The Fathers by Pope Benedict XVI

One of the relative weaknesses of Evangelicalism is it’s amnesia about the Church’s 1500 years prior to the Reformation. Jesus taught it, Paul interpreted it, and Calvin and Luther preached on it in the 16^th century. Thankfully in many Protestant quarters the ancient heritage of the Church is being rediscovered and recovered in our modern era albeit without the passions and extremes that were the stock and trade of the ancients. A little over 50 years ago the Library of Christian Classics released the Early Church Fathers in a new translation and in a single volume to the reading public. I would certainly recommend this volume (still in print along with other books containing the same material) to anyone wanting to get the feel of what Christians taught, thought, and felt in those early years following the New Testament era. In addition to reading these original sources I would also commend Pope Benedict XVI’s The Fathers as wonderful primer on the subject. Pope Benedict presents a brief sketch of each of these teachers and theologians and highlights their contribution to the thinking of the Church. Obviously there are times when Roman Catholicism is celebrated in these vignettes, but then again, one would hardly expect the Pope to write differently. But I do want to reiterate that the clarity and simplicity of The Fathers more than compensates for this shortcoming (if you consider it one). What strikes me about nearly every one of these early leaders is their teaching is universally relevant for us today. But this shouldn’t be surprising since Christianity is the revelation of God for all ages.