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Why is the Second Century important for a Christian? · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schwingfelder Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology at the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Today we're going to ask the question: why is the second century important for a Christian?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we're fortunate to have uh Dr.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Sean Wilhite to join us uh for this discussion.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: He currently teaches at California Baptist University in Riverside, California, and also at Gateway Seminary.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: And he serves as director for the Center for Ancient Christian Studies.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: He is a co-editor along with uh Dr.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Paul Hartog on the Apostolic Fathers commentary series being published uh with Cascade.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: He is also the series editor for studies of patristic theology and spirituality with Baylor University Press.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: John is also a family man.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: He's been married 18 years to his wife Allison.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Together they have two children, Mercy as well as Caden.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, Sean, we're very glad to have you uh on Centrally Speaking.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the show.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: It it really is a delight to be here, Drake, and and happy to happy to be with you.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Glad that we can carry on this uh discussion uh together.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: Most people in in the church and outside of the church uh think of uh Christianity as more of a first century thing.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: After all, that's the time when Jesus lived.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: The apostles did mission work, such as Paul and others, and the New Testament letters uh were written during that time as well.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Most know very little about the second century.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, uh many call it in Christian history the forgotten century.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe you could just uh provide some parameters for us, uh Sean.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: What were some of the key events that took place in the second century?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Also, maybe you could answer who was ruling uh the Roman Empire at that time and just whether it was a stable environment.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness, it and it's a it's a good question simply to start off with that, because that's part of my story, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: That that was part of my story early on.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: I thought the Christian faith was solely confined to the New Testament, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew to Revelation, and there were no other Christian-like documents outside of that.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I stumbled into a set of literature in my master's program for the first time and thought, oh my word, there really is a world of Christian thinkers that knew the apostles, that probably saw some of these key figures that we are familiar with in the New Testament.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that discovery in my master's program essentially that was the gateway, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: That was the gateway to this world opening up uh in the second century, the third century, so forth and so on.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Namely because part of my early understanding was we have the Bible and then we have Martin Luther with the Reformation.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And like I know about that stuff, but I don't know anything in between in this 1500-year period.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's actually part of the reason why I've tried to devote a full career to learning more, writing on, reading for my own spiritual edification, so much of the literature that would we would qualify as Christian literature and Christian thinkers, but that touches the completion of the canon or what we were revelation, right?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as revelation ends, what's beyond that?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of yeah, wanting to to learn and to read and to be somewhat informed by them.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what what is actually happening in the second century?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's going to be a really good question and a really big question, essentially to set the scene for the Apasak fathers, other second century writers.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh what I want to do is just kind of highlight a few emperors, maybe a few events, and then a few Christian thinkers, just to kind of get pockets.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there we go.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Please do in the second century.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: This term was coined in in the 16th century, I believe.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's the five good emperors, and that term was coined in the in the 16th century, namely because under five emperors, we have or we see relative peace within the Roman Empire.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean that they weren't in wars.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: What it means is that there's no civil wars, and the Hox Romana is kind of flourishing with within this this time.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we have Nerva, we have Trajan, we have Hadrian, we have Antonius Pius, and then Marcus Aurelius.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: If anybody is familiar with the movie Gladiator, right, I love the movie Gladiator.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: The setting of that movie is with Marcus Aurelius and his death, and then the rise of Commodus, the next emperor.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: That would be kind of a neat touch point for Cenophiles.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: What's interesting about the five good emperors is that this is the height of the Roman Empire.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: After Marcus Aurelius, scholars recognize that the Roman Empire is then on decline.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Shortly thereafter, you have several civil wars.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Shortly thereafter, you have uh a couple more emperors that are somewhat short-lived, and then you ultimately have the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: But scholars recognize the turn from Marcus Aurelius to Commodus at the end of the second century is somewhat the fall of the Roman Empire.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so those are big Roman figures.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Some other neat events, maybe the Hadrian Wall was built during this time.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness, you have the the most exhaustive expansion of the Roman Empire in this time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So they are down in North Africa, they are touching on what we would now know as modern day Spain, it's touching on what we would know as modern day Germany, and it's moving eastward, and it and then it it completes at that point.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: At that point, it begins to shrink.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they're losing part of those edges.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's we are in the Mediterranean world, and the world is centered upon the Roman Empire.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is the biggest that it will be in the second century.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have Christian writers, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: We have several, and this is kind of a neat, a neat set of thinkers in this era.