List of Early Christian Writers

Various Early Christian writers wrote gospels and other books, some of which were canonized as the New Testament canon developed. The Apostolic Fathers were prominent writers who are traditionally understood to have met and learned from Jesus' personal disciples. The Church Fathers are later writers with no direct connection to the disciples (other than the claim to Apostolic Succession). Apologists defended Christianity against its critics, especially Greek and Roman philosophers. Dates given, if not otherwise specified, are of their writings or bishopric, not of their lives.

  • Paul of Tarsus, "Apostle to the Gentiles", earliest New Testament author 45~65
  • Four Evangelists, traditionally identified as the authors of the canonical gospels 60~125
  • Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, apostolic father 68~107
  • Clement of Rome, bishop of Rome, apostolic father 88~101
  • Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, apostolic father 110~130
  • Polycarp of Smyrna, bishop of Smyrna, apostolic father 110~160
  • Justin Martyr church father ~165
  • Melito of Sardis, bishop of Sardis, ~180
  • Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, disciple of Polycarp, apologist 180~202
  • Origen of Alexandria 185~254, Platonist, controversial during his lifetime, posthumously condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553
  • Tatian, pupil of Justin Martyr, ascetic theologian ~185
  • Athenagoras of Athens, philosopher, apologist ~190
  • Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, excommunicated by Victor I of Rome over the Easter controversy ~196
  • Montanus, self-proclaimed prophet and founder of Montanism, last quarter of 2nd century CE
  • Tertullian church father, apologist, first Christian writer in Latin, later a Montanist 197~230
  • Hippolytus, church father, sometimes termed the first anti-pope, reconciled with the church and died a martyr 217~236
  • Cyprian bishop of Carthage, martyr 218~258
  • Clement of Alexandria, church father with gnostic sympathies ~220
  • Novatian, a rigorist and Antipope in 251
  • Dionysius, patriarch of Alexandria, pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church 248~264
  • Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, adoptionist, condemned at 269 Council of Antioch for Christological errors
  • Donatus Magnus, bishop of Carthage, (+355), leader of the Donatists from 313
  • Lactantius, apologist, "Christian Cicero" ~317
  • Arnobius, apologist ~330
  • Eusebius, wrote History of the Church ~325 after the victory of Constantine over paganism and is considered the Christian Herodotus, the first major Church historian

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, early, christian and/or writers:

    “Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
    Went down the list of the dead.
    Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
    The crews of the gig and yawl,
    The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
    Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
    —Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)

    “I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
    —Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)

    “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    “You see few people here in America who really care very much about living a Christian life in a democratic world.”
    —Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987)

    “That’s one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.”
    —Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)