The Complete Ante-Nicene Fathe

The Complete Ante-Nicene Fathers Collection (Trial Version) with footnotes

The Ante-Nicene Period (literally meaning "before Nicaea") in the history of early Christianity was the era following the Apostolic Age of the first century to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. During this period the orthodoxy (right belief) of the faith developed. The authors of the faith are known as the church fathers. They not only defined the faith but wrote against various heresies.

Some of the unorthodox beliefs were:

Gnosticism (2nd to 4th centuries) – reliance on revealed knowledge from an unknowable God, a distinct divinity from the Demiurge who created and oversees the material world.

Marcionism (2nd century) – the God of Jesus was a different God from the God of the Old Testament.

Montanism (2nd century) – relied on prophetic revelations from the Holy Spirit.

Adoptionism (2nd century) – Jesus was not born the Son of God, but was adopted at his baptism, resurrection or ascension.

Docetism (2nd to 3rd century) – Jesus was pure spirit and his physical form an illusion.

Sabellianism (3rd century) – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of the one God and not the three separate persons of the Trinity.

Arianism (3rd to 4th century) – Jesus, as the Son, was subordinate to God the Father.

In this collected work the following volumes are presented under the editorship of Philip Schaff:

Volume I - The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus

Volume II - Fathers of the Second Century

Volume III - Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian

Volume IV - The Fathers of the Third Century

Volume V - The Fathers of the Third Century

Volume VI - The Fathers of the Third Century

Volume VII - The Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries

Volume VIII - The Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries

Volume IX - Recently Discovered Additions to Early Christian Literature; Commentaries of Origen

All the works presented here are cross-linked to the Bible and have in-line footnotes linked to the back of the work.