Catalog of Christian Texts

English language

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) – A canonically organized 29-volume set of key writings of the early church fathers that employs the RSV in the early commentary tradition known as the glossa ordinaria. ACCS is an ecumenical project that is intended to promote a vital link of communication between the varied Christian traditions of today and their common ancient ancestors in the faith.

Ancient Christian Texts – A series of 17 volumes, many of which are first-time English translations.

Ancient Christian Writers (ACW) – Series of approximately 70 volumes from the Catholic Paulist Press. As with other English language series listed here, many of the volumes are the only translation available.

The Fathers of the Church (TFC) – From the Catholic University of America Press, there are two main sub-series: A New Translation and Medieval Continuations. In total, there are approximately 154 volumes.

Loeb Classical Library (LCL) – An extensive collection (550+) of pocket volumes of English translations of important Christian and non-Christian Greek and Latin literature. It includes epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; and those Church fathers who made particular use of pagan culture.

Popular Patristics – A series that aims to provide readable and accurate translations of a broad range of early Christian texts for a wide audience including students of Christian history and theology, and lay Christians.

Other languages

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) – An academic series that publishes critical editions of Latin works by late-antique Christian authors from the late 2nd century until the beginning of the 7th century. A list of out-of-copyright editions that are accessible online is here.

Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte (GCS) – German Critical Edition Texts. The series title in English is: “The Greek Christian Writers of the First Centuries.” Many of the texts are now in the public domain.

Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina (PL or MPL) – A 19th century collection of Latin critical edition texts produced under the direction of Jacques Paul Migne, a French Roman Catholic priest. There are 230 volumes that span the years 230 – 1216 AD. All of the texts are in the public domain, readily available online, and serve as the basis for most of the English translations of the church fathers known to modern readers. It should be noted that, while the PL and it’s sister set the PG (below) are widely known and used, they often contain mistakes and do not comply with modern standards of scholarship. See here for a helpful perspective on Migne’s PL/PG and the translations derived from them.

Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca (PG or MPG) – The Greek equivalent of the PL (see above). It contains 161 volumes.

Sources Chrétiennes (SC) – A bilingual collection of patristic texts edited by the Institut des Sources Chrétiennes and published in Paris. The texts are critical editions with Greek or Latin on the left and the French translation on the facing page. The series has over 600 works by Greek, Latin and some Syriac authors.

Use the search box to search for text in the Author, Title, and Notes fields. Results can be filtered by a number of metadata fields, some of which are not displayed in the table (e.g. Authenticity and Patriarchate). The following filters are available:

• Authenticity – The general scholarly consensus regarding the authenticity of the original document. Options are: Genuine, Dubious, and Spurious
• Location – Whether the original author was more prominent in the East (typically Greek speaking) or West (typically Latin speaking) Empire
• Patriarchate – The region the author was from, as represented by the “see” (political division of the Roman Empire) where a monarchical episcopate eventually emerged. Options are: Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Rome.