Does anybody have any comments on the value of the new Ancient Christian Writer's Bundle (https://www.logos.com/product/40940/ancient-christian-writers-bundle) for somebody who owns Schaff's Fathers.
Good question, and also what about all these early Christian Writers whose works have been in prepub (the Loeb editions, I believe) and classic studies of the Apostolic Fathers?
Is this 65 Volume Ancient Christian Writer's Bundle of sufficient worth to add it as well? Does it contain significant unique material or scholarship?
There is a fair amount of new material - I want to build a list but lack the time. These volumes lack the bias Schaff brought to his notes and selection of texts and represent the best of contemporary English-speaking knowledge on the Fathers.
As an amateur who has gotten interested in the church fathers, IMHO the ACW set is the premier edition of these writings. Schaff is dated and the notes read the fathers as at least leading toward protestants... Fathers of the Church is more extensive, but the notes are much shorter and tend to read the fathers as Roman Catholics (I noticed a Western bias on some Greek fathers). But Ancient Christian Writers editions generally seem to be labors of love - EXTENSIVELY annotated, with discussion to let each figure speak for themself, as well as compare their voice with many (near countless) other figures. Unfortunately these annotations are as endnotes in the printed editions, to it is too easy to ignore the wisdom in these notes, but this will not be a problem with Logos linking...
SDG
Ken McGuire
Thanks MJ and Ken for sharing your thoughts on these resources. Very helpful.
I want to build a list but lack the time
If someone does have too much time on his hand, I for one would really appreciate a comparison chart with the ECF, the Fathers of the Church, the Ancient Christian Writers, Loeb, the Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, and whatever else has passed through CP.
Thank you guys so much for the feedback.
A few volumes of this set are on Internet Archive's Universal Library, and I have made PB's of a few of those. Attached is a sample of one of them. It will let you see about this set.
I've got all 67 vols released so far. These are critical editions. I was reading the vol on Evagrius Ponticus recently and there was much more commentary than actual text (which was in both Greek and English) which was both a positive and a negative. With the way Logos' search engine works, you would have to take care to make sure you know whether you are quoting the actual ancient work or the editor of that work.
I've cross-compared some texts in Augustine and there wasn't too much difference meaning-wise between Schaff, ACW & the CUA set that came out a short while ago. The ACW & CUA readings were easier to comprehend though as the language was more contemporary than Schaff.
I for one would really appreciate a comparison chart with the ECF, the Fathers of the Church, the Ancient Christian Writers, Loeb, the Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, and whatever else has passed through CP.
If money were no object, what benefit would there be to having ALL these works? It would be nice to have a Patristics base package.
