FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. - Ancient ecclesiastical writers who were distinguished for orthodox doctrine and holiness of life and are recognized by the Church as witnesses of divine tradition.
I. NOTION
The name of Fathers is of Eastern origin. The ancient peoples of the East, in fact, honored with this appellation their teachers, considered as authors of the intellectual life that originated from their teaching. In this sense the disciples of the prophetic schools were called filii prophetarum, and their master was called pater (I Kings 10:12; I Sam. 40:35); St. Paul calls himself "father" of the new converts (I Cor. 4:15).In the early Church, this name designated the bishops, who, precisely because they were ministers of the Sacraments and depositaries of the Church's doctrinal patrimony, were regarded as begetters of that life in Christ of which St. Paul speaks in the text cited (cf. Martyrium Polycarpi, 12, 2; Acta Cypriani, 3, 3). From the 4th century onward, when the early bishops began to be considered authoritative witnesses of tradition and judges in dogmatic controversies, doctrinal authority was chiefly valued, and the name of Fathers was restricted to the assertors of the faith who had left written testimony. Very soon, however, this title was extended also to non-bishops through the work of St. Augustine, who cited as a witness of Catholic doctrine concerning original sin his contemporary St. Jerome, a simple priest (Contra Jul., I, 34; II, 36). Yet not all ecclesiastical writers were fit to testify to the faith of the Church, since some had fallen into grave errors. Therefore the ancient ecclesiastical writers were distinguished into two categories: those recognized by the Church as witnesses of the faith, and those who were not. The first example of such a distinction is found in the decretal De libris recipiendis et non recipiendis of the 6th century, which goes under the name of Pope Gelasius and which, consequently, constitutes the oldest catalogue of Christian writers recognized as Fathers of the Church.
Taking into account the various determinations to which this appellation was subject, four elements enter into forming its concept: a) orthodox doctrine: as guardians, in fact, of the tradition received from their predecessors, they must transmit it unaltered to successive generations; such orthodoxy is understood in the sense of a faithful communion of doctrine with the Church, not as total immunity from even material errors: the example of St. Cyprian holds for all; b) holiness of life: as teachers, the Fathers of the Church must present in a high degree the Christian virtues, not only preached but practiced; this note constitutes a guarantee and a sublimation of orthodoxy itself; c) approval of the Church: only the Church, just as it can define the canon of the Scriptures, can likewise determine the authentic witnesses of Tradition; an explicit approval is not required, however, the implicit is sufficient, such as might be had, for example, in the citation of a Father made by an ecumenical council; d) antiquity: on this point there has been some oscillation and, for a considerable time, medieval writers of the period preceding scholasticism were also classified among the Fathers of the Church. Then a greater severity prevailed, and now the patristic age is commonly held to conclude, in the West, with the death of St. Isidore of Seville (636), in the East with that of St. John Damascene (ca. 750).
In practice the name of Fathers is sometimes extended, in a broad sense, to certain writers of the early age who were not saints, or who, at some moment in their production, were not orthodox, such as, for example, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea. The eminent services rendered by such men, for other reasons, explain the exceptions: to these the title of "ecclesiastical writers" more properly belongs. The category of the Fathers of the Church is only partly identical with that of the Doctors of the Church (v.), for whom, if the note of antiquity is not necessary, there is nonetheless required an eminens eruditio and explicit recognition on the part of the Church.
II. AUTHORITY
The importance of the Fathers of the Church is not merely of a literary or historical order, but is founded above all on their doctrine, drawn from Tradition as a source of faith. This derives from the very close connection they had with the infallible magisterium of the Church. They were for the most part bishops, and their intellectual activity was, as it were, the very breath of the Church. In their times they in fact constituted the magisterium, or at least the principal part of it, inasmuch as the whole Church, teaching and learning, looked to them, delegated to them its own defense, received their writings, and surrounded them with approval and praise. This combination of circumstances made them an authoritative voice in the Church and bound their work to the responsibility of its magisterium. Had they erred, the very organ of infallibility would have been compromised. From this it follows that the Fathers of the Church have all the requisites for being considered guaranteed and qualified witnesses of the unaltered divine tradition.Such a conception is, naturally, foreign to the doctrine of the Protestants, who, rejecting the Catholic concept of Tradition, admit no guide in the field of faith other than Sacred Scripture: they therefore cannot attribute to the Fathers any authority other than a human one.
