2022 NAPS Presidential Address: How Shaky a Foundation: The Apostolic Fathers

Abstract:

The advent of canonized texts in the post-Constantinian church led to the widespread assumption that specifically approved literature reflected general Christian orthodoxy. The danger that non-canonical literature posed to this process was to provide an avenue by which quasi-acceptable views could enter ecclesiastical theology via courses such as catechetical instruction and teaching from episcopal leaders. The Apostolic Fathers reflect this very process. Those who study these writings today are warned not simply to presume specific locations or dates for their use in antiquity since many such writings came to influence the growth of ecclesiastical power and ideas within contexts that have been lost to our knowledge. This paper counsels researchers not to take such literature lightly nor to presume the influence it may have had within the early patristic sphere.