Father, Church: The name Church Fathers applies to those Greek and Latin ecclesiastical writers who flourished in the first six centuries after Christ.

There are 23 of them, namely: St. Ambrose, St. Athanasius, St. Athenagoras, St. Augustin, Saint Basil, Saint John Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria, Saint Cyprian, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, San Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Hilary, Saint Jerome, Saint Iranaeus, Saint Justin, Lactantius, Saint Leon, Minucius Felix, Origen, Tertullian and Theodoret. To these has been added Saint Bernard, who lived in the twelfth century, but we will speak of each one in chronological order.

These men, celebrated in so many respects, merit that we speak eloquently of them in this dictionary because of their faith, piety, glory, virtues, their zeal for religious progress, and their illuminating works. However, in moral and dogmatic matters, as well as other subjects, there is no man nor society of men, on this earth that is infallible. We owe no blind deference to any other human authority in matters of science and religion, and we must be able to apply the same critical spirit to the writings of the Fathers that we apply to any other human author. Even the respect that is divine authority's exclusive prerogative depends upon discernment and reason. We must not mistake appearances and render error an homage due only eternal truth.

Justin Martyr ( Saint ) hailed from Flavia Neapolis, in Palestine. His learning and the purity of his morals did Christianity honor. He confirmed his doctrine by the constancy of his faith, for which he was martyred in the year 167. We have from him two Christian Apologies , the Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew , two letters addressed to the Gentiles, a treatise on the unity of God, etc.. The best editions are those of Robert Etienne (1551 and 1571, in Greek), Commelin (1593, in Greek and Latin), and Morel (1656, Greek and Latin). Lastly, there is the edition of Prudentius Maran, a Benedictine (1742, in-fol .).

Saint Justin was apparently the first to conceive of celibacy and abstinence in such a way as to render marriage impure in and of itself, or at least his views on this subject allowed his disciple Tatian to openly treat marriage as debauchery and genuine fornication.

Irenaeus ( Saint ), celebrated bishop of Lyon, was born in Greece around 120 A.D. and was a disciple of Papias and Saint Polycarp. He became the head of the church of the Gauls and governed them with zeal until 202, finishing his days under the rule of Severus. He wrote several works in Greek, but all that remains are a rather barbaric Latin version of the five books he wrote against the heretics, a few Greek fragments cited by various authors, and a letter to Pope Victor on the celebration of Easter, that can be found in Eusebius. The best editions of his work are those of Erasmus (1526), Grabe (1702) and that of Father Massuet (1710), though we must add to these the curious dissertations that Dodwell composed on his writings to facilitate their elucidation, Dissertationes in Irenaeum (Oxford, 1689, in -8º). These dissertations are only the prolegomena to an extended work this scholar planned to publish on the nature of heresies of the primitive Church.

Photius claimed that this Father had corrupted the simplicity and the exact truth of Church dogmas by strange and ill-founded reasoning. Our critics wish that he had treated the truths of religion with appropriate gravity and that he had routinely based the dogmas of our faith upon more solid foundations than those he used. His books against heresies are not always filled with valid, conclusive arguments. St. Irenaeus embraced the opinion of the millenarians: he had a particular notion of the time of death of Jesus Christ and claimed that our Lord was more than forty years old when he began to preach the Gospel. He posited a maxim that was adopted by several other Fathers : that whenever Holy Scripture reports an action of the patriarchs or prophets without blaming them, however bad the action may appear, it is not to be condemned but to be understood as a type. He thereby sowed the seeds of a dangerous opinion, later openly upheld by St. Augustine, namely, that the just and the faithful merit all things.

Athenagoras , a Christian philosopher from Athens, distinguished himself in the second century by his zeal for the faith and by his learning. He left us a Christian apology, addressed to Marcus-Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus in 179, if we are to believe Baronius, or the year 168, if we follow Dodwell. His other work is about the resurrection of the dead. These two writings can be found in the library of the Fathers and at the end of some editions of Saint Justin. The annotated Works of Athenagoras (in Greek and Latin) were printed in Oxford in 1682, under the supervision of Bishop Fell. They were reprinted in Leipzig (1684 and 1686). To them should be added the dissertation of Father Nourry, the third of the second volume of his Apparatus ad bibliothecam maximam veterum patrum .

According to several critics, Athenagoras is fairly heterodox, and his writings smack of Platonism. For instance, he gives angels specially designated by God a particular providence over each thing and accords the Supreme Being a general providence, an opinion that indeed derives from Platonic philosophical principles. He further admits of two sorts of bad angels: those God created and who acquit themselves badly of their commission to govern matter and those engendered by the commerce between angels and women. Athenagoras did not correctly apply the passage of the Gospels that blames those who repudiate one woman in order to marry another, because he uses it to condemn remarriage, which he treats as blatantly adulterous. I will say nothing of the mistaken ideas of the Trinity for which he has been reproached. Those interested may consult Huet's Originianae (Book II, ch. iii). As for the style of this Christian philosopher, it is pure and Attic, though laden with hyperbaton and parentheses.

It is rather surprising that this Church Father , cited only in a work by Epiphanes, was unknown to Eusebius, Saint Jerome, and almost all the other ecclesiastical writers.

Huet speaks at length of a novel attributed to Athenagoras and conjectures that it is actually by Philander. This novel, of which there is but one French translation, is entitled Of True and Perfect Love, Written in Greek by Athenagoras, Athenian Philosopher, and containing the honest loves of Theogones and Charide, and Pherecides and Melangena (Paris, 1599 and 1612, in- 12º).

Clement of Alexandria ( Saint ), after having studied in Greece, Italy and the Orient, renounced pagan error and, in 190, became a priest and catechist in Alexandria. He died around 220. What has come down to us are several Latin translations of his original Greek writings, all of which display a great erudition: the Stromata , The Exhortation to the Heathen , and The Tutor . His Hypostases , a work consisting of eight books, has been lost. Hervet translated the first of these treatises from Greek to Latin. Heinsius produced an edition at Leyden in 1616 and then in 1629 ( in-fol .), which is the best of all. The Paris edition of 1641 is less accurate and less beautiful.

Not all critics are equally full of admiration for Saint Clement of Alexandria. Dupin was of the opinion that all parts of The Tutor that address sins against chastity should be expurgated. Buddeus observes that, in his view, this Father transposed many dogmas and expressions from Stoic philosophy into Christianity. Clement represents his gnostic (perfect Christian) as one entirely exempt from passions. It would be nice if the Stromata and The Tutor were better organized. They are, in addition, stylistically careless and lack appropriate gravity. Saint Clement professed that he followed no method, but when it comes to morality, train of thought and the orderly progression of subject matter are by no means indifferent.

Some critics find, moreover, that the reasoning of this Church Father is generally vague, obscure, founded on pure subtleties or vain allegories, or on false explications of Scripture. He has been reproached with trying to inappropriately flaunt his erudition, with having dashed off anything that came into his head without engaging in mature reflection, and finally, with having occasionally advanced plainly false or outlandish maxims. It is true that in severely condemning the morals of his century, he rarely distinguished between the legitimate use of inconsequential things and the most criminal of abuses, but it would be easy to defend his opinion that God gave the pagans philosophy as their means to salvation.

