[1] Why he did not go on to give the remaining thirty-five is not
clear; they belong to the same date as, and are not inferior to, the
first fifty.
[2] At a later date various collections were made of the documents
above mentioned, or some of them, to serve as law-books in different
churches--e.g. the Syrian Octateuch, the Egyptian Heptateuch, and the
Ethiopic Sinodos. These, however, stand on an entirely different
footing, since they are simply collections of existing documents, and
no attempt is made to claim apostolic authorship for them.
APOSTOLIC CANONS, a collection of eighty-five rules for the regulation
of clerical life, appended to the eighth book of the _Apostolical
Constitutions_ (q.v.). They are couched in brief legislative form though
on no definite plan, and deal with the vexed questions of ecclesiastical
discipline as they were raised towards the end of the 4th century. At
least half of the canons are derived from earlier constitutions, and
probably not many of them are the actual productions of the compiler,
whose aim was to gloss over the real nature of the _Constitutions_, and
secure their incorporation with the Epistles of Clement in the New
Testament of his day. The _Codex Alexandrinus_ does indeed append the
Clementine Epistles to its text of the New Testament. The Canons may be
a little later in date than the preceding _Constitutions_, but they are
evidently from the same Syrian theological circle.
APOSTOLIC FATHERS, a term used to distinguish those early Christian
writers who were believed to have been the personal associates of the
original Apostles. While the title "Fathers" was given from at least the
beginning of the 4th century to church writers of former days, as being
the parents of Christian belief and thought for later times, the
expression "Apostolic Fathers" dates only from the latter part of the
17th century. The idea of recognizing these "Fathers" as a special group
exists already in the title "Patres aevi apostolici, sive SS. Patrum qui
temporibus apostolicis floruerunt ... opera," under which in 1672 J.B.
Cotelier published at Paris the writings current under the names of
Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp. But the name
itself is due to their next editor, Thomas Ittig (1643-1710), in his
_Bibliotheca Patrum Apostolicorum_ (1699), who, however, included under
this title only Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp. Here already appears the
doubt as to how many writers can claim the title, a doubt which has
continued ever since, and makes the contents of the "Apostolic Fathers"
differ so much from editor to editor. Thus the Oratorian Andrea Gallandi
(1700-1779), in re-issuing Cotelier's collection in his _Bibliotheca
Veterum Patrum_ (1765-1781), included the fragments of Papias and the
Epistle to Diognetus, to which recent editors have added the citations
from the "Elders" of Papias's day found in Irenaeus and, since 1883, the
_Didache_.
The degree of historic claim which these various writings have to rank
as the works[1] of Apostolic Fathers varies greatly on any definition of
"apostolic." Originally the epithet was meant to be taken strictly, viz.
as denoting those whom history could show to have been personally
connected, or at least coeval, with one or more apostles; and an effort
was made, as by Cotelier, to distinguish the writings rightly and
wrongly assigned to such. Thus editions tended to vary with the
historical views of editors. But the convenience of the category
"Apostolic Fathers" to express not only those who might possibly have
had some sort of direct contact with apostles--such as "Barnabas,"
Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp--but also those who seemed specially
to preserve the pure tradition of apostolic doctrine during the
sub-apostolic age, has led to its general use in a wide and vague sense.
Conventionally, then, the title denotes the group of writings which,
whether in date or in internal character, are regarded as belonging to
the main stream of the Church's teaching during the 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 process of transition from the type of teaching in the New
Testament to that which meets us in the early Catholic Fathers, from the
last 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 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
_Preaching and Apocalypse_ of Peter, for instance, are quite typical of
the same period, and help us to read between 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 concrete and personal
qualities; they are general expressions of tendencies which we cannot
well locate or measure, save by means of the Apostolic Fathers
themselves or of their earliest Catholic successors.
(A) In _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 Harnack and
Kruger), and classed each under its own literary type--so sacrificing to
outer form, which is quite secondary in primitive Christian writings,
the more significant fact of religious 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 pleasure in saluting his readers "after the
apostolic stamp" (_ad Troll._ inscr.), while yet disclaiming all desire
to emulate the apostolic manner in other respects, being fully conscious
of the gulf between himself and apostles like Peter and Paul in claim to
authority (_ib._ in. 3, _ad Rom._ iv. 3). The like holds of Polycarp,
who, in explaining that he writes to exhort the Philippians only at
their own request, adds, "for neither am I, nor is any other like me,
able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul" (in. 2).
