'This is a book to be grateful for, since the extracts are intelligently selected and helpfully commented on, while the new translations are as lucid as may be expected with such opaque writings.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Preface; Introduction; 1. The New Testament; 2. The Christian literature of the first and second centuries; 3. The Greek authors of the third century; 4. The western authors of the third and early fourth centuries; 5. Fourth-century Alexandria and desert monasticism; 6. Fourth-century Asia Minor: the Cappadocians; 7. Palestine, Antioch and Syria; 8. The Greek historians; 9. The Apostolic Constitutions, Egeria, and the eastern councils; 10. Western authors of the fourth and early fifth centuries; 11. Augustine and minor western authors; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index of musical and liturgical terms and concepts.