Tertullian (Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus), priest of Carthage and one of the most famous men Africa ever produced, was the son of a centurion in the militia. He converted to Christianity and married after his baptism. Then he became a priest and went to Rome. He broke with the Catholic Church at the beginning of the third century and became a Montanist, letting himself be seduced by ridiculous revelations. He lived to a ripe old age and died during the reign of Antoninus Caracalla around 216 A.D. The best editions of his works are those of Rigault and de Venise (1746, in-folio ).

Tertullian's writings are remarkable for their austere genius, fiery imagination, and a style at once energetic and impetuous, yet severe and obscure. His greatest admirers agree that Tertullian's thought lacks the precision and solidity that his important subject matter requires. Father Ceillier and Dupin avow that Tertullian, even when he was still in the bosom of the Church, proposed excessive rules of conduct and that his early works display a penchant for the most rigid sentiments. In fact, if one reads the writings of this Church Father before he embraced Montanism, everything betokens that austerity incapable of finding a happy medium, that African imagination that makes objects larger than life, that impetuosity that does not wait to take things into consideration.

In the treatise on idolatry that he wrote before becoming a Montanist, Tertullian condemns any profession or career that might lead a pagan to commit idolatrous acts, even if it be their only means of subsistence; he speaks out against all sorts of crowns, particularly that of laurels, as being related to idolatry; he reviles the seeking and exercise of public office; he teaches that it is absolutely forbidden for Christians to be judges of men's life and honor, which, according to Nicole, is manifestly contrary to Church doctrine and practice. He declares himself to be strongly opposed to remarriage, especially in his books on monogamy, and finally, he views as incompatible the roles of emperor and Christian.

Origen , one of the most learned ecclesiastical writers of the third-century primitive Church, was born in Alexandria in the year 185 of Our Lord. His teacher was Saint Clement of Alexandria, and he succeeded him as catechist. He died at Tyre in 254, at the age of 69. His works are extremely well known. The main ones that have come down to us are:

1) a treatise against Celsius, annotated by Spencer in his good Greek and Latin edition

2) homilies with commentary on Holy Scripture

3) The Philocalia

4) Fragments of his Hexapla , collected by Father Montfaucon (2 vols., in-folio )

5) On First Principles , of which we have but a Latin version

The most ample edition of all of Origen's works is that of the Benedictine, Father de la Rue, in Greek and Latin.

Saint Clement's treatise On Prayer , which had never been printed, was at last published in Greek and Latin at Oxford in 1686. His response to the philosopher Celsius, one of the best books of this famous writer, was published in French in 1700 by Bouhereau.

Dupin has discussed at length all that regards the life and work of this Church Father . He is not alone, and we must also cite de la Mothe-le-Vayer's Life of Tertullian and Origen (Paris, 1675, in -8º) and A History of Movements that Arose in the Church in Response to Origen and his Doctrine . The Jesuit, Father Doucin, is the author of this last work, printed in Paris in 1700. It includes a summary of Origen's life.

It is impossible to read, says Bayle, without deploring the bizarre destiny of the human mind. Origen's morals were of an admirable purity. His zeal for the Gospel was quite ardent. Craving martyrdom, he withstood with incredible constancy the torments the persecutors of his faith used against him, torments all the more unbearable because they were prolonged and intended to prevent the victim from perishing under torture. His spirit was grand, beautiful, sublime, his knowledge and his reading extensive. Nevertheless, he succumbed to a prodigious number of heresies, all of which were monstrous, according to Father Doucin. And apparently, he succumbed while trying to defend Christian truths from the insults of the pagans. For he fervently desired that even philosophers would believe these truths, not doubting that with philosophers on his side, he could convert the universe. So many virtues, so many talents, and a motive so zealous could not protect him against errors in matters of faith.

It is not easy to imagine the errors this rare genius indulged in: they seem to be the product of a fuzzy and unreliable mind. Upon examination, however, it appears that they all derive from a single source and that these falsehoods form a chain of consequences. It is in his three books On First Principles that he developed and established his heresies, so intimately linked that they are born of a single principle.

Fleshly Origenism hardly made a mark and was easier to destroy than spiritual Origenism, a sort of Quietism. The fleshly version was abhorred by everyone, even those affected by it did not dare produce a doctrine of this nature for men's eyes. But spiritual Origenism, whose sectarians, according to Saint Epiphanius, were irreproachably pure, took two centuries to extinguish, and even then, it was to reappear.

Saint Cyprian , native of Carthage, taught rhetoric before becoming a Christian. After his conversion, which took place in 246, he took the name Cecil and was declared bishop of Carthage in 248. He was decapitated during the persecution of Valerian in 258. The best editions of his works are those of Pamelius (1568), Rigault (1648), the Oxford edition (1682), and finally, that of Baluze, with a preface by the Benedictine Dom Prudentius Maran. Lambert Ponce published the works of Saint Cyprian in French, and Dom Gervais the Elder, Abbot of La Trappe, wrote his life.

The rebirth of this new man as Church Father hastened his progress in piety without sheltering him from human error. He was mistaken in his condemnation of self-defense in the face of unjust and life-threatening aggression. He got carried away in his praise of celibacy, continence, almsgiving and martyrdom but is to be excused, having held these principles with the sole aim of bringing men to virtues whose limits they rarely surpass. His upright intentions thus compensate for his inaccurate judgments. As for the rest, though he is one of the best writers among the Latin Fathers , Fénelon has noted that his style and diction betray the bombast of his time as well as an African severity. He adds that there are affected flourishes, particularly in the letter to Donatus, which Saint Augustine nonetheless cites as a model of eloquence.

Minucius Felix , it is believed, was born in Africa at the beginning of the third century. We still have his dialogue Octavius , in which a pagan and a Christian dispute with one another. In 1643, Rigault published a good edition of this dialogue, which was incorporated into Cyprian's collected works of 1666. The most refined edition is that of Jean Davies (Cambridge, 1678, rpt. London, 1711). Perrot d'Ablancourt has also produced a French translation of Minucius Felix.

I gladly join Lactantius and Saint Jerome in praising the dialogue, although the author seems to me to have merely touched upon his subject, but my praise is mitigated by more significant reproaches. Minucius Felix seems to consider remarriage to be veritable adultery; he condemns without exception the use of floral crowns; and finally, seduced by the force of his imagination, he is not content to praise the sign of the cross that Christians make in memory of the crucifixion of our Savior but instead claims that this sign is natural to all men and that it even figures in pagan religions ( Apolog. ch. xxix ).

Lactantius was African, according to Baronius, but according to others, he was a native of Fermo in the Marches of Ancona. He flourished at the beginning of the fourth century, studied rhetoric with Arnobius, and was chosen by Emperor Constantine to be the preceptor of his son Crispus Caeser. The most ample edition of his works is that of Paris (1748, 2 vols., in- 4º).

The Divine Institutions in seven books is Lactantius's principle work. Saint Jerome finds that he is better at undoing the errors of the pagans than he is at establishing Christian dogma. He reproaches him with not being exempt from faults and for having applied himself more to eloquence and philosophy than to learning and theology. Whatever the case may be, of all the ancient ecclesiastical authors, his Latin is the finest. He avoided the bad turns of phrase of Tertullian and Saint Cyprian, preferring clarity of style to turgidity and the gigantesque. But, adopting the ideas of his predecessors, he absolutely condemned self-defense against all aggressors and regarded usury as a sort of theft.

Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died has been attributed to him and was first published by Baluze. Some scholars doubt that it is by Lactantius, and Father Nourry claims it is by Lucius Caecilius, who lived at the beginning of the fourth century.

Hilary , St. , bishop of Poitiers, place of his birth, and doctor of the Church, forsook paganism and embraced the Christian religion with his wife and daughter. He died in 368, after having led a life agitated by endless troubles and disputes with the Arians. Nevertheless, he wrote quite a bit. Aside from a lost treatise on the septenary, he wrote twelve books on the Trinity and commentaries on the Scriptures. The Benedictines published his collected works in 1686, and Count Scipion Maffey published a greatly augmented edition in Verona in 1730.

Saint Jerome called Saint Hilary the Rhone of Latin eloquence, latinae eloquentiae rhodanus . I will not explain this epithet but will only say that the bishop of Poitiers's commentaries on Scripture are simply a compilation of Origen's, whose works he had read to him by Heliodorus.

Athanasius, Saint , patriarch of Alexandria, was Egyptian. He attended the Council of Nicea in 315 and the following year obtained the see of Alexandria, of which he was dispossessed in 335. He experienced the favors and the disgraces of fortune many times during his life. Finally, after having been sometimes exiled, sometimes called back by succeeding emperors, he died on May 3, 373. He is not the creator of the symbol that bears his name.

His works mainly revolve around the defense of the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the divinity of the Word and the Holy Spirit. There are three quite estimable editions: Commelin's (1600), Peter Naunius's (1627), and finally Father Montfaucon's. Hermant has given us the Life of Athanasius in French.

This Church Father appears to only have been attached to the defense of Christian dogma. There are few moral principles in his works, and, with the exception of those concerning the episcopate and the aftermath of persecution, they are not treated to the extent they merit, or such is the judgment of Dupin.

Cyril, Saint , patriarch of Alexandria, succeeded Theophile, his uncle, on October 6, 412. After having composed a commentary on the Gospel of Saint John and on several other books of Scripture, he died in 444. Jean Aubert, canon of Laon, published his works in Greek and Latin in 1638 (6 vols., in-folio ).

Critics find them obscure, diffuse, and full of metaphysical subtleties. We have his response to Emperor Julian, who reproached Christians for their cult of relics. Saint Cyril responded that the cult was of pagan origin and that consequently, the emperor was wrong to blame it ( Cyrill. contra Julian. lib X. p. 336). At bottom, this custom, kept within reasonable limits, could be quite useful at the time. It is more difficult to justify Cyril of Alexandria's error in declaring the monk Ammonius a martyr. Ammonius had been condemned for insulting and wounding Orestes, a Roman governor, as Socrates Scholasticus reports in his Ecclesiastical History . I move on to Cyril of Jerusalem, whom I should have discussed first.

Cyril, Saint , patriarch of Jerusalem, succeeded Maximus in 350, and after weathering many revolutions in his see, he died on March 18, 386. This Church Father left us eighteen catecheses addressed to catechumens and five to the newly baptized. We also have a letter he wrote to Emperor Constantius on the apparition of a luminous cross above the city of Jerusalem. The best edition of Saint Cyril's works is that of Father Touttée, in Greek and Latin. Grancolas, a Sorbonne doctor, translated them into French, with notes. Anyone can read them, and if they do not seem to be composed according to the rules of art, the author is not to be blamed, since he himself admits, after a fashion, that he produced them in haste and without much preparation.

Basil the Great, Saint , was born in Caesarea in Cappadocia around 328. He went to finish his studies in Athens, where he developed a close friendship with Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. He was elected bishop of Caesarea in 369 and worked to unite the Western and Eastern Churches, which had split over the subject of Meletius and Paulinus, two bishops of Antioch. He then wrote against Apollinaris and Eustathius of Sebaste. He died in 379. The best edition of his works is that of Father Garnier, in Greek and Latin (Paris, 1751, 3 vols., in-fol .). Herman, the Sorbonne doctor, wrote his life, adding to it a translation of the Ascetics of this Church Father .

Erasmus puts great store on the eloquence of Saint Basil. His style is pure and his expressions elegant. His letters on ecclesiastic discipline are very instructive, and, in general, his books are quite erudite. But like his predecessors, he had exaggerated notions of Christian patience. He decreed that any lay person who defended himself against brigands should be suspended from communion and any clergyman deposed. He also thought that a Christian should never be allowed to undertake a lawsuit, not even for the clothes necessary to cover his body ( Morals , XLIX, vol . 2, ch.i. p. 455).

Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint , was born around 328 in the town of Arianzus, near Nazianzus in Cappodocia. He finished his studies in Athens with St. Basil and was Basil's dearest friend. He became bishop of Constantinople in 379 and died in his own country on May 9, 391. His works, which consist of fifty-five discourses or sermons, several poems, and a great number of letters, were annotated and printed in Greek and Latin in 1609 (2 vols., in-fol .).

The piety of this Father is not suspect, but his ardent passion for solitary retreat made him of a sad and anxious disposition. As a result, he went beyond all bounds in his zeal against heretics. His renunciation of the goods of this world when they cannot be preserved without jeopardizing salvation seems to be a veritable commandment rather than the simple piece of advice that Gregory of Nazianzus claims it is. As for his style, it is not very polished, sometimes rough, and almost always excessively florid.

Dupin has remarked that this Church Father abuses allusions, comparisons and antitheses. Erasmus notes that he loves quips and puns. Study in Athens had greatly degenerated by the time Saints Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil went there: the refinement of wit had prevailed. The Fathers instructed by the bad rhetoricians of the day were hence swept along with the tide.

Gregory experienced the scheming, cabals, intrigues and abuses that reigned in the synods and councils, as evidenced by his response to a pressing invitation he had to attend a solemn council of bishops in Constantinople: "To tell the truth," he answered, "I have firmly resolved to flee all assemblies of bishops, because I have never seen a council nor synod that was a great success and that did not make things worse instead of better. The spirit of dissension and domination (believe me, I speak without bitterness) are greater than I can express."

It must have been the case that there was much wrongdoing in ecclesiastic assemblies at the time, because Saint Gregory reiterates his complaints and protests elsewhere in a more forceful fashion: "Never," he says, in another work, "never will I go to any synod, where there are nothing but divisions, quarrels, and shameful mysteries `that burst forth from men dominated by fury." What?! Bishops assembled for religions purposes and dominated by fury! What attention should we pay to their statutes and their decisions if they were not animated by the spirit of the Gospel? Note that Greek terms used by Saint Gregory are far more energetic than my feeble translations.

Gregory of Nyssa, Saint , was born in Cappadocia around the year 331. Saint Basil's brother, he was elected bishop of Nyssa in 372 and died on March 9, 396. Father Fronton du Duc edited his works in 1605.

They are written in an affected style and are full of allegories, abstract reasoning, and singular opinions. These defects have been attributed to his fondness for the books of Origen.

