[1] "The Fathers assembled there ... decreed in that council that
every person, as well in his private as public fast, should continue
all the day without meat and drink, till after the evening prayer.
And whosoever did eat or drink before the evening prayer was ended
should be accounted and reputed not to consider the purity of his
fast. This canon teacheth so evidently how fasting was used in the
primitive church as by words it cannot be more plainly expressed"
(_Of Good Works; and first, of Fasting._)
[2] As indeed they are, etymologically; but, prior to the
Reformation, a conventional distinction between _abstinentia_ and
_jejunium naturale_ had long been recognized. "Exceptio eduliorum
quorundam portionale jejunium est" (Tertullian).
[3] Confucianism ought perhaps to be named as one. Zoroastrianism is
frequently given as another, but hardly correctly. In the Liber
_Sad-der_, indeed (Porta xxv.), we read, "Cavendum est tibi a
jejunio; nam a mane ad vesperam nihil comedere non est bonum in
religione nostra"; but according to the Pere de Chinon (Lyons, 1671)
the Parsee religion enjoins, upon the priesthood at least, no fewer
than five yearly fasts. See Hyde, _Veterum Persarum religio_, pp.
449, 548 (ed. 1700).
[4] During the middle ages the prevalent notion was that it had its
origin in paradise. The germ at least of this idea is to be found in
Tertullian, who says: "Acceperat Adam a Deo legem non gustandi de
arbore agnitionis boni et mali, moriturus si gustasset; verum et ipse
tunc in psychicum reversus ... facilius ventri quam Deo cessit,
pabulo potius quam praecepto annuit, salutem gula vendidit,
manducavit denique et periit, salvus alioquin si uni arbusculae
jejunare maluisset" (_De jejuniis_, c. 3).
[5] _Principles of Sociology_, i. pp. 170, 284, 285. Compare the
passage in the appendix from Hanusch, _Slavischer Mythus_, p. 408.
[6] Spencer, _Prin. of Sociology_, i. 256, &c.; E.B. Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_, i. 277, 402; ii. 372, &c.
[7] Hooker, E.P. v. 72. In the Westminster Assembly's Larger
Catechism fasting is mentioned among the duties required by the
second commandment.
[8] The Brahmans themselves on the eleventh day after the full moon
and the eleventh day after the new "abstain for sixty hours from
every kind of sustenance"; and some have a special fast every Monday
in November. See Picart, _The Religion and Manners of the Brahmins_.
[9] [Hebrew: nefesh] is here to be taken as substantially equivalent
to "desire," "appetite."
[10] See Judith viii. 6. "And yet it may be a question whether they
(the Jews) did not always fast upon Sabbath," says Hooker (_E.P._ v.
72, 7), who gives a curious array of evidence pointing in this
direction. He even makes use of Neh. viii. 9-12, which might be
thought to tell the other way. Justinian's phrase, "Sabbata Judaeorum
a Mose in omne aevum jejunio dicata" (l. xxxvi. c. 2; comp.
Suetonius, _Augustus_, 76) may be accounted for by the fact that the
day of atonement is called Sabbat Sabbaton ("a perfect Sabbath").
[11] There is, as Graf (_Gesch. Bucher des A.T._ p. 41) has pointed
out, no direct evidence that the fast on the 10th of the 7th month
was ever observed before the exile. But the inference which he draws
from this silence of the historical books is manifestly a precarious
one at best. Bleek calls Lev. xvi. "ein deutliches Beispiel
Mosaischer Abfassung" (_Einleitung_, p. 31, ed. 1878).
[12] The allusion to the ark warns us to be cautious in assuming the
laws of the Mishna to have been ever in force.
[13] The idea, however, is found in the _Clementine Homilies_, ix. 9.
Compare Tertullian _De jejuniis_, c. 8: "Docuit etiam adversus
diriora daemonia jejuniis praeliandum."
[14] On the manuscript evidence the words "I was fasting," in Acts x.
30, must also be regarded as doubtful. They are rejected by Lachmann,
Tregelles and Tischendorf.
