WHAT 1^ST & 2^ND CENTURY CHURCH FATHERS HAD TO SAY ABOUT

THE BIBLE

Justine Martyr wrote about 150 AD in Apology I, 67: "We always remember one another. Those who have provide for those in want....And on the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things." 

Tertullian wrote about 170 AD in Apology xxxix:1-5: "We are a body with a common feeling of religion, a unity of discipline, and a covenant of hope. We meet together in an assembly and congregation....We meet together in order to read the sacred texts, if the nature of the times compels us to warn about or recognize anything present. In any case, with the holy words we feed our faith, we arouse our hope, we confirm our confidence. We strengthen the instruction of the precepts no less by inculcations; in the same place there are also exhortations, rebukes, and divine censures. For judg

ment is administered with great authority, as among those in the presence of God."

Clement of Alexandria said about 200 in his Miscellanies V.xiv.113.3: "Always giving thanks in all things to God through righteous hearing and divine reading, true inquiry, holy oblation, blessed prayer, praising, hymning, blessing, singing; such a soul is never separated from God at any time."