On the other hand, the Fathers of the Church are not in everything sure instruments of revealed truths. Setting aside the doctrines that fall within the domain of reason, even in what concerns faith and morals many of their expressions and sayings are valid only as points of passage, not as a definitive formulation of doctrine. More than once, in fact, they corrected themselves, and not rarely only after severe examination and lively disputes did they arrive at a more exact exposition of the doctrine handed down. It must further be borne in mind that their intellectual talents are very diverse; that they are links in the transmission of doctrine, not the end of it; that they are not inspired and exempt from error; that their writings are for the most part occasional, circumstantial, and not systematic expositions of the truths of faith; that before controversies arose they often speak without precautions. Therefore, according to the saying of St. Augustine, «their voices must be weighed, not counted» (Contra Iul., s. 35). This makes it possible to distinguish in them a twofold aspect: that of witnesses of Tradition, over which the guarantee of the Church extends, and that of private doctor, which does not have that guarantee, but is as trustworthy as are his intellectual excellence, his holiness, and, above all, the reasons he adduces.
To evaluate the authority of the Fathers of the Church properly, theologians are accustomed to propose the following norms: a) no Father is of himself infallible, except in the case that he was pope and taught ex cathedra, or if and insofar as the individual passages of his writings have been validated by an ecumenical council; the exaggeration of the Jansenists, who went so far as to prefer the authority of a single Father (concretely, St. Augustine) to the living magisterium of the Church, was therefore rightly reproved by Alexander VII (Denz-U, 320); b) the unanimous consent of the Fathers in matters of faith and morals is to be considered an irrefragable authority, because it is equivalent to the doctrine of the Church itself: this was the teaching of the Councils of Trent (sess. IV) and Vatican (sess. III, 22), which forbade giving to Sacred Scripture a meaning contrary to the concordant doctrine of the Fathers of the Church; such consent does not, however, require numerical unanimity; a moral unanimity is sufficient, such as could be had even from the testimony of a few, provided that from the circumstances in which it was uttered one can infer that it reflects the common faith of the Church; c) should such consent be lacking, the doctrine of one or more Fathers, especially if it conflicts with that of others, is not to be admitted as certain; for all that, however, it must not be neglected. d) The Fathers who, with the approval of the Church, distinguished themselves in combating particular heresies, count as classical authorities in the dogmas relating to them. Thus St. Cyril of Alexandria in Christology and St. Augustine in the doctrine of Grace.
III. ERA OF THE FATHERS
It is delimited within the boundaries of Christian antiquity established above, and is divided into three periods of unequal length, but in certain respects of equal importance.1. Period of the origins. — It extends up to the Council of Nicaea (325) and is the one that most interests modern criticism, whose attention is directed in a particular way to Christian origins. To this epoch belong the Apostolic Fathers, whose writings, although of scant literary or philosophical value, nonetheless reflect the immediate echo of apostolic preaching, and inform us how the constitution impressed by Christ upon his Church was understood and realized from the very beginnings. This authority is shared only in part by the apologetic Fathers of the 2nd century, and still less by the controversialist Fathers of the following century; in compensation the latter offer the first essays of doctrinal systematization, which make them true precursors of the great masters of the golden period.
2. Golden period. — It is the shortest, in that it ends with the death of St. Augustine (431), but it is also that of the greatest splendor of patristic literature. Profound doctrinal crises, such as the Arian and the Pelagian, troubled the Church in this time. The Fathers of this epoch, engaged in the great disputes, were able to make a decisive contribution to the systematization of theological science. Among them emerge the figures of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, considered as the greatest Doctors of the Eastern Church; while in the West St. Jerome, the Doctor of the Scriptures, St. Ambrose, the Doctor of the independence of the Church, and St. Augustine dominate unchallenged — he who is not only the Doctor of Grace, but the universal Doctor, the one who for several centuries was the principal, if not the sole, inspirer of Western Christian thought.