[15] Quinam isti (adversarii) sint, semel nominabo: exteriores et
interiores botuli psychicorum.... Arguunt nos quod _jejunia propria_
custodiamus, quod stationes plerumque in vesperam _producamus_, quod
etiam _xerophagias_ observemus, siccantes cibum ab omni carne et omni
jurulentia et uvidioribus quibusque pomis, nec quid vinositatis vel
edamus vel potemus; lavacri quoque abstinentiam congruentem arido
victui.
[16] The language of the canon is ambiguous; but this interpretation
seems to be preferable, especially in view of canon 23, which enacts
that _jejunii superpositiones_ are to be observed in all months
except July and August. See Hefele, _Councils_, i. 148 (Engl. trs.).
[17] Compare the 52nd [51st] of the Apostolical canons. "If any
bishop or presbyter or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal
catalogue, abstains from flesh and wine, not for his own exercise but
out of hatred of the things, forgetting that all things were very
good ... either let him reform, or let him be deprived and be cast
out of the church. So also a layman." To this particular canon Hefele
is disposed to assign a very early date.
[18] Compare canon 64 of the (supposed) fourth synod of Carthage: "He
who fasts on Sunday is not accounted a Catholic" (Hefele, ii. 415).
[19] Priscillian, whose widespread heresy evoked from the synod of
Saragossa (418) the canon, "No one shall fast on Sunday, nor may any
one absent himself from church during Lent and hold a festival of his
own," appears, on the question of fasting, not to have differed from
the Encratites and various other sects of Manichean tendency (c.
406).
[20] Cap. iii. pro partib. Saxoniae: "Si quis sanctum quadragesimale
jejunium pro despectu Christianitatis contempserit et carnem
comederit, morte moriatur. Sed tamen consideretur a sacerdote ne
forte causa necessitatis hoc cuilibet proveniat, ut carnem comedat."
See Augusti, _Christliche Archaologie_, x. p. 374.
[21] See Fink's article "Fasten" in Ersch and Gruber's
_Encyclopadie_; Lane, _Modern Egyptians_; and Rycaut, _Present State
of the Armenian Church_.
FASTOLF, SIR JOHN (d. 1459), English soldier, has enjoyed a more lasting
reputation as in some part the prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff. He
was son of a Norfolk gentleman, John Fastolf of Caister, is said to have
been squire to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, before 1398, served with
Thomas of Lancaster in Ireland during 1405 and 1406, and in 1408 made a
fortunate marriage with Millicent, widow of Sir Stephen Scrope of Castle
Combe in Wiltshire. In 1413 he was serving in Gascony, and took part in
all the subsequent campaigns of Henry V. in France. He must have earned
a good repute as a soldier, for in 1423 he was made governor of Maine
and Anjou, and in February 1426 created a knight of the Garter. But
later in this year he was superseded in his command by John Talbot.
After a visit to England in 1428, he returned to the war, and on the
12th of February 1429 when in charge of the convoy for the English army
before Orleans defeated the French and Scots at the "battle of
herrings." On the 18th of June of the same year an English force under
the command of Fastolf and Talbot suffered a serious defeat at Patay.
According to the French historian Waurin, who was present, the disaster
was due to Talbot's rashness, and Fastolf only fled when resistance was
hopeless. Other accounts charge him with cowardice, and it is true that
John of Bedford at first deprived him of the Garter, though after
inquiry he was honourably reinstated. This incident was made
unfavourable use of by Shakespeare in _Henry VI._ (pt. i. act iv. sc.
i.). Fastolf continued to serve with honour in France, and was trusted
both by Bedford and by Richard of York. He only came home finally in
1440, when past sixty years of age. But the scandal against him
continued, and during Cade's rebellion in 1451 he was charged with
having been the cause of the English disasters through minishing the
garrisons of Normandy. It is suggested that he had made much money in
the war by the hire of troops, and in his later days he showed himself a
grasping man of business. A servant wrote of him:--"cruel and vengible
he hath been ever, and for the most part without pity and mercy"
(_Paston Letters_, i. 389). Besides his share in his wife's property he
had large estates in Norfolk and Suffolk, and a house at Southwark,
where he also owned the Boar's Head Inn. He died at Caister on the 5th
of November 1459. There is some reason to suppose that Fastolf favoured
Lollardry, and this circumstance with the tradition of his braggart
cowardice may have suggested the use of his name for the boon companion
of Prince Hal, when Shakespeare found it expedient to drop that of
Oldcastle. In the first two folios the name of the historical character
in the first part of _Henry VI._ is given as "Falstaffe" not Fastolf.
