The next “Apostolic Father” we will consider is Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, a friend of Ignatius, who like him came to be martyred on account of his Christian faith (see chapter 26), Polycarp was himself the recipient of one of the surviving letters of Ignatius around 110 c.e., some forty-five years or so before his own death. Soon after he received this letter, he wrote to the Philippian Christians, evidently in response to their requests on several matters (Pol. Phil. 3:1). Here is what I say about him and his writing in my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press). **************************** The Philippians had requested from Polycarp a copy of “the letters of Ignatius, including both those he sent to us [in Smyrna] and any others which we had by us” (13:2). Polycarp complied with this request, sending his own epistle as a kind of cover letter for the collection. Polycarp indicates that both Ignatius and the Philippians had requested that he, or one of [...]

In some respects, the most interesting of Ignatius’s writings is the letter to the Romans, where he deals explicitly with his upcoming martyrdom. We might expect that Ignatius would want to find some way to avoid having to pay the ultimate price for his faith, if he could do so without compromising his convictions. Ignatius, however, goes to his death eagerly, longingly. He writes to the Romans to urge them not to interfere, for he believes that only by suffering a glorious and bloody martyrdom will he become a true disciple of Christ, only by imitating Christ’s own Passion will he be able to “get to God.” Most of the surviving Christian writings from antiquity take a positive view of Christian martyrdom, urging Christians to go willingly to their deaths for the faith and to endure all the tortures that humans can devise. By doing so, Christians would imitate the Passion of their Lord, Jesus. [SIDENOTE: Not everyone agreed. We know from the letters of Pliny and the writings of several Christian authors, [...]

The letters of Ignatius of Antioch are among the most fascinating earliest Christian writings from outside the New Testament.  I’ve long been fascinated by them and would like to introduce you to them in a series of three posts in this thread presenting the “Apostolic Fathers” in a nutshell. The “Apostolic Fathers,” as I have indicated before, are a group of ten or eleven (depending how you count) books/authors who have long been understood to stand in the “orthodox” Christian camp before the major theological views later considered orthodox had become the overwhelmingly dominant form of Christian belief and practice some time in the third century or so – and so we call these write “proto-orthodox”; they were collected into a group of writings only in the modern period, and called “apostolic fathers” because they were each believed to have been acquainted with the apostles of Jesus themselves.  In almost all instances, as it turns out, that turns out to be wrong, but we still give them this name. They are (for the most part) [...]

Among the most fascinating elements of the Didache are the prayers it records, one (the Lord’s Prayer) which it presents in a form more familiar to people today than the forms found in the New Testament (!), and others connected with the Eucharist – that is, the “Lord’s Supper” as celebrated in church.  These prayers are nothing like most churches say today. I start with the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is not found in the Gospels of Mark or John, and Matthew and Luke word it differently.  Luke appears to represent the oldest surviving form of the prayer, possibly the form that was original to Q. Matthew’s Gospel expands this version by adding some additional petitions, as seen below. One of the many intriguing features of the Didache is that it also presents the Lord’s Prayer but in a slightly different form from what can be found in either of the canonical Gospels, and, as I said, the Didache’s version is closest to the form of the prayer familiar to most Christians [...]

In my previous post I started to discuss one of the most important of the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache. I indicated there that it consists of three parts, the first of which is an ethical treatise on the "Two Ways" one can live. Now I continue with describing the even more unusual next two parts, a set of instructions about ritual activities and wandering apostles and prophets, and an apocalyptic prediction of what is yet to come..  This description is principally taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.   ******************************   Like the “Teaching of the Two Ways,” the second portion of the Didache may be drawn from one or more earlier sources, or it may represent the anonymous author’s own composition. It is a kind of “church order” in which instructions are given for various kinds of church activities. For example, Christians are to perform their baptisms in cold running water (i.e., in an outdoor stream) whenever possible, although standing or warm water is [...]

In my posts on Barnabas I indicated that it was probably written sometime in the 130s CE; I often get asked how scholars come up with dates like that? The first thing to stress is that it's is very difficult to date ancient writings.  But scholars who have worked on such matters (for nearly 300 years now, in some instances) have marshaled pretty good evidence in case after case, although in many instances there continue to be substantial debates. There are several ways to establish parameters, which are fairly commonsensical. If a writing is quoted by an author whose dates are relatively certain (his dates too need to be established on independent grounds! But in lots of cases there is almost no doubt), then obviously the writing is earlier than that. So that’s a beginning. Second, if the writing itself quotes a dateable writing or author then it must be written later than that. And third, relatedly, if the writing refers to a dateable event, then it must be later. Much of the [...]