Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts: Over 80 authors and 600 books

by Philip Schaff

The Early Church Fathers are a group of ancient and influential Christian writers. There is no definitive list, but they are generally considered the early writers who had a significant impact on the foundations of Christianity, before 700 AD.

Their writings were translated into the English language by a group of scholars at the end of the 19th century under the guidance of Philip Schaff. These Ante-Nicene works have been widely published since they went off copyright.

This present collection gathers together those works which were also translated by this group but were not included in the original collection since the writers or works were less well-known. Nevertheless there are a number of gems within this collection which are of considerable spiritual benefit and historical interest.

The following authors are included in this collection:

Polycarp
Aristides the Philosopher
Irenaeus
Hermias the Philosopher
Anonymous
Origen
Dionysius of Alexandria
Methodius of Olympus
Eusebius Pamphili of Caesarea
Philostorgius
Eusebius of Emesa
St. Ephraim the Syrian
Aphrahat
Eunomius of Cyzicus
Basil the Great
Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory Nazianzen
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Ambrose of Milan
Pacian of Barcelona
Macarius Magnes
Asterius of Amasea
Chromatius of Aquileia
Pseudo-Linus
Epiphanius of Salamis
Optatus of Milevis
John Chrysostom
Severian of GabalaPhilip of Side
Jerome
Augustine
Possidius
Theodore of Mopsuestia
Marutha of Maiperqat
Nestorius
Theodoret
Cyril of Alexandria
Dioscorus of Alexandria
Palladius
Rabbula
Salvian
Sidonius Apollinaris
Eugippius
Dionysius the Areopagite
Joshua the Stylite
Dionysius Exiguus
Jacob of Serûgh
Gildas the Wise
Leontius of Byzantium
Philoxenus of Hierapolis
Evagrius Scholasticus
Timothy Aelurus
Severus of Antioch
The Chronicle of Edessa
Cosmas Indicopleustes
Cicero
Zosimus
Eutropius

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Philip Schaff

Philip Schaff was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart, and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholuck and Julius Müller, by David Strauss and, above all, Neander. At Berlin, in 1841, he took the degree of B.D., and passed examinations for a professorship. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as tutor to Baron Krischer. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, where he lectured on exegesis and church history. In 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America.
On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.
Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.
In 1854, he visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfort and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel. He lectured in Germany on America, and received the degree of D.D. from Berlin.
In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which fought the “continental Sunday”) in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862-1867 he lectured on church history at Andover.

Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society, the Netherland Historical Society, and other historical and literary societies in Europe and America. He was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general conference of the Alliance, which, after two postponements on account of the Franco-Prussian War, was held in New York in October 1873. Schaff was also, in 1871, one of the Alliance delegates to the emperor of Russia to plead for the religious liberty of his subjects in the Baltic provinces.

He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death. He also served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, though he died before it was published in 1901.
His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche into English.
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Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts: Over 80 authors and 600 books

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Philip Schaff

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