Answers for a Friend – Early Christian Writers
November 24, 2002
Dear Friends,
The next question from my friend was “Who is the first person and earliest writings of those with all current Christadelphian views (no, not including Biblical writers)? They should include such major views you have such as on the sinful nature of Christ, no devil, no heaven, no hell, Christ was not God, obey the commands of Christ, baptism is necessary for salvation (and not a work), the 2 salvations and any others you find are important to include.”
Unfortunately, the question, as stated, is not a well informed question. It shows only a superficial understanding of Christadelphian teaching and limited understanding of early church history. For example, Christadelphians do believe in heaven, hell and the devil, but not in the same manner as mainstream Christianity. So, before we can even attempt to answer the question, we have to do a little remedial education.
The group that we will focus our attention on to answer this question is a group of people known as the Apostolic Fathers. You will understand shortly why we chose to focus on this group. These men include Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, the author of the Didache, the author of the Epistle to Barnabus, the author of the Shepherd of Hermas and Papias. These writers wrote during the late first century and second century. Although not inspired by God, they provide us insight into the period of time immediately following the first century ecclesia.
The problem answering the question using the works of the Apostolic Fathers is that none of them “wrote, or intend to write, a treatise on Christian theology.” (Dr. Robert M. Grant, The Apostolic Fathers, pg. 8). The works of the Apostolic Fathers, for the most part, concern themselves with the most part on practical matters relating to practice and discipline. We can glean doctrinal positions from the writings, but that is not the purpose of the writers.
The question might then arise that if none of the individual Apostolic Fathers provided a complete doctrinal road map, then why not go on to the third and fourth century writers to find the “earliest writings of those with all current Christadelphian views.” That is easily answered also by a quick history lesson. The doctrines of the first century ecclesia gradually were lost (or more accurately systematically and intentionally destroyed) by the later church. For example, at the beginning of the third century, the majority of Christians believed in one God and Jesus Christ as His son (the so-called Arians we discussed last week). By the end of the third century, the Trinitarians were the majority. This is not the only change, but the tip of the iceberg so to speak. The Platonists (followers of the pagan philosopher Plato) and Neo-Platonists introduced myriads of new ideas into the Christian church.
In fact, the doctrines of the third and fourth century church were so different from those of the Apostolic Fathers, that the church had to come up with plan to handle them. People like Athanasius simply dismissed the Apostolic Fathers as “unworthy of the mysteries of the fourth century.” (ibid., pg. 3) Later writers of the fifth and sixth century, created a theology (that is still adhered to today) that said the early church of Peter, Paul, John, James and the Apostolic Fathers was immature and incomplete. It took hundreds of years to develop a better church with better doctrines and better practices. This insolent doctrine which places later “improvements” to the church above those of Christ’s beloved Apostles bestowed with the Holy Spirit is not even worth addressing. However, the most insidious development relating to the Apostolic Fathers was that their works were either ignored or rewritten. “The simplest solution to the problem presented by the ‘bridge’ of the Apostolic Fathers between the New Testament and the Platonic or Neoplatonic theology of later times was either to neglect their writings or to rewrite them in light of later tradition. The last of these three solutions was the one most generally accepted, and the following results were obtained.” (Ibid., pg. 3) It was not until the seventeenth century that the fraud created and perpetuated by mainstream Christianity was uncovered. This testimony alone gives us ample evidence why we cannot look to third and fourth century “Christian” writers to give us insight into primitive Christianity. Not only had they changed it, they were purposefully and systematically seeking to eradicate any evidence of it.
For this reason, we must focus on the Apostolic Fathers for the answer to the question as posed as later writers give us little insight into primitive Christianity.
We will have more to say on this next week, Lord willing,
Have a great week!
The quotations come from The Apostolic Fathers: A Translation and Commentary, by Robert M. Grant, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1964. The jacket describes Dr. Grant as “one of the nation’s leading Protestant theological scholars. Today he is the Chairman of the Department of New Testament of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.”
