Religion: The Pioneers

To most modern Christians, the days of the Early Church are vague and far-off times for scholars to quibble over. But no era in the church's history was more exciting. The early leaders, with their strange-sounding names—Polycarp, Athenagoras, Asterius of Amasea—were spiritual pioneers whose adventures in the faith built a legacy for all Christians.

To bring these all-but-forgotten church fathers back into their own, a group of 84 Roman Catholic scholars in the U.S. and Canada have undertaken a head-spinning job—the translation of 300 patristic writings, to be published in a set...