Early Church Fathers Part 2

March 30, 2025 – BIRMINGHAM, AL – Guadalupe Radio Director Marty Matulia completed his lecture series at St. Mark the Evangelist Con the Early Church Fathers who collectively defined Christianity and helped establish our current understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ and our faith.

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Matulia explained that the first age of Christian Fathers was the Apostolic age. The generation that followed them knew the Apostles and built on their work.

The next were the Pre-Nicene Fathers. These were Church fathers that were trained in philosophy. Many of them were converts. We see the word Gospel for the first time.

"With each Church father we see the development of more advanced theology," said Matulia.

"The first major heresy the Church dealt with was Gnosticism," said Matulia. "They couldn't quite deal with the presence of evil in the word so came to the belief that there has to be an evil God in the world. St. Irenaeus had a lot to say about Gnosticism."

"You still see some of these heresies - different visions of the divinity of Christ even today."

In this era you see more development of Marian theology, a better understanding of salvation history, a systematic theology, the Apostolic tradition, the importance of the Bishop of Rome, and that we are heirs to the apostolic tradition.

"St. Clement of Alexandria gives a great defense of Christian marriage," said Matulia. "The Romans are ramping up their attacks on Christians. They see it as more of a threat. The accused Christians of cannibalism because they did not understand the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist

Next came Origen.

"Origen, other than St. Augustine, was probably the most brilliant early Church Father," said Matulia.

One reason Origen is not sainted is because of the accusation that he castrated himself to avoid temptation to sin.

"There is a debate of whether he did that to himself or not," said Matulia. "That could have been his accusers."

Origen has great understanding of the allegorical sense of scripture. "What Origen is starting to do is to explain the different levels in scripture – not just the literal. For example, the hill where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac is the same hill that Jesus was crucified on.

The next is Tertullian. He is also not a Saint, "Because he went a little too far."

"Tertullian was a lawyer - very intense. He helped people explain Christian theology."

Matulia explained that sometime a theologian can develop a following and then start to believe that he is right and everyone else is wrong. "We see this happen even today. Pope John Paul II had to rein in some of these theologians."

Most of these are Greek Fathers meaning that they write in Greek. Later there is an emergence of the Latin Fathers particularly in North Africa.

"In this era the persecution were sporadic and often localized," said Matulia. "Some governor wants some girl so he starts martyring all these Christians because she won't do what he wants her to do. Also if there was a battle and it did not go the Romans way there would be persecutions because they perceived that all of these Christians were causing them to lose the favor of the gods."

"In the 250s there was a massive wave of persecutions in North Africa," said Matulia. "Some of these bishops were lax. Under pressure from the Romans, they denied their faith and when the persecution died down they wanted to come back. What do you do with your bishop?"

"St. Cypriot is the first North African martyr."

"In this era there is a rise of the Latin liturgy," said Matulia. "There is development of a systematic way of bringing people in the Church. A systematic way of bringing priests and bishops into the Church. How we do liturgy is a reflection of what we believe. How we do liturgy impacts what we believe?

In the late third century "All of a sudden it was the worst persecution ever under the Emperor Diocletian. There are a lot of female martyrs in this period. He is trying to unify the Empire. The Romans saw religion as a way of uniting. As Rome is declining there becomes more of an emphasis on persecution."

Diocletian leaves the Empire divided among four co-emperors.

One of these was Constantine. He has a pagan father and a Christian mother. There was a battle in 312. Constantine wasn't a Christian yet but he is superstitious and he has a vision that if he does battle fighting under Christian symbols that he will win. The general he was fighting makes a terrible blunder where he crosses a bridge and attacks rather than waiting with his larger force for Constantine to attack. He is killed and Constantine is victorious.

"He is still not baptized," explained Matulia. "There is a concept then that if they are baptized they can't sin any more so they delay baptism until the moment right near the very end. Augustine would clear this up later."

