# Early Church Writings



## alexandermsmith (Aug 22, 2019)

What volumes would people recommend as an introduction to early church writings? Has anyone read any of the Desert Fathers? There's a volume of their writings by Penguin (I think). Are these guys to be avoided because they are the proto-monks or is there good stuff in them?


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## RamistThomist (Aug 22, 2019)

Good and bad. I've read probably about 20,000 pages of church fathers and related stuff.

Christopher Hall's work is the best intro, hands down. Pick any volume.

The Desert fathers were monks. No getting around that. Some of their comments on the mind, soul, distractions, passions are quite good and spiritually (and even scientifically sound). They basically anticipated neuroplasticity.

Is the Penguin volume edited by Benedicta Ward? That's one of the standards.

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## alexandermsmith (Aug 22, 2019)

It is indeed. Do you think it worth a read?

Which of the Hall volumes would you recommend beginning with? Is it better to approach the material in that way rather than going to a volume of original sources?


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## RamistThomist (Aug 22, 2019)

It is interesting, if read with a critical eye. 

Hall volumes in this order:

_Learning Theology with the Church Fathers
worshipping with the Church Fathers
Living Wisely with the Church Fathers
_
As to primary sources,

Athanasius, _Life of St Anthony_
John Cassian, _Conferences_

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## alexandermsmith (Aug 23, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It is interesting, if read with a critical eye.
> 
> Hall volumes in this order:
> 
> ...



Thanks. Athanasius' _Life of St. Anthony_ is in the volume _Early Christian Lives_. Do you know that volume? I can tolerate their being (desert) monks I just don't want to be reading _lots_ of proto-romanism or stuff like that. Not looking exclusively at the desert fathers but any from that time period. Hall's volumes look very interesting. What tradition is he coming from himself?

In terms of Augustine does _City of God _still hold up? I would like to read his _Confessions_ and would do so first but it's very hard to find, in print, an edition with the older English translation. All the modern translations use "you" instead of "thee" and in that text especially it's very offputting. There is an edition which has the older translation but it stops before the final three books.

Thanks for all the help.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 23, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> Athanasius' _Life of St. Anthony_ is in the volume _Early Christian Lives_. Do you know that volume?



My copy is in the Schaff Nicene and Pro Nicene Fathers.


alexandermsmith said:


> I can tolerate their being (desert) monks I just don't want to be reading _lots_ of proto-romanism or stuff like that.



I think many people joined the desert monasteries back then because it offered a stable way of life when much of the rest of the world was troubled with disease and famine. I wouldn't call it proto-Romanism, because that gives Rome a claim to antiquity that I don't grant.


alexandermsmith said:


> Hall's volumes look very interesting. What tradition is he coming from himself?



I think he is a consevative Anglican. Some of these talks are informative.
https://iws.edu/2012/08/june-2012-worship-seminar-audio/



alexandermsmith said:


> In terms of Augustine does _City of God _still hold up?



It's the foundation of much of Western civilization, both secular and Christian.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 23, 2019)

Also, knowing the desert fathers explains a weird cause-effect relationship that started with some random monk in Egypt getting corrected because he had wrong views on God, which led to John Chrysostom getting exiled in Constantinople hundreds of miles away.


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## alexandermsmith (Aug 23, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It's the foundation of much of Western civilization, both secular and Christian.



*looks around*

So no then.


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## alexandermsmith (Aug 23, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Also, knowing the desert fathers explains a weird cause-effect relationship that started with some random monk in Egypt getting corrected because he had wrong views on God, which led to John Chrysostom getting exiled in Constantinople hundreds of miles away.



Intriguing...


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## RamistThomist (Aug 23, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> *looks around*
> 
> So no then.



Well it depends, Augustine's comments on the mind, soul, nature of God's simplicity....well, pretty much everything, shape the way we think about God today.

Even an atheist like Bertrand Russell admitted we really can't improve upon Augustine's discussion of "time."

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## py3ak (Aug 23, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> In terms of Augustine does _City of God _still hold up? I would like to read his _Confessions_ and would do so first but it's very hard to find, in print, an edition with the older English translation. All the modern translations use "you" instead of "thee" and in that text especially it's very offputting. There is an edition which has the older translation but it stops before the final three books.



