On the Fathers

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Last week discussed the Saints. Among the Saints are a particular group of Christians known as the Fathers of the Church. Father has many uses among Christianity. Most prominently, Christ identified God as the father. In Holy Scripture, however, it was also associated with teachers. St Paul says of himself, “though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel,” (I Cor 4. 15).

There are other examples in Holy Scripture of the use of the term father, including a seemingly contradictory message often cited by those who oppose the title of Father for priests, St Matthew 23. 9, where Christ says, “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” Given that from the earliest periods of Christianity, the term father remained associated with teachers, the question becomes what did Christ mean there? It does not seem his intention was to have Christians cease from referring to their biological fathers as father, but rather Christ made the statement in the context of chastising the hypocritical Pharisees of his day who afforded themselves grandiose titles. This contrasts with St Paul’s writings where he identifies his authority. He became a Father and teacher through Christ’s gospel. He is not claiming authority, but was given it by God.

The question of authority is essential in understanding the role of Church Fathers. Throughout the early years of Christianity, many challenges to doctrine arose. The Canon of Scripture had not yet been fixed. While the books of what would become the Old Testament were generally understood and fixed because they were simply the Jewish Scriptures, the books of what would become the New Testament were not fully set. Each book was prepared separately and there was not yet a collection of all of the books bound together. Different books which do not form a part of the canon were promoted. Some of these books were entirely orthodox in their Christianity, while others were not. In some cases, challenges to doctrine came even during the apostolic age and were later recorded in the Scriptures when the books of the Bible were actually writen. The Judaisers are an example of this. While accepting, or seeming to accept, some of the truths of Christian teaching, they sought to maintain adherence to the Jewish Law in contradiction of core principles of Christian teaching that Christ had fulfilled the Law and brought freedom from the Law.

After the Apostolic Age, new heresies and challenges crept up. Gnosticism, Marcionism, Arianism and others plagued the early church as much, if not more, than the physical persecution which was occasionally brought about by the Romans. In the mid-2nd century. Marcion of Sinope taught that the Hebrew Scriptures were to be rejected, as he could not reconcile Christ’s teachings on the Kingdom of Heaven and God the Father with the depictions of God in the Jewish Scriptures. His views on Christ himself were also heretical in that he did not view Christ as both fully god and fully man. His teachings were denounced by the Church Father Tertullian. In the same way, in the late 3rd and early 4th century, the bishop Arius proclaimed the inferiority of the Son to the Father, sparking a great controversy within the Christian world. Many different prominent Christians wrote against his views. St Athanasius the Great, St John Chrysostom, St Augustine of Hippo, St Ambrose of Milan; all writing in the 4th and 5th centuries against Arianism and its heresy.

These great saints and teachers did not claim the title Church Father for themselves, but rather the Fathers of the Church we later so-named because their combined teachings formed, and today still form, the foundation of Christian understanding and interpretation of the faith.

Much like how St Paul often uses his epistles to address particular controversies that had arisen in the churches he was writing to, the Fathers would write letters to colleagues or other churches, as many of the Fathers served as bishops. As bishops, one of their primary duties was teaching through Sunday preaching, and many of their writings, rather than being purely theological treatises or even letters, are recordings of homilies they delivered. These homilies may expound on the Scriptures, address issues of the day and explain what our Christian response ought to be. In many ways, the writings of these homilies are no different than the transcripts of homilies you can today find online from current weekly homilies.

The real difference stems from the fact that the Fathers were pioneers. Often the first to reveal particular understandings of Scripture, or make the connection between various Christian doctrines and their practical applications to the daily lives of their congregations. In essence, they went from nothing to forming the theological framework and basis by which we continue today to understand the orthodox interpretation and application of Holy Scripture and Christian doctrine.

When orthodox Christians wanted to understand some matter of Christian theology, they would turn to the writings of the Fathers. When a Christian theologian expounded some new interpretation of Christianity, it would be tested against the writings of the Fathers to determine whether or not it was acceptable.

While many of the Fathers were quite prominent during their day, particularly St John Chrysostom in the East and St Ambrose of Milan in the West, they were not viewed as Fathers in their own day. Just as their canonization as saints took place after their deaths, their status as Fathers of the Church was similarly solidified later. Just as Saints are not sinless in their lives, though the Fathers are viewed as extremely learned, wise and discerning theologians, they do not always agree. Tertullian and Origen are viewed as Church Fathers, but neither were canonized due to certain heresies they promoted. Despite that, Origen in particular was extremely influential and widely read due to the number of books he published in his day. St Augustine of Hippo changed his own views several times over the course of his life, later writing certain treaties to explain where his views had changed from earlier works and why.

In Anglicanism, the Fathers play a traditionally important role in the understanding of theology. In as much as the English Reformation sought to remove superstitious medieval additions to the faith, the Fathers were the standard of authority by which the Reformation sought to return to a traditional and orthodox understanding of Christianity. They provided a standard by which the faith could be measured during that turbulent time, as they do today.

When Anglicans do theology, we test against Scripture, reason embodied in the writings of the Fathers, and tradition, embodied in the Anglican formularies. If you want to test a theological statement, you first test it against Scripture and see if it contradicts the plain meaning of Scripture. Then, you test it against human reason embodied in the writings of the Fathers. Then you test it against the injunctions of the 39 Articles and Book of Common Prayer.

The Fathers were not infallible, nor were they apostolically inspired as the writers of the Bible were, but they certainly were inspired by God in their writings. Their thoughts and understanding continue to prove and inspiration to theologians today, and make their writing an invaluable tool and resource for all Christians.