Ambrose, Saint , son of Ambrose, prefect of the praetorium of Gaul, was born, it is generally agreed, in Arles around 340. Anicius Probius sent him as a governor to Emilia and Liguria. He became bishop of Milan in 374, converted Saint Augustine, and died in 397 at the age of 57. The best edition of his works is the Parisian one, produced by the Benedictines in 1691 (2 vols. in-fol. ). Paulinus, priest of Milan, not to be confused with Saint Paulinus, wrote his life.

Saint Ambrose is the first, and nearly the sole Father to have undertaken a sort of manual on morality, in his tripartite Offices . We should be grateful to him for having broken the ice, assembling in this work a great quantity of good and excellent things whose practice can only make men virtuous. It is true that the treatise of this Church Father is far beneath the masterpiece of the Roman orator he aimed to imitate [Cicero], be it in terms of stylistic elegance, economy and arrangement of subject matter, or solidity of reflection and precise reasoning. It is also true that the examples and passages drawn from Scripture, which make up the majority of this Christian book, are not always aptly applied or explained. Finally, St. Ambrose peppered this book and others with the outlandish ideas of his predecessors on the extent of Christian patience and the merits of celibacy. He even adopted the false legend of the martyrdom of Saint Thecla, in order to develop an argument extolling virginity.

In the midst of these excessive ideas against marriage, he seems to have had others on adultery that completely opposed his principles. In any case, he expressed himself on this crime in such a way as to give rise to criticism. Speaking of the patriarch Abraham and of Hagar, he says that before the law of Moses and the Gospels, adultery was not forbidden. Perhaps by "adultery," he means concubinage, or perhaps he means that before Moses, there was no written law or penalty for those who committed adultery. But it can be said that Abraham had no need of written law to know that adultery was illicit. We must admit that Saints Ambrose, John Chrysostom, and other Church Fathers , having wrongly persuaded themselves that the holy personages of Scripture are exempt from all defects, excused or even praised things that should not be praised or excused.

Chrysostom ( Saint John ), was born in Antioch around 347. He studied rhetoric with Libanius and philosophy with Andragatius. Elected patriarch of Constantinople in 397, he died in 407, at the age of sixty. The best editions of his works are those of Henri Savile, in Greek (Oxford, 1613, 8 vols., in-fol. ), Commelin and Fronton du Duc, in Greek and Latin (10 vols., in-fol. ), and finally, Father Montfaucon, in Greek and Latin, accompanied by notes (Paris, 1718, 13 vols., in-fol. ). Herman, the Sorbonne doctor, wrote his life, quite difficult to know much about after thirteen centuries.

All the works in which Saint John Chrysostom treats morality are filled with good and beautiful things, but we must remember that he is an orator and forgive him if his expressions and thoughts are not always exact. Imagination heats up orators and disposes them to be passionate more than to solidly establish the truth. Thus, when praising Abraham and Sara (Genesis 100.20.1, et. seq. ), Saint Chrysostom lets his genius carry him away. He avails himself, says Father Ceillier, of very strong, harsh expressions to paint the dangers to which Abraham has exposed Sara. In effect, filled with confused ideas about this important subject, he expressed himself not only in a way ill-suited to clarify but even capable of giving his listeners and readers false impressions. He gave a false idea of morality, in wanting to justify the expedient Abraham used to prevent an attack on his life were he to be recognized as Sara's husband. In a word, the saint seems to ignore that it is not permissible to save one's life, nor that of another, by committing a crime.

It would have been best to admit in good faith that weakness had been displayed in the affair of Abraham and Sara. Here, as in an infinite number of other cases, sacred history does not provide us with all the details that would permit us to accurately judge the merits or demerits of the case. Equity and good criticism also demand that we not condemn actions for which we might easily imagine exculpatory circumstances that would fully justify the reported behavior, regardless of how irregular it might at first seem. Now, what is it that Moses says? Abraham went into Egypt to protect himself from the famine that reigned and continue to grow in the land of Canaan, for it pure imagining to allege here, as Saint Ambrose does, that Abraham received an order from God that he had to obey, even at the expense of his wife's honor. The patriarch, as he approached Egypt, reflected that if he were recognized as the husband of Sara, who, though elderly, was still beautiful enough to inspire love, he ran the risk that an Egyptian might make an attempt on his life in order remove any obstacle to the possession of Sara.

This is all that we can infer from the words of the sacred historian. There is not the least insinuation that Abraham thought he might with his own eyes see his wife in the arms of another, nor, consequently, that in his soul, jealousy combated the fear of death, as the imagination of Saint John Chrysostom represents it. On the contrary, since it is permissible and fair to suppose that this holy man was neither indifferent to nor ignorant of his wife's honor, there is good reason to believe that he had carefully considered the situation at hand and that he foresaw the obvious measures that would balance his self-preservation with the honor of his wife.

Either he feared that someone wanted to carry off and rape his wife, and in such cases, the perpetrators would have cared less whether or not she might have a husband, especially a foreign and consequently unthreatening one, or he sensed that someone might kill him in order to marry Sara. It is the latter thought that appears to have determined his decision, in concert with her, to declare himself her brother, so that by inference, he could not be her husband, given that a single person cannot lay claim to these two qualities.

Now, supposing this, he might have hoped to render useless the designs and efforts of those struck by Sara's beauty through some kind of trick, saying, for instance, that she had a husband elsewhere or that she was not able to marry, for some reason, or that she needed time to think it over, and other legitimate ruses that the circumstances might have furnished. By such means, he would have eluded solicitations or have kept his last cards close to his chest.

This is all the more plausible if he had been counting on the heavenly assistance he had already experienced so many times before and which appeared here by chance. Is there any reason to look elsewhere to protect Abraham's conduct from all reproach? But Saint John Chrysostom would have lost the chance to show off his eloquence and the subtlety of his mind had he represented the agitation of a heart seized by strong conflicting passions and the thoughts these passions produce.

Jerome, Saint , was born in Stridon, a city of ancient Pannonia, around 340 A.D.. He studied in Rome, where his grammar teacher was Donatus, famous for his commentaries on Virgil and Terence. Saint Jerome learnt Hebrew in Jerusalem around 376 and went to Constantinople around 380 to hear Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. Two years later, he became secretary to Pope Damasus, wrote a book against Helvidius and then circulated his defense of virginity against Jovinian. It was in the monastery of Bethlehem that he wrote against Vigilantius. He also had some disputes with Saint Augustine.

He traveled to Thrace, Pontus, Bythinia, Galatia and Cappadocia and died in 420, at about eighty years old. His works were first collected by Marianus Victorius. Another edition appeared in Paris (1623, 9 vols., in-fol ). Father Martianay, a Benedictine of the congregation of Saint Maur, has since published a new edition that is said to be the best. It includes the saint's life, by an anonymous author. Father Petau, in the chronicle of the second volume of his De doctrina temporum , gives the dates of the voyages and principles writings of Saint Jerome.