Other points of resemblance between the historic Fastolf and the
Falstaff of the dramatist are to be found in their service under Thomas
Mowbray, and association with a Boar's Head Inn. But Falstaff is in no
true sense a dramatization of the real soldier.
The facts of Fastolf's early career are to be found chiefly in the
chronicles of Monstrelet and Waurin. For his later life there is much
material, including a number of his own letters, in the _Paston
Letters_. There is a full life by W. Oldys in the _Biographia
Britannica_ (1st ed., enlarged by Gough in Kippis's edition). See also
Dawson Turner's _History of Caister Castle_, Scrope's _History of
Castle Combe_, J. Gairdner's essay _On the Historical Element in
Shakespeare's Falstaff_, ap. _Studies in English History_, Sidney
Lee's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and D.W.
Duthie, _The Case of Sir John Fastolf and other Historical Studies_
(1907). (C. L. K.)
FAT (O.E. _faett_; the word is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch
_vet_, Ger. _Fett_, &c., and may be ultimately related to Greek [Greek:
pion] and [Greek: piaros], and Sanskrit _pivan_), the name given to
certain animal and vegetable products which are oily solids at ordinary
temperatures, and are chemically distinguished as being the glyceryl
esters of various fatty acids, of which the most important are stearic,
palmitic, and oleic; it is to be noticed that they are non-nitrogenous.
Fat is a normal constituent of animal tissue, being found even before
birth; it occurs especially in the intra-muscular, the abdominal and the
subcutaneous connective tissues. In the vegetable kingdom fats
especially occur in the seeds and fruits, and sometimes in the roots.
Physiological subjects concerned with the part played by fats in living
animals are treated in the articles CONNECTIVE TISSUES; NUTRITION;
CORPULENCE; METABOLIC DISEASES. The fats are chemically similar to the
fixed oils, from which they are roughly distinguished by being solids
and not liquids (see OILS). While all fats have received industrial
applications, foremost importance must be accorded to the fats of the
domestic animals--the sheep, cow, ox and calf. These, which are
extracted from the bones and skins in the first operation in the
manufacture of glue, are the raw materials of the soap, candle and
glycerin industries.
FATALISM (Lat. _fatum_, that which is spoken, decreed), strictly the
doctrine that all things happen according to a prearranged fate,
necessity or inexorable decree. It has frequently been confused with
determinism (q.v.), which, however, differs from it categorically in
assigning a certain function to the will. The essence of the fatalistic
doctrine is that it assigns no place at all to the initiative of the
individual, or to rational sequence of events. Thus an oriental may
believe that he is fated to die on a particular day; he believes that,
whatever he does and in spite of all precautions he may take, nothing
can avert the disaster. The idea of an omnipotent fate overruling all
affairs of men is present in various forms in practically all religious
systems. Thus Homer assumes a single fate ([Greek: Moira]), an
impersonal power which makes all human concerns subject to the gods: it
is not powerful over the gods, however, for Zeus is spoken of as
weighing out the fate of men (_Il._ xxii. 209, viii. 69). Hesiod has
three Fates ([Greek: Moirai]), daughters of Night, Clotho, Lachesis and
Atropos. In Aeschylus fate is powerful even over the gods. The
Epicureans regarded fate as blind chance, while to the Stoics everything
is subject to an absolute rational law.
The doctrine of fate appears also in what are known as the higher
religions, e.g. Christianity and Mahommedanism. In the former the ideas
of personality and infinite power have vanished, all power being
conceived as inherent in God. It is recognized that the moral individual
must have some kind of initiative, and yet since God is omnipotent and
omniscient man must be conceived as in some sense foreordained to a
certain moral, mental and physical development. In the history of the
Christian church emphasis has from time to time been laid specially on
the latter aspect of human life (cf. the doctrines of election,
foreordination, determinism). Even those theologians, however, who have
laid special stress on the limitations of the human will have repudiated
the strictly fatalistic doctrine which is characteristic of Oriental
thought and is the negation of all human initiative (see PREDESTINATION;
AUGUSTINE, SAINT; WILL). In Islam fate is an absolute power, known as
_Kismet_, or _Nasib_, which is conceived as inexorable and transcending
all the physical laws of the universe. The most striking feature of the
Oriental fatalism is its complete indifference to material
circumstances: men accept prosperity and misfortune with calmness as the
decree of fate.
