Fideograph · Church History
Wednesday, 27 December

Today in Church History

What happened in the life of the Church on this day across twenty centuries.

1 event · December
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✦ Feast Day c. AD 6–100
Feast of John the Apostle
The chain from John to Polycarp to Irenaeus is the most important personal chain of transmission in early Christianity. Irenaeus, writing c. AD 185, explicitly states that Polycarp told him what he had heard from John, and that he could recall the very tone of Polycarp's voice. This is not tradition in an abstract sense — it is memory. The theology of the second century is the personal recollection of men who knew men who knew the apostles. John's longevity — he died around AD 100, seventy years after the Resurrection — made this chain possible.
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