Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:57:43 EDT
From:         JEK@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject:      Greek Fathers

Nabil Ayoub, having read my Library Essay on "Sola Scriptura,"
complains that I call St. Athanasius Greek. Let me elaborate.

I said that there is a standard list of Eight Great Doctors (in the
sense of teachers). Four are Latin Fathers (Ambrose, Augustine,
Jerome, and Pope Gregory the Great). Four are Greek Fathers
(Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and John
Chrysostom). Now, the ancient Roman Empire was divided into two
halves, Eastern and Western. The accepted international language of
trade, culture, and government was Greek in the Eastern part, and
Latin in the Western Part. When we say that someone was a Greek
Father, we mean that he wrote in Greek and probably spent most of
his life in the eastern half of the Mediterranean world.  When we
say that someone was a Latin Father, we mean that he wrote in Latin
and probably spent most of his life in the western half of the
Mediterranean world. Some persons are borderline (Irenaeus was born
in Asia Minor, but moved to Gaul. He wrote in Greek. Hilary of
Poitiers was born in Gaul, but was exiled to Phrygia for four years.
As far as I know, he wrote in Latin.), but by and large the
distinction holds.
     And it is a significant distinction. Since the writers tended
to read other writers who wrote in their language, you had two
conversations going on, pretty much independent of each other. An
idea much discussed in the East could be simply ignored in the West,
and vice versa. Different ways of looking at certain questions quite
predictably developed. For example, when a Greek Father sets out to
talk about the Trinity, he practically always begins by talking
about the Father, and saying that the Father is divine, and talking
about the Son, and saying that the Son is divine, and talking about
the Spirit, and saying that the Spirit is divine, and then facing
the problem of how these Three Divine Persons are One, since there
is only One God. A Latin Father practically always begins by talking
about the One God, and how  there are certain distinctions to be
made within the Godhead, and how the Structure of the Divine Mind
must necessarily by a tripartite structure, and then facing up to
the problem of whether these Three Components of the Divine Unity
are simply ways of perceiving God, or are better described as Three
Divine Persons co-existing in the One Godhead. This does not mean
that Greek and Latin writers have doctrines of the Trinity that
contradict each other, but it does mean that the emphases will be
different, the "feel" of the statements will be slightly different,
and someone  brought up on one way of talking about the Trinity will
have to do some studying before he is altogether sure what a
theologian from the other end of the Mediterranean is talking about.
     Athanasius wrote in Greek. He lived in Alexandria in Egypt. I
state this explicitly in my capsule biography of him, which you seem
to have overlooked.  If you are going to complain because I call him
a Greek Father when he did not in fact live in Greece, why do you
stop there? Chrysostom was from Antioch.  Basil and Gregory of
Nazianzus were from Cappadocia. Now Pope Gregory was of Old Roman
stock. But Jerome was born at Strido in Dalmatia, and Augustine near
Carthage in Africa. Ambrose was born in Trier (Treves) not far from
modern Luxembourg, but I am not sure that his father was not
Italian. Thus, none of my "Greek Doctors" are from Greece, and only
half, perhaps only a quarter, of my "Latin Doctors" are from Latium
or even from Italy.

(Sorry to go on at such length, but I tend to get defensive when
someone calls me an illiterate.)

I must confess that I do not see how Acts 20:35 supports your cause.
You are trying to show that there are sayings of Jesus not found in
the Scriptures. You give an example of one found in Acts but not in
the Gospels. Are you saying that the book of Acts is not part of the
Scriptures?

The relevant question, as I see it is not, "Did Jesus ever say
anything not recorded for us in the Scriptures?" but rather, "Do we
have any knowledge of anything He said from some source other than
the Scriptures?" Let us stick for the moment to quotations. Do you
know of any sentence or paragraph attributed to Him, not found in
the Holy Scriptures, which you believe to be an accurate report of
something He said, and if so, please quote it for us, and tell us
how you learned of it, and what is the basis of your confidence?

 Yours,
 James Kiefer
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