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Gregory of Nazianzus · 381–382 · Sermon
For any reader: the best single piece of Gregory to start with, a portrait of Basil and of their friendship from student days in Athens to Basil's death; long, but it reads like a memoir.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 381 · Treatise
For readers who want the classic Cappadocian answer to 'if Father, Son and Spirit are each God, why not three gods?'; short and dense, for those already at home with Trinitarian terms.
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John Chrysostom · 381 · Letter
John Chrysostom wrote this pastoral letter around 381 to his friend Theodore, who had abandoned his monastic vows to marry and pursue a secular career. Theodore had been Chrysostom's companion in their…
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Gregory of Nyssa · 382 · Book
For anyone who has sat with a dying person and wondered what the soul is and whether it survives; a dialogue with his sister, Christian in substance and Platonic in form, and his most approachable philosophical work.
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Jerome · 383 · Treatise
For readers interested in Mary's perpetual virginity and in how the fourth century argued from the Gospel texts about 'the brothers of the Lord'; short, sharp and often rude.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 383–390 · Treatise
For anyone who wants one book that lays out the whole faith as the Cappadocians held it, Trinity, Incarnation, baptism and eucharist; the best first serious work of his to read, after the Life of Macrina.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 383–390 · Treatise
For students of the hope of universal restoration and of the Arian controversy over 1 Corinthians 15:28; a short, close reading, technical in places.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 383 · Sermon
For readers interested in early baptismal theology and Epiphany preaching; a sermon for the feast of Christ's baptism that explains what water, oil and the Spirit do.
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Gregory of Nazianzus · 383 · Sermon
For readers of Easter and of the atonement: why the Son became man and what his death did, including the famous refusal to say a ransom was paid to the devil; read it after Oration 38, which it reuses.
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Jerome · 383–406 · Essay
For anyone interested in how the Latin Bible was made: Jerome's own prefaces to each book or group of books, defending the Hebrew text against the Septuagint and answering his critics; short, and the best record of his method.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 385 · Treatise
For students of the Christological debates between Nicaea and Chalcedon: his long reply to Apollinaris's denial that Christ had a human mind; technical and polemical, not devotional reading.
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Gregory of Nyssa · 385–390 · Treatise
For anyone who has lost a child or asked why infants die; a serious, humane answer from the fourth century, written for a grieving official.
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John Chrysostom · 386–407 · Sermon
John Chrysostom delivered these eighty-eight homilies on the Gospel of John to his congregation in Antioch between 386 and 398, during the height of his preaching ministry before becoming Archbishop of Constantinople.…
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Letters Letters of St. Augustin
Augustine of Hippo · 386–430 · Letter
The letters of Augustine of Hippo span nearly five decades of correspondence, from his early years as a Christian convert through his death as Bishop of Hippo in 430. Written to fellow…
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John Chrysostom · 386–387 · Sermon
John Chrysostom delivered these twelve homilies in Antioch between 386 and 387, responding to a theological crisis that threatened to divide his congregation. The Anomoean party, led by Aëtius and Eunomius, claimed…
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John Chrysostom · 386–390 · Treatise
John Chrysostom's De sacerdotio (On the Priesthood) emerged from a personal crisis that became the foundation for Christian reflection on pastoral ministry. Written between 386 and 390, the work originated when Chrysostom…
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John Chrysostom · 386–407 · Other
This collection brings together John Chrysostom's most enduring writings from his years as priest in Antioch and archbishop of Constantinople. On the Priesthood, written around 386, emerged from Chrysostom's own reluctance to…
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John Chrysostom · 387 · Sermon
De statuis is a series of twenty-one sermons preached by John Chrysostom in Antioch during the spring of 387, responding to a grave civic crisis that erupted when angry citizens destroyed imperial…
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Augustine of Hippo · 388–395 · Treatise
Augustine's dialogue on free will emerged from urgent pastoral and theological pressures in North Africa during the late fourth century. Written as a conversation with his friend Evodius between 388 and 395,…
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Ambrose of Milan · 388–391 · Treatise
De Officiis Ministrorum stands as Ambrose of Milan's systematic treatment of Christian ethics for clergy, written between 388 and 391 for his ordained sons in the faith. The work emerged from Ambrose's…
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Ambrose of Milan · 389 · Commentary
Ambrose of Milan's exposition of Luke's Gospel emerges from his pastoral preaching in the basilicas of late fourth-century Milan, delivered during a period when the young church was still working out fundamental…
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Ambrose of Milan · 389 · Treatise
Ambrose of Milan's Hexaemeron emerged from a series of homilies he delivered during Holy Week 389 to newly baptized Christians in his cathedral. The work takes its name from the Greek term…
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John Chrysostom · 390–398 · Commentary
These forty-four homilies on Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians represent John Chrysostom's systematic exposition of one of the New Testament's most practically challenging epistles. Preached during his tenure as Archbishop of…
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John Chrysostom · 390–398 · Sermon
John Chrysostom's homilies on the Acts of the Apostles represent a masterwork of late fourth-century biblical preaching, delivered to his congregation in Constantinople between 390 and 398. These fifty-five sermons emerged from…
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