Mere Orthodoxy launches online library of historic Christian texts

The Mere Orthodoxy Christian website and publication on Monday released an online library of roughly 17,000 historical Christian writings. Dubbed “The Faith Received," the collection includes works from the first century A.D. to the 12th century, known as the High Middle Ages, with some texts as late as the 1600s. It comprises writings of the Latin and Greek church fathers, Eastern Christian texts, and also a curated collection of medieval, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran theology, according to Mere Orthodoxy. The team behind the site said they wanted Christians to both know their own faith traditions more deeply and to encounter other traditions. Mere Orthodoxy is published by the Lincoln, Neb.-based nonprofit Institute for Christianity and Common Life.

The Faith Received is free to use, though some features require users to sign up for an account. The site includes many ways to find texts, including by author, century, and denomination. Readers can also start by selecting a Scripture passage or verse to see which authors cited it or discussed it in their works. The site also hosts an artificial intelligence “Ask” feature that searches the library to answer users’ questions.

The team assembling the site also used artificial intelligence to translate many of the older texts into English, according to Mere Orthodoxy. Editor-in-chief Jake Meador said the team did so in order to make them widely available to Christians. Readers can click an AI transparency button on the menu near a text to see how it was translated and whether a human vetted the translation.

Dig deeper: Read my report on Ligonier Ministries’ recent decision to make all of pastor R.C. Sproul’s teaching series available for free.