On the Dating of Various Early Christian Texts

The Shepherd of Hermas

In short: “The Shepherd of Hermas is a complex Christian apocalypse written in Greek in stages from ca. A.D. 90 to 150.”
(David E. Aune, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 521)

To expound on this: “As it appears today, this book contains three great parts: the Visions, the Mandates and the Similitudes (or Parables): it is the work of a compiler who brought together and retouched two pre-2nd-c. books, of which one (corresponding to Visions I-IV) was the work of a certain Hermas and the other (Vision V, Mandates and Similitudes) anonymous. Both works seem to have had Hebrew sources.”
(Pierre Nautin, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 2:220)

This hearkens back to an old scholarly theory which I have long found intriguing despite being unverifiable and outmoded:

“It would not be a very bold conjecture, that Hermas and his brother were elderly grandchildren of the original Hermas, the friend of St. Paul. The Shepherd, then, might be based upon personal recollections, and upon the traditions of a family which the spirit of prophecy had reproved, and who were monuments of its power.”
(Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:4)

This notion favoring an emphasis on earlier material aside, I tentatively appeal to the broader scholarly spectrum of circa 90-150.

Clement of Rome

To the Corinthians

“If the incidents mentioned in 1 Clement 1.1 refer to a persecution, then the most likely date for composition would be at Rome during the time of Domitian and the leadership of Clement (ca. 96).”
(Graydon F. Snyder, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 264)

And again:

“Composed probably ca. AD 96-98, just after Domitian’s persecution”
(Pier Franco Beatrice, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:549)

I therefore use the scholarly consensus date of circa 96 for Clement of Rome’s letter To the Corinthians.

The Epistle of Barnabas

In short: “The Epistle of Barnabas is usually dated 132-135, although an earlier date in the late 70s has had its champions, and 96-98 is a possibility. The internal evidence is inconclusive.”
(Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 168)

To expound on this: “Chronology rules out the traditional attribution to the Barnabas of Acts: the epistle postdates the destruction of the temple in 70 (see Barn. 16,3-4). If the foreseen reconstruction of the temple is that of the temple of Capitoline Jove, built by Hadrian on the ruins of the temple of Jerusalem in 131, the epistle must postdate this;

the interpretation of the passage is controversial, however, and could refer to either an eventual rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem or to the building of the temple in the hearts of the faithful. The epistle is ordinarily dated in the first three decades of the 2nd c.; Carleton Paget, however, indicates a probable date of composition between 96-98, under Nerva, hinted at in the obscure reference of Barn.

4,4-5 to the succession of kingdoms symbolized by the horn of the beast of Dan 7:7-8, 19-24.”
(Francesco Scorza Barcellona, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:333)

When I cite The Epistle of Barnabas I give the midrange, at circa 97.

Ignatius

The conventional dating: “Toward the end of the reign of Trajan (98-117), Ignatius was arrested and, like Paul (Acts 25:11), taken to Rome for judgement. . . . En route to Rome, Ignatius wrote seven letters.”
(Graydon F. Snyder, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 559)

Doubts regarding such dating: “The Chronicle of Eusebius mentions both the martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch and the letter of Pliny to Trajan around the tenth year of his reign (AD 107), but one can see in HE (3,33,36) that Eusebius did not have precise chronological information either for Ignatius of Antioch or Pliny. Eusebius merely wished to situate the two events approximately:

he placed the letter of Pliny under Trajan and hypothesized that Ignatius of Antioch had been arrested during the persecution which the letter of Pliny speaks of. Therefore, we cannot take this date as certain.”
(Pierre Nautin, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 2:317)

An alternative: “Conventionally Ignatius has been dated, following Eusebius, to the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan. This dating has often been disputed, and there are numerous attempts to assign his work to a later period in the second century, and to claim that the work of Ignatius is a forgery from that period, as well as numerous defenses of the conventional date.

However, there is something of a false dichotomy between an authentic Trajanic Ignatius and the later creation of a pseudepigrapher. On this basis, and on the basis of a web of other evidence, I have argued elsewhere that Ignatius is writing in the summer of 134, and that he is travelling in the entourage of the emperor Hadrian, who at the time was returning from Syria to Rome overland, having been engaged in fighting in the Bar Kosiba revolt in Palestine.

As such, I suggest, the letters are indeed authentic, but that they date from a later period in the second century than is generally reckoned, though not as late as some modern critics would suggest.”
(Alistair Stewart, Popular Patristics 49:15-16)

Pending additional peer review of Stewart’s theory, I tentatively date Ignatius’ letters to the conventional circa 107.

Polycarp

The modern patristic scholarship which I have at my disposal does not venture to date Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians . For this I have to refer back to the scholarship of the 1940s:

“A recent study has made it appear probable that what the manuscripts have handed down as the single letter of St. Polycarp to the Philippians is really composed of two letters to the same persons. The letter earlier in time would comprise chapters 13 and 14 of the traditional text.

