Product Description

A classic resource for the scholar, student, or minister, the thirty-eight volume Early Church Fathers, including the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First and Second Series, is now available with a new look and an added annotated index of the authors and works (bound with volume 10 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and available only in the Hendrickson edition). An invaluable primary resource, each of the three sets features introductions, helpful notes, references to Scripture citations, and indices of key persons, places, and theological issues. From the Apostolic Fathers to the Seven Ecumenical Councils, from the apocryphal gospels to the Arian controversy, this work is one of the most complete collections of the writing in the Christian churchÂ's first 800 years available today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #630972 in Books
• Published on: 1994-06-01
• Number of items: 38
• Binding: Hardcover
• 22896 pages

About the Author

Henry Wace (1836-1924), former Dean of Canterbury and noted turn-of-the century scholar, author, and editor, is especially known for his work on the four-volume Dictionary of Christian Biography and with Philip Schaff on the fourteen-volume Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series.

Customer Reviews

The Best collection of Christianity available in one package
This is the only collection of the ECF that you can get for this price. Even though there are protestant footnotes and as that other poster said "damage control"(and the footnotes can be ignored if you want) , it still can't be beat sold in this beautiful collection for this wonderful price. The weath of information is unbeatable and is probably the most important thing to buy for Catholic Study other than the Bible. It has all of St. Augustines books like his confessions, city of God, his doctrinal works, etc. It just can't be beat and is much better than buying one book at a time and pay a boatload. Why buy the single books when you can get it all in one package here?

A perfect idea gone horribly wrong.
This 38 volume set is a treasure chest of the writings of the early fathers of the Catholic Church (whatever your theological position may be about the word Catholic, there simply is no doubt that the church of these fathers was but "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic".)

What we needed is a set that did not try to prove that these Fathers of the Church were Protestants. They are not. We would need even less a set that would try to prove that they are 100% "Roman Catholic" in their thinking. They were not this either. It is the task of the exegete, bible student, and scholar to decide this by looking at these primary sources for themselves. We did not need the editors to tell us what the texts said. Due to this clear flaw in the notes, the texts themselves become suspect, and extra scrutiny must be used to ensure we are getting a faithful translation of the text. While this set is a "cheap" way to get the works of the fathers, the newer Newman Press texts are much better, based on better manuscripts, but also much more expensive. The volumes here have its merits, and it would be well worth anyone interested in what these Christians had to say to own them no matter what their theological leanings, but we must keep a careful eye on what is being said in the text.

Necessary Reading for Every Christian
The study of ecclesiastical history and the writings of the Saints are a necessity for a proper appreciation of Scripture and its interpretation. Philip Schaff's Church History is one of the few complete ecclesiastical history collections available. There are more modern and reliable translations of the ancient Greek and Latin texts (Ancient Christian Writers and Fathers of the Church Series), which abstain from sectarianism; unfortunately, the publishers have not yet gathered these works into a single collection. Despite the shortcomings of this edition, Philip Schaff's Church History is notable, if only for its presentation of the Reformed perspective on the development of ecclesiastic doctrine.

Schaff was guided by a number of principles in his History. He was convinced, for example, that other church histories conformed to a "dry, lifeless style" that failed to probe the "main thing in history, the ideas which rule it and reveal themselves in the process." Most church histories -he believed- failed to foster a sense organic development, leaving students unable to understand their movement's place in the overall history of the church.

Following philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, who posited that cycles of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis raise what is preserved to a higher level, Schaff maintained: "spiritual growth is likewise a process of annihilation, preservation, and exaltation." An example of this process in Christian thought and practice was -according to Schaff- the emergence of the Protestant Reformation out of the medieval Catholic Church. "The practical piety and morality of Roman Catholicism," said Schaff, "is characteristically legal, punctilious, un-free and anxious; but distinguished also for great sacrifices, the virtue of obedience, and full consecration to the Church." The Protestant Reformation brought a needed corrective through a faith that "is evangelically free, cheerful and joyous in the possession of justification by grace."

In effect Schaff presents Protestantism as the heir of catholicity at the expense of the Roman See (his description of "the Papists" is outrageous), liberating doctrine from the "constraints" of ecclesial authority. Yet he conveniently minimizes the shortcomings of Protestantism, namely its fractious nature and the replacement of Apostolic Tradition with the tradition of subjective interpretation of Scripture. Fortunately he recognized the need for union, envisioning the emergence of a synthetic "evangelical-catholic" Christianity in the future.

Schaff utilizes heavy editorializing to present the writings of the Church Fathers as representing his viewpoint; this unfairly forces the reader to accept his overbearing perspective at the expense of the Church Fathers. If you are approaching this work from a non-Protestant background, you might find it necessary to skip the introductions and the footnotes. Despite the sectarian presentation of Church history, I recommend this work, as it makes the works of the Apostolic Fathers accessible at a reasonable price.