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APOSTOLIC FATHERS
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APOSTOLIC FATHERS , a See also:term used to distinguish those See also:early See also:Christian writers who were believed to have been the See also:personal associates of the See also:original Apostles. While the See also:title " Fathers " was given from at least the beginning of the 4th See also:century to See also: But the convenience of the See also:category "Apostolic Fathers " to See also:express not only those who might possibly have had some sort of See also:direct contact with apostles—such as " Barnabas," Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp—but also those who seemed specially to preserve the pure tradition of apostolic See also:doctrine during the sub-apostolic See also:age, has led to its See also:general use in a wide and vague sense. Conventionally, then, the title denotes the group of writings which, whether in date or in See also:internal See also:character, are regarded as belonging to the See also:main stream of the Church's teaching during the See also:period between the Apostles and the Apologists (i.e. to c. A.D. 140). Or to put it more exactly, the '` Apostolic Fathers " represent, chronologically in the main and still more from the religious and theological standpoint,. the momentous See also:process of ' Cotelier included the Acts of Martyrdom of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp; and those of Ignatius and Polycarp are still often printed by editors. transition from the type of teaching in the New Testament to that which meets us in the early See also:Catholic Fathers, from the last See also:quarter of the 2nd century onwards. The Apologists no doubt show us certain fresh factors entering into this development; but on the whole the Apostolic Fathers by themselves go a See also:long way to explain the transition in question, so far as knowledge of this saeculum obscurum is within our reach at all. It is true that they do not include the whole even of the ecclesiastical literature of the sub-apostolic age, not to mention what remains of Gnostic and other minority types. The See also:Preaching and See also:Apocalypse of See also:Peter, for instance, are quite typical of the same period, and help us to read hetween the lines of the Apostolic Fathers. Yet they do not really add much to what is there already, and they have the drawbacks of pseudonymity; they lack See also:concrete and personal qualities; they are general expressions of tendencies which we cannot well locate or measure, See also:save by means of the Apostolic Fathers themselves or of their earliest Catholic successors. (A) In See also:external features the group is far from homogeneous, a fact which has led to their being disintegrated as a group in certain histories of early Christian literature (e.g. those of See also:Harnack and See also:Kruger), and classed each under its own See also:literary type—so sacrificing to See also:outer See also:form, which is quite secondary in See also:primitive Christian writings, the more significant fact of religious See also:affinity. Its original members, those still best entitled to their name in any strict sense, are epistles, and in this respect also most akin to Apostolic writings. Indeed Ignatius takes See also:pleasure in saluting his readers " after the apostolic See also:stamp " (ad Trail. inscr.), while yet disclaiming all See also:desire to emulate the apostolic manner in other respects, being fully conscious of the gulf between himself and apostles like Peter and See also:Paul in claim to authority (ib. iii. 3, ad Rom. iv. 3). The like holds of Polycarp, who, in explaining that he writes to exhort the See also:Philippians only at their own See also:request, adds, " for neither am I, nor is any other like me, able to follow the See also:wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul " (iii. 2). Clement's epistle, indeed, conforms more to the elaborate and See also:treatise-like form of the Epistle to the See also:Hebrews, on which it draws so largely; and the same is true of " Barnabas." But one and all are influenced by study of apostolic epistles, and See also:witness to the impression which these produced on the men of the next See also:generation. Unconsciously, too, they correspond to the apostolic type of See also:writing in another respect, viz. their occasional and See also:practical character. They are evoked by pressing needs of the See also:hour among some definite See also:body of Christians and nGe by any literary See also:motive.' This is a universal trait of primitive Ch;istian writings; so that to speak of primitive Christian " literature " at all is hardly accurate, and tends to an artificial handling of their contents. These sub-apostolic epistles are veritable " human documents," with the personal See also:note See also:running through them. They are after all personal expressions of See also:Christianity, in which are discernible also specific types of See also:local tradition. To such spontaneous actuality a large part of their See also:interest and value is due. Nor is this pre-literary and vital quality really absent even from the writing which is least entitled to a See also:place among " Apostolic Fathers," the Epistle to Diognetus. This beautiful picture of the Christian See also:life as a realized ideal, and of Christians as " the soul " of the See also:world, owes its inclusion to a See also:double See also:error: first, to the accidental See also:attachment at the end of another fragment (§ II), which opens with the writer's claim