Early Church Fathers - Works in English Translation unavailable elsewhere online
"These English translations are all out of copyright, but were not included in the 38 volume collection of Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Please take copies and place online elsewhere. In some cases I have felt it necessary to add an introduction to the online text. These are all placed in the public domain also -- copy freely. The texts are listed in chronological order."
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm
#earlychurch #index
"These English translations are all out of copyright, but were not included in the 38 volume collection of Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Please take copies and place online elsewhere. In some cases I have felt it necessary to add an introduction to the online text. These are all placed in the public domain also -- copy freely. The texts are listed in chronological order."
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm
#earlychurch #index
www.tertullian.org
Early Church Fathers - Additional Works in English Translation
unavailable elsewhere online
unavailable elsewhere online
Ecce Verbum
Could Mortification play a role in Penance? On the Importance of Mortification: St. Anthony says, "I look to St. Paul for my example, for he mortified himself, and said: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to…
penanceintheearlychurch.pdf
7.8 MB
Penance in the Early Church
Short Sketch of Subsequent Development
Rev. M.J. O'Donnel
In this classic work Rev. Michael J. O'Donnell looks at the history of the early church and how it dealt with the issue of reconciliation and penances involved in returning to full Communion.
Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Power of the Keys
III. Were all sins forgiven in the Sacrament?
IV. The Public Penance
V. How far public penance was necessary
VI. Confession: its necessity and character
VII. The absolution
VIII. How often was penance administered?
IX. Doctrine imperfectly defined at first
X. Conclusion
#penance #earlychurch
Short Sketch of Subsequent Development
Rev. M.J. O'Donnel
In this classic work Rev. Michael J. O'Donnell looks at the history of the early church and how it dealt with the issue of reconciliation and penances involved in returning to full Communion.
Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Power of the Keys
III. Were all sins forgiven in the Sacrament?
IV. The Public Penance
V. How far public penance was necessary
VI. Confession: its necessity and character
VII. The absolution
VIII. How often was penance administered?
IX. Doctrine imperfectly defined at first
X. Conclusion
#penance #earlychurch
"Great inspirers and coworkers of Saint Jerome"
A fragment about St. Marcella and St. Fabiola and their role in the founding of the Christian monastic system.
"To the amazement -- or rather the consternation -- of the patrician society of Rome it was one day learned that Marcella had bidden adieu to all her rich garments and jewels and had donned the rough and somber habit of a nun. Not only this; she had converted her sumptuous palace on the Aventine into a retreat where her life was devoted to prayer and works of mercy. The outcry at this strange innovation was at first very great. But the surpassing virtue of Marcella soon silenced criticism, and it was not long before she had gathered about her a multitude of widows and young maidens from the noblest families in the capital, who, like herself, desired to follow, under her direction, the same kind of life that had, in the beginning, so shocked all the leaders of patrician Rome. Marcella had, in fact, founded the first convent ever seen in the proud City of the Seven Hills and she was her the first of Roman women to embrace the monastic state.
But her convent quickly became more than refuge from the frivolity and corruption of the capital. It was also soon recognized as a center of works of charity such as the city of the Caesars had not before known. The care of the poor and the sick had never been a pagan virtue and it was not until the advent of Christianity that the precept, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," was put in practice. But it was not until the flower of patrician society, which had gathered about Marcella in her Aventine home, had begun their sublime works of charity that the selfish and pleasure-loving pagans of impenal Rome began to realize the full significance of Christian charity and devotion."
"It was due to the munificence of the patrician Fabiola, also one of the friends of Marcella and one of the frequenters of her convent on the Aventine, that the first hospitals and asylums were erected in Rome and its environs. What an immense advance this was for the welfare of the poor and the sick may be gauged from the fact that pagan Rome had never, during its entire history, established a single institution of public beneficence. Hence, when Fabiola, who was a descendant of the celebrated Fabius Cunctator, opened, for the benefit of suffering humanity, her splendid institutions of charity, her deeds of unheard-of benevolence were heralded throughout the world as the beginning of a new era. In his beautiful eulogy on this philanthropic daughter of the Fabii, St. Jerome describes her as "the glory of the Church, the astonishment of paganism, the mother of the poor," and gives a touching picture of her as she spends her immense fortune for the relief of the indigent and has the sick and dying brought to her hospitals from the public places and from the dark and noisome streets of the imperial capital."