This would have been a short note to the Philippians, written while St. Ignatius was still on his way to Rome for trial or, at least, before St. Polycarp had received any news of his death ( ca. 110). . . .
“Chapters 1 to 12 form the second letter supposed by the recent analysis of our text. This letter would be surely of later date since, in chapter 9, St. Ignatius is now considered as dead. . . . a date around 135 could be fairly conjectured.”
(Francis X. Glimm, Fathers of the Church

1:131-132)

“This two-letter theory separates Ch. 13 (with, or without, the postscript in 14)—’the Covering Note’ which accompanied the batch of Ignatian letters sent by Polycarp to the Philippians—from the rest of the letter, ‘the Crisis Letter,’ that is, Chapters 1-12, which were written at some later time in answer to a wish of the Philippians for an exhortation on Christian life in general and, no doubt, a word of counsel in a crisis that had come upon their community. . . .

“Since Ignatius visited Smyrna late in August, it follows that Polycarp’s note probably was penned some time in September of the same year.
“Twenty years or so later (about A.D. 135), the Philippians informed Polycarp of the joy they had experienced in welcoming Ignatius and his fellow prisoners during their stay in the city. Polycarp seizes upon this expression of joy as a fitting starting point for his admonitions.”
(James A. Kleist, Ancient Christian Writers 6:71-72)

As for the Martyrdom of Polycarp, these older sources gave various theories as to its dating, which persisted into late 20th century patristic scholarship:

“The date of Polycarp’s martyrdom is much controverted: between 155 and 159, in 166/7, or in 177.”
(Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 729)

My most current scholarly source, however, gives the following:

“Polycarp died a martyr’s death on 23 February 167. . . .
“Composed shortly after the death of the bishop of Smyrna in the form of a letter sent to the church of Philomelium, the Martyrdom of Polycarp was the first work entirely dedicated to describing the suffering of a martyr and, moreover, the first to use the title ‘martyr’ to refer to a Christian who had died for the faith.”
(Pierre Nautin,

Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:248)

Thus I date the epistle to circa 135, save for the last couple chapters at circa 107, and the account of his martyrdom to circa 167.

Second Clement

“difficult to date later than the mid-2nd c.”
(Pier F. Beatrice, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:550)

At least as early as circa 150, then. Not much else to go on in my scholarly sources.

Justin Martyr

The accepted chronological order of Justin’s extant writings is his First Apology, Second Apology, and finally his Dialogue with Trypho. Narrowing down precise dates requires a good bit of deduction:

“we have Justin’s statement that he is writing 150 years after Christ’s birth—no doubt a round figure—and his reference to a petition recently presented to Felix, the Governor of Alexandria. A Greek papyrus in the British Museum shows that L. Munatius Felix was the successor of M. Petronius Honeratus, who is mentioned on papyri in the years 147-148 C.E., whereas Felix’s name occurs on documents dated 150-151 C.E. He himself was succeeded by M.

Sempronius Liberalis, who was prefect of Egypt in 154 C.E. It would seem that Felix held office from c. 150 to 154 C.E.—another papyrus gives his date of accession as 151 C.E. If these dates are correct, Justin would have written his First Apology somewhere between 151 and 155 C.E., which would agree with the internal evidence of the work.
“The Second Apology is more difficult to date but cannot be long after the First

. It has references to Antoninus as sole emperor and to the emperor and Marcus Aurelius, who is saluted as the philosopher, the son of Caesar. Continued reference is made to the piety of these two persons and with this coheres the references in the Second Apology to the First as a writing freshly remembered.”
(Leslie William Barnard, Ancient Christian Writers 56:11)

Finally, the universal estimate for the last work is as follows:

“the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (which in its final form probably dates from c. 160 C.E.)”
(Ibid., pg. 4)

Thus I date the First Apology to circa 153, the Second Apology to circa 155, and the Dialogue with Trypho to circa 160.

Melito

Almost all of his works have been lost. Scholars have debated whether the extant On the Soul and Body can be ascribed to him, but the following is certainly his:

“The most important work which has come to us almost complete is the homily Peri Pascha ( On the Pasch ), written between 160 and 170.”
(Mario Maritano, Encyclopedia of Ancient Cristianity 2:758, brackets in original)

And again:

“on the basis of a notice in Eusebius with which we shall deal below, dates On Pascha

uncontroversially, though by no means certainly, between 160 and 170.”
(Alistair C. Stewart, Popular Patristics 55:14)

Circa 165, then, for his treatise.

Athenagoras

“Athenagoras’s Plea is a defense of Christianity addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. It was probably written ca. 177.”
(Hendrik F. Stander, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 140)

And again:

“Between 176 and 180 he wrote a defense of the Christians, addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and titled Presbeia (‘embassy, address, supplication’) of Athenagoras, Christian philosopher in Athens, Concerning the Christians. . . . The Presbeia may have been written on the occasion of the visit of the two emperors to Athens in September 176; in any event it is almost contemporary with the persecution at Lyons in 177.”
(Pierre Nautin & Emanuela Prinzivalli, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:285)

While the former scholarship published 1999 notes that, “Athenagoras’s authorship of the work On the Resurrection is disputed,” the latter scholarship published in 2014 notes, “Toward the end (ch. 37 ), Athenagoras announces a treatise On the Resurrection. And in fact, Paris. gr . 451, the oldest manuscript of the Presbeia, is followed by a work on the resurrection, whose title says that it is ‘by the same’ author. The condition of the text and the style of the two works have led (R.M. Grant, W.R. Schoedel, N. Zeegers, E. Gallicet, H.E. Lona) to the hypothesis of a late copyist being responsible for the attribution to Athenagoras, and for their consequent combination in a single MS. Pouderon has argued incisively in favor of Athenagoras as the author, and his counterarguments seem solid.”

