Early Church Fathers VS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture

In anticipation of spending some Christmas money on my library, I thought the wisdom of the forum might be helpful. I'm looking at the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) for Logos. However, I've got the Scholars Platinum with the Early Church Fathers collection of ante-Nicene, Nicene, and post-Nicene writings. My question for those of you who have ACCS already is: what does ACCS do/provide that the ECF collection doesn't which makes it worth the ~$260?

Thanks in advance!

Karl

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Graham Owen

what does ACCS do/provide that the ECF collection doesn't

Hi Karl

For me the benefit is that I can find what various Church Fathers had to say about specific texts or passages quickly and easily. The results are better than trying to locate references using the Cited Tool or other search processes. It also acts as a good entry point to the writings of various Fathers as when I find an entry in ACCS interesting or helpful I can then go and read the source material in ECF.

The is it worth it question is a tough one to answer for someone else, my opinion is that if you see a real potential value in the Church Fathers and want to find an easier way to include them in your study then ACCS is a good buy.

DMB

The obvious 'one is a commentary' (and thus the price, requiring considerable time / effort) is probably the key reason. The early writings themselves are the 'go to' for more depth.

For several years I've held off getting the IVP resource, having moved a sizable internet site of early church fathers quotes by verse into a commentary for Laridian. I was thinking to move that one into Logos.

But maybe the IVP is even better; the advertising says it includes literal commentary over an above quotes from the church fathers.

Interesting that the source you're using has a 'Libronix page'. Quite a number of offerings.

Mike S.

what does ACCS do/provide that the ECF collection doesn't which makes it worth the ~$260?

I put together a screen shot that I think says it better then a few 1000 words. The short of it: How often do you find yourself using the full extent of the ECF in your bible text and Passage Guide driven studies?

If rarely or never, or even if you typically only get to a couple per verse, then you'll gain great value from the ACCS. ACCS is like having a patristics professor research assistant do the work for you. It's quick and easy and can help you go deeper into the material in ECF when it might be relevant and keep you from spending hours deciding if something in the ECF is relevant or usable.

(you'll need to view the full size image)

Philana Crouch

I think this commentary set could be very valuable. But I am curious...I made an Early Church Father's Collection, and then searched for a passage I am studying (Matthew 28:16-20) and got a lot of hits. What would this not give me that is in the commentary set? Just curious if this would suffice.

Blessings,

Philana

Mark Barnes

what does ACCS do/provide that the ECF collection doesn't which makes it worth the ~$260?

There are several differences:

ECF is structured in such a way that makes it easy to find out what one Father says about a passage (so you'd need NPN1 vol 6 to find out Augstine's view of Matthew 12, and volume 10 to find John Chrysostum's view). ACCS is structured to make it easy to find out what many ancient commentators said about a passage (so all the comments on Matt 12 are on the same page).
ECF gives you complete documents (where they exist), ACCS gives you snippets.
ECF gives you a fairly narrow range of authors (upto about 600AD, I think), whilst ACCS gives you a broader range (up to about 1100 from memory).

To give you an example, I randomly chose Matthew 12. ACCS quotes from Hilary of Poitiers, Chrysostom, Theodore of Heraclea, Cyril of Alexahdria, Origen, Apollinaris, Epiphanius the Latin, Augustine of Hippo, Chromatius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Severus, Jerome and an anonymous writer. Of those, only Chrysostom and Augustine are in ECF (although ECF has the entirety of the relevant sermons on Matthew 12, whilst ACCS just has snippets)..

Whilst there's some overlap, they're different works. If you're into ancient commentators it's well worth having both.

Mark Barnes

In response to Mike's post and Philana's follow-up, it's worth pointing out an important distinction. In the custom PG in the screenshot, the ECF is in a Collections section, whilst the ACCS is in a Commentaries section. These two sections give different results. The Collections section searches though the entire resource and returns a hit every time a reference is mentioned. On the other hand, the Commentaries section simply returns hits when a passage is commented on.

So if a comment or sermon on John 3:16 happened to cross reference Galatians 2, then it would be returned in a Collections search, but not a Commentaries search - regardless of which resources were included.

Personally I therefore place ECF in a Commentaries section of the PG. This significantly reduces the number of hits, but increases their relevance. This method let me to seeing that both John Chrysostom and Augstine had sermons on Matthew 12 in the example above.

Doug Bullock

What do you mean by the Letters PG?

Mark Barnes

What do you mean by the Letters PG?

Sorry! PG=Passage Guide. You'll also often see the initials EG (Exegetical Guide), BWS (Bible Word Study), TC (Text Comparison), and CBV (Copy Bible Verses).

