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Patrology: The Lives and Works of the Fathers of the Church
By Otto Bardenhewer translated by Thomas J. Shahan 1908. First of all, this book was not written for the casual reader. It is a great handbook to learn about the first five centuries of the Christian Church. It is full of rich references and copious notes that is a delight to the researcher or historian. Any person with a strong interest in early Christian history would find this book informative. The writer makes the assumption that the reader has a basic understanding of Greek, Latin, and the Bible. In describing the early writers he starts with a short bio and then follows it up with what works they wrote. He mentions which writings are still extant and which ones may have been erroneously attributed. One of the things that jumped out at me was how much material has been written in the past compared to how little has been preserved. I was led to believe that the reason a lot of old writings are no longer available, is because the “church” destroyed them. Well, why wasn’t the church able to save so many important documents of their own? Then I got to thinking about how even we, the United States…
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The Vatican: Its History – Its Treasures
Written in 1914 Being born and raised a Roman Catholic I had to buy this book when I saw it at our local Friends of the Library shop. The book is physically huge 12.5″ x 9.5″ x 2″. It is full of photographs (unfortunately black & white). Since the book was written in 1914 you get a sense of the unique political landscape at the time. The Pope (Pius X) is known as the “Prisoner of the Vatican”. The four Popes before him never set foot outside the Vatican to step on Italian soil. This was a result of political relations between Italy and the Vatican in1870. It is a little hard to imagine when we think of the modern Popes and how they travel so much. The book had four major parts. Part one covered the history and a general description of the Vatican palaces and gardens. Part two covered the state apartments and chapels. Part three the Vatican museums, collections, and mosaic factory. Part four was the administration. At times I felt like I was reading a brochure for a museum. Which by the way, the Vatican IS an excellent museum. So why did the Popes think it…
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Studies in Japanese Buddhism
By August Karl Reischauer 1917 This book was a good primer to Buddhism. Now before I get too far along, this book is not a catechism of the Buddhist faith, but rather a history of Buddhism and how it relates to Japan as of the early 20th century. Knowing very little personally of Buddhism and Japanese history and culture, this book was very informative. The author starts with a solid background of Buddha and the early religion. One cannot understand Gautama (Buddha) without having some idea of the times in which he lived. The path of Buddhism travels across the Asian continent where it is modified and changed by various other beliefs. Eventually around a thousand years later it reaches Japan as Mahayana Buddhism. There it is confronted with Shinto and adapts to rule as the state religion over a thousand years. This takes us to more modern time being the 19th century where Japan has its own Reformation and as of the writing of this book, Buddhism was in a decline and was trying to identify and adapt to a modern materialistic world. I want to finish with a few of what the author called “Buddhist Gold Nuggets”.…