Fathers
Fathers names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Fathers THE, a name applied to the early writers of
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THE, a name applied to the early writers of the Christian Church _ those writers who have given us accounts of the traditions, practices that prevailed in the early Church. The , etc., is term is mostly confined to those who lived during the first six centuries of the Christian era, and no writer is dignified with the title of father who wrote later than the 12th century. They are frequently divided into the Greek and Latin fathers; and those who flourished before the Council of Nice, in 325, are called the ante-Nicene fathers. The chief fathers of the first six centuries were as follows: In the 1st century flourished Clement, Bishop of Rome, and Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; in the 2d century we have Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Hermias, Dionysius of Corinth, Hegesippus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, Irenæas, Bishop of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian; in the 3d century, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian, Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, Gregory (Thaumaturgus); in the 4th century, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, Julius Firmicus, Maternus, Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil, Ephraim the Syrian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, Epiphanus, Bishop of Salamis, Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Ruffin, Presbyter of Aquileia; in the 5th century, Jerome, Theodorus, Bishop of Mopsuestia, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Vincent of Lerins, Isidore of Pelusium, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, Leo I., surnamed the Great, Virgilius, Bishop of Thapsus; in the 6th century, Procopius of Gaza, Aretas, Gregory, Bishop of Tours, and Greg ory I., surnamed the Great, Bishop of Rome. The last of the fathers is Bernard of Clairvaux, who died about the middle of the 12th century. Learned men and theologians differ very much in opinion as to the value that is to be attached to the writings of the fathers. By some they are looked on as nearly of equal authority with the sacred Scriptures themselves, and as the most excellent guides in the paths of piety and virtue. Others regard them as unworthy of the least attention. The right we believe lies between these two extremes; and while the Roman Catholics exalt too highly the opinions of the fathers, yet by Protestants generally they are too much disregarded. Their writings contain many sublime sentiments, judicious thoughts, and things naturally adapted to form a religious temper, and to excite pious and virtuous affections; on the other hand, they abound still more with precepts of an excessive and unreasonable austerity, with stoical and academical dictates, with vague and indeterminate notions, and, what is still worse, with decisions absolutely false and in manifest opposition to the character and commands of Christ. Of the character and doctrines of the primitive Church they are competent witnesses, and, living within a comparatively short period of the apostles, there are many things which they relate regarding apostolic times, which had come down to them by tradition, and which are therefore not to be altogether rejected.
Fathers in ecclesiastical history
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in ecclesiastical history, the bishops of the early churches, whose writings are regarded as authoritative. First of all are the apostles. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom are considered fathers of the Greek Church ; Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, fathers of the Roman Church. Other early writers, as Origen, have scarcely less influence. In a general sense, the term father or fathers is used to indicate the original promoter or promoters of an enterprise. Thus the early settlers of Plymouth are called the Pilgrim Fathers. Douglas was considered the Father of Squatter Sovereignty. Well known titles of this sort are: Father of Angling--Isaak Walton. Father of Comedy--Aristophanes. Father of his Country--George Washington. Father of Democracy--Thomas Jefferson. Father of Dentistry--Pierre Fauchard. Father of English Poetry--Chaucer. Father of English Prose--Roger Ascham. Father of Epic Poetry--Homer. Father of German Literature--Lessing. Father of Greek Tragedy--Aeschylus. Father of History--Herodotus. Father of Lies--Satan. Father of Medicine--Hippocrates. Father of Orthodoxy--Athanasius. Father of Ridicule--Rabelais. Father of the Faithful--Abraham. Father of Waters--The Mississippi.
Fathers THE to theories of predestination
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THE to theories of predestination, and in moral science to such systems as those of Spinoza and Hegel, and more recently to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. It is carried out to its most pitilessly logical extreme among the Mohammedans, where everything that can happen is "kismet," i. e., fated, or decreed by fate.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The roster Collier's printed in 1921 is essentially the one still used: Clement of Rome to Bernard of Clairvaux, split into Greek and Latin, with 325 as the ante-Nicene dividing line. What has dated is the frame around it, the confident weighing of whether "Roman Catholics exalt too highly" the Fathers while "Protestants generally" disregard them; the twentieth-century ressourcement movement and Vatican II sent Catholic theology back to the Fathers, while Protestant and Orthodox scholars joined the same critical editions, and patristics is now a shared academic field rather than a confessional battleground. The largest factual gain came in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, where a buried library of Coptic texts let scholars read the Gnostic writings that Irenaeus and Hippolytus had previously been our only witnesses to, often in hostile paraphrase. Recent scholarship has also pressed hard on Syriac writers such as Ephraim, whom Collier's lists almost in passing, and on early Christian women whose letters and visions sit outside the bishop-centred list Aiton's gives.
Written for this edition, 2026.