Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers

Excellent translation of very important early texts. Nice, brief introductions to each text, as well as a few explanatory notes on obscure sayings or references. There were quite a few typos, obviously indicating that whatever software was used to convert the original written form into electronic text needs to be checked. I noted and sent in about 20 such errors as I read the book. As far as the content is concerned, these are must read texts for Christians, especially in the West. They provide a peek into what Christianity originally was...not what it has become as reflected in modern Evangelicalism. I think that there is no true Christan who can read these works and not be convicted and challenged. After reading this I'm moving on to Eusebius's 'Ecclesiastical History' in the hope of more completely filling in the picture of Christ's Church in its earliest days. I'm finding that there is a profundity and treasure in the old that simply has been lost in most quarters of the Church today. I'm also beginning to wonder if the reason that there are not many martyrs in the West, is because there is not much actual Christianity. Surely the residual peace from a now waining Christian culture is partly the reason (and something to be thankful for!), but deep down, I think many professing Christians struggle with the thought of actually living and rendering this kind of ultimate witness to Christ. And, I think that this is because so many haven't actually found the living Christ or are not sure about their own individual faith (another matter for another time). Reading the writings of these first post-Apostolic Fathers is to enter a world of belief and confidence of faith that speaks of truly knowing Christ as the resurrected Lord of all the earth. These men--these martyrs--knew Him and the power of His resurrection, thus desiring to be conformed to Him even in His death. There is nothing here that resembles the "your best life now", "Blessed!" type religion that passes for Christianity in today's affluent West. This is a raw look at the true Church of the Savior of the world. Read it and be ready to be rocked. Read it and be ready to be edified and roused and surprised by a depth of faith that you (or at least some of us) have not yet experienced.

Why isn't this book on every evangelical seminary's guidebook to help us avoid many of the false teachings of the modern cults and churches? After studying in seminary and being mostly influenced by Dallas Seminary's Lewis Sperry Chafer and majority of trusted pastors of the last 150-200 years (Charles Spurgeon, Charles Swindoll, Graham, Kenneth Wuest, D.L. Moody, Matthew Henry, G.Campbell Morgan, J. Vernon Mcgee, and host of other popular writers), this is the first time I have known that we have actual writings of the early church pastors in such an easy to read guide format. How the faithful looked at their impending martyrdom is beautifully seen in "the letter of Ignatius to the Church in Rome" and in Pastor Polycarp's martyrdom written down by the faithful for our edification. It is amazing how their view of faith included trust in Christ all the way to the end, just like John Wesley taught. It is awesome to know that the early Church always baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity as I read in the last pages of this book, in "teachings (didache/gk) of the apostles". It is awesome to read that worshipping Christ as God was a normal practice of faith among early Christians from the beginning and how much these trusted pastors exalted our LORD's words and life, death and resurection as the foundation for all Christians. Surprisingly, our early church also saw great significance in the life of Christ as they saw our imitation of Christ's Perfect life to be a holy goal of every Christian every day of our lives. They did not interpret "be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is" allegorically or as pre-Grace-dispensational in any way. To them, good works of Love motivated by Faith in Christ's Perfect Life and passionate suffering at the Cross, with His victory over satan through death and Resurrection, was a much stronger emphasis of the basis for our Salvation than simply saying a "magical" 4 laws or sinner's prayer to welcome Jesus in our hearts. The early Church's view of God's Grace is clear: "By Grace you are saved, not by your own doing, but by the will of God in Christ Jesus" spoken by Polycarp, the trusted disciple of John called and appointed to lead the Church in Smyrna. However, it is also true that they took Paul's words in Galations 5 as Holy Scripture and took all of Christ's words inline with James' letter, rather than show an adverserial relationship between Christian good works and our faith in Christ. To them, Christ's calling to holiness, His perfect obedience through the pains of the cross, revealed faithful calling of the Christian to live holy lives as part of our salvation, rather than as a separate past/present/future salvation message that I have heard by majority of our teachers in the past 200 years. I was surprised to read that John Calvin, Martin Luther, and John Wesley, honored many of these early Christian writings and always taught reading them for edification and Biblical understanding as PART of our sola scriptura belief, and they never intended that anyone should read the scriptures and privately interpret it against the writings of all these early church pastor's teachings. No wonder all Christians everywhere agreed for majority of the first 1800 years of our faith on the significance of Baptism, Holy communion and hosts of other early church practices and beliefs and none of them tried to use "saved by Grace unto good works" as beyond what the early church taught, that there are jewish cereminial laws we were freed from unto Christian good works in Love. The view of humility in Ignatius truly is humbling against majority of our teaching in the western culture, since he would never want any believer to independent of the Apostolic Christian Church to exalt oneself above the honest teachings of the Apostles and trusted pastors of the early church. I would highly recommend this translation. Easy to read and follow without liberal antiChristian slants from some other early church books. The print material is also easy to read unlike the glaring papers used by Meier's Eusebius edition and there is not much antiChristian antihistorical Christian bias one finds in some of the early church translations.

Good translation and simple expanse of Church history. A great introduction or analytical resource for the Apostolic writings and essential documents related to first century Christianity.

Love it

There is a poem by C.P. Cavafy called Waiting for the Barbarians. In it the author declares the desire for something genuinely new to enter his culture. When reading this volume of the early Apostolic Fathers one is most struck most by the enthusiasm of the writers. They all have the sense that they have in their grasp something which is new and of supreme importance to the world. Modern Christianity now seems at best an archaism when it is not out and out hypocrisy. There are few Christians who seem to believe that they have an important teaching to communicate to the world. And perhaps that is best. The Christian myth of a world doomed to death and suffering by human sin then redeemed by Christ is hard to square with our modern understanding of the cosmos. But it is interesting to read works from when Christianity was young. It was not the bulwark of Western civilization, it was not part of one’s cultural legacy...It was something dynamic and interesting and persuasive. For all who like such time-traveling the Apostolic Fathers are a true delight.

I love that there is another account to the churches from other men of God.

Early prayers of a belief to each other and eyewitness to the disciples

A must read for any Christian. It puts the early church in the first and second century in perspective from the church fathers. They're arranged in such a way to make them easy to read and accessible even to a layperson.