patristic literature summary

Learn about patristic literature and some significant patristic authors

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see patristic literature.

patristic literature, Body of literature that comprises those works (excluding the New Testament) written by Christians before the 8th century. It refers to the works of the Church Fathers. Most patristic literature is in Greek or Latin, but much survives in Syriac and other Middle Eastern languages. The works of the Apostolic Fathers contain the earliest patristic literature. By the mid-2nd century, Christians wrote to justify their faith to the Roman government and to refute Gnosticism. In the 4th and 5th centuries, Augustine of Hippo and others laid the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. Significant patristic authors include Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Ephraem Syrus (306?–373), St. Jerome, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375–444), St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), and Pope Gregory I.

St. Justin Martyr Summary

St. Justin Martyr ; feast day June 1) was one of the most important of the Greek philosopher-Apologists in the early Christian church. His writings represent one of the first positive encounters of Christian revelation with Greek philosophy and laid the basis for a theology of history. A pagan

Eusebius of Caesarea Summary

Eusebius of Caesarea was a bishop, exegete, polemicist, and historian whose account of the first centuries of Christianity, in his Ecclesiastical History, is a landmark in Christian historiography. Eusebius was baptized and ordained at Caesarea, where he was taught by the learned presbyter

St. John Chrysostom Summary

St. John Chrysostom ; Western feast day September 13; Eastern feast day November 13) early Church Father, biblical interpreter, and archbishop of Constantinople. The zeal and clarity of his preaching, which appealed especially to the common people, earned him the Greek surname meaning

St. Irenaeus Summary

St. Irenaeus ; Western feast day June 28; Eastern feast day August 23) was the bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon), Apologist, and leading Christian theologian of the 2nd century. His work Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), written about 180, was a refutation of gnosticism. In the course of his writings,