Introduction
In the first centuries of Christianity, believers circulated many letters, gospels, and apocalypses alongside the texts we now call the New Testament. Some of these were read aloud in worship, quoted as authoritative, and bound together with texts that did eventually become scripture. Then — gradually, through council decisions and the weight of tradition — a line was drawn.
This episode asks: what lies on the other side of that line, and what does it tell us?
The Epistle of Clement
Written around 96 AD from the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, 1 Clement is one of the earliest surviving Christian texts outside the New Testament. For a generation or more, many churches regarded it as scripture.
It addresses a crisis of authority: younger members of the Corinthian church had deposed their elders, and Clement writes to insist on proper order. What makes it remarkable is its theology of apostolic succession — the idea that authority flows from the apostles through an unbroken chain of appointment. This would become foundational to Catholic and Orthodox ecclesiology.
The Shepherd of Hermas
Composed in Rome, probably in the mid-second century, the Shepherd of Hermas is an elaborate allegory of repentance, visions, and moral instruction. It was included in the Codex Sinaiticus — one of the oldest complete manuscripts of the Christian Bible — bound alongside the canonical texts.
Its eventual exclusion from the canon was debated for decades. Origen considered it inspired. Tertullian rejected it. The Muratorian Fragment, an early canon list, says it “ought to be read, but cannot be publicly read to the people in church.”
The Didache
Rediscovered in 1873, the Didache (“Teaching”) is a first-century manual of church practice. It predates many New Testament letters in its present form and provides extraordinary detail about early Christian worship, baptism, fasting, and the Eucharist.
Reading it is like finding a window directly into a house church of the year 80 AD.
What We Learn
These texts are not rivals to scripture. They are witnesses. They show us the breadth of early Christian practice, the diversity of early theology, and the very human process by which the church discerned — over centuries — which texts would anchor its life together.
Understanding them deepens rather than undermines our appreciation of the texts that were preserved.
Discussion Questions
- Why do you think some early churches considered these texts scripture while others did not?
- What does the existence of these texts tell us about the diversity of early Christianity?
- How should modern Christians engage with early Christian writings outside the canon?