, FATHERS OF THE CHURCH, a title bestowed upon certain Church writers who stand pre-eminent as authorities in the inter pretation of Scriptures, the ritual practice of the age they lived in and the formulation of doctrine as accepted dogma. They represent the main stream of Christian tradition and belief at the period when the teaching of the Apostles was being crystallized into creeds and dogmas: Authority is weightiest in the Apos tolic Fathers (q.v.). Next come the Fathers of the Greek Church, such as Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzcn, and John Chry sostom. Parallel with these are Fathers of the Latin Church, among whom areJerome, Am brose, Augustine and Gregory the Great. While these are the most important of the Fathers, the term is employed with some looseness and often made to include Greek writers like Origen, and Latin writers like Tertullian whose speculations are sometimes charged with being unorthddox. In modern times, when the study
of Christian doctrine has a tendency to become largely historical, the value of the patristic monuments is esteemed more highly than ever before.
Patristic biography and lit erature: Smith and Wace, (Dictionary of Christian Biography' (1888) ; Lightfoot, (Apos tolic Fathers) (1891) ; Mine, (Patrologia,) containing Greek Fathers, 167 vols. and Latin Fathers, 222 vols. (1878). Translations into English: The Oxford Library of the Fathers,) 48 vols. (1885) ; Bardenhewer, (Patrology: Lives and Works of the Fathers of the Church) (trans. by Shahan, 1908) ; Roberts and Donald son, (Ante-Nicene Fathers,' 24 vols. (1872) ; Schaff, 'Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,' 14 vols. (1886). Guides to the study of the Fath ers will he found in the patristic manuals of Alzog (1888) and Nirschl (1885).