CHURCH FATHERS, founders of Christian church doctrine, active in the 2nd–8th centuries. (although some figures from this circle - Tertullian, Origen - are not canonized by the church). The church fathers had a decisive influence on the formation of the attitude of the Christian church towards Jews, when Christianity, in polemics with Judaism, defended its identity and adapted the Hebrew Bible (for Christians, the Old Testament) to its doctrine. Many of the church fathers were versed in Hebrew and familiar with the rabbinic tradition to one degree or another.
The need for a clear demarcation between the new doctrine and Judaism forced the first Christian authors to take a sharp anti-Jewish position, enter into polemics with the Jewish interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and raise objections to the polemical arguments of the Jews. Thus, already in the anonymous “Letter of Barnabas” (2nd century) it is argued that Jews falsely understand the Law, interpreting it literally, instead of looking for its true spiritual meaning, and Aristides of Athens in his “Apology” addressed to Emperor Hadrian (about 123 g. - 124) subjects Jews to criticism along with heretics. The most significant Christian apologist of the 2nd century. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Tryphon, recounts a two-day discussion (possibly real) between the author and a Jewish scholar from Eretz Israel (some researchers believe with Rabbi Tarfon; see Disputes). The discussion focuses on the meaning of the Old Testament (versus the New Testament), the divinity of Jesus, and Christianity's claim to be the "New Israel." Another anti-Jewish polemical treatise of the 2nd century. - composition (about 175) by Bishop Apollinaris of Hierapolis in Phrygia. All these works are written in Greek. The first anti-Jewish polemical treatise in Latin was written around 200 by Tertullian, who decided to refute in writing the anti-Christian arguments expressed by Jews in a Jewish-Christian debate. At the center are the same questions: the maintenance of the Old Testament's power, the divinity and messianic (see Messiah) role of Jesus, and God's election of the Christian community as the “New Israel.”
Several works of the church fathers date back to the first half of the 3rd century. The treatise Against the Jews attributed to Hippolytus of Rome explains the plight of the Jews as a consequence of their refusal to accept Jesus. Clement of Alexandria, who made extensive use of aggadic material (see Haggadah), aims to prove to the pagans that Greek philosophers borrowed a lot from Jewish teaching, and to answer the Jews to their argument about the sectarian fragmentation of Christians. An equally difficult task is pursued by Origen, who to a certain extent defends Judaism and at the same time refutes the anti-Christian arguments borrowed by the pagans from the Jews. It is believed that Origen's mother was Jewish, and there is no doubt that he maintained relations with the Jewish teachers of Eretz Israel.
No later than the middle of the 3rd century. Cyprian of Carthage collected biblical "testimonies" (testimonies) for use in discussions with Jews; it is possible that it was modeled on a similar collection compiled in the 2nd century. in Greek. Four other anti-Jewish writings are also erroneously attributed to Cyprian. In the 3rd century. Bishop Novatian wrote a number of works (only partially preserved) in which he calls on Christians to abandon the observance of kashrut and the Sabbath and opposes Jewish law
FATHERS AND TEACHERS OF THE CHURCH - in Christianity, the traditional name for outstanding theologians and church leaders who played an important role in the development of Christian dogma and the organization of the Church and developed church teaching and their own Christianity spiritual experience in a particularly clear, deep and convincing form.
The doctrinal authority of the Fathers and teachers of the Church is recognized in the Orthodox, Catholic, Nestorian and Monophysite traditions (although the list of Fathers and teachers of the Church may be different). Protestantism rejects it, considering the Holy Scripture to be the only source of doctrine. The scientific and theological discipline that studies the life, works and teachings of the Fathers and teachers of the Church, as well as church writers, is patrolology (see Patristics).
