3.  First in order is the apostolic age, extending to about A.D. 100, especially the first half of it when many of the apostles still survived.  This is the period of the composition of the books of the New Testament, but we have no certain evidence that they were then collected into a whole.  The writings of apostles and apostolic men had of course the same authority as their spoken word:  that is, an authority that was supreme and decisive, according to the principle laid down by the Saviour:  “He that receiveth you, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.”  Matt. 10:40.  But so long as the churches had the presence of the apostles they could not feel, as we do now, the need of an authoritative written rule of faith and practice; nor is there any proof that the apostles themselves understood in the beginning of the gospel God’s purpose to add, through them, a second part to the canon of revelation that had been for so many centuries closed.  A considerable number of years elapsed after the ascension before it was thought necessary to give to the churches under apostolic sanction a written account of our Lord’s life and teachings.  The Acts of the Apostles were not composed till about A.D. 61-63.  The apostolic epistles were for the most part written on special occasions and to meet special exigencies, the greater number of them not till between A.D. 50-70, those of John still later.  The Christians of this age drew their knowledge of the gospel mainly from the same sources to which Luke refers in the preface to his gospel; from oral tradition, namely, received directly or indirectly from them “who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.”

4.  After the death of the apostles came what may be called the age of the apostolic fathers; men who, like Ignatius, Polycarp, and others whose names have not come down to us, had been the disciples of the apostles.  Ignatius suffered martyrdom at Rome, A.D. 107 or 116.  Polycarp survived beyond the middle of the second century.  The literary remains of this period are very scanty, the genuine writings of the apostolic fathers being confined to a few epistles—­one of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, seven of Ignatius, one of Polycarp to the Philippians, to which we may add the so-called epistle of Barnabas; since whoever was the author, it does not date from later than the early part of the second century.  From these writings we gather in general that the gospels and apostolic epistles were in current use in the churches, but nothing definite in regard to the collection of these writings into a whole.