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