Reading plan · 128 days · 4 hr 39 min read

Voices of the Early Church

The first Christian centuries in their own words. Clement of Rome writes from the church at Rome while the apostles' own generation still lived, Ignatius of Antioch sends his letters on the road to martyrdom, and Athanasius of Alexandria sets out the heart of the faith — why God himself became man — in On the Incarnation. Short daily readings over about four months.

min/day
~2
books
3
finish, reading daily
—

In this plan

Days 1–59 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 59 days · 1 hr 1 min read
About this book
Week 1 Days 1–7
  1. The salutation 1 min Today
  2. Praise of the Corinthians continued 1 min
  3. The sad state of the church after sedition arose from envy 1 min
  4. Many evils have already flowed from this source in ancient times 1 min
  5. No less evils have arisen from the same source in the most recent times 1 min
  6. Continuation 1 min
  7. An exhortation to repentance 1 min
Week 2 Days 8–14
  1. Continuation respecting repentance 1 min
  2. Examples of the saints 1 min
  3. Continuation of the above 2 min
  4. Continuation 1 min
  5. The rewards of faith and hospitality 1 min
  6. An exhortation to humility 1 min
  7. We should obey God rather than the authors of sedition 1 min
Week 3 Days 15–21
  1. We must adhere to those who cultivate peace 1 min
  2. Christ as an example of humility 3 min
  3. The saints as examples of humility 1 min
  4. David as an example of humility 2 min
  5. Imitating these examples, let us seek after peace 1 min
  6. The peace and harmony of the universe 1 min
  7. Let us obey God, and not the authors of sedition 2 min
Week 4 Days 22–28
  1. These exhortations are confirmed by the Christian faith 1 min
  2. Be humble, and believe that Christ will come again 1 min
  3. God continually shows us in nature that there will be a resurrection 1 min
  4. The phœnix an emblem of our resurrection 1 min
  5. We shall rise again, then, as the Scripture also testifies 1 min
  6. In the hope of the resurrection 1 min
  7. God sees all things: therefore let us avoid transgression 1 min
Week 5 Days 29–35
  1. Let us also draw near to God in purity of heart 1 min
  2. Let us do those things that please God 1 min
  3. Let us see by what means we may obtain the divine blessing 1 min
  4. We are justified not by our own works, but by faith 1 min
  5. But let us not give up the practice of good works and love 1 min
  6. Great is the reward of good works with God 1 min
  7. Immense is this reward 2 min
Week 6 Days 36–42
  1. All blessings are given to us through Christ 1 min
  2. Christ is our leader, and we His soldiers 1 min
  3. Let the members of the Church submit themselves 1 min
  4. There is no reason for self-conceit 1 min
  5. Let us preserve in the Church the order appointed by God 1 min
  6. Continuation of the same subject 1 min
  7. The order of ministers in the Church 1 min
Week 7 Days 43–49
  1. Moses stilled the contention concerning the priestly dignity 2 min
  2. The ordinances of the apostles 1 min
  3. It is the part of the wicked to vex the righteous 1 min
  4. Let us cleave to the righteous: your strife is pernicious 1 min
  5. Your recent discord is worse than that in the times of Paul 1 min
  6. Let us return to the practice of brotherly love 1 min
  7. The praise of love 1 min
Week 8 Days 50–56
  1. Let us pray to be thought worthy of love 1 min
  2. Let the partakers in strife acknowledge their sins 1 min
  3. Such a confession is pleasing to God 1 min
  4. The love of Moses towards his people 1 min
  5. He who is full of love will incur every loss 1 min
  6. Examples of such love 1 min
  7. Let us admonish and correct one another 2 min
Week 9 Days 57–59
  1. Let the authors of sedition submit themselves 1 min
  2. Blessings sought for all that call upon God 1 min
  3. The Corinthians exhorted to send back word that peace is restored 1 min
Days 60–71 The Epistles of Ignatius and His Life's Story 12 days · 1 hr 15 min read
About this book
Week 1 Days 60–66
  1. Antioch and the God-Bearer 4 min
  2. Condemned to the Beasts 4 min
