The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) does what very few of today’s students of the Bible can do for themselves. The vast array of writings from the Church Fathers—including many that are available only in the ancient languages—have been combed for their comment on Scripture. From these results, scholars with a deep knowledge of the fathers and a heart for the Church have hand-selected material for each volume, shaping, annotating, and introducing it to today’s readers. Each portion of commentary has been chosen for its salient insight, its rhetorical power, and its faithful representation of the consensual exegesis of the early Church.

Because the Catholic Epistles focus on orthodox faith and morals, the Fathers drew on them as a means of defense against the rising challenge of heretics. This factor gave these letters a freshness and relevance to conditions in the fourth and fifth centuries that might otherwise seem surprising. Many of the Fathers unabashedly saw in them anticipatory attacks on Marcion and strong defenses against the Arians. They did so quite naturally because in their view truth was eternal and deviations from it had existed from the beginning. Above all, the Fathers found in the Catholic Epistles a manual for spiritual warfare, counsel for the faithful in the struggle between good and evil. In them was sound instruction in the ways of self-sacrifice, generosity and humility, through which evil could be defeated.

This Ancient Christian Commentary on Romans collects the best and most representative of patristic commentary and homily on Romans, and it brings to the public some valuable material that has previously been unavailable in English translation. Outstanding among these commentators is “Ambrosiaster,” the name given to the unknown Latin commentator of the late fourth century, whose enduring worth is evident to all who read him. The extensive commentary by Origen, largely inaccessible to modern readers, is frequently and extensively presented here as well. These commentators are joined by great figures such as John Chrysostom of Constantinople, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Augustine of Hippo, Theodoret of Cyrus, and several lesser commentators, such as Diodore of Tarsus and Didymus the Blind of Alexandria. This commentary on Romans provides a rare opportunity to encounter the familiar Pauline exposition of the righteousness of God as it echoes in the great Christian minds and communities ...

For the Church Fathers, the Gospels did not serve as resources for individual analysis and academic study. They were read and heard and interpreted within the worshiping community. They served as sources for pastoral counsel and admonition for those who were committed to the Way. Although Matthew and John were generally the preferred Gospels at the time, Luke, because of his particular interests and unique contributions, took pride of place during the Christmas season as well as during Easter and other major feasts. Aside from sermons, we find that the Fathers addressed exegetical issues on the gospel of Luke in theological treatises, pastoral letters and catechetical lectures.

Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians have struck an indelible impression on Christian tradition and piety. The doctrines of Christ, of salvation and of the church all owe their profiles to these letters. And for patristic interpreters, who read Scripture as a single book and were charged with an insatiable curiosity regarding the mysteries of the Godhead, these letters offered profound visions seldom captured by modern eyes. Trinitarian truth was patterned in the apostle’s praise of God who is “over all, through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6). This commentary offers an unparalleled close-up view of the fathers weighing the words and phrases of this panoramic charting of the Savior’s journey from preexistence, to incarnation, to crucifixion, to triumphant exaltation as universal Lord.

From early on, the book of Revelation was more widely accepted in the West than in the East. Indeed the earliest extant commentaries on Revelation in Greek date from Oecumenius’s commentary in the sixth century, which was soon accompanied by that of Andrew of Caesarea. Earlier Eastern fathers did, however, make reference to Revelation in noncommentary works. This volume, edited by William C. Weinrich, draws heavily on the two Greek commentaries from Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea to represent Eastern interpretation, while focusing on six other commentaries as primary witnesses to Western interpretation—those of Victorinus of Petovium, Tyconius, Primasius, Caesarius of Arles, Apringius of Beja and Bede the Venerable. Every effort has been made to give adequate context so that the creative use of Scripture, the theological interest and the pastoral intent can be discerned by readers today.

The Gospel of John was beloved by the early church, much as it is today, for its spiritual insight and clear declaration of Jesus’ divinity. This Gospel more than any other was central to the Trinitarian and Christological debates of the fourth and fifth centuries, and John 1–10 offers distinguished commentary that sheds lights on those early debates.

