H.N. Bate's History of the Church to AD 325 now available on-line

The following public domain book is now available on-line in PDF:

H.N. Bate, History Of The Church to A.D. 325, 2nd edn. London: Rivingtons, 1924. Hbk. pp.140.

I remember finding this book extremely helpful when I was studying church history and so was pleased to find that the copyright has expired. It can now be downloaded from here.

Gerald Bray on the Doctrine of the Trinity in Augustine's De Civitate Dei

The following article is now available on-line in PDF

Gerald Bray, "The Doctrine of the Trinity in Augustine's De Civitate Dei," European Journal of Theology 1.2 (1992): 141-150. Click here to read.

My thanks to Professor Bray for his kind permission.

The Future of "Theology on the Web"

Over the last six months I have been planning how best to take forward the work of Theology on the Web in providing freely available theological material on the Web. To this end I have produced a vision document that I would like to share with those who have benefited from the sites. You can download a copy here. Please pass it on to people and organisations whom you think it might interest.

Issa. A. Saliba on the Bishop of Antioch and the Heretics

With thanks to Revd. Saliba for his kind permission the following article is now available on-line in PDF:

Issa. A. Saliba, "The Bishop of Antioch and the Heretics," The Evangelical Quarterly 54.2 (Apr.-June 1982): 65-76.

Click here for the link.

William Varner on Jewish-Christian dialogues in the third to sixth centuries

Thanks to Dr Varner's kind permission the following article is now available on-line in PDF:

William Varner, "In the wake of Trypho: Jewish-Christian dialogues in the third to sixth centuries," The Evangelical Quarterly 80.3 (July 2008): 219-236.

Click here to read.

Craig M. Watts on the Humanity of Jesus in Justin Martyr’s Soteriology

With thanks to Dr Watts for his kind permission the following article is now on-line in PDF:

Craig M. Watts, "The Humanity of Jesus in Justin Martyr’s Soteriology," The Evangelical Quarterly 56.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1984): 21-34.

Click here to read the article.

David F. Wright on Christian Faith in the Greek World: Justin Martyr's Testimony

The following article is now available on line here in PDF format.

David F. Wright, "Christian Faith in the Greek World: Justin Martyr's Testimony," The Evangelical Quarterly 54.2 (Apr.-June 1982): 77-87.

David E. Aune on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation

The following article is available on-line in PDF. Click here for the link.

David E. Aune, "Early Christian Biblical Interpretation," The Evangelical Quarterly 41.2 (April-May 1969): 89-96.

My thanks to Professor Aune for his kind permission.

The Early Church's Interpretation of Genesis 1-11

Here is a sample chapter from Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth.that covers the early church's interpretation of Genesis 1-11, a subject that I have spent some time researching in the past. Well worth a read.

A. Skevington-Wood on the Eschatology of Irenaeus

The following article is now available in PDF:

A. Skevington-Wood, "The Eschatology of Irenaeus," The Evangelical Quarterly 41.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1969): 30-41. 

New Book on the Didache

Thomas O'Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham has asked me to mention his new book on the Didache:

Thomas O'Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians. London: SPCK, 2010. Pbk. ISBN-13: 978-0281059539. pp.256.

Professor O'Loughlin attached a voucher for SPCK online that would give a 20% discount, but Amazon.co.uk offer a 30% discount.

Here is an introductory video which gives you a taste of the book's content and argument:

T.V. Philip on the Authority of Scripture in the Patristic Period

The following article is now available on-line in PDF.

T.V. Philip, "Authority of Scripture in the Patristic Period," Indian Journal of Theology 23.1-2 (Jan.-June 1974): 1-8. Click here to read.

Marvyn H. Harper on the Study of Church History

The following article is now on-line in PDF:

Marvyn H. Harper, "The Study of Church History," Indian Journal of Theology 6.2 (April-June 1957): 39-52. Click here to read.

David F. Hudson on the Attitude of the Apologists to Non-Christian Religions

The following articles is now available in PDF:

Donald F. Hudson, "The Attitude of the Apologists to Non-Christian Religions," Indian Journal of Theology 6.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1957): 15-18. Click here to read.

