The Church Fathers · 329–373
The Festal Letters
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
What it is
Annual letters announcing the date of Easter and offering pastoral instruction — the thirty-ninth of which lists the books of scripture that may be read in church.
Why it lasted
The letter of 367 is the earliest surviving list of exactly the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as we now have them.
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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