Reddit mentions of Early Christian Fathers (Library of Christian Classics)

As an Evangelical Protestant pastor I read Cyril Richardson's modern-English translation of the Early Christian Fathers. That convinced me that the earliest Christians weren't Evangelical Protestants. About the same time, I read Eusebius' 4th-century Church History (picked them both up at the same yard sale) and it showed me how the Church in Acts matured into the Church that held the Nicene Council.

And then I read Athanasius' article On the Incarnation, written in 318. It foreshadows the Council of Nicea where 8 years later Athanasius will argue for the Trinity. But what really reset my expectations was the way Athanasius approaches the reason for Christ's incarnation and passion. His Gospel isn't about penal substitution, it's about uniting mankind to God.

When I looked into modern Roman Catholicism, I didn't see Catholics reading or practicing any of what I saw in 4th-century Christianity. Instead they seemed to be trying to become more Protestant.

I was late to the Orthodox party - but when I ran into these people, they were preaching from the same early fathers I had been reading. And in their approach to worship, fasting, scripture, and above all salvation, I could see the continuity with Nicene Christianity. Reading the eastern Christians of the 6th, 9th, 12th centuries there's an organic connectedness that continues up to the present - it's the same river we were wading in when we read the earliest fathers.

Honestly I don't see that continuity in Roman Catholic spirituality. It seems to have gone through some serious changes in the Middle Ages, and what emerged was really different from what had been there before. When I read Athanasius and Ignatius and Basil, and look at Roman Catholic parishes and individuals in my experience, I don't see the resemblance the way I do when I look at Orthodoxy.

And so here I am.

These are some of the better books I've accumulated in school:

• An Introduction to the New Testament - Raymond Brown. Exactly what the title says.
  
  
• The Early Church - Henry Chadwick. This is more of a historical overview of the development of the Church, etc.
  
  
• The Shape of Catholic Theology - Aiden Nichols. This book is kind of a dense read. Not gonna lie.
  
  
• At the Origin of the Christian Claim - Luigi Giussani.
  
  
• The Craft of Theology - Avery Dulles.
  
  
• The Theology of the Church - Charles Jornet. - This one is about ecclesiology, or the structure of the Church.
  
  
• Early Christian Fathers -Cyril Richardson. Includes primary sources like letters and homilies.
  
  
• The Trinitarian Crontroversy - William Rusch. Very good history of early heresies, like Arianism and Nestorianism, and how they pushed the Church to develop the Creed.
  
  
• Called to Communion - Joseph Ratzinger.
  
  
• Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man - Henri de Lubac. This book is fantastic!
  
  
• The Meaning of Tradition - Yves Congar.
  
  
• Introduction to Moral Theology - Romanus Cessario.
  
  
• The Major Works -Anselm of Canterbury. Nice collection, see especially: Cur Deus Homo.
  
  
• On the Incarnation - Ignatius of Antioch. I LOVED this one!
  
  
• Credo for Today - Joseph Ratzinger. Basically anything by Ratzinger.

Reading them all is a pretty big project, but it's certainly worth it to make your way through the "greatest hits." A nice thing about the Fathers is that they tend to be much easier to read than medieval thinkers who are so fully immersed in the context of Christian theology that it can be difficult to figure out what they're saying without a lot of background knowledge and modern theologians who tend towards verbosity and lots of jargon.

As far as un-orthodox opinions go, there are a few, but as long as you can recognize that none of these men are perfect, that the early stages of articulating Christian theology are just that, early stages, then you should be fine.

I'd strongly recommend Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen (can be difficult, perhaps the most theologically heterodox of the bunch), Athanasius, Cassian, and the Cappadocians, in roughly that order.

This is a nice edition of the shorter early works, including Justin and excerpts from Irenaeus and is thus a very good place to start. I have a soft spot for Athenagoras' apology; it's a wonderful little work. There's a lot of great stuff out there, and I'd be happy to give more suggestions based on your personal interests.

I recommend Documents in Early Christian Thought. It's a basic and very good anthology, covering the first - 5th centruies, and organized by topic (so there's a section on the church and the sacraments).

For the earliest patristics, another good place to start is this larger anthology from the Library of Christian Classics, The Early Christian Fathers

Given your background, there are many excellent introductions to the church fathers from evangelical scholars to recommend:

• Ronald Heine, Classical Christian Doctrine (this is my favorite of them all)
  
  
• Justo L. Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, Volume 1
  
  
• Bryan M. Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers
  
  
• Michael A. G. Haykin, Rediscovering the Church Fathers