FATHERS, the name usually given to the principal writers of the early church. Those who were contemporary with the apostles, and are supposed to have been their disciples, are called Apostolic Fathers. Their works are not numerous, and they have unfortunately come down to us in a state which renders them very little worthy of confidence. The genuineness of some of them has been justly suspected, because it is well known that writings were forged in their name for the purpose of giving authority to particular doctrines or rites; and there can be no doubt that even their genuine writings were interpolated to promote the hierarchical interest which arose in the church.
The earliest of the writings ascribed to the Apostolic Fathers is the apocryphal epistle which, in the second century, was known in the Alexandrian Church under the name of BARNABAS, the companion and fellow-labourer of the apostle Paul. The design of this epistle was to diminish the respect which the Judaizing members of the church entertained for the peculiar institutions and rites of the Mosaic economy, and to show that these were not binding upon Christians. It does not contain any hint that the author wished to have it supposed that he was Barnabas; and the spirit and style of the epistle indicate that the writer was a Jew of the Alexandrian school who had embraced Christianity.
Next to Barnabas we place CLEMENT, who was bishop of the church at Rome about the end of the first century, and is believed to be the same Clement whom Paul (Philip. iv. 3) calls his fellow-labourer, and one of those whose names are in the Book of Life. The "Epistle of the Church of God sojourning at Rome to the Church of God at Corinth," which
Fathers. bears the name of this father, was written about the year A.D. 96, and has been termed the most important monument of this apostolical age remaining to us, and is probably the most ancient of uninspired Christian writings. It was held in such high respect during the first centuries that it was read at public worship in many of the churches along with the scriptures of the New Testament. The object of the writer was to allay some internal dissensions in the Corinthian church, and to conciliate the minds of the people to their pastors, some of whom they had expelled from their offices, undeservedly as Clement asserts, and had thereby introduced much confusion into the church. This epistle is genuine in the main, but it has been subjected to several important interpolations. A portion of what is termed a second genuine epistle of Clement has been preserved, but it is manifestly only the fragment of a homily. Two other epistles ascribed to this father, and termed Recognitions, have been preserved in the Syrian Church. They are circular letters addressed particularly to those Christians of both sexes who lived in the state of celibacy. These epistles, however, are found nowhere cited before the fourth century, and they bear every mark of having been forged in some Eastern church about the close of the second or during the course of the third century.
Under the name of HERMAS (whom some suppose to be the same as the person mentioned in Paul's epistle to the Romans (chap. xvi. 14) we have a work entitled "The Shepherd," because in the second book an angel, the appointed guardian of Hermas, is introduced in the character of a shepherd. The work, which was written originally in Greek, but has been preserved for the most part in a Latin translation, was held in high repute among the Greek writers of the second century, and is cited by Irenæus under the title of "The Scripture." It consists of three books, in the first of which are four visions, in the second twelve commands, in the third ten similitudes. The first and third parts are very fanciful, yet they were not perhaps unsuited to the genius of the countries and age to which they were addressed; the second contains some excellent moral precepts, and all abound with paraphrastic allusions to the books of the New Testament.