Neo Patristics

[ICXCNIKA]

Anyone know anything about Neo Patristics? Pros? Cons?

Here is something from The Roman Theological Forum. rtforum.org/
"l. Why promote the neo-Patristic approach? Meditation upon things said in Sacred Scripture is important for every Christian. The Fathers of the Church have laid out a basic Christian approach to the study and meditation of the inspired word. This approach of the Fathers was followed by all Catholic exegetes, especially as regards the literal sense, but in recent centuries with lessening emphasis upon the spiritual senses except for certain texts relating to the dogmas of the Church. However, towards the end of the nineteenth century some Catholic exegetes (interpreters) began to follow what is now known as the historical-critical approach, developed by rationalist and liberal Protestant exegetes, and this new approach has now with some exceptions virtually supplanted the Patristic approach among Catholic biblical scholars. But many problems and logical contradictions have arisen from the results of historical-critical interpretation, even when used by Catholic exegetes. The neo-Patristic approach aims to address and solve these problems and contradictions and to reinstate the Patristic approach by the use of an updated framework based upon the largely implicit framework of the Fathers of the Church in the hope of enabling insights old and new and of aking it easier to pray the Scriptures*.
Any comments?

 

[COPLAND_3]

I am very much on board with this approach. I agree with what is said in that quote. There can be pros and cons, but it all depends on how much emphasis is laid on the exegesis, especially if one is to break away from fully developed Catholic doctrine of the Church that may have not been completely developed among the Early Fathers.

The Church Fathers had an amazing understanding of the Scriptures, and I know that I benefit from what they have left us with. One will find on my site that I fully support relying on the Fathers.

 

[ICXCNIKA]

Thank you. I bookmarked your site and will check it out in detail tomorrow.

 

[COPLAND_3]

To follow up on this thread, which I did not have much time last night to do, I do want to point out that using the Fathers for interpreting the Bible can still be done in a way that falls short of the highest Catholic expectation. I deal with Scripture and the Early Church Fathers on a daily basis and I see how it can be done and how others have done it and do it. For example, the Ancient Christian Commentary is a very helpful resource, and they provide a great resource for Scripture study, but from my Catholic point of view I see its many limitations. It is a Protestant work, and let me list some pros and cons with it which will be universal for this topic.

Pro- it does provide commentary to passages of Scripture from ancient writers that are not available in English, such as Ambrosiaster, Primasius, Hilary of Arles, etc etc.

Con- While the commentary can be extremely abundant in some portions of the Bible, it will truly miss the mark in other places, especially the Gospels. Aquinas’ catena is much better.

Pro- While this is a Protestant work the editors are not anti-Catholic.

Con- Yet, even though they are not anti-Catholic I have found various places that the editors have been biased enough to use Church Fathers quotes that are unfavorable to Catholic doctrine, such as Matt. 16:18-19, they chose to not give the Church Fathers understanding of Peter being the rock, which is not hard to find among the Fathers.

Pro-they had the money to acquire material that many people cannot get without breaking the bank.

Con- while they had access to enough material to comment on most passages of Scripture, they still have many empty places that should have been commented on, especially the Minor Prophets and the Catholic Epistles.

Another advantage that we have in order to study the Bible is the Doctors of the Church after the Early Church Fathers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, etc etc. The great thing about them are they relied upon the Church Fathers so much that their commentaries are Patrisitic.