Thread: Something that I think is interesting and important to look at and take note of is the transmission and integrity of the Christian Faith in the very early church.
Much has been said and written about the presentation + handing-on of the scriptural content of the NT so...

...I won’t be specifically talking about that. Rather, I wish to air my thoughts about the concept of “living memory” in relation to the life and ministry of Jesus and his apostles. First off, let’s talk about this in more contemporary terms, to lay something of a foundation.

“Living memory” is defined as that which can be remembered by people who are alive, ie events which occurred in the lifetimes of living people.
My grandfather is in his late seventies. He has memories of the early 1950s. That’s 70 years just in my immediate family.

It is estimated that there are well over 500 000 people alive today who are 100 years old or older.
Someone born in 1920 is old enough to remember the onset of the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism.

There are 7 known Supercentenarians (people 110 or older) alive today; the oldest, Kane Tanaka, is 117. She is old enough to remember the very first public radio broadcasts and the coronation of King George V of England.

“Living memory” can encompass more than we would think, but of course, the population pyramid does not favour the elderly, and most of what we know about history beyond a generation ago is related through books and media.

Additionally, political and social factors in recent times but also historically have contributed in various ways to skewed views of the past, and malignant kinds of historical amnesia.
Many people today, without doubt exacerbated by the invention of the concept of...

...the “generation gap”, have little connection with or regard for the past. Nevertheless, our collective amnesia is not complete, and it is worth recognising that even among us every day, what I call “living history” is very much alive.
We can all attest to that to some degree.

We know historically speaking that if you disregard infant mortality and the decline in living standards during the industrial revolution, life spans of pre-modern people who made it to adulthood were comparable to ours today.

Although there was variability in region and time, and social status made a difference, if you made it into your teens, your life expectancy in the ancient world was about 55.
If you made it to your 40s, it was 65. There are many many records of old people in the ancient world.

I’m making a point of this because it’s commonly thought that people always died in their 30s and a 60 year old was unfathomable.
Far from it.
Centenarians were known and not freakishly rare.
In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder spends an entire chapter talking about...

...the oldest well known historical people he was aware of, 3 who lived into their 90s, another 7 who exceeded 100, of whom 1 lived to 110, and the other to 120.
Many of the ancient monastics of the Church lived to venerable ages, like Saint Anthony the Great to 105...

...and Saint Paul of Thebes who was already 113 when he met Saint Anthony. The point is that old age is not a merely modern occurrence, and this impacts how we see historical recollection and living memory. the “generation gap”, have little connection with of regard for the past.

We know that Jesus’ ministry was around 30 AD. We’ll use that as a round number.
The Gospels record him interacting with thousands of people, hundreds of whom followed him regularly, and a dozen were selected to be his Apostles.

The youngest and last Apostle to die was John the Beloved Disciple, who passed naturally around 99 or 100 AD.
He would have been in his early to mid nineties, and in his early to mid 20s during his earthly sojourn with Christ.

That means, Apostolically speaking, there was a living witness to Jesus from his very inner circle right up to the end of the first century.
People in their 40s who became followers of Jesus during or shortly after his ministry may have regularly lived into the 50s and 60s AD.

We know that many of the Apostles, like Peter and Paul, were martyred in the 60s, when Nero was Caesar.
As we can see from John, it is not only possible, but certain, that at least some people who witnessed and knew Jesus when they were young, lived for many decades thereafter.

Eusebius quotes Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles, who said in the context of the life and actions of Jesus, that some of those who saw him, including those who were healed and even raised from the dead, “lived even to our day.”
Quadratus wrote this c. 125AD.

That’s good support for living witnesses in the 2nd century, probably Trajan’s reign (98-117). Though it is not the goal of this thread, it ought to be readily apparent that arguments against the historical reliability of the NT based on distance from the events hold no ground.

More pointedly, this shows that not only is it very evident that the historical veracity of Jesus was widely interpersonally verifiable in the first century, it is far from beyond the realm of possibility that young people who followed Jesus lived into the second century.

Someone who was 18 when they followed Jesus would have been 105 at the end of Trajan’s reign.
Sure, no Apostles lived that long, so to a degree any sort of authoritative verbal communication of Christ’s life and teaching was no longer possible, but it’s still living memory.

When we start including disciples of the Apostles, or just followers of those who knew Jesus more widely, the range of what we might call “Apostolic memory” extends a lot further.
Saint Polycarp was John’s disciple and was martyred c. 155 aged 86.

It is conceivable that a young person witnessing and speaking with John during his final years may have lived 60 to 70 years or more after John himself died.
What about those who knew the people during Trajan’s time with recollections of Christ?
Another 70 years is 170s, 180s AD.

The historical record shows that connections to the Apostles and their teaching was highly important.
Even if we’re conservative, and say that the last witnesses of Christ died early in Trajan’s reign, and the last acquaintances of the Apostles died not long after Polycarp,...

...that’s still remarkable.
You could go to church in say Antioch c. 105 and your bishop (Ignatius) was taught by Apostles.
Imagine someone elsewhere listening to an elderly woman relate how Jesus healed her.
Imagine Irenaeus c. 190 relating the teachings of John from Polycarp.