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Author Topic: Who was the last Church Father?  (Read 1103 times)

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Offline Cryptinox

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Who was the last Church Father?
« on: January 08, 2022, 08:02:39 PM »
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    • Originally I had thought that the last Church Father came before St. Augustine or Ephesus but there are a lot of various opinions. Some even say St. Bernard was "Last of the Fathers,"  including Pius XII in an encyclical but I am not sure if that title is literal. Does the Church have a list of Fathers? 


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    I recant many opinions on the crisis in the Church and moral theology that I have espoused on here from at least 2019-2021 don't take my postings from that time as well as 2022 possibly too seriously.

    Offline DigitalLogos

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #1 on: January 08, 2022, 08:07:06 PM »
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    • St. John Damascene is typically noted as the last Church Father.
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    "Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." [Matt. 6:34]

    "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." [Ecclus. 7:40]

    "A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun: but a fool is changed as the moon." [Ecclus. 27:12]

    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #2 on: January 08, 2022, 10:30:54 PM »
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    • Quote from: DigitalLogos on January 08, 2022, 08:07:06 PM
    St. John Damascene is typically noted as the last Church Father.

    That seems a bit late to me.  There has to be a bit closer proximity to the Apostles than 600 years.  I would end it at the successors if St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, so perhaps a St. Fulgentius.
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    Offline SeanJohnson

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #3 on: January 09, 2022, 06:13:16 AM »
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    • “Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical on St. Bernard, Doctor Mellifluus, subtitled “On St. Bernard, the Last of the Fathers,” in which he quotes the editor of St. Bernard’s complete works, the 17th-century abbot Dom Jean Mabillon, who called St. Bernard “the last of the Fathers, but certainly not inferior to the earlier ones.”

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/aleteia.org/2018/08/19/was-this-saint-the-last-of-the-church-fathers/amp 
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    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #4 on: January 09, 2022, 06:39:57 AM »
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    • I don’t think anyone buys that St. Bernard is a “Church Father”.  Why not St. Thomas Aquinas then?  Pius XII wrote lots of things.  One of the definitions of a Father is being a secondary witness to Revelation due to proximity in time with the Apostles.  If you’re just a couple generations removed from the Apostles then you can be sure to have some information about what Our Lord taught the Apostles that isn’t recorded in Scripture.  St. Bernard was famously asked about BoD and responded basically that, whether right or wrong, he would go with Augustine.  He had no independent pipeline, as it were, to Apostolic teaching.

    Everything written about St. Bernard in that article could just as easily be applied to St. Thomas Aquinas.  Calling him a Church Father is just pious (or Pius) hyperbole.
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    Offline DigitalLogos

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #5 on: January 09, 2022, 07:36:44 AM »
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    • Quote from: Ladislaus on January 08, 2022, 10:30:54 PM
    That seems a bit late to me.  There has to be a bit closer proximity to the Apostles than 600 years.  I would end it at the successors if St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, so perhaps a St. Fulgentius.
    That's just the opinion I've heard. The Catholic Encyclopedia (knowing it is fallible) correlates this same idea, with St. John Damascene being the last Greek Father and St. Gregory the Great being the last Latin Father.

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    "The Fathers" must undoubtedly include, in the West, St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), and in the East, St. John Damascene (d. about 754). It is frequently said that St. Bernard (d. 1153) was the last of the Fathers, and Migne's "Patrologia Latina" extends to Innocent III, halting only on the verge of the thirteenth century, while his "Patrologia Graeca" goes as far as the Council of Florence (1438-9). These limits are evidently too wide, It will be best to consider that the great merit of St. Bernard as a writer lies in his resemblance in style and matter to the greatest among the Fathers, in spite of the difference of period.

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    "Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." [Matt. 6:34]

    "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." [Ecclus. 7:40]

    "A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun: but a fool is changed as the moon." [Ecclus. 27:12]

    Offline xavierpope

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #6 on: January 09, 2022, 08:15:09 AM »
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    • Would someone like Fulton sheen ever be recognised as a church father? He wrote like 83 books and prophesied about the apocalypse and the church . He wouldn't have received nthe recognition because of novus ordo 
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    Offline DigitalLogos

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #7 on: January 09, 2022, 08:15:58 AM »
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    • Quote from: xavierpope on January 09, 2022, 08:15:09 AM
    Would someone like Fulton sheen ever be recognised as a church father? He wrote like 83 books and prophesied about the apocalypse and the church . He wouldn't have received nthe recognition because of novus ordo
    No.
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    "Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." [Matt. 6:34]

    "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." [Ecclus. 7:40]

    "A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun: but a fool is changed as the moon." [Ecclus. 27:12]

    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #8 on: January 09, 2022, 08:43:12 AM »
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    • So when did the "age of the Church Fathers", if there is such a thing, end? 

    And can it be said even to have had an end?  Might a great teacher even now, assuming one exists, be one day called a "Father of the Church"?
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    Offline In Principio

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    Re: Who was the last Church Father?
    « Reply #9 on: January 09, 2022, 09:49:55 AM »
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    • “Tradition and the Church”(1928) by George Agius, D.D., J.C.D. is a great resource for questions like this.  Chapter X consists of almost 40 pages entirely dedicated to “The Fathers and Doctors of the Church”.  Here is what he says on page 231:

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    In the first centuries, Bishops and Doctors applied the title of "Fathers" to all their predecessors, who, by their doctrine, sanctity and defense of the Christian Religion, became well-known to the Universal Church. That custom prevailed to a great extent up to the Twelfth Century, for, St. Bernard, who, by common opinion, is the last of the Fathers, died in the year 1153. All that time is called the "Age of the Fathers."
    https://archive.org/details/traditionchurch00agiu/page/230/mode/2up



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