By Otto Bardenhewer translated by Thomas J. Shahan 1908. First of all, this book was not written for the casual reader. It is a great handbook to learn about the first five centuries of the Christian Church. It is full of rich references and copious notes that is a delight to the researcher or historian. Any person with a strong interest in early Christian history would find this book informative. The writer makes the assumption that the reader has a basic understanding of Greek, Latin, and the Bible. In describing the early writers he starts with a short bio and then follows it up with what works they wrote. He mentions which writings are still extant and which ones may have been erroneously attributed. One of the things that jumped out at me was how much material has been written in the past compared to how little has been preserved. I was led to believe that the reason a lot of old writings are no longer available, is because the “church” destroyed them. Well, why wasn’t the church able to save so many important documents of their own? Then I got to thinking about how even we, the United States…