FATE, in Roman mythology, the spoken word (_fatum_) of Jupiter, the
unalterable will of heaven. The plural (_Fata_, the Fates) was used for
the "destinies" of individuals or cities, and then for the three
goddesses who controlled them. Thus, Fata Scribunda were the goddesses
who wrote down a man's destiny at his birth. In this connexion, however,
Fata may be singular, the masculine and feminine _Fatus_, _Fata_, being
the usual forms in popular and ceremonial language. The Fates were also
called Parcae, the attributes of both being the same as those of the
Greek Moerae.
FATEHPUR, FATHIPUR or FUTTEHPOOR, a town and district of British India,
in the Allahabad division of the United Provinces. The town is 73 m. by
rail N.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901) 19,281. The district has an area of
1618 sq. m. It is situated in the extreme south-eastern corner of the
Doab or tract of country between the Ganges and the Jumna, which
respectively mark its northern and southern boundaries. The whole
district consists of an alluvial plain formed by the deposits of the two
great rivers. The central part is almost perfectly level, and consists
of highly cultivated land interspersed with jungle and with tracts
impregnated with saltpetre (_usar_). A ridge of higher land, forming the
watershed of the district, runs along it from east to west at an average
distance of about 5 m. from the Ganges. Fatehpur therefore consists of
two inclined planes, the one 5 m. broad, sloping down rapidly to the
Ganges, and the other from 15 to 20 m. broad, falling gradually to the
Jumna. The country near the banks of the two rivers is cut up into
ravines and nullahs running in all directions, and is almost entirely
uncultivable. Besides the Ganges and Jumna the only rivers of importance
are the Pandu, a tributary of the Ganges, and the Arind and Nun, which
both fall into the Jumna. The climate is more humid than in the other
districts of the Doab, and although fevers are common, it is not
considered an unhealthy district. The average annual rainfall is 34 in.
The tract in which this district is comprised was conquered in 1194 by
the Pathans; but subsequently, after a desperate resistance, it was
wrested from them by the Moguls. In the 18th century it formed a part of
the _subah_ of Korah, and was under the government of the wazir of Oudh.
In 1736 it was overrun by the Mahrattas, who retained possession of it
until, in 1750, they were ousted by the Pathans of Fatehpur. In 1753 it
was reconquered by the nawab of Oudh. In 1765, by a treaty between the
East India Company and the nawab, Korah was made over to the Delhi
emperor, who retained it till 1774, when it was again restored to the
nawab wazir's dominions. Finally in 1801, the nawab, by treaty,
reconveyed it to the Company in commutation of the amount which he had
stipulated to pay in return for the defence of his country. In June 1857
the district rose in rebellion, and the usual murders of Europeans took
place. Order was established after the fall of Lucknow, on the return of
Lord Clyde's army to Cawnpore. In 1901 the population was 686,391,
showing a decrease of 2% in the decade. The district is traversed by the
main line of the East Indian railway from Allahabad to Cawnpore. Trade
is mainly agricultural, but the town of Fatehpur is noted for the
manufacture of ornamental whips, and Jafarganj for artistic curtains,
&c.
