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.
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.
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, probably written before the end of the first century, purports to be an instruction based on sayings of the Lord and given by the Twelve Apostles to pagans who wished to become Christians.The Epistle of Barnabas is a homily on the mistaken Judaistic conception of the Old Testament.The Epistles consist of a covering note and a letter, which is an exhortation to the Philippians on Christian life in general. The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp is the st...
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 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.
Three treatises on marriage, though not generally classified among TheseTertullian's major compositions, are works of considerable interest and importance.
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 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.
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.
Author: translated and annotated by John J. O'Meara John O'Meara
Format: Cloth
Composed c. 233, the treatise on prayer is not merely a treatise, but a prayer itself. The Exhortation was composed c. 235 to provide solace for Origen's great friend and patron, Ambrose, and the presbyter, Protoctetus, both of whom had been imprisoned.
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.
The Ascetic Life is a dialogue between a young novice and an old monk on how to achieve the Christian life. The Four Centuries is a collection of aphorisms.
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.
These treatises date from the last third of the second century. Athenagoras of Athens belonged to that select group of Christian laymen known as the Apologists, who supported the successors of the apostles in the ministry of the faith by defending that faith and pleading for a just hearing before the pagan majority and pagan overlords.
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.
Author: translated and annotated by R.P. LawsonR Lawson
Format: Cloth
Origen's Commentary, the first great work of Christian mysticism, is characterized by extraordinary richness of thought and depth of mystical conception. The Homilies seem to have been written only a few years after the Commentary probably before 244.
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.
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.
Author: translated and annotated by Dame Scholastica Hebgin and DameFelicitas Corrigan
Format: Cloth
"Saint Augustine shows in simple, forceful language that the psalms...are also part of the first phase of Christ's revelation, pointing toward the future. Since the saint was talking to his parishioners, his approach is concrete and leisurely." Jubilee. Psalms 30-37 are treated here.
This series of eight instructions on baptism were given by St. John Chrysostom, probably at Antioch about 390. Their interest lies in Chrysostom's activity as a mystagogue for the baptismal candidates and as their instructor in Christian doctrine and morality immediately after their initiation.
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.