to stand forth as a teacher as being " a See also:disciple of apostles "; and next, to mistaken exegesis of this phrase as implying personal relations with apostles, rather than knowledge of their teaching, written or oral. Whether in form addressed to Diognetus, the See also:tutor of See also:Marcus Aurelius, as a typical cultured observer of Christianity, or to some other eminent See also:person of the same name in the locality of its origin, or, as seems more likely, to cultured Greeks generally, personified under the significant name " Diognetus (" See also:Heaven-See also:born," cf. Acts xvii. 28 along with §4)—the ' See G. A. Deissmann, See also:Bible Studies, pp. I-6o, for this distinction between the genuine " See also:letter " and the literary " epistle," as applied to the New Testament in particular.epistle is in any See also:case an " open letter " of an essentially literary type. Further, its opening seems modelled on the lines of the See also:preface to See also:Luke's See also:Gospel, to which, along with Acts, it may owe something of its very conception as a reasoned See also:appeal to the See also:lover of truth. But while literary in form and conception, its appeal is in spirit so personal a testimony to what the Gospel has done for the writer and his See also:fellow Christians, that it is akin to the piety of the Apostolic Fathers as a group. It is true that it has marked See also:affinities, e.g. in its natural See also:theology, with the earliest Apologists, See also:Aristides and See also:Justin, even as it is itself in substance an See also:apology addressed not to the See also:State, but to thoughtful public See also:opinion. But this only means that we cannot draw a hard and fast See also:line between See also:groups of early Christian writings at a See also:time when practical religious interests overshadowed all others. If thus related to the Apologists of the See also:middle of the 2nd century, the Epistle to Diognetus has also points of contact with one of the most practical and least literary writings found among our Apostolic Fathers, viz. the See also:homily originally known as the Second Epistle of Clement (for this ascription, as for other details, see CLEMENTINE LITERATURE). The recovery of its concluding sections in the same MS. which brought the Didache to See also:light, proves beyond question that we have here the earliest extant See also:sermon preached before a Christian See also:congregation, about A.D. 120-140 (so J. B. See also:Lightfoot). Its opening See also:section, recalling to its hearers the passing of the mists of See also:idolatry before the See also:revelation in Jesus See also:Christ, is markedly similar in See also:tone and See also:tenor to passages in the Epistle to Diognetus. Far closer, however, are the affinities between the homily and the Shepherd of Hermas, " the first Christian See also:allegory," which as a literary whole dates from about A.D. 140, but probably represents a more or less prolonged prophetic activity on the part of its author, the See also:brother of See also:Pius, the See also:Roman See also:bishop of his day (c. 139-154). In both the See also:primary theme is repentance, as called for by serious sins, after See also:baptism has placed the Christian on his new and higher level of responsibility. Thus both are hortatory writings, the one argumentative in form, the other prophetic, after the manner of later Old Testament prophets whose messages came in visions and similitudes. This prophetic and apocalyptic note, which characterizes Hermas among the Apostolic Fathers (though there are traces of it also in the Didache and in Ignatius, ad Eph. xx.), is a genuinely primitive trait and goes far to explain the See also:vogue which the Shepherd enjoyed in the generations immediately succeeding, as also the See also:influence of its disciplinary policy, which is its prophetic " See also:burden " (see HERMAS, SHEPHERD oF). We come finally to the See also:anonymous Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and Papias's Exposition of Oracles of the See also:Lord, so far as this is known to us. The former, besides embodying catechetical instruction in Christian conduct (the " Two Ways "), which goes back in substance to the early apostolic age and is embodied also in " Barnabas," depicts in outline the fundamental usages of church life as practised in some conservative region (probably within See also:Syria) about the last quarter of the 1st century and perhaps even later. The whole is put forth as substantially the apostolic teaching (Didache) on the subjects in question. This is probably a See also:bona fide claim. It expresses the feeling See also:common to the Apostolic Fathers and general in the sub-apostolic age, at any See also:rate in regions where apostles had once laboured, that local tradition, as held by the recognized church leaders, did but continue apostolic doctrine and practice. Into later developments of this feeling an increasing See also:element of illusion entered, and all other written embodiments of it known to us take the form of literary See also:fictions, more or less bold. It is in contrast to these that the Didache is justly See also:felt to be genuinely primitive and of a piece with the Apostolic Fathers. Thus while its form would by See also:analogy tend per se to awaken suspicion, its contents remove this feeling; and we may even infer from this surviving early formulation of local ecclesiastical tradition, that others of somewhat similar character came into being in the sub-apostolic age, but failed to survive save as embodied in later local