The title “father” in relation to a spiritual director is found both in the Old Testament (2 Kings 13:14) and in the New Testament (1 Cor. 4:15). It was used in the same meaning by early Christian authors (Clement of Alexandria, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons and others). In Christian antiquity, the successors to the authority of the apostles were called the Fathers of the Church. Initially, almost exclusively bishops were called fathers of the Church, since it was they who carried out the teaching ministry in the ancient Church. From the 4th-5th centuries, church teachers who did not have episcopal rank (however, as a rule, monastics) began to be called fathers. In the 5th century, the Monk Vincent of Lerins, in his essay “Memoirs,” put forward 3 criteria for belonging to the category of Church Fathers: Orthodox teaching (orthodoxy), personal holiness, and antiquity. Subsequently, a 4th criterion was added in church science - recognition by the Church. Authors who did not meet one or more of these criteria, but nevertheless belonged to the Church (Eusebius of Caesarea, Lactantius and many others), are usually classified as “church writers.”
The first list of 13 Church Fathers (3 Eastern and 10 Western) is contained in a letter of Pseudo-Gelasius (5th-6th centuries). Among all the Fathers of the Church, Sacred Tradition over time began to highlight some particularly outstanding, or “chosen fathers.” One of the first lists of outstanding Church Fathers was presented by Emperor Justinian I at the meeting of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) and approved by this council. It included 12 Church Fathers (8 Eastern and 4 Western): Saints Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary of Pictavia, Ambrose of Milan, Leo I the Great, Augustine, as well as Theophilus of Alexandria and Proclus of Constantinople.
The concept of “teacher of the Church” is used both as a synonym for the phrase “father of the Church” and in other meanings. In the pathological literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was customary to refer to church authors as teachers of the Church who, according to some criteria, were not classified as church fathers, but either served as didaskals in the ancient Church (for example, Clement of Alexandria, Origen), or had a significant influence on development of theology (for example, Tertullian). Sometimes especially prominent and chosen Fathers of the Church are called teachers of the Church. Thus, in the Orthodox Church, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom are called “great universal teachers and saints.” In the Roman Catholic Church in 1298, Pope Boniface VIII approved a list of 8 “great teachers of the Church”: 4 Latin (Saints Ambrose of Milan, Jerome the Blessed, Augustine, Gregory I the Great) and 4 Greek (Saints Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom). At the same time, in the Catholic tradition there is a tendency, based on the criterion of antiquity, to limit the era of the Fathers of the Church to the 1st-8th centuries (the last Father of the Church in the West is considered to be Saint Isidore of Seville, in the East - Saint John of Damascus). After them comes the era of teachers of the Church (Catholic), who meet all the criteria of patristic authority, except antiquity. Only the Ecumenical Council or the Pope can classify a theologian as a teacher of the Roman Catholic Church. In the Orthodox tradition, the criterion of antiquity is not of decisive importance, since it is believed that the grace of the Holy Spirit, which inspires the Fathers of the Church, operates in any era of the Church’s existence. Therefore, in Orthodox theology, those church leaders who lived much later than the 8th century (Rev. Simeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas and others) are also recognized as the Fathers of the Church.
For the Church, the written heritage of the Fathers and teachers of the Church is of great importance: it primarily contains the Holy Tradition and gives the interpretation of the Holy Scripture generally recognized in the Church (see Biblical Exegesis). Therefore, according to the Christian tradition, all questions about faith, the rules of piety and church structure should be resolved in the light of the teachings of the Fathers and teachers of the Church. It is believed that the works of the Fathers and teachers of the Church were written under the influence of the grace of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, they also contain the human element characteristic of the fathers, as bearers of individuality and as representatives of a certain era, culture, and so on. In the church tradition, an important role is played by the principle of “consent of the fathers” (lat. consensus patrum), according to which all the Fathers and teachers of the Church cannot be mistaken in the same issue of doctrine. Theological opinions that differ from the doctrinal definitions of all or the majority of the Fathers and teachers of the Church, which agree with each other, but are not recognized as clearly heretical, are usually called theologumena, which do not have generally binding authority.
