THE FATHERS by John Hall

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 17, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 11.

THE FATHERS.

By John Hall

I RECEIVED the volumes of Clark's translations of the Ante-Nicene Fathers as they were successively published, and therefore had the best opportunity of examining them in detail. I am glad to possess them, and will welcome the supplementary library as proposed by Dr. Schaff. It must always be interesting to know what was written by Christian authors in the earlier centuries after the close of the New Testament. Whatever their character or value may be, such works must attract attention if it be only to learn what they are. And as the reader goes through the series, he must find much to confirm his faith in the inspired canon, and to throw light on its interpretation. But he will also find so much that is objectionable that the old saying must be verified in his own experience that the drag-net of the Fathers has accumulated a vast amount of garbage in addition to the wholesome truth.

Some of the passages (even in Augustine's "City of God") are so immodest that the translators have left them in the original, and many more pages appear in English which ought to have been so veiled, or expunged. I take a volume, without selection, from the Ante-Nicene shelf. It proves to be the second of Tertullian. It opens at page 311 with this exposition of 1 Cor. 15: 39-41: "There is one flesh of man (that is, servants of God, but really human); another flesh of beasts (that is, the heathen, of whom the prophet actually says, 'man is like the senseless cattle'); another flesh of birds (that is, the martyrs which essay to mount up to Heaven); another of fishes (that is, those whom the water of baptism has submerged). There is one glory of the sun (that is, of Christ), and another glory of the moon (that is, of the church), and another glory of the stars (in other words, of the seed of Abraham). So there are bodies terrestrial as well as celestial (Jews, that is, as well as Christians)." Tertullian was as early after the apostles as the second century, but who can trust an expositor of their writings whether for doctrine or church order, who was capable of making such a paraphrase of holy writ? Yet this is but a specimen of the want of common sense, the crudities, the blunders, as well as contradictions and variations, which might be quoted from Clement to Photius.

A large number—it is hoped a large majority—of the readers of the Ante-Nicene library will use the collection with a protest against the opinion of Dr. Coxe, the American editor, that "with the inestimable Scriptures [it] supplies a succinct autobiography of the Spouse of Christ for the first two centuries," and that it is "a supplement so essential to the right understanding of the New Testament itself." If these works are such an autobiography, they must have been revealed by the Holy Spirit. If they are essential to the understanding of the New Testament, the inspired word must be accompanied by these eight volumes of more than six hundred pages each. Then the Scriptures are not sufficient. They must be supplemented by the "Fathers," or they cannot be understood! His tradition indeed reached this point in the age of our religious development!—Rev. John Hall, D. D., in N. Y. Observer.