Way of the Fathers

In Edessa—the borderlands of the Empire—we make our first encounter with Syriac Christianity. Its origins are shrouded in mist, and within the mist we meet the indistinct figures of heretics, saints, and a king who is both historic and mythic. LINKS Mike Aquilina, Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized  https://www.amazon.com/ Rabbles-Riots-Ruins-Ancient- Ev...

Ephesus was home to one of the Wonders of the World; and it's the setting for one of the most dramatic moments in the itineraries of the Apostles: the riot of the silversmiths. It was also the location of one of the most dramatic moments in the age of the Fathers: the riotous council that condemned Nestorius. LINKS Mike Aquilina, Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were E...

Alexandria was cultural capital of the ancient world — and the ancient Church. It had the greatest library on the planet and a state-subsidized community of scholars. It was the city where theology first developed as a science. The Alexandrians had their own distinctive way of interpreting Scripture, developed over centuries by giants: Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril. Its influence on the devel...

No one would have guessed when Rome was founded that it would become anything important. But it became the capital of a vast empire and earthly center of the universal Church. It is the destination of the Acts of the Apostles — a place consecrated by martyrs' blood, a city to which the Fathers ventured as pilgrims, a city whose Church and bishop spoke with a singular authority. LINKS Mike Aquilina...

Antioch, in so many ways, was the place where the lights first went on. It was the first city in the ancient world to have street lamps and unending night life. It was the city where the disciples were first called Christians. And it blazed brightly for centuries, in the lives and words of the Fathers: Ignatius, Theophilus, John Chrysostom. LINKS Mike Aquilina, Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve An...

Jerusalem, the holy city — a city built with compact unity and beloved by the Apostles — was the first home of the Christian Church. Sacred to the Jews, it was for the early Christians a pilgrim destination. Melito and Egeria and Gregory of Nyssa visited there. Cyril reigned there as bishop. John of Damascus moved there. In any consideration of Christian communities, it must come first, because it...

For those who missed the YouTube livestream Q&A with Mike Aquilina on May 8th, 2023, here is the audio. It was a lively conversation where Mike fielded viewer questions about important cities of the early Church, early evidence for papal primacy, the role of charity in the early Church, Origen, the providential role of easy travel for the spread of the Gospel in the first centuries, and more. We'r...

With this introductory episode we begin our exploration of the cities where the Fathers lived and taught. At first these were cities that raged against the Gospel and persecuted the Church. The Fathers brought them to faith. Each city was different from all the others—and each became more perfectly itself through its encounter with Jesus Christ. We can learn from the history. LINKS Mike Aquilina,...

Christianity is the odd religion that does not require pilgrimage, but Christians do it anyway, and in great numbers, as they have since the earliest days of the Church. Many of the early Fathers made the journey to the holy sites. They trekked to the Holy Land to walk in Jesus' footsteps and to Rome to honor Peter and Paul. How can we follow their example? LINKS Mike Aquilina's 2023 pilgrimage to...

'Twas the night before Easter, and all through the Church every heart was stirring. The early Christians kept a Vigil that made a lasting impression. The symbols were elemental: fire, water, darkness, nakedness, music, dramatic preaching, surprising chalices, and more-than-marathon endurance. Prepare for your Easter Vigil by learning about theirs. LINKS Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha https://sachur...

Plato scorned manual labor. Aristotle believed that "no one who leads the life of a worker or laborer can practice virtue." Plotinus, Celsus, and Herodotus agreed that work was ignoble and contemptible. Pagan religion reflected these precepts of the philosophers. In such a world, Christianity seemed revolutionary. The churches were full of laborers, who worshipped a Laborer—and whose Scriptures pr...

To Plato it was an island paradise. To Cicero it was the beginning of the Roman Empire. To Basil it was a name synonymous with luxury. To Augustine it was a place of natural marvels: a mountain that burned perpetually, but was never consumed. To Gregory the Great it was a shrine to his favorite martyrs. Modern Christians know Sicily mostly from the Godfather movies, so they know nothing of its ric...

