Roger Pearse heralds the arrival of the long-awaited fifth volume of Quasten’s Patrology — The Eastern Fathers from the Council of Chalcedon (451) to John of Damascus (750).
On my shelf inches away is a treasured relic — a postcard from Father Quasten that fell out of a book someone gave me.
I’m about half way through. It really isn’t as good as any of volumes 1-4. One chapter jumped about chronologically; I noticed mainly because they got to John Damascene, and then jumped back in the same chapter to the 5th century! I also noted that the section on John Damascene rushed over his works in two pages and then spent an interminable time ‘assessing’ his thought. The latter is an exercise that will be obsolete almost as soon as printed, while details of the works and their editions and translations would always be useful.
I wish I knew Angelo di Berardino’s address. I’d like to ask him to improve these rather.