They are five in number,
Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. Many able writers, as
well of the Roman as of the Anglican communion, have discussed at large
the genuineness of these writings; and have come to very different
results. Some critics are of opposite and extreme opinions, others
ranging between them with every degree and shade of variation. Some of
these works have been considered spurious; others have been pronounced
genuine; though, even these have been thought to be, in many parts,
interpolated. The question, however, of their genuineness, though deeply
interesting in itself, will not affect their testimony with {73} regard
to the subject before us[20]. They were all in existence before the
Council of Nicaea; and we shall probably not be wrong in assigning to the
first two a date at the very lowest computation not less remote than the
middle of the second century; somewhere, it may be, at the furthest,
about one hundred years after the death of our Lord. (A.D. 130-150.)
With all their errors and blemishes and interpolations taken at the
worst, after every reasonable deduction for defects in matter, taste,
and style, the writings which are ascribed to the Apostolic Fathers are
too venerable for their antiquity, too often quoted with reverence and
affection by some who have been the brightest ornaments of the Christian
Church, and possess too copious a store of genuine evangelical truth,
sound principle, primitive simplicity, and pious sentiment, to be passed
over with neglect by any Catholic Christian.
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