As long as there's been Christian faith, there have been ascetics—athletes of prayer—and these athletes, both female and male, have sought ways to live in intentional community. Experiments in communal life went on in every corner of the Empire—in Egypt, Palestine, Rome, Cappadocia, Athens, Antioch, Africa—and involved the greatest names in the early Church. LINKS Tertullian, On the Veiling of Vir...

Denis (aka Dionysius) the Great, in the years he was bishop, faced many of the terrors of the ancient world, all while the empire was persecuting Christians to the death. He saw his congregations reduced by death and defection. He saw the ranks of the clergy reduced to just a handful of priests. Yet he lived to see the day when the Church of Alexandria in Egypt revived to become a world leader onc...

Western Christianity is fundamentally African in the way that Eastern Christianity is fundamentally Greek. It was in Africa that a vigorous Christian Latin culture first developed. Carthage had a Latin liturgy for a full century before Rome switched over from Greek. Africa gave the Church great saints and Fathers such as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius—and the greatest of...

The calendar is a catechism. Every feast is a lesson in doctrine. The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, like Christmas, rose to prominence at a time of deep division in the Church, as some Christians disputed Jesus' true divinity. Both celebrations served as a kind of credal statement—and they still do today. LINKS Kilian McDonnell, OSB, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The Trinitarian and Cosm...

In Greek and Roman epics, the heroes are men who conquer by violence. But in early Christianity the epic heroes were often heroines — specifically those who had suffered violence rather than submit to a patriarchy that despised them for what they were. The virgin martyrs refused to conform to society's idea of womanhood. In a time of demographic winter, they refused to marry and bear children for...

The questions arise every few years, and each time they're news. Who were the "deaconesses" in the early Church? What was their role? Why did the role vanish in the first millennium? Should the role be revived? The questions are never answered to everyone's satisfaction. Why must that be so? "Divergent expectations in the deaconess debate: Interview with Sister Sara Butler" https://angelusnews.com...

Many ideas that seem peculiarly modern actually have deep Christian roots. This is true of much of the terminology of addiction and recovery. Today we look for the roots of "intervention" in the Gospel and the works of the Fathers—and find applications for ordinarily life, even beyond the orbit of addiction. LINKS Joseph Carola, S.J., Augustine of Hippo: The Role of the Laity in Ecclesial Reconcil...

The Fathers saw a profound connection between Eucharistic communion and social concerns — between liturgy and charity. It's evident in the works of the great saints of antiquity, from Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr to Tertullian and John Chrysostom. It's spelled out even in the ancient liturgical books. LINKS Tertullian, Apology XXXIX https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/...

The early Church initiated many struggles for the cause of social justice: opposition to slavery, capital punishment, and other institutions of pagan society. But the condemnation of abortion was singular in its consistency and vehemence, from the very beginning of the Gospel proclamation. LINKS The Church's original social justice struggle https://angelusnews.com/faith/the-churchs-long-fight-agai...

The last of the classic councils was, like so many of the others, a comic production worthy of the Marx Brothers—and simultaneously a tragedy worthy of Tolstoy. In the eighth-century run-up to the Second Council of Nicaea we encounter an emperor known as "Poopyhead," who summons a synod known as the "Headless Council"—all for the sake of forbidding the use of devotional images. That's where it sta...

Leave it to intellectuals (in any age) to "solve" the world's problems in ways that create bigger problems. Monothelitism was a religious idea concocted by policy wonks in boardrooms. It was supposed to remedy the doctrinal differences that divided Constantinople from Egypt. It failed to do that, and it also provoked a schism between Constantinople and all of western Christendom. The Third Council...

Every council represents a crisis — often provoked by strong and eccentric personalities. But Constantinople II, in 553 AD, may have been the strangest of all. At the center of the drama were an imperial power couple, Justinian and Theodora, and a weak pope who vacillated between cowardice and duty. LINKS Extracts from the Acts https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3812.htm Biography of Justinian http...

What happened when God took flesh? A simple question roused hundreds of speculative answers, most concerning the "person" and "nature" (or natures) of Jesus Christ. But the philosophical terms themselves were slippery, and mistranslations only made matters worse. The wild speculation came to a stop at the Council of Chalcedon, thanks to a letter from Pope Leo the Great. His "Tome" defined terms wi...