Of all the Latin Fathers , Jerome is the one who passes for the most erudite. Not all critics agree as to his mastery of the Hebrew language, however, despite his having done a new Latin version of the Old Testament and a correction of the ancient Latin version of the New Testament, intended to conform to the original Greek. It is his version that the Latin church adopted for public use, calling it the Vulgate . He wrote commentaries on the major and minor prophets, on Ecclesiastes , the Gospel of Saint Matthew , the Letter of Paul to the Galatians , to the Ephesians , to Titus , and to Philemon . He composed a mass of polemical treatises against Montanus, Helvidius, Jovinian, Vigilantius, Rufinus, the Pelagians, and the Origenists, as well as historical letters. Finally, he translated some of Origen's homilies and continued the chronicle of Eusebius.

If Saint Jerome had had the requisite leisure to revisit his works after having composed them, he would doubtless have cut out a great deal of things that reveal how hastily he wrote and how little time he meditated beforehand. Thus it is that, in his letter to the Ephesians, he follows now Origen, now Didymus, now Apollinaris, all of whom held irreconcilable opinions. He tells us himself how he composed his works. "After reading other authors, I call for my copyist, and I dictate sometimes my thoughts, sometimes the thoughts of others, without remembering either the order, words, or even their meaning" : [...] itaque ut simplicter fatear, legi haec omnia, and in mente mea plurima coacervans, accito notario, vel mea, vel aliena dictavi; nec ordinis, nec verborum interdùm, nec sensuum memoriam retentans (Comment. in epist. ad Galat., vol.. 9, p. 158 ). "Once my copyist has arrived," he says in his preface to the same letter, "I dictate whatever comes out of my mouth, for if I want to reflect in order to say something better, he critiques me himself, withdraws his hand, furrows his brow, and demonstrates through his entire countenance that he cannot be bothered with me." : Accito notario, aut statim dicto quidquid in buccam venerit, aut si paululum voluero cogitare, melius aliquid statim prolaturus, tunc me tacitus ille reprehendit, manum contrahit, frontem rugt, and se frustra adesse, toto gestu corporis, contestatur ( Praefat. in. lib. III. comm.. in Gall., vol. 4 , p. 189).

Full of too much love for the solitary life, the sanctity of such a life, virginity and celibacy, he speaks negatively in several places of remarriage. He was long an admirer and disciple of Origen but then abjured Origenism, for which he deserves praise. If only he had shown less violence against the Origenists and not suggested to emperors the law for their proscription, as he recognizes himself. He could have renounced error without mistreating those who erred. For what weakness will we have indulgence, if not for one to which we have succumbed ourselves? Saint Jerome's lively and impetuous nature and his reading of profane satirical writers, whose style he borrowed, prevented him from controlling the biting expressions he used against his adversaries, particularly Vigilantius, a priest of Barcelona, whom he had himself called a saint in a letter to Paulinus.

Finally, says the great bishop of Avranches, it would have been better if this holy doctor had possessed a calmer, more moderate soul, if he had not let himself become so easily bilious, nor abandoned himself to contrary opinions, according to which way the wind was blowing. And, it would have been nice if had not showered some of the greatest men of his century with insults, for we must admit that Rufinus often justly criticized him, and that he accused Rufinus on no basis whatsoever ( Oregeniana , pp. 205-206).

Augustine, Saint , was born in Tagaste, Africa on November 13, 354. He father, Patricius, was but a petty bourgeois from Tagaste; his mother, Monica, was a paragon of virtue. Their son had no inclination for studies, but he nevertheless had to be educated. His father , desiring his social advancement, sent him to study humanities in Madaura and rhetoric in Carthage around 371. Augustine made rapid progress and began teaching rhetoric in 380. It was at this point that he took a concubine, with whom he had a son named Adeodatus , or "god-given." Of prodigious intelligence, if we are to believe his father, Adeodatus died at sixteen. In Carthage, Augustine embraced Manicheanism, and his mother went there to try to rescue him from this heresy and from his libertine lifestyle.

He went to Rome, then Milan, to see Saint Ambrose, who converted him in 384 and baptized him in 387. He was ordained a priest in 391, and did great service to the Church with his pen. He died at Hippo at the age of 76, during the Vandal's siege of this city on August 28, 430.

The details of his episcopal life and his writings can be found in the library of Dupin, in the Acta eruditorum (1638), and in Moreri. The best edition of this Father 's works is the one produced in Paris under the care of the Benedictines of St. Maur: it is divided into ten volumes, in-folio , as are some other editions, but the volumes of this edition are each arranged in a novel manner. The first and second were printed in 1679; the third in 1680; the fourth in 1681; the fifth in 1683, the sixth and seventh in 1685; the eighth and ninth in 1688; and the tenth in 1690. The last volume contains the works Saint Augustine wrote against the Pelagians. His City of God is his most esteemed book.

The approbation that councils and popes gave Saint Augustine's doctrine are what really made him famous. Without this, the Molinists of last century might well have put his authority to rest. Today, the entire Roman Church must respect this father 's system, even if many people think that his doctrine, as well as that of Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, are one and the same. They add that the Council of Trent, in condemning Calvin's ideas on free will, were in essence condemning those of Saint Augustine, because there is no Calvinist who would deny the conjunction of human will and the freedom of our soul in the sense that Saint Augustine used the words conjunction and freedom . There is no Calvinist who does not recognize free will and its role in conversion according to the ideas of the bishop of Hippo. Those condemned at the Council of Trent did not reject free will except insofar as it signified the freedom to be indifferent. Thomists reject this as well and continue to pass for good Catholics. In a word, the physical predestination of the Thomists, Saint Augustine's necessity, that of the Jansenists and Calvinists are fundamentally one and the same. Nevertheless, the Thomists reject the Jansenists and both claim it is calumny to accuse them of teaching Calvin's doctrine.

The Arminians, less concerned with being tactful, abandoned Saint Augustine to their adversaries, while recognizing that he was as great a predestinarian as Calvin himself. Other people believe the Jesuits would have done the same, had they dared to condemn a doctor of the Church that so many popes and councils had approved.

A learned French critic especially praises Saint Augustine for having recognized his insufficiencies in interpreting Scripture. This Western Church Father was well aware, says Simon, of the qualities necessary for such a task, and being modest, he ingenuously admitted that he lacked most of these qualities and that even the enterprise of responding to the Manicheans was beneath his capabilities. He is thus not often fortunate in his choice of allegories, nor in his literal interpretation of Scripture. He also admits that he was hard pressed to interpret Genesis and that he often gave an allegorical interpretation when he could not discover the literal one. Therefore, when the Church, in the Roman breviary, assures us that those who taught Theology took this Western Church Father as their guide, these words do not signify that the bishop of Hippo's opinions are always articles of faith and that we must abandon the teachings of other Fathers when they are not in accordance with his.

Most problematic is that the Scholastics borrowed from Augustine both his morality and his manner of teaching it, for, in establishing principles, he showed more art than knowledge and precision. Easily carried away in the heat of an argument, he often went from one extreme to another. In his war against the Arians, he could pass for a Sabellian. Need he refute the Sabellians? He could be mistaken for an Arian. Does he dispute the Pelagians? He appears Manichean. Attack the Manicheans? He practically becomes a Pelagian. He does not hide his behavior and recognizes having said many things in an offhand manner that might well have been more polished.

