The Apostolic Fathers

The first generation after the Apostles: the writers of the late first and early second centuries whose works form the earliest stratum of patristic literature — 1 Clement, the seven letters of Ignatius, Polycarp’s letter and martyrdom, and the anonymous witnesses (the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, Papias, the Epistle to Diognetus). This section surveys the corpus with dates, manuscript histories, and the standard critical editions, deferring the three great bishops to their full collections.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Overview

“Apostolic Fathers” is a modern collective title — the corpus was first assembled under that name by Jean-Baptiste Cotelier in 1672 — for a small, precious body of texts written while the memory of the Apostles was still living (Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 3rd ed., 2007, general introduction). Its named authors are three bishops: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna. Around them stand the anonymous and fragmentary witnesses: the Didache, rediscovered only in 1873; the Shepherd of Hermas, the most-read non-biblical book of the early Church; the fragments of Papias; the Epistle to Diognetus, an apologetic jewel that survived to modern times in a single manuscript destroyed by fire in 1870. The first file treats the three bishops and their letters; the second, the anonymous corpus, the manuscripts, and the editions (Holmes; Ehrman’s Loeb; Lightfoot behind both).

Files in This Section

File Description
the-apostolic-witness.md 1 Clement (c. 96) and ecclesial order; Ignatius’ seven letters, the bishop, the Eucharist, and the disputed date of his martyrdom; Polycarp’s letter, the two-letter hypothesis, and the earliest martyr-act — with links to the three full collections
the-didache-hermas-and-the-anonymous-witnesses.md The Didache and its 1873 rediscovery; the Shepherd of Hermas; Papias’ fragments; the Epistle to Diognetus and the lost Strasbourg codex; 2 Clement and Barnabas; the critical editions (Lightfoot, Holmes, Ehrman)

See Also