Fathers of the Church
The Fathers of the Church, Teachers of the Faith
From a very early date, the title father was applied to bishops as witnesses of Christian Tradition and as teachers of the faith. We find this usage in St Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians: “You may have thousands of guardians in Christ, but you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (1 Cor 4:15).
Later on, the term father was extended to include ecclesiastical writers who were not bishops but who were accepted as representatives of the Tradition of the Church. St Jerome, for example, was not a bishop, but was numbered by St Augustine among the Fathers.
Already in the first centuries of the Church, the teaching of the earlier Fathers was being cited by the later ones as the sure guide to the authentic faith. Thus, St Vincent of Lerins (year 434) warns: “If some new question arises on which no ultimate decision has been given, you shall then have recourse to the opinions of the Holy Fathers; of those, at least, who, each in his own time and place, remaining in the unity of communion and the faith, are accepted as approved masters.”#1
Today, the title “Fathers of the Church” is applied only to those writers who combine four necessary qualifications:
(a) orthodoxy of doctrine;
(b) holiness of life;
(c) ecclesiastical approval; and
(d) antiquity.
These qualifications must be taken in a broad sense.
We also need to distinguish between Patrology and Patristics. The first refers to study of the life and writings of the Fathers, while the other deals with the theological thought of the Fathers.
The so-called patristic era is held to begin with the first noncanonical (that is, non‑Scriptural) Christian writings. The authors of these writings which have survived from the first and early second century are called the Apostolic Fathers. They are called “apostolic” because of their close connection with the apostles; they are the first links in the chain of Tradition. The term has been applied to St Clement of Rome, St Ignatius of Antioch, St Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas, Papias of Hierapolis, and the unknown authors of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle to Diognetus, and the Didache.
Ecclesiastical Writers and Doctors of the Church
We refer to those authors who lack any of the first three distinctive marks of the Fathers of the Church simply as ecclesiastical writers. Thus, some of them may have even been heretics. Yet, their study is interesting because it helps us understand the scope of the orthodox definitions of that period.
On the other hand, some writers have been recognized as Doctors of the Church for the eminence of their learning and the excellence of their teaching. Aside from scholarship, however, they must have shown orthodoxy in doctrine and holiness of life, and must have been expressly declared so by the Church. Although some Fathers of the Church are also Doctors of the Church, antiquity is not required for one to be declared a Doctor of the Church.
Among the Great Doctors of the Oriental Church are St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nazianzus, St John Chrysostom, and St Athanasius. The four Great Doctors of the West are St Ambrose, St Jerome, St Augustine, and St Gregory the Great. The number of Doctors of the Church now stands at 32.
Why Study the Fathers?
Why, one may ask, are professors and students urged to look back to the past when in the Church and in society today there are so many serious problems that require urgent solution? In answer, Pope John Paul II explains that “the Church still lives today by the life received from her Fathers and on the foundation erected by her first constructors. She is still being built today in the joy and sorrow of her journeying and daily toil.”#2
The Second Vatican Council has also reminded us of the supreme importance of the study of the Fathers of the Church.#3
More recently, the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education has issued the document Instruction on the Study of the Fathers of the Church in the Formation of Priests which we shall summarize henceforth.
The Fathers of the Church are important because:
(a) They are exceptional witnesses of Tradition.
(b) They have passed down to us a theological method that is both enlightened and reliable.
(c) Their writings offer a spiritual and apostolic richness that makes them great teachers of the Church yesterday and today.
Privileged Witnesses to Tradition
The documents of the Magisterium attribute to the Fathers the distinction of being privileged witnesses to Tradition. In the flow of living Tradition that continues from the beginning of Christianity through the centuries up to our present time, the Fathers occupy a very special place. They stand head and shoulders above other protagonists in the history of the Church. They have laid down the first basic structures of the Church, together with doctrinal and pastoral positions that remain valid for all times.
