Ambrose [Bishop of Milan]. Ambrose: De officiis, 2 vols. Translated and edited with an Introduction and Commentary Ivor J. Davidson. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, is probably best known for the role he played in Augustine's conversion to Christianity, as Augustine himself recounts in his well-known Confessions. Ambrose titled his treatise for the clergy De officiis as a way to signal that it is his Christian counterpart to the Roman stoic Cicero's famous treatise De officiis ("On Obligations" or "On Duties"). For further information about how ancient Greek and Roman stoic philosophy influenced the emerging early Christian tradition of thought, see Marcia L. Colish's two-volume study (below).
Anonymous. The Gospel According to Mark. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version. Edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, pages 47-75.
Critical biblical scholars today consider the Gospel of Mark to be the first of the four canonical gospels to be written. As a young man, the historical Jesus was interested in leading an heroic life of virtue. As a result, he went out into the desert and listened to John the Baptist. Subsequently, Jesus went around proclaiming excitedly that the kingdom of God has come, is upon us. By doing this kind of proclamation, he was pursuing an heroic non-violent resistance to the Roman empire. When he learned of the execution of John the Baptist, Jesus had to have understood the his own life was now in danger. He probably should have been prudent and stopped his public ministry and gone home to live a life of quiet desperation under the Roman empire. But his zeal for justice was so strong that he did not stop his public ministry; instead, he continued on. He was eventually crucified under Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover on the trumped up charge that he was "King of the Jews," a political revolutionary. Several decades after the crucifixion and death of the historical Jesus, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Mark constructed the story of the life and public ministry and crucifixion and death of Jesus as a hero story with Jesus undergoing a heroic death out of his zeal for justice. So living an heroic life of virtue may not always be easy. On the contrary, it may take fortitude or courage. Concerning the death of Jesus, see Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by C. I. Litzinger, O.P. Notre Dame, Indiana: Dumb Ox Books, 1993.
Thomas Aquinas is as famous as you can get. He is easily the greatest Aristotelian in Western philosophy. Aquinas himself did not know Greek, but working from literal translations of Aristotle's works into Latin, Aquinas digested and assimilated Aristotle's thought. Then Aquinas ran with the ball, as we would say, on his own. As a result, his so-called Commentary is more than twice the length of the work he is commenting on, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Aristotle. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Translated, with an "Interpretive Essay" (pages 237-302), footnotes at the foot of the page of the translation, glossary, index, and additional study aides by Robert C. Bartlett of Boston College and Susan D. Collins of the University of Houston. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Aristotle is as famous as you can get. His Nicomachean Ethics is arguably the most important treatise about virtue in Western philosophy. This new translation includes more aides for studying the text than any other translation includes.
Aristotle. Aristotle on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, 2nd ed. Translated and with an Introduction, Notes, and Appendices by George A. Kennedy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Augustine [Bishop of Hippo]. Confessions. Translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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