Resumen
Resumen de Apostolic Fathers
Para quién es
For readers curious about how Christians lived and thought just after the New Testament era, and for students of church history who enjoy letters, visions and questions of worship, leadership and community.
De qué trata este libro
The Apostolic Fathers is a gathering of early Christian writings from about the end of the first century to the middle of the second. They were written in Greek by different authors, most of them church leaders, in places such as Rome, Antioch, Smyrna and Corinth. The name was given much later by scholars, who saw the authors as the generation that came after the apostles. No single person wrote the collection, and none of it stands in most Bibles.
Here you meet the oldest surviving manual of church life, letters written by a bishop on his way to execution, an early sermon, an account of a martyrdom, and a book of visions. These pages show how ordinary congregations prayed, baptized, argued and suffered while the New Testament was still being gathered. You will hear what each writing says, who valued it, and how historians read it today. First, let us see how the collection came together and what it holds.
En este resumen
- 1A modern name for a loose groupFree
- 2Clement urges Corinth to restore order
- 3The Didache gives a church its rules
- 4Ignatius writes on the road to Rome
- 5Polycarp and the witness of Smyrna
- 6Visions, sermons and why they stand apart
Idea clave 1 de 6
A modern name for a loose group
The name Apostolic Fathers is not ancient. Scholars in the seventeenth century began to use it for Christian writers who lived soon after the apostles, and some of whom were said to have known them. The label stuck, and the writings are now printed together as one collection. It is a scholar's shelf, not a list that early churches drew up themselves.
The collection is in Greek. It usually contains the First Letter of Clement and the Second Letter of Clement, seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp. It also holds the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Letter to Diognetus. Fragments of Papias and Quadratus are often added. Some editions leave out one or two of these.
Most dates are approximate. Scholars place the earliest pieces, such as the First Letter of Clement and perhaps the Didache, near the end of the first century. The latest, such as the Shepherd and Diognetus, may reach well into the second. Where scholars disagree, as they do over the Didache and Barnabas, the later parts of this summary will say so.
The way these texts survived was uneven. Barnabas and the Shepherd both appear in Codex Sinaiticus, a great Greek Bible manuscript of the fourth century. The Didache was lost for centuries. The bishop Philotheos Bryennios found it in a manuscript in a Constantinople library in 1873 and published it in 1883. Other works survive in only a few copies, so each discovery changed what readers could know about the early church.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Apostolic Fathers
What are the Apostolic Fathers?
They are early Christian writers, and the Greek works they left, from about the end of the first century to the middle of the second. Scholars grouped them because they lived soon after the apostles, and some were said to have known them.
What is in the Apostolic Fathers collection?
It usually holds the letters of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Letter to Diognetus, with fragments of Papias and Quadratus.
What is the Didache?
The Didache is a short early Christian teaching manual, also called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It covers moral instruction, baptism, fasting, prayer, the shared meal and the testing of travelling teachers. Scholars date it between the late first and early second century.
Why are the Apostolic Fathers not in the Bible?
Early churches judged books by apostolic link, wide use and agreement with received teaching. These works were respected, and some were read in church, but they were not counted among the New Testament books. They were not hidden or banned.
Is the Apostolic Fathers hard to read?
Mostly not. The letters and the Didache are direct. The Shepherd of Hermas uses strange visions, and Barnabas reads the Old Testament. Starting with Ignatius or the Didache works well.