Early Church Fathers,
and early Christian writings.
19/02/08 17:14
An introduction: Who the Church Fathers are, and
why they are referred to as
such.
Welcome
to Catholic Champion. In today's apologetics world
the Church Fathers are often used to defend
different doctrines of the faith by both
Protestants and Catholics alike. They are
frequently misquoted and taken out of context in
order to justify certain heretical positions. We
also see many apologists today using early writers
universally with regard to their doctrinal weight.
Origin and Saint Chrysostom are incorrectly
referred to and quoted side by side as being
“Church Fathers”. Before we start using the Church
Fathers as witnesses to the Catholic faith, we must
first understand who the Early Church Fathers are,
and how they are different from other early
writings by other authors of the same time period.
As the great theologian/historian Fr. Adrian
Fortescue (1908) points out, there are four
conditions that must be met in order for someone to
have the title of Early Church Father. They are, 1)
He must be an author whose works are extent, or
have left us writings that we can quote from. 2)
Secondly they must have been in communion with the
Church and whose writings are correct and orthodox.
3) They must be a character of eminent sanctity as
well as learning. This refers to the status of
Sainthood. So authors such as Origin are not
considered “Church Fathers”. 4) The fourth
condition is antiquity. This means that the
material must date back to before the Middle ages
to be considered a Church Father. Generally we
consider the Fathers to end with Saint Cyril of
Alexandria (d. 444) in the east and Saint Gregory
(d. 604) in the west. Some will consider Saint John
Damascene (d. ca. 754) and those of his time the
last of the Fathers. We will follow this position
when citing sources from the Church Fathers. This
is an important point to remember. Although there
are writers from these times that sometimes agree
with the Early Fathers, we must be mindful not to
confuse these authors with one another as many of
today's apologists do. Many apologists today want
to stack up as many quotes as they can to defend
their position while not being mindful of their
sources. A Catholic scholar should not consider
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or Origin a
“Church Father”. Yes, the term is sometimes used
loosely in secular history books, but we as
Catholic apologists must be sure to refer to these
sources correctly. So when quoting from these
sources we must be mindful of this. Although the
writings of Tertullian and Origin may be useful for
historical purposes, we must not hold them with the
same weight nor attention as a Church Father. Once
Catholic apologists start putting them along side
of real Church Fathers a can of worms is opened,
and those outside the Church can often take
advantage of their incorrect doctrinal views. In
any apologetics debate defending the Catholic
faith, I would not use nor accept their writings as
being of any significant weight with regard to
doctrine or dogma. When refuting a topic or quoting
a source, I may include these early writers along
with the Fathers, but my main focus are the "Church
Fathers" and not the other writers. Of course in
other non-apologetics works these sources can be
useful for demonstrating certain points. We can see
this use by theologians such as the Pope and many
others, aimed at instructing the faithful. This
however is not to be confused with their use in
apologetics, and their proper use of for this aim.
We can generally break the Fathers up into 5 groups
(1. Apostolic, 2. Apologists, 3. Greek Fathers, 4.
Latin Fathers, and 5. The Eastern Fathers (Syrian,
etc).) The Apostolic Fathers are those like St.
Ignatius of Antioch, or Saint Polycarp, who date
back to the apostles themselves. Historians agree
that Polycarp received his apostolic office of
bishop from Saint John the Evangelist himself.
(Payne 1958) All their texts are written in Greek.
(Fortescue 1908) The Apologists are those who
flourished during the Roman persecutions, and who
wrote against the Jews and pagans as well as those
Great Fathers later who challenged heresies into
the 4th
and
5th
centuries.
Most of their texts come to us in Greek. Then we
have those remaining Greek, Latin and Eastern
Fathers spanning until the 8th
century.
It is important to note that all of the Apostolic
Fathers put together do not even comprise a volume
of writing as large as the New Testament. We should
be thankful that we have the material that was
preserved and handed on to us. I find it amazing
that we have access to this information from an era
dating back almost 2000 years; but by no means do
we have every doctrine and practice of the Catholic
faith written and expounded on by these witnesses.
It is important to understand the limitations of
these sources when engaging in any serious
apologetics debate. It seems that some of todays
most well known Protestant apologists have a
misguided expectation of what these sources should
provide for them. What sources we do have are
unmistakably Catholic in composition and character.
For example, we see a unanimous stress of
importance on apostolic unity, and hierarchal
structure of the Church, etc. (ex. Saint Irenaeus
Against Heresies Ad102-202)
We cannot stress the importance of these Patristic
works and the importance of the correct
interpretation of their manuscripts. Saint Thomas
Aquinas once said that he would give all of Paris
for just one sermon by Saint John Chrysostom.
(Robert Payne 1958). It interesting to note that
Saint Thomas taught in Paris and the Dominican
house of studies. So Paris was obviously important
to him and his work. The writings of the Church
Fathers give witness to the apostolic Catholic
faith handed on to us today. We must also consider
the importance of reading their letters and
manuscripts in complete context. Using a sentence
or paragraph by a Church Father to substantiate a
Catholic doctrine is not enough. This means that we
will not take a stack of quotes and put them up in
a list format on one topic, such as the Eucharistic
Real Presence, and show only a sentence or
paragraph of 10 different Church Fathers. This is
what I call unprofessional, cut and paste, bully
apologetics. Their intent is to show a mass list of
quotes to intimidate their opponents. In reality a
well structured close look at one letter is much
more credible and much more convincing to those who
are really searching for the Truth. It also shows a
serious interest in actually reading these Fathers
letters rather than going to the internet and
pasting off different quotes to make you feel
better about your theological positions. We are
littered with cut and paste apologetics in these
modern times. Here at Catholic Champion the days of
cut and paste, armchair apologetics is over with.
In order to substantiate our faith from a Patristic
perspective, we must first understand who it is we
are quoting from and the limitations of the
sources. The sources we will quote from are
unmistakably Catholic. We will prove this one
Church Father at a time, one topic at a time.
Please be patient and visit Catholic Champion
often. It takes a large amount of time to put
together a scholarly presentation. We will continue
next with a look at the Divine Liturgy, and how two
Church Fathers viewed this Eucharistic mystery. The
Divine Liturgy is a living witness to the Catholic
faith which remains unbroken with Jesus Christ and
His apostles.
Matthew James Bellisario 2008
Bibliography:
Fortescue, Adrian. The Greek Fathers. San
Francisco: Ignatius, 2008. (Original Publication
1908 London, Catholic Truth Society)
Payne, Robert. The Holy Fire. London: Skeffington,
1958