“Though the letter really is anonymous, its traditional title connects it with the famous name of the one-time companion of the apostle Paul. Could it actually have been written by that Barnabas? Or was the author some other man named Barnabas? Or did the name get attached for some other reason? We do not know, but by the year 200, Clement of Alexandria had attributed it to Paul’s companion. What we do know is that the Letter of Barnabas was widely read in the church during the second and third centuries. Clement, who lived in Alexandria from about 180 to 203, quoted Barnabas as ‘Scripture’….[W]hen Athanasius gave his list of (1) canonical Scripture and (2) other books ‘read’ in the fourth-century Alexandria, Barnabas appeared in neither list. Eusebius, the church historian of the same period, was dubious about its canonical claim, and Jerome in the same century called it apocryphal. Nevertheless a fourth-century Greek manuscript of the Scriptures places it right after Johns Revelation.” Jack N. Sparks ed., The Apostolic Fathers (Thomas Nelson, 1978), 263-264.

Writings of the Church Fathers

The Epistle of Barnabas: Part 3

[a.d. 30–100.] Clement was probably a Gentile and a Roman. He seems to have been at Philippi with St. Paul (a.d. 57) when that first-born of the Western churches was passing through great trials of faith. There, with holy women and others, he ministered to the apostle and to the saints. As this city was a Roman colony, we need not inquire how a Roman happened to be there. He was possibly in some public service, and it is not improbable that he had visited Corinth in those days. From the apostle, and his companion, St. Luke, he had no doubt learned the use of the Septuagint, in which his knowledge of the Greek tongue soon rendered him an adept. His copy of that version, however, does not always agree with the Received Text, as the reader will perceive. Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 1 - Enhanced Version (Early Church Fathers) (Kindle Locations 97-103). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition. The date of this Epistle has been the subject of considerable controversy. It is clear from the writing itself that it was composed soon after some persecution (chap. i.) which the Roman Church had endured; and the only question is, whether we are to fix upon the persecution under Nero or Domitian. If the former, the date will be about the year 68; if the latter, we must place it towards the close of the first century or the beginning of the second. We possess no external aid to the settlement of this question. The lists of early Roman bishops are in hopeless confusion, some making Clement the immediate successor of St. Peter, others placing Linus, and others still Linus and Anacletus, between him and the apostle. The internal evidence, again, leaves the matter doubtful, though it has been strongly pressed on both sides. The probability seems, on the whole, to be in favour of the Domitian period, so that the Epistle may be dated about a.d. 97. This Epistle was held in very great esteem by the early Church. The account given of it by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iii. 16) is as follows: “There is one acknowledged Epistle of this Clement (whom he has just identified with the friend of St. Paul), great and admirable, which he wrote in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church at Corinth, sedition having then arisen in the latter Church. We are aware that this Epistle has been publicly read in very many churches both in old times, and also in our own day.” The Epistle before us thus appears to have been read in numerous churches, as being almost on a level with the canonical writings. And its place in the Alexandrian ms., immediately after the inspired books, is in harmony with the position thus assigned it in the primitive Church. Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 1 - Enhanced Version (Early Church Fathers) (Kindle Locations 141-153). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition. St. Clement is commemorated on November 25th.

First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians: Part 3

First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians: Part 2

First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

“Granting the general authenticity of the Greek work, the time of composition must be at least as early as the first half of the second century. If the Teaching is older than Barnabas, then it cannot be later than A.D. 120. If both are from a common source, the interval of time was probably not very great. The document itself bears many marks of an early date…” (Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol 7. pp. 374-375). St. Athanasius the Great (d. 373) seems to have recommended this work in his 39th Easter Epistle : “But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of Apostles, and the Shepherd.” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. 4, p. 552, italics added)

The Didache

The Epistle of Barnabas: Part 5

The Epistle of Barnabas: Part 4

The Epistle of Barnabas: Part 2

The Epistle of Barnabas: Part 1

“Arius, an Alexandrian presbyter, began teaching some time before 318 that the Logos, the Word of God who became man—Jesus Christ—is not the divine Son of God….but a created being—created out of nothing, like everything else, by God the Father….Soon after Emperor Constantine took up residence in Nicomedia, the eastern capital…he was chagrined to learn of this new controversy that was troubling the whole Eastern Church….[H]e summoned the largest council of bishops ever held up to that point. It opened on May 20, 325 in the city of Nicea, near Nicomedia.” “Emperor Theodosius the Great came to the imperial throne of the eastern part of the Roman Empire in 379….In 381 he called a Church council in Constantinople which would become to be known as the Second Ecumenical Council. This council condemned all forms of Arianizing doctrines by reaffirming the doctrinal statement or creed, which had been proclaimed at the Nicene Council. It also condemned Macedonianism, and proclaimed the divinity of the Holy Spirit in a paragraph added to the Creed of Nicea. It is this Creed, the combined work of the first two Ecumenical Councils, which orthodox Christians recite at baptismal services and the Divine Liturgy.” Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 3, Church History: Revised and Expanded by David C. Ford. (Yonkers, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981), pp. 49-50, 54-55.

The Nicene Creed

St. Cyril was Pope of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He presided at the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus (431) which formally condemned Nestorianism. “Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople (r. 428-431), made known his refusal to honor Mary, Christ’s mother, with the traditional title of Theotokos. He claimed that the one born from Mary is not the Logos Himself, but merely the ‘man’ in whom the eternal Logos of God came to dwell. Thus, Mary could not properly be called ‘Theotokos,’ which means ‘the one who gave birth to God,’ but only either ‘Christokos,’ meaning ‘the one who gave birth to Christ,’ or ‘anthropotokos,’ meaning ‘the one who gave birth to a man—i.e., the man Jesus, to whom the Logos was joined.” Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 3, Church History: Revised and Expanded by David C. Ford. (Yonkers, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981), p. 59. “Towards the end of 429 he [Nestorius] invited Dorotheus of Marcianopolis to preach in the cathedral….Dorotheus had proclaimed: ‘if anyone dares to call Mary Theotokos, let him be anathema.’ Whereupon, according to Cyril, there were loud protests and a general exodus from the church. On hearing of this episode Cyril sent Nestorius his second letter, Kataphlyarousi, which the Acts of Chalcedon date to February 430.” Norman Russell, Cyril of Aexandria, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), p. 36. The following letter was also read at the Council of Ephesus. St. Cyril’s feast days are on June 9 and January 18th.

The Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius

St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna was born in the second half of the first century and martyred sometime in the middle of the second century. Eusebius, in his Church History, wrote of him, "At that time [the reign of emperor Trajan] Polycarp, a disciple of the apostles, was a man of eminence in Asia, having been entrusted with the episcopate of the church of Smyrna by those who had seen and heard the Lord" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. 1, p.166, bracket added). "His pupil Irenaeus gives us one of the very few portraits of an apostolic man which are to be found in antiquity, in a few sentences which are a picture: 'I could describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught; his going out and coming in; the whole tenor of his life; his personal appearance; how he would speak of the conversations he had held with John and with others who had seen the Lord. How did he make mention of their words and of whatever he had heard from them respecting the Lord.' " (Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol 1. P. 31).

The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians

Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe... They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. What the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diogentus

Selections from our Patristic Treasury - Writings of the saints from the first millennium of Christianity as free audio downloads to aid discovery of what has been believed everywhere, by all, since the time of the apostles, and what the Church did and looked like throughout its history.