Search the Writings of a Specific Church Father?

Hello, brethren,

Using Logos 7, is it possible to search through the writings of a particular Church Father?

I understand that I can add this Father's books to a collection and simply search through that collection, but the problem is that many of these books are compilations of many Fathers. The NPNF, for example, might include the writings of 8 Fathers in a single volume.

What I am looking for is a way to isolate a specific Father so that I could search for every time St. Basil speaks about the Holy Spirit, for example.

Any help is greatly appreciated

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MJ. Smith

try a dynamic collection such as author:Polycarp as what is to be searched ... imperfect but...

Matthew

is it possible to search through the writings of a particular Church Father?

I don't know any specific way to do this. If it were possible to get a list of every reference range for whoever you are searching, then you could search within that range, but putting the list together would not be easy. I know there have been several threads requesting some sort of patristics interactive. If such a resource were ever created, Faithlife could use it to launch a search specific to whatever author is being studied.

Dave Hooton

What I am looking for is a way to isolate a specific Father so that I could search for every time St. Basil speaks about the Holy Spirit, for example.

I first searched my Apostolic Fathers collection for mention of Basil and found Basil of Caesarea in a TOC; which had a link to an article; which in turn had a link to NPNF 2.8 with an article on the the Holy Spirit. I tried a few searches as there is <Basil> datatype but you can't formulate a search unless you know the article name!

A more focussed method is to search for the TOC and then look for an article e.g. basil AFTER "contents volume", "contents of volume", "table of contents" You can expand that to search for an article e.g. "spirit" AFTER basil AFTER "contents volume", "contents of volume", "table of contents"

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866609#Comment_866609

Dave, I'm curious as to your results compared to my results:

My method:

DMB

I was curious what the best Logosian minds would produce.

My way depends how serious you are per author. I routinely copy text out of Logos, and apply more sophisticated searches/analytics. Takes very little time, and I often supplement from other sources, where Logos is light. And if you want, you can bring the authors stacked texts back in a PB for Logos style searches. Plus the PB per author is there for your later use.

That's actually why I got Logos in the first place ... efficient exports and then imports. Bob and Co have been kind to maintain this aspect.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866609#Comment_866609

e.g. "spirit" AFTER basil AFTER "contents volume", "contents of volume", "table of contents"

One search result has Basil in a Chapter 3 article and Spirit in Chapter 4. In contrast, can search for spirit in closer proximity to Basil articles:

([field heading,largetext,surface] spirit) AFTER 88 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] Basil)

Keep Smiling [:)]

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866618#Comment_866618

([field heading,largetext,surface] spirit) AFTER 88 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] Basil)

Refined search to "Basil of Caesarea"

([field heading,largetext,surface] spirit) AFTER 111 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] "Basil of Caesarea")

Results include resources not written by Basil with references to Basil of Caesarea.

Expanded search to include "Basil the Great"

([field heading,largetext,surface] spirit) AFTER 111 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] "Basil of Caesarea","Basil the Great")

Keep Smiling [:)]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866611#Comment_866611

Dave, I'm curious as to your results compared to my results:

With resources having multiple authors there are many results where Basil is not the author, or the article is biographical; discussing his works, or it is a mention of "spirit" without discussion. I don't have books specifically authored by Saint Basil.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866618#Comment_866618

e.g. "spirit" AFTER basil AFTER "contents volume", "contents of volume", "table of contents"

One search result has Basil in a Chapter 3 article and Spirit in Chapter 4. In contrast, can search for spirit in closer proximity to Basil articles:

Refinement is the name of the game, especially as I don't have as many resources for Basil.

FrMoses

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866652#Comment_866652

Thank you, everyone, for these wonderful replies. They are helping narrow the queries.

I was wondering, why don't milestone searches work here? If we have a datatype (i.e., GregoryNazianzen), why can't a milestone search parse through all of the writings that fall within that datatype? Sadly, it's not working for me. Shouldn't something like this be possible?

Christ WITHIN {Milestone <GregoryNazianzen>}

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866951#Comment_866951

I was wondering, why don't milestone searches work here? If we have a datatype (i.e., GregoryNazianzen), why can't a milestone search parse through all of the writings that fall within that datatype? Sadly, it's not working for me. Shouldn't something like this be possible?

Dreaming of ANY wildcard for searching WITHIN {Milestone ... since currently need to specify milestone range: e.g.

(Christ WITHIN {Milestone <GregoryNazianzen Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 1-45>}) OR (gospel WITHIN {Milestone <GregoryNazianzen Gregory Nazianzen, Letter 1-202>})

Keep Smiling [:)]

delete12066188

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866953#Comment_866953

For a specific Church Father like Basil you could search here

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/a_1010_Conspectus_Omnium_Rerum_Alphabeticus_Littera_B.html

for a doc File and create a Personal Book

FrMoses

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/866953#Comment_866953

Keep Smiling for Jesus,

That is an awesome search! It covers many of St. Gregory Nazianzen's important writings and works across all of the collections in my library that contain his Orations. Thank you!

Now, if there was only that wildcard functionality for milestone searches... it would make things much more powerful!