BIBLIndex: Online Biblical Index for the Church Fathers

Biblindex should be your first stop for locating biblical quotations and allusions in the writings of the Church Fathers. Between 1975 and 2000, 8 volumes of Biblia Patristica were published which produced about 400,000 biblical cross-references from the following works:

• Beginnings to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian
• The third century (except Origen)
• Origen
• Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Salamis
• Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphiloque of Iconium
• Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster
• Didymus of Alexandria. Supplement, Philo of Alexandria.

In addition, about another 100,000 biblical references have been derived from:

• Athanasius of Alexandria
• John Chrysostom
• Theodoret of Cyrus
• Procopius of Gaza
• Jerome

They state: "The ultimate goal of this site is to permit the identification of biblical quotations in all Jewish and Christian literature of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages."

Access to the data is free with a free registration at the site. There is an English version of the site, but its French roots are evident throughout. (I.e., some of the English is a bit awkward, and once you get down to some of the deeper levels of the site, you will want to know some French or use a page translator.)

The search form allows you to select a biblical verse or passage. You then choose to search among author/work (or select all), provenance of the work, date of the work, or series. 

The results indicate provenance, author, work, and provide bibliographic information. As an example here is one of the references returned for Mark 16.8.

There are not direct links to the works, but in this particular case, I did a quick search on the Cramer title from 1840, found it at the Internet Archive, and, as the search result indicated, I went to page 446 and looked at line 25 and indeed found the reference to Mark 16.8. Clicking on the an author cited provides a link to additional information and bibliographical help at Sources Chrétiennes.

I'm not the first to blog about this great resource, but they have been seeking additional funding and just sent out a downloadable poster or brochure (from which I snipped the graphics here) that provides a quick overview of the site.


(BTW, they note on the site that "Biblical files of Biblindex are developed with the assistance of BibleWorks 8.")