The Life Of Porphyry, Bishop Of Gaza. PREFACE. The present translation of the Life of Saint Porphyry is based on the Greek text published in the Teubner series by the members of the Bonn Philological Society in I895. My thanks are due to Messrs, Teubner for their courtesy in allowing me to make use of this text, the pages of which are indicated by figures preceded by the letter T in the margin of this translation. I have written a short introduction dealing with certain points arising out of the subject, and have added a few notes, which make no claim to originality. Some of these give the Greek text in cases where technical phrases are used, or where 1 have realized that the original might, perhaps, by scholars more conversant than myself with the Greek of the period, be more adequately rendered. In the notes are also given the chronological data, and the equivalents in weigbr of gold of the various iv Preface sums of money mentioned in the text to attempt to estimate their purchasing power would be futile, For the translation, at the risk of recalling the atmosphere of Wardour Street, a more or less Biblical English has been employed. Such a style seemed naturally to impose itself, in spite of certain inevitable incongruities. The references to the Bible under the text are given first to the English Authorized Version, and then, in brackets, to the Septuagint, where the latter requires a different citation. In the rendering of such quotations I have not followed any English version consistently, so that probably no reader is likely to be satisfied, The bibliography records the books which I have specially consulted, together with the various editions of the Latin translation by Hervet. It does not, however, contain general books, such as those of Harnack and Duchesne, which must be at the side of every student of the period nor can it express the amount of my indebtedness to the admirable little dissertation by A, Nuth. Finally, I should like to express my thanks to Mr. H. I, Bell, Preface V Mr. Walter Ashburner, and the Rev. C. F. Rogers for their kind assistance in various difficulties to Mr. J. A. Herbert, who has made various valuable suggestions in reading the translation and Introduction and above all to Mr. Norman H. Baynes, who has throughout freely placed his great knowledge of Byzantine literature at my disposal, and has read the Introduction and Notes. For the defects in these, as in the translation, I am, however of course wholly responsible.