Tonight’s the night — or, on the West Coast, today’s the day — Bob Lockwood reviews my book The Mass of the Early Christians on Catholic Answers Book Club. You can see tiny shots of the book cover, plus Bob’s mug, right here. You can read more details on the book and see a bigger (ancient-screen-saver-sized) photo of the cover, sans Bob, by clicking here. For a screen-saver-sized shot of Bob, see here. Please note that I did NOT file the Bob Lockwood screen-saver among the images of late antiquity. (We Boomers aren’t there — yet.) Bob, by the way, has written the handbook on evangelizing Baby Boomers. If your kid or your parents (or your neighbors or co-workers) fall into that category, buy Bob’s book!

I’m amazed — and heartened — by the popularity of pictorial paleochristianity. I posted some days ago “The Hottest Desktops of the 4th Century”, and the suggested sites got swamped. Here’s another beautiful source of “windows to the other world” — and to the world of the Fathers. Some of these go way back.

I was pleased to receive several emails in response to the post on John Henry Newman. I’d mentioned that Newman’s enduring appeal for people like me is his ability to tell a story. He explains the role Athanasius played in the development of Christian doctrine, and he does it not by weaving a chain of quotations, but by writing an international thriller on the Alexandrian’s action-packed life. And he does the same for lots of others: Ambrose, Basil, Gregory, Augustine…

So one Newman fan asked me: Who’s doing that kind of writing today? Who’s teaching the doctrine of the Fathers in an intellectually serious way, by telling stories drawn from the real histories of Christianity’s earliest saints and scholars?

A short answer: David Scott is. His most recent book, The Catholic Passion: Rediscovering the Power and Beauty of the Faith, provides a beautiful retrieval of the Fathers’ understanding of Catholic faith. Scott takes the words of the Fathers and applies them to our lives. Some people teach patristics by re-packaging the theology of antiquity; Scott, like Newman before him, does it by telling riveting tales. And The Catholic Passion is NOT just a roundup of the usual suspects. Yes, we meet celebrities like Augustine, Ignatius, Justin, and Origen, but we also meet Origen’s father Leonides. We meet Didymus the Blind, Synesius of Cyrene, and Romanos the Melodist. Chapters run the range of Catholic doctrine. And every sentence is the purest of poetry.

It’s complete, scriptural, and readable enough to serve as an adult catechism. I think it’s the perfect text for RCIA or parish adult-education groups. Get to know David by visiting him here.

Got this from a devout visitor to the site:

“I love it! if Hunter S. Thompson had a soul and was a really inspired scholar of the Fathers of the Church, this is what he would write.”

I can’t help but imagine the old guy in the ruins of an Egyptian monastery, dipping hallucinogenic locusts in wild honey and reading Origen aloud to the snakes. Fear and Trembling on the Pilgrim Trail.

“It is impossible to write of any particular spirituality in the early Church, because there was really only one. These men and women lived from the Bible, God’s Word, so that they experienced the study of the Bible, and meditation on every word of the Holy Scripture, as a kind of communion.”
— Fr. Joseph Lienhard, “The Spiritual Tradition of the Patristic Period,” in Feb. 2003 Magnificat

When my son wants to describe a fanatic, he’ll usually end his description with: “…you know, the twitching, drooling type.”

Well, if you’re the twitching, drooling type when it comes to the Fathers, you should probably subscribe (for free) to Daily Gospel. The site’s name is self-explanatory. It gives you the Church’s Gospel of the Day, which is parceled out by the revised lectionary.

But, in the words of the Seussian Doctor: that is not all, oh no, that is not all.

The Daily Gospel also comes with a daily commentary; and the daily commentary is usually taken from the Church Fathers. Today might be a bad day to make this announcement, since today’s commentary comes from a modern council. But tomorrow’s comes from Ambrose, and it rocks.

You can read both Gospel and commentary online or subscribe and receive them by email.

If the Patristics Movement were a body, John Henry Newman would be the adrenal gland — the source of its energy and drive. Or maybe he would be the pituitary, since he personally accounts for much of its early growth.

With the works of Newman (who was then an Anglican), patrology made the transition from an academic hobbyhorse to a popular fascination. He knew how to tell a story, and his stories delivered his doctrinal and ascetical points rather painlessly. I’m thinking here particularly of his early books The Church of the Fathers and The Arians of the Fourth Century — and, of course, his novel Callista: A Tale of the Third Century.

Newman’s Fathers are real men, sometimes difficult, enduring heartbreak, quarreling with one another. He doesn’t sugar-coat Jerome or Cyril, for example; they don’t hold the glaze very well anyway. His telling of the up-and-down friendship of Basil and Gregory (in The Church of the Fathers) really tugs at the heartstrings, even as it expands the Christian mind.

All this is a prelude to my expression of gratitude to Father Drew Morgan (like Newman, an Oratorian) for the work of his National Institute for Newman Studies. Based in Pittsburgh, the Institute hosts an enormous Newman research library, publishes a fine journal, and promotes the work of scholars. (I encourage you to donate to the cause. Your money will be put to good use.) The Institute also hosts one of the cleanest, best-kept, and most easily searchable databases on the Web — The Newman Reader — which holds all the collected works of Newman, plus the major biographies. Thus, with just a few keystrokes, you can round up everything Newman ever had to say about Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Anthony … And he did have plenty to say.

Visit the Institute’s websites today. Visit the library if you’re ever in Pittsburgh. And pray for their good work. When God blesses Father Drew Morgan, He blesses all of us who love the Fathers.

I’ll end with a quote from St. Francis de Sales, which I pulled from a letter of Newman indexed at The Newman Reader: “The ancient Fathers … spoke from the heart to the heart, like good fathers to their children.”

