Who were the early church fathers?

In the Fathers we get to a date yet earlier than any version. We reach up to some who are believed to have been instructed by the apostles personally, and who came into contact with many who had seen our Lord. The few who are accredited to have lived in the time of the apostles, called Apostolic Fathers, and who are referred, to as quoting scripture, are, 1, Clement, supposed to be the one named in Philippians 4:3 (now called Clement of Rome, to distinguish him from Clement of Alexandria). 2, Polycarp, martyred A.D. 169. 3, Barnabas, first or second century. 4, Ignatius, martyred A.D. 107.

We will now return to the immediate followers of the apostles.

The Apostolic Fathers, as they are called, such as Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Barnabas, were the immediate followers of the inspired apostles. They had listened to their instructions, laboured with them in the gospel, and probably had been familiarly acquainted with them. But, notwithstanding the high privileges which they enjoyed as scholars of the apostles, they very soon departed from the doctrines which had been committed to them, especially as to church government. They seem to have completely forgotten — judging from the Epistles which bear their names — the great New Testament truth of the Holy Spirit's presence in the assembly. Surely both John and Paul speak much of the presence, indwelling, sovereign rule, and authority of the Holy Spirit in the church. John 13-16; Acts 2:1, 1 Corinthians 12:14, Ephesians 1-4 give plain directions and instructions on this fundamental truth of the church of God. Had this truth been maintained according to the apostle's exhortation "Endeavouring to keep" — not to make — "the unity of the Spirit," clericalism could never have found a place in Christendom.

The Fathers; that is, the early writers in the church, who quoted scripture in their writings.

This designation is applied to the early Christian writers, who had known the apostles, or had known those who had been acquainted with them.

FATHERS. These, both Greek and Latin, are referred to because in their Biblical works they often quoted scripture, and these quotations show what was in the ancient copies from which they quoted. These date from the second century, which is earlier than any Greek manuscript extant.

41 But I return to the history of the doctrine. The Fathers may be divided into three classes, Apostolic, Grecian, and Western. We may also distinguish the Alexandrian, though they write in Greek; but they hardly enter into the sphere of our enquiry, though one considered such comes under the class Apostolic, Barnabas, who, however, affords us no light on the subject of enquiry. He, with Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Hermas, constitute, what are commonly called, the Apostolic Fathers; but, since the publication of the canon of Muratori, Origen's supposition that the latter was the Hermas mentioned by Paul is maintained by none; I shall speak of him, therefore, after Justin. Justin and Irenaeus will give us those next succeeding the post-apostolic age. Tertullian, Cyprian, and, later, Jerome and St. Augustine, may furnish us the doctrine of the Latins; and Chrysostom, instar omnium, the views of the later Eastern churches; Origen and Clement of Alexandria, philosophical Christianity; Leo and Gregory the Great, Roman views of the matter.

Now, I have already given the very best things that are said in Barnabas, Clement, and Polycarp, and the other two, if good can be spoken of in Ignatius and Hermas. Some of old rejected Barnabas; the others have hardly been called into question as to genuineness. Some call Hermas inspired, as Origen; Irenaeus quotes it as scripture. Now, genuine or not, Hermas and Clement were read in the churches, not in result put in the canon, still were added at the end of the manuscripts of the New Testament, as Barnabas and Hermas in the Sinaitic, Clement in the Alexandrian, and so on. I do not know that Ignatius' epistles ever were; he was a martyr, and eager for martyrdom. Nor do I know that Polycarp's was; but in the early church it was a question as to most of them whether they were scripture or not. They were of the next highest authority, and some unquestionably constantly read in the churches. If Ignatius' Latin or Greek ones are spurious, the Syriac are there, and quite enough: nobody doubts that he wrote epistles — seven, it is said; nobody doubts that the primitive church teemed with forgeries and falsifications to prop up the system I refer to, and other foolish or evil things.

270 But we have enough to shew that, immediately after the apostles (beginning with Clement, Paul's companion, whose epistles no one questions, Barnabas, of the same date, whoever wrote it, soon after 70; Ignatius, some say 106, others 116; Polycarp at the same date; Hermas some 50 years later) we have a collection of writings which express the then current thoughts and views, and which were more or less publicly read. Now in these writings we do not find a trace of the gospel, and redemption, and salvation, and blessings, which are found in Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, John, or even Peter, who does not go so far as Paul and John; nor do we find the practical recognition of the Holy Ghost. I speak of their teachings. Polycarp and Ignatius were, no doubt, saints; Barnabas and Clement, it may be too, though in the last less appears; yet I would not call it in question. On the other hand the clergy and sacraments, particularly baptism (Paul was not sent to baptize), are the constituent elements of the church they are conversant with. They own Christ's death of course, but its effect or application, and the Christian's place, as Paul and other apostles put it, are nowhere found.

