Early Christian Writings. The Apostolic Fathers

These writings, new translated from Greek, are the earliest and most venerable examples of the mass of ecclesiastical literature produced in the first centuries A.D. They are the work of a group known as the Apostolic Fathers, who faithfully preserved the Apostolic teaching and tradition between the time of the Apostles and the late second century. Most of their writings take the form of epistles: those of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp, for example, are warmly human and affectionate, while the anonymous "Epistle to Diognetus" and the "Epistle of Barnabas" are more impersonal. All, however, have a genuine pastoral concern -- they are interested more in people than ideas, in practice more than dogma.