As we briefly summarize Church history, we last touched upon the familiar Apostolic Age, which lasted to around A.D. 100. Now this morceau will deal with the second broad era, again – I hope! – without getting bogged down by too much detail.
The second era, extending to about the year 575 or so, is known as the Patristic Age (from the Greek and Latin word pater, meaning “father”). The “Fathers of the Church” were those bishops and other theologians in the Roman Empire who during this time led the way in developing, expanding and clarifying Church doctrines.
Many of these clarifications happened in response to specific incorrect theories known as heresies. You’ve probably heard of one: the Arian heresy which denied Jesus’ divinity is the most famous. Others included the Docetist heresy that denied His humanity, holding that even that His physical body was an illusion; Nestorianism, a denial that Jesus was identical to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; Sabellianism, also known as Patripassionism, a belief that there is really no Holy Trinity, and that distinctions among the Divine Persons (Father, Son and Spirit) are merely symbolic, or descriptions of various roles; Pelagianism, that believed human beings could be saved without God, that is, by their own efforts; Donatism, which rigidly held that sin disqualified clergy and laity from ministry in the Church and invalidated their actions; etc.
In this period very important meetings of Church leaders were held to aid this clarification process. These are known as the Great Councils. The most famous of them were Nicaea I (325); Constantinople I (381); Ephesus (431); Chalcedon (451); and Constantinople II (553). Also in this time the most ancient Creeds (“statements of belief”) of the Church were written. We still use the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed at Mass today, in fact. Finally, and arguably most importantly, during the Patristic Era the Church went from being a sometimes persecuted group within the Roman Empire to – in 312 – its official State religion.
One person who sort of typifies the Patristic Era is St. Augustine, a convert and later bishop from North Africa (354-430; he was baptized as an adult in 386). A true intellectual, he wrote on almost all aspects of theology. He was a strong opponent of the Pelagians and Donatists, and also contributed much to the Church's understandings of original sin, Christian anthropology (that we’re made up of both body and soul, for instance), and the Sacraments, especially baptism and marriage. His contributions continue to guide the Church in her explaining God’s design and will, and in living out her faith, still today.
