What do U know about the Reader's Lexicon of Apost Fathers vs. Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers

[Enoch]

Am I correct that the Reader's Lexicon of Apostolic Fathers is just on the so-called Apostolic Fathers & not on a wider group of "Church Fathers"? The link in the description offering more information takes one to a different title, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers.  Is this second work a commentary on what the Ch F say or is it a lexicon?  The image supplied says to click on it to see it enlarged, but when I click, the system fails.  And the little image is too blurry in my eyes to read it.  Can someone describe these 2 works for me & tell me if there is redundancy between the two?  Can you compare the two works?  Thanks in advance

[R. Mansfield]

If you're referring to the release announcement link, scroll down as both titles are covered in that one post. The post was imported from our previous blog post. I'll see if I can go in and update it for better viewing.

 

 

[R. Mansfield]

Okay, @Enoch, I've updated the post, and the images are easier to see now. Remember that both Reading Scriptures with the Fathers and A Reader's Lexicon to the Apostolic Fathers are covered in the one post. Just scroll down to see the second title.

[Enoch]

"What are the "Mothers" of the Church?" LOL That is the title of a section of Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers!  My, how politically correct!  This shows the power of our humanistic western religion in its wide influence where the really important categories are gender (& alleged gender) differences and race.

So in essence the Lexicon is a running vocabulary word gloss (not a serious lexicon like BDAG)?  And this running gloss only covers the "Apostolic Fathers"?  And the Reading Scripture with is a general treatis on the Church Fathers with no lexicography?  I read your description.  It had a link to buy a larger module by IVP

(I think) on patristics.  But when I clicked that link, it did not go to that, but just the Accordance site.

[ukfraser]

4 hours ago, Enoch said:

  And the Reading Scripture with is a general treatis on the Church Fathers with no lexicography? 

Im not sure its even a 'treatis'. I found it more an introduction to a very select list of fathers and the issues they were facing at particular times in their life. It is well written and very readable. It is useful background stuff so well worth reading but it also includes quotes from letters to parishioners or various other issues. It is relevant today as some of the issues are still present but the scripture is mainly snap shots of genesis, psalms, some of pauls letters and snippets from a gospel or two. typically you get the scripture comment in the section about a  father so dont really read how the fathers read a particular passage and i dont think there are many instances where the same passage has been adressed by different fathers. 
 

Wasn't what i was expecting but i found it useful all the same as it helped put a lot of other background documents i had read in context to what was happening at various points in a fathers life.
Please note in ricks screen shot the first two chapters are why we should bother with them and the third chapter is a definition (screenshot below introducing mothers).

 

personally i found his second volume the most use, managed to get through the third but it majors on baptism and the eucharist  with sections on prayer and discipline. I havent attempted the fourth volume yet but moved on to other resources as needed a break.

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by ukfraser

[Enoch]

Aside from the Lord Jesus Himself, Mary of Bethany is one of my 2 favorite Bible characters.  And whatever any females wrote in I-II Centuries AD, would be interesting to me.  Do you have a list of such writers?  I don't recall hearing of any such writers, but I think that what we have as to Church Fathers may be a selection of what the papacy & the patriarchal (no pun intended) system of the East, decided to preserve.  So I also don't expect to find much preserved which is antagonistic to those 2 systems.  Fathers also implies authority, which one may today accept or reject.  I am unaware of any matriarchs in early Christendom, except the Jezebel at the Church of the Flat Tire in Rev 3, though Priscilla seems to have been influential.  Should the title have been "matriarchy" in early Christendom instead of Church Mothers?  I seem to recall one or more pseudepigraphal documents bearing female names, though I don't know if they were written by females or not.

[ukfraser]

Another sample, a quick scan and i couldnt find much on writing but their influence is there:

The life of Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa and Basil the Great, is a remarkable example of theological acumen and practical spirituality. In fact, Macrina is often known as the “Fourth Cappadocian,” in addition to Gregory of Nazianzus and her brothers Basil and Gregory of Nyssa.16 Jaroslav Pelikan provides this description:

 

Not only was she, according to Gregory’s accounts, a Christian role model for both of them by her profound and ascetic spirituality, but at the death of their parents she became the educator of the entire family, and that in both Christianity and Classical culture. Through her philosophy and theology, Macrina was even the teacher of both of her brothers, who were bishops and theologians, “sister and teacher at the same time . . .” as Gregory called her in the opening sentence of the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection.17

 

Even as a young girl, Gregory tells us, Macrina studied the Scriptures, particularly the Song of Solomon and the Psalms.

 

She went through each part of the Psalm at its special time, when getting up, when engaging in work, when resting, when she took her meals, when she arose from the table, when she went to bed or arose for prayers; always she had the Psalms with her like a good travelling companion, not forsaking them for a moment.18

 

Both the quality of Macrina’s life and the brilliance of her intellect deeply impressed her two brothers. Indeed, it was the influence of Macrina that convinced Basil to repent of his intellectual pride over his rhetorical abilities. As Gregory puts it, Basil “despised all the worthy people and exalted himself in self-importance above the illustrious men of the province.” It is Macrina who “drew him with such speed to the goal of philosophy that he renounced worldly renown.”19

Even on her deathbed Macrina performed the role of the teacher for her brother Gregory.

