The research on which this work is based was commenced in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of St Andrews under the supervision of Professors J. H. Baxter and E. P. Dickie. Principal Matthew Black and Dr R. McL. Wilson also gave me considerable encouragement and advice. The period of study in St Andrews was made possible by a generous research grant made to me by the late A. Thyne Reid through the Council of St Andrew's College, Sydney. More recently a research grant from the University Grants Committee of New Zealand has enabled me to bring the research up to date. To all of these my deepest gratitude is due.

My thanks are due also to the following:

The Librarians and their assistants in the Libraries of the University of St Andrews, the University of Otago, and Knox College, Dunedin, for helping me to locate important material; the isolation of Australasia and the lack of adequate patristic collections in this part of the world have made research in this field difficult and often frustrating, and I am aware of several lacunae, e.g. H. de Riedmatten's collection of the fragments of Paul of Samosata in Les actes du prods de Paul de Samosate, and M. Spanneut's collection of fragments of Eustathius of Antioch in Recherches sur les ecrits d'Eustathe d'Antiocke, neither of which was procurable. My colleague, Professor Ian Breward who has read much of the manuscript and made valuable suggestions, and my former student, the Rev. K. N. Booth, for help with proof-reading and preparation of indices. Mrs Anne Harvey who has painstakingly typed the manuscript.