Primary texts

The Fathers, in longer form.

The works behind the catechesis — for the slower read.

Augustine, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Symeon the New Theologian, Maximus the Confessor — the foundational voices of the Orthodox theological tradition.

81 works

St. Gregory of Nyssa

All texts St. John Chrysostom

Homilies on the Gospel of John

Ὑπόμνημα

On the Prologue of John

Hear the trumpet of the Gospel, the thunder of the heavens, the Word of God! What does John say? In the beginning was the Word. Not: "after a long time the Word came to be," not: "the Word was made," not: "the Word had a beginning," but: In the beginning was the Word -- the "was" that denotes eternal existence, the "beginning" that has no beginning. The evangelist takes his stand in the same place where Moses stood at the opening of the Law: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. But Moses says "God made"; John says "the Word was." Moses says "in the beginning"; John says "in the beginning." John reaches behind the beginning of creation to the eternity of the Creator, and he finds the Word already there.

Why did John not write "in the beginning the Son was" or "in the beginning the Lord was" or "in the beginning the Christ was"? Why "the Word"? The teacher of the Church has always said: because the Word is the name that most perfectly expresses the mode of His eternal generation from the Father, the mode that surpasses all analogy but which has its best earthly image in the relationship between the mind and its word. As the word proceeds from the mind without dividing it, as the word makes the mind's thought external without the mind losing that thought internally, as the word is in every way consubstantial with the mind from which it proceeds while being distinct from it -- so, in an infinitely purer and more perfect mode, the eternal Word proceeds from the Father, making the Father's wisdom and love manifest without any division or diminishment of the Father.

And the Word was with God. Not merely near God, not merely alongside God, not merely in the presence of God -- but with God in the deepest sense of the preposition: face to face, turned toward God, in the eternal relation of the Son to the Father. This eternal face-to-face relation is the inner life of the Trinity: the Father eternally begetting the Word, the Word eternally proceeding from the Father and turned toward the Father in perfect love. John wants us to know from the first line of his Gospel that the one he is writing about is not a created being who happened to achieve a close relationship with God, but the eternal Son who is in the bosom of the Father, as he will say later, and from that bosom was sent into the world.

And the Word was God. This is the thunderclap. Not: the Word was divine, not: the Word was godlike, not: the Word was a god among gods. The Word was God -- the same God as the Father, equal in divinity, co-eternal, consubstantial. How can the Word be both with God and God? How can there be a distinction between the Word and God if the Word is God? Because God is Trinity: the Father is God, the Word is God, the Spirit is God; and the three are one God, not three Gods. The distinction of Persons does not divide the unity of the divine nature. John affirms both truths in a single verse: the Word is distinct from the Father (with God) and the Word is identical with the Father in nature (the Word was God).

Against Eunomius — St. Gregory of Nyssa

Against Heresies — St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Against Jovinianus — St. Jerome

Against Those Who Oppose Holy Icons

Against Vigilantius and Against John — St. Jerome

Against the Errors of the Latins

Answer to Eunomius

Canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils

Catechetical Lectures — St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Contra Gentes — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

De Synodis — St. Hilary of Poitiers

Dialogue Against the Pelagians — St. Jerome

Dialogue with Trypho — St. Justin Martyr

Discourses Against the Arians — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Ecclesiastical History — Eusebius of Caesarea

Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs

Epistle of Barnabas — Unknown

Epistle to Diognetus — Unknown

Epistles of Ignatius — St. Ignatius of Antioch

Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — St. John of Damascus

Exposition of the Christian Faith — St. Ambrose of Milan

Festal Letters — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Fifty Spiritual Homilies

First Epistle to the Corinthians — St. Clement of Rome

Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus

Fragments of Papias — St. Papias of Hierapolis

History of the Arians — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Homilies on Romans

Homilies on the Gospel of John

Letters C–CLV — St. Jerome

Letters I–LI — St. Jerome

Letters LII–XCIX — St. Jerome

Letters of Leo the Great — St. Leo the Great

Letters on Nestorius · On the Unity of Christ

Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit

Letters — St. Basil the Great

Life of Constantine — Eusebius of Caesarea

Lives of the Monks — St. Jerome

Longer and Shorter Rules · Letters

My Life in Christ

Mystical Theology

On Virginity — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Councils — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

On the Duties of the Clergy — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Holy Spirit — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Holy Spirit — St. Basil the Great

On the Holy Spirit — St. Basil the Great

On the Incarnation

On the Life of Antony

On the Making of Man — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Mysteries and On the Sacraments — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Priesthood — St. John Chrysostom

On the Soul and the Resurrection

On the Soul and the Resurrection — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Trinity — St. Hilary of Poitiers

On the Unity of the Church

Orations and Letters — St. Gregory of Nyssa

Orthodox Confession of Faith

Other Writings of Justin Martyr — St. Justin Martyr

Other Writings — St. Justin Martyr

Pastoral Rule — St. Gregory the Great

Prefaces to the Vulgate — St. Jerome

Register of Epistles — St. Gregory the Great

Select Letters — St. Gregory Nazianzen

Select Orations — St. Gregory Nazianzen

Selected Ethical Works and Letters — St. Ambrose of Milan

Sermons of Leo the Great — St. Leo the Great

The Apologetic Writings — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

The Apologies — St. Justin Martyr

The Dialogues — St. Jerome

The Didache

The Gospel of Matthew

The Great Catechism — St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Hexaemeron — St. Basil the Great

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

The Philokalia

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers — The Alphabetical Collection

The Seven Ecumenical Councils — Various

Theological Tractates — St. Gregory of Nyssa