The translation of the _Confessions_ by E.B. Pusey is readily available in print from amazon.co.uk, and should meet your requirements. The _City of God_ in the Marcus Dods translation is also available, and eminently worthwhile.


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## DTK (Aug 23, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> I just don't want to be reading _lots_ of proto-romanism or stuff like that.


I ask of you, please do not ever approach ANY of the early church writers as if that is what you expect to find.

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## RamistThomist (Aug 23, 2019)

It is far more important to read Augustine for the content than whether the translator uses "thee."

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## jwithnell (Aug 23, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It is far more important to read Augustine for the content than whether the translator uses "thee."


Is that looking for the mouse in the room rather than the elephant?  I wondered too about "thee" in the earlier post. Is there any help in having a distinction in reference (personal vs. higher level of station accorded?) I'm truly asking as I do not know. Given that these are not originally early modern English works it seems doubtful.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 24, 2019)

jwithnell said:


> Is that looking for the mouse in the room rather than the elephant?  I wondered too about "thee" in the earlier post. Is there any help in having a distinction in reference (personal vs. higher level of station accorded?) I'm truly asking as I do not know. Given that these are not originally early modern English works it seems doubtful.



The way it is being used in Augustine, no difference

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## Regi Addictissimus (Aug 24, 2019)

I enjoyed Maria Boulding's translation of Confessions.


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## jwright82 (Aug 26, 2019)

"Early Church Writings" by Penguin press. It even has the Didache in it.

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## Relztrah (Aug 26, 2019)

How do you (plural) interpret Saint Antony's wrestling with demons and such as recounted in Athanasius' _Life of St. Anthony_? Was he actually battling demons or was this a figment of his imagination?


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## RamistThomist (Aug 26, 2019)

Relztrah said:


> How do you (plural) interpret Saint Antony's wrestling with demons and such as recounted in Athanasius' _Life of St. Anthony_? Was he actually battling demons or was this a figment of his imagination?



Since I believe the spiritual world is real, I have no reason to think he was just making all this up. 

It is hypothetically possible that he is deluded. A more charitable (and more consistent with the NT) reading is that demons really battled with him.

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## Regi Addictissimus (Aug 26, 2019)

Relztrah said:


> How do you (plural) interpret Saint Antony's wrestling with demons and such as recounted in Athanasius' _Life of St. Anthony_? Was he actually battling demons or was this a figment of his imagination?



Are you referring to one of the accounts such as the following?

"Afterwards, on another occasion, having descended to the outer cells, he was asked to enter a vessel and pray with the monks, and he alone perceived an exceedingly unpleasant smell. But those on board said that the stench arose from the fish and salt meat in the ship. He replied however, the smell was different from that; and while he was speaking, a youth with an evil spirit, who had come and hidden himself in the ship, cried out. But the demon being rebuked in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ departed from him, and the man became whole. And all knew that the evil smell arose from the demon."


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## RamistThomist (Aug 26, 2019)

Reformed Bookworm said:


> he was asked to enter a vessel and pray with the monks, and he alone perceived an exceedingly unpleasant smell.



JP Moreland, a man whose analytical abilities far exceed what we can even dream of, and thus he isn't one easily manipulated, describes a similar experience with some Satanists who tried to infiltrate one of his prayer-groups.

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## Regi Addictissimus (Aug 26, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> JP Moreland, a man whose analytical abilities far exceed what we can even dream of, and thus he isn't one easily manipulated, describes a similar experience with some Satanists who tried to infiltrate one of his prayer-groups.



Where did he give an account of this?


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## alexandermsmith (Aug 27, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It is far more important to read Augustine for the content than whether the translator uses "thee."





BayouHuguenot said:


> The way it is being used in Augustine, no difference



I do not address God with the plural and irreverent "you" and find it extremely offputting, to say the least, to read what is essentially a book length prayer using such an address. That is why I would prefer the older translation.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 27, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> I do not address God with the plural and irreverent "you" and find it extremely offputting, to say the least, to read what is essentially a book length prayer using such an address. That is why I would prefer the older translation.



I was actually talking about Augustine's works like City of God, which are not addressed to God. 

And I wonder if Latin has a "thee" form, since grammatically-historically, Augustine was using Latin and we have to ask what the Latin would have meant to him.

I also wonder how we say "thee" and "that" and "Abba" at the same time.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 27, 2019)

Reformed Bookworm said:


> Where did he give an account of this?



