Who is Giles?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Montalban
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I find it perplexing that Catholic apologists rely on an author who has very little information about him
 
Montalban said:
I need some help with this.

Many Catholic apologist sites cite E Giles quote mine Documents Illustrating Papal Authority AD 96-454

I cannot find out who E Giles is.

Does anyone have any biographical information on him?

In his own book he doesn’t even give his first name
archive.org/stream/DocumentsIllustratingPapalAuthorityAd96-454Giles/Documents_Illustrating_Papal_Authority_AD_96-454#page/n1/mode/2up
Click to expand...
I think his first name was Edward and he was an Anglican historian.
 
Montalban said:
I find it perplexing that Catholic apologists rely on an author who has very little information about him
Click to expand...
Giles is the editor, not the author (except for the little introductory blurbs and footnotes, which he wrote). The actual authors were (substantially) various Fathers of the Church. Giles simply gathered some of their works together into a single volume.

I am perplexed that anyone would cite Giles himself. We cite the Early Fathers here all the time, but I’ve never seen anyone cite the words of Giles (or Jurgens, etc). If someone is quoting an ECF and they’re citing it to Giles, they are not following the usual convention (you should cite the name and author of the document, not the name of the book in which you found the document). Citing Giles would be useless to someone who does not happen to own this particular collection (though it’s online now, so I guess most people have access, if they know where to look).

Do you have reason to suspect that Giles has altered the ancient texts? There are plenty of other collections that we can cross-reference against. There are even collections by protestant editors.

You can find Philip Schaff’s 38-volume collection of the writings of the Early Church Fathers online here:
ccel.org/fathers.html
and you may find additional ECF texts collected by Roger Pearse here:
ccel.org/p/pearse/morefathers/home.html
 
DavidFilmer said:
Giles is the editor, not the author (except for the little introductory blurbs and footnotes, which he wrote). The actual authors were (substantially) various Fathers of the Church. Giles simply gathered some of their works together into a single volume.

I am perplexed that anyone would cite Giles himself. We cite the Early Fathers here all the time, but I’ve never seen anyone cite the words of Giles (or Jurgens, etc).
Click to expand...
You acknowledge that he added comments (as footnotes - according to you)

Giles is an editor of that book, but he also offers his own commentary, just as Schaff does in his translations. And this commentary of Giles is quoted by Catholic apologists

Thus:
The Anglican historian Edward Giles comments: “Cyprian is clearer than Origen about the meaning of our Lord’s words to Peter (Matt 16:18). To him the rock is Peter, and our Lord built his Church on Peter. He says this so often that no one doubts that it is his view. Cyprian also claims that this text gives the bishops their authority, for the Church is settled upon them…Disputes on this version [of De Unitate 4] have therefore turned on the question whether in Cyprian’s view the primacy of Peter was a permanent factor in the Church or not. On the one hand it is suggested that ‘Peter is not the real ground, not the cause nor the centre, but only the starting point in time, and the means of recognition of Church unity’ [quoting Hugo Koch]…Against this view Dom Chapman stresses the words ‘Upon one he builds the Church.’ That one is Peter; Peter is the rock, and the idea of a temporary rock is absurd. There is no mention of priority in time in Epistles 33 and 43, and from these letters it seems clear to Chapman that Cyprian means Peter, like the bishop to be ‘a permanent not a transient guarantee of the unity of the edifice which rises upon a single rock.’’” (Giles, page 49, 52)
bringyou.to/apologetics/num44.htm

This seems to be another thread where I ask something and I’m given answers other than to what I asked.

However if you want… “Who is this EDITOR?”

If that helps
 
DavidFilmer said:
I am perplexed that anyone would cite Giles himself. We cite the Early Fathers here all the time, but I’ve never seen anyone cite the words of Giles
Click to expand...
For the record, people cite Jurgens too

William Jurgens: ‘Although Cyprian was on excellent terms with Pope St. Cornelius…he fell out sharply with Cornelius’ successor, Pope St. Stephen…on the question of the rebaptizing of converted heretics. It was the immemorial custom of the African Church to regard Baptism conferred by heretics as invalid, and in spite of Stephen’s severe warnings, Cyprian never yielded. His attitude was simply that every bishop is responsible for his own actions, answerable to God alone’ (William Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1970), Volume I, p. 216-217).
christiantruth.com/articles/ray2.html
DavidFilmer said:
Do you have reason to suspect that Giles has altered the ancient texts?
Click to expand...
So instead of answering my question I have to justify asking it?
 
