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 namesPolycarp, Athenagoras, Asterius of Amaseawere 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 jobthe translation of 300 patristic writings, to be published in a set...