In the Christian mind, the Fathers are always linked to Tradition, since they have been both its protagonists and its witnesses. They are closer to the sources of Revelation in their purity. Some of them –the Apostolic Fathers– were witnesses to the apostolic Tradition, the teachings transmitted by the apostles, the source from which Tradition itself is drawn. In particular, the Fathers of the first centuries can be considered authors and exponents of a “founding” Tradition, which was preserved and continuously elucidated on, in subsequent ages.
In any case, the Fathers have transmitted what they received: “They have taught the Church what they have learned in her.... What they found in the Church they kept; what they learned they taught; what they learned from their Fathers they transmitted to their children.”#4
There are many instances in which the Fathers hold an almost unanimous interpretation of a specific passage of Sacred Scriptures. The Church regards such an interpretation not as a private opinion but as ecclesiastical doctrine. Thus, J.H. Cardinal Newman describes the importance of this coincidence:
I follow the ancient Fathers, not as thinking that on such a subject they have the weight they possess in the instance of doctrines or ordinances. When they speak of doctrines, they speak of them as being universally held. They are witnesses to the fact of these doctrines having been received, not here or there, but everywhere. We receive those doctrines, which they thus teach, not merely because they teach them, but because they bear witness that all Christians everywhere then held them.
The Fathers do not speak of their own private opinion; they do not say, “This is true, because we see it in Scriptures” –about which there might be differences of judgment – but, “This is true, because in matter of fact it is held, and has ever been held, by all the Churches, down to our times, without interruption, ever since the apostles.”#5
The Fathers of the Church are our ancestors in the faith, the remote founders of the Christian heritage that is ours. We are bound to them in the same way that all men are bound to their ancestors by gratitude and reverence. This is piety, the virtue that links us to our origins–as does family piety, patriotic piety, and more so, the piety we owe to God.
Besides, in considering the climate of our contemporary culture, there are many parallels to be drawn between the present and the Roman era, despite their obvious differences. Now, as then, one world is fading, while another one is being born.
The Fathers have shown the vital link that exists between Sacred Scriptures, Tradition, and the most urgent problems of the present moment. When so many efforts seem to be sterile, there is a fresh breath of true wisdom and Christian authenticity that can be drawn from the patristic works. It is a breath that has immensely contributed to the resolution of numerous liturgical, ecumenical, missionary, and pastoral phenomena, as was the case in the Second Vatican Council. Hence, the Fathers have shown their unfailing relevance and continue to have many things to say to those who seek the truth.
Theological Method
The Fathers gave a reflective response to the divine Scriptures. But their response was not so much an abstract theory as daily pastoral practice. They acquired this experience by teaching in the heart of the liturgical assemblies gathered together to profess the faith and celebrate the worship of the Risen Lord. In that sense, they were the authors of the first great Christian catechesis.
We find in the Fathers some particular attitudes and points that must be kept in mind:
(a) a constant recourse to Sacred Scriptures and the sense of Tradition;
(b) awareness of Christian originality, while recognizing the truths contained in pagan culture;
(c) defense of the faith as the supreme good and a continuously deepening understanding of the content of Revelation; and
(d) the sense of mystery of the divine.
Recourse to Sacred Scriptures and Sense of Tradition
The Tradition to which the Fathers are witnesses is a living Tradition that demonstrates unity in variety and continuity in progress. The Church’s Tradition is not a monolithic, immovable and sclerotic block, but a multiform organism pulsating with life. It is a practice of life and doctrine that is marked, on the one hand, by uncertainties, tensions, disputed questions solved only after periods of trials and hesitation and, on the other, by timely and courageous decisions of great originality and decisive importance.
To follow the living Tradition of the Fathers does not mean clinging onto the past as such. Rather, it means adhering to the faith with an enthusiastic sense of security and freedom. All the while, one maintains a constant fidelity to that which is foundational: an essential, enduring, and unchanging fidelity –”up to the shedding of one’s blood”– to dogma and to moral and disciplinary principles. And these time-tested principles are all the more indispensable, now that many new things are making headway.