I hear that my book The Mass of the Early Christians will be featured on Catholic Answers Book Club this Friday, April 7, at 7 p.m. (Eastern Time). The host is the ever-entertaining Bob Lockwood — the very man, in fact, who urged me to write my first book on the Fathers. For information on how to listen in, see “Catholic Answers LIVE.”

I just had the privilege of traveling overseas in the company of my renowned, esteemed, and brilliant colleague, Rob Corzine. We shared a hotel room, a penance Rob bore with a smile as his Lenten cross. When my snoring didn’t keep him awake, my uncontrollable laughter did. I had made the delightful mistake of taking Evelyn Waugh’s novel Helena with me, to keep me sane through the inevitable insomnia.

The book is out in a new edition, as part of Loyola Press’s lovely Loyola Classics series (edited by Amy Welborn), which was recently praised by no less a critic than Terry Teachout in no less a paper than the Wall Street Journal. People often ask me the best way to enter imaginatively into the world of the Fathers. I can’t think of a more enjoyable way than reading this novel. It’s well researched, artfully evocative, and full of fun nudges and winks at us latter-day observers.

Inside you’ll meet Constantine, the emperor and Eastern saint. You’ll meet his mum, St. Helena, the proto-archeologist who unearthed the true cross. You’ll meet Pope St. Sylvester, who is an endearing chap. And they’ll all make you laugh — either with them or at them.

My hat’s off to Waugh for bringing these characters so vividly alive. Few authors could make a fourth-century saint so approachable, humorous, and even sexy. He manages to pull this last one off in the most chaste way. Take my word. This book’s a miracle of hilarity and warmth.

The new edition has a nice introduction by George Weigel and good biographical material on Waugh, who has split my sides more times than it’s healthy to remember.

I’ve listed some other good patristic fiction here (scroll way down the page). All of it’s good, in different ways and for different purposes. Waugh’s Helena, though, is in a class by herself.

Rob Corzine, alas, couldn’t sleep through my jet-lagged laughter. But he got the last laugh. He started the book as soon as I finished it.

The last of the Western Fathers, St. Isidore of Seville, has often been proposed as patron saint of the Internet. On today, Isidore’s memorial, Jeff Ziegler of the Ziegler A List points us to these online resources:

— The Catholic Encyclopedia.
— St. Isidore’s Etymologies (or Origins), Latin text.

Meticulously and at God’s pace, Kevin Edgecomb of Berkeley, CA, is building Bombaxo, a remarkable online library of original research. He’s assembled a small but growing collection of ancient Church Orders, the liturgical and disciplinary manuals of the early Christians. You’ll find complete versions of Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition and the inimitable Didascalia Apostolorum. These last two links will drop you into the Mass as it was celebrated in the third and fourth centuries, and possibly even earlier.

Though Kevin’s using the established English translations, they’re not available elsewhere on the Web (or at least they weren’t when I first found them at Bombaxo). And, anyway, Kevin never rests with a received translation. He updates critically, based on the best recent research.

Kevin’s an Orthodox layman with a truly catholic range of interests. One of his most fascinating pages is a collection of ancient lectionaries, giving us a look at which biblical readings have matched which feast days, down through the ages — and all through the Christian world. His patristic lectionaries are culled from the works of Augustine and Ambrose, as well as the literary relics of the lesser-known ancient churches — the Armenian, Georgian, and Syriac. The word “bombaxo” is apparently an expletive in classical Greek. But I’ll bet only Oxford-trained Web filters will block it.

People occasionally ask if there are any good books on the Fathers for kids. I usually respond with a blank stare. If you know of any, please tell me, so I’ll look somewhat sentient next time.

The only book I’ve been able to recommend is St. Jude: A Friend in Hard Times, by my son and webmaster, Michael Aquilina III. It’s not exactly about a Church Father; it’s about an apostle. But he put to use some good patristic research — citing Eusebius as well as the obscure Labubna of Edessa. It’s sumptuously illustrated, as beautiful as an illuminated manuscript. And it has a foreword from the illustrious Scott Hahn. Can you tell I’m proud of the kid?

Brighten up your screen-saver or letterhead. You’ll find great copyright-free early-Christian artwork at Wikimedia. Make sure to peruse all five subcategories.

Open your eyes to some unusual early-Christian images at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

Want to move to a parish with its own patristic studies program? Look into St. John the Evangelist in Stamford, CT, where pastor Msgr. Stephen M. DiGiovanni has founded the St. Monica Institute for Patristic Studies. The Institute sponsors visiting lectureships (including Cardinal Avery Dulles!), ongoing classes, and a Latin reading group.

Until I see evidence of other parishes proving me wrong, I’ll go on record saying: It takes an Italian-American.

If you think reading the Fathers is a grim business … well, then you haven’t read the Fathers. Or maybe you’ve read the wrong translations. I was pleased when no less a reviewer than Russell Shaw praised my book The Fathers of the Church for recovering the humor of the patristic era. J.A. McGuckin made a similar recovery in his recent biography of Cyril of Alexandria. McGuckin points out that the arch-heretic Nestorius had a penchant for semantic fussiness; he was fond of the phrase “strictly speaking.” The Fathers, in turn, rarely passed up an opportunity to use the phrase in their refutations. The Christian rabble picked up on it and used it in their anti-Nestorian slogans and songs. Where, you may ask, is the great Christian satire today?

Look no further. My friend Chris Bailey continues the venerable tradition of patristic humor with his hilarious parody of the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, published in the magazine Touchstone (one of the few periodicals that publish the Fathers as news). Don’t read this with your mouth (or bladder) full.