Early Christian Fathers (ECF) collection
This book is volume I of “The Library of Christian Classics” series.
This translation of some of the earliest of the early Christian writings which are not in the New Testament was published in 1953. It was simultaneously published in Great Britain and the USA without copyright notice and therefore immediately passed into the public domain, at least in the USA. It may or may not be still under copyright in other countries, however the current publisher has stated that they are not claiming copyright on this work.
This collection contains the following:
- The Letter of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, commonly called Clement’s First Letter
- The Letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch
- The Letter of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, to the Philippians
- The Martyrdom of Polycarp, As Told in the Letter of the Church of Smyrna to the Church of Philomelium
- The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, commonly called The Didache
- An Anonymous Sermon, Commonly Called Clement’s Second Letter
- The So-called Letter to Diognetus
- The First Apology of Justin, the Martyr
- A Plea Regarding Christians by Athenagoras, the Philosopher
- Selections from the work Against Heresies by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons
The collection does not contain some very early and important early Christians writings such as “The Shepherd of Hermas”, “The Epistle of Barnabas”, as well as fragments of other very early Christian writings.
This collection has numerous notes and detailed introductions to each writing.
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To read and search this collection online, visit the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. To download a facsimile scan of this collection, visit Archive.org.