Religion: The Pioneers

To most modern Christians, the days of the Early Church are vague and far-off times for scholars to quibble over. But no era in the church’s history was more exciting. The early leaders, with their strange-sounding names—Polycarp, Athenagoras, Asterius of Amasea—were spiritual pioneers whose adventures in the faith built a legacy for all Christians.

To bring these all-but-forgotten church fathers back into their own, a group of 84 Roman Catholic scholars in the U.S. and Canada have undertaken a head-spinning job—the translation of 300 patristic writings, to be published in a set of 72 volumes called The Fathers of the Church. The idea for the series came from an Augustine scholar, Dr. Ludwig Schopp, a New York rare book dealer who three years ago transmitted his enthusiasm, to Publisher Anthony Cima.

When Cima ran short of funds before the first volume was printed, other publishing houses refused to join in such a formidably uncommercial undertaking.

Publisher Cima went ahead anyhow, is trusting to God’s providence for money to see the series through. Scholar Schopp heads a seven-man editorial board which plans to bring out at least one volume a month for the next five or six years.

Schism & Discipline. The first volume of the series,* The Apostolic Fathers, is already out. Ready for distribution this week is the first of the 22 volumes that will be devoted to Saint Augustine. If these first two are typical, the series may reach an audience of unlooked-for size.

The translations are as crisp and readable as many a modern bestseller.

In the 1st Century and the early part of the 2nd, the little groups of Christians scattered along the shores of the Mediterranean were still without a recognized body of revealed Scripture, and relied heavily upon letters (epistles) from church leaders. Some of these letters, carefully preserved and read publicly from time to time, are the chief source of knowledge about the first fathers.

Though the details of their lives are largely conjectural, their personalities are sometimes sharply revealed in the letters they wrote. Schism and discipline were the most common problems dealt with in these epistles.

Soul & Body. High point of The Apostolic Fathers is the “Letter to Diognetus.” Written in the form of a letter to a pagan to describe “this new group or institute” which calls itself “Christian,” its moving characterization of the sect is still a counsel of perfection. Excerpt: “Christians are not different from the rest of men in nationality, speech or customs; they do not live in states of their own, nor do they use a special language, nor adopt a peculiar way of life. Their teaching is not the kind of thing that could be discovered by the wisdom or reflection of mere active-minded men; in deed, they are not outstanding in human learning as others are. . . . They live, each in his native land — but as though they were not really at home there. They share in all duties like citizens and suffer all hardships like strangers. Every foreign land is for them a fatherland and every fatherland a foreign land. . . . They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

They obey the laws that men make, but their lives are better than the laws. They love all men, but are persecuted by all. . . .

“In a word, what the soul is to the body Christians are to the world.”

* Cost: $4 a volume.