Thus I date the Embassy for the Christians to circa 177, and the subsequently composed On the Resurrection to circa 180 as Athenagoras was supposed to have died shortly thereafter.

Irenaeus

The more well known of the two extant works of Irenaeus is his series of books Against the Heresies:

“It is clear that Irenaeus did not write the work all at one time, and that the period of composition extended over a number of years. . . . From the preface to Book 3 it is certain that he had already sent Books 1 and 2 to his friend. Similarly, the preface to Book 4 indicates that Book 3 had already been sent, and the preface to Book 5 indicates that Book 4 had been forwarded.

And since Irenaeus at the end of his Book 1 promises another book, it is probable that he dispatched Book 1 before doing Book 2.
“Some parts of the work give the impression of having been written during a period when the Church was spared from eternal persecution. There seems to be an indication in 4.30.1 that Christians were at the Emperor’s court; and in 4.30.3 the Christians were enjoying a peace that seems to be credited to the Romans.

In fact, the composition of a work of such proportions would almost seem to require a period of cessation from political persecutions. There was such a period during the reign of Emperor Commodus (180-92) . . . . In the famous catalogue of the Roman bishops given by Irenaeus in 3:3:3, Eleutherius is the last one mentioned. It is a safe assumption that Eleutherius was still reigning and that Book 3 was finished before the completion of Eleutherius’s pontification in 188 or 189.

“Some historians believe that Book 2 was written during a persecution, that is, under Marcus Aurelius (161-80), because in 2:22:2 Irenaeus writes of persecutions of the just as if they are then going on. Books 1 and 2, then, may have been written before 180.”
(Dominic J. Unger, Ancient Christian Writers 55:3-4)

Regarding the two earliest works, what persecutions under Marcus Aurelius might have precipitated Irenaeus’ composition of these works? Arguably persecution under his own bishopric:

“In 177, mass persecution took place in Vienne and Lyons in Gaul (Eusebius, H.E. 5.1-3). . . . Intense anti-Christian feelings in society emerged in print in the pagan writings of Lucian in 165 and Celsus in ca. 178.”
(Robert Lee Williams, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity , 2nd ed., pg. 897)

Thus a reasonable approximation of the composition of Books 1 and 2 would be circa 177 and 178.

If we then average out the bishopric of Eleutherius (see dates in quotation below) and the reign of Commodus, we arrive at circa 182 and 186 for Books 3 and 4. We are simply left to round Book 5 to circa 190.

The other extant work of Irenaeus is his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching :

“In book 3 of Against the Heresies, Irenaeus mentions that Eleutherius was then the bishop of Rome (AH 3:3:3). As such, this book can be dated with some certainty to the period between 175 and 189. That Irenaeus refers the reader of the Demonstration (chp 98) to his work Refutation and Overthrowal of Knowledge falsely so-called would seem to indicate that the Demonstration was written later, at the end of the second century”
(John Behr, Popular Patristics 17:3)

The late date of circa 195, then, will place us near the end of the century.

Sub Tuum Praesidium

In my experience, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have invariably claimed that this is unquestionably a work of the mid-3rd century. This is not, however, undisputed among patristic scholars:

“Regarding the 3rd-c. dating of the prayer, some scholars have posed certain difficulties because of the presence of the term Theotokos, which became common after the Council of Ephesus”
(Elio Peretto, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:644)

Very helpful, Errol. Thank you sir!

Great post, brother Errol. However, I'm wondering why you did not include the proposed dates given in Michael Holme's The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (1999):

• Didache: c. 100
  
• Clement of Rome: c. 95–97
• Second Clement: c. 98–100
• Ignatius: c. 107–117
• Epistle of Polycarp: c. 107-117
  
• Martyrdom of Polycarp: c. 155–160
• Epistle of Barnabas: c. 70–135
• Shepherd of Hermas: c. 95–180
• Epistle to Diognetus: c. 150–225

Mainly because I don't own that volume. It would appear that it's largely in keeping with the sources I've cited, though.

Amey stated: “The time of composition of these texts in relation to each other and to significant historical events can contribute to other contextual aspects such as geography, intended audience, occasion for composition, etc., which can help to shape our understanding of the text itself.”

Seems reasonable enough as your purpose. Is there anywhere on this site which comments or clarifies on the general orthodoxy of these writings? I understand that for academic purposes that is irrelevant—and that those listed are more on the orthodox side of the fence. My approach has been to study these until I see their problems.

As an example I have thus far found the Epistle to Diognetus, to be early and without much of anything to counter consensus—for those reasons I share the letter with others. Consensus does not equal truth, but neither does descent.