How do you get a hold of the early church fathers and other materials as well as overviews of the books?

This is a great question. For so many years the early church fathers were only accessible to scholars. That is not the case today. You can obtain copies of the early church fathers, especially the more popular ones, in several formats.

You can buy them as individual volumes in which usually the entire writings of that early church father are together. You can also acquire them in separate volumes as well. One example is St. Augustine’s popular works “Confessions” or “The City of God.”

You can also obtain, much like the scholars, an entire set of all of the early church father writings from certain periods of time or centuries. Of course, the individual works and volumes are cheaper than the whole sets. Although nowadays, I find that you can get whole sets a lot cheaper electronically.

Perhaps one of the best ways to gain an entire set of the early church fathers from beginning to end is to buy Bible software with that package included. I use Logos Bible Software and at a certain base package level all of the early church fathers are included in English. If you go a step or two further you can get the Greek volumes as well. I will list several ways to get volumes and sets below.

You can also get overviews and introductions to the early church fathers, the individuals that wrote the volumes and introductions to each of their works. These may be the best place to start so that you are not just jumping in.

Many of the translations we have will sound like the old King James Version of the Bible. Some of them may be harder to muddle through. But anyone can read the early church fathers today. I will list some of these resources as well for study if you are further interested.

Overviews and Introductions

• Website: Early Church Fathers Overview: Snapshot of the Fathers
• Website Interview: Reading the Early Church Fathers: a Beginner’s Guide
• Wikipedia: Church Fathers
• Getting to Know the Church Fathers: an Evangelical Introduction
• Desert Christians: an Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism

Early Church Fathers Volumes and Sets

• Daily Readings – The Early Church Fathers
• The Complete Works of the Church Fathers: A total of 64 authors, and over 2,500 works of the Early Christian Church
• The Complete Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Collection of Early Church Fathers: Cross-Linked to the Bible
• The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition