The Early Church Fathers

Almost everything we know about the church after Acts comes from a handful of men, and most of their books are lost. Who the witnesses are and how far they go.

Everything the church says about how Mark and Matthew were written traces to one man whose books are lost. What Papias claimed and why Eusebius disliked him.

A letter from Rome to Corinth around AD 95, and the earliest outside notice of Peter and Paul. What 1 Clement says, and what it deliberately does not say.

He heard Polycarp, who knew the apostles, which makes him our shortest chain to the first century. He also thought Jesus lived to nearly fifty. Both are true.

Most of what survives from the second-century church survives because Eusebius quoted it. That makes him indispensable and puts one filter over most of it.

A Jewish general who surrendered to Rome, then wrote the only full account of first-century Judea we have. What he is good for and where he defends himself.

The fullest account of how James the brother of Jesus died comes from a lost second-century book. What Hegesippus wrote, and how much of it can be trusted.

A letter about the date of Easter, written to defend Asian custom against Rome, is where the claim that Philip is buried at Hierapolis comes from. What it says.

Papias wrote five books and Hegesippus wrote five more. None survive. Why so much of the second century vanished, and what that does to the evidence we have.