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.
There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers.
The evidence of the apostolic fathers is disappointing.
Hence the precariousness of the proofs derived from more or less close parallels to Johannine passages in the apostolic fathers.
The degree of historic claim which these various writings have to rank as the works' of Apostolic Fathers varies greatly on any definition of "apostolic."