teaching, oral or written, very much as if the Didache had perished and its literary offspring alone remained (see DIDACHE). As regards Papias's Exposition, which Lightfoot describes as " among the earliest forerunners of commentaries, partly explanatory, partly illustrative, on portions of the New Testament," we need here only remark that, whatever its exact form may have been—as to which the extant fragments still leave See also:room for doubt—it was in conception expository of the historic meaning of Christ's more ambiguous Sayings, viewed in the light of definitely ascertained apostolic traditions bearing on the subject. The like is true also of the fragments of the Eiders preserved in Irenaeus (so far as these do not really come from Papias). Both bodies of exposition represent the traditional principle at See also:work in the sub-apostolic age, making for the preservation in relative purity, over against merely subjective interpretations—those of the Gnostics in particular—of the historic or original sense of Christ's teaching, just as Ignatius stood for the historicity of the facts of His earthly career in their See also:plain, natural sense. (B) Here the question of external form passes readily over into that of the internal character and spirit. Indeed much has already been said or suggested bearing on these. The relation of these writers to the apostolic teaching generally has become See also:pretty evident. It is one of See also:absolute See also:loyalty and deference, as to the teaching of See also:inspiration. They are conscious, as are we in See also:reading them, that they are not moving on the same level of insight as the Apostles; they are sub-apostolic in that sense also. Hence there appear See also:constant traces of study of the Apostolic writings, so far as these were accessible in the locality of each writer at his date of writing (for the details of this subject, and its bearing on the history of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, see The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, See also:Oxford, 19o5). As Lightfoot points out (Apostolic Fathers, pt. i. vol. i. p. 7), however, See also:personality, with its variety of temperament and emphasis, largely See also:colours the Apostolic Fathers, especially the primary group. Clement has all the Roman feeling for duly constituted See also:order and discipline; Ignatius has the Syrian or semi-See also:oriental See also:passion of devotion, showing itself at once in his mystic love for his Lord and his over-strained yearning to become His very " disciple " by drinking the like See also:cup of martyrdom; Polycarp is, above all things, steady in his See also:allegiance to what had first won his See also:conscience and See also:heart, and his " passive and receptive character " comes out in the contents of his epistle. Of the See also:rest, whose personalities are less known to us, Papias shares Polycarp's qualities and their limitations, the anonymous homilist and Hermas are marked by intense moral earnestness, while the writer to Diognetus joins to this a profound religious insight. These personal traits determine by selective affinity, working under conditions given by the special local type of tradition and piety, the elements in the Apostolic writings which each was able to assimilate and express—though we must allow also for variety in the occasions of writing. Thus one New Testament type is echoed in one and another in another; or it may be several in turn. The latter is the case in Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp; perhaps also in " Barnabas." In Hermas there is special affinity to the See also:language and thought of the epistle of See also: While Apostolic phrases are used, the sense behind them is often different and less evangelic. They have not caught the Apostolic meaning, because they have not penetrated to the full religious experience which gave to the words, often words with long and varied history both in the See also:Septuagint and in See also:ordinary See also:Greek usage, their specific meaning to each apostle and especially to Paul. This phenomenon was noted particularly by E. See also:Reuss, in his Histoire de la theologie chretienne au sibcle apostolique (3rd ed.,1864). Take for instance Clement. Lightfoot, indeed, dwells on the all-See also:round " comprehensiveness " with which Clement, as the See also:mouthpiece of the early Roman Church, utters in See also:succession phrases or ideas borrowed impartially from Peter and Paul and James and the Epistle to Hebrews. He admits, however, that such See also:mere co-ordination of the language of Paul and James,203 for instance, as appears in his twice bracketing " faith and hospitality " as grounds of See also:acceptance with See also:God (the cases are those of See also:Abraham and Rahab, in chs. x. and xii.), is " from a strictly dogmatic point of view " his weakness. But the weakness is more than a dogmatic one; it is one of religious experience, as the source of spiritual insight. It is not merely that " there is no dogmatic See also:system in Clement " or in any other of the Apostolic Fathers; that may favour, not hinder, religious insight. There is a want of depth in Christian experience, in the See also:power of realizing relative spiritual values in the light of the See also:master principle involved in the distinctively Christian consciousness, such as could raise Clement above a verbal See also:eclecticism, rather than comprehensiveness, in the use of Apostolic language. As R. W. See also:Dale remarks, in a note on Reuss's too severe words (Eng. trans. ii. 295): " The vital