The Apostles are the Apostles and are not considered to be the "Early Church Fathers."
The ECF's began with the Apostolic Fathers such as Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch and Papias of Hierapolis. These are men who knew the Apostles and/or were actual students of them. Then you had the later Greek Fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, etc.
The period of the Early Church Fathers goes all the way to the 7th century in the Western Church.
So much for your historically and Scripturally bankrupt argument against the use of the term "Father" . . .
"The
Apostles are the
Apostles and are
not considered to be the
"Early Church Fathers."
> Says who? THe RCC? How convienent, because they only want to see Peter, and therefore will fabricate it to be so, just so as to establish the progression to the first pope.
So now you are speaking contrary to how the apostles spoke and wrote to the
early churches, calling them "little children"?
Men speaking to men, in that manner, does not reveal brotherhood in Christ, but rather fatherhood, who is God speaking through the apostles to the early churches.
I know of those who came after the apostles, so don't count me as ignorant, just because I don't refer to them and their writings.
As for your religious outline of when the early churches and ECFs were, you have skipped alot of detail, only to acknowledge one thing, and that is what the RCC wants to recognize, for the sake of man's ordination of the succession of Popes after Peter.
What God says about the early churches
through the apostles,
is His inspired words. Anything written by the "Apostolic Fathers" of your description, is not inspired, even though you might want to think that it is.