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Rodney A. Whitacre A Patristic Greek Reader Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007 Pp. xxiv + 279. $29.95.
Whitacre's Patristic Greek Reader is a very useful text, although likely to be of interest to a limited group of readers. The author has two main goals: to provide an introduction to the writings of the church fathers and to help those with a limited knowledge of Greek make sense of how the thinking of the fathers was expressed in the original language (xv).
Part I (Greek Texts and Notes) begins with the Didache, which the editor claims to be important for understanding the history of the early church, though exactly what it tells us-he says-will remain a subject of some debate (4). Following the Didache, Whitacre provides selections from fourteen other sources important for an understanding of the early church, ranging from First Clement to Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). Each selection is prefaced by a brief introduction to the author or text under consideration, the edition used, and a note on the level of difficulty represented by the Greek, ranging from "Easy" (the Didache),...