But we will spend a word on them. The name sounds well and seems to claim respect. Some of them were godly men, a very few martyrs for the Lord's name, a few more confessors in persecution — a real crown of glory for a Christian; but as to doctrine, they (and in particular some of those who suffered) are the loosest, wildest, most absurd, writers that ever wrote a book, to make sober men wonder how any one could possibly read such a mass of nonsense, bad morals, and heresy. If books containing such doctrine as is found for the most part in the Fathers, notions with such an absence of common sense, and such morals, were written now, every honest Christian in the country would forbid them to his children, or they would lie a lumber, so as to render such a prohibition unnecessary; while, as for the doctrine of some of them, Christians would be apt to burn the books, and Romanists the writers. This will scandalize some people, perhaps; but as people are talking so much about the Fathers, it is better the truth should be told. I admit piety is found in some, and, on some points, doctrinal truth in part of others; but there is not a child's religious book in these days which would not contain more and sounder truth than a whole folio of the "Fathers."

But another and more serious remark is needed. Much is said of the Apostolic and early Fathers, especially by those who are not very familiar with their remains. Now I do not envy those who despise such men as Athanasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Hilary, Augustine and Jerome, nor even Origen and Tertullian, spite of many wild views. Had the best of these followed close after the Apostles, the difference of inspired and non-inspired would have been obvious to a spiritual man. But in the providence of God no writer followed for a century, save of the feeblest calibre — none but men singularly deficient in power of the Spirit and intelligence in Scripture, or even in commanding human qualities, if we except Clement of Rome. To whom are we to turn from the Word of God for light and guidance? Is it to the Pseudo-Barnabas with his cabalistic trifles? Is it to the Shepherd of Hermas, with his worse than puerile visions? Clement adheres most to Scripture, and speaks of bishops and deacons, his sobriety contrasting favourably with the incessant exaltation of the three orders, particularly his own, in the letters of Ignatius. I do not wonder that some attribute Episcopacy, as distinct from the elders, to the president of Antioch: for his zeal in putting forward that new thing would be not unnatural in its inventor. What would be thought of an Archbishop or a Pope who urged the faithful to regard the Bishop in the place of God, the Presbyters as the Apostles, and the Deacons as the command of God? What, if he gave such a voucher as this, "the Spirit declared to me these words, Do ye nothing without the Bishop?" His piety might be incontestible, his subsequent martyrdom always claiming our respect; but a new revelation from the Spirit in support of a dogma about the bishop, unheard of in Scripture and incompatible with teaching really inspired, can only have been at best a delusion, naturally in keeping with his one idea. Polycarp's letter to the Philippians is Christian in its tone, but it contains no decisive evidence on the point.

But however worthy of all honour Ignatius may be as a holy man of God, and as a noble martyr for Christ, we must ever remember that his letters are not the word of God. They may interest and instruct us, but they cannot command our faith. This can only stand on the solid ground of the word of God, never on the infirm ground of tradition. "Scripture stands alone," as one has said, "in majestic isolation, preeminent in instruction, and separated by unapproachable excellence from everything written by the apostolic fathers: so that those who follow close to the apostles have left us writings which are more for our warning than our edification." At the same time these early christian writers have every claim to the respect and veneration with which antiquity invests them. They were the contemporaries of the apostles, they enjoyed the privilege of hearing their instruction they shared with them the labours of the gospel, and freely conversed with them from day to day. Paul speaks of a Clement — a so-called apostolic father — as his "fellow-labourer, whose name is in the book of life;" and what he says of Timothy may have been at least partly true of many others, "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience persecutions, and afflictions." (Phil. 4:3; 2 Tim. 3:10-11)

From those who were so highly privileged we should naturally expect sound apostolic doctrine — a faithful repetition of the truths and instructions which were delivered to them by the inspired apostles. But such alas! is not the case. Ignatius was one of the earliest of the apostolic fathers. He became bishop of Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, about the year 70. He was a disciple of the apostle John, and survived him only about seven years. Surely from such a one we might have expected a close resemblance to the apostle's teaching but it is not so. The definite and absolute statements of scripture, as coming direct from God to the soul, are widely different from the writings of Ignatius and of all the Fathers Our only safe and sure guide is the word of God. How seasonable then is that word in the First Epistle of John "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father." (1 John 2:24) This passage evidently refers more especially to the person of Christ, and consequently to the scriptures of the New Testament, in which we have the display of the Father in the Son and made known to us by the Holy Spirit. In Paul's Epistles, we have more fully revealed the counsels of God concerning the church Israel, and the Gentiles, so that we must go further back than "the Fathers" to find a true ground of faith; we must go back to that which existed from "The Beginning." Nothing has direct divine authority for the believer, but that which was from "the beginning." This alone secures our continuing "in the Son and in the Father."