Do Non Catholics Study the Early Church Writings?

[NotWorthy]

I’ve talked to several non-Catholics, most of whom claim to be an Apostolic Church, and have studied the early Church. But when I talk about some of the Early Church Fathers, I get a blank stare. Ignatius? Who? Polycarp? No. Justin Martyr? Justin Who?

So my question is, what is taught about the Early Church in Non Catholic religions? No sarcasm intended. I’ve just never encountered someone who is Non Catholic that has spent any time on this subject. And if I ask any of my friends who have left our Church for another faith, the answer is invariably “No”.

The only exception I’ve heard is St. Augustine’s. and St. Jerome’s, but only to be used as canon fodder (pun intended), and only minor portions of their writings.

NotWorthy

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

NotWorthy:

I’ve talked to several non-Catholics, most of whom claim to be an Apostolic Church, and have studied the early Church. But when I talk about some of the Early Church Fathers, I get a blank stare. Ignatius? Who? Polycarp? No. Justin Martyr? Justin Who?

So my question is, what is taught about the Early Church in Non Catholic religions? No sarcasm intended. I’ve just never encountered someone who is Non Catholic that has spent any time on this subject. And if I ask any of my friends who have left our Church for another faith, the answer is invariably “No”.

The only exception I’ve heard is St. Augustine’s. and St. Jerome’s, but only to be used as canon fodder (pun intended), and only minor portions of their writings.

NotWorthy

Not only have Anglicans (for instance) studied them - they have edited them.​

The translations of the Fathers here are from Victorian Protestant series.

The “City of God” has been translated by Protestants - it can hardly be called a minor portion of St.Augustine’s work, at least in extent. (The translation by the Revd. Marcus Dods takes up two large volumes. The translation by Henry Bettenson is a more manageable, but still bulky, papererback, of over a thousand pages.

There may well be a stratum of US Protestantism to which the Fathers are entirely alien, if not hateful - but this is not at all a universal Protestant attitude. It’s not as though no one else in the last thousand years were not worth reading. (How many Protestant authors can Catholics here name, I wonder - Ten ? Twenty ? Fifty ?)

It’s not as though the Fathers are familiar to all Catholics - for many, the “City of God” is apt to be confused with the “Mystical City of God” of Maria of Agreda. Given the self-selecting constituency of sites like this, it looks rather as though certain sorts of Catholic, rather than others, will show up - those who have at least some interest in the Fathers, rather than those who don’t. Whether those who have a decent knowledge of the thought of Rahner or von Balthasar or de Lubac or Haering or Schillebeeckx will come here, is perhaps less certain ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

For a very out-of-date list of some of the editors of the First Letter of Clement, see the picture - some are Catholic, some are not. The picture itself is page 1 listed here, in the Index volume of the series mentioned in post 2. Click to find more.​

ccel.org/s/schaff/anf10/png/0015=1.png ##

 

[Philena]

Oddly enough, non-Cathlics who study the Church Fathers with an open mind tend to become converts (Steve Ray, Scott Hahn, Gary Hogue, Cardinal Newman). Maybe that’s why Protestants don’t emphasize the Fathers - they might lose membership

 

[Cairisti]

Well, growing up Baptist (and attending a Baptist university as well), I had never heard of the ECF. There was the 1500 year gap between the Apostiles and ole Martin Luther. I had heard of St. Augustine, but had never read anything of his.

It wasn’t until I started to initally be interested in the Orthodox Church, that I’d ever heard of the ECF and /or Desert Fathers. But I didn’t read any of their works until I read Rod Bennet’s “The Four Witnesses” and decided to read more of their writtings.
(It’s funny, but my parents, avaid Baptists have some “Classics” books, two of which are the writings of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. If they only knew what they had and read them, who knows, maybe their eyes would open. )

 

[Della]

As an Episcopalian I never heard the term “Early Church Fathers”. I heard the name St. Augustine, but had no idea he was anyone special, to be distinguished from any other saint. No one I knew read the Bible let alone the ECFs. But then, when I was a young girl no mainline Protestant that we knew did. My mother had a special cloth she dusted the family Bible with, but we only opened it to look at the paintings of the master in the middle.

Later, when we converted to the Assemblies of God, I never heard of any saint after the Apostles. And even the 1st century saints and Apostles were never referred to as “St.” anybody. As far as the ECFs, they simply didn’t exist, as far as I knew.

We did have one old Englishman minister teaching us Church history at my AoG Bible college, who no doubt had been brought up an Anglican. He had us study the Nicene Creed. One day he startled us all by telling us that Mary really ought to be called by the title “Mother of God” and why. It almost lost him his position at the Bible college! I have little doubt now that he got his information from the ECFs when he was an Anglican.

