The Earliest Apologists: Texts with Brief Introductions

This volume contains the original Greek texts of the earliest Christian Apologists:

1. St. Quadratus: fragment
2. St. Aristides:Apology
3. St. Justin Martyr:Apology, Appendix, Dialogue with Trypho
4. Tatian:Address to the Greeks
5. St. Athenagoras:A Plea for the Christians
6. St. Melito of Sardis: fragments

The texts are carefully edited from the best available manuscripts, with major variants and cross references noted throughout.

Goodspeed’s 1914 edition of the Apologists is one of the standard texts of early Christian literature: what Nestle–Aland is for the New Testament and Funk–Bihlmeyer for the Apostolic Fathers, Goodspeed is for the Apologists. To this day, it remains the only minor edition of the Apologists ever published—in a century’s use, the scholarly community has seen no reason to replace it.

This reprint is produced from the best available photographs and hand-corrected for clarity and legibility. The preface and introductions have been translated from German into English for the convenience of the American readership.