The Traveling Evangelists

Among those who shone at that time was Quadratus, who, report has it, was distinguished along with the daughters of Philip for the gift of prophecy. Many others besides these were known in those days, holding the first rank in the succession from the apostles. As the godly disciples of such great men, they built on the foundations of the churches that the apostles had laid in every place. They spread the preaching further and further and sowed the saving seeds of the kingdom of heaven far and wide through the whole inhabited world. [a] For indeed most of the disciples of that time, their souls struck by the divine word with a more ardent love of philosophy, first fulfilled the saving command by distributing their property to the needy. Then they set out on journeys abroad and did the work of evangelists, eager to preach to those who had never yet heard the word of faith and to hand on to them the writings of the divine Gospels. [c] They would only lay the foundations of the faith in some foreign place, appoint others as shepherds, and entrust them with the tending of those newly brought in; then they themselves went on again to other lands and nations, with the grace and help of God. For even then many marvelous works of power were being done through them by the divine Spirit, so that at the first hearing whole crowds together eagerly took into their souls reverence for the Maker of all things. [d]

It is impossible for us to list by name all who became shepherds or evangelists in the churches throughout the world in the first succession from the apostles. So we have rightly set down by name in writing only those through whose memoirs the tradition of the apostles’ teaching still comes down to us.