The Fathers did not have at their disposal the philological, historical, and anthropological knowledge we now have. Nevertheless, they can teach us a truly religious approach to Sacred Scriptures, as well as an interpretation that constantly adheres to the sense of the entire Church, proceeding through history under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When these two principles or standards –religious and Catholic– are neglected in modern Scriptural studies, the latter often end up impoverished and distorted.
Whenever it has been necessary to denounce the erroneous deviations of certain schools of thought, the Church has always referred to the Fathers as a guarantee of truth. In fact, various Councils have begun their solemn declarations with references to the patristic Tradition by using the formula: “In following the Holy Fathers....”
The Fathers’ catechesis was entirely centered on the mystery of Christ. They proceed
- from God
- through Christ
- to the Church, as the sacrament of union with God and dispenser of divine grace,
- in order to return to God.
Rather than getting lost in numerous peripheral problems, the Fathers always aimed at the essentials, while being faithful to the entire sacred deposit of the faith.
The Fathers’ veneration for and fidelity to the Sacred Books was as staunch and solid as their veneration for and fidelity to Tradition. They did not consider themselves masters but servants of Sacred Scriptures, since they received these from the Church. They read and commented on them in and for the Church, according to the rule of faith proposed by ecclesiastical and apostolic Tradition.
One major characteristic of the life of the modern Church is the return to Sacred Scriptures. If it is to be genuine, however, this trend must be accompanied by a parallel return to the Tradition attested to by the Fathers’ writings.
Biblicism
The recent document of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education mentioned earlier declares that in recent times, there are some who pay little attention to the Fathers’ testimony and, in general, to ecclesiastical Tradition. They merely confront biblical texts with present social realities or with the concrete problems of modern life, and invariably turn to the human sciences for help. These theological currents, as a result, do away with the historical dimension of dogmas. They do not pay enough attention to the immense insights of the patristic era and of the Middle Ages.
In our times, there are schools supposedly of religious or theological thought that are virtually, if not actually, detached from the stream of Tradition. Hence, their speculation either is reduced to pure “biblicism,” or becomes a prisoner of the proponents’ historical horizon, especially when taken over by the various fashionable philosophies and ideologies of the day. Thus, we find theologians who, in succumbing to such tendencies, think that they are doing theology but are really only doing history, sociology, etc... They flatten the contents of the Creed to a purely earthly dimension.
Christian Originality and Inculturation
Christian teachings enable man to judge human wisdom and to distinguish truth from error. The Fathers were clearly aware of this fact. Being anchored to this norm of faith, the Fathers accepted many contributions from Greco‑Roman philosophy, while rejecting its grave errors. They especially avoided the danger of syncretism, which was so widespread in the then‑prevailing Hellenistic culture. They also avoided rationalism, which tended to reduce the faith to only those aspects that were accepted by the contemporary thinkers.
The Fathers being aware of the universal value of Revelation, began the great task of Christian “inculturation,” as it is usually called today. They are the best example of a rich encounter between faith and culture, faith and reason–an example that continues to be a guide for the Church of all ages.
The Fathers treated the Catholic faith with the utmost respect and in complete fidelity to its biblical basis. At the same time, their faith had an openness of spirit toward new needs and new cultural circumstances. These are the two characteristics of the living Tradition of the Church.
Sense of Mystery of the Divine
The first thing that strikes us in the Fathers’ thought is their living sense of the transcendence of the divine Truth contained in Revelation. They had a deep sense of mystery and piety toward God. Thus, they steered clear of the temptations of exaggerated rationalism, as well as of a sterile and resigned fideism.
