The Creedal Homilies is a translation and commentary on the recently recovered and critically edited homilies on the Nicene Creed, delivered by Quodvultdeus, the last pre-Vandal archbishop of Carthage and young contemporary of St. Augustine.
Author: translated and annotated by J.N.D. KellyJ Kelly, ND
Format: Cloth
His most important work, aimed at persons under instruction for the sacraments, the Commentary offers a guide to elucidating and justifying the Creed. It offers a glimpse of popular Christian propaganda at the beginning of the fifth century.
Author: translated and annotated by Ludwig BielerLudwig Bieler
Format: Cloth
St. Patrick did not consider himself a man of letters; the short texts that survive reflect, however, his powerful personality. A contemporary and fellow missionary of St. Patrick, Secundinus is an enthusiastic admirer and defender of St. Patrick in this hymn.
This is the first complete English translation of De Ecclesiasticis Officiis (DEO) of St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), considered the last Latin father of the church. The work is an invaluable source of information about liturgical practice and church offices.
Author: translated and annotated by George E. McCrackenJohn O'Meara
Format: Cloth
Made up of three books that are the earliest extant works of St. Augustine, these works claim to give a reliable picture of the mind and way of life of one of the greatest figures of the West, precisely at the moment that was for him most critical and vital.
Hermogenes was still living when Carthage's native son took up his pen to oppose him, but that did not make Tertullian's polemic more considerate, or his satire less passionate and biting. Hermogenes taught a form of materialism. Tertullian brilliantly convicts him of contradiction.
Composed in 413, this work refutes certain writings that taught that good works were not necessary to obtain eternal life, that faith alone was sufficient for salvation.
Author: translated and annotated by Thomas HaltonThomas Halton
Format: Cloth
Theodoret can be called the last great torchbearer of Christian rhetoric in Asia and De providentia is regarded by many as exhibiting his literary power in its highest form. Written c. 437.
Author: translated and annotated by P. De Letter, SJP. DeLetter, SJ
Format: Cloth
The first document of the Semi-Pelagian controversy, the Defense involves several mutually connected points of doctrine, all of them centered on the gratuity of grace or on the very idea of grace as an undeserved gift of God. A layman connected with the monasteries of Marseilles, Prosper left Gaul for Rome and lived there until after 455.
The Treatise on the Passover dates from around 245. Its central insight is that the passover is not a figure or type of the passion of Christ, but a figure of Christ himself, of Christ's passing over to the Father. The Dialogue with Heraclides probably comes from between the years 244 and 249. It seems to be the record of a synod-like meeting of bishops, in the presence of lay people, called to discuss matters of belief and worship. Both pieces seem to come from the last decade of Origen's activ...
Author: translated and annotated by P. De Letter, SJP. DeLetter, SJ
Format: Cloth
This is the first treatise in ancient Christian literature on the problem of the salvation of infidels. It is a controversial work written around 450 against the Semi-Pelagians, probably at Rome.
Author: translated and annotated by Mary Josephine SuelzerMary Suelzer
Format: Cloth
Written around the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth, this work, composed at the urgent request of a bishop, is an expression of the ideals of the contemplative and the active life, supplemented by a discussion of the vices and the virtues.
St. Clement's epistle, written c. 96, is called the first epistle, and is a model of a pastoral letter. The epistles of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Smyrna at the beginning of the second century, are addressed to six Christian communities.
Among the earlier writings of Augustine, the first work treats the nature of the human soul, its dignity and grandeur. The second discusses the fundamental question of how man acquires knowledge. Each is in the form of a dialogue.
Author: translated by Charles Christopher MierowCharles Mierow
Format: Cloth
No other source gives such an intimate portrait of this brilliant and strong minded individual, one of the four great doctors of the West and generally regarded as the most learned of the Latin fathers.
One of Augustine's most important works, written between 388 and 395, this dialogue has as its objective not so much to discuss free will for its own sake as to discuss the problem of evil in reference to the existence of God, who is almighty and all-good.
The Symposium, or Banquet, is a dialogue in imitation of Plato, written by Methodius, a teacher and probably a bishop, who flourished in Lycia during the period known as the "little peace of the church." It is perhaps the most beautiful symbolic prose-poem of the early patristic period.
Author: translated and annotated by George E. GingrasGeorge Gingras
Format: Cloth
Written in the first part of the fifth century, this work is a charming record of the observations of a Christian woman on a lengthy pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. Her firsthand account is a work of major significance for the fields of archaeology, church history, philology, and comparative liturgy.
Author: translated and annotated by P.G. WalshProf P G Walsh
Format: Cloth
Twenty-two prose letters that serve as a spiritual autobiography and intimate view of monastic life in Gaul and Nola, near Naples, in the fifth century.
Author: translated and annotated by Hilda C. GraefHilda Graef
Format: Cloth
The two series of homilies presented here are intensely practical, full of examples from the moral, social, medical, and scientific life of Gregory's time. They paint a picture of a man thoroughly conversant with human nature in general, and in the needs of his contemporaries.
The judgment that one forms of the theory and practice of penance in Christian antiquity will be largely determined by the interpretation which one puts upon these two treatises. On Penitence dates from Tertullian's Catholic period, and is a sermon addressed to the faithful on the subject of repentance and forgiveness. On Purity is one of his most violent Montanist treatises. In it he criticizes the policy the church follows in granting pardon to serious sins.