Mike Childs

Karl,

I would highly recommend the ACCS. I also have the Early Church Fathers collection, and it serves a different purpose. I use that collection when studying a particular Church Father. But I don't have time to do that week in and week out. If you want to know what the Church Fathers said about a particular verse, there is nothing like the ACCS - well Thomas Aquinas' Cantena Aurea on the gospels is somewhat like it.

Of course, any such work is selective and depends upon the quality of the editor. Thomas Oden did a marvelous job of putting this together. It is a great help for the study of scripture, church history, and for writing sermons. It will also help you decide the most useful places to study in the Church Fathers collection if you want to dig deeper.

On the whole, I would say the ACCS is much more useful than the Church Fathers collection for pastors. It is one of tthe most valuable resources I have after my exegetical tools.

Just my opinion.

Philana Crouch

In response to Mike's post and Philana's follow-up, it's worth pointing out an important distinction. In the custom PG in the screenshot, the ECF is in a Collections section, whilst the ACCS is in a Commentaries section. These two sections give different results. The Collections section searches though the entire resource and returns a hit every time a reference is mentioned. On the other hand, the Commentaries section simply returns hits when a passage is commented on.

So if a comment or sermon on John 3:16 happened to cross reference Galatians 2, then it would be returned in a Collections search, but not a Commentaries search - regardless of which resources were included.

Personally I therefore place ECF in a Commentaries section of the PG. This significantly reduces the number of hits, but increases their relevance. This method let me to seeing that both John Chrysostom and Augstine had sermons on Matthew 12 in the example above.

Thanks for explaining this, I didn't even catch the differences. One way to use the ECF might be to include both types in the PG.

Have the ECF in commentaries section, but then include them in a Collections section (which could be collapsed until needed).

Blessings,

Philana

Friedrich

I echo Michael's recommendation of Aquinas' Catena Aurea.

Most has been suggested and analyzed--with which I agree. I especially agree with the observation that the ACC very easily allows you to see a decent representation of several different Fathers.

To all the fine points made, let me add:

ACC quotes are linked with the various ECF books they are found in. This is valuable to you: if you want to see more of the original context, you can link directly to it and read the sermon/teaching.
Catena Aurea is also linked, where possible, to the appropriate authors/sermons in the various ANF, NF etc volumes.
What makes Catena nice, is that Aquinas has collected all that (he knew) the early fathers had to say about the Gospels, arranged by verse. Often his sources extend beyond what we have in the ECF collections, I believe.

So, each has their value, and the nice thing about the Logos editions of the above is that they are linked to the ECF. And I would check with sales about getting you a reduced price on Catena. I got it for a super special Community Pricing price. I think $40. you probably won't get it that low, but they might knock a few off of their listed price for ya. [;)]

Mattillo

In response to Mike's post and Philana's follow-up, it's worth pointing out an important distinction. In the custom PG in the screenshot, the ECF is in a Collections section, whilst the ACCS is in a Commentaries section. These two sections give different results. The Collections section searches though the entire resource and returns a hit every time a reference is mentioned. On the other hand, the Commentaries section simply returns hits when a passage is commented on.

So if a comment or sermon on John 3:16 happened to cross reference Galatians 2, then it would be returned in a Collections search, but not a Commentaries search - regardless of which resources were included.

Personally I therefore place ECF in a Commentaries section of the PG. This significantly reduces the number of hits, but increases their relevance. This method let me to seeing that both John Chrysostom and Augstine had sermons on Matthew 12 in the example above.

I know this is an old thread but does anyone know of a good collection rule for Early Church Fathers? Currently I'm using ANF OR NPNF

Robert Neely

from the wiki:

Fathers: Early Church

Library Size: 4,096
Collection Size: 59 Excludes 3 Perseus compared to Rule: title:(Early,Fathers)
Rule: (Title:Early AND Title:Christ,Church) OR Title:Fathers
Manually Included Items: none
Manually Excluded Items: none

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

I know this is an old thread but does anyone know of a good collection rule for Early Church Fathers? Currently I'm using ANF OR NPNF

One collection rule is:

(Type:Ancient AND Subject:(Jews,Justin,Trypho)) OR Author:(Augustine,Bede,Chrysostom,Cyril,"Dionysius the Areopagite",Ephrem,Eusebius,"Gregory the Great",Pachomius) OR Subject:(Basil,"Church History--primitive",Cyprian,"Early works to 1800","History--Early Church") OR Title:(Chrysostom,Eusebius,Fathers,Macarius,"Saint Benedict") OR (Title:Early AND Title:(Christ,Church)) OR (Title:Early AND Title:(Christ,Church)) -Title:"Catholic Edition"

FYI: the exclusion of "Catholic Edition" titles removes duplicates in my Library since have both Protestant and Catholic Editions of Early Church Fathers. Protestant Edition includes more front matter written at a later date => Early Church Fathers Special Catholic Edition (37 vols.)

Keep Smiling [:)]