This volume closes the American edition of the Works of St. Chrysostom, and at the same time the First Series of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Library of the Christian Fathers.
The best works of St. Augustin and St. Chrysostom are thus brought within the reach of the English reader in a more complete form and at a lower price than ever before.
The Epistle to the Hebrews was the last volume of the Oxford “Library of the Fathers,” published under the direction and with a Preface of the late Dr. Pusey, the chief originator of that valuable Library. His Preface is dated, Oxford, May, 1877. He died Sept. 16, 1882.
The American editor of the Homilies on the Hebrews has thoroughly revised the Oxford translation and enlarged it with a valuable introduction on the authorship of the Epistle (about which St. Chrysostom was mistaken), and a considerable number of explanatory footnotes. Unfortunately he died shortly before his ms . was sent to the printer, but his son read the proofs.
The Rev. Dr. Frederic Gardiner (born Sept. 11, 1822, died July 17, 1889) was for many years Professor in the Berkeley Episcopal Divinity School at Middletown, Conn., and President of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. He edited a Greek Harmony of the Four Gospels, and several exegetical works, and was a contributor to Lange’s Commentary, Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, and various periodicals. The revision of the Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews was his last work.
The Homilies on the Fourth Gospel appears in the Oxford “Library of the Fathers,” with a few additional notes. The Rev. Charles Marriott (1811–1858) edited them, and wrote the preface to the first volume. For fourteen years, from 1841 to 1855, he was associated with Dr. Pusey as working editor, and superintended the publication of at least twenty-four volumes (twelve of St. Chrysostom, eight of St. Augustin, four of St. Gregory I.), i.e . more than one-half of that Library. It was with both a labor of love and sacrifice, without fee or reward except the approval of the conscience and of good men. To their unselfish labors the American edition owes a great debt of gratitude. Mr. Marriott did most of the literary drudgery, as translator, corrector, and proof-reader, with untiring fidelity and painstaking zeal till he was struck down by paralysis in 1855, “to wait in stillness for his Lord’s last call.” Dean Burgon states these facts in a interesting account of his intimate friend (in Lives of Twelve Good Men , London and New York, 1888, vol. I. 296–376). He calls Marriott “a character unique, beautiful, and saint-like,” and adds that he “lived quite above the world, and, like Enoch, walked habitually with God.”
I feel very thankful that this Patristic Library has so far been finished, and I am happy to announce that the “Christian Literature Company” is sufficiently encouraged to publish the second series, which will contain the Greek Fathers from Eusebius to John of Damascus, and the Latin Fathers from Hilary to Gregory the Great. I secured the coöperation of eminent patristic scholars of England and America several years ago for the completion of this enterprise.