As I dive more and more into the world of patristic literature, I’m blown away by the sheer quantity of literature! Many works have been lost, but even what we have extant is huge. Much of if hasn’t even been translated into English. I’ve been digging around in Eusebius of Caesarea’s commentary on the Psalms, which has never been translated fully into English. The commentary itself is massive. I think every psalms gets some comments, though some have been abridged. The PDF I have is 509 pages, while his famous Ecclesiastical History only weighs in at 186 pages. I’m toying around with the idea of translating some of it, but his Greek is tough!
In this regard, good language skills are even more important for the Patristics scholar than the New Testament scholar, if only because so much remains untranslated. Here’s to hoping (and praying) that my Greek improves quickly!
~alex
Alex Poulos, PhD 