Ante-Nicene Fathers

“ Meanwhile the student of the Ante-Nicene Fathers will not be slow to perceive that he has, in the eight volumes of this series, all that is needful to disarm Romanism, to refute its pretensions, and to direct honest and truth-loving spirits in the Roman Obedience to the door of escape opened by Döllinger and his associates in the “Old Catholic” effort for the restoration of the Latin churches. Let us “speak the truth in love,” and pray the Lord to bless this and every endeavour to promote and to sanctify the spirit of enlightened research after the “pattern in the mount.” ”

“ The Confession, improperly called the “Creed of Athanasius,” is acknowledged to embody the (Athanasian) doctrine of the Nicene Council; and I append it here as an index to the state of theology at the period which is the limit of our series. Nothing is properly a “creed” which has never been accepted as such by the whole Church, and the Greeks knew no other creed than that called Nicene. ”

“ If the name of father, which in man is commanded to be honoured, is violated with impunity in God, what will become of what Christ Himself lays down in the Gospel, and says, “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death;” [30] if He who bids that those who curse their parents after the flesh should be punished and slain, Himself quickens those who revile their heavenly and spiritual Father, and are hostile to the Church, their Mother? ”

“ And others there are, who are persuaded that those they reckon gods are capable of being prevailed upon by sacrifices and gifts, favouring, so to speak, their profligacies; and will not believe that He is the only true God, who exists in the invariableness of righteous goodness.
The Gnostic, then, is pious, who cares first for himself, then for his neighbours, that they may become very good. For the son gratifies a good father, by showing himself good and like his father; and in like manner the subject, the governor. For believing and obeying are in our own power. ”

“ He asserts that “they have forsaken the law of their fathers, in consequence of their minds being led captive by Jesus; that they have been most ridiculously deceived, and that they have become deserters to another name and to another mode of life.” ”

“ To the reformation we owe the rescue of Ante-Nicene doctrine from the perversions of the Schoolmen and the gradual corruptions of doctrine after the Ninth Century.
III.
(Paradise, cap. xliii. p. 576.)
This sentence reads, in the translation I am editing, as follows: “No one, on becoming absent from the body, is at once a dweller in the presence of the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom, whereby (the saint) gets at once a lodging in Paradise, not in Hades.” ”

“ But if that evil father upon earth, deeply offended by a sinful and evil son, yet if he should see the same son afterwards reformed, and, the sins of his former life being put away, restored to sobriety and morality and to the discipline of innocence by the sorrow of his repentance, both rejoices and gives thanks, and with the eagerness of a father’s exultation, embraces the restored one, whom before he had cast out; how much more does that one and true Father, good, merciful, and loving—yea, Himself Goodness and Mercy and Love—rejoice in the repentance of His own sons! ”

“ In receiving, then, sanctification from the Father, He is inferior to the Father. Now, consequently, He who is inferior to the Father, is not the Father, but the Son; for had He been the Father, He would have given, and not received, sanctification. Now, however, by declaring that He has received sanctification from the Father, by the very fact of proving Himself to be less than the Father, by receiving from Him sanctification, He has shown that He is the Son, and not the Father. ”

“ In this world of ours, if any one have offered an insult to the father of any; if in injury and frowardness he have wounded his reputation and his honour by a malevolent tongue, the son is indignant, and wrathful, and with what means he can, strives to avenge his injured father’s wrong. Think you that Christ grants impunity to the impious and profane, and the blasphemers of His Father, and that He puts away their sins in baptism, who it is evident, when baptized, still heap up evil words on the person of the Father, and sin with the unceasing wickedness of a blaspheming tongue? ”

“ The work upon the Trinity, which is a most valuable contribution to ante-Nicene theology, is said by Cave to have been written about a.d. 257; and that upon the Jewish meats seems to have been composed during the Decian persecution. His heresy, such as it was, turned upon unrelenting discipline, and was a sin against charity, which is greater than faith itself. ”

“ But the Son reveals the Father to all to whom He wills that He should be known; and neither without the goodwill of the Father nor without the agency of the Son, can any man know God. Wherefore did the Lord say to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. ”

“ For who does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after the Father, when he reads that it was said by the Father, consequently to the Son, “Let us make man in our image and our likeness;” ”

“ And in all these things, and by them all, the same God the Father is manifested, who fashioned man, and gave promise of the inheritance of the earth to the fathers, who brought it (the creature) forth [from bondage] at the resurrection of the just, and fulfils the promises for the kingdom of His Son; subsequently bestowing in a paternal manner those things which neither the eye has seen, nor the ear has heard, nor has [thought concerning them] arisen within the heart of man, [346] For there is the one Son, who accomplished His Father’s will ”

“ He said not as wishing to be understood Himself to be the Father, but implying that he who thoroughly, and fully, and with all faith and all religiousness, drew near to the Son of God, by all means shall attain, through the Son Himself, in whom he thus believes, to the Father, and shall see Him. ”

“ For from the same feeling and disposition, and on the ground of the same rule, one loving his enemy may hate his father, inasmuch as he neither takes vengeance on an enemy, nor reverences a father more than Christ. For by the one word he extirpates hatred and injury, and by the other shamefacedness towards one’s relations, if it is detrimental to salvation. ”

“ Why does he teach them to steal away from their Lord? Why to flee from their father? Why does he claim them for himself against the father’s will? Why does he profess to be the father of strange children? ”

