Research Guides: Early Christian Studies: Secondary Literature

Note on searching the secondary literature

NOTA BENE: In addition to indexing articles from the most important journals in the field, the ATLA Religion Database (linked below) also indexes select multi-authored books, and book-based series including Studia Patristica, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, as well as many of the main conference proceedings such as the Ecclesiastical History Society.

Key Databases

These are your core resources for secondary literature in early Christian studies.

ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials PLUS
ATLA offers an excellent scripture index to ensure that you find all the relevant articles on a passage. It is otherwise a good source to find articles and book essays in biblical studies, church history, theology, missions, linguistics and archaeology. It is also a good place to find book reviews on literature in these areas.
Index Religiosus
An international reference bibliography in Theology, Religious Studies and Church History, Index Religiosus covers publications written in various European languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, etc.).
more...less...
Formed by the merger of the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique and the Elenchus Bibliographicus from the journal Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, essential working instruments for Theology and Religious Studies.
Religious and Theological Abstracts
Important multi-lingual international index of theological literature in 673 journals with considerable representation of European journal sources. All abstracts are in English.
New Testament Abstracts
Principally focused on New Testament studies and biblical theology, NTA also contains a significant number of articles dealing with "early christianity."
Old Testament Abstracts
Goes deeper than ATLA into OT-related books, essays and articles but with some duplication. Good also for literature on antiquities, archaeology, biblical theology, and philology.
Theological Commons
The Theological Commons is a digital library of 78,040 books and periodicals on theology and religion, including 28,435 volumes from the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.
more...less...
Theological Commons only includes materials that are out of copyright, or for which special permission has been obtained from the copyright holder. Typically, works published before 1923 are unambiguously out of copyright, and such works constitute the vast majority of content in the Theological Commons.