Another thing too since it’s been raised here Giles is not like Schaff.

Schaff presents a body of work as complete as he can

Giles edits that work to present quotes only relating to Peter.

I am not judging him for doing so. I accept that’s the purpose of his work. He even gives that in the title.

However as I note, Catholic apolgoists rely on GILES and I have no idea who he is.

Stephen K. Ray in his own footnote, relies in part on a consensus and cites Giles as one of these whom he thinks has consensus

Upon this Rock, page 184
Which you can check on Google books if you wish
books.google.com.au/books?id=RnQiVgUn728C&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=stephen+k+ray&source=bl&ots=grVVS6E6lT&sig=6eZR1Cgp1iIm0MXAGkajajeiB40&hl=en#v=onepage&q=giles&f=false
 
I’ve e-mailed PhilVaz on this one too.

Maybe he knows, as he’s cited Giles
 
Still not heard back from PhilVaz.

Who this E Giles is whom Catholics so readily rely upon is a mystery
 
One could be tempted to think that Catholics just rely on this evidence without regard to its veracity.

:confused:
 
carlos19 said:
what a coincidence I am reading a book online about the papacy written by Giles…I think it is the same guy. Hope this helps

archive.org/stream/DocumentsIllustratingPapalAuthorityAd96-454Giles/Documents_Illustrating_Papal_Authority_AD_96-454#page/n1/mode/2up
Click to expand...
No it doesn’t help. Not in the slightest.

I ask who this guy is and note he’s a compiler of a list of Petrine quotes.

You ‘reply’ re: who he is by referring to his work, that I already acknowledged existed that sheds no further light on who he is.

Unless there’s a particular page in that book you know of that does this???

🤷
 
I will check, I just started to read this a couple of days ago. Since it was a free read on archive.org …trying to cut down on the kindle charges 🙂

I will browse to see if it has an about the author type of page.
 
I did a few online searches and all I could find is the following brief description from Internet Archive:

“Giles, an Anglican scholar, collected all the patristic texts cited by both Catholic and non-Catholic writers relative to the papacy. He also gives the arguments used both pro and con. Some texts seem to favor the Catholic position regarding the Pope but other texts seem to favor the other side.”
 
nope nothing in that book…seemed to have been a cambridge scholar, the publisher was the society for promoting christian knowledge an anglican outfit that has been around since 1698.

The book is no longer in print and is part of the public domain hence my free access 🙂

I emailed the publisher to see if they can provide any information. I will let you know if they respond.
 
carlos19 said:
nope nothing in that book…seemed to have been a cambridge scholar, the publisher was the society for promoting christian knowledge an anglican outfit that has been around since 1698.

The book is no longer in print and is part of the public domain hence my free access 🙂

I emailed the publisher to see if they can provide any information. I will let you know if they respond.
Click to expand...
Thanks. It’s so obvious I forgot to do that. I will do that to, now.
They have a site…
spck.org.uk/

www.archive.org is one of my favourite sites because of the free books. A real rip-off is that some companies take those books and ‘reprint’ them and sell them on amazon.
 
one interesting thing…

as I am reading the book…Giles is not making a case for or against the papacy. he is just presenting the works of the fathers when the papacy is cited.

it is quite interesting
 
carlos19 said:
one interesting thing…

as I am reading the book…Giles is not making a case for or against the papacy. he is just presenting the works of the fathers when the papacy is cited.

it is quite interesting
Click to expand...
Firstly, thank you again for pointing me in the ‘obvious’ direction. I e-mailed them and they said that all their earlier works had been transferred to Cambridge, so now I have e-mailed them.

I actually think his work is dreadful. He rips all these quotes out of context. For instance if John Chrysostom accords the EXACT same terms of praise to antoher, say the Apostle John, you wouldn’t know it from Giles work.

It makes Catholic apologetics deceptively simple - that one only needs to show praise for Peter to prove the case.

If I made the statement for e.g. “Peter and John are the founadtion of the church” and you only cited

“Peter…the foundation of the church” it changes the context.

It is misleading.

One can of course argue that he has good reason for doing so, perhaps one might believe that John is only a ‘foundation’ because of his relationship (comunion) with Peter but that argument isn’t given. One in effect sees a massive quote mine by Giles

This is also why I was one to say that he’s distiguished from Schaff. Schaff of course gives his editorial opinion too, but he presentes whole works
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top