This book is a translation of some of the earliest Christian poetry from Greek into English. The poems were written by bishops, monks, and other religious figures in the Byzantine Empire. Chatfield's translations capture the beauty and spiritual significance of the poems, making this an essential volume for students, scholars, and lovers of poetry. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Provides an introduction to the academic study of early Christianity (c. 100-600 AD) and examines the vast geographical area impacted by the early church, in Western and Eastern late antiquity. --from publisher description.

Although most of the poetry and hymns from the Apostolic father is no longer with us, what has been preserved is given here in a beautiful form translated faithfully from the original Greek. The translator is a gifted poet that was awarded high honours for his work on this and other projects. Leaving the task to translate such vivid and real poetry from such a time as we have not seen before could only be handled by a true poet at heart. These hymns will bring you to a time and place where the gospel was being preached boldly and will embolden you to take on the evangelical call to spread the word of our saviour Jesus Christ.