P atristics- (from the Greek pater - father) denotes the totality of theological, philosophical and political-sociological doctrines of Christian thinkers of the 2nd - 8th centuries, the so-called church fathers. In the 2nd-3rd centuries. there was fragmentary philosophizing by the apologists of patristics: Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen. In the 4th-5th centuries. - systematization of church doctrine: Basil the Great, in the west - Augustine. 6th century - stabilization of dogmas and codification of sciences under the auspices of theology: Leontius of Byzantium, Boethius...
The four figures are named Doctors of the Western Church- Saint Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great.
The heyday of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine occurred in the period between the victory of the Catholic Church in the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasion. Immediately after they left the scene, Italy, Spain and Africa found themselves at the mercy of the barbarians. Civilization entered a period of centuries-long decline and only after about 1000 years, the Christian world was able to once again produce people equal to Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. Their authority was revered throughout the Middle Ages; More than anyone else, they contributed to determining the form that the church took.
Ambrose- substantiated the church concept of the relationship between church and state (independence of the church). Jerome- gave the Western Church the Latin Bible, the initiative of the monastic movement came from him. Augustine- developed the theology of the church, which was in effect until the Reformation. He tried to reconcile philosophy with scripture, something that earlier Christian philosophers had not done. His best work is "Confessions". Augustine argued that the world was not created from matter, but from nothing, while Greek philosophy argued that the world could not be created from nothing. These views in Christian times led to pantheism: God and the world are inseparable. Augustine tried to correlate these two theories. He said that God is eternal and exists outside of time. He does not precede his own creation of time, since he is outside the flow of time. The past and the future can only be understood as the present: the past can be identified with memory, and the future with expectation, but they are facts relating to the present, i.e. time is an aspect of our thoughts. In the work "On the City of God" Augustine says:
1. about the wickedness of the pagan gods.
2. in the present world there are two cities - earthly and heavenly, they are mixed, but in the future they will be separated.
3. Blessed is eternal, but not everything that is eternal is blessed.
Gave synchronization of sacred and secular history.
Patristics of the 5th - 6th centuries.
5th century- this is the time of barbarian invasions and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. After the death of St. Augustine (430), philosophical thought almost died out. At this time, the Angles invaded Britain, the Franks invaded Gaul (modern France), and the Vandals invaded Spain. In the middle of the 5th century, St. Patrick converted the Irish to Christianity, i.e. German kingdoms were formed in Europe. The Goths came to Italy, and they were driven here from the east by the Huns (Mongols). During this period of chaos, the church was torn by controversy over the issue of the incarnation. The main opponents are two clergymen - Cyril and Nestorius. Kirill- Patriarch of Alexandria, and Nestorius- Constantinople. The controversy arose over how the divine and human natures of Christ relate to each other. Nestorius: in Christ there are two faces - human and divine, the Mother of God is the mother of the human, the divine face had no mother.
Kirill believed that in Christ there is only the divine. As a result, the church split.
In the 6th century- Boethius, Justinian, Gregory the Great.
Boethius: imperfection is a flaw that presupposes the existence of a perfect image. Evil is in the absence of a positive principle. Bliss and God are the highest blessings, therefore they are identical, therefore everyone who is happy is God. Virtuous people are powerful, bad people are weak.
What little survived from the culture of ancient Rome was preserved by the church, which had three areas of activity: 1. monastic movement; 2. the growth of the influence of the papacy; 3. conversion of barbarians from paganism to Christianity.
The monastic movement began simultaneously in Egypt and Syria around the beginning of the 4th century in the form of solitary hermits and monasteries. The first hermit is Saint Anthony (270). Pachomius (315) founded the first monastery. Most of the monks did not read or work. Played a major role in the monastic movement Saint Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order. He did not require strict asceticism. Gregory the Great born in Rome around 540 into a wealthy noble family. He was prefect of Rome. He distributed his wealth to found monasteries. He had no sympathy for secular knowledge.
