We will now proceed to take a brief survey of these writers—referring for further information to the special articles on the more eminent among them. According to the now generally adopted method of dating them from the 1st to the 7th c., they are divided into two distinct periods, the first of which goes down to the council of Nicaza, 325 A.D. Of those who head the list, the apostolic fathers—so called front their sup posed connection with Christ and the apostles—very little need be said, as their writ ings, which are mostly of an ascetical character, have come down to us in a corrupt and mutilated state, and as the writers themselves owe their chief celebrity to the times in which they happened to live. We have here Barnabas, the son of Teostes, and the companion of St. Paul (Acts ix. 27; xii. 25); Clement, supposed to have been the third bishop of Rome; and the Clement mentioned by St. Paul (Philipp. iv. 3); Hermas, identical perhaps with the Hennas of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14); Ignatius, bishop of Antioch; Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna; Papias; Dionysius the Areopagite, etc. Next follow the apologists, or those fathers whose chief aim was the defense of the new faith against the Roman state, and non-Christian authors, and who were the first to make their scientific culture, and more especially the Platonic philos ophy, subservient to Christianity, for this purpose: Quadratus the "evangelist," a traveling missionary; Aristides, an Athenian philosopher; Justin Martyr, the well known author of the two Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho (or rather Tarphon); Tatian of Assyria, who, having examined the different forms of worship, as well as the systems of philosophy prevalent in his time, felt satisfied with none but Christianity, and became a disciple of Justin, and a vindicator of the philosophy of the barbarians; Athenagoras, who addressed his apology to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, and his son Commodus, and wrote a Defense of the Doctrine of the Resurrection; Theophilus, bishop of Antioch; Miltiades, etc. Next come, the church fathers of Asia Minor, men of more practical and peaceful tendencies: Hegesippus, perhaps an Ebionite; Irenms, bishop of Lyons and Vienna, who wrote a refutation of the Gnostic system; Hippolytus, his disciple, of unknown birthplace and renowned name. In the North African church, the development of which is of the utmost moment, inasmuch as its language, dogmas, and laws were adopted by the greater part of the Christian world in the west, we find Tertullian of Carthage, the rhetorician and advocate, a man of profound mind and vast influence; Cyprian, the author of the Testimonies in favor of Christ; Commodian, the writer of the Rules of Living; and Arnobius, a rhetorician of Sicca, in Numidia. The first comparatively barren, though otherwise highly important church, is the Roman. The pre-eminently practical Roman mind looked more to the outward growth and well being of the church than to literary excellence, and thus we have only two distinguished authors to be noticed here—the presbyter Caius, known as an opponent of the Montan ists; and the presbyter Novatian, who wrote a treatise on the Jewish laws-respecting food. The church which, more than any other, endeavored to combine speculation with faith, and which gradually became, through its high degree of culture and erudition, the very center of Christianity, is the Alexandrian. And here we have Panttenus; Clement the Alexandrine, chiefly known by his Stromata or Elements of the Gnosis; Origen, called Adamantinus, the eminent Neoplatonist, born 185 A.D., in Alexandria, one of the most influential writers of the whole Christian church; Herculas, with his disciple Dionysius, a liberal and moderate man; Gregory, the worker of miracles; Pamphilus and Julius Africanus, the first Christian chorographer.
