The Church Fathers · c. 175–192; survives in fragments, partly in Arabic
The Notices on the Christians
Galen of Pergamum · 129 – c. 216
What it is
The greatest physician of antiquity mentions Christians four or five times in passing, twice comparing arguing with them to arguing with the school of Moses — they accept undemonstrated laws. But he grants that they hold to justice, restrain their appetites, and include some who philosophise as well as anyone.
Why it lasted
The first pagan intellectual to take Christians seriously as a philosophical school rather than a superstition, and the earliest measured assessment of Christian ethics from outside.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
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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