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CHURCH FATHERS - a concept used to designate early Christian thinkers and writers, whose works formed the basis of the dogmatic and organizational structure of the church, who are recognized as authorities in both the Eastern Greek tradition and the Western Latin one. Researchers note that only those authors whose texts did not contradict the Holy Scriptures are called Fathers of the Church, and, as a result, most of these works formed the basis of the Holy Tradition. Thanks to the Church Fathers, the church accepted and churched the philosophical and cultural layers of the Greco-Roman civilization. Initially, the term “Church Fathers” applied only to persons with episcopal rank, but starting from the 4th century. it began to be used in relation to all authoritative theologians of the past. The very phrase “Church Fathers” is used not in a literal, but in a figurative sense. Church Fathers are Fathers who belong to the Church, i.e. persons who were members of the church body, but this name in no way means that they acquired virtues equal to God, who is called the Father not only in relation to the church, but also in relation to the entire created world. The word “father” itself was used in a spiritual sense already in ancient times. To be a father meant, first of all, to give a person physical life, and in a spiritual sense - to instruct another in the truth: to be the one who teaches another in the faith, who educates a person in line with Christian morality, in Christian ideals, one who, to a certain extent, is the spiritual parent of man, the spiritual father. In this regard, to be the Father of the Church meant to have a noticeable influence on the general church structure of life, both on the doctrinal plane and on the organizational one. Neither personal genius, nor high education, nor eloquence are the virtues that allow the church to call one or another representative its Father. Researchers emphasize that one should distinguish between the Apostolic Fathers, who represented the second or third generation of Christians, but were in direct communication with the apostles or one of their disciples. For example, the apostle of the seventy Clement of Rome (died in 97, 99 or 101), the apostolic Ignatius of Antioch (died in 107) and Polycarp of Smyrna (about 70 - 156) were disciples of John the Theologian. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries. “Apologist Fathers” emerged, preaching and defending Christian teaching in the fight against pagan philosophers and Gnostics. The most famous of them is Justin Martyr (about 100 - about 165). ) and Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon (130–202), executed for confessing his faith. However, such talented people of their time as Tertullian (155/165 - 220/240) and Origen (about 185 - about 254) were not classified as the Fathers of the Church.
Church Fathers
(holy fathers)
those of the church writers whose works are recognized by the Church itself as the most accurate expression of the teachings it preserves. When they talk about the Fathers of the Church, they usually mean great theologians, such as, for example, Saints Ignatius of Antioch, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Maximus the Confessor.
The activity of most of the Church Fathers falls on the 2nd-8th centuries, however, some theologians of later times, for example Gregory Palamas, are also included among them. Among all church writers, the Church Fathers occupy a special place. The formal characteristics of the Fathers of the Church are: 1) orthodoxy, orthodoxy of teaching, 2) holiness of life, 3) recognition of the Church. However, none of these criteria can be considered from a narrow formal point of view. For example, the criterion of “orthodoxy” cannot be applied in the sense that everything said by one or another father is the absolute truth, because The writings of the fathers are human works and differ significantly from the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which were compiled under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But a distinction should be made between “errors” and “misconceptions”, because they are not the same thing. Errors in explaining truths that are not defined by the Church can often be found among the holy fathers. But persistence against a clear definition of the entire Church - never. As for the second criterion - the holiness of life, here one should beware of identifying the concepts of “holiness” and “sinlessness”, for, as we know, there is only one God without sin. We must not forget that the fathers of the Church were people: in their lives there could have been falls and misdeeds, but through their feat of repentance and prayer they redeemed them before the Lord, and the Church unanimously recognizes them as saints. And most importantly, their holiness should be sealed by a blessed death in communion with the Church or even martyrdom for Christ. The third criterion – recognition of the Church – is the main factor in determining the boundaries of the concept of “Church Fathers”.
Thus, the main and decisive condition in determining the truth of the teaching of a particular Church Father is the apostolic faith. The Holy Father is the one who interprets the Apostolic Faith in correct terms for his contemporaries. The Fathers of the Church, their heritage is studied by patristics and patrolology.
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