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: You have Clement of Rome, he was a bishop in Rome.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: You have Ignatius of Antioch, who is uh we will talk about probably later today, where he is in the in Asia Minor.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: We have Justin Martyr, maybe more or less known as Justin, the martyr, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So martyr is not necessarily his last name, but it was kind of a nickname given to him.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he is he's essentially writing to the emperor, not only trying to convert the emperor, but also pleading to allow Christians to remain alive, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a plea, it's it's what's called an apology.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: A few other authors that maybe are on the fringes, Tatian uh will be on the fringes.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: You have Marcion.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's in the second century, he may or may not be known as a heretic per se, but it's later centuries that Christian thinkers will then provide that heretical name to Marcion.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'll stop there.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much more to unpack.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, that just gives us some big anchors to touch as touch points.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it does give us some some key key people to think about.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, how about something about the Roman Empire?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's stable at this time, correct?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's it's it's quite stable, quite stable.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: You have uh those five good emperors, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Those are right.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's again a just kind of looking back, they weren't net, they didn't call themselves the good emperors, but these emperors provided relative stability in the second century for Roman people, but also their their reigns are quite long, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you were to look at their dates, they're longer than what's going to precede them.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think shortly after Marcus Aurelius, there's a given year where there are multiple emperors that are fighting one another and rising up within a single year.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's anywhere from three to five.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember the the the number right now, but it's it's an interesting tidbit that civil war begins to take place after Marcus Aurelius, and there's relatively none of that during the second early part of the second century, which means it's going to be relatively peaceful in the land.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: But uh with the peace in the Roman Empire, was there peace at the church as well, or was the church experiencing something else?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's exactly right.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, peace in the land, simply I mean by that is there's just no civil war.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean that there's no persecutions happening, slavery is still in full swing, and it would be peaceful for you if you're Roman.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be peaceful for you if you're not Roman.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: The Christian persecutions in the second century, it's both local in the sense that you're gonna see cities or towns that are persecuting Christians, but it's across the Roman Empire that this is happening, it's just not happening from top down.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like the the emperor is not giving the edict, go persecute Christians.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: That happens a little bit later in the third century.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's global in the sense of persecution is happening across the Roman Empire, but it's not global in the sense that it's coming from an edict, like an emperor-like edict.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, there's a lot of persecution that's happening.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: We can, I would love to double tap on that a bit and and explore that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, uh we can.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're thinking of uh Polycarp, uh, who uh was uh the great uh a great Christian martyr and Ignatius, uh both in the second century.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh maybe you have a word you want to say about uh about these gentlemen.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Polycarp.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I remember the first time reading Polycarp's story, it was really moving because he he's he's an old man, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And he and he's he's recognized as eighty, eighty, eighty plus years old when you're reading the book.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's that he offers his age, and as he's getting ready to be captured, he has this line that for 80 years the Lord has done me no harm.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Why would I now do him harm by denying him?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he then goes off to his martyrdom.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually it's actually a really beautiful kind of confidence to have in God in the face of death.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: I hope we, you know, I don't know what would happen as death is knocking on our door.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Will we maintain our faith?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we can read stories like Polycarp, who did.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say it's a real jewel from the second century, that uh important that testimony, isn't it?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, it really is.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Something that uh is important and shouldn't be forgotten.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you were saying about Ignatius.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, and this is fun for me to talk with you.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're the Ignatius expert.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: I would I would love to hear more from the Yeah, but I'm interviewing you, so yeah, that's right.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Ignatius, goodness.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: So he's in Antioch traveling uh westward and going through several cities, writing on his essentially the journey to his death.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he's writing to several churches that he has come in contact with and a and one particular figure, namely Polycarp.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Polycarp that we just that we just talked about, he dies roughly 115-ish, right?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna I'll let you correct us.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 117.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's kind of the general, like the general kind of point.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: But he he dies under Trajan, Trajan's reign.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: But again, his letters, he has eight letters all written within a couple of weeks of one another.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: As he's on his way to martyrdom, it feels like uh this is my word, but it but it feels like it's a it's his last will and testament and and word of encouragement, uh word of encouragement to these to these churches.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's correcting some, he's offering encouragement to some, he's offering a model of faithfulness to some, he's offering a model of this is what the Christian life is.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: He he actually has some uh beautiful comments on the person of Christ uh in his in his letters.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting because he's now he might be among the first to try to be balancing how do we talk about the two natures of Christ.