 

When she saw me come near the door, she raised herself on an elbow, not able to come towards me, for already the fever had consumed her strength. . . . She introduced topics on her mind and by asking questions, gave me a chance to talk. . . . She went through such arguments in detailed manner, speaking about natural phenomena, recounting the divine plan hidden in sad events, revealing things about the future life, as if she were possessed by the Holy Spirit. As a result my soul seemed to lack little from being lifted outside human nature by her words, and with the guidance of her speech, to stand inside the heavenly sanctuaries.20

 

Basil, too, was later to recall the lasting effect of the teaching of both his mother Emmelia and his grandmother Macrina (the elder).

 

The teaching about God that I had received as a boy from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina, I have ever held with increasing conviction. On my coming to the mature years of reason, I did not shift my opinions from one to another, but carried out the principles handed on to me by my parents. Just as the seed when it grows is tiny at first and then grows bigger but always preserves its identity, not changed in kind though gradually perfected in growth, so I consider that the same doctrine has in my case grown through a development. What I hold now has not replaced what I held at the beginning.21

 

It is unfortunate that because of cultural, historical and misconstrued theological considerations and developments we do not have a significant body of writing from the gifted women who inhabited the early church.22 Comments from Ammas (Mothers) such as Syncletice and Sarah do appear in the sayings of the desert fathers,23 and poems from Christian Roman matrons such as Proba have been translated into English.24 Jaroslav Pelikan incorporated many of the theological and exegetical insights of Macrina the Younger into his Gifford lectures on Christianity and classical culture.

[ukfraser]

Christopher hall lists this as his reference several times In this chapter. 
 

Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, Message of the Fathers of the Church 13 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1983), see below for most references.

 

ref 23 is from The Sayings of the Fathers” in Western Asceticism, ed. Owen Chadwick, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), pp. 120–21.

 

ps i dont have the lexicon but ancient christian doctrine is on my list to get once ive read some more resources ive already got!

Edited August 28, 2021 by ukfraser

[Enoch]

But the question is twofold & simple:

1) are there Female Authors of early church documents?  Last I looked there were no female authors expressed as authors of books the Bible, despite speculation on Hebrews, & despite the fact that there have been female prophets. So what is the first extant Christian document that we have, penned by a female? (This is not about some man in early centuries praising some woman for her virtue in a book he wrote.)

 

I did google & find this: The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Latin: Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis) is a diary by Vibia Perpetua describing her imprisonment as a Christian in 203, completed after her death by a redactor. per WickedPedia, which of course is no authority.  I don't know if the Ante-Nicene Fathers has this.  But perhaps this would justify inclusion & changing the name of "Fathers" to Writers.

 

2) Did females in the early Church have the authority that the "fathers" had?

Is there some Ignatia (aka Nacha) who was a monarchal bishop of a church, writing how everyone should bow down to her & to the deaconesses like Ignatius (Nacho) of Antioch, Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας (who probably got away his claims to hierarchy)?  -- aside from Jezebel of Thyatira in Revelation 3, who was reprimanded.

Or is it not a fact that patriarchy has been the general orthodox doctrine in Christendom until very recent times in history?  However, it is obvious (at least to me) that works might well be written on Church Mothers as early females in the Church who nourished the Church.  But it is also obvious (at least to me), that the function of these mothers is not so undifferentiated from the fathers that they there would be no basis to distinguish them in separate hoppers.  But in a collection, I would be inclined to put them all together.

 

Of course the question as to whether ascetism is a Christian practice as opposed to pagan syncretism infecting Christendom, is another question.

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Enoch

[jlm]

Perpetua’s prison diary, which is included in The Passion of Saints Pepetua and Felicity, is a good candidate for the oldest surviving Christian document known to have been written by a woman. Nothing older comes to mind. It is included in The Ante-Nicene Fathers.

 

As for the other question, it depends on what kind of authority you’re talking about. Women could have moral authority based on their virtue or learning, and influence based on wealth or political power, but were not priests or bishops in orthodox Christianity. Many Church Fathers were members of the clergy, but there were also laymen like Hermas and Justin. So laywomen, nuns, or deaconesses could have written similar works, but nothing comes to my mind among the surviving works from the first two centuries.

[Enoch]

21 hours ago, jlm said:

Perpetua’s prison diary, which is included in The Passion of Saints Pepetua and Felicity, is a good candidate for the oldest surviving Christian document known to have been written by a woman. Nothing older comes to mind. It is included in The Ante-Nicene Fathers.

 

As for the other question, it depends on what kind of authority you’re talking about. Women could have moral authority based on their virtue or learning, and influence based on wealth or political power, but were not priests or bishops in orthodox Christianity. Many Church Fathers were members of the clergy, but there were also laymen like Hermas and Justin. So laywomen, nuns, or deaconesses could have written similar works, but nothing comes to my mind among the surviving works from the first two centuries.

What kind of authority?

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account; that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this were unprofitable for you.

In like manner, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives;

as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose children ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by any terror.

But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness.

Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.

But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven. For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame to a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled. For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man: for neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man: for this cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection

 

[R. Mansfield]

Good afternoon, everyone! As per the Accordance Forum guidelines, let's keep the conversations about the modules and the software and avoid discussions that become interpretive or theological in nature. Thanks.