Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: There is a resurging interest among Protestants to understand what the Early Church taught and believed. I believe a book like this one can be instrumental in furthering that search and introducing a whole generation of Christians to the writings of these wonderful, devout, and pious men. This book is absolutely invaluable for anyone who wants to research what the Ante-Nice Fathers taught on any given topic. Also, Bercot's concise and standard way of referencing each Father's works makes it easy to go back to the original sources and do further resarch by examining the entire text.There may be some who will not like what the Father's teach, but that is to be expected. A vast majority of Evangelical churches in America do not conform either in principle or in practice to what these godly men taught. I think that stauch Calvinist's will be the most disturbed by their writings because the Early Church Fathers were unequivocally more supportive of the view that mankind can and must respond to God. Furthermore, they did not teach unconditional election, perseverance of the saints, limited atonement, or irresistable grace. In fact, it was the Gnostics who held views similar to those expressed above. The response by most will be that these men just fell into error and didn't understand the gospel, but then the question must be asked, why do individuals who lived 1,500 years after the Apostles understand it better than the Fathers did? I do not mention Augustine because his views are not those of traditional 5 point Calvinists, and therefore the view followed by many is not Augustine's view but that of the Reformers. Buy this work if you interested in discovering what the Early Fathers believed, and use it as an introduction and guide to further study of their writings. It is by no means an exhaustive study of the entire corpus of their literature, but is a great starting point for introductory study.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference to early Christian beliefs
Review: This book can be used as a great index to the ante-Nicean Fathers 10-volume set, or simply as a reference book for early Christian beliefs through the 4th Century. This is an easy source to find out what the early Church Fathers (some of them disciples of the Apostles) taught about such things as salvation, the Apocrypha, Heaven, Hell, worship, sin, the Priesthood, the Church, etc. I recommend this book as a great place to find the teachings which were "once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) and accepted universally by the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The beliefs of the Church Fathers quoted in this book are backed by Scripture and still held by the Orthodox Church to this day.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference book for Christians!
Review: This book essentially puts in dictionary form various beliefs and practices, and then has quotes by the Early Church writers regarding each issue. While the former reader saw this as an index of sorts to the excellent ante-Nicene Fathers 10 volume set (which I own), it can also function autonomously. In fact I usually use it as a way of getting to what the Bible actually says when the Bible isn't as clear as I would like to to be. One instance is the issue of predestination and freewill which divides many Christians to the point of exclusion. The Bible can be used to support both views. By looking under freewill, one can find that the Early church almost unanimously were freewill. There are great quotes showing the early church was essentially Trinitarian, giving towards others, pacifists, and took turning the other cheek literally. It is not the Bible, but is a good way to know what those people who lived closest to Christ and the apostles believed.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This book should be in any pastor, scholar, teacher, professor, or student's library. It is a comprehensive guide to over 700 key theological, moral, and historical topics, straight from the writings of the early Church Fathers! From Abel to Zoroastrianism, this book compiles under topical headings some short pieces of the writings of the most influential early Christians. These men are the shoulders on which today's Christians stand, and learning about their beliefs and arguments deepens our own understanding who Christians are and what they believe. Bercot has done a marvellous job assembling these works into this one fine volume. Buy and use this helpful reference book!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This book should be in any pastor, scholar, teacher, professor, or student's library. It is a comprehensive guide to over 700 key theological, moral, and historical topics, straight from the writings of the early Church Fathers! From Abel to Zoroastrianism, this book compiles under topical headings some short pieces of the writings of the most influential early Christians. These men are the shoulders on which today's Christians stand, and learning about their beliefs and arguments deepens our own understanding who Christians are and what they believe. Bercot has done a marvellous job assembling these works into this one fine volume. Buy and use this helpful reference book!