While patristic commentary on St. Paul’s shorter letters—Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, the Pastorals, and Philemon—was not so extensive as that on his longer letters, certain passages in these letters proved particularly important in doctrinal disputes and practical church matters. Pivotal in controversies with the Arians and the Gnostics, the most commented-upon Christological text amid these letters was Colossians 1:15–20, where Jesus is declared “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” In other texts scattered throughout the Pastorals, the fathers found ample support for the divinity of the Son and the Spirit and for the full union of humanity and divinity in the one redeemer, the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). These early Christian commentators also looked to the Pastorals, where Pauline authorship was assumed, for important ethical and moral teaching, as well as explicit qualifications for choosing church leade...

Editor Francis Martin collects patristic comment on the text of Acts in this volume of the ACCS. While at least 40 early church authors commented on Acts, the works of only three survive in their entirety—John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Bede the Venerable’s Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, and a long Latin epic poem by Arator. In this volume, substantial selections from the first two of these appear with occasional excerpts from Arator alongside many excerpts from the fragments preserved in J. A. Cramer’s Catena in Acta SS. Apostolorum. Among the latter we find selections from Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian, Didymus the Blind, Athanasius, Jerome, John Cassian, Augustine, Ambrose, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Theodoret of Cyr, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Cassiodorus and Hilary of Poitiers, some of which are here translated into English for the first time.

From its inception the church has always had a Bible—the Jewish Scriptures. But Christians have not read these Scriptures in the same way the Jews did. They have read them in the light of what God did in Jesus the Christ. Thus the Jewish Scriptures became for Christian readers the Old Testament. This commentary on Exodus through Deuteronomy bears ample witness to this new way of reading these ancient texts. Among the earliest interpreters whose works remain extant is Origen, who virtually single-handedly assured the Old Testament a permanent place within the Christian church through his extensive commentary and reflection. His 27th homily on Numbers is particularly noteworthy for his interpretation of the 42 stopping places in the desert wanderings as the 42 stages of growth in the spiritual life.

The Gospel of Matthew stands out as a favorite biblical text among patristic commentators. The patristic commentary tradition on Matthew begins with Origen’s pioneering 25-volume commentary on the First Gospel in the mid-third century. In the Latin-speaking West, where commentaries did not appear until about a century later, the first commentary on Matthew was written by Hilary of Poitiers in the mid-fourth century. From that point, the First Gospel became one of the texts most frequently commented on in patristic exegesis. Outstanding examples are Jerome’s four-volume commentary and the valuable but anonymous and incomplete Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum. Then there are the Greek catena fragments derived from commentaries by Theodore of Heraclea, Apollinaris of Laodicea, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria. The ancient homilies also provide ample comment, including John Chrysostom’s ninety homilies and Chromatius of Aquileia’s 59 homilies on the Gospel of Matthew. In a...

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Mark (now in its second edition) opens up a long-forgotten passage through the arid and precipitous slopes of post-Enlightenment critical interpretation and bears us along to a fertile valley basking in the sunshine of theological and spiritual interpretation. In these pages we enter the interpretive world that long nurtured the great pre-modern pastors, theologians and saints of the church.

In addition to the serial homilies of John Chrysostom, readers of this volume of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture will find selections from those of Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustine. These commentaries are supplemented with homiletic material from Gregory the Great, Peter Chrysologus, Caesarius, Amphilochius, Basil the Great, and Basil of Seleucia, among others. Liturgical selections derive from Ephraim the Syrian, Ambrose, and Romanos the Melodist, which are further supplemented with doctrinal material from Athanasius, the Cappodocians, Hilary, and Ambrose.

This rich abundance of patristic comment, presented by editor Manlio Simonetti, provides a bountiful and varied feast of ancient interpretation of the first Gospel—a continuation of Matthew 1–13.

The rich tapestry of the creation narrative in the early chapters of Genesis proved irresistible to the thoughtful, reflective minds of the church fathers. Within them they found the beginning threads from which to weave a theology of creation, fall, and redemption. Following their mentor, the apostle Paul, they explored the profound significance of Adam as a type of Christ, the second Adam. Genesis 1–11 opens up a treasure house of ancient wisdom—allowing these faithful witnesses, some appearing here in English translation for the first time, to speak with eloquence and intellectual acumen to the church today.

Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church have left a mark on Christian Scripture in a way that could never have been predicted. Here the pastoral issues of a first-century Christian community in what Chrysostom identified as “still the first city in Greece” stand out in bold relief. How was a community shaped by the cross to find its expression in a city that Chrysostom knew to be “full of orators and philosophers” and that “prided itself . . . above all on its great wealth?” How was church unity to be maintained in a setting where prominent believers, bending truth and morality to their own advantage, divided the body of Christ? Here lay the challenge for the apostle Paul. And as the apostle writes, the fathers lean over his shoulder, marveling and commenting on his pastoral wisdom.

The Psalms have long served a vital role in the individual and corporate lives of Christians, expressing the full range of human emotions, including some that we are ashamed to admit. The Psalms reverberate with joy, groan in pain, whimper with sadness, grumble in disappointment, and rage with anger. The church fathers employed the Psalms widely. In liturgy they used them both as hymns and as Scripture readings. Within them they found pointers to Jesus both as Son of God and as Messiah. They also employed the Psalms widely as support for other New Testament teachings, as counsel on morals and as forms for prayer. But the church fathers found more than pastoral insight in the Psalms. They found apologetic and doctrinal insight as well, as is attested by the more than 65 authors and more than 160 works excerpted in this commentary.

The excerpts chosen in this volume range widely over geography and time from Justin Martyr and Clement of Rome in the late first and early second century to The Venerable Bede, Isaac of Nineveh, Photius, and John of Damascus in the eighth and ninth centuries. The Alexandrian tradition is well represented in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus, and Cyril of Alexandria, while the Antiochene tradition is represented in Ephrem the Syrian, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Severian of Gabala, and Theodoret of Cyr. Italy and North Africa in the West are represented by Ambrose, Cassiodorus, and Augustine, while Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Jerusalem in the East are represented by the Great Cappadocians—Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa—Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Jerome.

Genesis 12–50 recounts the history of the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. From their mentors Paul, Peter, Stephen, and the author of the letter to the Hebrews, the early fathers learned to draw out the spiritual significance of the patriarchal narrative for Christian believers. The Alexandrian school especially followed Paul’s allegorical use of the story of Sarah and Hagar as they interpreted the Genesis accounts. The Antiochene school eschewed allegorical interpretation but still set about to find moral lessons in the ancient narrative. For all of them the events pointed toward the promises of the age to come, the new age revealed in the resurrection of Jesus.

The Reformed Platinum Library makes your study of the Bible easier by connecting your entire library of books to a robust set of study tools. The Reformed Platinum Library is a great entry point for academic study or more advanced exegesis and sermon prep. With over 1100 resources, the Reformed Platinum Library includes fantastic resources such as SIL Exegetical Summary Series | SILES (34 vols.), Reformed Expository Commentary Series | REC (38 vols.), Hendriksen & Kistemaker New Testament Commentary | HK (18 vols.), and many more.

The SDA Gold Library makes your study of the Bible easier by connecting your entire library of books to a robust set of study tools. The SDA Gold Library provides a comprehensive Bible study library. Contained are hundreds of resources including LaRondelle Articles and Lectures, Adventist Today (1993-2019), Early Church Fathers Protestant Edition (37 vols.), alongside other resources ideal for sermon prep or more advanced Bible study.

Over 40 church fathers are cited in the commentary on Ezekiel, some of whom are here translated into English for the first time, but pride of place goes to four significant extant works: the homilies of Origen and Gregory the Great, and the commentaries of Jerome and Theodoret of Cyr, thus bridging East and West, North and South. A similar array of church fathers are found within the commentary on Daniel. Extensive comments derive from the works of Theodoret of Cyr, Hippolytus, Jerome and Isho’dad of Merv and provide a wealth of insight. Valuable commentary attributed to Ephrem the Syrian and John Chrysostom is also found here, though the authorship of these commentaries is indeed questioned.

The Logos 6 Anglican Legacy Libraries reintroduce the classic libraries of Logos 6. This library is offered without features and datasets, making it the perfect standalone collection of resources to help grow your library, including advanced reference works and original language materials.