3. Period of decadence. — It extends from the death of St. Augustine to the end of the patristic age. It is a period of slow decline, caused by the barbarian invasions in the West, and by the despotism of the emperors in the East. The great works almost entirely ceased to appear, and the few that were written bear the marks of weariness and lack of originality. This does not prevent the emergence here and there of still very great figures, such as those of St. John Damascene and St. Gregory the Great. But these are only happy exceptions, which do not destroy the impression of the whole. The importance of the Fathers of this epoch consists above all in having preserved the treasures of ancient theological knowledge, so that, placed as a connecting link between the ancient world that was setting and the new one that was beginning, they had the merit of laying the foundations of the subsequent medieval civilization.
IV. STUDY OF THE FATHERS
Two important sciences concern themselves with these figures of writers and thinkers, and these are commonly regarded as distinct: patrology, which studies the historical-literary moment of the Fathers, that is, directly their writings and, in relation to them, the life of the individual authors; and patristics, which concerns the doctrinal aspect and is regarded as the systematic exposition of the proofs drawn from the patristic writings in demonstration of dogma (v. PATROLOGIA E PATRISTICA).V. LANGUAGE OF THE FATHERS
Until almost the whole of the 2nd century the language of the Fathers was Greek. This was no wonder, if one considers that Christianity recruited its first followers from elements of predominantly Eastern origin. Greek, moreover, was at that time the international language par excellence, understood not only in the East but also in all the regions washed by the Mediterranean, at least as regards the educated class. It was, besides, the language which, by the high degree of its development, was best suited to express the richness of Christian thought.After the 3rd century, in the East, while Greek always remained in honor, local idioms were also used, especially Armenian and Syriac, whereas in the West, beginning in the year 180, the first literary manifestations in the Latin language began; this later became the exclusive language of the Western Fathers.
The most ancient patristic documents remain outside the Greek literary tradition. At first, in fact, following the example of the redactors of the Septuagint version and of the New Testament hagiographers, the Fathers, the better to adapt themselves to the understanding of the people, made use of the vulgar Greek of the koine, such as had developed in Alexandria under the influence of the Judeo-Hellenistic circles. But already in the apologists of the 2nd century one finds a certain approach to traditional linguistic norms. It was Clement of Alexandria who effected the definitive break from popular forms: after him, the use of the classical authors re-entered the common practice of the Greek Fathers, and the 4th century, which saw a true flowering of Christian humanism, produced masterpieces of Christian thought such that, for the purity of their language, they can vie with the most authentic models of Greek literature.
As regards the use of Latin, its late appearance among the Western Fathers has already been noted, due not only to the causes mentioned above, but also to the very character of this idiom which, unlike Greek, is not very malleable for expressing new and abstract ideas. In compensation, under the creative influence of Christian writers, especially of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, the language of Rome entered a new phase of development. Its lexicon, whose poverty Seneca had already lamented, was substantially enriched with new elements, derived in part from the Greek linguistic treasury, in part from many idioms of the period and from forms in use in legal technique, and finally from neologisms. The result was ecclesiastical Latin, a most fresh language, full of life, a docile instrument of thought. For a long time this Latin of the Fathers was unjustly despised by scholars, as though Latin literature had said its last word toward the end of the 2nd century. The most recent studies on the language of St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and others have shown that the Fathers did not write in a manner unworthy of the best representatives of classical Latinity, even though they made use of unprecedented terms and constructions. Through their work Latin literature, renewed by the evangelical ideal, passed from Roman to Christian; indeed to them belongs almost exclusively the merit of having kept high, in a time of literary decadence, the prestige of the culture and letters of Rome.
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