Chapter Six
Christianity did not begin with us; we have a vast patristic heritage which we inherited from those who were contemporaries of the apostles and of those who came after them in the holy apostolic line. There are hundreds of volumes that explain to us how spiritual life should be lived, what sound teaching is, and what living service should be.
The Orthodox Teacher
There is an important distinction between reading the works of the Fathers in order to learn from them in all reverence and reading them so that I can extract a few expressions out of context in order to demonstrate
my own learning. This is exploiting the fathers for one's own benefit, not for the benefit of the spirit. We have many of the writings of the fathers in Arabic which we must make use of, and there are more that
need to be translated. The point is not how much is read, but how it is read.
Let us consider the three characteristics of an Orthodox teacher:
1. He Studies the Lives of the Fathers:
The Lord's command is clear: "whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct."
(Heb.13:70). This means that studying the lives of the saints is an Biblical command and being remiss in doing so affects the very core of man's spiritual life in many ways.
- Reading the lives of the saints is an excellent spiritual incentive. When a person sees their spiritual zeal, their daily struggles, their Christian behavior, their living example, and their various virtues, he absorbs from this spiritual zeal what builds his own life and motivates him to spiritual work, whether prayer, studying the Bible faithfully, performing 'metanias', discipline, fasting, watching, obeying the commandments, humility,, love, concealing one's own achievements etc. There is no doubt that being close to the fervor of the saints increases that of the spiritual individual, and being close to the indifference of worldly people affects man with a deadly spiritual coldness. "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed" (Pr.13:20). "Evil company corrupts good habits" (1Cor.15:33) "Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart."(1Tim.2:22).
The companionship of live saints is vital, but that of those who are alive in the spirit is even more so because their lives were crowned with success and victory and because they are alive, feeling for us and watching our struggles.
The Orthodox teachers greatly needs to make the acquaintance of the rest of "members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:9). He needs to learn form them so that his spiritual longings for the Kingdom and its service are aroused in him.
- Reading the lives of the saints increases our store of spiritual experience. Our experience is limited and simple, but the study of the lives of the Fathers adds to our store of spiritual experience. The way of the Kingdom is full of pitfalls and dangerous slopes, for the Lord described is as "narrow" and "difficult". This does not mean we have to be gloomy or afraid of failing, or anxious. On the contrary, it means struggling and self-discipline, with powerful Divine help, happiness in our companionship with Christ, joy in our fellowship with the saints, and learning daily from their holy lives.
When we study the lives of the fathers, we add
whole lives to our own, and we add their successful experiences to our store of faltering spiritual experiences. - Studying the lives of the Fathers teaches us different virtues. The Lord does not create his children
to be carbon copies, but gives each one his special needs. He fills each one with different gifts and talents. Thus virtues and talents differ from one person to another, but all come together and complement each other in one Body,
and in one Spirit.
T The great Athanasius is an example of endurance. He stood against the whole world because he believed in his cause and was ready to be exiled and to die for it.
T And the great Anthony is a model of self-sacrifice; he sells all he has and gives it to the poor, confident of a heavenly treasure.
T Arsanius, the teacher of the king's children is a model of humility. he comes from far to learn the rudiments from the simple monks.
T Dioscorus, the defender of Orthodoxy, is a model of one who reserves the faith. He was ready to lose his life rather than change one letter of the faith that was received from the Fathers.
T Pishoy, the perfect man, the lover of our Savior, is a model of prayer and love. he washed the feet of the Lord.
What can we say about the thousands of fathers who went before us, and whom we must "follow in the footsteps of the flock" (Song 1:8).
- The study of the lives of the Fathers also gives us new intercessors for in them we find "a cloud of witness ...... we are surrounded with"
(Heb. 12: 1) They are a cloud that is:
The person who comes in contact with the fathers with love will learn that they are very close to us. For though they are high above, they are near, witnesses of our struggles, who intercede for us with the Lord. They pray for us until we reach their happy paradise and stand in the presence of the Lord of Glory and of the hosts of holy angels.
- The Orthodox teacher studies the lives of the fathers because they are the heavenly members in the Body of the Lord. Can we conceive of the head being separated from the body, of one half being separated form the other? Impossible! It is simple and natural that we should feel totally united with our holy fathers through membership in one body and through the Holy Eucharist and the continuous fellowship with them. They are "the rest of our family", "the members of the household of God". Is it possible for one member of the Body to be severed and to continue to live? Is it possible for one body to be in pain and not for the other members to feel this pain, or for one member to be happy and for the other members not to share this happiness with him?
These are our feelings when we study their lives, of when we ask for their intercession, or when we enter into fellowship with them. This is a daily feeling that the Orthodox teacher experiences simply and spontaneously without pretense or artificiality.
2. He Studies the Sayings of the Fathers and Quotes them in his Speech: The
Orthodox teacher is only satisfied with true Orthodoxy through reading the teachings, the exegeses, and the sayings of the Fathers.
This is
not a "glorification of the past" or mere "traditionalism", a doing away of the present, or a failure to grow in the direction of the future. On the contrary, the whole matter may be summed up in the saying "Christianity did
not begin with us". We have to go back to our roots in the earth of Christianity, in the tree of Orthodoxy, in the heart of history. We will find an inexhaustible source of help and a treasure that is not depleted in the sayings,
the studies, the exegeses, and the teachings of the Fathers which are valid for our day and age and for every age. These deal with two fundamental topics:
Long ago, the philosophers asked St. Anthony, "How can you spend so much time alone in a barren desert without companionship or friendship, without reading books?" He answered, "My books are my predecessors, and if I want to read I read the word of God." This is indeed a study in the lives of the Fathers, their teachings, and in the living word of God!!
a. Who are the Fathers? The Jews and pagans cried out during the martyrdom of St.
