AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.—Christian History.

Hard-to-Find Translations

Some of the Church Fathers and other early Christian writings are very hard to find in English translations—especially in freely quotable public-domain translations. These scraps may be helpful to serious or curious students.

Apostolic Constitutions

The Apostolical Constitutions and Cognate Documents: With Special Reference to Their Liturgical Elements. By the Rev. De Lacy O'Leary. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1906. —Not a translation, but a useful small treatise that attempts to sort out all the various versions.

The Ethiopic Didascalia; or, The Ethiopic Version of the Apostolical Constitutions, Received in the Church of Abyssinia. With an English translation. Edited and translated by Thomas Pell Platt. London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1834.

The Apostolical Constitutions: or, Canons of the Apostles, in Coptic. With an English translation by Henry Tattam. London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1848.

Coptic Texts from the British Museum, edited by E. A. Wallis Budge

Coptic Homilies in the Dialect of Upper Egypt. Edited from the Papyrus Codex Oriental 5001 in the British Museum by E. A. Wallis Budge. London: British Museum, 1910. —With English translations.

Coptic Biblical Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt. Edited by E. A. Wallis Budge. London: British Museum, 1912. —No translations, but with notes wherever the Coptic differs substantially from the Greek text.

Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt. Edited, with English translations, by E. A. Wallis Budge. London: British Museum, 1913.

Coptic Martyrdoms etc. in the Dialect of Upper Egypt. Edited, with English translations, by E. A. Wallis Budge. London: British Museum, 1914.

Vol. I.

Vol. II.

Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt. Edited, with English translations, by E. A. Wallis Budge. London: British Museum, 1915.

Egeria (Etheria)

The Pilgrimage of Etheria. Translated by M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [1919].

Ephrem the Syrian

Select Works of S. Ephrem the Syrian, translated out of the original Syriac. With notes and indices. By the Rev. J. B. Morris. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1847.

Eusebius of Caesarea

The Auncient Ecclesiastical Histories of the First Six Hundred Yeares After Christ, written in the Greeke tongue by three learned Historiographers, Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius.

Eusebius Pamphilus bishop of Caesarea in Palaestina wrote 10 bookes.

Socrates Scholasticus of Constantinople wrote 7 bookes.

Evagrius Scholasticus of Antioch wrote 6 bookes.

Whereunto is annexed Dorotheus Bishop of Tyrus, of the lives of the Prophetes, Apostles and 70 Disciples. All which authors are faithfully translated out of the Greeke tongue by Meredith Hammer, Maister of Arte and student in divinitie. Imprinted at London by Thomas Vautroullier dwelling in the Blackefriers by Ludgate. 1577.

History of the Martyrs in Palestine, of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, discovered in a very ancient Syriac manuscript. Edited and translated into English by William Cureton. London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1861.

The Proof of the Gospel, being the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius of Cæsarea. Translated by W. J. Ferrar. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920.

Vol. I.

Vol. II.

The Theophania or Divine Manifestation of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Translated into English with notes, from an ancient Syriac version of the Greek original now lost. To which is prefixed a vindication of the orthodoxy, and prophetical views, of that distinguished writer. By Samuel Lee. Cambridge, 1843.

Isidore of Seville

An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville, by Ernest Brehaut. New York: Columbia, 1912. —About half the book is long extracts from Isidore's writings.

Jacob of Sarugh (or Sarug)

Here is his Homily on Habib the Martyr.

Lactantius

God’s Judgments upon Tyrants: or, a History of the Wicked Lives and Remarkable Deaths of those Roman Emperors Who Persecuted the Primitive Christians. Written originally in Latin by Lactantius. Made English by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum. By whom is Prefix’d, A Full View of Popery. In a Large Preface concerning Persecution. London: J. Roberts, 1715.

Liturgies

A Collection of the Principal Liturgies Used by the Christian Church in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist: Particularly the Ancient… Translated into English by Several Hands; with a Dissertation upon them by Thomas Brett. London: Richard King, 1720.

Liturgies Eastern and Western: Being a Reprint of the Texts, Either Original or Translated, of the Most Representative Liturgies of the Church, from Various Sources. Edited by C. E. Hammond. Oxford, 1878.
Another copy
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Liturgies Eastern and Western: Being the Texts Original or Translated of the Principal Liturgies of the Church. Edited by F. E. Brightman, on the basis of the former work by C. E. Hammond. Oxford, 1896. —The Eastern section is hugely expanded from Hammond’s edition.

Vol. I. Eastern Liturgies.
Another copy
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Another copy
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The second volume, on the Western liturgies, was never issued, so the earlier Hammond edition will have to suffice.

Pacian

The Epistles of S. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage and Martyr, with the Council of Carthage, on the Baptism of Heretics. To which are added, the Extant Works of S. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845.

Paulinus of Nola

Vigilantius and His Times, by W. S. Gilly, D.D. London: Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley, 1845. An argument that Vigilantius was right and the Church went off the rails in the fourth century. Includes some letters of Paulinus in translation, among them this lovely extract from a letter to Sulpicius Severus.

The Blessed Virgin Mary in Early Christian Latin Poetry. By Rev. Andrew B. Heider, S.M. (Doctoral dissertation.) Washington: Catholic University, 1918. —Includes this poem.

Peter Chrysologus

The Evidence for the Papacy, as derived from the Holy Scriptures and from primitive antiquity. By the Hon. Colin Lindsay. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1870. This search will give you some small but meaty chunks of Peter Chrysologus.

A few small extracts from his homilies are also here.

Prudentius

The Hymns of Prudentius. Translated by R. Martin Pope. London: Dent, 1905.

Romanus the Melodist (or Romanus Melodus)

A very short hymn here.

Theodore the Studite (or Theodore Studites, or of Studium)

Theodore of Studium: His Life and Times, by Alice Gardner. London: Edward Arnold, 1905. Includes a few extensive quotations from letters. This one describes his scourging at the height of the iconoclast persecution.

Spicilegium Syriacum, Containing Remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose, and Mara bar Serapion. Translated by the Rev. William Cureton. London: Rivingtons, 1855.

Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In the Oxford edition of her works. Includes many verse translations of otherwise untranslated early Christian poetry.