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Anglo-American Patristic Translations 1866–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Richard W. Pfaff
Affiliation:
Professor of History, University of North Carolina

Extract

Until after World War II there were three principal series of translations by which the Fathers were known to those in the English-speaking world whose ancient languages were inadequate or non-existent: the Library of the Fathers (LF), the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (ANCL), and the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF). The LF was the product of the Oxford Movement, with Pusey its guiding spirit; because of the literary importance of some of those involved in it, especially Newman, it has seemed worth a separate study. The other two series, which in a somewhat involved way complement each other, are of primarily historical interest, and may sensibly be considered together.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 39 note 1 Since the war two American series of translations, the ‘Ancient Christian Writers’ and the ‘Fathers of the Church’ have been appearing steadily (the first nine volumes of the ‘Library of Christian Classics’ should also be mentioned), and their translations generally supersede those in the older series; but at the present rate of the newer enterprises, it will be a long time before the LF, ANCL, and NPNF can be considered anything like redundant.

page 39 note 2 Pfaff, Richard W., ‘The Library of the Fathers: the Tractarians as Patristic Translators’, Studies in Philology, 70 (1973), 329–44Google Scholar.

page 41 note 1 Cf. Chadwick, Owen's statement, ‘Some of the ANCL translations are more difficult to use than their originals’: This History of the Church: a Select Bibliography, London 1962, 11.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 ANCL vii, p. viii.

page 42 note 2 ANCL ii, 64 n. 1.

page 42 note 3 ANCL iii,137.

page 42 note 4 ANCL viii, 381.

page 42 note 5 LF iii, 152.

page 43 note 1 ANF vi, p. v.

page 43 note 2 ANCL iv, 244.

page 43 note 3 ANCL iv, 249.

page 43 note 4 The Westminster Review (92 (1869), 246) praised especially the punctuality of appearance: ‘This is a really great undertaking, and is being carried through without any faltering in the engagements made by the publishers with their subscribers’Google Scholar.

page 44 note 1 The result, apparently, of his attending the church school founded by William Augustus Muhlenberg in 1827: DeMille, G. E., The Catholic Movement in the American Episcopal Church, Philadelphia 1941, 45Google Scholar.

page 45 note 1 ANF vi, p. v.

page 45 note 2 ANF iii, 3.

page 46 note 1 Ibid., 4.

page 46 note 2 ANF v, p.v.

page 46 note 3 ANF vii, 280.

page 48 note 1 Neither the life of Schaff by his son David (New York, 1897), nor Nichols, J. H., Romanticism in American Theology, Nevin and Schaff at Mercenburg, Chicago 1961, gives any information about his connection with the NPNFGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 2 NPNF 1st ser. i, v–vii.

page 50 note 1 NPNF 1st ser. vii, 533.

page 50 note 2 NPNF 1st ser. xi, p. iii.

page 51 note 1 NPNF 1st ser. xiv, 341–57.

page 51 note 2 NPNF 1st ser. xiv, p. xii of part 2.

page 51 note 3 For example, the complete Institutes and Conferences of John Cassian (with the exceptions noted below, 54 n. 1).

page 51 note 4 Dict. Nat. Biog. 1922–30, 877 (A. Cochrane).

page 51 note 5 The second series was published by Parker of Oxford as well as by the Christian Literature Publishing Company, which later sold its rights to Charles Scribner's.

page 52 note 1 NPNF 2nd ser. i, 408 of part 2.

page 53 note 1 Second edn. (1974), 1191. He became bishop of Exeter in 1903.

page 53 note 2 NPNF 2nd ser. iv, p. vi.

page 54 note 1 Whose works are treated with a pudor exceeding even the ANCL Clement of Alexandria: book VI of the Institutes (on the Spirit of Fornication), and Conferences XII (on Chastity) and XXII (on Nocturnal Illusions) are simply marked ‘omitted in the translation’.

page 54 note 2 Ephraim (sic) Syrus and Aphrahat (Aphraates) make up the second half of vol. xiii.

page 54 note 3 NPNF 2nd ser. xiv, pp. viii–ix.

page 55 note 1 An examination of the reception the NPNF volumes got from various periodicals, especially Anglican journals like the Church Quarterly Review and the Guardian, would furnish another dimension. But the reviews are so full, and die points of disagreement expressed at such lengm, that the subject would quite overbalance the present study.