1 July 2000

Church History documents

A vast number of church history primary documents are available on the Web.
There are many more sources than those listed here, but these are the most complete.
1) Early Church Fathers
2) Catholic Documents
3) Orthodox Documents
4) Reformation Texts
5) Huge general collections of historical texts
6) Greek and Latin original texts
7) What is missing?


1) Early Church Fathers
==================
You can buy the standard 38 vols from Eerdmans or Hendrickson, or buy the CD from Logos or SAGES, or get the same texts free from:
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ - includes searching, footnotes, and compressed versions so you can download them to your own computer.


2) Catholic Documents
=================
New Advent - http://newadvent.org/fathers/index.html
- and an amazing encyclopaedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/
- even includes full Summa Theologica - http://newadvent.org/summa/
- for Contra Gentiles go to - http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc.htm
Councils before 1450 - http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/documentscou.html
Later Councils:
Trent - http://history.hanover.edu/early/trent.htm
Vatican II - http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v1.html
Documents for various Orders & Organisations - http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/
Encyclicals and Other Papal Documents - http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/papal/papal.html


3) Orthodox Documents
==================
St. Pachomius Library - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/St.Pachomius/globalindex.html


4) Reformation Texts
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Hanover texts - http://history.hanover.edu/early/prot.html
- includes Baxter, Bunyan, Calvin, Elizabethan Homilies, Fox, Hooker, Law, Luther, Melanchthon, Wesley and others.
Project Wittenberg for Luther related texts - http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-home.html


5) Huge general collections of historical texts
=================================
Ecole (texts up to 1500): http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/
Christian Classics Ethereal Library: http://www.ccel.org/
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook (covers a very wide historical period) - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook2.html
Theology Library - http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/cm/thltxt.htm
Project Gutenberg - almost everything, but not easy to use - http://promo.net/pg/


6) Greek and Latin original texts:
=======================
For the Greek and Latin texts you usually still have to pay.
- Greek texts up to about 600 CE are on the TLG CD - http://www.tlg.uci.edu/
- Latin texts are on the Patrologia Latina (VERY expensive) - http://pld.chadwyck.co.uk/
But there are some good Web collections, especially:
Bibliotheca Augustana (a VERYwide range of texts) - http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/a_index.htm
Perseus - a growing set of texts, with translations, but mainly early - http://perseus.csad.ox.ac.uk/Texts.html


7) What is missing?
===============
Lots of things. And it is usually what you want to find.
For example, there doesn't seem to be any copy of Augustine's "Retractions" (a most interesting work), and almost nothing of Erasmus except his "Praise of Folly".
If you find a good source, please tell me.

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