Vessey seeks to explain the abiding formativeness of Latin Christian writing by clerics, monks, and freelance ascetics in the Later Roman Empire of the fourth and fifty centuries, and what demands such writings lay on a modern history of literature. The 13 essays and articles, reproduced from publication in various classics journals between 1983 and 2001, cover a new order of books; literary histories; Jerome, Augustine, and readers; orthodoxy, literature, and law in later Latin textualities; and scribes and scholars between patristics and late antiquity. A section of addenda and corrigenda focuses on self-correction and cross-references to Vessey's related work outside this volume. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)