The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

III. The Leading Spokesmen the Reflecting Witnesses

The history of prophetic interpretation is not a bare recital of impersonal facts and episodes, detached from the human factors. On the contrary, it is the pulsating life story of individuals and groups of individuals with their ideals and idiosyncrasies, their achievements and failures, their loyalties and betrayals. To no small degree, it is a succession of biographies of conspicuous Christian leaders. It often thrills and often disappoints, it exhilarates and it saddens—as the human frailties appear in the texture of the slowly woven fabric. PFF1 225.2

Only as we catch glimpses of the actual characters—and as we know something of their personal lives, and read their words in the setting of the determining circumstances of the day can we have a vivid realization of the advent hope and expectancy at the time. These writings are, indeed, practically the only contemporary records extant bearing on the point. Such is the justification, then, of the pronounced biographical element appearing in the testimonies of the witnesses to follow. PFF1 226.1

We now turn to the leading spokesmen of the Ante-Nicene period Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Julius Africanus, Origen, Cyprian, Victorinus, and Methodius—whose actual writings have been transmitted to us. Irrespective of the soundness or unsoundness of certain of their positions, these men are the reflectors of the prophetic teachings of their day, and the expounders of its stated opinions. ¹⁰ PFF1 226.2

It will be impossible, because of space limitations, to give all the documentary evidence that leads to certain very definite conclusions. Ofttimes these conclusions are reached from the cumulative evidence of scores of fragments not to be found in any single citation or any one comprehensive declaration. But the full weight of the cumulative testimony is expressed in the running narrative. ¹¹ PFF1 226.3

The larger and more accurate and authentic literature of the early apologists (c. 120-170) is quite different in scope and character from the meager writings of the Apostolic Fathers. This includes letters, chronicles, apologetics, alleged visions, tales. Systematic persecution was beginning, heresies were organizing, and philosophic controversies were developing with those trained in the schools of Athens or Alexandria. The apologists proclaimed Christianity to be the divine answer to the questionings of heathendom, as well as the antitype to the law and the hope of the prophets. They abstained from quoting Scripture in their addresses to the heathen. The arguments of philosophy and history were first brought forward, that men might not be blinded by the sudden light of Scripture. ¹² PFF1 226.4