V.C. Samuel on Some Facts About the Alexandrine Christology

The following article is now available in PDF:

V.C. Samuel. "Some Facts About the Alexandrine Christology," Indian Journal of Theology 11.4 (Oct.-Dec. 1962): 136-142. Click here to read.

D.M. Davey on Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel

The following article is now available in PDF:

D.M. Davey, "Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel," Scripture 17 No. 40 (Oct. 1965) 117-122. Click here to read the article.

James Purves on the Spirit and the Imago Dei: Reviewing the Anthropology of Irenaeus of Lyons

The following article is now available on-line in PDF:

James M.G. Purves, "The Spirit and the Imago Dei: Reviewing the Anthropology of Irenaeus of Lyons," The Evangelical Quarterly 68.2 (Apr.-June 1996): 99-120.

If you find this article helful, please leave a comment. Not only is this an encouragement it will also help others to find the entry in the search engines.

Donald Macleod on Arianism, Ancient and Modern

The following article is now available in PDF:

Donald Macleod, "God or god? Arianism, Ancient and Modern," The Evangelical Quarterly 68.2 (Apr.-June 1996): 121-138.

Colin J, Hemer on the The Manchester Rotas / Sator Square

The following article is now online in PDF:

Colin J. Hemer, "The Manchester Rotas / Sator Square," Faith and Thought 105.1&2 (1978): 36-40.

My thanks to the Trustees of Tyndale House for their kind permission to reproduce this article.

John Drane on Gnosticism and the New Testament

The following articles are now available on-line in PDF:

John W. Drane, "Gnosticism and the New Testament 1," TSF Bulletin 68 (Spring 1974): 6-13.

John W. Drane, "Gnosticism and the New Testament 2," TSF Bulletin 69 (Summer 1974): 1-7.

My thanks to Professor Drane for his kind permission to reproduce these articles.

September Website News

With new academic year due to begin in the next few weeks I thought it would be good to update my visitors on recent and forthcoming developments across the “Theology on the Web” websites.

File Formats for Articles

Over the last few months I’ve been experimenting with different formats for the articles I upload. Since I began in 2001 I’ve scanned, OCR’d and then proof-read all the articles that I’ve placed online. This produces very clear text and very small file sizes, but it does have the disadvantage of being very time consuming as well as introducing typos.

The situation is at present that I have a full-time job in a Christian charity, a wife and three little boys, so website work must be confined to my lunch hour or late evenings. Although I received over a million visitors each year only 4 of these support the work regularly on a monthly basis. The two advertisers who paid for space on the websites have decided not to renew this year. All this means is that while I still hope to do this work full-time on the sites at some point there is no prospect of this in the near future on the basis of current funding levels. If you would like to support the development of the sites I suggest a number of ways of doing so here.

This has led me to change the format of the articles I upload to scanned PDF’s with OCR’d text. These retain the original layout, can be searched, cut and pasted and appear in search engines. They can be produced very quickly (I could scan and place online an entire book in a few hours) but the file size is around 15-20 times larger a word-processed version. A few people have complained about this change, but I would rather have the material available now rather in several years time (if ever) even if the format does not please everyone.

New (old!) Journals Online

I have recently completed the entire 11 volumes of the Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society and will be integrating the articles into my site in the next few weeks. Vox Evangelica (which I began working on in 2006) should be complete by the end of next week. I have recently completed a table of contents for the Theological Students Fellowship (TSF) Bulletin (UK) and a number of these articles are now online. Anvil journal recently allowed me to publish around 27 of its articles and these are appearing as permissions from the authors are received. I am now working on a table of contents for Themelios (1962-1974) when it was published by IFES. I hope to be able to place many of these articles online as well in due course in partnership with Tyndale House and the Gospel Coalition.

Missiology Website

Due to my present workload the launch of this site has been put back until sometime next year.

That’s all for now. Remember to subscribe to the site feeds to received the latest news. Thanks for visiting!

