Fathers of the Church, Part 2: the Latin (Or Western) Fathers

Fathers of the Church, Part 2: The Latin (or Western) Fathers A previous In Focus explored some of the great Fathers of the Eastern, or Greek, Church. This week the Latin (Western) Fathers are highlighted. While there is no official list of the Fathers, since the fifth century the criteria for selection has been that the individuals lived holy lives, were orthodox in their teachings and writings, lived during antiquity (the first through seventh centuries) and have been approved by the Church. According to some historians, there are more than 100 total Church Fathers (East and West); many of the same names are found on the different lists. The Fathers helped define, establish and promote the dogmas of the Catholic faith. They not only explained and advanced Christianity, but they stood against those who would defame, deny or exploit our Lord, Jesus Christ. This author is not able to adequately measure or describe the sanctity of these men, who were popes, bishops, theologians, apologists and writers. Some are saints, and all gave themselves in the service of the Lord. Here are a handful among the giants from the Western Church who have the title Church Father. They are categorized by those who lived just before the Council of Nicea, those in the era of Nicea and those after the council, up through the seventh century. Part one about the Greek (Eastern) Church Fathers was published Jan. 21 and can be found at: bit.ly/fatherspart1. Ante-Nicea Fathers Tertullian (c. 155-220) Tertullian Public domain The Fathers of the Western Church begin with Tertullian in the second century. Although not a saint, he was the most prominent Western theologian in the era before the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. A well-known lawyer, Tertullian converted to Christianity around 197; he studied the early Fathers of the East and brought their thought into the Western Church. He was the first among all the Fathers to use Latin in his writings. Some historians say he was a priest, but there is little evidence to that end. As a layman, he instructed those seeking to be baptized and wrote pieces called “On Baptism” and “On Repentance” in the years between A.D. 200 and 206. These were the first written works dedicated to Church sacraments. In “On Repentance,” he writes that repentance should never be necessary after baptism, advising not to abuse God’s mercy: “[The devil’s] poisons are foreseen by God; and although the gate of repentance has already been closed and barred by baptism, still, he [God] permits it to stand open a little. In the vestibule he has stationed a second repentance, which he makes available to those who knock — but only once, because it is already the second time, and never more, because further were in vain.” Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, his full name, was quick to address the Roman persecutions, and he challenged the Roman judicial practices instituted against the Christians in the second and third centuries. He wrote in his most famous piece, “The Apology”: “Crucify us, torture us, condemn us, destroy us! Your wickedness is proof of our innocence, for which reason does God suffer us to suffer this. When recently you condemned a Christian maiden to a panderer, rather than to a panther, you realized and confessed openly that with us a stain on our purity is regarded as more dreadful than any punishment and worse than death. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, accomplish anything: Rather, it is an enticement to our religion. The more we are hewn down by you, the more numerous do we become. The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians!” He argued in the same piece that Christians were called criminals, accused of every calamity, ultimately, because they were Christians and not because they had been proven guilty of anything: “They consider the Christians to be the cause of every public disaster and of every misfortune which has befallen the people from the earliest times. If the Tiber rises to the city walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the weather continues without change, if there is an earthquake, if a famine, if pestilence, immediately, ‘Christians to the lions.'” His defense of Christianity was brilliant. Like St. Justin, the Greek Father of the same era, Tertullian clearly identified the many Roman absurdities in regard to Christians. Such work had little impact on the treatment of Christians until some 200 years later. Although a great apologist for Christianity, he became a sympathizer of the Montanism movement. This heresy surfaced in the second century, advocating the near-term end of the world and, as such, encouraged continuous fasting, living in poverty, the denial of second marriages and encouraged martyrdom. Their leader, Montanus, and other followers claimed to speak for the Holy Spirit and even predicted the time of the second coming of Christ. As everyone was considered a priest, there was thus no need for ordained clergy. Tertullian joined this group in the early third century and sought to advance their beliefs. The Church condemned Montanism and excluded them from receiving holy Communion. Despite his allegiance to this heretical group, Tertullian’s early commitment and constant work to defend and advance Christianity against her enemies marked him as the first of the Western Fathers. St. Irenaeus (d. 202) St. Irenaeus Public domain Irenaeus is credited with putting together the beginnings of what eventually would become the New Testament, combining the Gospels and the authentic teachings and writings of the apostles, and setting apart these sacred Christian Scriptures as equal to the Old Testament. He witnessed to the Apostolic teachings in his works against heresies and especially refuted the false teachings of Gnosticism. This heresy was made up of so-called Christians who separated the world into good and evil – spiritual things were good, but material things, including the human body, were bad. They believed that Jesus only appeared to be human, was not true God, and that a select few of them had been given a special knowledge coming directly from the apostles, and only those with such knowledge could attain salvation. Irenaeus’ explanations of the fundamental Christian beliefs not only rejected the Gnostics, but promoted the concept of apostolic succession — that the original followers of Christ handed down to Church bishops and priests the basic and true teachings to which all Christians should adhere: “The tradition of the apostles, manifested throughout the world, can be clearly seen in every church by those who wish to behold the truth. We can enumerate those who were established by the apostles as bishops in the churches, and their successors down to our time. … They certainly wished those whom they were leaving as their successors, handing over to them their own teaching position, to be perfect and irreproachable” (“Against Heresies”). Irenaeus exposed Gnosticism and its many false teachings as being with no foundation in the Christian doctrine taught by the apostles. In the same writing, endowed with a wisdom that only can come from the Holy Spirit, and like those before and after, he clearly and succinctly reflects on the unity of the Church, how the Church “although scattered throughout the world … proclaims [the doctrine], teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she passed through only one mouth.” He often is referred to as the Father of Theology and was a student or acquaintance of the great St. Polycarp of Smyrna. Irenaeus wrote a kind of catechism called “Demonstration on the Apostolic Preaching” in which he offers his thoughts on attaining salvation, concluding that man must stay true to his faith, not allow material possessions take him off the right path: “For what profit is it to know the truth in words, and to pollute the flesh and perform the works of evil? Or what profit can purity of the flesh bring, if truth be not in the soul?” Proposed as a Doctor of the Church, bishop, theologian, the first of the Church Fathers to allude to Mary as the New Eve – Irenaeus was essential in the development of our Catholic faith. Nicea Fathers St. Ambrose (340-397) St. Ambrose was bishop of Milan, Italy. Shutterstock St. Ambrose was the first of the Church Fathers to recognize that the Roman emperors were more and more imposing themselves on Christianity, seeking to gain control of the Church. Ambrose argued that in Church matters, it was not the emperor who ruled the Church but the bishops. He was a holy man of action and opposed anyone who sought to vilify Christianity or made false accusations against the Church. Serving as the governor of Northern Italy, he was not yet baptized when elected by the people of Milan as their bishop to replace Bishop Auxentius, who was an Arian. He didn’t want the job, but the position was thrust on him by his emperor. After being baptized, he became bishop of Milan in 374 and remained as such until he died in 397. He did not teach or write thoughts that were necessarily original, but he expounded on and affirmed the teachings of Jesus, the apostles and the Fathers. Ambrose admired the works of Origen and used and promoted the Scripture analysis of Origen into the Western Church. Influential and highly esteemed, he did not hesitate to take on the emperor when he thought necessary. In 388, Emperor Theodosius I (r. 347-395), during a fit of anger, murdered 7,000 Christians. In response, Ambrose refused to give the emperor holy Communion until after Theodosius made a public penance.

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