As the testimony of the Fathers is often appealed to as authority upon various unscriptural positions, it is well to understand the nature of such authority, that we may give it that weight only to which it is entitled. In an article in the Bible Examiner, Vol. IX, No. 4, we find evidence on this point. In that article the Fathers are disproved as being authority upon the Life and Death Question. But if their authority is not good, it is equally applicable to other questions also: it is entitled to no more weight when it favors the assumption that the first day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord, than it is when it goes to prove the equally unscriptural view that the soul is immortal. From the article in question, we quote as follows:—
That must be a bad cause which requires such testimony to sustain it, in the absence of all scriptural evidence!
But in reference to these Fathers, I will remark, that their writings are not to be relied upon. The five Fathers who flourished in the first century, were Barnabas, Hermas, Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp.
The first of these quoted by Mr. Lee, is St. Clement. This clement, if I mistake not, is claimed as one of the Popes of Rome, by Catholic authority. They place Peter in the chair first, then Linus, who transferred it to Anacletus, then Clement. Eusebius, book iii, chap. 2, page 82; chap. 13, page 100.
Speaking of the writings of Clement, Du Pin, who is regarded as an authentic Roman Catholic historian, proves them to be spurious; because, first, ‘The second epistle of St. Clement directed to St. James, speaks of the Ostiarii or door-keepers, arch-deacons, that were not then introduced into the church;’ 2d, ‘This letter mentions sub-deacons, an order not then established in the church.’ p. 584.
But, in relation to all, or most, of these writings of the apostolic Fathers, I will again refer to Du Pin. “Criticism is a kind of torch, that lights and conducts us, in the obscure tracts of antiquity, by making us able to distinguish truth from falsehood, history197from fable, and antiquity from novelty. ’Tis by this means, that in our times we have disengaged ourselves from an infinite number of very common errors into which our fathers fell for want of examining things by the rules of true criticism. For it is a surprising thing to consider how many spurious books we find in antiquity; nay, even in the first ages of the church.” He then proceeds to give the reasons which prompted persons thus to publish “Spurious Books,” the first of which is, ‘the malice of heretics; who, to give the greater reputation to their heresies, composed several books, which they attributed to persons of great reputation, &c. “And thus the first heretics devised false Gospels, false Acts, and false Epistles of the Apostles, and their Disciples,” &c.
Mr. Hinton says of these Fathers, that “There are no writings of these venerable men that can be safely relied on as the productions of their pens, except perhaps, the epistle of Clement; and the reader has seen the disposition we make of his writings. Furthermore, he says, “Indeed, such was the state both of literature and morals, in the fourth and subsequent centuries, that the favorite occupation of the Monks of those days, seems to have been first to write the most ridiculous nonsense by way of indicating their literary taste, and then fraudulently to attach to it the name of some eminent Father of the first or second century, by way of proving the high state of their moral sensibility.”
Mosheim says—“The epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew,” &c. “The ‘Shepherd of Hermas,’ was composed in the second century by Hermes, who was brother of Pius, bishop of Rome.”