That is an excellent idea and a greatly helpful resource! I was just thinking about that yesterday that I would love to see their veiwpoints and teachings on specific scriptures and not just on subjects. That is something I was going to compile out of some of the few writings that I have read and collected but there is no way I would have time to do that extensively. I have so many study projects on my radar and most of them such as this most likely won't be completed by me in this lifetime haha.
That's why it helps to learn from others who have done or compiled the research! So if God has put it on your heart to do that, it would absolutely be an extremely helpful resource for people to reference as they study the word and learn from the early Christians. I have the dictionary of early Christian beliefs and that is a great resource. It would be very helpful to have a scripture focused list of quotes like that!
I look forward to seeing What you put together and i'll definitely share some feedback or suggestions if I have some! Thanks for this! Grace be with you brother!
Thank you! I've often wished for such a website.
The website is already online, unfortunately the link has been converted to this preview graphic that says "Introduction". You can click on "Introduction" and see the website.
The website address would be:
www searchearlychristianwritings online
https://www.searchearlychristianwritings.online/
If you succeed in this endeavor, would you be interested in expanding it to include volumes from other series, such as Popular Patristics, Ancient Christian Writers, etc.?
Hello brother Errol,
I would definitely be interested in including other series than the Ante-Nicene Fathers, given that a digital copy is available for free. I would start with the other writing found on the Classical Christian Ethereal Library, such as the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers including Augustine and Chrysostom. I think that would be valuable also.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover works that are under copyright or not digitalised or missing such footnotes.
But let me point out that you can already use this website now. There are some flaws, e.g. Bible books with one chapter don't work yet (Philemon, 2nd John etc.). But it works and I have used it myself. I invite everyone to give it a try.
You certainly wouldn't be able to link to the texts themselves, but even just having all of the references in one place could be very helpful. Allow me to illustrate: when I want to see how the early Christians understood a particular verse or passage, first I open up volume 10 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to check the Scripture index, then volume 9 since it was originally the last volume to be produced in the series and as such has its own index, then each individual volume from the
Fathers of the Church , Ancient Christian Writers , and etc., for works not contained in the ANF. The latter part of that process is especially time consuming.
I'd be willing to collaborate in order to build up a composite Scripture index for all of these other volumes as an addendum to your efforts with the ANF, if you'd be interested. It's would certainly be a worthwhile side project for me.
I plan to add a few features in the future, e.g.
- Text search
- Options which writings should be included
- Recommended chapters or books
- A way for any user to share their own recommendations with other
If you have an ideas, please let me know.
Dear brother Errol,
Thank you! I'm very excited about this idea and would be glad for any assistance. I will contact you privately.
May I share something very exciting with you? Here are the most quoted verses, chapters and books in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Top 25 Verses
- John 1:1 (51)
- John 1:3 (48)
- Genesis 1:26 (42)
- John 1:14 (40)
- Matthew 5:45 (36)
- Matthew 11:27 (35)
- Matthew 5:28 (35)
- John 14:6 (33)
- 1. Cor 2:9 (33)
- Psalms 110:1 (33)
- Colossians 1:15 (28)
- John 1:18 (28)
- Matthew 28:19 (28)
- Daniel 7:13 (27)
- Matthew 5:8 (27)
- Genesis 1:28 (27)
- Genesis 1:1 (27)
- Isaiah 9:6 (26)
- Matthew 19:12 (26)
- Ephesians 6:12 (25)
- Isaiah 7:14 (25)
- Isaiah 53:7 (25)
- Genesis 2:7 (25)
- Proverbs 8:22 (23)
- Isaiah 29:13 (23)
Top 25 chapters*
- Matthew 5 (500)
- John 1 (376)
- 1. Cor 15 (304)
- Matthew 10 (275)
- Luke 1 (229)
- Romans 8 (218)
- 1. Cor 7 (205)
- Genesis 1 (203)
- Matthew 6 (198)
- Luke 6 (198)
- Matthew 13 (194)
- Matthew 7 (190)
- Luke 12 (181)
- John 6 (177)
- Isaiah 1 (176)
- Matthew 19 (171)
- Matthew 18 (170)
- Matthew 11 (163)
- John 14 (158)
- John 5 (155)
- Luke 10 (154)
- Matthew 24 (154)
- Matthew 25 (154)
- Matthew 26 (154)
- Matthew 16 (153)
Top 25 books*
- Matthew (4136)
- Luke (2776)
- John (2532)
- Psalms (1886)
- Isaiah (1781)
- 1. Cor (1700)
- Romans (1078)
- Genesis (1046)
- Mark (826)
- Acts (583)
- Exodus (573)
- Proverbs (566)
- Deuteronomy (563)
- Ephesians (511)
- 2. Cor (502)
- Jeremia (451)
- Galatians (429)
- Revelation (406)
- Hebrews (345)
- 1. Timothy (325)
- Colossians (273)
- Ezekiel (268)
- Daniel (264)
- Philippians (242)
- 1. Peter (240)
Notice how often the Sermon on the Mount is quoted! Also not surprisingly John 1 could be called their favourite passage.
*For allusions to verse ranges, every verse was counted as one rather than the whole range as one
Very nice, great work!
Do you know how often Psalm 2 or any verses in Psalm 2 are cited? It's of particular interest to me.
Hello Chip!
I encourage you to find out for yourself! Just go to the website, click Scripture References, enter Psalm 2 and submit. It shows you the number and the references (with link to the text) directly as a list.
Wow! This is really exciting, dear brother Richard. Matthew 5 is by far the favorite chapter quoted from, with Matthew 6 and Matthew 7 also in the top 12. So the Sermon on the Mount is extremely well represented in quotations from the Early Christian writings.
I also appreciate the fact that Genesis 1:26 is the top-quoted verse from the Old Testament. What a great verse to be the top-quoted verse from the Old Testament. This says a lot about the Early Christians as well.
Richard - I love the site. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. I even made a video showcasing your site so others will be able to know about it and use it. Here's the video here https://youtu.be/4Id3e1W91-Y (Discover Early Christian Writings)
Wow Chip, this is a great encouragement. Thank you so much. Great channel by the way.
I uploaded an update for the website with these new features:
- text search
- you can read the search results directly on my website and the important part is highlighted
- changed the appearance somewhat
- duplicate results for references to multiple verses are removed, therefore the number of results is changed also (e.g. Matthew 5 had 500 results, now has 430 results)
Thanks for the post and the link to the early Christians writings. I found it very helpful
Wow, I don't know why I didn't see this before! This looks like a great project, congratulations, Richard!
