Reading the Church Fathers discussion
General
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Welcome and Please Introduce Yourself
Welcome to the group, Garrett and Jim!You joined just in time for our group discussion of Irenaeus.
Georgina wrote: "Hello everyone!I am very interested in the writings of the Church Fathers; in fact theology, etc. has always been an happy obsession. Having said that, I have a Doctorate in American History."
Welcome again, Georgina!
If you're interested in history and theology, you're in good company here. :)
Welcome to the group, David, DoctorAkke and Jerry!
Welcome to the group, Agus, Balogun and Robin!
Welcome Georgina,By the way Nemo when was this group founded? You know it will continue to grow maybe we should put a template together new members can use to help with intros?
Just an idea anyway, I'm sure this group will continue to grow.
Aaron wrote: "By the way Nemo when was this group founded?"This group was founded about two months ago. I've removed a few members who joined last December but haven't spoken a word since (they are free to rejoin if they choose). But others have filled up the lurkers' spots again.
Welcome to the group, Drew, Marty and Rachael!
Welcome to the group, Alan, Alex and Corey!
Hi all, I just joined this group, since I like reading and pondering on theology and philosophy (actually I searched for a group on philosophy and then found this).I studied mathematics, I work as a computer programmer, and in my free time I write texts for the church newsletter http://www.holytrinityutrecht.nl/auth...
I am married, we have three children.
I look forward to read along, and exchange ideas.
Ruth.
Hi Ruth, I think you are our first Anglican, but I'm not keeping track.
Welcome to the group, Pierson, Ruth and Teresa!
Ruth wrote: "Hi all, I just joined this group, since I like reading and pondering on theology and philosophy (actually I searched for a group on philosophy and then found this).I studied mathematics, I work as..."
Just out of curiosity, which programming language do you use the most for work?
hi Nemo, I program in java, on medical software. used in hospitals to do everything related to kidney dialysis.are you a programmer too?
Ruth wrote: "hi Nemo, I program in java, on medical software. used in hospitals to do everything related to kidney dialysis.are you a programmer too?"
I'm not a real programmer, but a "jack-of-all-trades" type. We write programs to aid our research project.
Welcome to the group, Clark, Elise, Eric, Gunner, Ingrid, James, JohnLizzi, NV and Zachary!
Aaron wrote: "Happy Easter everyone"Happy Easter Aaron! How thoughtful! :)
And everyone!!
Thanks Susan, growing up my tradition was Church, family, Easter eggs, candy gifts, and dinner. These days it's dwindled down to dinner with the parents.
Almost forgot about the Easter bread my grandmother used to make called "Cuzzupa" (coot-zoo-pah) in Calabrese. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with it, lot of calories. Basically dough twisted around an egg that served as the face for the doll then frosted.
Aaron wrote: "Almost forgot about the Easter bread my grandmother used to make called "Cuzzupa" (coot-zoo-pah) in Calabrese. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with it, lot of calories. Basically dough twisted ..."I googled it, and and found this at cookingwithnonna.com:
Interesting hers actually had bodies, sometimes they were like a rope joined in a circle, no sprinkles or coloring. I guess every one does them a little different.
Hi ,my name is Tony. I am an author and have a keen interest in the development of early Christianity. Although I have some experience of the early church fathers, I would like to expand my knowledge on this area; especially the Latin and Greek differences .
Greetings there Tony, sounds like you've already got a fairly solid grasp on things judging by your profile.
Welcome to the group, David, Lenilson, MaryAnn, Rex, Stephanie and Tony! MaryAnn and Tony are authors. Glad to have you join us. I also recognize Rex from another GR group.(Thanks to Tony for awaking me from my slumber, just in time to organize a group read of Origen, the Greek Father. )
Thanks for the welcome, Nemo, and hello to everyone! My reading interests are history, the classics, and theology, and I have long wanted to read more of the church fathers; I think the group will be a great opportunity, and I look forward to learning and, hopefully, contributing!
Hello everyone! I am new to the group. I took an early Christianity course a few years ago, and I've wanted to read the writings of the Fathers ever since. I have a special interest in Augustine. I try to keep up with current scholarship on him. But I haven't read anyone else, so I'm excited to begin. Because my research interests are in late medieval and Renaissance religion, it is very important for me to have one knowledge of the Fathers and how they have been cited throughout Christian history. I look forward to the discussions and meeting fellow theology/philosophy lovers :)
Hi everyone, I'm new here :) I love reading the Church Fathers, and have been reading/studying them on and off for the last 4 years or so. In the Lent just gone, I did a daily reading and commentary/devotional on my blog with the early church fathers texts, and have recently reformatted that into a book: 40 Days with the Fathers Edit: available now! 40 Days with the Fathers: A daily reading plan
Looking forward to reading the discussions here, and if anyone is interested in my aforementioned book, see: http://fortydays.co.uk :)
Fariba wrote: "I have a special interest in Augustine."Is there some particular Augustinian text you'd like to read? Not necessarily a whole work, but a chunk?
Clark
Welcome, Luke!It seems folks can see the "daily reading and commentary/devotional" on the home page there. Aside from the immediate benefit of reading those, they will show people what the book will be like.
