Reformed proofs in church history

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chuckd

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I know the Westminster confession and catechisms have "Scripture proofs", but has anybody completed a work of, say, "church father proofs"? Or something to trace the teachings throughout church history?

e.g. Calvin in his Institutes often draws on Augustine to show his thought is consistent with patristic theology. He wasn't creating something completely "new."
 
It's a tricky project, for it risks abstracting the Fathers from their own time periods and thought-patterns and placing them in a new time period with new questions. The truth is, the Fathers said things that sounded Reformed and at the same time they said things that sounded Eastern Orthodox or Catholic.

And while Augustine is the fount of Western theology, he is not the source for Eastern theology.
 
This is a multivolume set of digest of commentary.
https://www.ivpress.com/ancient-christian-commentary-on-scripture

I cannot vouch for it in any way, other than to say I read someplace that T.C. Odom, an editor of the series, went by his own admission from a liberal mind to a conservative one while working with the attitudes of the ancients to the church's scriptural patrimony.

And it's always helpful to have some idea (even if varied) of how the church over time has read some passage or another, as a kind of check on the narrowness of our own proud, inflected vision.

Myself, I won't be buying them because of the price, and because I probably won't ever make enough use of them to make it worth the investment.
 
Isn't there the same risk with Scripture?

Sure, but in this case you are often dealing with philosophical systems that require careful nuance.

That's possible with the Bible, but most of us are (rightly) more familiar with the Bible than with the Fathers' background in Middle Platonism. I've often said one really can't understand Athanasius's or the Cappadocians' larger project without the Origenist background.

I cannot vouch for it in any way, other than to say I read someplace that T.C. Odom, an editor of the series, went by his own admission from a liberal mind to a conservative one while working with the attitudes of the ancients to the church's scriptural patrimony

Some are better than others. The cut-and-paste feel to it is a turn off, as is the price. But if you can find the volumes used, they are worth picking up. Also by the same people: these are actually a single author's commentary on a whole book--much more useful.
https://www.ivpress.com/ancient-christian-texts
 
This is a multivolume set of digest of commentary.
https://www.ivpress.com/ancient-christian-commentary-on-scripture

I cannot vouch for it in any way, other than to say I read someplace that T.C. Odom, an editor of the series, went by his own admission from a liberal mind to a conservative one while working with the attitudes of the ancients to the church's scriptural patrimony.

And it's always helpful to have some idea (even if varied) of how the church over time has read some passage or another, as a kind of check on the narrowness of our own proud, inflected vision.

Myself, I won't be buying them because of the price, and because I probably won't ever make enough use of them to make it worth the investment.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'm more looking for proof of reformed concepts. e.g. original sin is found in Gregory's work xyz.

I guess I could go through a back door by using the Westminster Scripture proofs and look for church father commentary on that particular passage, but the problem would be that the passage simply proves a Westminster concept. A church father commenting on it wouldn't necessarily be thinking of the concept.

Did the divines use the church fathers in their debates? I know the minutes have been published, but I have not read them.
 
Thanks for the recommendation. I'm more looking for proof of reformed concepts. e.g. original sin is found in Gregory's work xyz.

I guess I could go through a back door by using the Westminster Scripture proofs and look for church father commentary on that particular passage, but the problem would be that the passage simply proves a Westminster concept. A church father commenting on it wouldn't necessarily be thinking of the concept.

Did the divines use the church fathers in their debates? I know the minutes have been published, but I have not read them.

Some did use the church fathers, but the discipline of textual criticism also applies there. There are a lot of "Pseudo-Augustines," "Pseudo-Ambroses," etc.

The closest you get to a Reformed commentary would be Bullinger's works. He is probably the most attentive to the wider corpus. Sure, Calvin used Augustine, and while Augustine is the major figure, he is only one among hundreds.

Here are some examples of abstracting the Fathers. Let's take Ignatius of Antioch. At times he said "grace" in a way that looks like "grace alone." But at the same time one of his necessary conditions for salvation is finding the right bishop. Not exactly Reformed.

*The Cappadocian Fathers held to something like Libertarian Free Will. Basil rejected perseverance of the saints and/or original sin.

*Ephrem the Syrian believed in incense and venerating relics.

*Maximus the Confessor was *the* free will theologian.

Now, in terms of hermeneutics we are fairly close to John Chrysostom, though he was a synergist.

Origen held to a pre-eternal fall of souls (or so he was accused. There isn't an extant Greek mss, only Rufinus's Latin works). Tertullian became the charismatic the type of charismatic that exists only in John Macarthur's nightmares.

With Western thinkers there is a heavier accent on original sin
 
Chuck, you are much more likely to find what you are looking for in books focused on the history of doctrines. On the doctrine of Scripture, I recommend the Webster/King trilogy, which has tons of quotations from the early church fathers (though there is less analysis than I would like of the quotations). Oden does have The Justification Reader, which is a digest of ECF's on justification. Individual topics are more likely to have what you are looking for. From the Roman Catholic perspective, Quasten's Patrology is their source for doing the same thing you are looking to do.
 
Jean Daille's The Right Use of the Church Fathers should be of some help. It is similar to what Jacob argues Somehow a few years ago I obtained a free ebook of it via Googlebooks.
 
Modern scholarly works are generally expected to follow a thought from its origins through to current works. For example, Robert Letham deals with Christology at length during the Patriatic era in Union with Christ.
 
If you go in looking for Reformed proofs, you will find them. The same way the papist finds papal supremacy and the EO finds the mystical church. The best thing to do is find the best scholars who weigh in on this, and from there begin to make tentative conclusions. Take the Anglican Christopher Beeley. He has demonstrated that many fathers held to a more Reformed view of the communciatio idiomatum. But that's a far cry from seeing Tulip in St Gregory of Nyssa.

I've spent ten years reading the Fathers and the leading monographs on them. I think I am at the place where I can speak confidently on what they are saying. I've come up with a few lists:
https://negatingthevoid.wordpress.com/patristics-reading-list/

https://negatingthevoid.wordpress.com/readings-in-patristic-ethics/
 
I've spent ten years reading the Fathers and the leading monographs on them. I think I am at the place where I can speak confidently on what they are saying. I've come up with a few lists:
https://negatingthevoid.wordpress.com/patristics-reading-list/

https://negatingthevoid.wordpress.com/readings-in-patristic-ethics/
Have you run across Webster and King's three volume work:
https://www.christianbook.com/scripture-ground-pillar-faith-vols-1/william-webster/pd/4678
 
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