Includes bibliographical references (p. [342]-344) and index.

Machine generated contents note: Part 1 Bases and beginnings 1 -- 1 Backdrop: retributive principles in traditional societies and ancient historiography 3 -- 2 The first Christian historian: Luke and his two books 47 -- Part 2 Centrepiece: the Eusebian achievement 107 -- 3 Towards historical triumphalism: Eusebius, Lactantius and their predecessors 109 -- 4 The man in the middle: Rufinus of Aquileia between East and West 158 -- Part 3 The Byzantine East 185 -- 5 Church history as nonconformism: retributive and eschatological elements in Athanasius and Philostorgius 187 -- 6 The golden chain of Byzantinism: the Tripartite ecclesiastical histories of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret 213 -- Part 4 The Latin West 253 -- 7 History as theodicy: Augustine's De civitate Dei 255 -- 8 Consolations of history under the declining Western empire: Sulpicius and Orosius 283.