Question about resources to read works of Orthodox saints online

[E nsu3]

Hello, guys
I've been looking up internet to find some materials from Orthodox saints (specifically, commentaries on Psalms) but couldn't find much via search, so I'm here for some help and recommendations.

Long story short, I'm trying to find some online resource(s) where I could read works of Orthodox saints. Currently, I'm interested in commentaries on Psalms: works of Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Theophan the Recluse. But as a general rule I'd also prefer a more generalized source where I could find works of other saints and about different topics. Most of these writings should be centuries old, so I don't see a reason why they wouldn't exist in public access.

I've researched this a few weeks ago and checked some websites on the more popular websites (mostly some online Christian libraries). The ones I found didn't have all the texts I'm looking for or didn't have much from Orthodox sources at all.

Would appreciate if you could help. Thanks in advance.

As a sidenote, I've seen I could buy these as individual books on Amazon but that's a band-aid solution. It's not scalable at all.

 

[HTacianas]

Hello, guys
I've been looking up internet to find some materials from Orthodox saints (specifically, commentaries on Psalms) but couldn't find much via search, so I'm here for some help and recommendations.

Long story short, I'm trying to find some online resource(s) where I could read works of Orthodox saints. Currently, I'm interested in commentaries on Psalms: works of Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Theophan the Recluse. But as a general rule I'd also prefer a more generalized source where I could find works of other saints and about different topics. Most of these writings should be centuries old, so I don't see a reason why they wouldn't exist in public access.

I've researched this a few weeks ago and checked some websites on the more popular websites (mostly some online Christian libraries). The ones I found didn't have all the texts I'm looking for or didn't have much from Orthodox sources at all.

Would appreciate if you could help. Thanks in advance.

As a sidenote, I've seen I could buy these as individual books on Amazon but that's a band-aid solution. It's not scalable at all.

One of the best resources I've found is at New Advent. A lot of the Church Fathers commentaries and letters are there. But one thing you have to be aware of is that some of the translations were done by Protestant scholars. They tend to put a little spin on things. One thing is they put paragraph headers to highlight things they want to highlight but were not in the originals.

CHURCH FATHERS: Home

Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more.

www.newadvent.org

 

[E nsu3]

One of the best resources I've found is at New Advent. A lot of the Church Fathers commentaries and letters are there. But one thing you have to be aware of is that some of the translations were done by Protestant scholars. They tend to put a little spin on things. One thing is they put paragraph headers to highlight things they want to highlight but were not in the originals.

CHURCH FATHERS: Home

Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more.

www.newadvent.org

I'll keep this for reference for sure.

Adding to the issue with some translations though, there's no works of saints who lived more recently (e.g. Theophan the Recluse, Gregory Palamas). Which is unsurprising since the origin since to be of Roman Catholic. But what's also interesting, there aren't that many works of saints they have added (as an example, works I've mentioned about Psalms as well as some other ones I've looked through in the past)

Even though I criticized this option due to the highlighted issues, I do still appreciate the recommendation. So thank you

 

[ArmyMatt]

Adding to the issue with some translations though, there's no works of saints who lived more recently (e.g. Theophan the Recluse, Gregory Palamas)

for those you might have to get books instead of stuff online, if that’s a route you’d be willing to go down. I think tertullian.org has some online patristic works as well (in addition to some heretical ones).

 

[Lukaris]

There is a pdf of the Orthodox Study Bible which has a small dose of patristic commentary. The notes on the Psalms are decent, maybe not exceptional. I only have an iPhone, so scrolling through the pdf might be much better on a laptop.

https://stchurch.stthomasghaziabad.org/PRAYERBOOKS/6.%20ORTHODOXY%20PRAYER%20BOOKS/Holy%20Bible_Orthodox%20Study%20Bible%20(English).pdf

 

[E nsu3]

There is a pdf of the Orthodox Study Bible which has a small dose of patristic commentary. The notes on the Psalms are decent, maybe not exceptional. I only have an iPhone, so scrolling through the pdf might be much better on a laptop.

https://stchurch.stthomasghaziabad.org/PRAYERBOOKS/6.%20ORTHODOXY%20PRAYER%20BOOKS/Holy%20Bible_Orthodox%20Study%20Bible%20(English).pdf

