Church Fathers

[rickclayfan]

What is distinctively treasurable about the early church fathers? I know that for Puritans it is their immense zeal for the glory of God and the sanctification of believers that makes them stand out. This is what they, in an especial manner, specialized in. What about the fathers? What was distinctive about them that isn't so well written about in other eras? What makes them worth reading (aside from their historical value)?

 

[arapahoepark]

You really need to read them then. They were the giants upon whose shoulders the reformers stood. Want the best treatises on the incarnation, Jesus' deity? Then read them. Read Nick Needham on the fathers or Thomas Oden's book The Justification Reader. While they may have tensions in there theology they got a lot right. The Orthodox or Catholics use them for historical witnesses for their theology, they fail by reading back into them their theology.
Read them. James Ussher, bishop of the Church of Ireland in Armagh (Anglican church in Ireland and a staunch protestant) constantly read the fathers.
Calvin constantly alludes to them in his Institutes as well.