In this last category, I would place his opinion that Sara could have engaged her husband to take Hagar as his wife by availing herself of the right she had over her husband's body. Augustine was even more mistaken when he decided that everything belongs to the just and the faithful by divine right and that infidels have no legitimate possessions.

But his opinions on persecution in the name of religion are all the less excusable because he had first felt feelings of sweetness and charity. He began with the spirit and finished with the flesh . He was the first to dare to establish civil intolerance, a maxim contrary to the Gospels, good sense, natural equity, charity, and good politics. Had he lived a few more years, he would have realized the bad consequences of his principles and the wrong he had done in abandoning his true ones. He would have seen Arianism triumph by the same means he had approved against the Donatists!

Leon I, Saint , doctor of the Church, took over the see of Rome after Sixtus III on May 10, 440. He became quite attached to observing ecclesiastical discipline and died in Rome on November 11, 461. We have a number of his sermons and letters. The best edition of his works is that of Father Quesnel (Lyon, 1700, in-fol ).

Dupin finds that Saint Leon did not contribute much to the subject of morality, that he treats it lightly and in a manner neither unctuous nor touching. What is more, when it comes to the treatment heretics, his ethics paralyze us with fear: forgetting all humanitarian principles, he unflinchingly approves of spilt blood. He should have heeded the discourse Christ made to the apostles to dampen the fire of their zeal: "You know not what spirit you are of!"

Theodoret , bishop of Cyrus in fifth-century Syria and one of the most learned Fathers of the Church was born in 386. Of simple taste at home, he embellished his country with two great bridges, public baths, fountains, and aqueducts. For some time, he demonstrated a great attachment for John of Antioch and Nestorius, whom he supported in writing. Some people believe he died in 451, others place his death as late as 470. The best edition of his works is that of Father Simon, in Greek and Latin (4 vols. in-fol .). Father Garnier, a Jesuit, added a fifth volume in 1684, thereby completing the collected works of this Church Father .

It is difficult to justify the approbation Theodoret gave to Abdas, bishop of Susa, a Persian city, who, in the days of Theodosius the younger, burnt down a fire temple and refused to reestablish it. The king (named Yezdegerd) having been forewarned by his magi, sent for Abdas, and, after having gently censured him, urged Abdas to rebuild the temple that he had just destroyed, threatening him with reprisals against Christian churches should he fail to cooperate. When Abdas, who preferred death to exposing Christians to an infinity of evils, obstinately refused to agree to such a just command, the menace was carried out. Theodoret, who recounts this story, admires Abdas's refusal, adding that it would have been as great an impiety to build such a temple as to worship it.

Theodoret's decision is not judicious, because no one is exempt from this law of natural religion: "One must make reparations, through restitution or other means, for any damage one does to one's neighbors." Abdas, a simple individual and subject of the king of Persia, had ruined his neighbors' property in burning the magi's temple, and this property was all the more valuable in that it belonged to the dominant religion. Moreover, there is no comparison between the construction of a temple and the destruction of several Christian churches. Responding that the rebuilt temple would have served idolatry is of no use, since Abdas himself would not have designated it for this purpose.

Gregory, Saint , called the Great, was born in Rome to a patrician family. Pelagius II sent him as a nuncio to Constantinople to ask for help against the Lombards, but he was not successful in his negotiations. His nunciature ended with the death of emperor Tiberius in 582. He returned to Rome, served for a time as secretary to Pope Pelagius and then was elected pope himself by the clergy, senate, and the Roman people on September 3, 590.

His conduct suggested that a worthier man could not have been chosen for such a high post. Aside from being learned and working to improve Church instruction by writing and preaching, he possessed the art of negotiating with princes in favor of the temporal and spiritual interests of religion. In what follows, we will see that he took this art too far.

St. Gregory undertook the conversion of the English during the reign of Ethelred, and luckily succeeded, thanks to the king's wife, Bertha, who contributed greatly to the conversion of her husband and his subjects.

Father Maimbourg says: "Just as the Devil once used artifice on three empresses, the wives of Licinius, Constantius, and Valens, to establish the Arian heresy in the Orient, God, to overturn his enemy's machinations and to fight him with his own arms, availed himself of three illustrious queens, Clotilda, wife of Clovis, Ingunthis, wife of Saint Hermenigild, and Theodelinda, wife of Agiluph, to sanctify the Occident by converting the Franks from paganism and exterminating Arianism in Spain and Italy through the conversion of the Visigoths and the Lombards."

While it is quite apparent that the zeal Saint Gregory's displayed against the ambitions of the patriarch of Constantinople was irresponsible, it is not clear that he had the most beautiful monuments to the Roman's former magnificence destroyed so that visitors to Rome would pay less attention to the triumphal arches, etc., than to the holy things of Christendom. The allegation that he burnt an infinity of pagan books, and notably, those of Titus Livy, should be judged in a similar fashion. Still, it is true that he regarded the study of literary criticism and of antiquity as unworthy not only of a minister of the Gospel, but of a simple Christian, as he declares in a letter to Desiderius, archbishop of Vienne.

Towards the end of his pontificate, although he had other Christian affairs on his shoulders, he composed his antiphonary and principally applied himself to regulating the Divine Office and the liturgical chants of the Church. He died on March 10, 604.

If it were true that after his death, a good part of his writings were burned, one might conclude that the glory of this pontiff, as well as that of several other ancient Fathers , resembles rivers, which, narrow at their source, become wide when they are far away from it. Generally speaking, memory's objects are of a very different nature from ones we can see. The latter diminish in proportion to their distance from us; the former grow bigger as they recede in time and place: omnia post obitum fingit majora vetustas.

So many copies were made of Saint Gregory's works during his lifetime that nearly all he wrote has been passed down to us. Father Denis de Sainte-Marthe published them in 1697, along with a vita entitled History of Saint Gregory the Great . De Goussainville had already put out an edition of the pontiff's works in 1675.

The dialogues that bear Saint Gregory 's name and that are recognized as his by the Benedictine of St. Maur, are not worthy, in Dupin's opinion, of the seriousness and the discernment of this holy pope, so full are they of extraordinary miracles and fabulous stories! It is true that he bases them on the testimony of others, but he should not so readily give them credence, nor repeat them as if they were reliable.

He revealed himself to be much more cautious concerning calumny, for he rigorously prohibited it as a monster all the more dangerous as it is difficult to discover. He therefore refused to listen to informers unless their denunciations were as clear as day. He was so fearful of making even innocent mistakes that he excused himself from judging accusations brought before his tribunal!

He was no less severe concerning the duty of ecclesiastical chastity, judging that a man who had lost his virginity should not be admitted to the priesthood. He only made exceptions for widowers, provided they had been upright during their marriages and already chaste for many years. He wrote so much on ecclesiastical discipline, rituals and the trifling ceremonies that everything degenerated into unfortunate superstition. Councils were no longer devoted to anything save vain refinements of religion's façade, and their canons carried more weight than Scripture.

Saint Gregory's thirty-five-book commentary on Job , is one of the most diffuse and unpolished works we can think of. It is an immense repertory of morals and allegories endlessly applied to the text of Job but which could be applied to any other book of Scripture. Many of these moral lessons and allegories are imprecise and inaccurate.