Unlike many other ancient and modern thinkers, they gave proof of great humility before the mystery of God contained in Sacred Scriptures. In their modesty, they preferred to be mere commentators, careful not to add anything that might alter the authenticity of the mystery of God. Thus, St Augustine quipped, “A faithful ignorance is preferable to a foolhardy knowledge.” And before him, St Irenaeus stated that the divine generation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is ineffable [too great to be described in words], and those who presume to explain it “have lost the use of their reason.”
Cultural, Spiritual, and Apostolic Wealth
Many of the Fathers were converts. In them, the sense of newness of Christian life was wedded to the certainty of the faith. Hence, an “explosive vitality,” a missionary fervor, and a climate of fraternity sprang in the Christian communities of their times. Souls were inspired to be heroic in their daily personal and social life.
This fervor was manifested especially through the practice of the works of mercy, almsgiving, care of the sick, widows, and orphans, respect for women and every human person, the education of children, respect for life in its origins, conjugal fidelity, respect and generosity in the treatment of slaves, honesty in dealings with other men, freedom and responsibility before the public powers, and defense and support of the poor. There were all forms of Christian commitment–in ordinary life and even to the supreme sacrifice of martyrdom.
Christians lived like their contemporaries, but distinguished themselves from the surrounding pagan world in specific aspects of their conduct. They lived detached from earthly goods; some lived celibacy propter regnum coelorum–devoted to God. They made penance; some lived community life. In fact, many forms of private devotion (such as family prayer, daily prayers, and the practice of fasting) and devotions held in common (Sunday celebration, veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and vigils) date back to this age.
The early Christians made the best use of what was humanly noble in the ancient world. This way, they purified what was less perfect, and contributed to the creation of a new culture and civilization inspired by the Gospel. Hence, by following the Fathers in their spiritual itinerary, we, too, shall grasp more easily the nucleus of our faith and what is specific of our Christian identity.
Footnotes:
1. Commonitorium, Chapter 41.
2. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Patres Ecclesiae, Jan. 2, 1980.
3. Optatam Totius, n. 16.
4. St Augustine, Iul.
5. Discussions and Arguments, II, 1.
From a very early date, the title father was applied to bishops as witnesses of Christian Tradition and as teachers of the faith. We find this usage in St Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians: “You may have thousands of guardians in Christ, but you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (1 Cor 4:15).
Later on, the term father was extended to include ecclesiastical writers who were not bishops but who were accepted as representatives of the Tradition of the Church. St Jerome, for example, was not a bishop, but was numbered by St Augustine among the Fathers.
Already in the first centuries of the Church, the teaching of the earlier Fathers was being cited by the later ones as the sure guide to the authentic faith. Thus, St Vincent of Lerins (year 434) warns: “If some new question arises on which no ultimate decision has been given, you shall then have recourse to the opinions of the Holy Fathers; of those, at least, who, each in his own time and place, remaining in the unity of communion and the faith, are accepted as approved masters.”#1
Today, the title “Fathers of the Church” is applied only to those writers who combine four necessary qualifications:
(a) orthodoxy of doctrine;
(b) holiness of life;
(c) ecclesiastical approval; and
(d) antiquity.
These qualifications must be taken in a broad sense.
We also need to distinguish between Patrology and Patristics. The first refers to study of the life and writings of the Fathers, while the other deals with the theological thought of the Fathers.
The so-called patristic era is held to begin with the first noncanonical (that is, non‑Scriptural) Christian writings. The authors of these writings which have survived from the first and early second century are called the Apostolic Fathers. They are called “apostolic” because of their close connection with the apostles; they are the first links in the chain of Tradition. The term has been applied to St Clement of Rome, St Ignatius of Antioch, St Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas, Papias of Hierapolis, and the unknown authors of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle to Diognetus, and the Didache.
Ecclesiastical Writers and Doctors of the Church
We refer to those authors who lack any of the first three distinctive marks of the Fathers of the Church simply as ecclesiastical writers. Thus, some of them may have even been heretics. Yet, their study is interesting because it helps us understand the scope of the orthodox definitions of that period.
