Petri, and Sebastian Henripetri--the printer’s mark alluded to the family name: a stone being smashed by a godlike hammer over which fire is blown by a heavenly face. The symbolism is explained by the biblical motto (Hieremias Propheta, 23,29) printed in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew in some books, 'numquid non verba mea sunt quasi ignis ait Dominus, et quasi malleus conterens petram', 'Is not my Word like fire, like a hammer that shatters stone?' (Source: University Library Illinois, webpage 'Windows Printers' Marks') The printer's mark is repeated on the last page. One woodcut headpiece. Some woodcut initials) (Condition: Vellum soiled, some small brown stains on the upper board. Paper somewhat yellowing. Bookplate on front flyleaf. Short title in ink on the back) (Note: The church father Eusebius Caesariensis, ca. 260-339, was elected to the see of Caesarea in Asia Minor, nowadays Kayseri, in 313 A.D. He had an impressive ecclesiastial career, but his literary achievements made him immortal. His important 'Historia Ecclesiastica' (History of the Church) runs up to 324; The object of this work was to present the apostolic 'succession' of the 4 great episcopal thrones, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and to describe the intellectual, spiritual and institutional life of the Church, the persecutions and the heresies. 'It cannot be too strongly emphasised that Eusebius, like all early church historians, can be understood only if it be recognized that whereas modern writers try to trace the development, growth and change of doctrines and institutions, their predecessors were trying to prove that nothing of the kind ever happened. According to them the Church had had one and only one teaching from the beginning. It had been preserved by the 'succession', and heresy was the attempt of the devil to change it'. (Eusebius, the Ecclesiastical History, With an English transl. by K. Lake, Cambr. Mass., 2001, vol.1, p.XXXIV) § The Latin West came to know this Greek work through the translation of 403 by Rufinus of Aquileia. The 'Historia Ecclesiastica' was first published, together with the works of the later church historians Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomenus and Theodoretus in Paris in 1544 by Robertus Stephanus. The editor of our Latin edition of 1611 is the Swiss theologian and classical scholar Joannes Jacobus Grynaeus, 1540-1617, professor at the University of Basel. He was more a theologian than a philologist. In 1570 he had already published for Henricpetri a Latin translation of the 'Opera Omnia' of Eusebius. (GG 421) In the same year, 1570, a separate edition of Grynaeus' Latin translation of the 'Historia Ecclesiastica' was published by the Basler printer Episcopius. (GG 416) Hoffmann says that our 1611 edition is a repetition of the 'Historia Ecclesiastica' edition of 1570. This cannot be correct. The titles are different, and the edition of 1611 has a preface dated 1587. We found in VD16 an edition (not mentioned by Hoffmann), with exact the same title as the one of 1611, and published in 1587 in Basel by Episcopius ( VD16 ZV 5530, also BL shelfmark 3627.ff.4). The only difference being that the 'Chronographia' at the end of the book has been continued till 1611). So this edition of 1611 is a reissue of the Basel edition of 1587, which was brought on the market by Eusebius Episcopius. § This title contains Eusebius' 'Historiae Ecclesiasticae libri X', and 'De vita Constantini Magni', translated by Johannes Christophorsonus (John Christopherson), and the 'Oratio Constantini Imperatoris', and Rufinus' 'Historiae Ecclesiasticae libri II', and a Latin translation of Socrates Scholasticus' 'Ecclesiasticae Historiae libri VII', and Theodoretus' 'Historiae Ecclesiasticae libri V', translated by Joachim Camerarius, and a Latin translation of Sozomenus' 'Ecclesiasticae Historiae libri IX', and Euagrius Scholasticus' 'Historiae Sacrae libri VI', and Dorotheus Lector's 'Quomodo apostoli et prophetae vixerint ac mortui sint', translated by Wolfgang Musculus. At the end (p. 625/807) has been added the 'Chronologia' or 'Index Chronologicus' of the German historian and theologian Abraham Buch(h)olzer up to 1611) (Provenance: A modern bookplate with the text: 'Ex libris Henn Wolfram Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach'. At the top a part of the coat of arms of the Riedesel family, the head of a donkey, with 3 reed leaves in its mouth. The Riedesel Freiherren zu Eisenbach family belongs to the ancient nobility in Hesse, Germany) (Collation: alpha8, alpha6, beta6, gamma6, delta6, epsilon8; a-z6 A-Z6 Aa-Vv6 Xx8, Yy-Zz6) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)