THIS LITTLE BOOK is intended to be an introduction, laying the foundations for more detailed investigation. It is a book in which footnotes have been virtually eliminated, Greek and Latin terms severely curtailed, and the multitudinous and colourful dramatis personae of the first five centuries of Christian doctrinal history reduced, if not to a minimum, at least to a workable number. It is not intended for the specialist or the scholar, but simply for anyone interested in learning something about the way in which the doctrines of early Christianity developed.

The discerning reader will find two different styles of writing, one colloquial and one literary. Analogies drawn from everyday life mingle with rarefied theological speculation, and while some of the analogies may be thought by some to be a little earthy, the Bible itself is sufficient witness to the principle that the most rarefied truths may often be expressed in very earthy language. The incar-nation itself attests to that. Finally, piety and impiety may, like beauty, well be in the eye of the beholder. The views and opinions of the early Church Fathers range, like the ideas of most of human-ity, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and if some of the ideas that surfaced in the often heated discussions from which Christian Orthodoxy emerged are indeed just plain silly, it would be mis-leading not to say so.