Clement's epistle, indeed, conforms more to the elaborate and
treatise-like form of the Epistle to the 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 witness to the impression
which these produced on the men of the next generation. Unconsciously,
too, they correspond to the apostolic type of writing in another
respect, viz. their occasional and practical character. They are evoked
by pressing needs of the hour among some definite body of Christians and
not by any literary motive.[2] This is a universal trait of primitive
Christian 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 note running through them. They are after all personal
expressions of Christianity, in which are discernible also specific
types of local tradition. To such spontaneous actuality a large part of
their 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 place among "Apostolic Fathers,"
the Epistle to Diognetus. This beautiful picture of the Christian life
as a realized ideal, and of Christians as "the soul" of the world, owes
its inclusion to a double error: first, to the accidental attachment at
the end of another fragment (S ii), which opens with the writer's claim
to stand forth as a teacher as being "a 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 tutor of Marcus Aurelius, as
a typical cultured observer of Christianity, or to some other eminent
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" ("Heaven-born," of. Acts xvii. 28 along with S iii.
4)--the epistle is in any case an "open letter" of an essentially
literary type. Further, its opening seems modelled on the lines of the
preface to Luke's Gospel, to which, along with Acts, it may owe
something of its very conception as a reasoned appeal to the 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 fellow Christians, that it is akin to the piety of the
Apostolic Fathers as a group. It is true that it has marked affinities,
e.g. in its natural theology, with the earliest Apologists, Aristides
and Justin, even as it is itself in substance an apology addressed not
to the State, but to thoughtful public opinion. But this only means that
we cannot draw a hard and fast line between groups of early Christian
writings at a time when practical religious interests overshadowed all
others.
If thus related to the Apologists of the 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 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 light, proves beyond question that we have here the
earliest extant sermon preached before a Christian congregation, about
A.D. 120-140 (so J.B. Lightfoot). Its opening section, recalling to its
hearers the passing of the mists of idolatry before the revelation in
Jesus Christ, is markedly similar in tone and 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 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 brother of Pius, the Roman bishop of his day (c.
139-154). In both the primary theme is repentance, as called for by
serious sins, after 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 vogue which the _Shepherd_
enjoyed in the generations immediately succeeding, as also the influence
of its disciplinary policy, which is its prophetic "burden" (see HERMAS,
SHEPHERD OF).
We come finally to the anonymous _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ and
Papias's _Exposition of Oracles of the 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 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 _bona fide_ claim. It expresses the feeling common to the
Apostolic Fathers and general in the sub-apostolic age, at any 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
element of illusion entered, and all other written embodiments of it
known to us take the form of literary fictions, more or less bold. It is
in contrast to these that the _Didache_ is justly felt to be genuinely
primitive and of a piece with the Apostolic Fathers. Thus while its form
would by 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 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
Elders preserved in Irenaeus (so far as these do not really come from
Papias). Both bodies of exposition represent the traditional principle
at 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 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 pretty evident. It is one of
absolute loyalty and deference, as to the teaching of inspiration. They
are conscious, as are we in 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 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_, Oxford,
1905). As Lightfoot points out (_Apostolic Fathers_, pt. i. vol. i. p.
7), however, personality, with its variety of temperament and emphasis,
largely colours the Apostolic Fathers, especially the primary group.
Clement has all the Roman feeling for duly constituted order and
discipline; Ignatius has the Syrian or semi-oriental 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 cup of martyrdom; Polycarp is, above all things, steady in his
allegiance to what had first won his conscience and heart, and his
"passive and receptive character" comes out in the contents of his
epistle. Of the 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 language and thought of the epistle of
James, and in the homilist to those of Paul. Yet their very use of the
same terms or ideas makes us the more aware of "a marked contrast to the
depth and clearness of conception with which the several Apostolic
writers place before us different aspects of the Gospel" (Lightfoot).