The implication in the question of this thread is–if Protestants read the ECFs why don’t they become Catholic? There are as many reasons for that as there are for Protestants who read the Bible not becoming Catholic, but mainly it is because they read into it their own belief system or what they want it to say. They simply do not want to become Catholic when they can remain Protestant and not have to follow what the Church teaches. They are dissenters who will not be convinced and they will not be convinced for as many reasons as there dissenters.

 

[The_Iambic_Pen]

Before I began studying Catholicism, I had never heard of any of these early writings. I had heard of St. Augustine (though I had him confused with St. Augustine of Canterbury), and I had heard of Polycarp (though I hadn’t heard of any of his writings), but that’s it. When I was growing up in a Protestant church, I heard about the persecutions of the early church, but I never heard any names.

As far as why Protestants don’t study these writings, it’s hard to say. It could be because *sola scriptura * doesn’t require one to study the writings of any other Christian. It could also be that Protestant teachers are afraid their students will become Catholic if they study the early church, though I think such teachers would be rare.

For me, discovering these writings has been like discovering a rare treasure I always knew must exist, but which I had never before found.

God Bless!

 

[Genesis315]

I think it’s definitely just the Sola Scriptura mentality. When ever I show them writings of the ECFs, they just say they are not interested in that. They say the ECFs were just early heretics and prove it by showing how the ECFs disagree with their own personal interpretation of Scriture–it never really crosses their mind that the ECFs had it right and they are the ones holding to heresy.

It’s funny, also, when asked to present ECFs supporting their postion, they say the Catholic Church destroyed all the evidence :whacky:

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Genesis315:

They say the ECFs were just early heretics and prove it by showing how the ECFs disagree with their own personal interpretation of Scriture–it never really crosses their mind that the ECFs had it right and they are the ones holding to heresy.

I think this is it right here. When one believes that the holy Spirit is personally and individually leading him to all truth the thought that they could be wrong really and truly is a foreign concept.

Frequently I ask Protestants that I’m in conversation with if the possibility exists, however remotely, that they could wrong. The vast majority of the time I’m told “no, the holy Spirit would never mislead me”.

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Contarini]

Philena:

Oddly enough, non-Cathlics who study the Church Fathers with an open mind tend to become converts (Steve Ray, Scott Hahn, Gary Hogue, Cardinal Newman). Maybe that’s why Protestants don’t emphasize the Fathers - they might lose membership

That’s a circular argument. Those of us who study the Fathers but don’t enter into full communion with Rome do not, of course, have an open mind by your definition. So you have said absolutely nothing, except to declare your own prejudices.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Della:

The implication in the question of this thread is–if Protestants read the ECFs why don’t they become Catholic? There are as many reasons for that as there are for Protestants who read the Bible not becoming Catholic, but mainly it is because they read into it their own belief system or what they want it to say.

But we are not required to do this, as you are. We can simply say, “the Fathers didn’t quite get it right there,” but all the while remaining open to being corrected by them. You, on the other hand, are required to see the entire developed system of Catholic dogma in the early Fathers.

One of the main reasons Protestants who study the Fathers don’t necessarily become Catholic is that we see the differences between the patristic Church and the modern Catholic Church (and modern Protestant churches as well, but it’s easier for us to do something about that than it is for you).

Why do you think the theory of development was developed? Precisely because it was not at all clear that the theology of the Fathers was the same as that of modern (i.e., 19th-century) Latin-Rite Catholicism. Newman’s theory of development was a brilliant and in many ways convincing way of dealing with this serious problem. Other contemporaries of his, such as Cardinal Manning, took a far cruder approach (Manning said, “I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity.”)

The patristic argument works far more strongly for post-Vatican-II Catholics than for previous generations, because you guys have had your own “Reformation” of a sorts (superior in most respects to ours, I hasten to add), based on a return to the Scriptures and the Fathers. The ecumenical movement at its best brings us all closer to Scripture and the early Church rather than simply trying to work out the differences among our traditions. But the triumphalist claim that reading the Fathers makes people Catholic (in the sense of adhering to all the teachings of the Roman Communion) is an empty boast. It works against fundamentalists who don’t know much about history, just as the similarly specious claim that “the Bible refutes Catholicism” works against ignorant Catholics. But the two methods are about equally bogus.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

NotWorthy:

I’ve talked to several non-Catholics, most of whom claim to be an Apostolic Church, and have studied the early Church. But when I talk about some of the Early Church Fathers, I get a blank stare. Ignatius? Who? Polycarp? No. Justin Martyr? Justin Who?

So my question is, what is taught about the Early Church in Non Catholic religions? No sarcasm intended. I’ve just never encountered someone who is Non Catholic that has spent any time on this subject. And if I ask any of my friends who have left our Church for another faith, the answer is invariably “No”.

The only exception I’ve heard is St. Augustine’s. and St. Jerome’s, but only to be used as canon fodder (pun intended), and only minor portions of their writings.

