The Complete Works of the First Fathers of the Church gathers a formative body of early Christian writing: pastoral epistles, martyrial exhortations, apologies, theological treatises, biblical interpretation, ecclesiastical histories, and visionary instruction. Spanning the generations from the apostolic age to late antiquity, it records Christianity's emergence within Jewish, Greek, and Roman intellectual worlds. Particularly compelling are its defenses of Christian belief before pagan cr...

Arnobius of Sicca (died c. 330) was an Early Christian apologist, during the reign of Diocletian (284305). According to Jerome's Chronicle, Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Veneria (El Kef, Tunisia), a major Christian center in Proconsular Africa, and owed his conversion to a premonitory dream. Arnobius writes dismissively of dreams in his surviving book, so perhaps Jerome was projecting his own respect for the content of dreams. According ...

"The Sacred Writings Of ..." provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea. To overcome the doubts of the local bishop as to the earnestness of his Christian belief Arnobius wrote (about 305) an apologetic work in seven books that St. Jerome calls (De Vir. Ill., lxxix) "Adversus Gentes" but is entitled "Adversus Nationes" in the only (...

In our author rises before us another contributor to Latin Christianity, which was still North-African in its literature, all but exclusively. He had learned of Tertullian and Cyprian what he was to impart to his brilliant pupil Lactantius. Thus the way was prepared for Augustine, by whom and in whom Latin Christianity was made distinctly Occidental, and prepared for the influence it has exerted, to this day, under the mighty prestiges of his single name. TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. ...

“When the Church does not feel pain with those that are part of them, the Church's nerves ... become dead.” —Sabrina Wurmbrand, Co-founder of The Voice of the MartyrsJohn Foxe’s 'Foxe’s Book of Martyrs', first published in 1563, is a seminal work of Protestant history and religious literature. It chronicles the persecution and suffering of Christian martyrs, particularly those who were executed for their faith during the reign of Mary I of England, also known as "Bloody Mary." The book doc...

'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet'The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between conflicting world-views. The Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recounts how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle to become one of Christianity's most influential thinkers. A remarkably honest spiritual autobiography, the Confessions ...

Stephen Charnock was a 17th century Puritan who served as a Presbyterian clergyman in London. Nearly all of the numerous writings attributed to him were transcribed after his death, one of the most famous of which was the one preached at Crosby Hall, and is preserved today as The Existence and Attributes of God. His works reflected the typically characteristic Puritan divine's concern for central Gospel themes. This edition of the Complete Works of Stephen Charnock is illustrated and include...

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 31 January 1892) was a British Particular Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the "Prince of Preachers". Spurgeon was to 19th century England what D. L Moody was to America. Although Spurgeon never attended theological school, by the age of twenty-one he was the most popular preacher in London. A strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church...

Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an?The Church in the Shadow of ...

Skyros Publishing is dedicated to reproducing the finest books ever written and letting readers of all ages experience a classic for the first time or revisit a past favorite.St. Seraphim of Sarov was a famous Russian monk and mystic in the Eastern Orthodox Church during the 19th century. On Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is a classic devotional in which he argues that a Christian's purpose in life should be to obtain the Holy Spirit.

Saint Cyprian (died September 14, 258) was bishop of Carthage and an important Early Christian writer, many of whose works are still extant. He was born the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa. He was of a wealthy and distinguished pagan background. In fact, the site of his eventual martyrdom was his own villa. Before becoming a Christian, he was an orator, "pleader in the courts", and a teacher of rhetoric. The date of his conversion is unknown, but after his baptism about 245248 h...