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The Early Church · Free to read

The Early Church Fathers Writings

The writings of the first Christians after the apostles, gathered in order of date into a series of books and set in plain English. Every volume is free to read online and free to download.

117 volumes · 889 works · about 28.7 million words

Start with Volume 1 Browse all volumes

In order of date

The series reads the early Church from the Apostolic Fathers to the eighth century, so the volumes can be read straight through like a history.

Plain English

Where a modern English version has been prepared it is used, with translator’s notes at the foot of the page. Other works appear in the older public-domain translations.

Read it or keep it

Read each volume chapter by chapter in the SermonIndex books section, or download the same book as a print-ready PDF, an EPUB for your e-reader, or plain text.

The Apostolic Age and the Second Century

From the Didache and the letters of Ignatius to the apologists and Irenaeus of Lyons: the first Christian writings after the New Testament.

Alexandria, Carthage and Rome

Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage and Hippolytus of Rome, who gave the Church its first great libraries of theology in Greek and Latin.

Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition

The writings of Origen, the most prolific biblical scholar of the early Church, with the writers of his age.

Cyprian to Arnobius: The Church under Persecution

Cyprian of Carthage, the teachers of Alexandria and the East, and the Latin apologists Lactantius and Arnobius, from the Decian persecution to the eve of Constantine.

Eusebius of Caesarea

The historian of the early Church: his Church History, the Life of Constantine and his great defences of the faith, in four volumes.

The Age of Nicaea

Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Aphrahat and Ephrem, who stood for the faith of Nicaea in the Greek, Latin and Syriac churches.

Basil, the Gregories and the Cappadocian Age

Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, with Ambrosiaster, Cyril of Jerusalem, Optatus, Pacian and the pilgrim Egeria: the fourth-century Church in East and West.

Ambrose of Milan and the Late Fourth Century

The treatises and letters of Ambrose, with Epiphanius of Salamis, Macarius Magnes, Asterius of Amasea and Chromatius of Aquileia.

The Desert Fathers and Chrysostom’s Shorter Works

The sayings and histories of the Desert Fathers, and the first volumes of John Chrysostom: the Priesthood, the Statues, the shorter treatises, sermons and letters.

Chrysostom on the Gospels and the Letters of Paul

John Chrysostom’s homilies on Matthew, John, the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul, preached verse by verse to the churches of Antioch and Constantinople.

Jerome, Rufinus and the Monastic Histories

The letters, homilies and controversies of Jerome, his quarrel with Rufinus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and the lives of the monks by Palladius and Sulpicius Severus.

Augustine: The Confessions, the City of God and the Trinity

Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions and early writings, the twenty-two books of The City of God, and his great treatise On the Trinity.

Augustine against the Manichaeans, Donatists and Pelagians

His books against the Manichaeans, the Donatist schism and the teaching of Pelagius, with his treatises on grace, predestination, marriage and virginity.

Augustine on the Gospels: Sermons, Tractates and the Harmony

Ninety-seven sermons on the New Testament, the one hundred and twenty-four Tractates on the Gospel of John, and the Harmony of the Gospels.

Augustine: The Letters and the Psalms

His letters, the Homilies on the First Letter of John, and the Expositions on the Psalms, the longest of his works.

John Cassian and the Latin West

Cassian’s Institutes and Conferences, and the Latin writers of the fifth century: Vincent of Lérins, Leo the Great, Patrick, Possidius and Gennadius.

The Church Historians and Theodoret

The Church histories of Socrates and Sozomen, Theodoret’s history, the histories of Philostorgius and of the Council of Nicaea, and the letters and lives of the Eastern monks.

Theodoret of Cyrus, Cyril and Nestorius

Theodoret’s Religious History, dialogues and letters, Cyril’s Five Tomes against Nestorius, and the Bazaar of Heracleides.

Cyril of Alexandria: Shorter Writings and the Prophets

Cyril’s replies to Julian and to Diodore, Theodore and the Synousiasts, and his commentaries on Isaiah and on the twelve minor prophets.