On the other hand, some writers have been recognized as Doctors of the Church for the eminence of their learning and the excellence of their teaching. Aside from scholarship, however, they must have shown orthodoxy in doctrine and holiness of life, and must have been expressly declared so by the Church. Although some Fathers of the Church are also Doctors of the Church, antiquity is not required for one to be declared a Doctor of the Church.
Among the Great Doctors of the Oriental Church are St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nazianzus, St John Chrysostom, and St Athanasius. The four Great Doctors of the West are St Ambrose, St Jerome, St Augustine, and St Gregory the Great. The number of Doctors of the Church now stands at 32.
Why Study the Fathers?
Why, one may ask, are professors and students urged to look back to the past when in the Church and in society today there are so many serious problems that require urgent solution? In answer, Pope John Paul II explains that “the Church still lives today by the life received from her Fathers and on the foundation erected by her first constructors. She is still being built today in the joy and sorrow of her journeying and daily toil.”#2
The Second Vatican Council has also reminded us of the supreme importance of the study of the Fathers of the Church.#3
More recently, the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education has issued the document Instruction on the Study of the Fathers of the Church in the Formation of Priests which we shall summarize henceforth.
The Fathers of the Church are important because:
(a) They are exceptional witnesses of Tradition.
(b) They have passed down to us a theological method that is both enlightened and reliable.
(c) Their writings offer a spiritual and apostolic richness that makes them great teachers of the Church yesterday and today.
Privileged Witnesses to Tradition
The documents of the Magisterium attribute to the Fathers the distinction of being privileged witnesses to Tradition. In the flow of living Tradition that continues from the beginning of Christianity through the centuries up to our present time, the Fathers occupy a very special place. They stand head and shoulders above other protagonists in the history of the Church. They have laid down the first basic structures of the Church, together with doctrinal and pastoral positions that remain valid for all times.
In the Christian mind, the Fathers are always linked to Tradition, since they have been both its protagonists and its witnesses. They are closer to the sources of Revelation in their purity. Some of them –the Apostolic Fathers– were witnesses to the apostolic Tradition, the teachings transmitted by the apostles, the source from which Tradition itself is drawn. In particular, the Fathers of the first centuries can be considered authors and exponents of a “founding” Tradition, which was preserved and continuously elucidated on, in subsequent ages.
In any case, the Fathers have transmitted what they received: “They have taught the Church what they have learned in her.... What they found in the Church they kept; what they learned they taught; what they learned from their Fathers they transmitted to their children.”#4
There are many instances in which the Fathers hold an almost unanimous interpretation of a specific passage of Sacred Scriptures. The Church regards such an interpretation not as a private opinion but as ecclesiastical doctrine. Thus, J.H. Cardinal Newman describes the importance of this coincidence:
I follow the ancient Fathers, not as thinking that on such a subject they have the weight they possess in the instance of doctrines or ordinances. When they speak of doctrines, they speak of them as being universally held. They are witnesses to the fact of these doctrines having been received, not here or there, but everywhere. We receive those doctrines, which they thus teach, not merely because they teach them, but because they bear witness that all Christians everywhere then held them.
The Fathers do not speak of their own private opinion; they do not say, “This is true, because we see it in Scriptures” –about which there might be differences of judgment – but, “This is true, because in matter of fact it is held, and has ever been held, by all the Churches, down to our times, without interruption, ever since the apostles.”#5
The Fathers of the Church are our ancestors in the faith, the remote founders of the Christian heritage that is ours. We are bound to them in the same way that all men are bound to their ancestors by gratitude and reverence. This is piety, the virtue that links us to our origins–as does family piety, patriotic piety, and more so, the piety we owe to God.
Besides, in considering the climate of our contemporary culture, there are many parallels to be drawn between the present and the Roman era, despite their obvious differences. Now, as then, one world is fading, while another one is being born.