Clark
Clark wrote: "Welcome, Luke!It seems folks can see the "daily reading and commentary/devotional" on the home page there..."
Thanks :) Your link didn't seem to work, btw (did you mean the group home page or Good Reads in general?)
Ah OK! I didn't realise anyone would have known about my site homepage to make the connection
Hi! I'm Teresa Herbic. I'm a Christian author. God healed my daughter from blindness and double vision. Thus, the book Family Prayer Made Easy http://whpub.whitakerhouse.com/family... with 100 ways for families to pray if you are interested. May God powerfully bless you!
Welcome Teresa, and those I missed, and to our new moderator apparent Clark to the helm.
Hi, I'm new to the group. I joined in an effort to learn more about the roots of our faith by studying the early writings. (Now that my kid are able to some of their lessons on their own I've started studying again too.) I'm a homeschooling mom with two adult and two minor children. I converted in the Jubilee year of 2000 from the Pentacostal church. I love being Catholic and look forward to learning even more.
Talea said, "Hi, I'm new to the group."Welcome! Thank you for joining us in tackling these books.
Do you have any areas of special interest, or questions you want to explore?
What grades are your homeschoolers in?
Welcome! Thank you for joining us in tackling these books.
Do you have any areas of special interest, or questions you want to explore?
What grades are your homeschoolers in?"
Thanks for the welcome. No special interests at the moment. I'm so new into this that I don't even know what I'm looking for or where to even start. I did study, during my conversion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I just want to know more about the people that wrote all the material that we base our faith off of. I had the Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church before we moved and that is what whetted the appetite so to speak. Now that I have a little more time I'm looking forward to getting started.
My homeschooled kiddos are in 6th and 1st for the most part. Since we homeschool we use a variety of grade levels so they can learn where they are at. My youngest son is special needs so his levels vary the most. My adult sons, 18 and 25, are a huge blessing and help these days too.
Talea said, "I did study, during my conversion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. ... I had the Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church ...I looked up The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: A Compendium of Texts Referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church Including an Addendum for the Second Edition and I'm glad to know it exists. Thank you.
I see in the sample on Amazon that some of the texts the book provides are from the Church Fathers, e.g., Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses. This group read that before I became active; the discussion is still online here.
Also, according to the Amazon page I was on, the author of the book is St. Ignatius. I'm impressed! They don't tell us whether it is he of Antioch or he of Loyola, but either way I'm impressed. This is further evidence that the other place is not bound by time the way our place is.
Anyhow, what that book does is collect texts referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I spent a half day or so learning how to look up some of the references. The easy ones are for the Fathers. E.g., "St. John Damascene, De fide orth. 4, 13: PG 94, 1145A." [I don't know whether or not he's in the set of books we use primarily here but to us Orthodox he's a Father. :-) ] Now, PG is the Patrologia Graeca, a huge collection of the Fathers' writings in Greek. The reference tells us that we would go to volume 94 and look for the page equivalent 1145A. The complete PG is online, for free. No, I don't know Greek well enough to be able to read the original but we now know exactly where the quotation is and we can find it in a translation. There is also a PL, Patrologia Latina.
My point (at last he gets to the point!) is that if there's a catechism topic you want to explore in the Fathers there's a way to do it and I enjoy looking up references.
Aaron wrote: "Happy Easter!"Your comment has resurrected this thread
Daniel wrote: "Aaron wrote: "Happy Easter!"Your comment has resurrected this thread"
Welcome to the group, Daniel!
This thread was asleep.
Nemo wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Aaron wrote: "Happy Easter!"Your comment has resurrected this thread"
Welcome to the group, Daniel!
This thread was asleep."
It was an Easter Rising.
Aaron wrote: "It was an Easter Rising."Do you think Resurrection from the dead is as easy as waking from sleep?
Nemo wrote: "Aaron wrote: "It was an Easter Rising."Do you think Resurrection from the dead is as easy as waking from sleep?"
Why not? Either way it rose from something.
Hello Ryan, welcome to the group. We tend not to proselytize in this group, and the questions/comments tend to come in spirts. Also, a number of the discussions are about various minute points of Christian theology or theological discourse. So, for example, I’ll ask a question about the word “slave” and how Augustine uses that word, and then a discussion follows. Should you read the fathers, what use is there for a Diest/atheist/agnostic? That depends how you read them, in my opinion. Reading them looking for errors or trying to find them being “old fashioned” won’t get you very far. However, if you want an understanding of the rise of a powerful religious movement throughout its infancy and how it adjusted to hardship and challenge, you will learn a lot. Again, welcome to the group! (Also know we are 1/2 of our way through “City of God” by Augustine, and will be finished in December, but please ask questions about other works if you’d like).
Reading the Church Fathers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Companion to the Catechism of The Catholic Church: A Compendium of Texts Referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (other topics)Catechism of the Catholic Church: Complete and Updated (other topics)
40 Days with the Fathers: A daily reading plan (other topics)
Glad you found us. :) We were two weeks into the reading schedule when you joined, so it can be hard for you to catch up.
Reading at your own pace is perfectly fine. The writings of the Church Fathers are independent of each other, and can be discussed separately. The discussion threads are grouped by author and title, and they remain open, so you can choose the ones you are interested in, read others' thoughts on the book and post your own.