Rating: 
Summary: Three fatal points
Review: This is a complement to my preceeding review, something I forgot to say. First there is a fatal failure in the whole concept of the book. Bercot avoids citing any writings from "heretics" (gnostics, etc.) but only writings from the "early church", even when speaking about heresies and heretics. But Bercot relies heavily on Tertullian and cites him very abundantly, especially all the writings he produced after joining the montanist heresy! I understand the reason here: Bercot said in his other book "Will the Real Heretics please stand up" that he himself considered montanism to be no heresy. Fine, but then Bercot in this present book is absolutely not representing the views of the early church, but his own!! This confirms what I said about his lack of neutrality and scholarship. After Tertullian left the early church and joined for a while the montanists (and then creating his own cult, the "Tertullianists", who refrained from all social activities, being in this respect even more cultic than the Montanists, although not charismatic), after this he was excommunicated by the early church and was ignored during the century after by the church fathers, or when they spoke of him it was very negatively, as of a dangerous heretic. It took more than a century for church fathers to admit being inspired by things he wrote before leaving the early church. Coming back to Bercot's book, he should either have cited Tertullian and all other heretics (gnostics, etc.) or none or them, but he should never have failed to respect the early church councils in what they declared was heretic or not. A second flaw is that the texts used are taken from a problematic 19th century book (Antenicenes Fathers , ed. by A. Robert, 10 volumes). Since then, more documents (including unknown books and epigrapha) have been found, and excellent critical apparatus have been developped (as in the invaluable French serie "Sources Chretiennes"), so it seems rather a failure for a reference work to ignore all this progress and use a poor text such as Robert's. A third major problem with the book is that all texts have no references to the original books and verses , but only to the pages in Robert's Antenicenes Fathers from the same publisher (10 volumes!) So if one does not buy those 10 volumes, one cannot find back the context or book from which the passage comes (unless what he is very familiar with the topic, but then one has no need for Bercot's book.) And as these 10 volumes contain quite outdated versions of the writings of the church fathers and as these big books are terribly cumbersome, Bercot's book turns out to be of very little use, unfortunately.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Reference but shows slightly tainted translation work
Review: This is an excellent reference work for indivuduals interested in discerning the marked differences in many early Christian beliefs and those taught by the mainstream Churches of Christendom today. The translation work appears to be slightly tainted though, with the beliefs of the translators, which is acceptible as long as the reader is aware of the issues with these translations. For example; The author continually uses the term 'Easter' to refer to the 'Passover' or 'Lords evening meal' when this term is actually of pagan origin and was not applied until several hundred years after Jesus' death, and then by apostates incorporating the pagan celebration of the goddess 'Easter' into Christian belief. Another example would be that of the use of the word 'Crucifixion' instead of the more approriatly translated'impaled' which tends to reinforce the much later apostate/pagan belief that Christ was hung on a 'cross' (a pagan idol of worship from 2000+ BCE)versus being impaled on a 'stake' which was the common method of execution in the first century. However, with the reader's understanding of the application of much-later incorporated beliefs in the miss-translation of key proper nouns, this is an excellent study and reference work that I'd highly recommend to all interested in understanding the true 1st Century Christian faith. Dr. R. Marion ..............
Rating:
Summary: Good Reference for Church History Study
Review: This text is a good reference work for early Church History and Historical Theology studies. The book is formatted like a dictionary A to Z, includes every major early Church Father (and a few lesser known early Church Fathers as well), and provides a guide for over 700 theological, ecclesiastical, and other various topics. If you are needing a quick reference guide to certain topics then this is a great work for your research. Since the book is a dictionary it is easy to locate topics. Moreover, it includes the sources from which each topic was drawn. In other words, for a topic such as 'The Church,' the text lists all the references from the early Church Fathers and also includes the source from which these references were taken (i.e. their works). At the beginning of the book, Bercot (the editor) includes a blurb on each of the Church Fathers who are referenced. These blurbs describe who the Church Father was, their contribution, the time in which they lived and wrote, and a pronunciation key for their name. There is also a section that describes how to actually use this particular dictionary (which I found quite helpful). The only pitfall to this work is the fact that it includes short 'snippets.' What I mean is, for every topic, there is only a small portion or part of a work from any particular Church Father. This can cause contextual problems since the reader of this work is only getting a small portion of what is said by the Church Father on the topic. Ideally, a researcher should go directly to the source and read all that a particular Church Father has to say, therefore gaining a much larger and complete contextual reading. Otherwise, this is a good reference work and I certainly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent topical commentary collection
Review: When I first saw this in my pastor's library, I knew I had a to get a copy for myself. This is an excellent collection of wisdom, responses, and comments covering over 700 topics. It is arranged in an encyclopedic format with each writer's quotation in chronological order. Some of the things I appreciated about this book was the honesty the editor had in saying the greatest danger is proof-texting. There is also a quotation section with one liners. There are some good cross-reference suggestions for fuller details. If you want to begin learning more about the culture of early Christianity, the church's influence, and how she responded to heretics and critics, this book is an easy and accessible tool to help you.
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