Introduction to This Volume

How this book is arranged

This is the second 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 writings from roughly AD 170 to 220, the generation after 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. The modern English versions of Tatian’s Address to the Greeks, Athenagoras’s Plea and On the Resurrection, and Theophilus’s To Autolycus are used here; the other works are printed in older translations.

Short notes by the translator appear at the foot of the page of the modern English versions. 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

In the works printed in modern English, 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 older translations are not marked in this way. The Scripture Index at the end of the book lists the marked references and the pages on which they are found.

In this volume

The first part of the book gathers the Greek apologists: Tatian, a pupil of Justin who later broke with the Church of Rome, Athenagoras of Athens, and Theophilus, bishop of Antioch. Each writes to educated pagans, answering the charges brought against Christians and setting the Christian account of God, the world and the resurrection beside the teaching of the philosophers.

The second part collects what remains of many other writers and churches: Melito’s sermon On the Passover, letters and fragments touching the dispute over the date of Easter, writings against the new prophecy that began in Phrygia, and the record of the Scillitan martyrs, among the earliest Christian documents from North Africa.

The third part belongs to the Syriac-speaking East. It contains Tatian’s Diatessaron, a continuous Gospel made from the four, Bardesanes of Edessa’s dialogue on fate and the laws of the nations, and the letter of Mara bar Serapion. The letter is hard to date, and it is placed here for its language and setting rather than because its date is known.

Dates and authorship

Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.