"Heresies took off in this period," said Matulia. "The most serious of these is Arianism. This is Arianism not Aryanism with the Nazis. This almost tore Christianity apart. It is the idea that there is a period where Jesus did not exist that he was not God. The first major council of the Church was actually called by Constantine. Constantine sees that there is something going on in the Christian Church so he calls the Council of Nicaea. There they developed the Nicene creed, though it is not the Creed that is recited today. That was further developed at the Council of Constantinople 100 years later."

The Council of Nicaea, which took place in 325 CE, also determined which books of the Bible would become part of the New Testament. The council recognized these texts as authoritative and inspired by God. Other books, most of them gnostic were rejected. The 27 books of the New Testament were later canonized in the Council of Hippo in 393 and affirmed in the Council of Carthage in 397 and 419.

Arianism doesn't go away because politics get involved. The emperors are Arian. It becomes a major issue for the Church throughout the fourth century. There is also a confusion of language between the Greek and the Latin. There was one final attempt by the Emperor Julian the Apostate to bring back the pagan gods and goddesses. It was shortlived but it got all of the Church Fathers more on board with coming together and establishing orthodoxy."

"St. Ignatius is the first of the great Latin fathers," continued Matulia. "He was a young deacon at Nicaea. By the time of his becoming bishop there were more Arian bishops than Catholic bishops. He is the Great defender of orthodoxy. He was exiled five times."

"The Cappadocian fathers were Greek fathers they helped clarify the nature of God. They were bishops operating in the area of modern Turkey - Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. This area was very Catholic in the Fourth Century. They helped with the development of the doctrine of the trinity."

"What were the women doing? Often times there was a sister or a mother who were very influential over these Church Fathers. Some of these Church Fathers like Saint Basil just wanted to be monks but they encouraged them to come forward and get involved to take the action the Church needed."

In Milan "The Arians try to take over the Cathedral Ambrose defends the Cathedral. The people decide that Ambrose needs to be their bishop. He wasn't even baptized yet. Three days he was the bishop. He was not a great thinker but he was a great preacher. He roots out Arianism in that part of Italy. Augustine admired Ambrose. Ambrose sees the Church as the spiritual realm and sees that the Church needs to be independent of the state."

North Africa was very different then than it is today. It was Roman and Christian.

"There has always been this debate about Augustine. His mother was a Berber. His father was Roman. Was Augustine Black? Was Augustine White? He probably was neither – but everybody tries to claim Augustine as their own."

"He is born in a backwater in North Africa. His mother is Christian, and his father is not. He grows up more like his father. We know so much about his struggles because he wrote about them in St. Augustine's 'Confessions.'"

He stole pears. He doesn't need to steal pears, but he and his friends do it anyway. He teaches that there is an inclination to sin. He develops this whole theology of original sin. He takes on a concubine. She is a mistress. He never tells us her name. She is of lower class. His father is a Roman official. He can never marry her but he doesn't want to get rid of her either. He becomes a teacher in Carthage, goes to Rome, goes to Milan. He meets St. Ambrose in Milan. Ambrose helps him understand the scriptures. There is a lot more there than he had realized in his first reading. He has an intellectual conversion, but he can't give up the girl. Finally he opens up Romans 13:13 "Now is the time to throw off the cloak of darkness" His mothers puts pressure on him to get baptized. He sails back to North Africa. He just wants to study the scriptures and be left alone but the people see his brilliance and make him the bishop.

Augustine has to deal with two heresies including Pelagianism and Donatism. He also has to deal with the decline of Rome. He writes the 'City of God.'"

St. Jerome is the great scriptural Church Father. His Latin translation of the Bible – the Vulgate – was used all the way until Vatican II in the 1960s. We use a more modern translation now.

St. Gregory the Great was the final early Church Father. He was Pope after the western empire fell so in the sixth century he had to deal with the issue of the Church's role in a world where it is not supported by the state and there is not one ruler over Christendom that the Church had to deal with. Gregory wrote Moralia on Job and Pastoral Rule. His writings on moral theology shaped medieval spirituality.

Part One of the Early Church Fathers was held on March 23, 2025.

https://www.alabamagazette.com/story/2025/03/21/religion/early-church-fathers/5916.html