Page:A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (7th edition, 1896).djvu/88

 20  But in virtue of this conservatism the sub-apostolic age, though distinguished, was not divided from that which preceded it. It was natural that a break should intervene between the inspired Scriptures and the spontaneous literature of Christianity, between the teaching of Apostles and the teaching of philosophers; but it was no less natural that the interval should not be one of total silence. Some echoes of the last age still lived: some voices of the next already found expression. In this way the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are at once a tradition and a prophecy. By tone and manner they are united to the Scriptures; for their authors seem to instruct, and not to argue; and at the same time they prepare us by frequent exaggerations for the one sided systems of the following age.

The form of the earliest Christian literature explains its origin and object. The writings of the first Fathers are not essays, or histories, or apologies, but letters. They were not impelled to write by any literary motive, nor even by the pious desire of shielding their faith from the attacks of its enemies. An intense feeling of a new fellowship in Christ overpowered all other claims. As members of a great household—as fathers or brethren—they spoke to one another words of counsel and warning, and so found a natural utterance for the faith and hope and love which seemed to them the sum of Christian life.

With regard to the History of the Canon the Apostolic Fathers occupy an important place, undesignedly it may be, but not therefore the less surely. Their evidence indeed is stamped with the characteristics of their position, and implies more than it expresses; but even directly they say much. Within the compass of a few brief letters they