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Finished Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction by Bryan M. Litfin last night. I remember studying them in my church history class in college, but it had been a while & they are hard to keep straight! He is a professor of church history, and this is both a positive and negative feature of the book. He does very well at summarizing the lives and complex theologies for those without a background in the subject. But he also often assumes that as an evangelical I will distrust the topic, and is a little patronizing as he tries to convince the reader to “stick with him”. This may be necessary with students in his classes, but I would guess anyone picking up the book in a store as I did is probably already interested in the topic and open to the suggestion that they may have something to learn. And personally I would rather an author just say what they want to say, without holding my hand & constantly looking back to make sure I’m still there. But this was a minor flaw, and I found the book to be a great intro into the lives of these 10, and makes me interested to dig deeper — Another benefit of his professor background, he provides discussion questions and reading lists after each chapter for further study.

Anyway, if you are interested, here’s my rough summary of his summary (in chronological order, ranging from 100 – 400 AD):

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch
Known for 7 Letters he wrote to churches en route to his martyrdom in Rome
Opposition to Jewish legalism & Docetism: the Gnostic belief that Christ only appeared to have a physical body; Promotion of Bishops as unifiers & defenders of the apostolic faith

Justin Martyr
Christian philosopher & apologist. Beheaded in Rome.
Found the answers to the questions of Platonism in Jesus: the bridge between the natural world and the ideal/spiritual world was found in the incarnate Christ

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons
Unifier of the orthodox faith: Opposition to Gnosticism & their special mystical knowledge by promotion of bishops (true authority comes from fidelity to apostolic teaching), canon (first to use term New Testament to refer to the accepted scriptures) and the creeds (orthodox summaries of the faith).

Tertullian
Latin scholar, controversial for his later association with the Montanists
While a continuation of Irenaeus – Drawing the line around orthodox Christianity by defining orthodox bishops, canon & creeds as those unified & consistent with the Apostles teaching, he was best known for his portrayal of God’s work as a single narrative – demonstrating the unity of God from the Old Testament through the New Testament.

Perpetua
Rare firsthand account of a Christian Roman woman’s imprisonment awaiting martyrdom.

Origen
Escaped as a young man when his father was martyred, and died years later after torture in a Roman jail.
Search for mystical union with God through Jesus. Interpreted the Bible allegorically to find Christ on every page. Somewhat controversial, as later some views were deemed unorthodox.

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria
Exiled 5 times for a total of 17 years
Defender of the orthodox view of the Trinity (all co-equal) against the heresy of Aranism (which taught Jesus was created by & lower than God). Led to the Nicean Creed.

John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople
Nickname “Golden Mouth” for his oratorical skills. Banished to die in solitary exile.
Antiochene methodology: as opposed to Origen’s pure allegorical methods, the literal meaning of the text was the foundation for understanding the spiritual or allegorical meanings.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo
As seen in his Confessions, he emphasized both natural sin and our need for grace, against the Pelagians, who denied the existence of natural sin, and the Donatists, who felt only the most pure could be called Christians.

Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria
Unity of Christ: fully God and fully Man. Led to the Chalcedon Creed.