The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers

From the book jacket of the 1959 American edition: "The purpose of this book is to demonstrate how and why there came about in the early history of the Christian Church the enormous difference that exists between the Faith of the New Testament and that of the second and third centuries. The conception of grace was selected as that which is distinctively characteristic of every doctrine of the New Testament, and yet as that element which is the most sensitive to change. Its course is pursued here throughout the Apostolic Fathers, theologically and linguistically, both in regard to their setting in second-century Christianity, and in regard to their apprehension of the Christian Gospel as a whole. Consequently, while the discussion centers on the idea of grace, this book represents the most comprehensive and thorough investigation of the theology of the Apostolic Fathers that has yet appeared in English or German. As such it is an invaluable manual both for theological students and for advanced scholars in this field, while its abundance of footnotes sends the interested reader on many further lines of investigation."