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 Septuagint and in ordinary Greek usage, their
specific meaning to each apostle and especially to Paul. This phenomenon
was noted particularly by E. Reuss, in his _Histoire de la theologie
chretienne an siecle apostolique_ (3rd ed., 1864). Take for instance
Clement. Lightfoot, indeed, dwells on the all-round "comprehensiveness"
with which Clement, as the mouthpiece of the early Roman Church, utters
in succession phrases or ideas borrowed impartially from Peter and Paul
and James and the Epistle to Hebrews. He admits, however, that such mere
co-ordination of the language of Paul and James, for instance, as
appears in his twice bracketing "faith and hospitality" as grounds of
acceptance with God (the cases are those of 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 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 power of realizing
relative spiritual values in the light of the master principle involved
in the distinctively Christian consciousness, such as could raise
Clement above a verbal eclecticism, rather than comprehensiveness, in
the use of Apostolic language. As R.W. 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 share the Apostolic
experience more fully than any other, to which Reuss rightly directs
attention. In virtue of this defect, due largely to the failure to enter
into the Apostolic experience of mystic 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. 541).
In fact the perspective of the Gospel was seriously changed and its most
distinctive features obscured. This was specially the case with the
experimental doctrines of grace. Here the central glory of the Cross as
"the power of God unto salvation" suffered some eclipse, although the
passion of Christ was felt to be a transcendent 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 egoism and the instinct to seek
salvation as a reward for merit. The passages in which these things are
laid bare by Paul's remorseless analysis of his own experience "under
Law" seem to have made practically no impression on the Apostolic
Fathers as a whole. Gentile Christians had not felt the fang of the Law
as the ex-Pharisee had occasion to feel it. Even if first trained in the
Hellenistic synagogues of the Dispersion, as was often the case, they
apprehended the Law on its more helpful and less exacting side, and had
not been brought "by the Law to die unto the Law," that they might "live
unto God." The result was too 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
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 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 "wages" ([Greek: osthos]) to be
earned or forfeited; and regards certain good works, such as prayer,
fasting, alms--especially the last--as efficacious to cancel sins. The
reality of this tendency, particularly at Rome, betrays itself in
Hermas, who teaches the supererogatory merit of alms gained by the
self-denial of fasting (_Sim_. v. 3. 3 ff.). Marcion's reaction, too,
against the Judaic 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 "esoteric"
character, with no view to the public generally or to posterity. (b)
Theologically, as a 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 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.[3] This negative aspect has a twofold bearing. Firstly, it
suggests the supernormal level to which the Apostolic consciousness was
raised at a bound by the direct influence of the Founder of
Christianity, and justifies the marking-off of the Apostolic writings as
a Canon, or body of Christian 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 lower level, that of the inadequate consciousness
of the sub-apostolic Church, even when face to face with their written
words. This theological "retrogression" is of much significance for the
history of dogma, (c) On the other hand, there is great religious and
moral continuity, beneath even theological discontinuity, in the life
working below all conscious apprehension of the deeper ideas involved
(E. von Dobschutz, _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. This is
what the Gospel of Christ aims chiefly at producing as its proper fruit;
and the Apostolic Fathers would have desired no better record than that
they were themselves genuine "epistles of Christ."
LITERATURE.--This is too large to indicate even in outline, but is
given fully in the chief modern editions, viz. of Gebhardt, Harnack
and Zahn jointly (1875-1877), J.B. Lightfoot (1885-1890) and F.X. Funk
(1901); also in O. Bardenhewer, _Gesch. der altkirchlichen Litteratur_
(1902), Band i., and in _Neutestamentliche Apokryphen_, with
_Handbuch_ thereto, edited by E. Hennecke (Tubingen, 1904). The
fullest discussion in English of the teaching of Barnabas, Clement,
Ignatius and Polycarp is by J. Donaldson, _The Apostolical Fathers_
(1874), which, however, suffers from the imperfect state of the texts
when he wrote. The most useful edition for ready reference, containing
critical texts (up to date) and good translations, is Lightfoot's
one-volume edition, _The Apostolic Fathers_ (London, 1891).
(J. V. B.)