His conquest of death is most frequently appealed to in the apostolic teaching.
Their works comprise the whole literature of our faith during the decisive centuries which followed the apostolic age.
The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald to a preliminary chapter of primitive history; and the events of the apostolic and postapostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix.
Frederick retorted by announcing his intention of reducing "the clergy, especially the highest, to a state of apostolic poverty," and by ordaining the severest punishments for those priests who should obey the papal sentence.
Their writings, like those of the apostles, are epistolary; but editions of the apostolic fathers now usually admit also the early Church order known as the Didache, the allegory entitled the Shepherd, and a short anonymous apology addressed to one Diognetus.