thus related to the Apologists of the middle of the 2nd century, the
Epistle to Diognetus has also points of contact with one of the most
practical and least literary writings found among our Apostolic Fathers,
viz. the homily originally known as the Second Epistle of Clement (for
this ascription, as for other details, see CLEMENTINE LITERATURE). The
recovery of its concluding sections in the same MS. which brought the
_Didache_ to light, proves beyond question that we have here the
earliest extant sermon preached before a Christian congregation, about
A.D. 120-140 (so J.B. Lightfoot). Its opening section, recalling to its
hearers the passing of the mists of idolatry before the revelation in
Jesus Christ, is markedly similar in tone and tenor to passages in the
Epistle to Diognetus. Far closer, however, are the affinities between
the homily and the _Shepherd of Hermas_, "the first Christian allegory,"
which as a literary whole dates from about A.D. 140, but probably
represents a more or less prolonged prophetic activity on the part of
its author, the brother of Pius, the Roman bishop of his day (c.
139-154). In both the primary theme is repentance, as called for by
serious sins, after baptism has placed the Christian on his new and
higher level of responsibility. Thus both are hortatory writings, the
one argumentative in form, the other prophetic, after the manner of
later Old Testament prophets whose messages came in visions and
similitudes. This prophetic and apocalyptic note, which characterizes
Hermas among the Apostolic Fathers (though there are traces of it also
in the _Didache_ and in Ignatius, _ad Eph._ xx.), is a genuinely
primitive trait and goes far to explain the vogue which the _Shepherd_
enjoyed in the generations immediately succeeding, as also the influence
of its disciplinary policy, which is its prophetic "burden" (see HERMAS,
SHEPHERD OF).

We come finally to the anonymous _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ and
Papias's _Exposition of Oracles of the Lord_, so far as this is known to
us. The former, besides embodying catechetical instruction in Christian
conduct (the "Two Ways"), which goes back in substance to the early
apostolic age and is embodied also in "Barnabas," depicts in outline the
fundamental usages of church life as practised in some conservative
region (probably within Syria) about the last quarter of the 1st century
and perhaps even later. The whole is put forth as substantially the
apos