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Some Recent Books on Greek Patristics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
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The period 1952-1954 has seen some very outstanding achievements in the field of Greek patristic, only a small proportion of which can be discussed here. One of the most interesting works that have appeared, from the viewpoint of a general survey, is Johannes Quasten's Patrology, so far as it has progressed; and although the obvious complaint might be that no single scholar can now ever hope adequately to cover the entire patristic field, and that in a manual of this sort no author can be treated with all the detail that the specialist would desire, at the same time there is nothing in English of its kind and, as a matter of fact, Quasten's work bids fair to surpass even the German works in this category. The author's decision to include short excerpts from individual authors may seem needless to the scholar; but it is useful to the student and, at the same time, adds a certain liveliness to the book, which by its very nature would otherwise be condemned to remaining an inventory of names and dates. The strong point of the Patrology is its clarity, the fulness of its bibliography and its completeness (for the author has allowed himself a broader scale than Altaner); for example, he can spend three pages on the sixth-century papyrus, discovered in 1941, which gives apparently the stenographers' report of Origen's debate with Bishop Heracleides (A.D. 244/5) on the proper terminology to be used when discussing the Trinity (Patrology II 62ff.).
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References
1 The latest volume, II, begins with the origins of the Alexandrian school and carries the subject down through Lactantius (Newman Press: Westminster, Md.; Spectrum Publishers, Utrecht and Antwerp 1954). Volume I appeared in 1950.Google Scholar
2 ACW 16 (Newman Press, Westminster, Md.; Longmans Green, London 1954).Google Scholar
3 The volume, in accordance with the Institute's preconceived plan is 8, part i, and edited by Jaeger, W., P. Cavarnos, J. and Woods Callahan, Virginia (Brill, Leyden 1952). The next few volumes, I am reliably informed, should contain In Cantica Canticorum, In inscriptionem psalmorum, In Ecclesiasten, Contra fatum, and some of the dogmatic works,Google Scholar
4 Brill, , Leyden 1954.Google Scholar
5 Origène: Homélies sur le Cantique des Cantiques (Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1953).Google Scholar
6 A Diognète (Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1951).Google Scholar
7 Published for the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning by Harper and Brothers New York 1953.Google Scholar
8 Edited with introduction and commentary by Zeitlin, S.; English translation by Tedesche, S. (New York 1954).Google Scholar
9 The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1954, esp. 236ff.Google Scholar
10 Bickerman, E., ‘The Date of IV Maccabees,’ Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York 1945) 105ff.Google Scholar
11 SPCK: London 1952 (a slightly modified re-edition of the 1936 volume).Google Scholar
12 SPCK: London 1954.Google Scholar
13 Catholic University Patristic Studies 73 (Washington 1945); on Rufinus’ various ‘methods of alteration,’ see especially pp. 97f.Google Scholar
14 Klincksieck: Paris, 1954. In this connection it should be noted that the handiest editio minor of the New Testament, with a fairly wide coverage of MSS and patristic testimony, is Erwin Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, published by the Württemberg Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart, for the American Bible Society, New York, 195416. Nestle has utilized the latest textual studies on the Greek New Testament and avoids the excessive complication of (e.g.) the Merk-Lyonnet edition (Rome 19517).Google Scholar
15 Studia patristica el byzantina, published in the Benedictine monastery at Ettal under the editorship of Hoeck, J. M., O.S.B., Heft 1, 1953.Google Scholar
16
Peeters, P., J., ‘La première, S. traduction latine de “Barlaam et Joasaph” et son original grec,’
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49 (1931) 276–312; and cf. also Peeters’ note in the AS: Propylaeum Decembris (Brussels 1940) 551. The stages in the transmission as actually accepted by Dölger are as follows:
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17 University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles 1954. The French manuscript of the lectures was translated by Milman and Barbara Parry and revised by Nock, A. D. (cf. p. viii).Google Scholar
18 Ibid. p. 139.Google Scholar
19 Edited by W. Schneider, H., G. May, H., G. Russell, H. and C. Walton, F. (Liberal Arts Press, New York).Google Scholar
20 New York 1953. In this connection we should mention another useful source-book with a slightly more popular appeal: Anne Fremantle, A Treasury of Early Christianity (Viking Press, New York 1953). It is, in effect, an anthology of patristic selections (with inscriptions, hymns, references fr m pagan authors) taken from existing English translations. Beyond an extremely short introduction (by Miss Fremantle) there is no attempt at commentary despite the sometimes difficult nature of the material. The serious student is well advised to check the selection against the original or the translation from which it was taken.Google Scholar
21 Published in England at the Liverpool University Press: in America by the Philosophical Library, New York 1954. The second lecture (‘The Jews in Egypt’) may now be supplemented by Goodenough, E.'s monumental work, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series 37; Pantheon Books, New York, vols. I-III, 1953: vol. IV, 1954). For the importance of this book for patristic studies I must refer the reader to my review of the first three volumes in Theological Studies 15 (1954) 295ff. The controversial thesis of this (still incomplete) work is the establishment of the existence of a non-Rabbinical, Philonian type of Judaism on a far wider scale than has hitherto been believed. Goodenough's strong point is his fairly complete, penetrating analysis of Jewish (or Jewishpagan) archaeological remains which reveal a netherworld of syncretistic beliefs and practices. Particularly fascinating is his survey of Jewish mosaics and wall-paintings (from synagogues, catacombs, tombs, etc.), with all the underlying implications for the study of early Christianity and the Fathers, especially of the first two centuries. Goodenough's view, reiterated in his fourth volume, is that, contrary to the traditional picture of Greco-Roman Judaism, there existed a large body of religious-minded Jews during this period who ‘could take a host of pagan symbols which appeared to them to have in paganism the values they wanted from their Judaism, and blend them with Jewish symbols as freely as Philo blended the language of Greek metaphysics with the language of the bible’ (IV.212). In view of the importance of Philonism for the development of the Alexandrian school of theology and exegesis, Goodenough's volumes will have to be pondered by Jewish and patristic scholars alike. But even those who may not be completely convinced by Goodenough's conclusions, will have to admit that his presentation of the evidence is competent and exemplary, and that he offers us, as he progresses, many new keys to unlock the difficult treasures of the Hellenistic and patristic periods.Google Scholar
22 Bell, , op. cit. 99.Google Scholar
23 Nock, , quoted by Bell, op. cit. 100.Google Scholar