THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS

Translated

by

FRANCIS X. GLIMM

JOSEPH M.-F. MARIQUE, S.J.

† GERALD G. WALSH, S.J.

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS

Washington, D.C.

Nihil Obstat:

John M. Fearns, S.T.D.

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

* Francis Cardinal Spellman

Archbishop of New York

April 3, 1947

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 47-31345

ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1549-5 (pbk)

Copyright © 1947 by

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC.

All rights reserved

Second Printing 1948

Third Printing 1962

Fourth Printing 1969

Fifth Printing 1981

First paperback reprint 2008

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLATION

VOLUME 1

EDITORIAL BOARD

Hermigild Dressler, O.F.M.

Quincy College

Editorial Director

Richard Talaska

Editorial Assistant

FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

Ludwig Schopp, Roy J. Deferrari, Bernard M. Peebles

GENERAL FOREWORD

The fathers of the church* lived in an age when a new world, a Christian world, was emerging out of the civilization of Greco-Roman antiquity. Retaining all that was good in the ancient culture, they struggled not only against the various opponents of the Church, but also against the heresies which arose within the Church itself. Over against a decadent paganism they stressed unceasingly the ethical teachings of Christ’s gospel. As spiritual leaders they confronted at first a hostile worldly power; they stood their ground with equal firmness when the state had turned Christian but was only too often inclined to infringe upon the rights of the Church. These manifold controversies and tensions have left us an unusually rich literature; monuments of far-reaching influence in the history of Christian thought, monuments to which Councils and theologians have turned at all times for guidance; monuments whose constructive value is being acutely realized in a special way today, at a time when so many social and philosophical systems have proved futile. Serious thinkers, therefore, are seeking to find in these writings the path by which humanity can perhaps retrace its steps to the solidarity it has lost.

Accordingly, the demand for new translations of the works of the Fathers has been growing more insistent from year to year. The old translations are not only difficult to obtain, but frequently fail to convey to the reader, as they ought, the results of modern scholarship.

This series of seventy-two volumes will present outstanding patristic writings and include some works never translated before. The translations, although done by American Catholic scholars, are destined neither for scholars only, nor exclusively for Catholics, but for the entire English-speaking world. They will be kept as close as possible to the meaning and the spirit of the original as is compatible with the character of modern English. Introductions will familiarize the reader with ...