Beginning

With our first en­try on the web­site, we would like to ex­plain where the Pa­tris­tic Fathers came from? Who were they, when did they live and what did they do that today we call them Fa­thers? Paul of Tar­sus comes to us in un­der­stand­ing the term Fa­ther in the First Let­ter to the Corinthi­ans 4:15: 

“For even if you have ten thou­sand teach­ers in Christ, you have but few fathers.” 

Paul’s words in­di­cate the au­thor’s strong con­vic­tion that he is like a fa­ther writing to his chil­dren. Fa­ther­hood here is un­der­stood in a spir­i­tu­al sense. Paul be­got  them in faith. This un­der­stand­ing of the fa­ther in a spir­i­tu­al sense was com­mon in an­cient times. To­day, pa­trolol­o­gy or pa­tris­tics de­fines fa­thers based on 4 cri­te­ria, thanks to which one can eas­i­ly de­ter­mine whether a giv­en per­son de­serves to be called a father or a Chris­t­ian writer. 

Be­low are 4 cri­te­ria: 

1. Cri­te­ri­on – doc­t­ri­na or­tho­doxa – or­tho­dox teach­ing. Teach­ing con­sis­tent with the doc­trine of the en­tire Church, al­though not al­ways as­so­ci­at­ed with in­fal­li­bil­i­ty. 

2. Cri­te­ri­on – sanc­ti­tas vi­tae – sanc­ti­ty of life. It is the de­sire to strive for Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion. 

3. Cri­te­rion – an­ti­qui­tas – an­ti­qui­ty. This is pri­mar­i­ly the pe­ri­od in the East un­til John Dam­a­scene, and in the West un­til Gre­go­ry the Great. 

4. Cri­te­ri­on – ap­pro­ba­tion ec­cle­si­ae – uni­ver­sal recog­ni­tion by the Church com­mu­ni­ty. 

When try­ing to de­fine the term Fa­ther, it is worth quot­ing the text of John Paul II con­tained in Pa­tres Eclessi­ae. 

„Those saints are right­ly called the Fa­thers of the Church who, dur­ing the first cen­turies, through the pow­er of their faith, the sub­lim­i­ty and rich­ness of their teach­ing, brought new vi­tal forces into it and made it de­vel­op won­der­ful­ly. They are tru­ly the „fa­thers” of the Church, be­cause from them through the Gospel the Church re­ceived life. They are also its builders, be­cause on the only foun­da­tion laid by the Apos­tles, which is Christ, they built the Church of God in its ba­sic struc­tures. The Church still to­day lives the life drawn from her Fa­thers and is still be­ing built on the foun­da­tions laid by the first builders, amidst the ad­ver­si­ties that ac­com­pa­ny her jour­ney and her dai­ly ef­forts. There­fore, they were and will re­main Fa­thers for­ev­er, be­cause they them­selves are a per­ma­nent struc­ture of the Church and have been serv­ing the Church faith­ful­ly through­out the cen­turies. Hence, every sub­se­quent procla­ma­tion of the Gospel and teach­ing, if it is to be au­then­tic, must be har­monized with their teach­ing, every charism and every of­fice must draw from the liv­ing source of their fa­ther­hood, every new stone added to the holy build­ing, which is con­stant­ly grow­ing and ex­pand­ing, must fit with­in the foun­da­tions laid by them and must be in­te­grat­ed with these foun­da­tions. Guid­ed by this cer­tain­ty, the Church tire­less­ly re­turns to their writ­ings, full of wis­dom and al­ways fresh, and constantly brings them to mind.” 

I think that the above text and the se­lec­tion cri­te­ria will al­low you to ac­cu­rate­ly de­ter­mine who can be in­clud­ed among these ven­er­a­ble men called the Fa­ther of the Church. More­over, ex­am­in­ing, read­ing or study­ing an­cient texts from the first cen­turies will al­low us to delve deep­er into our faith. Un­der­stand the the­ol­o­gy of the de­vel­op­ment of Church dog­mas. Open your­self to the rich­ness of the ear­ly Church, the foun­da­tion of which is un­doubt­ed­ly Je­sus Christ. 

Thanks to the Fa­thers, the con­fes­sion es­tab­lished in Nicaea in 325 strength­ens the uni­ty of Chris­tians on the path of faith. There­fore, if we want to preach the Gospel and teach, it must be con­sis­tent with the teach­ing of the ear­ly Church, the foun­da­tions of which were laid by the Fa­thers. Un­der­stand­ing the Fa­thers to­day is not that easy. It turns out that we are separated by cen­turies of his­to­ry and the cul­ture of the lan­guage our fa­thers used. Is it pos­si­ble to­day to learn the thoughts and the­ol­o­gy of the fa­thers? This is a ques­tion we will ask our­selves all the time. On the one hand, we will try to get to know the fa­thers bet­ter in the his­tor­i­cal con­text, on the oth­er hand, we will want to learn at least one lan­guage in which the fa­thers wrote. There is al­ways a third op­tion that allows us to ful­ly ben­e­fit from the achieve­ments of peo­ple who, pro­fes­sion­al­ly or as a hob­by, study, teach or share pa­tris­tic thought. The choice of form is up to you. We hope that love for Christ Je­sus and His Church will over­come all pre­vi­ous­ly encountered ob­sta­cles to un­der­stand­ing and mak­ing friends with pa­tris­tic thought. May the wis­dom of the fa­thers be­come a true nec­tar for our souls.