Joseph Cullen Ayer

Joseph Cullen Ayer (1866–1944) was an American Episcopal clergyman and church historian. Educated at Harvard, he was ordained in the Episcopal Church and taught for many years as professor of ecclesiastical history at the Philadelphia Divinity School. His Source Book for Ancient Church History (1913) translated and arranged the documents of Christianity from the apostolic age through the early councils for the use of students without access to the originals, and it remained a standard classroom text for decades.