  3. The Road to Rome, and the Ten Leopards 4 min
  4. The Heart of His Letters 4 min
  5. The Wheat of God 3 min
  6. The Epistle to the Ephesians 13 min
  7. The Epistle to the Magnesians 8 min
Week 2 Days 67–71
  1. The Epistle to the Trallians 7 min
  2. The Epistle to the Romans 8 min
  3. The Epistle to the Philadelphians 7 min
  4. The Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8 min
  5. The Epistle to Polycarp 6 min
Days 72–128 On the Incarnation 57 days · 2 hr 22 min read
About this book
Week 1 Days 72–78
  1. Introductory 2 min
  2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected 3 min
  3. The true doctrine 3 min
  4. Our creation and God's Incarnation most intimately connected 2 min
  5. For God has not only made us out of nothing 2 min
  6. The human race then was wasting 2 min
  7. On the other hand there was the consistency of God's nature 2 min
Week 2 Days 79–85
  1. The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present 3 min
  2. The Word, since death alone could stay the plague 2 min
  3. By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is shewn 3 min
  4. Second reason for the Incarnation 3 min
  5. For though man was created in grace 2 min
  6. Here again, was God to keep silence? 3 min
  7. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original 3 min
Week 3 Days 86–92
  1. Thus the Word condescended to man's engrossment in corporeal things 2 min
  2. He came then to attract man's sense-bound attention to Himself as man 2 min
  3. How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word 3 min
  4. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions 3 min
  5. Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that sacred 2 min
  6. None, then, could bestow incorruption 3 min
  7. Death brought to nought by the death of Christ 3 min
Week 4 Days 93–99
  1. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews 2 min
  2. Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection 2 min
  3. Further objections anticipated 2 min
  4. Why the Cross, of all deaths? 3 min
  5. Reasons for His rising on the Third Day 3 min
  6. The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man 2 min
  7. This exceptional fact must be tested by experience 2 min
Week 5 Days 100–106
  1. Here then are wonderful effects 3 min
  2. The reality of the resurrection proved by facts 3 min
  3. If Power is the sign of life 3 min
  4. But who is to see Him risen, so as to believe? 3 min
  5. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks 2 min
  6. Prophecies of His passion and death in all its circumstances 2 min
  7. Prophecies of the Cross 3 min
Week 6 Days 107–113
  1. Prophecies of Christ's sovereignty, flight into Egypt, &c 2 min
  2. Psalm xxii 3 min
  3. Other clear prophecies of the coming of God in the flesh 3 min
  4. Do you look for another? 2 min
  5. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of prophecy and destruction of 4 min
  6. Answer to the Greeks 2 min
  7. His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a 3 min
Week 7 Days 114–120
  1. He came in human rather than in any nobler form 3 min
  2. As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? 4 min
  3. Thus once again every part of creation manifests the glory of God 3 min
  4. Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation 2 min
  5. The numerous oracles,--fancied apparitions in sacred places 2 min
  6. Further facts 3 min
  7. His Birth and Miracles 2 min
Week 8 Days 121–127
  1. Impotence and rivalries of the Sophists put to shame by the Death of 2 min
  2. The new virtue of continence 2 min
  3. Wars, &c., roused by demons, lulled by Christianity 2 min
  4. The whole fabric of Gentilism levelled at a blow by Christ secretly 2 min
  5. The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God 2 min
  6. Summary of foregoing 2 min
  7. Search then, the Scriptures, if you can, and so fill up this sketch 2 min
Week 9 Day 128
  1. Above all, so live that you may have the right to eat of this tree of 2 min

Authors

Clement of Rome · Ignatius of Antioch · Athanasius of Alexandria