FATEHPUR SIKRI, a town in the Agra district in the United Provinces of
India, on the road from Agra to Jaipur. Pop. (1901) 7147. It is a ruined
city, and is interesting only from an archaeological point of view. It
was founded by Akbar in 1569 as a thank-offering for the birth of a son,
Selim, afterwards the emperor Jahangir, foretold by Selim Chisti, a
famous Mahommedan saint. The principal building is the great mosque,
which is said by Fergusson to be hardly surpassed by any in India. "It
measures 550 ft. east and west by 470 ft. north and south, over all. The
mosque itself, 250 ft. by 80 ft., is crowned by three domes. In its
courtyard, which measures 350 ft. by 440 ft., stand two tombs. One is
that of Selim Chisti, built of white marble, and the windows with
pierced tracery of the most exquisite geometrical patterns. It possesses
besides a deep cornice of marble, supported by brackets of the most
elaborate design. The other tomb, that of Nawab Islam Khan, is soberer
and in excellent taste, but quite eclipsed by its surroundings. Even
these parts, however, are surpassed in magnificence by the southern
gateway. As it stands on a rising ground, when looked at from below its
appearance is noble beyond that of any portal attached to any mosque in
India, perhaps in the whole world." Among other more noteworthy
buildings the following may be mentioned. The palace of Jodh Bai, the
Rajput wife of Akbar, consists of a courtyard surrounded by a gallery,
above which rise buildings roofed with blue enamel. A rich gateway gives
access to a terrace on which are the "houses of Birbal and Miriam"; and
beyond these is another courtyard, where are Akbar's private apartments
and the exquisite palace of the Turkish sultana. Here are also the Panch
Mahal or five-storeyed building, consisting of five galleries in tiers,
and the audience chamber. The special feature in the architecture of the
city is the softness of the red sandstone, which could be carved almost
as easily as wood, and so lent itself readily to the elaborate Hindu
embellishment. Fatehpur Sikri was a favourite residence of Akbar
throughout his reign, and his establishment here was of great
magnificence. After Akbar's death Fatehpur Sikri was deserted within 50
years of its foundation. The reason for this was that frequent cause in
the East, lack of water. The only water obtainable was so brackish and
corroding as to cause great mortality among the inhabitants. The
buildings are situated within an enclosure, walled on three sides and
about 7 m. in circumference. They are all now more or less in ruins, and
their elaborate painting and other decoration has largely perished, but
some modern restoration has been effected.
See E.B. Havell, _A Handbook to Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehpur
Sikri_, &c. (1904).
FATHER, the begetter of a child, the male parent. The word is common to
Teutonic languages, and, like the other words for close family
relationship, mother, brother, son, sister, daughter, appears in most
Indo-European languages. The O. Eng. form is _faeder_, and it appears in
Ger. _Vater_, Dutch _vader_, Gr. [Greek: pater], Lat. _pater_, whence
Romanic Fr. _pere_, Span. _padre_, &c. The word is used of male
ancestors more remote than the actual male parent, and of ancestors in
general. It is applied to God, as the Father of Jesus Christ, and as the
Creator of the world, and is thus the orthodox term for the First Person
of the Trinity. Of the transferred uses of the word many have religious
reference; thus it is used of the Christian writers, usually confined to
those of the first five centuries, the Fathers of the Church (see
below), of whom those who flourished at the end of, or just after the
age of, the apostles are known as the Apostolic Fathers. One who stands
as a spiritual parent to another is his "father," e.g. godfather, or in
the title of bishops or archbishops, Right or Most Reverend Father in
God. The pope is, in the Roman Church, the Holy Father. In the Roman
Church, father is strictly applied to a "regular," a member of one of
the religious orders, and so always in Europe, in English usage, often
applied to a confessor, whether regular or secular, and to any Roman
priest, and sometimes used of sub-members of a religious society or
fraternity in the English Church. Of transferred uses, other than
religious, may be mentioned the application to the first founders of an
institution, constitution, epoch, &c. Thus the earliest settlers of
North America are the Pilgrim Fathers, and the framers of the United
States constitution are the Fathers of the Constitution. In ancient Rome
the members of the senate are the _Patres conscripti_, the "Conscript
fathers." The senior member or doyen of a society is often called the
father. Thus the member of the English House of Commons, and similarly,
of the House of Representatives in the United States, America, who has
sat for the longest period uninterruptedly, is the Father of the House.
FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. The use of the word "father" as a title of
respect is found in the Old Testament, where it is applied to patriarchs
(Gen. l. 24 (Septuagint); Exod. iii. 13, 15; Deut. i. 8), priests (Judg.
xvii. 10, xviii. 19), prophets (2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21, xiii. 14), and
distinguished ancestors (_Ecclus_. xliv. 1). In the time of our Lord the
scribes claimed the name with an arrogance which He disapproved (Matt.
xxiii. 9); in the rabbinic literature "the fathers" are the more eminent
of the earlier rabbis whose sayings were handed down for the guidance of
posterity.[1] The Christian Church, warned perhaps by the words of
Christ, appears at first to have avoided a similar use of the term,
while St Paul, St Peter and St John speak of their converts as spiritual
children (1 Cor. iv. 14 f., Gal. iv. 19, 1 Pet. v. 13, 1 John ii. 12);
they did not assume, so far as we know, the official style of "fathers
in God." Nor is this title found in the age which succeeded to that of
the apostles. When Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred (A.D. 155),
the crowd shouted, "This is the father of the Christians"[2]; but the
words were probably prompted by the Jews, who took a prominent part in
the martyrdom, and who naturally viewed Polycarp in the light of a great
Christian rabbi, and gave him the title which their own teachers bore.
In the next century members of the episcopal order were sometimes
addressed in this manner: thus Cyprian is styled _papas_ or _papa_ by
his Roman correspondents.[3] The bishops who sat in the great councils
of the 4th century were known as "the 318 fathers" of Nicaea, and "the
150 fathers" of Constantinople. Meanwhile the custom was growing up of
appealing to eminent Church writers of a past generation under this
name. Thus Athanasius writes (_ad Afros_ vi.): "We have the testimony of
fathers (the two Dionysii, bishops of Alexandria and Rome, who wrote in
the previous century) for the use of the word [Greek: homoousios]." Such
quotations were multiplied, as theologians learnt to depend increasingly
upon their predecessors, until the testimony of "our holy father"
Athanasius, or Gregory the Divine, or John the Golden-mouthed, came to
be regarded as decisive in reference to controverted points of faith and
practice.
In the narrower sense thus indicated the "fathers" of the Church are the
great bishops and other eminent Christian teachers of the earlier
centuries, who were conspicuous for soundness of judgment and sanctity
of life, and whose writings remained as a court of appeal for their
successors. A list of fathers drawn up on this principle will begin with
the Christian writers of the 1st century whose writings are not included
in the New Testament: where it ought to end is a more difficult point to
determine. Perhaps the balance of opinion is in favour of regarding
Gregory the Great (d. 604) as the last of the Latin fathers, and John of
Damascus (d. c. 760) as the last of the fathers of the Greek Church. A
more liberal estimate might include John Scotus Erigena or even Anselm
or Bernard of Clairvaux in the West and Photius in the East. The abbe
Migne carried his Latin patrology down to the time of Innocent III. (d.
1216), and his Greek patrology to the fall of Constantinople (1453);
but, while this large extension of the field is much to the advantage of
his readers, it undoubtedly stretches the meaning of _patrologia_ far
beyond its natural limits. For ordinary purposes it is best to make the
patristic period conterminous with the life of the ancient Catholic
Church. In the West the Church enters the medieval stage of its history
with the death of Gregory, while in the East even John of Damascus is
rather a compiler of patristic teaching than a true "father."
A further question arises. Are all the Christian writers of a given
period to be included among the "fathers," or those only who wrote on
religious subjects, and of whose orthodoxy there is no doubt? Migne,
following the example of the editors of _bibliothecae pat-rum_ who
preceded him, swept into his great collection all the Christian writings
which fell within his period; but he is careful to state upon his
title-page that his patrologies include the ecclesiastical writers as
well as the fathers and doctors of the Church. For a comprehensive use
of the term "ecclesiastical writers" he has the authority of Jerome, who
enumerates among them[4] such heresiarchs or leaders of schism as
Tatian, Bardaisan, Novatus, Donatus, Photinus and Eunomius. This may not
be logical, but long usage has made it permissible or even necessary. It
is often difficult, if not impracticable, to draw the line between
orthodox writers and heterodox; on which side, it might be asked, is
Origen to be placed? and in the case of a writer like Tertullian who
left the Church in middle life, are we to admit certain of his works
into our patrology and refuse a place to others? It is clear that in the
circumstances the terms "father," "patristic," "patrology" must be used
with much elasticity, since it is now too late to substitute for them
any more comprehensive terms.
