With all due respect to the land of your birth, I would put Tertullian in
and put Bede out.
Jo Ann
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill East <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, February 20, 2000 4:54 PM
Subject: Faith of the Fathers
>Dearly Beloved:
>
>The Continuing Education Department of York University have just
>written to me asking if I wish to offer a course next year. As I have
>mentioned from time to time on this list, I am this year teaching a
>course on "The Latin Bible". In Continuing Education, it is not useful
>to offer the same course every year. The situation is rather different
>from regular university work where one has a new class of students
>passing through every year. With Continuing Education, one tends to
>get a loyal following who come year after year, provided that one has
>something different to offer. If they've done the course already, they
>don't come; and if they don't come, the course doesn't run.
>
>So I thought, by way of something different, I might offer a course
>called "Faith of the Fathers". The Continuing Education term being ten
>weeks long, I would offer ten lectures on ten of the Fathers most
>formative for western Catholic civilisation. I limit it to "western"
>and "Catholic". I am perfectly well aware of the importance of the
>eastern fathers, and may offer a course on them the following year;
>and while I gladly acknowledge the importance of Jewish and Islamic
>thinkers, I don't know much about them and would hope that limiting the
>course to Christian figures would give it some shape and coherence.
>
>So here are my projected "Big Ten", in chronological order. Would they
>be yours? Who should be out and who should be in? As always, I value
>your kindly and scholarly opinions.
>
>1. St Ambrose, gaining his place as one of the "Four Doctors", for his
>contribution to Latin hymnody, for his influence on St Augustine.
>
>2. St Augustine, for many and obvious reasons.
>
>3. St Jerome, for the Vulgate.
>
>4. St Leo the Great, a favourite of mine, for his Tome, his sermons,
>his beneficent influence on Attila the Hun, perhaps for his collects.
>
>5. St Severinus - i.e. Boethius. Not often thought of as a "Father",
>but vital for his place in the intellectual history of the west.
>
>6. St Benedict, for his Rule.
>
>7. St Gregory the Great, last of the "Four Doctors", for his Pastoral
>Rule, his Moralia in Job, his conversion of England.
>
>8. St Bede (the Venemous Bead, author of The Rosary).
>
>9. St Anselm - jumping ahead a few centuries; for his Proslogion and
>Cur Deus Homo.
>
>10. St Bernard of Clairvaux, regarded by Migne as the last of the
>western Fathers. After the twelfth century we move out of the world of
>the "Fathers" into the world of the scholastic doctors, a rather
>different animal.
>
>Would such a course attract you? Is it likely to attract anybody?
>
>The Supple Doctor.
>
>
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