Moreover, in his prolegomena to these commentaries, Saint Gregory declares that he declined to follow the rules of language: "I took it upon myself," he says, "to neglect the art of speaking taught by the masters of human sciences. I do not avoid shocking juxtapositions of consonants; I do not flee the impurity of barbarisms; I scorn placing prepositions where they should be placed and neglect to indicate what case they govern, because I find it beneath myself to subject the words of celestial oracles to the rules of Donatus."

But is there no happy medium between the recherché and clarity, when style has such an impact on the important goal of being universally understood? If men are to be taught religion and duty, they should not be put off by barbarous language. In the end, though, we shall excuse Saint Gregory's stylistic defects in order to take advantage of the good thing scattered throughout his writings.

It is easier to conceive of how he got it into his head that studying literature spoiled the study of Scripture than to see consistency in his principles on constraining consciences. In this regard, the lack of uniformity of his maxims is made manifest by his disapproval of forcing baptism upon Jews yet agreeing that heretics be constrained to enter the Church, at least by indirect means. This can be accomplished, he says, in two ways: either by dealing severely with the obstinate or in performing good works for those who convert. Even if the latter are not good converts, he adds, their children will become good Catholics: aut ipsos ergò, aut eorum filios lucramur ( lib . IV, epist. vi ). Machiavelli could not have been more subtle.

But the principle aspect of Saint Gregory's life that all moralists have condemned is how he prostituted himself by using praise to ingratiate himself with the horrid usurper Phocas and Queen Brunhilda, one of the meanest women on earth.

The treacherous and barbaric Phocas was still tainted by one of the most execrable patricides in the annals of world history. He had just slit the throat of his master, Emperor Maurice, after having made this unfortunate Father witness the sad spectacle of the death of his own children, five little princes, who were killed in the same manner. Father Maimbourg provides the details of this horrible deed and paints the cruel and infamous character of Phocas. It suffices to say that he possessed every evil quality that might be contrasted with the character of Maurice. Saint Gregory had the weakness to congratulate the monster Phocas on his ascension to the throne. He thanked God as if it were the greatest thing that could befall the empire and wrote three letters on the subject ( lib. II, epist. 38., ind. 6.45 and 46 ). What blindness! What a fall for Saint Gregory! A Pope who deposes and refuses to give sacred orders to any priest guilty of a moment of weakness writes Phocas three letters of congratulation without once saying that he wished Maurice and his children had not suffered the worst of tortures!

As for the story of Brunehilda, I will report only what Father Daniel says in the first volume of his History of France : "Saint Gregory needed the authority of Brunehilda to bolster his missionaries in England and to preserve the small patrimony of the Roman Church in Provence. He thus courted her by praising the good she did and not mentioning other actions of which he was either unaware or that he deemed politic to disguise. Many good works, to which history testifies, including the construction of monasteries, hospitals, and the buying back of captives, contributed to the conversion of England. They are not incompatible with an ambition that knows no bounds, with the murder of several bishops, the persecution of some holy persons, and the criminal political strategy he has been reproached with using in order to hold on to absolute authority."

Meanwhile, in all the letters Saint Gregory wrote to Brunehilda, he depicts her as one of the most perfect princesses of the world and regards the French nation as the luckiest of all for having a queen so gifted and possessing so many virtues ( lib. II, epist . 8). Here we have two memorable examples of how in the course of a lifetime, one man can descend to the basest servility to maintain his high position!

The ensuing centuries offer few doctors that merit praises for their knowledge in matters of religion or morality. This last science, ever more corrupt, became dry, emaciated, and miserably disfigured by all sorts of superstitions and by thorny Scholastic subtleties. We have now finished with the Church Fathers , with the exception of the founder of Clairvaux, who is called the last of the holy Fathers .

Saint Bernard, whose life was written in our language by le Maître, was born in Burgundy, in the village of Fontaine, in 1091. He came into the world at the right moment, founding 160 monasteries in different parts of Europe during a century of brigandage, ignorance and superstition. I dare not say, along with cardinal Baronius, that he was not inferior to the great apostles, for I fear repeating an impiety, but Saint Bernard was powerful in word and in deed and because of the miracles that followed his preaching and his discourses.

It was right, says one historian and philosopher, that Pope Eugene III, formerly a disciple of Saint Bernard, chose his master to be the mouthpiece of the second crusade. Bernard had been able to reconcile the tumult of souls with the austerity of his position and obtained that level of esteem that surpasses that of authority.

In 1146, At Vézelay, in Burgundy, Saint Bernard appeared next to Louis the Young, king of France, on a stage set up in the main square. The saint spoke first and then the king. Everyone present took the cross and Louis first and foremost, straight from the hands of Saint Bernard, who had acquired such a singular prestige that he was chosen to lead the crusade. He was too canny to accept and, refusing any sort of position, contented himself with being a prophet.

He then went to Germany, gave the Red Cross to Conrad III, and, preaching to the Germans in French, promised, on God's behalf, certain victory against the infidel. He was mistaken, but he wrote a lot and was later ranked with the Church Fathers . He died on August 20, 1153, at 63 years old.

The best edition of his works was published by Father Mabillon (Paris, 1690, 2 vols. in-fol. ). According to critics, his style is uneven, sometimes lively, sometimes very concise. His knowledge is quite mediocre. He jumbles pell-mell Holy Scripture, Canon Law and Councils, similar to the cardinal who placed the portrait of Jesus Christ between that of Alexander VI and Lady Vanotia, his mistress. He everywhere displays an inconstant imagination, fecund in allegory.

Finally, enlightened centuries developed the true method of explaining Scripture and a solid approach to morality. They shed light on the errors into which the Church Fathers fell. Considering that the apostles themselves lived in prejudice and weakness for so long, it is no wonder that the ministers who succeeded them, not being the beneficiaries of any special heavenly assistance, sometimes committed those errors that are part and parcel of being human.

First of all, it is all too clear that the thousand-year reign Jesus Christ and the saints were to enjoy on earth was merely the opinion of the Fathers of the first two centuries A. D.. Papias ( apud Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History , 3.39) offered assurances that he derived this flattering doctrine from the apostles, and it was consequently adopted by the great men of his day. St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, Nepos, Victorinus, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus, Tertullian, Quintus Julius Hilarianus, Commodianus and others, thought, in defending it, that they were upholding an apostolic truth (see Bingham's Antiquities and de Tillemont's Ecclesiastical Memoirs ).

The same Fathers made a second mistake with regard to the commerce of fallen angels and women. They lived at a time when belief in the corporeality of angels and fallen angels was common. Consequently, they thought that angels were subject to the same passions as humans. Holy Scripture appeared to substantiate this notion, particularly the book of Enoch , where they found evidence for the idea of marriages between angels and the daughters of men. Subsequently, however, the Fathers recognized that angels had to be entirely spiritual, that spirits were incapable of feeling passion for women, and that when Scripture speaks of children and angels of God, what is meant is the daughters of the race of Cain.

But one of the most deeply rooted errors of the Fathers is the idea almost all of them had concerning the sanctity of celibacy. It is thus that we find in their works, particularly those of the Greek Fathers , such harsh views of remarriage that it is difficult to excuse them. If these expressions are a result of zealousness, they prove how much we must guard against excessive zeal, for, whenever it is a question of morals, he who does not reason calmly in his quest for the truth will remain unenlightened.

