Early Church Leaders Confirm the Apostle Paul's Gospel and Ministry

Table of Contents

This video is a defense of the Apostle Paul against attacks by Muslims, certain Hebrew Israelites & Hebrew Roots people alike. The documentary was created by Exegetical Apologetics, also known as Reformed Apologetics Ministries.

Quotations from first and second-century Church leaders about the Apostle Paul.

This is my own research from independant sources to show that Church leaders of the 1st and 2nd century acknowledged Paul’s Gospel and his apostleship. They all mention Paul in a positive way and call him an apostle.

Clement of Rome

Clement (35 AD – 99 AD) was the bishop of Rome in the late first century AD. He is listed by Irenaeus and Tertullian as the bishop of Rome, holding office from 88 AD to his death in 99 AD.

From The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus (130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France.

From: Irenaeus of Lyons

They proclaim themselves as being “perfect,” so that no one can be compared to them with respect to the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were you to mention Paul or Peter, or any other of the apostles.

But as many as separate from the Church, and give heed to such old wives’ fables as these, are truly self-condemned; and these men Paul commands us, “after a first and second admonition, to avoid.”

Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law.

Tertullian

Tertullian (155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature.

From The Prescription against Heretics.

On this point, however, we dwell no longer, since it is the same Paul who, in his Epistle to the Galatians, counts “heresies” among “the sins of the flesh,” who also intimates to Titus, that “a man who is a heretic” must be “rejected after the first admonition,” on the ground that “he that is such is perverted, and committeth sin, as a self-condemned man.” Indeed, in almost every epistle, when enjoining on us (the duty) of avoiding false doctrines, he sharply condemns heresies.

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch (/ɪɡˈneɪʃəs/; Greek: Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας, Ignátios Antiokheías; died c. 108/140 AD), also known as Ignatius Theophorus (Ἰγνάτιος ὁ Θεοφόρος, Ignátios ho Theophóros, lit. “the God-bearing”), was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch.

From The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians

Do nothing without the bishop; keep your bodies as the temples of God; love unity; avoid divisions; be ye followers of Paul, and of the rest of the apostles, even as they also were of Christ.

From The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans

I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles;

From The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians

…though I am acquainted with these things, yet am I not therefore by any means perfect; nor am I such a disciple as Paul or Peter. For many things are yet wanting to me, that I may not fall short of God.

From The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

This was first fulfilled in Syria; for “the disciples were called Christians at Antioch,” when Paul and Peter were laying the foundations of the Church.

The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians.

Wherefore it behoves us also to live according to the will of God in Christ, and to imitate Him as Paul did. For, says he, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

Polycarp

Polycarp (AD 69 – 155) was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.

From the Epistle of Polycarp

Polycarp 3:2
For neither am I, nor is any other like unto me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who when he came among you taught face to face with the men of that day the word which concerneth truth carefully and surely; who also, when he was absent, wrote a letter unto you, into the which if ye look diligently, ye shall be able to be builded up unto the faith given to you.

Polycarp 9:1
I exhort you all therefore to be obedient unto the word of righteousness and to practice all endurance, which also ye saw with your own eyes in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, yea and in others also who came from among yourselves, as well as in Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles;

Polycarp 11:2
But he who cannot govern himself in these things, how doth he enjoin this upon another? If a man refrain not from covetousness, he shall be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as one of the Gentiles who know not the judgment of the Lord, Nay, know we not, that the saints shall judge the world, as Paul teacheth?

Polycarp 11:3
But I have not found any such thing in you, neither have heard thereof, among whom the blessed Paul labored, who were his letters in the beginning. For he boasteth of you in all those churches which alone at that time knew God; for we knew Him not as yet.