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I realize his his grammar is not necessarily two natures, but he's talking about Jesus is both from the virgin and yet from heaven.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: He is suffering death, but he cannot be suffered.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so he's he it just has these beautiful early comments about how to how to how to speak of Christ.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I remember reading one particular passage, and I was confused for the longest of times about it, but it's this beautiful um uh picture of spirituality, and he and he he evokes the image of a poly system.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so as the father is up high, the son is the block, the spirit is the rope, and it draws us up into God's life.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like this interesting image.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: I and I almost wonder like, is he watching construction on the side of the road?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and then trying to think theologically as he's looking at this image.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's just kind of a neat picture.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, it's to hear Ignatius's uh letters uh uh going at length about uh what a martyr would be uh anticipating.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's that's pretty unique uh in the second century.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and frequent frequently Christian Christians don't think about that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh most most think that it's a sudden thing, but uh Ignatius gives us uh seven letters, yeah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah, right.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm supposed to be able to do that.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: There are other seven.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: I said eight, I said eight just a moment ago.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Seven.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Middle recession, that's where I would land.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and me too.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: And me too.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Christians were still writing other things in the second second century.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: Some were being uh seen to be important to the church and others were not.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm thinking of a lot of these uh non-canonical gospels uh being written during that time.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: How was the church distinguishing what was valuable to preserve and what was uh worth uh letting letting go by?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness, this is such a good question because uh pertinent to almost every Christian.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: How did we get our Bible?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's what that's what's gonna be the center of this question.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And what was that story of how we have what we have?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: We give thanks to God for preservation, we give thanks to God for providence, we give thanks to God for the Spirit who guides Christians even in our imperfections.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: By the time we get to the fourth century, you have both Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I realize I'm jumping outside of the second century, but this would at least be like the tail end and cumulative effort.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Eusebius offers four general categories.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's not saying this is what you ought to do, he's looking back, reflecting on what has the church done.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: In these four categories, he'll have category one, this book is scripture, and no one disputes it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Second category is we're pretty sure this is scripture and we're still debating about it.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, for example, um, Esther is going to be in this category because it never includes the name of God.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that threw off early Christians.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: You have Song of Solomon, which feels like it's erotica.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So why would we include that in the scriptures?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: We have Daniel, which is highly prophetic.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: It has weird and odd images similar to the book of like similar to the book of Revelation.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it has that odd feel.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So there are some of these books that were recognized as scripture in that category two, but the questions of should we include it or should we not include it?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have category three.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Category three is kind of interesting because it says it's not scripture, but it is useful to the church.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: The the example that I bring up for my students is let's say you have a new Christian coming to church, you're gonna hand them a couple of books.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is probably gonna be a Bible, one of them is probably going to be kind of a small book on what's the Christian life.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so, as the new believer is receiving these books, they might not know how to discern the weight of what book is what.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so this third category says it's not scripture, but it is useful for your Christian life.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so in this, we have the Didicate.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: The Didicet was named for uh being a in that third category.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then the fourth category is heretical books.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Those are those which are the church has deemed as heretical and outside what would be Christian doctrine.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: So let's now jump back into the second century, because there's now a couple other, there's now a couple other categories on how did they choose the right sources to to draw from.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: One of them was can some of these New Testament, what is known as the New Testament now, can some of these sources be tied back to eyewitnesses?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Can they be tied back to the apostles?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do they cohere with literature that we already know is true?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a variety of other kind of criteria, but that that kind of is a a quick snapshot into that discussion.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: So some books were being weeded out and others uh were being uh uh still decided on as it was a lengthy, a lengthy process.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh not uh process.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Not like uh Dan Brown uh presented in the Da Vinci Code with like uh 12 uh people off in some corner of uh the Roman Empire making all these decisions and getting into big fights and arguments.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness, no, it's not.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, goodness.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting to me how how popular that theory has become.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't match the evidence, regrettably.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: No, it doesn't, and all the uh writings uh that uh have incorporated uh scripture like uh Irenaeus uh and Justin Martyr, and then even someone like uh uh Clement uh of Rome and first Clement uh quoting so many sections of the Old and New Testament.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's right.