Just-So Stories About the Early Church

 Passing On the Apostolic Faith

One of the myths perpetrated by modern Unbelieving New Testament scholars is that orthodoxy in the early church is a myth.  The thesis is that there was no orthodoxy--only a plethora of different, competing, and contradictory theologies.  "Orthodoxy" only came about with certain factions subsequently winning control of the Church, which then proscribed and repressed competing (earlier) theologies. 

This thesis is yet another case of a good story unsupported by the facts.  The data shows that right from the beginning, the Church operated with a Rule of Faith--which was a summary of the teachings of Scripture.  Andreas J. Kostenberger puts the record straight:

The church fathers saw their role as propagators, or conduits, of this unified and unifying theological standard.  They used the nomenclature of "handing down" to describe their role.  Their self-perceived calling was to take what they had received from the apostles and had it down to their generation and posterity.  This idea of propagating what was received appears as early as Clement of Rome (AD 96) and Ignatius (AD 110) who encouraged their readers to remain in the teachings of Christ and the apostles. . . . Not only did the early Fathers see themselves as proclaiming the gospel, but they also viewed themselves as the guardians of the message. 

The origin of this theological standard that the Fathers passed on was perceived to be the Old Testament.  The Fathers taught that the gospel originated with the Old Testament prophets, whose message was taken up by the apostles who, like the prophets, were sent by God.

This self-understanding stands in marked contrast to second-century sects that sought to strip the gospel of its Old Testament roots.  Rather than being devoted to and dependent on the teaching of the apostles, these groups held that secretly revealed knowledge about Jesus trumped historical and theological continuity. [Dan Brown is a modern exponent of this ideology: the secret is the real.]  The Fathers, on the other hand, taught that the Rule of Faith originated with the Old Testament prophetic message, which was fulfilled in Jesus and proclaimed by the apostles.  The Fathers, in turn, guarded this message and passed it on to others, handing the baton to subsequent generations of believers. 

What happened to the Rule of Faith after the Fathers passed it along?  Its contents, that is, the core gospel message, made its way into the third and fourth-century creeds. 

Andreas J. Kostenberger and Michael J. Kruger, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Nottingham: Apollos/Inter-varsity Press, 2010), p. 55f.