By the "fathers," then, we understand the whole of extant Christian
literature from the time of the apostles to the rise of scholasticism or
the beginning of the middle ages. However we may interpret the lower
limit of this period, the literature which it embraces is immense. Some
method of subdivision is necessary, and the simplest and most obvious is
that which breaks the whole into two great parts, the ante-Nicene and
the post-Nicene. This is not an arbitrary cleavage; the Council of
Nicaea (A.D. 325) is the watershed which actually separates two great
tracts of Christian literature. The ante-Nicene age yields priceless
records of the early struggles of Christianity; from it we have received
specimens of the early apologetic and the early polemic of the Church,
the first essays of Christian philosophy, Christian correspondence,
Christian biblical interpretation: we owe to it the works of Justin,
Irenaeus, the Alexandrian Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian. In these
products of the 2nd and 3rd centuries there is much which in its own way
was not surpassed by any of the later patristic writings. Yet the
post-Nicene literature, considered as literature, reaches a far higher
level. Both in East and West, the 4th and 5th centuries form the golden
age of dogmatic theology, of homiletic preaching, of exposition, of
letter-writing, of Church history, of religious poetry. Two causes may
be assigned for this fact. The conversion of the empire gave the members
of the Church leisure and opportunities for the cultivation of literary
taste, and gradually drew the educated classes within the pale of the
Christian society. Moreover, the great Christological controversies of
the age tended to encourage in Christian writers and preachers an
intellectual acuteness and an accuracy of thought and expression of
which the earlier centuries had not felt the need.
The ante-Nicene period of patristic literature opens with the "apostolic
fathers,"[5] i.e. the Church writers who flourished toward the end of
the apostolic age and during the half century that followed it,
including Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna and
the author known as "Barnabas." Their writings, like those of the
apostles, are epistolary; but editions of the apostolic fathers now
usually admit also the early Church order known as the _Didache_, the
allegory entitled the _Shepherd_, and a short anonymous apology
addressed to one Diognetus. A second group, known as the "Greek
Apologists," embraces Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and
Theophilus; and a third consists of the early polemical writers,
Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Next come the great Alexandrians, Clement,
Origen, Dionysius; the Carthaginians, Tertullian and Cyprian; the
Romans, Minucius Felix and Novatian; the last four laid the foundations
of a Latin Christian literature. Even the stormy days of the last
persecution yielded some considerable writers, such as Methodius in the
East and Lactantius in the West. This list is far from complete; the
principal collections of the ante-Nicene fathers include not a few minor
and anonymous writers, and the fragments of many others whose works as a
whole have perished.
In the post-Nicene period the literary output of the Church was greater.
Only the more representative names can be mentioned here. From
Alexandria we get Athanasius, Didymus and Cyril; from Cyrene, Synesius;
from Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom and Theodoret;
from Palestine, Eusebius of Caesarea and Cyril of Jerusalem; from
Cappadocia, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. The Latin
West was scarcely less productive; it is enough to mention Hilary of
Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Leo of Rome, Jerome,
Rufinus, and a father lately restored to his place in patristic
literature, Niceta of Remesiana.[6] Gaul alone has a goodly list of
Christian authors to show: John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, Hilary of
Arles, Prosper of Aquitaine, Salvian of Marseilles, Sidonius Apollinaris
of Auvergne, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory of Tours. The period ends in
the West with two great Italian names, Cassiodorus and Pope Gregory I.,
after Leo the greatest of papal theologians.
