James Donaldson
Published: 2017-11-24
Total Pages: 670
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Excerpt from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A. D. 325; Tertulian, Parth Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second Minucias Felix and Commodian are thrown in as a sort of appendix to Tertullian, and illustrate the schoot and the Church of the same country. The Italian type does not yet appear. Latin Christianity is essentially N orth-african, and is destined to continue such, conspicuously, till it hm culminated in the genius of Augustine. From the first, the Orientals speculate concerning God; the Westerns deal with man. Both schools contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. And, once for all, it may be said, that if their language necessarily lacks the pre c'sion of technical theology, and enables those who have little sympathy with them to set them one against another on some points, and so to impair their value as witnesses, it is quite as easy, and far more just, to show the harmony of their ideas, even when they differ in their forms of speech. This has been triumphantly done by Bull, just as the same writer harmonizes St. James and St. Paul, working down to their common base in the Rock of Ages. The test of ante-nicene unity is the Nicene Symbol, in which the primitive writings find their ultimate expression. That Clement and Tertullian alike would have recognised as the faith for the earlier Fathers were, in fact, its authors. The Nicene Fathers were compilers only, and professed only to embody in the Symbol what their predecessors had established and maintained. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.