10 Facts About Apostolic Fathers

Apostolic Fathers, known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, were core Christian theologians among the Church Fathers who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles, or to have been significantly influenced by them.

Some writings found among the Apostolic Fathers appear to have been as highly regarded as some of the writings which became the New Testament.

Label Apostolic Fathers has been applied to these writers only since the 17th century, to indicate that they were thought of as representing the generation that had personal contact with the Twelve Apostles.

The earliest known use of the term "Apostolic Fathers" was by William Wake in 1693, when he was chaplain in ordinary to King William and Queen Mary of England.

The first English translation of the Apostolic Fathers' works was published in 1693, by William Wake, then rector of Westminster St James, later Archbishop of Canterbury.

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Apostolic Fathers was said to have been consecrated by Peter the Apostle, and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century.

Apostolic Fathers clearly identifies the local-church hierarchy composed of bishop, presbyters, and deacons and claims to have spoken in some of the churches through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Apostolic Fathers is the second after Clement to mention the Pauline epistles.

Apostolic Fathers rejected the Bishop's suggestion that the East use the Western date.

Apostolic Fathers's story has it that the flames built to kill him refused to burn him, and that when he was stabbed to death, so much blood issued from his body that it quenched the flames around him.