I have this study Bible downloaded and I don't like to navigate it at all. It has so many pages with unnecessary hyperlink notations. Whoever was composing that pdf, they should have put bookmarks into file metadata, not embed them into pages. I do appreciate the suggestion though the only way I'd pick up that Bible is for reading/referencing a more correct version of Old Testament. But even then it's such a hassle to read through (I usually read on the phone which exacerbates the issue as you've mentioned)

 

[JSRG]

One of the best resources I've found is at New Advent. A lot of the Church Fathers commentaries and letters are there. But one thing you have to be aware of is that some of the translations were done by Protestant scholars. They tend to put a little spin on things. One thing is they put paragraph headers to highlight things they want to highlight but were not in the originals.

CHURCH FATHERS: Home

Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more.

www.newadvent.org

One thing that should be noted about New Advent: The translations it offers are by and large taken from either the "Ante-Nicene Fathers" series or the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers" series, which were published in the late 19th century. These are the "standard" ones that people use online, largely because they were done long enough ago that they're public domain so there's no issues with distributing them; some of the works in there do have later (and in some cases better) translations, but they're not in public domain.

Now, New Advent's index page which you link to is very convenient, allowing you to quickly look up authors and works directly. However, the original publications included footnotes and in some cases preparatory material giving you better context, and most of this is removed from the New Advent posting except for the ones that refer to when quotes or references seem to be taken from the Bible which are almost always retained. If you want to see the footnotes, you'd want to head over to Sacred Texts or CCEL, which includes those things, even if their interface is less convenient. If you look at something at New Advent and want to see if there are any footnotes being left out, if you scroll down to the bottom of any of the New Advent pages it should say which volume the translation is from, allowing you to easily just go to that one and find it if you want to see it with footnotes.

There are some works missing from those, though, even ones that are public domain. As noted, those are reproductions of the Ante-Nicene Fathers or Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, so anything done independently of those isn't there. Tertullian.org has a lot of other writings writings out of copyright not included in those, e.g. Irenaeus's "Proof of the Apostolic Teaching" or Eusebius's "Proof of the Gospel" (note the works listed towards the bottom, under the heading of "Appendix", are of non-Christian writers).

Of course, even some of the older ones aren't on either site, because they were more recent and not public domain, like Jerome's various commentaries. Sometimes you can find the works on something like archive.org and you can read them there with an account (you can read copyrighted material there if they have it, but you have to check it out with a free account). So, for example, Jerome's commentary on Matthew (translated in 2008) can be read here but you do have to sign up for an account and check it out. If that's not an option then generally one has to just get the physical book, whether it means purchasing or seeing if your library has it.

I'll keep this for reference for sure.

Adding to the issue with some translations though, there's no works of saints who lived more recently (e.g. Theophan the Recluse, Gregory Palamas). Which is unsurprising since the origin since to be of Roman Catholic. But what's also interesting, there aren't that many works of saints they have added (as an example, works I've mentioned about Psalms as well as some other ones I've looked through in the past)

Even though I criticized this option due to the highlighted issues, I do still appreciate the recommendation. So thank you

New Advent itself a Catholic site, but the translations it hosts of the church fathers were, as noted, done primarily (entirely?) by Protestants in the late 19th century. However, in regards to Theophan the Recluse or Gregory Palamas, the reason they're not included is because the works being translated were focused on the early Christians--heck, Ante Nicene Fathers by its name shows it's people prior to Nicaea--so they mostly only go up through the 5th century (plus some material from some councils up through Nicaea II). People like Theophan (19th century) and Gregory Palamas (14th century) are going to be way too late for that sort of thing, and any translations are going to be more recent and therefore require you to pick up some books to look at them.

 

[prodromos]

Also keep in mind that there are a vast number of works which are simply not available in English even in printed form, and that includes the majority of St John Chrysostom's works

 

[Lukaris]

I remember, a couple years ago, poster in our sub forum gave me a link to a Russian site called that has collected writings of the likes of St. Theophan the recluse. Within the software of CF forums it seems to translate to an understandable English. The link will appear in Russian letters but should translate on the download.

Святитель Феофан Затворник

Жизнеописание святителя Феофана Затворника. Также вашему вниманию предлагаются труды и сочинения автора, все или многие из которых можно скачать в форматах для электронных книг: epub, pdf.

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