Writings of the Church Fathers

Writings of the Church Fathers

1.  Importance of the Church Fathers’ Writings
2. Special Characteristics of Church Fathers
3. The Epistolary Writings of the Church Fathers
4. Apocalyptic Literature
5. Catechetical Literature

The literary activity of the church did not come to an end in first century. In other words, the Gospel Stories and epistles were not the only ones. We have several church fathers who wrote about the church. Now, 27 books were chosen to be included in the New Testament. There were a number of writings outside the 27 books. Those books which were not included in the NT – they were books with values The Apocryphal writings were not included in the NT. Some of them looked like fiction. The leaders of the church were called as Church Fathers in the Western world. They were called ‘fathers’ to express the affectionate loyalty to them. Generally, the word church fathers mean they were the orthodox champions of faith. Orthodox means straight opinion which is true to the scripture. Orthodox refers to that which is correct. Church Fathers were those men who wanted to guard the Truth against heresy. Some of the Church Fathers were Bishops in the church.

Importance of the Church Fathers’ Writings

We have all the basic in the Gospel. But we need to know what happened to the church in the second, third and fourth centuries. We get the information from the writings of Church Fathers.

The Writings can be divided into three:

1.      Apologetic Writings
Apologists are those people who defended Christianity against Rome’s accusation. Apologists are the ones who refuted/rejected against those challenges.

2.      Polemic Writings
They defended Christianity against heretical teaching ie. Against wrong teachings. They fought for the truth.

3.      Creedal
A creed is a statement of confession or some basic beliefs. The first creed that we have is the Nicene Creed (325 AD). All the writings of the Church Fathers are known as patristics or patrology.

These Church Fathers lived from the close of the First century up until 551 AD. Among the Church Fathers, some of them were close to the Apostolic Era and we call them Apostolic Fathers.

Special Characteristics of Church Fathers

1.      Their writings are very simple and formal.

2.      They don’t have any acquaintance with pagan philosophy.

3.      All these church fathers had great reference for the Old Testament.

4.      Their interpretations were mainly typological [a type is a foreshadow(be a warning or indication of (a future event).) of something to come]. The Church Fathers projected Christianity as a fulfillment of the Old Testament. Old Testament was a shadow of New Testament – a reality.

5.      Their writings were modeled after the literary form of the New Testament.

The main objective of their writings was the edification of the early church.

The Epistolary Writings of the Church Fathers

1.      Clement of Rome (ca. 30 – 100)

2.      Ignatius (Bishop of Antioch) [1^st – 2^nd c.]

3.      Polycarp (Bishop of Smyrna) [ca. 69 – ca. 155/160]

4.      The Epistle of Barnabas – a pseudo (wrong) writing

5.      The Epistle to Diognetus

6.      The Second Epistle of Clement to Corinthians

7.      The Letter of Papias [ca. 60 – ca. 130]

Apocalyptic Literature

The Shepherd of Hermas, modeled after the Book of Revelation, was probably written about 150 by Hermas, who was considered by the writer of the Muratorian Canon to be the brother of Pius, the Bishop of Rome between 140 and 155.

Although the work is written in the form of a revelation abounding in symbols and visions, its aim is both moral and practical. The writer of The Shepherd is much concerned with the individual in relation to the Chrisitian society, the church.[1]

Catechetical Literature

A set of instructions. The style of writing is question and answers.

---

[1] Earle E. Cairns, “Christianity through the Centuries”, (Thiruvalla, India: SuVartha Bhavan, 2010), 79