The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, also known by the first word of its Greek title, the Didache, is a very ancient text, most likely contemporary with some of the books later included in the New Testament. Scholars typically date it to the latter half of the first century or the first half of the second century. Its author and place of origin are unknown, though some scholars associate it with Syria. The text, as we have it, is the end result of a complex process of redaction. Initially, the document was likely a compilation of various traditional sources deemed useful to introducing converts to a Jewish-Christian community’s way of life, which was then altered and expanded over time as community standards changed and developed. Its first part (1–6) is a prebaptismal catechesis composed of moral precepts derived from an independent and preexisting Jewish source known as the “Two Ways.” Its second (7–10) and third (11–15) parts are a collection of liturgical and disciplinary rules for the developing Christian community concerning baptism, fasting, prayer, the communal meal, traveling apostles, prophets, teachers, hospitality, reconciliation, communal leadership, and fraternal correction. The final part (15–16), whose ending is lost, describes the eschatological expectation that early Christians held.

There are many traditions about Patrick, the priest who was born in Roman Britain during the late fourth century and as a young boy came to live in Hibernia, now the modern island of Ireland. The text below survives in several manuscripts, the earliest from the seventh century, and it tells the story of Patrick’s life from his perspective. Though in the manuscript tradition it often bears the generic label of “letter,” it is also titled a Confession and, like the Confessions of Augustine of Hippo, justifies the narrator’s career to detractors, explaining how his work, however different from expectations, is still pious work, made possible by (and thus sanctioned by) the will of God.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was astonishingly prolific, writing sermons, letters, dialogues, a monastic rule, treatises on a variety of subjects, and works of scriptural exegesis, with Genesis and the Psalms being his special interests. Among his best-known works is the Confessions, which is sui generis in ancient literature: an autobiography laced with plaintive prayer, philosophical speculation, and raw self-examination. It relates a journey both spiritual and geographical, one that follows a path of lust and ambition toward conversion and baptism and from the North African countryside where Augustine was born to Carthage, Rome, and Milan, great cities of the western Roman Empire. Written in a gorgeous, protean Latin into which are woven myriad references to classical and biblical texts, the Confessions is a literary masterwork.

On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is part of a corpus of Greek works by an unknown author in the late fifth or early sixth century. The author wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, who according to Acts 17:34 converted after hearing Paul’s preaching. The corpus was highly influential in the Byzantine tradition, its ideas influencing authors from Maximus the Confessor to Gregory Palamas. Through various translators, the most famous being John Scotus Eriugena, it also informed many medieval Latin theologians. It was cited in papal documents and excerpted in collections of sententiae, and no less a thinker than Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on the Dionysian text On the Divine Names. In 1457, the humanist Lorenzo Valla demonstrated that the corpus could not have been written by the Athenian convert Dionysius, and his views were disseminated by Erasmus. Still, the corpus contains a classic statement of mystical theology and continues to be read widely today.

Shenoute of Atripe (348–465) was the most important Egyptian monastic leader in late antiquity. He developed a formalized discipline with which he governed three monasteries (two for men, one for women) located in the village of Atripe, across the Nile River from the city Panopolis (modern Akhmim). Thanks to Shenoute’s leadership, these monastic complexes, collectively known as the White Monastery Federation, played a major role in the social, political, economic, and religious lives of people in the region (Christians and non-Christians alike) and would become the hub of Christian literary culture in Egypt well into the Arab period. Shenoute himself occasionally preached public sermons in his native Coptic tongue to large crowds consisting of monastics, clergy members, lay people, government officials, military professionals, and other local luminaries. In those moments, Shenoute repeatedly defined the moral contours of the Christian community by stridently and repeatedly lambasting any zdepravity he believed present among his hearers, such as exploitation of the poor by rich landowners, adultery, violation of monastic vows, theft, cultic veneration of pagan gods, and Origenist and eventually Chalcedonian heresy.

Local, provincial, or ecumenical councils offered rare opportunities for bishops and other clergy members to weigh in on normative practice and establish precedents for ecclesiastical polity. While it remains debatable whether councils were effective in prescribing (or proscribing) Christian conduct and beliefs – be they among the heady echelons of clergy members or among the vast majority of laypeople – they nevertheless offer precious windows into which matters Christian leaders considered most urgent and immediate. Conciliar canons from late antiquity, and any historical period, resound with the bias and agenda of the dominant majority, and so treating them as windows through which modern readers can see what religious life was like “on the ground” for everyday Christians is problematic at best. By design, the canons convey the voice of the victors, so figuring out objections to them can be a challenge – and we can be sure that alternatives to the conciliar decisions existed. What conciliar canons do provide, then, is an indication of debates that raged among Christian groups in particular localities – debates about theology, clerical authority, communal organization and identity, ritual performance, and ascetic behavior.