Planning for an expositional sermon series on a book of the Bible typically involves hours of reading and studying the Bible and other resources before fleshing everything out. Often, preachers amass a small library for each book of the Bible they preach on. The Revelation Expository Preaching Kit (L) does this for you. It curates the best Bible study materials (commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and expositional books) on the book of Revelation along with the Bible study tools you need to streamline your sermon prep and presentation—all at an affordable price. The Revelation Expository Preaching Kit (L) includes everything in Revelation Expository Preaching Kit (S) and Revelation Expository Preaching Kit (M), plus resources like The Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies; Exalting Jesus in Revelation (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary | CCE); Greek Commentaries on Revelation; and more.

Among the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon were all thought by the early church fathers to have derived from the hand of Solomon. To their minds, the finest wisdom about the deeper issues of life prior to the time of God’s taking human form in Jesus Christ was to be found in these books. As in all the Old Testament they were quick to find types and intimations of Christ and his church which would make the ancient Word relevant to the Christians of their day. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon elucidates the theology found within these Old Testament books.

With a wide assortment of writings from the Church Fathers themselves, along with commentaries, devotions, and reference works, the Ancient Christianity Reference Collection provides everything needed for learning how the leaders of the Ancient Church interpreted Scripture. The Ancient Christian Texts Series provides fresh translations of important works from Church Fathers like Origen, Ambrosiaster, John of Damascus, Cyril of Alexandria, and many others. The Ancient Christian Commentary brings together carefully curated insights on the biblical text from a range of Church fathers. With additional volumes presenting devotional material for Christian living and doctrinal discussion organized around the tenants of the Nicene Creed. Together all these volumes bring deeper understanding of the biblical text and helps you to read the Bible through the eyes of those key figures in the early church.

The history of the entry into the Promised Land followed by that of the period of the judges and early monarchy may not appear to readers today as a source for expounding the Christian faith. But the church fathers readily found parallels, or types, in the narrative that illumined the New Testament. An obvious link was the similarity in name between Joshua, Moses’ successor, and Jesus—indeed, in Greek both names are identical. Thus Joshua was consistently interpreted as a type of Christ. So too was Samuel. David was recognized as an ancestor of Jesus, and parallels between their two lives were readily explored. And Ruth, in ready fashion, was seen as a type of the church. Readers will find a rich treasure trove of ancient wisdom, some appearing here for the first time in English translation, that speaks with eloquence and challenging spiritual insight to the church today.

Planning for an expositional sermon series on a book of the Bible typically involves hours of reading and studying the Bible and other resources before fleshing everything out. Often, preachers amass a small library for each book of the Bible they preach on. The Genesis Expository Preaching Kit (L) does this for you. It curates the best Bible study materials (commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and expositional books) on the book of Genesis along with the Bible study tools you need to streamline your sermon prep and presentation—all at an affordable price. The Genesis Expository Preaching Kit (L) includes everything in Genesis Expository Preaching Kit (S) and Genesis Expository Preaching Kit (M), plus resources like the Genesis (Tyndale Old Testament Commentary | TOTC), the JPS Torah Commentary Series: Genesis, Genesis 1–11 (Reformation Commentary on Scripture, OT vol. I | RCS), and more.

For the early church fathers, the prophecy of Isaiah was not a compendium of Jewish history or theology but an announcement of the coming Messiah fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, the prophet’s words were a rich source of theological reflection concerning their Lord and a vital aid in their defense against the objections of the Jews that Jesus was the promised Messiah. The interpretation of Jesus’ ministry in light of Isaiah’s prophecy was not a theological innovation on their part, but rather a following of the path blazed by the New Testament writers and Jesus himself, explains this volume.

No book of the Old Testament is more frequently quoted in the New Testament than Isaiah, and no portion of Isaiah is more frequently quoted in the New Testament than the typologically fertile soil of Isaiah 40–66. Still, as interpreted by the church fathers, Isaiah presents a message that is far more soteriological than Christological, leading readers to a deeper understanding of God’s judgment and salvation. Isaiah 40–66 provides us with the closest thing the Old Testament has to offer regarding a systematic theology. The excerpts included in this volume offer us a rich array of differing styles, principles and theological emphases from Theodoret of Cyr to Eusebius and Procopius, to Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, and Augustine. Readers will be enriched by the wide-ranging selections, some of which are translated here into English for the first time.