Library

The early Christians wrote prolifically about what they believed, how they worshiped, and what was important to them. Much of the extant writing of the early Church was collected and published in 1885 in an enormous multi-volume set called Early Christian Fathers. Today this set is in the public domain, and the whole collection is now available free online here. Unfortunately, the translation quality and formatting make them a bit of a challenge to read. In the documents linked below, I've begun collecting more readable translations, formatted for ease of reading. This collection represents only a fraction of the early Christian writings; it will be growing as more texts are continually added.

None of the works collected here were canonized as Scripture. But these writers can give us a picture of what the normal Christian life looked like to believers in the first few Christian centuries, as well as introducing us to how the early Church thought about God..

	The Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (c. 75 AD)
	A letter written by Clement, an early bishop of Rome, to admonish the Church at Corinth, which had again fallen into strife and disorder, and to exhort them to humility and peace. The writer's Old Testament quotations may sound unfamiliar at times, as he is quoting from the Septuagint. And quote the Bible he does! This is a man whose mind is overflowing with the knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures. His themes show his exposure to apostolic teaching, but he only occasionally quotes or paraphrases anything we'd recognize from what would later become the New Testament, though he does seem to be familiar with Paul's first letter to Corinth, and perhaps the epistle to the Hebrews. Like many writers before the end of the first century (and unlike Ignatius at the end of that century) Clement makes a distinction between bishops and deacons, but not between bishops and presbyters. Read it...
	The Didache (Late first century)
	This short document claims to be the Teaching [Gk: Didache] of the Twelve Apostles. It's not that, but it is a fascinating catechism produced by the early Church late in the first century. Eusebius in the fourth century counts it among the spurious books, along with the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, and the book of Revelation. Rufinus, Athanasius, and other writers give it a place among the deutero-canonical works. The Didache is concerned with practical discipline and does not deliberately teach doctrine, but from the writer's assumptions we learn a great deal about the development of the early Church in his generation. It is divided into three parts. The first part is a moral teaching called the "Two Ways," adapted from a pre-Christian catechism for proselytes to Judaism. The "Two Ways" also comprises the eighteenth to twentieth chapters of the Epistle of Barnabas. Chapter three, especially, resembles very closely passages in the Babylonian Talmud Beginning in the seventh chapter, the second part of the Didache addresses baptism, fasting, prayer, and the Eucharist. Its proscription regarding fasting "with the hypocrites" refers obliquely to the Monday and Thursday fasts described in the Mishnah, and substitutes a Christian fast on Wednesdays and Fridays (a discipline which survived until the twentieth century in the West and is still current in the Christian East.) Christians are to pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day, as the Jews prayed the Tefillah thrice daily. Interestingly, the Lord's Prayer here is not quite St Matthew's version, and includes the added doxology: "For Thine is the power and the glory for ever" while the doxology in most manuscripts is added to Matthew with "...the Kingdom and the power and the glory." The Eucharistic prayers in chapters nine and ten are reminiscent of the Jewish blessings over bread and wine, and are echoed in later centuries by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. The third part of the Didache, beginning in chapter eleven, gives instruction regarding itinerant teachers and prophets, who in the writer's generation, still exist in parallel to the offices of the local congregation: "Appoint, therefore, for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers." The presence of these wandering prophets, and the expectation in the final chapter of the Lord's return in the writer's generation, are typical of the Church of the late first century. Read it...
	Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD)
	Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria, was martyred in Rome by beasts (c. 105-110 AD). On his way to Rome, he visited and wrote to various churches, warning and exhorting them. He also wrote ahead to Rome, and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. Ignatius warned the Church against heresies that threatened peace and unity, and opposed Gnosticism and Docetism. Ignatius is one of the earliest writers to distinguish the ministry of the bishop from that of the presbyters. A disciple of the apostle John (who had died only a few years earlier) Ignatius was metropolitan bishop of Antioch, a Church founded by Peter, and where Paul and Barnabas had ministered as teachers and prophets only a few decades before. In other words, while these letters reveal growth and development in the administration of the early Church, they can not be considered very far outside the mainstream of the growth and development of Christianity at the end of the first century. Indeed, these letters were written to Churches scattered about Asia Minor, many of which were founded by Apostles; had these letters seemed strange or inappropriate to them, they would not have preserved them. Rather, when reading these letters, it is important to remember that these are the letters the early Church preserved as representing normal Christianity as they lived it.
	Ignatius' letter to the Ephesians
	Ignatius' letter to the Magnesians
	Ignatius' letter to the Philadelphians
	Ignatius' letter to the Romans
	Ignatius' letter to the Smyrnaeans
	Ignatius' letter to the Trallians
	Ignatius' letter to Polycarp
	The martyrdom of Ignatius
	*Polycarp of Smyrna* (c. 125 AD)
	Polycarp's letter to the Philippians
	The Martyrdom of Polycarp
	The Epistle of Barnabas (c. 130 AD)
	This letter strongly rebukes Christians for continuing to observe the fasts, sacrifices, and sabbaths of the old Jewish Law. Barnabas argues that Christ provided salvation and man is no longer bound by the Law. Despite the Jewish name the writer has assumed, he is definitely a gentile, and his information about Judaism appears to have come to him secondhand at best. His Bible quotations will at times sound unfamiliar as he quotes from a version of the Septuagint. The last part of this treatise consists of a form of the "Two Ways" teaching also found at the start of the Didache. Read it...
