Publisher's Synopsis
In this book Jonathan Bayes takes us on a journey through the various reflections on the persecution of Christians and the Passion of Jesus Christ found amongst the Apostolic Fathers, the first generation of Christian writers after New Testament times. He studies eight books: The Epistle of Barnabas, The First Epistle of Clement of Rome, 2 Clement, The Didache, The Shpeherd of Hermas, the Letters of Ignatius, Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp. He demonstrates how the different writers focus their reflections on persecution differently, around past persecution, future persecution, present persecution, or merely theoretically. He brings out the teaching of these writers on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and discusses their relationship to the later patristic theological axiom of the impassibility of God.