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: Some of our listeners might have heard of a group of Christian writings called the Apostolic Fathers.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Can you tell us uh how they got to be named as such and uh what books are they?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness, the apostolic fathers, goodness, what a neat name given to them.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: A helpful kind of reminder of where they're situated is Apostolic Fathers.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And again, this is me just thinking pedagog uh uh thinking in terms of just how to teach this, not not necessarily this is a name given to them, but the apostolic fathers, these are a group of people that are after the apostles can look at them as their fathers, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's just kind of a a quick analogy, so it helps situate their ordering.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: The apostolic fathers, that name first appears in the 17th century, so it's not even a name found in in the ancient world, but it's a 17th century figure found some of the sources of what we would now call as the Apostolic Fathers and put them together and recognize them as early second century texts.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Those then are starting to travel together.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: The Apostolic Fathers includes you have Clement of Rome.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: He writes one letter, so 1 Clement.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's another book called Second Clement.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's debated whether or not Clement actually wrote this, but the the person who did write it claimed to be Clement.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have Ignatius of Antioch, which we have already mentioned.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have Polycarp, uh, which is this one's particularly interesting to me, and and those familiar with the New Testament will be able to make this connection.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Polycarp writes to the Philippian church, and in that letter loosely tries to explain what Paul meant by righteousness in the book of Philippians.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't want to call it a first commentary on Philippians, but it is trying to offer explanation of a Pauline idea.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have the Didic, you have Barnabas, you have Shepherd of Hermos, you have the fragments of uh Papias.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's like one small, small, small, small fragment that sometimes gets put into this by Quadratus.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then I don't know if I mentioned him.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: You then have Diagnetus.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: And these are these this set of literature kind of got put together in a in a book or put together as a collection much later on in history.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's not as if in the second century they were all traveling around.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it's essentially these are this is a collection of second century texts or or texts associated with the late first century and uh second century.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Several of these are beautiful writings.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but much later, like 1600s, 1700s, when this uh collection came together.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was I can the the date is interesting.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: It uh it's 1672 when this word first appears.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an interesting kind of history of how that that came about.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: So one one small story here about how Diagnetus was found.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is such an interesting story.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I believe it's in.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: In the 18th or 19th century, when Diognetus was discovered, the manuscript was found in a fish market and it wrapped a fish.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so the person who preserved that text and then was able to discover this is Diognetus.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a really interesting kind of story there.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: So this group, the Apostolic Fathers, uh, it shouldn't be seen as the Bible in any way.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: No, right?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, not the Bible.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, but it but all of them are Christians writing to the early Christian church, besides one book, Diagnetus, is a Christian writing to a potential convert.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Modern Christian readers can read them for spiritual benefit as a window into second century, but certainly not to be conflated with what is divinely given to us in the scriptures.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: Are these books uh mostly valuable for Catholics or the Orthodox uh or are they valuable for Protestants too?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: How would you answer that?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: What a question.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the what a question.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I try to help my students understand is that the early church doesn't belong to one denomination primarily, because the denominational splits were after the early church.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: The early church is my heritage too as a Protestant, right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: The early church is my heritage to as a Christian.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yes, that it doesn't, these these texts do not belong to one particular denomination, but are reflective of this is what early Christian development looked like that frankly, Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox can all benefit from.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all benefit from.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, perhaps that's some of the motivation you have behind uh editing uh this Apostolic Father's Commentary series.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh can you tell us about the series, where it is, and uh why you feel it's so important?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, goodness, what a what a question to you.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is it's enjoyable, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's enjoyable and and just kind of a window into my life.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: I enjoy writing.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm confident you enjoy writing as well.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's part of our the DNA of of things I enjoy doing.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: The the act of discovery is so motivating for me.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm drawn to discovering new things about the early Christian faith, about writing about this early Christian faith.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned early on that it's the second century is often known as the forgotten century.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of my experience as a master student really paved the way for my career.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so part of me wanting to be a series editor as well as a writer is that as a series editor, I want to bring together several people who are already researching in these in this literature and help them provide outlets more or less in a kind of series that coheres with what they're currently researching.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: You had mentioned the Apostolic Fathers commentary series.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Really grateful to be at the helm of this along with Paul Hartog.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we have several books in the series already.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's published with Cascade.