	*Justin Martyr* (c.150 AD)
	Justin Martyr on Christian Worship
	Dialogue with Trypho the Jew
	First Apology. Justin writes to defend Christianity from charges of immorality. Read it...
	A Letter from the Suffering Church in Gaul, (c. 150 AD)
	"Our narrative will record the wars waged in behalf of the peace of the soul, and will tell of men doing brave deeds for truth and for piety, of the trophies won from demons, the victories over invisible enemies, and the victors' crowns." Read it... More great Christian martyrs...
	The Shepherd of Hermas (c. 150 AD)
	The Shepherd is an apocalyptic document (in the sense that it claims to be revealed), modeled after the Book of Revelation. It deals with practical matters of church purity and discipline in second century Rome. Read it...
	The Epistle to Diognetus (Second Century)
	The name of the author of this apology for Christianity is unknown. It was clearly composed during a severe persecution. The writer does not refer specifically to Scripture, but he uses the Gospels, I Peter, and I John, and is saturated with the Epistles of St. Paul. The last two chapters seem to bear no relation to the rest of the letter. They appear to be a fragment of a homily of later date. The letter breaks off at the end of chapter ten; it may have originally been much longer. Read it...
	The Protevangelion of James (Second century)
	This work claims to tell the story of the birth and life of Mary. Although never considered Scripture, this second-century apocryphon was well-received and copied widely in the Christian community. Read it...
	*Cyprian of Carthage: On the Unity of the Church* (c. 250 AD)
	Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and later a martyr for Christ, writes about what unites the Church of Christ. One high point is in chapters four and five, in which he argues that the grace given Peter is the foundation of Christian unity; and that not only the Roman bishop, but all the Church's bishops participate equally: "The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole." (Papal supremacy hadn't been invented yet.) Read it... The Martyrdom of Cyprian
	*Athanasius of Alexandria: On the Incarnation* (318 AD)
	Written before the Arian controversy reached its climax in the corrective Council of Nicaea in 325, this treatise answers the questions, Why did Christ come in the flesh? What did He accomplish? What makes this an especially interesting read is Athanasius does not make substitutionary atonement Christ's primary mission; his presentation of salvation as a restoration from death to life in union with the Godhead may sound especially odd to ears attuned to a modern Western gospel. Read it...
	C.S. Lewis wrote an excellent introduction to this translation.
	Buy the book! On the Incarnation is also available in the Bookstore.
	Pascha in Jerusalem (375 AD)
	In the latter half of the fourth century, a nun named Egeria, from what is now Spain, went on a pilgrimage to the sites of Biblical history in Egypt and Palestine. Her observations are especially of interest because she brings an outsider's viewpoint to everything she sees - coming as she does from very nearly the farthest surviving outpost of Christianity in the West, she compares the worship of the Eastern Church to her own experience. (Frustratingly for anyone wanting specifics, most often her notes simply state that "they did it as we do at home".) Here she describes Holy Week and Pascha (Easter) in Jerusalem. In reading her account, remember that the Church starts its day with the first hour at about 6am; the sixth hour is noon, ninth hour is 3pm, and so on. Read it...
	*The Harrowing of Hell* (Fourth Century)
	The story of Christ's descent into Hades and his delivering the righteous who were in the bondage of death is told in the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus, two of the ancient apocryphal texts which throughout the ages have formed part of the spiritual reading of Orthodox Christians. They have never been regarded as scripture, but have been respected for the insight, the wisdom and the beauty of the story they contain. The texts of Great Sabbath make considerable use of these apocrypha. Read it...
	John Cassian: Conferences (Fourth - Fifth Century)
	Cassian (350-435) was a bridge figure of incalculable importance between Christian East and West, transmitting the forms of early Egyptian monasticism to the incipient monasticism of western Europe. Born in what is now Romania, he traveled to Egypt where for about fifteen years he gave himself (as did Palladius and John Moschus) to xeniteia, the spiritual wandering of one who is "a stranger and sojourner on the earth," collecting and recording stories and traditions of the Desert Fathers. He was ordained deacon by St. John Chrysostom, priest by St. Ambrose, and later established monastic communities in Provence. In was in this context that he composed his Monastic Institutes and his Conferences, which together contain the fundamental principles of all later monasticism. Read it...
	Vincent of Lerins: Commonitories (434 AD)
	Vincent initially served as a soldier but left that life to become a monk on the island of Lerins off the southern French coast near Cannes. He was ordained there and about 434 wrote the Commonitories under the pseudonym Peregrinus [the Pilgrim]. He died there, between 434 and 450. St. Eucherius of Lyons calls him a holy man, conspicuous for eloquence and knowledge. Vincent attempted, as did St John Cassian, to find a way that avoided the extremes both of Pelagius and of Augustine. His Commonitories [reminders] offer a guide to distinguish Orthodox teaching from innovation, the maxim now known as the Vincentian Canon: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (i.e. only "what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all" is the catholic Faith of Christianity). Vincent taught that the ultimate source of Christian truth was Holy Scripture and that the tradition of the Church was to be invoked to guarantee the correct interpretation of Scripture. Read it...
	*Martyrs*
	"I am the wheat of God, and to be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God," wrote Ignatius to the Church in Rome in 110 AD, on his way to the Coliseum. "If the lions are unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so." Martyrdom was a fact of life for the early Church - as indeed it still is today in Sudan, Egypt, and elsewhere. The ancient Church celebrated its heroes, recounting the details of their faithfulness even to death, to give heart to those left behind, who still had to live the Christian life - and faced the possibility of joining the martyrs at any time. Their stories help us remember the truth that we are not yet in the promised country, but are strangers and aliens here - and that we may at any time be called to account for our faith. Read about the Martyrs...