Who and What are the Church Fathers?

In the audio above is the audio from the first lecture of the Advent Study Series I am doing at my parish. The series is called “Foundations of the Faith: Introducing the Church Fathers.” In the lecture I reference the icon above, which is of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which happened in AD 325.In the part of the talk not included in the audio above, I went through many of the major Church Fathers. The text of the slides I showed during that part of the lecture are reproduced below.The Apostolic Fathers – 1st and 2nd centuriesSaint Clement of Rome (d. 100)Saint Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110)Saint Polycarp (d. 155)Uncertain authors:The DidacheThe Epistle of BarnabasThe Epistle to DiognetusThe Shepherd of HermasThe Desert Fathers – 3rd and 4th centuriesSaint Anthony the Great (d. 356)Saint Athansius the Great (d. 373, also a Greek Father)Saint John Cassian (d. 435)Saint Macarius of Egypt (d. 391)Saint John Chrysostom (d. 407, also a Greek Father)Many others, collected in books of “Sayings” and anthologies such as the PhilokaliaThe Greek Fathers – 2nd through 8th centuriesSaint Justin Martyr (d. 165)Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (d. 202)Saint Clement of Alexandria (d. 202)Origen of Alexandria (d. 254)Saint Basil the Great (d. 379)Saint Gregory Nazianzus (d. 389)Saint Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395)Saint Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444)Saint Maximos the Confessor (d. 662)Saint John of Damascus (d. 749)The Latin Fathers – 3rd through 8th centuriesSaint Tertullian (d. 222)Saint Ambrose of Milan (d. 397)Saint Jerome (d. 420)Saint Augustine of Hippo (d. 430)Saint Leo the Great (d. 440)Saint Gregory the Great (d. 604)Saint Bede the Venerable (d. 735)The Syriac Fathers – 4th through 8th centuriesSaint Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373)Saint Isaac of Ninevah (d. 700)Click here for lecture two, on Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Anthony of Egypt. Get full access to Anglican Ascetic Podcast at frmcdallman.substack.com/subscribe