Digital Logos Edition
This is the first complete English translation of De Ecclesiasticis Officiis of St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), considered the last Latin Father of the Church. The work is an invaluable source of information about liturgical practice and church offices.
For a excellent collection of other ancient Christian writiers that includes sixty-five additional volumes, see the Ancient Christian Writers Bundle (66 vols.).
“In fact, the wife is to be taught by the example of continence of the husband, so that she may conduct herself chastely. For it is evil that you do that which you are not able to grant; for the man is head of the wife [Eph 5:23]. When the woman lives better than the man, however, the house hangs down from the top. Therefore the man ought to surpass his wife in all good things, for he is the head, so that she may imitate the man and truly follow, as the body follows its head, just as the church follows Christ.” (Page 101)
“But the one who has promised in his heart, if he does otherwise, as the same apostle says: ‘and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge’ [1 Tim 5:12]. For what was lawful through nature, he made unlawful for himself through a vow, just as it was in no way lawful that Ananias and Sapphira retain anything from the worth of their possessions; on account of which they were struck down by instant death.” (Pages 93–94)
“Thus, the tears of penitents are calculated before God the same as baptism.” (Page 91)
St. Isidore of Seville, a scholar and, for over three decades, Archbishop of Seville, is widely regarded as the last of the Fathers of the Church, as the 19th-century historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "The last scholar of the ancient world."