In the second period, which dates from the Nieman council, and comes down to Gregory II., 604 A. D., a period altogether superior, on account of the great number of intellectual and erudite men who devoted their lives and labors to the church, we have to distinguish the Greek from the Latin fathers. Among the former, we have again to draw a line between those of the Alexandrine school—like Eusebius Pamphili, the Heredotus of the church; Athanasius, the father of orthodoxy; Basil the great, doctor ecclesite, and his brother Gregory of Nyssa; Gregory of Nazianzen, called the theolo gian, by way of eminence; Didymus; and Cyrillus, some time patriarch of Alexandria, the chief prosecutor of Nestorius—and those of the Antiochian school, where we find Ephraem Syrus, "the prophet of the Syrians;" Cyril of Jerusalem, the converted Arian; John Chrysostoin, of brilliant eloquence; Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus, one of the chief founders of the Antiochian school; and Theodoretus, bishop of Cyrus. Besides these,
we find, of Greek fathers who belonged to neither school—Epiphanius, the 'violent adversary of Origen; Socrates Scholasticus, the continuator of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History; Philostorgius, an Arian, church historian; Logomenus) Evagrius; Macarius the elder, chiefly known: througli.Iis miracles ,and combats Nvidk'tlaUev?1; Procopius of Gaza, the rhetorician; and Joannes Scholasticus, famous through his collections of canonical law. Among the Latins, we have to enumerate first the African fathers: Fabius Victorinus; Augustine of Tagaste in Numidia, the greatest dogmatist of the western church; pope Gelasius I. (492-96), who finally fixed the canon of the Bible for the Roman church; and the bishops Fulgeutius, Juni'ins, and Facundus. Of Span iards, we have Prudentius the poet; Paulus ()rosins, whom Augustine used as his mes senger to the east in his controversies with Pelagius. Of Gauls there are Hilarius Picta viensis, bishop of Poitiers about 350, the Athanasius of the west; Paulinus of Nola; Sulpitius Severus, friend of Martin of Tours; Vincent of Lerins, once a soldier, who wrote under the name of Peregrinus; Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont; Genna dius, the author of an ecclesiastical literary history; Ennodius from Arles, who exerted himself to unite the eastern and the western church; and Gregorius Turonensis, who wrote Ilistoriu Ecclesiastics .Mytneorum, the basis of Frankish history. From other coun tries we have Sedulius, an Irishman; Joannes Cassianus, a Scythian; and Mercator, of unknown birthplace. We conclude with the Italians themselves: Lactantius Firmianus, the Christian Cicero; Julius Firnisius Maternus of Sicily; Ambrose, metropolite of Milan, who raised his see to such a power that it dared to resist Rome herself up to the 12th c.; Rufinus of Aquileia, defender of Origen against the charge of heresy brought against him in the west; Eusebius Hieronymus, undoubtedly the most learned of all the Latin fathers, and who mastered also the Greek and Hebrew languages, collected in Palestine the most valuable notes for the elucidation of the Scriptures, and also cor rected the Latin edition of the Vulgate; pope Leo I.; Boethius; Aurelius Cassiodorus, whose Ratoria Tripartita, in twelve books, served for a thousand years as a compen diem of ecclesiastical history; the two poets, Arator and Venantius Fortunatus; and pope Gregory I. (509-604), is regarded by Protestants as having first given the western church its peculiarly Roman Catholic stamp by developing the idea of the eucharist into a theophany, and making it the center of the worship. His works, especially his letters, are invaluable for the study of his own times, especially for the history of the conversion of the west.
On the MSS. of the fathers, we refer to Petri Lambeccii Commentarii de Ceesarea Vindobonensi. The editions of the works of the fathers are of two classes— those of the individual fathers, whose writings are the most voluminous and of highest dogmatical importance, and the general patristic collections, which comprise the writ ings of the less voluminous or minor fathers. In the former class, the first place, beyond all dispute, belongs to the celebrated Benedictine editions, by the members of the great Maurist congregation of the French Benedictine order (see BENEDICTINES), of which community the task of editing the fathers came to be considered as the recog nized work. The Benedictine editions of the greater fathers, with the exception of two or three, still maintain the very highest place in the estimation of the learned. Of the collections of the works of the fathers, the most important are those of La Bigne, Gal land, Bossier, Walch, Zimmerman, and Migne. Reference may also be made to car dinai Mai's Bibliotheca Patrum, Spicilegium Romanum, and Classici Auctores, and to the Spicilegium Solesmense of the Benedictines of Solesme. Translations of the principal fathers are numerous. The chief works upon the more important fathers are noted under their several names.