The Fathers have shown the vital link that exists between Sacred Scriptures, Tradition, and the most urgent problems of the present moment. When so many efforts seem to be sterile, there is a fresh breath of true wisdom and Christian authenticity that can be drawn from the patristic works. It is a breath that has immensely contributed to the resolution of numerous liturgical, ecumenical, missionary, and pastoral phenomena, as was the case in the Second Vatican Council. Hence, the Fathers have shown their unfailing relevance and continue to have many things to say to those who seek the truth.
Theological Method
The Fathers gave a reflective response to the divine Scriptures. But their response was not so much an abstract theory as daily pastoral practice. They acquired this experience by teaching in the heart of the liturgical assemblies gathered together to profess the faith and celebrate the worship of the Risen Lord. In that sense, they were the authors of the first great Christian catechesis.
We find in the Fathers some particular attitudes and points that must be kept in mind:
(a) a constant recourse to Sacred Scriptures and the sense of Tradition;
(b) awareness of Christian originality, while recognizing the truths contained in pagan culture;
(c) defense of the faith as the supreme good and a continuously deepening understanding of the content of Revelation; and
(d) the sense of mystery of the divine.
Recourse to Sacred Scriptures and Sense of Tradition
The Tradition to which the Fathers are witnesses is a living Tradition that demonstrates unity in variety and continuity in progress. The Church’s Tradition is not a monolithic, immovable and sclerotic block, but a multiform organism pulsating with life. It is a practice of life and doctrine that is marked, on the one hand, by uncertainties, tensions, disputed questions solved only after periods of trials and hesitation and, on the other, by timely and courageous decisions of great originality and decisive importance.
To follow the living Tradition of the Fathers does not mean clinging onto the past as such. Rather, it means adhering to the faith with an enthusiastic sense of security and freedom. All the while, one maintains a constant fidelity to that which is foundational: an essential, enduring, and unchanging fidelity –”up to the shedding of one’s blood”– to dogma and to moral and disciplinary principles. And these time-tested principles are all the more indispensable, now that many new things are making headway.
The Fathers did not have at their disposal the philological, historical, and anthropological knowledge we now have. Nevertheless, they can teach us a truly religious approach to Sacred Scriptures, as well as an interpretation that constantly adheres to the sense of the entire Church, proceeding through history under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When these two principles or standards –religious and Catholic– are neglected in modern Scriptural studies, the latter often end up impoverished and distorted.
Whenever it has been necessary to denounce the erroneous deviations of certain schools of thought, the Church has always referred to the Fathers as a guarantee of truth. In fact, various Councils have begun their solemn declarations with references to the patristic Tradition by using the formula: “In following the Holy Fathers....”
The Fathers’ catechesis was entirely centered on the mystery of Christ. They proceed
- from God
- through Christ
- to the Church, as the sacrament of union with God and dispenser of divine grace,
- in order to return to God.
Rather than getting lost in numerous peripheral problems, the Fathers always aimed at the essentials, while being faithful to the entire sacred deposit of the faith.
The Fathers’ veneration for and fidelity to the Sacred Books was as staunch and solid as their veneration for and fidelity to Tradition. They did not consider themselves masters but servants of Sacred Scriptures, since they received these from the Church. They read and commented on them in and for the Church, according to the rule of faith proposed by ecclesiastical and apostolic Tradition.
One major characteristic of the life of the modern Church is the return to Sacred Scriptures. If it is to be genuine, however, this trend must be accompanied by a parallel return to the Tradition attested to by the Fathers’ writings.
Biblicism
The recent document of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education mentioned earlier declares that in recent times, there are some who pay little attention to the Fathers’ testimony and, in general, to ecclesiastical Tradition. They merely confront biblical texts with present social realities or with the concrete problems of modern life, and invariably turn to the human sciences for help. These theological currents, as a result, do away with the historical dimension of dogmas. They do not pay enough attention to the immense insights of the patristic era and of the Middle Ages.