Here is another text that witnesses to the early period of the island monastery of Lérins. Its author, Faustus, succeeded Maximus twice, first as abbot of Lérins and then as bishop of Riez. For his part, Maximus became the abbot after the monastery’s founder, Honoratus, was appointed bishop of Arles in 427 or 428. Maximus served as abbot until 433 or 434, when he became bishop of Riez. Faustus then replaced Maximus as abbot of Lérins, and when Maximus died sometime between 457 and 461, Faustus replaced him again, this time as bishop of Riez. Shortly after Maximus’ death, Faustus preached a homily to the church of Riez that stressed how the monastic virtues Maximus acquired at Lérins were a providential training for his pastoral ministry as bishop of Riez. In fact, Maximus was but one of several Lérinian monks installed as bishops in the 420s and 430s: besides Honoratus becoming bishop of Arles, also Hilary was made bishop of Arles in 430 and Eucherius bishop of Lyons around 434. Of course, Faustus himself followed the same trajectory.

Emperor Theodosius II commissioned and published the Codex Theodosianus, or Theodosian Code, in 439. It is a large anthology of legal issuances and statements from as far back as the era of Constantine, sole ruler of the empire from 324 to 337, and the latest sources come from the time of Theodosius II himself. The selections translated here were, in their own times, written in different contexts and sent to different audiences. There are edicts, made for a more general audience and applicable to many; there are decrees, which arise from the adjudication of a specific case; and there are letters written to specific city, provincial, and imperial officials, containing orders from one or another emperor. Yet as parts of this anthology, they are presented as having equal weight and equal applicability; they are statements by emperors, which establish a precedent of law, presented in this “Code” and accessible to officials and judges for consultation.

In what follows, Tertullian offers his argument to Christians – those who participate in his “discipline” (disciplina) – about why they should not attend any of the public entertainment on offer in a typical late Roman city like his, Carthage. The “shows” he writes about include races at the track, theatrical productions, and gladiatorial contests, and he uses polemic, reason, and the imagination to convince his reader that all of them are hopelessly tied to idolatry.

Over the course of a tumultuous ecclesiastical career, John Chrysostom (ca. 349–407) put on many hats. He was a brilliant student of rhetoric and literature under the tutelage of Libanius of Antioch; he joined Diodore of Tarsus’ ascetic circle, which counted as a member Theodore of Mopsuestia, among others; he was appointed lector in 371 and then presbyter in 381 by Meletius of Antioch; and finally he was consecrated as bishop of Constantinople after the death of Nectarius (a target of Gregory of Nazianzus’ ire in Poem 2.1.12, “On Himself and Concerning the Bishops”). It was during his time as a presbyter in Antioch that he earned his gilded reputation for preaching, which Christians in the fifth century would encapsulate with the moniker “Chrysostom,” or Golden-Mouth. His sermons were known for their power and eloquence, but also for their confrontational tenor and furious hostility toward opponents (in this case, Jews and “Judaizing” Christians). John hoped that every member of his congregation would demonstrate the same zeal that he strived to embody every day.

The perspective and content of this poem are best understood in light of its author’s career. The poem was likely written in late 381 or early 382, months after Gregory had returned to Cappadocia from a twenty-month stint in Constantinople. He had been sent to the imperial capital, in all likelihood, by bishops who gathered at Antioch in the autumn of 379; his action item was the establishment of a pro-Nicene community in a Homoian-dominated city. In 380, Emperor Theodosius arrived and, as the first pro-Nicene emperor in nearly two decades, he deposed the city’s Homoian bishop Demophilus, made Gregory Constantinople’s de facto bishop, and convened the Council of Constantinople in May 381. More than 150 bishops attended the council, over which Gregory briefly presided, and collectively they tackled issues both theological and practical. The success of the council, then, depended on him having a political tact and finesse that he simply did not have. After alienating allies and hardening the opposition from adversaries, Gregory resigned from both his presidency and episcopate, only to lambaste the bishops at the council after he settled back in Cappadocia.