Apostolic Fathers: Dates they lived and other information.

Apostolic Fathers: Five kinds of Tradition.

1. "Whereas, therefore, in every question, which relates to life and conduct, not only teaching, but exhortation also is necessary; in order that by teaching we may know what is to be done, and by exhortation may be incited not to think it irksome to do what we already know is to be done; what more can I teach you, than what we read in the Apostle? For holy Scripture setteth a rule to our teaching, that we dare not "be wise more than it behoveth to be wise;" but be wise, as himself saith, "unto soberness, according as unto each God hath allotted the measure of faith." (Augustine, On the Good of Widowhood, 2)
   
   We don't question that Augustine, like Chrysostom and Jerome, believed in "unwritten customs and laws" passed down orally by the apostles. But as we have seen, these customs involve trivial matters like "drinking milk and honey after baptism". Having said this up front, we observe Augustine's attitude towards scripture. He clearly believes that we must abide within scripture. He comments that teaching more than scripture
2. "Receive, my children, the Rule of Faith, which is called the Symbol (or Creed). And when ye have received it, write it in your heart, and be daily saying it to yourselves; ... For this is the Creed which ye are to rehearse and to repeat in answer. These words which ye have heard are in the Divine Scriptures scattered up and down: but thence gathered and reduced into one, that the memory of slow persons might not be distressed; that every person may be able to say, able to hold, what he believes. For have ye now merely heard that God is Almighty? But ye begin to have him for your father, when ye have been born by the church as your Mother. (Augustine, On the Nicene Creed: a Sermon to the Catechumens, 1)
   
   Augustine, like all the fathers, believed that every phrase in the Nicene creed had its origin in the scripture, not some "unwritten oral tradition of the apostles". He calls the creed, "Rule of Faith" which was first used by Tertullian in 200 AD. The age of creed making is in full bloom! Today, every major denomination, including the Catholic and Orthodox believe their creeds are based directly upon the Bible. This of course cannot be true since they contradict both one another and the Bible itself!

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