force of the Apostolic convictions gave to Apostolic thought a certain organic and consistent form." It is lack of this organic quality in the thought, not only of Clement but also of the Apostolic Fathers generally—with the possible exception of Ignatius, who seems to See also:share the Apostolic experience more fully than any other, to which Reuss rightly directs See also:attention. In virtue of this defect, due largely to the failure to enter into the Apostolic experience of mystic See also:union with Christ, he can rightly speak of " an immense retrogression " in theology visible " at the end of the century, and in circles where it might have been least expected " (ii. p. 294, cf. S41). In fact the See also:perspective of the Gospel was seriously changed and its most distinctive features obscured. This was specially the case with the experimental doctrines of See also:grace. Here the central See also:glory of the See also:Cross as " the power of God unto salvation " suffered some See also:eclipse, although the passion of Christ was felt to be a transcendent See also:act of Divine Grace in one way or another. But even more serious was the loss of an adequate sense of the contrast between "grace" and "works" as conditions of salvation. There was little or no sense of the danger of the legal principle, as related to human See also:egoism and the See also:instinct to seek salvation as a See also:reward for merit. The passages in which these things are laid See also:bare by Paul's remorseless See also:analysis of his own experience " under See also:Law " seem to have made practically no impression on the Apostolic Fathers as a whole. See also:Gentile Christians had not felt the See also:fang of the Law as the ex-Pharisee had occasion to feel it. Even if first trained in the Hellenistic synagogues of the See also:Dispersion, as was often the case, they apprehended the Law on its more helpful and less exacting See also:side, and had not been brought " by the Law to See also:die unto the Law," that they might " live unto God." The result was too See also:great a continuity between their religious conceptions before and after embracing the Gospel. Thus the latter seemed to them simply to bring forgiveness of past sins for Christ's See also:sake, and then an enhanced moral responsibility to the New Law revealed in Him. Hence a new sort of legalism, known to recent writers as Moralism, underlies much of the piety of the Apostolic Fathers, though Ignatius is quite See also:free from it, while Polycarp and " Barnabas " are less under its influence than are the Didache, Clement, the Homilist and Hermas. It conceives salvation as a " See also:wages " (uto86s) to be earned or forfeited; and regards certain See also:good works, such as See also:prayer, See also:fasting, alms—especially the last—as efficacious to See also:cancel sins. The reality of this tendency, particularly at Rome, betrays itself in Hermas, who teaches the supererogatory merit of See also:alms gained by the self-denial of fasting (Sim. v. 3. 3 ff.). See also:Marcion's reaction, too, against the Judaic See also:temper in the Church as a whole, in the interests of an extravagant Paulinism, while it suggests that Paul's doctrines of grace generally were inadequately realized in the sub-apostolic age, points also to the prevalence of such moralism in particular. (C) In attempting a final estimate of the value of the Apostolic Fathers for the historian to-day, we may sum up under these heads: ecclesiastical, theological, religious. (a) As a mine of materials for reconstructing the history of Church institutions, they are invaluable, and that largely in virtue of their spontaneous and " See also:esoteric " character, with no view to the public generally or to posterity. (b) Theologically, as a See also:stage in the history of Christian doctrine, their value is as great negatively as positively. Impressive as is their witness to the persistence of the Apostolic teaching in its essential features, amidst all personal and local See also:variations, perhaps the most striking thing about these writings is the degree in which they fail to appreciate certain elements of the Apostolic teaching as embodied in the New Testament, and those its higher and more distinctively Christian elements.' This negative aspect has a twofold bearing. Firstly, it suggests the supernormal level to which the Apostolic consciousness was raised at a See also:bound by the direct influence of the Founder of Christianity, and justifies the marking-off of the Apostolic writings as a See also:Canon, or body of Christian See also:classics of unique religious authority. To this principle Marcion's Pauline Canon is a witness, though in too one-sided a spirit. Secondly, it means that the actual development of ecclesiastical doctrine began, not from the Apostolic consciousness itself, but from a far See also:lower level, that of the inadequate consciousness of the sub-apostolic Church, even when See also:face to face with their written words. This theological " retrogression " is of much significance for the history of See also:dogma. (c) On the other See also:hand, there is great religious and moral continuity, beneath even theological discontinuity, in the life working below all conscious See also:apprehension of the deeper ideas involved (E. von Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, 1905). There is continuity in character; the Apostolic Fathers strike us as truly good men, with a goodness raised to a new type and power. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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