The Complete Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series #1 - 14

by Philip Schaff (Editor), Alexander Roberts (Editor)

Series I of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers consists of eight volumes of the writings of St. Augustine, the greatest and most influential of the early Church Fathers, and six volumes of the treatises and homilies of St. Chrysostom. The series is edited by the eminent church historian Philip Schaff (1819-1893), professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York.
Volume Titles:
Volume 1: Augustine: Prolegomena, Confessions, Letters
Volume 2: Augustine: City of God, Christian Doctrine
Volume 3: Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Volume 4: Augustine: Anti-Manichaean, Anti-Donatist Writings
Volume 5: Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
Volume 6: Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Volume 7: Augustine: Gospel of John, First Epistle of John, Soliliques
Volume 8: Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Volume 9: Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues
Volume 10: Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew
Volume 11: Chrysostom: Homilies of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
Volume 12: Chrysostom: Homilies on Corinthians, 1st and 2nd
Volume 13: Chrysostom: Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
Volume 14: Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Hebrews

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Church History, Religion, Reference, History, Nonfiction

8448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2015

About the author

Philip Schaff was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart, and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholuck and Julius Müller, by David Strauss and, above all, Neander. At Berlin, in 1841, he took the degree of B.D., and passed examinations for a professorship. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as tutor to Baron Krischer. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, where he lectured on exegesis and church history. In 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America.
On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.
Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.
In 1854, he visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfort and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel. He lectured in Germany on America, and received the degree of D.D. from Berlin.
In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which fought the “continental Sunday”) in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862-1867 he lectured on church history at Andover.

Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society, the Netherland Historical Society, and other historical and literary societies in Europe and America. He was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general conference of the Alliance, which, after two postponements on account of the Franco-Prussian War, was held in New York in October 1873. Schaff was also, in 1871, one of the Alliance delegates to the emperor of Russia to plead for the religious liberty of his subjects in the Baltic provinces.

He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death. He also served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, though he died before it was published in 1901.
His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche into English.

Reviews

[Andy Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

By no means all of the works of these great (two) authors. New York Press is working on a more exhaustive English work that will be done in 2023. Augustine wrote 5,000,000 words in Latin and it may never be fully translated into English, but I certainly hope it will.

I read the Augustine works in this set and am very pleased at how readable the translation is. Don't start with this set if you are just starting, but this series and it's original printing have been inescapable in quotations by scholars.

Augustine so greatly disagreed with himself through his life that it is as if you find two authors in his works. Still, a writer that shaped western theology and arguably a core writer in the east and west split.

John chrysostom is by far my favorite preacher to read-I read through a few of his homilies in preparation for my own sermons and appreciate his sassy and to the point exegesis of the texts.

Have not read all of him, but will work through his throughout my life.