Early Church Fathers

Current Status (February 6, 2010):

The only out-of-copyright edition I can find is the 1886 set by Philip Schaff. The Schaff documents are defective -- polemic intent, scholarship 125 years out of date, stilted language, commentary that displays startling ignorance of the teachings of the Catholic Church, and willful disobedience to our Lord's call to unity. While I have not researched the case to prove selectivity (deliberate omission of documents supporting authority of the Bishop of Rome), I would assign a high probability that the Schaff documents suffer from that defect as well.

Two reputable scholars have suggested to me that it would be better to do without the Early Church Fathers in this collection than to give continuing credence to Schaff's defective work. I have chosen therefore to omit the Early Church Fathers for the time being.

A call for help:

Our dream would be for someone to get us permission to index a more modern, informed, accurate, scholarly, set of the Early Church Fathers. If you are able, please use your skills and connections to put us in contact with a publisher who would consider an electronic copy of their work being made available at this site. (It might even boost their paper version sales.)