Cyril of Alexandria: The Gospels of John and Luke

Cyril’s twelve-book Commentary on the Gospel of John and his sermons on the Gospel of Luke.

The Latin West and the Sixth-Century Mystics, Statesmen and Historians

Salvian, Sidonius, Eugippius, Dionysius Exiguus, Benedict and Jordanes in the Latin West, then Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Gildas and Gregory of Tours, and the Syriac leaders Philoxenus of Mabbug and Severus of Antioch.

Chronicles, Cosmographers and Syriac Teachers

The chronicles and church histories of the sixth century, Cosmas Indicopleustes, John the Lydian and John of Nikiu, and the Syriac teachers of the Church of the East.

Lives of the Eastern Saints

Simeon Stylites, Rabban Bar-ʿIdtā and Rabban Hormizd.

Gregory the Great: Life, Rule, Letters and Homilies

The Pastoral Rule, the Dialogues with the life of Saint Benedict, the Register of letters, the homilies on the Gospels and on Ezekiel, the commentary on the Song of Songs, and the commentary on First Kings that goes under his name.

Gregory the Great: Morals on the Book of Job

Gregory’s great exposition of the Book of Job in thirty-five books, in four volumes.

The Venerable Bede: History, Homilies and Commentaries

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the homilies on the Gospels, and Bede’s commentaries on Genesis, Samuel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Mark, Luke, Acts, the Catholic Epistles and Revelation, with his books on the Tabernacle and the Temple.

Liturgies of the East and West

The ancient eucharistic liturgies of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople, Armenia, the Church of the East and Milan; the East Syrian daily offices, and the liturgies of the Syrian Jacobites, India, Ethiopia, Rome, Spain, Ireland and the Celtic Church; and the Orthodox Service Book in Isabel Hapgood’s translation.

Church Orders and Councils

The Apostolic Tradition, the Didascalia, the Testament of Our Lord and the Apostolic Constitutions, with the canons and decrees of the councils from Ancyra in AD 314 to the second council of Nicaea in AD 787.

Coptic and Armenian Christian Texts

Lives, martyrdoms, homilies and apocrypha from the churches and monasteries of Egypt in Budge’s and Evelyn White’s translations, the Coptic Life of Isaac of Alexandria, three writings of Ananias of Shirak, and the Key of Truth of the Paulician Church of Armenia.

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha: Old Testament and Jewish Writings

Enoch, Jubilees, the Zadokite Fragments, the apocalypses of Baruch, Abraham and Isaiah, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Psalms and Odes of Solomon, Ahikar, the Letter of Aristeas, Pseudo-Philo and the Sibylline Oracles, in the translations of Charles, Gray, Terry and others.

New Testament Apocrypha

Apocryphal gospels, the writings on the Virgin Mary and Pilate, apocalypses and visions, Pistis Sophia, the Acts of Archelaus and the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, with the Ethiopic Contendings of the Apostles.

Clementine Literature and Writings under Famous Names

The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, and the writings that were put under the names of Ignatius, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Clement and the early popes, with the Statutes of the Apostles and the papal decretals of Pseudo-Isidore.

Addenda: The Antichrist and the Liturgies

Two source books that gather material from across the series: the Fathers on the Antichrist, with sixteen questions, 861 quotations and an Orthodox and Eastern part; and the early liturgies, how they took shape and how they compare, with the Liturgy of Saint Basil in full.

Addenda: Syriac, Arabic, Coptic and Ethiopic Writings, Leo and John of Damascus

Writings that no other volume prints: Leo the Great, John of Damascus and the Festal Epistles of Athanasius; Ephrem, Aphrahat and the Syriac writers; Christians under Islam in Syriac, Arabic and Greek; and the Coptic Patriarchs with the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast.

About these texts

The older translations are in the public domain. The modern English versions, the section divisions, the introductions and the translator’s notes were prepared for SermonIndex with the help of artificial intelligence and are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0): you may copy, adapt and share them, including commercially, if you give credit and share the result under the same licence. The sources and licence for every work are listed at the back of each volume.

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