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote the volume on The Didic, William Varner wrote the volume on Second Clement, Mike Spiegel with Carolyn Buey, wrote the commentary on Shepherd of Hermos.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: We then have Drake Williams, which I'm really grateful for, writing on Ignatius of Antioch.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: That manuscript is near complete in the editing process.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh forthcoming, we'll have books on uh Papias, Diagnetus, Paul Hartog uh will be writing on first Clement, and then we'll have another commentary on Polycarp, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Polycarp's literature.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we're halfway done, halfway more to go.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why a commentary series on this?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, part of it is to help readers understand the text, help readers understand its role in second century, help readers glean what they can as they would commentaries of a scriptural book.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's simply a guide to help them understand the literature.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's the Apostolic Fathers commentary series with Cascade.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: And these uh commentaries are not very large, uh, but they're condensed.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, it and so, in other words, we we hope you don't have to know Greek, right, to under to read this commentary.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's going to be one of the things in there, even though there's going to be Greek found in this book, and I don't want that to shoe off people.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: When it's proper, Greek is present.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: But for the most part, our goals are a literary reading of this text, a literary reading with theological ideas, trying to understand the theology of the text, and so we can have a window into early Christian theology, and then where proper, trying to situate it within its historical, historical settings, which is honestly very difficult.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's very difficult with some of the literature.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: You wrote uh one of the pilot books for this series on the Diddeke for uh our listeners.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: What's what's in the Diddica?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: What are some of its contents and why why do you think that document is so important?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: The Didike is one of those books that I found early on, and I say this jokingly, I can't get away from it.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I've come back to it.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Many can't.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know, and so I've I've read it, I've come back to it.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I wrote the commentary on this.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm writing this will be much later, and I've I'll be writing a Greek handbook on the Didic in another series.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, goodness.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also doing kind of a another project that's adjacent to the Didic.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's my that's my draw to early Christianity, even though I do things, I I do have projects deeper in the patristic era.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, the Didica.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's real simple.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's often understood to be a church manual.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's the best term for it, but I understand why scholars want to use it.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: The first six chapters are about ethics, the next four chapters are about baptism, prayers, the Eucharist.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: The latter end of the chapters are what do we do with teachers who are traveling from town to town?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're like these itinerant Christian teachers.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: What do we do with them?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, like the ethics of what we do there, and then it ends with like a mini eschatology or a mini set of exhortations and descriptions of what the end times look like.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it sounds quite reminiscent of Matthew uh uh 24 and the Olivet Discourse.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: I would be of the general persuasion that the Didic comes after the writing of the Gospel of Matthew, and the author of the Didic has access to the Gospel of Matthew because there are so many allusions to or citations of that one gospel, and honestly, not others, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: So there's not there's not an appeal to other gospel material, and so it reflects a Matthean or Matthew-like tone in some of its sections.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty neat.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: And thus it becomes a witness for early Christian uh worship in the second second century.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we baptism like we baptize like this, we pray like this.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: What do we do when we celebrate the Eucharist or or what uh some Protestants will call communion?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was this large meal, uh it was a liturgical meal and celebration and a series of recitations.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: The liturgy is beautiful.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the liturgy is really neat to read.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: So then maybe getting back to the theme of this uh podcast, why is it so important?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it shows an early worship experience for for Christians.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, not that uh the New Testament doesn't have uh worship ideas within it, but not like a worship manual in some ways, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, very much so.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very much so.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the worship was multifold, the worship looked different, community to community.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: You have uh uh there's an example coming to mind.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's a there's uh a letter from Pliny, who is a northern uh governor, writing to Trajan about what to do with this small gathering of Christians.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: They gather together, they are singing, they're teaching.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: What do we do with them?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have uh some of these Christian witnesses on what their worship actually looks like.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so Christian worship was proper to the second century Christian expression, it's which is really neat to learn about, to read, and to kind of experience that way.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe this is fair then to sum up.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: If we really wish to see where Christians have gone after the time of the apostles, then we ought to make our way into the apostolic fathers and into a greater understanding of the second century.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is, yeah, well stated.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I wholeheartedly agree.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Sean, I'm so very thankful for your your time uh to answer some questions about uh the second century today.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we wish you all the best as uh you continue your editing work as well as uh your teaching.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Drake, thanks so much.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: This was a delight, and just wish nothing but the best for you and and those uh those that you minister to.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, Sean, and to you too.