APOSTOLIC FATHERS, a term used to distinguish those early Christian writers who were believed to have been the per sonal 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. 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.
The degree of historic claim which these various writings have to rank as the works 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 ; so that 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), and which theref ore represent 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 oldest writings in the group, those which are best entitled to their name in any strict sense, are epistles, and in this respect also akin to apostolic writings. The authors (especially Ignatius and Polycarp) are conscious of the gulf between themselves and apostles like Peter and Paul in claim to authority; thus Polycarp, 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" (iii.2). The Epistle of Clement con forms 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 pro duced 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 Chris tians and not by any literary motive. They are veritable "human documents," with the personal note running through them. They are personal expressions of Christianity, in which are discernible also specific types of local tradition. To such spontaneous actual ity, a large part of their interest and value is due.
Nor is this 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, though in form addressed to an individual, is in spirit so personal a testi mony 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.
If thus related to the apologists of the middle of the 2nd cen tury, 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 (see CLEMENTINE LITERATURE). In all prob ability we have here the earliest extant sermon preached before a Christian congregation, about A.D. 120-140. Homily passes into allegory and recorded vision in the Shepherd of Hermas, 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) . The prophetic and apocalyptic note, which characterizes Hermas among the Apostolic Fathers 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