Welcome to the Young Reader's Illustrated Guide to the Early Church Fathers! We hope you enjoy this wonderful journey through the lives of the great men (and women) of the early Church. In this book, you will learn about the great pillars of the church, who took the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, then expounded upon them and showed us how we can apply these great truths to our lives. Many Christians today believe that we can pick up the Bible, start reading it, and immediately understand its meaning. While to some extent that might be true, we can get even greater insights from the men who first viewed then compiled, and interpreted the sacred book's contents. Through these inspired men, we learn what the role of the church is, how the church is to be administered, and how we should live our daily lives. It was these men who brought us the concepts that are not found in the Bible; defining ideas like predestination, the Holy Trinity, transubstantiation, and much more. (Young Reader) Through these inspired people, we get great insights into how we are to live our lives, and how the church should function and be administered. With their intellect, they have helped us learn about concepts that are not presented in the Bible like the Trinity. The book typically devotes a page to each Church Father with a short biography as well as a list of some of their key writings and how we can apply them to our own lives. Along, with information about the Church Fathers, we also give descriptions of the world they were living in, how the Church was functioning at the time, and what obstacles they faced when spreading the gospel. And finally, not to ignore our sisters in faith, there is a section devoted to some of the female saints and theologians who contributed greatly to the growth of the Church. The Church Fathers are presented in chronological order and this is not a complete list of all those people in that category but covers most of the main and more influential theologians and Christian thinkers. With future editions, we hope to add more of the Fathers regularly.