NotWorthy

Well, you need to get out more. For one thing, what about the Orthodox? They are, on the whole, far closer to the Fathers in doctrine and liturgy than you are. And we Anglicans pay quite a bit of attention to the Fathers. Many other Protestants do as well. The statement “Protestants don’t read the Fathers” is just as bogus as the statement “Catholics don’t read the Bible.”

Any Protestant seminary worth its salt teaches classes on the Fathers.

Edwin

 

[Tigerhawk]

Contarini:

Well, you need to get out more. For one thing, what about the Orthodox? They are, on the whole, far closer to the Fathers in doctrine and liturgy than you are.

Care to share any examples and sources?

 

[Tigerhawk]

Contarini:

One of the main reasons Protestants who study the Fathers don’t necessarily become Catholic is that we see the differences between the patristic Church and the modern Catholic Church (and modern Protestant churches as well, but it’s easier for us to do something about that than it is for you).

What are these differences?

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Contarini:

Well, you need to get out more. For one thing, what about the Orthodox? They are, on the whole, far closer to the Fathers in doctrine and liturgy than you are.

Edwin

Really? What about the Eastern Catholics? If we really were that far off base as you say, those who are ‘closer’ to it than us as you put it, would have never came back into communion with us.

God bless,

 

[Della]

Contarini:

But we are not required to do this, as you are. We can simply say, “the Fathers didn’t quite get it right there,” but all the while remaining open to being corrected by them. You, on the other hand, are required to see the entire developed system of Catholic dogma in the early Fathers.

No, we aren’t required to do anything of the sort. They are** witnesses** only not sources that must be built upon.

One of the main reasons Protestants who study the Fathers don’t necessarily become Catholic is that we see the differences between the patristic Church and the modern Catholic Church (and modern Protestant churches as well, but it’s easier for us to do something about that than it is for you).

The only differences are the development of doctrine and some disciplinary changes, other than that, there are no significant differences. Besides, you can’t condemn us for changing if you think you are superior because you can change whatever you want. That doesn’t make sense, now does it?

Why do you think the theory of development was developed? Precisely because it was not at all clear that the theology of the Fathers was the same as that of modern (i.e., 19th-century) Latin-Rite Catholicism. Newman’s theory of development was a brilliant and in many ways convincing way of dealing with this serious problem. Other contemporaries of his, such as Cardinal Manning, took a far cruder approach (Manning said, “I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity.”)

No, that’s not why doctrine was developed. It was developed to get all of the Gospel message from them as possible.

The patristic argument works far more strongly for post-Vatican-II Catholics than for previous generations, because you guys have had your own “Reformation” of a sorts (superior in most respects to ours, I hasten to add), based on a return to the Scriptures and the Fathers. The ecumenical movement at its best brings us all closer to Scripture and the early Church rather than simply trying to work out the differences among our traditions. But the triumphalist claim that reading the Fathers makes people Catholic (in the sense of adhering to all the teachings of the Roman Communion) is an empty boast. It works against fundamentalists who don’t know much about history, just as the similarly specious claim that “the Bible refutes Catholicism” works against ignorant Catholics. But the two methods are about equally bogus.

Sorry, once again you are wrong. The Church did not go through a major reformation after Vat. II. The council itself didn’t make any really big changes. Several of our bishops ran ahead of the council and introduced things, such as the vernacular, that were merely suggestions and very limited ones at that, and did what they pleased. Now we are throwing out many non-called for innovations and are returning to orthodoxy in both teaching (thank God!) and in our liturgies. It is you Anglicans that are having real difficulties for the very reason that you have no Magisterium to guide you back from the brink of destruction.

Edwin

 

[Mystophilus]

what is taught about the Early Church in Non Catholic religions?

Not much, generally. While the information is available to Protestants, it does not tend to be formally taught. There is a much greater emphasis upon scriptural exegesis, and other texts are only really referenced when they have some bearing upon that. Thus, an early church writer who presents an idea which agrees with the minister’s reading of the selected Bible text or issue may be mentioned, but others will not.

In Protestant churches, there is usually about as much interest in the early Christian, extra-NT, writers as there is interest among the general populace in mediaeval history or C19th philosophy, which is a shame on all counts.

 

[arieh0310]

I don’t know about high-church denominations, but I come from a pentacostal background and I never even heard the term “Early Church Fathers” until I read a book from a Catholic apologist. I know Anglican and Orthodox readers are going to flame me for this but, to quote Cardinal Newman: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” Seems to be the case with me.

 

[mark_a]

Catholic4aReasn:

The vast majority of the time I’m told “no, the holy Spirit would never mislead me”.

In Christ,
Nancy

And that can be only because the Holy Spirit misled you instead!! Because the Holy Spirit favors them!!!

 

[arieh0310]

arieh0310:

I know Anglican and Orthodox readers are going to flame me for this but, to quote Cardinal Newman: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

It isn’t correct to label the Orthodox as Protestant, I take back that statement