Tag: Early Church Fathers

Early Church Fathers, Love & Romance

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Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.

After the Office Christmas Party this weekend one of my coworkers, Kevin, and his girlfriend got engaged.  This put me in mind of two of my favourite quotations from the Early Church Fathers on the subject of love and marriage.

As I think I’ve said before, one of the things which constantly surprises me is that, although these men lived so long ago, they have so much wisdom from which today’s world could benefit.

The first quotation comes from a priest of the late 4th Century called John.  His preaching was so renowned, he acquired the name “golden mouth” or in Greek “chrysostomos”.  He is most commonly referred to as St. John Chrysostom.  He is one of the few to be declared a “Doctor of the Church”, a greatly deserved title.

“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chrysostom

Beautiful, isn’t it?  Superb advice – you’d never guess he was a celibate priest… 😉

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Beginning Ignatius’ letter to the Smyrnaeans

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The final two letters of St. Ignatius which we read are both sent to the city of Smyrna.  The first letter is sent to the Church as a whole, the second specifically to their bishop, Polycarp.

This first letter is special for many reasons, but particularly because it contains Ignatius’ clearest declaration of faith about the Eucharist, as well as being the earliest recorded use of the phrase “Catholic Church”. Invented at Nicea?  I don’t think so.

Here is my abridged version of the letter:

“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrnaeans” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrnaeans” Audio

Beginning Ignatius’ letter to the Philadelphians

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Ignatius is moving!

Thus far we have been reading the letters this inspirational martyr wrote from the city of Smyrna, but we must now follow him to Troas where he will write his last three letters before completing his journey to Rome and to the mouths of the wild beasts!

Ignatius now addresses the schism and the Judaising attempts at the church in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. Here is my abridged version of the letter:

“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Philadelphians” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Philadelphians” Audio

Beginning Ignatius’ letter to the Ephesians

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This week in the JP2 Group we will be continuing our study of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyr of the early 2nd Century.

Last week we read his words to the Trallians where Ignatius presents unity with the bishop as a defence against heresy. This week we move on to the letter he wrote to the Ephesians, the community in which Paul lived for three years and to whom he wrote a letter which we find in Sacred Scripture.

In this letter Ignatius pulls together all the different topics we have seen him address in his letters thus far: unity, the episcopacy, heresy, the Eucharist etc. However, as well as being a nice revision of all we have seen thus far, he also gives us some advice on how to deal with those outside the Church.

After looking at several different translations, I have, again, created my own abridged version so that we will be able to complete our study of this letter in a single evening.  The letter to the Ephesians is quite long so unfortunately I had to cut quite a bit. Anyway, here it is:

“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Ephesians” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Ephesians” Audio

Another Patristics Resource

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Wow, they just keep coming!  Soon there will be published yet another “user friendly” resource for the writings of the Early Church Fathers! I just got the following email from Karl Keating, president of Catholic Answers:

My debate was a beautiful failure. My opponent was Dave Hunt, an inveterate anti-Catholic, a Fundamentalist writer of risible but widely-read books that “exposed” the Catholic Church… Our venue was a large hall near Detroit. The place was packed, chiefly with people who weren’t sympathetic to the points I was trying to make. One such listener was Alex Jones, then pastor of an inner-city Pentecostal church.

Years later, when Steve Ray introduced me to Alex, he said I was responsible for Alex’s conversion to the Catholic faith—but that Alex hadn’t been impressed by a single argument I made during that debate (Ouch!)

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