"But Marcella's palatial abode was yet more than a house of prayer and a center whence ever radiated the most sublime deeds of Christian charity and sacrifice."
"A part of Marcella's marble palace with its golden ceilings was set apart for an oratory which was designed for the use of the eager students who flocked in ever increasing numbers to hear the eloquent and scholarly Dalmatian discourse on the Holy Scriptures. For this reason Jerome called Marcella's home on the Aventine Ecclesia Domestica -- the Church of the Household -- an institution which, during the close of the fourth and the opening of the fifth century, was the glory of the Church not only in the West but also in the East."
"Never before had Rome witnessed such ardor in the study of Scripture, and never before or since was there assembled for such study so distinguished and so intelligent a group of women. Such great progress in the knowledge of Scripture had some of made -- notably Marcella, a woman of markable mentality -- that they were consulted on difficult passages of Holy Writ, by laity and clergy alike."
source
#monasticism #earlychurch
A fragment about St. Marcella and St. Fabiola and their role in the founding of the Christian monastic system.
"To the amazement -- or rather the consternation -- of the patrician society of Rome it was one day learned that Marcella had bidden adieu to all her rich garments and jewels and had donned the rough and somber habit of a nun. Not only this; she had converted her sumptuous palace on the Aventine into a retreat where her life was devoted to prayer and works of mercy. The outcry at this strange innovation was at first very great. But the surpassing virtue of Marcella soon silenced criticism, and it was not long before she had gathered about her a multitude of widows and young maidens from the noblest families in the capital, who, like herself, desired to follow, under her direction, the same kind of life that had, in the beginning, so shocked all the leaders of patrician Rome. Marcella had, in fact, founded the first convent ever seen in the proud City of the Seven Hills and she was her the first of Roman women to embrace the monastic state.
But her convent quickly became more than refuge from the frivolity and corruption of the capital. It was also soon recognized as a center of works of charity such as the city of the Caesars had not before known. The care of the poor and the sick had never been a pagan virtue and it was not until the advent of Christianity that the precept, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," was put in practice. But it was not until the flower of patrician society, which had gathered about Marcella in her Aventine home, had begun their sublime works of charity that the selfish and pleasure-loving pagans of impenal Rome began to realize the full significance of Christian charity and devotion."
"It was due to the munificence of the patrician Fabiola, also one of the friends of Marcella and one of the frequenters of her convent on the Aventine, that the first hospitals and asylums were erected in Rome and its environs. What an immense advance this was for the welfare of the poor and the sick may be gauged from the fact that pagan Rome had never, during its entire history, established a single institution of public beneficence. Hence, when Fabiola, who was a descendant of the celebrated Fabius Cunctator, opened, for the benefit of suffering humanity, her splendid institutions of charity, her deeds of unheard-of benevolence were heralded throughout the world as the beginning of a new era. In his beautiful eulogy on this philanthropic daughter of the Fabii, St. Jerome describes her as "the glory of the Church, the astonishment of paganism, the mother of the poor," and gives a touching picture of her as she spends her immense fortune for the relief of the indigent and has the sick and dying brought to her hospitals from the public places and from the dark and noisome streets of the imperial capital."
"But Marcella's palatial abode was yet more than a house of prayer and a center whence ever radiated the most sublime deeds of Christian charity and sacrifice."
"A part of Marcella's marble palace with its golden ceilings was set apart for an oratory which was designed for the use of the eager students who flocked in ever increasing numbers to hear the eloquent and scholarly Dalmatian discourse on the Holy Scriptures. For this reason Jerome called Marcella's home on the Aventine Ecclesia Domestica -- the Church of the Household -- an institution which, during the close of the fourth and the opening of the fifth century, was the glory of the Church not only in the West but also in the East."
"Never before had Rome witnessed such ardor in the study of Scripture, and never before or since was there assembled for such study so distinguished and so intelligent a group of women. Such great progress in the knowledge of Scripture had some of made -- notably Marcella, a woman of markable mentality -- that they were consulted on difficult passages of Holy Writ, by laity and clergy alike."
source
#monasticism #earlychurch
Ecce Verbum
a566175002cypruoft.pdf
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM