The Apostolic Fathers–An American Translation

This book is a collection of some of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament. It was translated by Edgar J. Goodspeed and published in 1950. Edgar Goodspeed was a Greek scholar who for many years was Chairman of the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago. His area of expertise was Greek papyri. He is also known for a translation of the New Testament, one of the first into contemporary English, and a translation of the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha (the portions of the Greek Old Testament not found in the Hebrew Bible).

This book contains the following:

• The Teaching of the Apostles—The Doctrina
• The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles—The Didache
• The Letter of Barnabas
• The First Letter of Clement—To the Corinthians
• The So-called Second Letter of Clement
• The Shepherd of Hermas
• The Letters of Ignatius
• The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians
• The Martyrdom of Polycarp
• The Apology of Quadratus
• The Fragments of Papias
• The Address to Diognetus

Edgar J. Goodspeed died in 1962 so his writings are in the public domain in Canada and any other countries with a copyright term of 50 years after the death of an author. The copyright status of the book in the U.S. is unknown as repeated attempts to locate an heir or current copyright holder have failed. Therefore this book is an orphaned work in the U.S. and can probably be used for non-commercial purposes without problem.

Download this collection as:

• HTML
• EPUB (this is the best format for ebook readers, cell phones and tablets)
• PDF

The following are scans of the original book:

• DJVU
• PDF