The Very Rev Professor Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1915-2009)

I was saddened to hear today of the death of Geoffrey Bromiley on 7th August. Amongst his numerous works he will probably be best remembered for his translations of significant German language works, such as Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. He also edited the revised International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Among the 10 books he himself wrote I have particularly valued his Historical Theology: An Introduction.

I wrote to Professor Bromiley a couple of years ago and obtained his permission to place online all his articles from Evangelical Quarterly which should start to appear on my websites in the next few months.

You can find a bibliography of some of his works here. Fuller Theological Seminary has an obitiary here, T & T Clark (who published many of his books) here. Ben Myers has a blog entry here, as does Michael L. Westmoreland-White here and David Guretzki here,

Roger Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott on the Doctrine of the Christian Sunday

The following book is now available in both PDF and iPaper formats:

Roger T. Beckwith & W. Stott, This Is the Day: The Biblical Doctrine of the Christian Sunday in Its Jewish and Early Church Setting. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1978.

My thanks to Dr Beckwith for his kind permission to reproduce this book online.

Introductions to Tertullian, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr by Johnson Thomaskutty

The following short introductions were originally puiblished on Facebook. In order to make them available to a wider audience Dr Thomaskutty has kindly granted permission for them to be republished on earlychurch.org.uk

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the First Systematic Theologian of the Second Century (Johnson Thomaskutty, Faculty of New Testament, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India)

Tertullian, the Father of Latin Western Theology and an Advocate of "Freedom of Religion" (Johnson Thomaskutty, Faculty of New Testament, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India)

Justin Martyr, the First Outstanding Apologist of the Second Century ( Johnson Thomaskutty, Faculty of New Testament, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India)

Theology on the Web Hub launched

I have today launched a "hub site" called "Theology on the Web" which contains some of the material that has previously been duplicated on several sites. Having a central hub will help me to be able to keep the shared material updated and help visitors to understand better the vision that underlies the development of the other four - soon to be five - sites.

Frances Young on Christian Attitudes to Finance in the First Four Centuries

The following article is now online in PDF:

Frances Young, "Christian Attitudes to Finance in the First Four Centuries," Epworth Review 4.3 (Sept. 1977): 78-86.

This is very interesting article on a neglected subject - well worth a read.

Professor Henry Chadwick, "one of the last great Anglican Scholars", dies aged 87

Anyone who has studied church history will be familiar with the works of Henry Chadwick, particularly his book The Early Church, which is still a standard textbook on many courses, remarkably so, as it was first published in 1967. It was therefore with a great sense of loss that I read of his death today in The Telegraph. The Guardian's obituary can be viewed here.

Professor Chadwick's 1968 Ethel M. Wood Lecture is available on-line, thanks to the author's kind permission a couple of years ago:

The Rev. Prof. Henry Chadwick, The Enigma of St. Paul. The Ethel M. Wood lecture delivered before the University of London on 27 February 1968. London: The Athlone Press, 1969. Pbk. ISBN: 0485143135. pp.22.

It used to be said that you had to study patristics for at least 50 years to be considered an expert. If that is true then men like this will prove hard to replace.

Theology on the Web group launched on Facebook

I have created a new group on Facebook called Theology on the Web. I am hoping that it will serve both to raise the profile of my websites and provide a forum for visitors to provide feedback on current and future projects. Feel free to sign up.

F.F. Bruce on the Lessons of Church History

The following article is now on-line in PDF:

F.F. Bruce, "Church History and Its Lessons," J.B. Watson, ed., The Church: A Symposium. London: Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1949. pp.178-95.

George Santayana famous said that "Those who fail to learn the lessons that history teaches, are doomed to repeat them". It is therefore helpful to some of the lessons that Church History can teach today's Church regarding the form and ministry of the Church, the Church's relationship to the State and the Church's mission.

Arthur Klem on Tertullian: Victim of Caricature

The following article is now on-line in PDF:

Arthur W. Klem, "Tertullian: Victim of Caricature," Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 5.4 (Fall 1962): 103-108.

Tertullian has always been a target for misrepresentation. Arthur Klem's article seeks to set the record straight.