The reader to whom the study is new will gain some idea of the bulk of
the extant patristic literature, if we add that in Migne's collection
ninety-six large volumes are occupied with the Greek fathers from
Clement of Rome to John of Damascus, and seventy-six with the Latin
fathers from Tertullian to Gregory the Great.[7]
For a discussion of the more important fathers the student is referred
to the articles which deal with them separately. In this place it is
enough to consider the general influence of the patristic writings upon
Christian doctrine and biblical interpretation. Can any authority be
claimed for their teaching or their exegesis, other than that which
belongs to the best writers of every age. The decree of the council of
Trent[8] (_ut nemo ... contra unanimum consensum patrum ipsam scripturam
sacram interpretari audeat_) is studiously moderate, and yet it seems to
rule that under certain circumstances it is not permitted to the Church
of later times to carry the science of biblical interpretation beyond
the point which it had reached at the end of the patristic period. Roman
Catholic writers,[9] however, have explained the prohibition to apply to
matters of faith only, and in that case the Tridentine decree is little
else than another form of the Vincentian canon which has been widely
accepted in the Anglican communion: _curandum est ut id teneamus quod
ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est_. The fathers of the
first six or seven centuries, so far as they agree, may be fairly taken
to represent the main stream of Christian tradition and belief during
the period when the apostolic teaching took shape in the great creeds
and dogmatic decisions of Christendom. The English reformers realized
this fact; and notwithstanding their insistence on the unique authority
of the canon of Scripture, their appeal to the fathers as
representatives of the teaching of the undivided Church was as
wholehearted as that of the Tridentine divines. Thus the English canon
of 1571 directs preachers "to take heed that they do not teach anything
in their sermons as though they would have it completely held and
believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the
Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient
Bishops have gathered from that doctrine." Depreciation of the fathers
was characteristic, not of the Anglican reformation, but of the revolt
against some of its fundamental principles which was led by the Puritan
reaction.[10]
Now that the smoke of these controversies has passed away, it is
possible to form a clearer judgment upon the merits of the patristic
writings. They are no longer used as an armoury from which opposite
sides may draw effective weapons, offensive or defensive; nor on the
other hand are they cast aside as the rubbish of an ignorant and
superstitious age. All patristic students now recognize the great
inequality of these authors, and admit that they are not free from the
faults of their times; it is not denied that much of their exegesis is
untenable, or that their logic is often feeble and their rhetoric
offensive to modern taste. But against these disadvantages may be set
the unique services which the fathers still render to Christian
scholars. Their works comprise the whole literature of our faith during
the decisive centuries which followed the apostolic age. They are
important witnesses to the text of the New Testament, to the history of
the canon, and to the history of interpretation. It is to their pages
that we owe nearly all that we know of the life of ancient Christianity.
We see in them the thought of the ancient Church taking shape in the
minds of her bishops and doctors; and in many cases they express the
results of the great doctrinal controversies of their age in language
which leaves little to be desired.[11]
AUTHORITIES.--The earliest writer on patristics was Jerome, whose book
_De viris illustribus_ gives a brief account of one hundred and
thirty-five Church writers, beginning with St Peter and ending with
himself. Jerome's work was continued successively by Gennadius of
Marseilles, Isidore of Seville, and Ildefonsus of Toledo; the
last-named writer brings the list down to the middle of the 7th
century. Since the revival of learning books on the fathers have been
numerous; among the more recent and most accessible of these we may
mention Smith and Wace's _Dictionary of Christian Biography_,
Hauck-Herzog's _Realencyklopadie_, Bardenhewer's _Patrologie_ and
_Geschichte der altkirchlichen Litteratur_, Harnack's _Geschichte der
altchristlichen Litteratur bei Eusebius_ and Ehrard's _Die
altchristliche Litteratur und ihre Erforschung_. A record of patristic
collections and editions down to 1839 may be found in Dowling's
_Notitia Scriptorum SS. Patrum_. The contents of the volumes of
Migne's patrologies are given in the _Catalogue general des livres de
l'abbe Migne_, and a useful list in alphabetical order of the writers
in the Greek _Patrologia_ has been compiled by Dr J.B. Pearson
(Cambridge, 1882). Migne's texts are not always satisfactory, but
since the completion of his great undertaking two important
collections have been begun on critical lines--the Vienna edition of
the Latin Church writers,[12] and the Berlin edition of the Greek
writers of the ante-Nicene period.[13]
For English readers there are three series of translations from the
fathers, which cover much of the ground; the Oxford _Library of the
Fathers_, the _Ante Nicene Christian Library_ and the _Select Library
of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_. Satisfactory lexicons of patristic
Greek and Latin are still a desideratum: but assistance may be
obtained in the study of the Greek fathers from Suicer's _Thesaurus_,
the _Lexicon of Byzantine Greek_ by E.A. Sophocles, and the _Lexicon
Graecum suppletorium et dialecticum_ of Van Herwerden; whilst the new
great _Latin Lexicon_, published by the Berlin Academy, is calculated
to meet the needs of students of Latin patristic literature. For a
fuller list of books useful to the reader of the Greek and Latin
fathers see H.B. Swete's _Patristic Study_ (2nd ed., 1902).
(H. B. S.)