Polycarpus: "This is the father of the Christians!"
Teaching in the Church was restricted to the bishops, the priests, and the deacons who were allowed to benefit thereby. The intention was not to establish a monopoly but to ensure the soundness of the teaching, for as St. Paul says: "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.... for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." (1 Tim. 4: 16). The teacher who taught his disciples was called 'Father', as St. Paul says of himself: "for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." (1Cor.4:15). He says about Onesimus "My son, Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains." (Phil 10), and about Timothy, "my true son in the faith." ( 1Tim. 1: 2), and he also said: "for though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers" (1 Cor. 4: 15).
Those who wonder about the
meaning of the Lord Jesus' injunction not to call anyone on earth "Father" should remember that we call our fathers at home "father". Are we thus breaking the commandment of Christ? Not at all. "
For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
(2 Cor. 3: 6) God wants to warn us that He is the real and final Father, and that are father in the flesh could only be so through the Heavenly Father. The same is true of our father in the Spirit; he takes his fatherhood from the Heavenly Father who granted him the sacrament of the priesthood and the spirit of fatherhood.
b. The Conditions of Fatherhood:
The one who is called "Father" in the holy Church has to fulfill the following conditions:
- He has to be believe the Orthodox doctrine, living according to the thought of the Church and its spirit without any doctrinal deviation.
- He must have had a holy life. Words and ideas have no value without behavior and conduct. - He should have authored essays, books, or epistles recorded by his spiritual children or by historians as have Palladius,
Cassian, and Rufinius. - His teachings should conform to those of the Church Fathers. He should not have separate or strange ideas, or an unacceptable heresy. That is why, despite his being a genius, Origen is not
called "father", but "the learned", because he castrated himself thus annulling struggling and the work of God's grace, and because he combined theology with Greek philosophy.
St. Augustine says: "He who despises the fathers, despises the whole Church." We do not mean that the fathers are "infallible". None of them was, for all of them often described
themselves as being weak and asked for their readers' forgiveness if they made a mistake when explaining a Bible verse or when expounding a theological issue. The prevailing characteristic in their lives, their sayings, and their
writings is "Orthodoxy", both in teaching and in life.
c. How We Should Read the Fathers:
- We should read them as a group, meaning that we should read the writings of many of them. They complement each other, offering us the spirit of the universal church. There are specializations, insights, and
concentrations, but the important thing is the spirit of the group. - We should not extract a line from the sayings of the father to support a private view we have, but just as we read the fathers as a whole, so should we read
what each father wrote as a whole. - We have to take into consideration the age in which each father lived. In each era, there are certain spiritual and social defects that differ from one age to another. In each
age, the meanings of words and expressions change as the language evolves. That is why we have to carefully examine the connotations of every expression, not only the literal meanings.
d. The Copts and the Fathers:
- The Copts were, and still are, close to the Patristic thought of the universal Church. They translated all that came down to them and all that was written in Greek into the language of the people, the Coptic language,
so that all the people became "theologians", meaning that they became acquainted with sound teaching and rejected all heresies and heretics. - Archeologists have discovered many papyri in Coptic, such as the papyrus containing
the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (now in Berlin), and another of the same epistle in Strasbourg. A third papyrus is of the epistle of St. Ignatius of Antioch in Vienna and London, as well as The Shepherd
by Hermamel...etc. - The Copts were pioneers in theological literature. St. Athanasius, St. Cyril, St. Timothy and others are among the prominent writers, in addition to the teachers of the Theological School of
Alexandria such as Clement of Alexandria, Pantinus, and Origen. - Many historians came to Egypt, visited our monasteries, met our fathers, and wrote their biographies and their spiritual sayings which are still a light to the
souls of those on the Kingdom way. Some of these are:
Others tried to complete what Eusebius had started, such as Socrates, Sozomene, Theodoret, and Rufinius.
e. Classification of the Writings of the Fathers: It is possible to classify the writings of the
fathers chronologically, particularly those of the first five centuries. Some believe that the first Ecumenical Council (Nicea, in 325) should separate the fathers in terms of their writings and their heritage.
They divide the fathers into:
- Ante-Nicene Fathers; their heritage is very simple. These are Justinius, Iraneous, Hermas, Tatian, Athanagorus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertillian, Heolitus, Novatian, etc. - Post-Nicene Fathers.
Theological debates started then in response to the many heresies that had emerged. These were Augustine, Crystotem, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyzanze, Gregory of Nisisi, John of Damascus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Cassian,
Ephraim the Syriac, etc.
The works of the Fathers can be classified according to the languages in which they were written:
- Greek Fathers (Eastern), in addition to Coptic, Syriac, and Aramaic - Latin Fathers (Western)
The Fathers can also be classified geographically:
- The Fathers of Egypt, particularly of the School of Alexandria and the Desert Fathers. - The Fathers of Antioch - The Fathers of Cappadocia - The Latin Fathers
We can classify the writings of the Fathers according to the subjects they deal with: . Apologetic writings . Exegesis of the Holy Bible . Sermons and essays . Epistles . Church liturgies . Poetry and hymns of praise . Dialogues . Ascetics . Church law . Ecclesiastical history
Before this vast ocean of patristic writing, each of us stands like a small child on the shores of a huge ocean, drinking of their writing, and reading their exegeses, being filled with their spirituality, and learning from their experiences and teachings.
We have a great many of their works in Arabic thanks to the efforts of many, the most important of whom is Fr. Tadros Yacoub. The important thing is to read and to learn, and may God grant us His grace.
Note:
The essence of this essay is taken from the book An Introduction to Patrology, by Fr. Tadros Yacoub.
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