it was decided by the academy that an edition worthy the respect of scholars of the Greek writers prior to Eusebius and apart from those whose works relate to the New Testament was greatly needed. The Vienna academy had published the Latin writings prior to the seventh century. The commission into whose hands the work was given in 1893 consisted of Mommsen, Diels, von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, von Gebhardt, Loofs and Hamack. The cost of this publication will be met jointly from the income of the Frau Heckmann foundation and by the publishing house of J. Hinrich, Leipzig. It is confidently anticipated that in some of these writings questions will be answered like these:
'How did the church free herself from her early Palestinian society?' 'How did the Roman system arise?' 'How were Greek and Roman culture changed into Greek and Roman Christianity?' 'How did the church receive the middle age culture?' 'Why do the Greek and Roman churches look back to the fathers as their founders, and to these early periods as their classical periods?'
It was a special gift from Frederick William IV. which led the academy to edit and publish the works of Frederick the Great. Droysen
