Who were the
Church Fathers?

Author Marcellino D’Ambrosio
Publisher SPCK £12.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780281074129

This is a wonderful book if you are interested in Church history. It spans the earliest days of the Church from 100AD and to c.749. It brings alive those great teachers of faith beginning with Clement and ending with John of Damascus. We read about the rise and fall of Arianism, Gnosticism and how the early Church suffered such great persecutions. It does challenge and inspire us to look again at those great thinkers who agreed the Nicene Creed, or helped define what goes in the Bible and what was left out. It was interesting to see that the words we use as the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer are so very similar to the words used in the third century by Hippolytus. It helps our understanding and knowledge of salvation, sacraments and doctrine. I would recommend this book, it blows away the cobwebs of dry theology and makes the early Church much easier to follow.

CHRIS GREGORY

History, Patristics