I think I have the audio in email. I'll email it to you.

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## alexandermsmith (Aug 28, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I was actually talking about Augustine's works like City of God, which are not addressed to God.
> 
> And I wonder if Latin has a "thee" form, since grammatically-historically, Augustine was using Latin and we have to ask what the Latin would have meant to him.
> 
> I also wonder how we say "thee" and "that" and "Abba" at the same time.



Ah ok. Yeah with most works I would put up with it. It's the _Confessions _particularly that I'd want the older translation, and I've found a cheap edition with that translation so all good.


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## Tom Hart (Aug 28, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> And I wonder if Latin has a "thee" form, since grammatically-historically, Augustine was using Latin and we have to ask what the Latin would have meant to him.


My professor of Classical Latin taught me that the Latin second-person pronoun _tu _had no connotation of either politeness or casual speech. It was simply a matter of number. As medieval Latin developed, the second-person plural form _vos_ came to be used to address individuals, and carried a strong sense of politeness (ie. "_Pax vobiscum_.") This trait survives in modern Romance languages (cf. French _vous _or Castilian Spanish _vosotros_).

That _tu _would be the Latin equivalent of the early modern English _thou_, or of the modern English singular _you_. Latin _Vos_, meanwhile, is the equivalent of the English _you_ (plural in early modern English, and both singular and plural in modern English).

I'm not sure if this helps with anything, but there you go.

I have no idea why the English _you _would be considered irreverent, or necessarily plural. But never mind.

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## Charles Johnson (Sep 1, 2019)

alexandermsmith said:


> I do not address God with the plural and irreverent "you" and find it extremely offputting, to say the least, to read what is essentially a book length prayer using such an address. That is why I would prefer the older translation.


In historic English, "you" is formal and "thou" is informal. "Thou" was disused when its informality became so extreme that it came to be perceived as perjorative. Take a look a Shakespeare. Insults with "thou" are common. Insults with "you" are absent. "Thou" was the form used for addressing God precisely because of its familiarity. This is something of a linguistic universal, and languages with a T-V distinction (tu-vous) consistently use the 'tu' form (informal) for the address of God. This is the case in Spanish, French, Russian, and German. Moreover, neither 'you' nor 'thou' is plural; 'ye' is the plural form of both (although it is true that 'you' is the accusative form of 'ye'). Your disgust is therefore very misguided.

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## py3ak (Sep 1, 2019)

Charles Johnson said:


> This is something of a linguistic universal, and languages with a T-V distinction (tu-vous) consistently use the 'tu' form (informal) for the address of God. This is the case in Spanish



While "tu" is much more common for God in Spanish, among some Chilean evangelicals and occasionally from another source you will hear God addressed as "Usted" -- which is formal for 2nd person singular.


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## alexandermsmith (Sep 2, 2019)

Charles Johnson said:


> In historic English, "you" is formal and "thou" is informal. "Thou" was disused when its informality became so extreme that it came to be perceived as perjorative. Take a look a Shakespeare. Insults with "thou" are common. Insults with "you" are absent. "Thou" was the form used for addressing God precisely because of its familiarity. This is something of a linguistic universal, and languages with a T-V distinction (tu-vous) consistently use the 'tu' form (informal) for the address of God. This is the case in Spanish, French, Russian, and German. Moreover, neither 'you' nor 'thou' is plural; 'ye' is the plural form of both (although it is true that 'you' is the accusative form of 'ye'). Your disgust is therefore very misguided.



Lol.


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## RamistThomist (Sep 3, 2019)

The point of reading the church fathers is the content, not how the translator does it. There are issues of translation, and I can point them out in other venues, but it is nothing to do with thee or thou


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## alexandermsmith (Sep 6, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> The point of reading the church fathers is the content, not how the translator does it. There are issues of translation, and I can point them out in other venues, but it is nothing to do with thee or thou



The point of reading _anyone _is the content. With works which need to be translated to suggest the work of the translator is indifferent is wrong. The issue of "thee and thou" isn't so much an issue of translation, however, as it is one of piety. The use or non use of these terms in the various translations is incidental. It rather reflects the piety of those who translated them. With many works it can be overlooked but with those works which are particularly devotional in nature- such as the _Confessions- _it has a direct impact on how the text is read.


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