Introduction to This Volume

How this book is arranged

This is the first volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds the earliest of them, written roughly between AD 50 and AD 170: the Apostolic Fathers, the first defences of the faith addressed to emperors and philosophers, and the works of Justin Martyr.

Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.

The translations

The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released.

Short notes by the translator appear at the foot of the page. They explain a difficult word, name a person or place, point to a parallel elsewhere, or say where the modern English departs from the earlier translation. They are numbered afresh for each work.

Scripture references

Passages that quote or clearly echo the Bible are marked in brackets at the end of the section. These references are an aid to the reader, not a complete list: some parallels are not marked, and a marked passage may be a loose quotation or an echo rather than an exact match. The Scripture Index at the end of the book lists every reference and the pages on which it is found.

Dates and authorship

Dates for the earliest works are approximate and are debated by scholars. Several writings in this volume are anonymous, and some traditional titles are not strictly accurate: the Second Letter of Clement, for example, is probably not by Clement of Rome. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known and what is uncertain.