The Radical Resurgence

A Study in the Writings of Ignatius and Cyprian

INTRODUCTION

Even a cursory reading of the post-apostolic fathers reveals how faintly influenced they were by the doctrine which had earlier so con­sumed the apostle Paul’s thought: justification by faith. This early literature reflects much more in­terest in matters of discipline, church polity and sacramental forms. In fact, as one modern his­torian puts it:

The pre-Augustinian church never heartily accepted St. Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith. Sometimes it was wholly ignored; at other times even when the formula was respected it was in­terpreted in a way which would have been expressed more natu­rally by saying that men are saved by repentance (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 Vol. ed. [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1941], p.132).

While the doctrine of justification by faith suffered at the hands of many different dogmas, the church’s adoption of mono-episcopacy (one-bishop-rule) played a pivotal role in keeping this central doctrine always on the periphery of the church’s attention.  The hasty abandonment by the second century church of the New Testament form of plural oversight for its own form of one-bishop-rule is important for at least two reasons.

First, one-bishop-rule appeared in a church largely ignorant of the im­plications of justification by faith. The spiritual hierarchy resulting from the one-bishop-rule witnesses to the lack of comprehension of the spiritual equality possessed by all believers because of Christ’s right­eousness imputed to them.