The western fathers : being the lives of Martin of Tours, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Honoratus of Arles, and Germanus Auxerre / translated and edited by F. R. Hoare.

Includes a ten-page recommended reading list at the end of the text from various disciplines within the humanities/social sciences published by HarperTorch books.

"Biographies are printed in the order in which their subjects were born. This order, which has much to recommend it in any case, has in this case the incidental advantage that it is also very nearly the order in which the biographies were written, the only exception being that the Life of St. Augustine, who was born before St. Honoratus, was written a year or two after the Discourse on the Life of the latter. Second, for convenience of reference, the footnotes to the Lives are numbered according to their position in the section, not according to their position on the page. Third, as regards references to Holy Scripture, when the numbering of chapters or verses differs as between Vulgate (and the Challoner version) and the Hebrew or Greek and the Anglican versions, the figure in the Vulgate is given first and the other figure follows in brackets." --from the preface

The life of St. Martin / by Sulpicius Severus -- Three letters on St. Martin / by Sulpicius Severus -- Two dialogues -- Postumianus -- Gallus by Sulpicius Severus --

The life of St. Ambrose / by Paulinus the Deacon -- The life of St. Augustine / by St. Possidius, Bishop of Calama -- A discourse on the life of St. Honoratus / by St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles -- The life of St. Germanus / by Constanius of Lyons.

"The documents selected for translation are such as date from crucial periods in the development of Christian culture: their importance for the history of civilization far transcends that of mere biographical accuracy...Their primary value lies in the light they throw on the ideas existent in their author's minds and thus contributing to form the mind of Christendom, then and thereafter... Mr. Hoare's lively translations embrace a wide variety of subject and method." --from The Times [London] Literary Supplement

"These historically significant biographies are not merely essential source material to be critically drawn upon by historians; they are pieces of Christian literature in which the reader may experience for himself the vigorous spiritual life of the early Western Church." --from Thought

"Mr. Hoare's introduction sets the stage for the Lives by surveying the situation of the Church between 350 and 450, the monastic movement which his protagonists influenced, the cultus of saints and the hagiography of the age. Each life is prefaced with essential background information, and sometimes keen insights, relative to the documents under discussion. Judicious footnotes, mostly historical and philological, prove an unfailing aid to understanding and suggest the mature scholarship that underlies the translations...The resultant versions are uncommonly fresh and diversified as Hoare unravels the most complicated Latin." --from America