“ Otherwise you will be acting the most ridiculous part, if, whilst you pronounce imprecations upon those others that are recognised as gods, treating them as idols, you yet do homage to a more wretched idol than any of these, which indeed is not even an idol or a phantom, but a dead man, and you seek a father like to him. ”

“ And thus the weakness and imperfection of the human destiny is nourished, led up, and educated by Him; so that, being accustomed to look upon the Son, it may one day be able to see God the Father Himself also as He is, that it may not be stricken by His sudden and intolerable brightness, and be hindered from being able to see God the Father, whom it has always desired. ”

“ Well might the Psalmist exclaim, [2] “Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for His mercies are great: let me not fall into the hand of man.”
Justly has it been urged that to those whose colossal labours during the ante-Nicene period exposed them to hasty judgment, and led them into mistakes, much indulgence must be shown. ”

“ The Nicolaitanes are the followers of that Nicolas who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate by the apostles. [302] They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character of these men is very plainly pointed out in the Apocalypse of John, [when they are represented] as teaching that it is a matter of indifference to practise adultery, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. Wherefore the Word has also spoken of them thus: “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.” [303]
Chapter XXVII.—Doctrines of Cerdo and Marcion. ”

“ That He is equally with the Father unchangeable and immutable, wanting in nothing, and the perfect Son, and like to the Father, we have learnt; in this alone is He inferior to the Father, that He is not unbegotten. ”

“ But her husband being anxious that she should be saved with his sons, sent them immediately to Athens for their education, accompanied by their mother and slaves, while he kept the third and youngest son with himself, for he who gave the warning in the dream permitted this son to remain with his father. ”

“ The modern Trent theology has vastly amplified the scholastic teachings and refinements, and the elevation of Liguori to the rank of a church-doctor has virtually made the whole system de fide with the Latins. The Easterns know nothing of this modern and uncatholic teaching, and it is important that the student of the Ante-Nicene Patrologia should be on his guard against the novel meanings which the Trent theology imposes upon orthodox (Nicene) language. ”

“ Too long have they been allowed to speak to the popular mind as if the Fathers were their own; while, to every candid reader, it must be evident that, alike, the testimony, the arguments, and the silence of the Ante-Nicene writers confound all attempts to identify the ecclesiastical establishment of “the Holy Roman Empire,” with “the Holy Catholic Church” of the ancient creeds. ”

“ He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. ”

“ Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith. ”

“ If no law of God had prohibited idols to be made by us; if no voice of the Holy Spirit uttered general menace no less against the makers than the worshippers of idols; from our sacrament itself we would draw our interpretation that arts of that kind are opposed to the faith. For how have we renounced the devil and his angels, if we make them? What divorce have we declared from them, I say not with whom, but dependent on whom, we live? What discord have we entered into with those to whom we are under obligation for the sake of our maintenance? ”

“ Why lean upon a blind guide, if you have eyes of your own? Why be clothed by one who is naked, if you have put on Christ? Why use the shield of another, when the apostle gives you armour of your own? It would be better for him to learn from you to acknowledge the resurrection of the flesh, than for you from him to deny it; because if Christians must needs deny it, it would be sufficient if they did so from their own knowledge, without any instruction from the ignorant multitude. ”

“ There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, [2] the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters—God and Cæsar. And yet Moses carried a rod, [3] and Aaron wore a buckle, [4] and John (Baptist) is girt with leather [5] and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the People warred: if it pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay, how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? [6] ”

“ The truths of Christianity and of Protestantism are found in the teachings of the anti-Nicene fathers, but we must remember that these were uninspired men, and therefore displayed no standard of truth. The term fathers, without qualification, includes a vast range, comprising a period of eleven hundred years, from Clemens to Bernard, from the Bishop of Rome to the Monk of Clairvaux.
Immediately after the Council of Nice their works took on the infections of popery. Each succeeding writer in each succeeding century added to the gathering mass of error and superstition. ”

“ An enemy of the altar, a rebel against Christ’s sacrifice, for the faith faithless, for religion profane, a disobedient servant, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the bishops, and forsaking God’s priests, he dares to set up another altar, to make another prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the Lord’s offering by false sacrifices, and not [54] to know that he who strives against the appointment of God, is punished on account of the daring of his temerity by divine visitation. ”

“ The position that the Son is a Creature inconsistent and untenable.
Why then do they go on citing the Synod of Ariminum, at which they were deposed? Why do they reject that of Nicæa, at which their Fathers signed the confession that the Son is of the Father’s Essence and coessential with Him? Why do they run about? For now they are at war not only with the bishops who met at Nicæa, but with their own great bishops and their own friends. Whose heirs or successors then are they? How can they call men fathers, whose confession, well and apostolically drawn up, they will not accept? ”

“ Lo! tortures on thy body are set like gems of beryl,
And the sword on thy neck like a chain of choice gold.
Thy blood upon thy form is a robe of glory full of beauty,
And the scourging of thy back a vesture with which the sun may not compare.
Radiant thou art and comely by virtue of these thy sufferings, so abounding;
And resplendent are thy beauties, because of the pains which are so severe upon thee.
Shamuna, our riches, richer art thou than the rich:
For lo! the rich stand at thy door, that thou mayest relieve them. ”

“ Upon what the heaven is upborne which encircles all! How the clouds spring from air, and are absorbed into air! What is the nature of thunder and lightning, snow, hail, mist, ice, storms, showers, hanging clouds! ”

“ Day dies into night, and is buried everywhere in darkness. The glory of the world is obscured in the shadow of death; its entire substance is tarnished with blackness; all things become sordid, silent, stupid; everywhere business ceases, and occupations rest. ”