After the New Testament

The remarkable diversity of Christianity during the formative years of the first three centuries has become a plain, even natural, "fact" for most ancient historians. But until now there has been no source book of primary texts that reveals the varieties of Christian beliefs, practices, ethics, experiences, confrontations, and self-understandings. To help readers recognize and experience the rich diversity of the early Christian movement, After the New Testament provides a wide range of texts, both orthodox and heterodox, including such works as the Apostolic Fathers, (e.g., 1 Clement), the writings of Nag Hammadi (e.g., the Apocryhon of John), early pseudepigrapha (e.g., the Gospel of Peter), martyrologies (e.g., Perpetua), anti-Jewish tractates (e.g., from Tertullian), heresiologies (e.g., Irenaeus and the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter), canon lists (e.g., the Muratorian Fragment), church orders (e.g., the Apostolic Constitutions), liturgical texts (the Didascalia), and theological treatises (e.g., Origen). In addition, rather than giving only fragments of texts, this collection provides large portions--entire documents wherever possible--organized under social and historical rubrics. This unique reader's concise and informative introductions and clear and up-to-date English translations make it ideal for courses on the New Testament, Christian Origins, Early Church History, or Late Antiquity, as well as for anyone--student, teacher, pastor, layperson--interested in the gamut of early Christian literature from the period after the New Testament up to the writings of the so-called father of church history, Eusebius.