This volume complements other works of Theodoret available in Sources Chrétiennes, as well as the volumes of the other post-Eusebian historians, Socrates (not yet complete) and Sozomenos. As with these other church histories, the text is that published in Griechische Christliche Schriftsteller, in this case that of Parmentier (1911), with the corrections suggested by Hansen in his revised, third edition (1998). The translation is by the great scholar of Theodoret, Pierre Canivet, and is accompanied by valuable notes by Bouffartigue. The introduction, by Annick Martin, contains no surprises, but sets out what one needs to know with a wealth of references. It comprises a succinct life of Theodoret, and argues for a date for the Church history shortly before the death of the emperor Theodosius' sister, Marina, in 448. Martin illuminates the way in which Theodoret understood his role as successor to Eusebius, and in particular how he accomplished the transition from writing, as Eusebius did, about a persecuted Church, to writing about a Church now supported and favoured by the emperors. Like Eusebius, Theodoret conceived of his history as a kind of apologia, this time, however, mostly as a defence of orthodoxy, rather than a defence of Christianity against paganism. His native city of Antioch features prominently in the work, and indeed Martin argues that Theodoret was concerned to place Antioch at the centre of his conception of orthodoxy, inaugurated in this period by Eustathius and finding a champion in Meletius. Like Eusebius, he buttressed his apologia by the provision of a great deal of documentary material. The two books included in this volume take the history of the Church from the beginnings of the Arian controversy up to the death of Constantius in 361, covering the Council of Nicaea, and the sequence of councils during the reign of Constantius, which Theodoret views from an Athanasian perspective. There are maps and various useful tables (of the successions of bishops and the sequence of events). This volume greatly assists critical access to Theodoret's History.