Who Is a Father?

The classical fourfold test — orthodoxy of doctrine, holiness of life, ecclesiastical approval, antiquity — and its limits; the consensus patrum and the patristic phronema; the distinction between patrology and patristics; and the Orthodox confession, against every attempt to close the canon of the Fathers at Damascus or Gregory the Great, that the Holy Spirit has never ceased to raise up Fathers in the Church.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Overview

Before the generations can be surveyed, the category itself must be defined — and its definition turns out to be theological, not merely bibliographical. The manuals give four criteria, and every one of them requires qualification: Fathers erred on particular points; some unquestioned Fathers were never formally canonized; “antiquity” is precisely the criterion Orthodoxy declines to enforce. The first file works through the criteria and their limits, the consensus patrum, and the working vocabulary (Father, ecclesiastical writer, patrology, patristics). The second file takes up the question the criteria leave open: whether the age of the Fathers has ended — and states the Orthodox answer, with Florovsky and Ware, that it has not and cannot.

Files in This Section

File Description
the-four-criteria-and-their-limits.md The classical criteria (doctrina orthodoxa, sanctitas vitae, approbatio ecclesiae, antiquitas) and where each one bends; Fathers vs. ecclesiastical writers; consensus patrum; the patristic phronema; patrology vs. patristics
the-unending-age-of-the-fathers.md Why the West closed the patristic era at John of Damascus (East) and Gregory/Isidore (West), and why Orthodoxy refuses the closure: Photius, Symeon the New Theologian, Palamas, and Florovsky’s argument that “the Church is still fully authoritative”

See Also