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The Teachings of the Church Fathers
The Fathers of the Church have been a vital source of wisdom and inspiration for countless saints, popes, peasants, and converts throughout the history of the Church. In this powerful one-volume library, Father Willis presents more than 250 selected doctrinal topics in an exhaustive selection of writings from the major sources of the Fathers. He lets the Fathers speak for themselves on a wide variety of spiritual themes.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
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December 14, 2017
This 479 page tome is a compendium of primary sources who elucidate the basics of the Catholic faith primarily before the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. However, important doctrinal developments are presented by Willis post-Nicea in the fifth century as well. The issues discussed by the Church Fathers often have almost unanimous consensus; other issues are discussed by the Fathers in opposition to herisies represented by the Arians, who thought men could merit salvation; by the Donatists and by the Manacheans.
It is a bit daunting to take on such a lengthy work, but John Willis edits the book into 250 logically and topically related catechetical and theological doctrines. For one brought up with the adult catechism of the Catholic church, and before that, with the children's Baltimore catechism, it is a delight to savor the arguments of the church fathers, both more familiar, such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome, to the less familiar, such as St. Justin Martyr, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Tertullian, St. Hillary, and St. Clement of Alexandria, to name only a few doctors not familiar to some students who became heirs of their catechetical thought.
One very significant use of the early Church doctors is to look back on them in their consensus in a time far before the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation; the pre-Nicene and early post Nicene doctors never contemplated a split, but alas the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the "Father and the Son (filioque) ruptured the Roman and Bysantine rites in 1054. This split was also political; Charlemagne's crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and the West deteriorated until a formal split occurred in 1054.
Happily all of the Church fathers developed their thought in the first five centuries after Christ, and the basics of the creed were explained at length.
It is a bit daunting to take on such a lengthy work, but John Willis edits the book into 250 logically and topically related catechetical and theological doctrines. For one brought up with the adult catechism of the Catholic church, and before that, with the children's Baltimore catechism, it is a delight to savor the arguments of the church fathers, both more familiar, such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome, to the less familiar, such as St. Justin Martyr, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Tertullian, St. Hillary, and St. Clement of Alexandria, to name only a few doctors not familiar to some students who became heirs of their catechetical thought.
One very significant use of the early Church doctors is to look back on them in their consensus in a time far before the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation; the pre-Nicene and early post Nicene doctors never contemplated a split, but alas the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the "Father and the Son (filioque) ruptured the Roman and Bysantine rites in 1054. This split was also political; Charlemagne's crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and the West deteriorated until a formal split occurred in 1054.
Happily all of the Church fathers developed their thought in the first five centuries after Christ, and the basics of the creed were explained at length.
Displaying 1 of 1 review