Dating from the first 7 centuries, the author has collected material on that select group who preached the Gospel, and left lessons he could find to pass on to us. "Saint is used in the title in a wide sense" in that only 2/3 of the 42 are on the official Church calendar of saint's days. Two are nameless, six are women, and two are not even in the "Christian" tradition -- a Nestorian, and an Arian (Unitarian).

Fairly claims that Ethiopia was the first and longest-ruled Christian country in the world [91], with an Ethiopic translation of the Bible in the 4th century. St. Frumentius. The first person to deliver the Gospels to North Europe was Ulfilas, an Arian -- Unitarian. As a slave captured by the Goths, he translated all the books of the Bible (except the book of Kings -- he omitted because "they are only stories of battle" and the Goths are already too fond of war, and "are more in need of restraint than encouragement in this regard"). Ulfilas used Greek letters to make the Gothic sounds (instead of struggling with the Runic alphabet), thus making the first book in the literary history of Europe. [85]

The first Church ever found or referred to was in Edessa, now Urfa in Iraq. [81] A few small Churches appeared and the records of the city note the destruction of a church by flood in 201. The first mention of a church building anywhere on earth. [82] In all of Paul's letters, he never mentions a church building -- the communicants were meeting in "the house of __". Acts 12.12, 16.40. The first Christian King was Abcar, of Edessa, located about 160 miles east of Antioch, visited by Paul, Acts 13. The earliest translations of the Greek books were Syriac, in 140. The Syrian church was founded by St Thomas and it is the oldest. Its Scriptures were in Syriac. [83].