The number of Church Fathers who condemn remarriage is so great and their attitude so similar that it is impossible to find anything positive in what they say or to think that those who speak less harshly do not fundamentally share the same ideas, which were introduced quite early on.

Saint Irenaeus, for example, calls the Samaritan a fornicator for having married several times. Saints Basil and Jerome express the same opinion. Origen says it is incontestable that second marriages exclude us from the kingdom of God (See Huet, Origeniana , vol. 2, quaest . xiv. §. 3. Saint Basil speaking of those who married more than two women, says that this not marriage but rather polygamy , or, rather, mitigated fornication . It is as a result of these principles that remarriage was stigmatized as much as possible and that those who remarried were deprived of the crowns worn by newlyweds. They also had to do penance, which consisted of suspension from communion.

Perhaps the first Fathers to declare themselves so strongly opposed to remarriage embraced this sentiment in consideration of how evangelical law demands greater perfection than Mosaic law. The Christian laity was to be as religiously observant as synagogue priests. Given that remarriage was forbidden the Jewish High Priest as a reminder of his obligatory purity, it was possible to assume that all Christians should be under the same yoke. This severe morality might also have originated in a desire to stamp out the kind of polygamy made common by divorce.

Whatever the origin of the farfetched notion that celibacy is blessed, the natural consequence was that the Fathers approved the actions of those who killed themselves for fear of losing their virginity. Saints Jerome, Ambrose and John Chrysostom all followed this principle. Superstition made martyrs of some holy women who had drowned themselves in order to avoid the violation of their chastity. But these sorts of courageous resolutions remain, according to true moral reasoning, a veritable weakness. Only the condition and circumstances of those who succumb give occasion to hope that a merciful God will not want sinners to die.

Saint Ambrose believes that virgins who cannot otherwise protect their honor do well to kill themselves. He cites Saint Pelagia and has her say that faith effaces the crime. Saint John Chrysostom reserves the highest praise for some virgins who found themselves in this predicament. He regards this type of death as an extraordinary baptism comparable to the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, all parties seem to have envisaged this action as divinely inspired. But the Holy Spirit inspires nothing of the kind. The chief reason the Supreme Being forbids suicide is that He alone is the sovereign judge of life, which he grants us out of generosity. Save its preservation, he did not intend us to have any other rights over it. We should thus view women who had recourse to suicide as an exercise in virtue as worthy of nothing but God's pity.

I will go further: I think the Fathers generally had false ideas about martyrdom when they invited and forcefully encouraged it or praised those who had rashly offered themselves up. The desire to be a martyr runs counter to the spirit and essence of the Gospels, which never advocate the destruction of nature. Jesus Christ did not abrogate this natural law, one of the most evident and indispensable, which commands that each person work towards self-preservation. It is to the advantage of human and Christian society that good people and true Christians remain in this world as long as possible and consequently, that they not expose themselves to unnecessary death. The reasons are so strong and clear that those who would zealously do away with them in order to glorify martyrdom in and of itself must be suspected of ignorance, vanity, or temerity. The heart of man, however good its intentions, is subject to many errors and weaknesses that insinuate themselves into the best, the most heroic, and the most dazzling of actions.

A melancholy humor can also produce or reinforce such illusions. After all, were the idea of martyrdom as desirable in and of itself to become commonplace in Christian communities, nothing would be more apt to destroy Christianity. Something might occur that would be akin to the effect the ancient philosopher Hegesias had on his audience when he spoke vehemently of the misery of existence. God may take good intentions into consideration and pardon excessive zeal, but temerity remains temerity, and though it may be excused, it merits neither our imitation nor our praise.

It is certain that the Fathers distinguish all too often between man and Christian, and by exaggerating this distinction, they issue some unobservable rules. Most of the duties required by the Gospels are fundamentally the same as those prescribed by reason's lights alone. Christian religion but makes up for man's inattention and gives him more powerful motives to fulfill duties that reason is incapable of discovering if left to its own devices. Supernatural enlightenment, as divine as it is, reveals nothing more than the kind of ordinary daily behavior we only come to understand naturally through the precise reflections of pure philosophy. The maxims of the Gospel, in combination with those of philosophy, are less new ones than they are those engraved at the bottom of every reasonable soul.

It was in vain that most of the Fathers looked upon interest-bearing loans as contrary to natural, divine and human law. It is clear that when such loans are unaccompanied by extortion, violations of charity and other abuses, they are as innocent as any other contract.

I must not suppress a defect common to all the Fathers and that deserves condemnation, namely, their passion for allegories, an abuse with dangerous moral consequences. On this subject, read Daniel Whitby's Dissertatio de scripturarum interpretatione secundum patrum commentarios (London, 1714, in -4º). If Christ and his apostles proposed images and allegories, they did so but rarely, with much sobriety, and in such a way as to make clear that they were providing illustrations intended to concretize for vulgar souls truths founded on principles that were themselves simple, solid, and sufficient.

It is not enough that there be some conformity between what one chooses as a figure and what one believes to be figured. It is also necessary that this resemblance have been God's intention. Otherwise, one runs a great risk of substituting one's own fantasies for divine wisdom. Nothing is more changeable than man's turn of mind, and the same object can be viewed from infinite perspectives, whether or its own or in comparison with others. In this way, one person will see one type of conformity, another person another type just as specious as or even contrary to the first. What had once appeared the most appropriate allegory will be replaced by one that we had not thought of at the time, and in this way, Holy Scripture will be at the mercy of every trick of the human imagination. Experience has shown us to what kind of errors we can make without a rule and a compass. Had they not had so many imitators, the Church Fathers would suffice as examples of the perils of explaining the most respectable book in such a way.

After all, it is certain that the apostles did not give us keys to figures or allegories of Holy Scripture other than the ones they alone developed, and this should suffice to repress a curiosity that we have no means of satisfying. Lastly, allegories are useless to explain evangelical morality, because it is founded according to the most basic principles of reason.

It also seems as though the Fathers were more attached to dogmas involving pure speculation than to the serious study of morals and that at the same time, they neglected order and method. It would have been nice if, abandoning oratorical arguments, they had been able to boast of having used solid reasoning to advance the virtues they proposed. But most of them were unaware of the art of criticism, a very useful tool for the interpretation of Scripture and the discovery of its literal meaning. Few of the Greek Fathers understood Hebrew, and some the Latin Fathers did not even know Greek.

In the final analysis, their eloquence is usually bombastic, misplaced, and full of figures and hyperbole, because by their day, the taste for eloquence was already quite depraved. Fénélon says that studies in Athens had degenerated when Saints Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus went there. Affectation had prevailed, and the Fathers instructed by bad rhetoricians were caught up in the prejudices of their time.

In any event, the mistakes of the Fathers do not detract from their glory. The excellent things we find in their writings compensate for their errors, which are all the more forgivable considering the defects of their centuries, their life circumstances, and the temptations with which they were confronted. The faith they professed and the religion they spread everywhere in the face of obstacles and persecutions more than excuse their failings. ( Jaucourt )