# Early Church Fathers

A free public library of early Christian writings in the historical 38-volume English collection. Retrieve source passages, full citations, notes, and links to printed scans; the service does not generate answers.

MCP: https://mcp.earlychurchfathers.ai/mcp
Transport: Streamable HTTP (streamable-http). No sign-in, API key, or install is required by the server.

- search_passages: Search words or a quoted phrase. Use author, era, or work IDs to narrow results; discover author IDs with list_authors. Returns 20 cited passages per page, up to 1000; use page 1–50 and refine capped searches.
- get_passage: Read a passage by an ID returned by search_passages, find_scripture, or get_work. Returns full source text, citation, source_type, notes, Bible references, neighboring IDs, and printed-page scan evidence.
- list_authors: List authors and editorial collections with IDs, dates, eras, and work counts. Use these IDs in the author filter of search_passages.
- get_work: Read a work by work_id returned by a passage. Returns the author and ordered table of contents with passage IDs; use get_passage to read each section.
- find_scripture: Find cited passages with an indexed single Bible verse, such as John 1:1 or John.1.1. Returns 20 matches per page, up to 1000, with reference source_type distinguishing source text from notes. Use page 1–50.

Limits: 60 API, MCP, and markdown requests per IP address per 60-second fixed window, shared across both interfaces. On HTTP 429, wait the Retry-After seconds before retrying. Readers on the same network share the allowance.

Rules: Quote only returned source text and include its full citation. These are 19th-century English translations. Keep note attribution separate from passage attribution. source_type labels mean father: Father's text; editor: Editor's text; translator: Translator's note; unclassified: Attribution unconfirmed. Never relabel unclassified material as an editor's, translator's, or father's words. Preserve that uncertainty when discussing notes. A scan link alone is not verification. This service retrieves sources, without generated answers. Some work titles name both shorter and longer versions. A combined title, block ID, or paragraph order does not identify a quoted block's recension. Do not assign 'shorter' or 'longer' from those clues or from prior knowledge; report the recension as unconfirmed unless the returned text explicitly labels that block.

No MCP setup available? Call the JSON API directly over HTTPS: GET https://earlychurchfathers.ai/api/search?q=Eucharist&author=ignatius
Trimmed real response: {"query":"Eucharist","total":5,"results":[{"id":"anf01-v.vi.iv-1","text":"Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth[904]] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God.","citation":"Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians: Shorter and Longer Versions, Chapter IV.—Have but one Eucharist, etc. · Source block 1 (shorter and longer versions, source order) (ANF 1)"}]}

[Client setup and API example](https://earlychurchfathers.ai/connect.md)
[OpenAPI](https://earlychurchfathers.ai/openapi.json)
[Verification coverage](https://earlychurchfathers.ai/verification.md)
[Server Card](https://mcp.earlychurchfathers.ai/mcp/server-card)

Content pages support Accept: text/markdown or a .md suffix (for example /passage/anf01-v.vi.iv-1.md).