G.W. Trompf is Professor of the History of Ideas, University of Sydney. He was formerly Professor of History at the University of Papua New Guinea. He is founding editor of the monograph series Studies in World Religions; Gnostica; and Sydney Studies in Religion; and he is Chairman of the Association of The Journal of Religious History. His other books include The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought and Melanesian Religion.

"This is a magisterial, exhaustive and encyclopaedic treatment of a central and primal question in religious studies which towers above most other attempts to answer it... ." Noel King "This massively learned work is a study of the overarching principles that controlled early Christian historical narratives - There is no book that is so intricate in detail or wide-ranging on its theme." - Journal of Religious History "It is a big book and a very thoughtful one, on an important topic which, despite much modern enlightened thought, has refused to go away." - Peter Brown, Princeton University "Early Christian Historiography surveys a vast period of historical writing, from the Ancient Near East to late Christian antiquity. As the bibliography reveals, this is a book that has been in the making for at least three decades ... useful in bringing to the fore an important theme in much ancient history-writing." - Journal of Ecclesiastical History

• Part 1: Bases and beginnings 1. Backdrop: Retributive principles in traditional societies and ancient historiography 2. The first Christian historian: Luke and his two books Part 2: Centrepiece: The Eusebian achievement 3. Towards historical triumphalism: Eusebius, Lactantius and their predecessors 4. The man in the middle: Rufinus of Aquileia between East and West Part 3: The Byzantine East 5. Church history as nonconformism: Retributive and eschatological elements in Athanasius and Philostorgius 6. The golden chain of Byzantinism: The Tripartite ecclesiastical histories of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret Part 4: The Latin West 7. History as theodicy: Augustine's De civitate Dei 8. Consolations of history under the declining Western empire: Sulpicius and Orosius 9. Aftermath