Open Resource On Primary Pre-Nicene Sources

Hello, dear brother Errol. This post of yours was one of the gems on the old website's discussion forum, and I am so thankful that you have reproduced this post here.

I am currently investigating all of the Ante-Nicene references to Isaiah 2:2-4/Micah 4:1-5, which led me to Irenaeus' Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (Ancient Christian Writers series, volume # 16). This work by Irenaeus is a real treasure, but is was thought to be irretrievably lost until an old manuscript was discovered in 1904, after the completion of the ANF set (which, if I understand correctly, was first published in the United States in 1897).

Thanks again for your labor of love to compile this list and share it once again with all of us.

This treatise is one of those discoveries which keeps me on the edge of my seat over what might be discovered next. Mind you, there have certainly been many other finds since this one, but it's among my favorites. As an aside, I have it in my notes that the Ante-Nicene Fathers was first published in the United States in 1885, a product of plagiarism from what in England was the Ante-Nicene Christian Library

. I've had a keen interest in the availability of these writings to English speakers, both academics and laity. Sadly, I don't think their accessibility to the laity has yet had a proportionately significant impact as the printing of the Bible did.

Thank you for this resource. I stickied this post as I think it could be very helpful to other learners.

The formatting had quite a few kinks in it that I was working out. I appear to have run out of edit attempts. Unfortunately, I get the impression that at this point the Popular Patristics series is the only one still releasing volumes. There are still a few writings yet to be translated, such as Origen's Commentary on Psalms.

Hello dear brothers Errol and Clark. I had no idea that writings from the Ante-Nicene Christian authors existed that had not yet been translated into English.

According to lost homilies on psalms by origen (oxfordpatristics.blogspot.com) — https://oxfordpatristics.blogspot.com/2012/06/lost-homilies-on-psalms-by-origen.html , the official discovery of manuscripts from Origen’s Commentary on Psalms was announced back on June 12, 2012 - just a little more than eight years ago.

This web link is especially exciting because it leaves open the possibility that other known codexes which are currently labelled as "anonymous collections" could actually be Ante-Nicene works if they are looked at in more detail.

It certainly would be great if more of the long-lost Ante-Nicene writings were discovered and identified.

We've even been treated to a tantalizing sample of this text:

“‘ Praise God, Oh Heavens of the Heavens! And let the water which is over the heaven praise the name of the Lord! ’
“How must I labor so that I may ascend into the first heaven? What must happen so that I may be considered worthy of the second? I must be like Paul, if I should go to the third.

And if I should become as Paul, I will still not have yet seen the following heaven, these waters which praise God, according to the prophet, beyond the heavens. Therefore this is said, that the waters, through being beyond the heavens, always see, not the face of the father in the heavenlies, but God himself.”
(Origen, Homilies on Psalms 3, translated by Alex Poulos, https://mapoulos.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/possible-origenic-homily-transcriptiontranslation-excerpts/)

But when will a full English translation see the light of day? Even when it comes to works for which we already have translations in the ANF, that source has become somewhat dated.

Originally I only pursued the volumes listed in bold on my catalog because, after all, I already had the other writings in the ANF, but upon comparing translations I've often found the more recent ones to be favorable over the old whether for clarity of late 20th or early 21st century English, more up-to-date scholarly notation, revisions due to discoveries of additional manuscript witnesses of various texts, etc.

But I'm concerned that there may currently be something of a drought of academic interest in patristics. Take Irenaeus' series of books Against the Heresies as they appear in the Ancient Christian Writers series, for example: the translation of book 1 was released in 1992, then books 2 and 3 (for reasons I won't get into here) weren't released until 2012. Twenty years is quite a lapse, but I was expecting an imminent release of books 4 and 5 which I consider to me of greatest interest.

Obviously that hasn't happened, and worse yet nothing at all has been released in the ACW series since volume 71 in 2016.

Hello again, dear brother Errol. That is indeed quite a tantalizing quotation from Origen! The verse Origen refers to is something I have glossed over in the past - the waters above the heavens are exhorted to praise the Lord. I have never noticed this verse before. And I definitely want to hear much more of Origen's comments on the Psalms!

I definitely agree that translations of the Ante-Nicene Christian authors which are both faithful to the original texts but use modern English are much to be preferred to the older, sometimes archaic, language of the ANF set. In order to make Patristics palatable to many in Christianity, good quality up-to-date translations are desperately needed. I hate to hear that the release of modern versions of the Ante-Nicene Christian writings has virtually come to a complete stop.

That is a real shame and I pray that something will happen to reverse this trend.

Hello again, dear brother Errol. Are you going to try to reproduce your thread from the old website regarding the dating of various Ante-Nicene writings? I learned a lot from that thread when you explained how your arrived at your conclusions regarding probably dates for various Ante-Nicene writings. If I recall correctly, you also posted your entries in that thread in chronological order, with the posts for the oldest Ante-Nicene writings being posted first.

That I can. It started out chronological, but I research the dating of each text in preparation to reading the thing itself. Perhaps this time I'll also include the geographical location of each writing's composition.

Thank you so much, dear brother Errol. That would really be great! I remember learning a lot from your posts regarding the dating of the various Ante-Nicene writings. I believe that we were all blessed by your research and the results you shared.

Including the geographic locations would be great too! For obvious reasons, I can always remember where Clement of Rome and Clement of Alexandria were located, but I get confused regarding all of the other early Christian authors.

To be released on the 18th of this December we shall see the first English translation of Origen's Homilies on Psalms in the Fathers of the Church series.

To be released on the 24th of July, 2021, we shall see what is touted as "The most comprehensive of Papias's fragments" in volume 36 of the Oxford Early Christian Texts series.

Hello again, dear brother Errol. That is great news indeed regarding the upcoming publication of Origen's Homilies on Psalms.

Your mention of the fragments of Papias is very intriguing. Have more fragments from Papias been discovered since the publication of the ANF set back in the late 1800's?

That's a good question. It may not be so much a matter of more being discovered as more being recognized. In Ante-Nicene Fathers there are 10 fragments attributed to Papias. Almost a century later, in Fathers of the Church , there are 20 fragments attributed to Papias. However, not all of the 10 from the ANF are included in the 20 from the FotC, as apparently scholars at that time reconsidered whether earlier attributions were valid.

It will be interesting to see how things stand among patristic scholars now, many decades later.

WOW!! What an amazing thread here!!!!! This information and discussion is great!!

Thanks for this!!!

All this info is amazing! Thank you, brother Errol, for all the work you put into coming up with this. Unfortunately, I only saw this thread now :).

Later this year the Fathers of the Church series will be publishing another translation of Origen's Homilies on Isaiah.

The previous volume of Origen's Homilies on Psalms I mentioned was volume 141 of the Fathers of the Church series and covered Psalms 15, 36, 67, 73-77, and 80-81. More recently volume 146 of the same series was released and translates Psalms 36-38.

Even more volumes have been released, and I'm now keeping an up-to-date list on my blog page:

https://patristicarcana.blogspot.com/2024/03/catalogue-of-major-series-translations.html