In our times, there are schools supposedly of religious or theological thought that are virtually, if not actually, detached from the stream of Tradition. Hence, their speculation either is reduced to pure “biblicism,” or becomes a prisoner of the proponents’ historical horizon, especially when taken over by the various fashionable philosophies and ideologies of the day. Thus, we find theologians who, in succumbing to such tendencies, think that they are doing theology but are really only doing history, sociology, etc... They flatten the contents of the Creed to a purely earthly dimension.
Christian Originality and Inculturation
Christian teachings enable man to judge human wisdom and to distinguish truth from error. The Fathers were clearly aware of this fact. Being anchored to this norm of faith, the Fathers accepted many contributions from Greco‑Roman philosophy, while rejecting its grave errors. They especially avoided the danger of syncretism, which was so widespread in the then‑prevailing Hellenistic culture. They also avoided rationalism, which tended to reduce the faith to only those aspects that were accepted by the contemporary thinkers.
The Fathers being aware of the universal value of Revelation, began the great task of Christian “inculturation,” as it is usually called today. They are the best example of a rich encounter between faith and culture, faith and reason–an example that continues to be a guide for the Church of all ages.
The Fathers treated the Catholic faith with the utmost respect and in complete fidelity to its biblical basis. At the same time, their faith had an openness of spirit toward new needs and new cultural circumstances. These are the two characteristics of the living Tradition of the Church.
Sense of Mystery of the Divine
The first thing that strikes us in the Fathers’ thought is their living sense of the transcendence of the divine Truth contained in Revelation. They had a deep sense of mystery and piety toward God. Thus, they steered clear of the temptations of exaggerated rationalism, as well as of a sterile and resigned fideism.
Unlike many other ancient and modern thinkers, they gave proof of great humility before the mystery of God contained in Sacred Scriptures. In their modesty, they preferred to be mere commentators, careful not to add anything that might alter the authenticity of the mystery of God. Thus, St Augustine quipped, “A faithful ignorance is preferable to a foolhardy knowledge.” And before him, St Irenaeus stated that the divine generation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is ineffable [too great to be described in words], and those who presume to explain it “have lost the use of their reason.”
Cultural, Spiritual, and Apostolic Wealth
Many of the Fathers were converts. In them, the sense of newness of Christian life was wedded to the certainty of the faith. Hence, an “explosive vitality,” a missionary fervor, and a climate of fraternity sprang in the Christian communities of their times. Souls were inspired to be heroic in their daily personal and social life.
This fervor was manifested especially through the practice of the works of mercy, almsgiving, care of the sick, widows, and orphans, respect for women and every human person, the education of children, respect for life in its origins, conjugal fidelity, respect and generosity in the treatment of slaves, honesty in dealings with other men, freedom and responsibility before the public powers, and defense and support of the poor. There were all forms of Christian commitment–in ordinary life and even to the supreme sacrifice of martyrdom.
Christians lived like their contemporaries, but distinguished themselves from the surrounding pagan world in specific aspects of their conduct. They lived detached from earthly goods; some lived celibacy propter regnum coelorum–devoted to God. They made penance; some lived community life. In fact, many forms of private devotion (such as family prayer, daily prayers, and the practice of fasting) and devotions held in common (Sunday celebration, veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and vigils) date back to this age.
The early Christians made the best use of what was humanly noble in the ancient world. This way, they purified what was less perfect, and contributed to the creation of a new culture and civilization inspired by the Gospel. Hence, by following the Fathers in their spiritual itinerary, we, too, shall grasp more easily the nucleus of our faith and what is specific of our Christian identity.
Footnotes:
1. Commonitorium, Chapter 41.
2. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Patres Ecclesiae, Jan. 2, 1980.
3. Optatam Totius, n. 16.
4. St Augustine, Iul.
5. Discussions and Arguments, II, 1.