But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. Matthew 23:8-10.
And he [Stephen] said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham . . . Acts 7:2.
And when he had given him licence, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying, Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you. Acts 21:40-22:1.
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. 1 Corinthians 4:14-17.
But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel. Philippains 2:22.
As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children. 1 Thessalonians 2:11.
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 1 John 2:14
See also: 1 Timothy 1:2, 18; 2 Timothy 1:2; 2:1; Titus 1:4; Philemon 10; 1 Peter 5:13; 1 John 2:1; 3 John 4;
ST. CLEMENT OF ROME: Give unity and peace both to us and to all that dwell upon the earth, as thou gavest to our fathers when they called upon thee with faith and truth, so that we should become obedient to thy all-powerful and most excellent name, and to those who rule and govern us upon the earth. First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 60.4 (tr. Charles H. Hoole, 1885).
ST. CLEMENT OF ROME: For we have handled every argument concerning faith and repentance, and genuine love and temperance, and moderation and patience, reminding you that ye must by righteousness and truth and long-suffering approve yourselves with piety to almighty God, being of one mind, without malice, in love and peace with earnest obedience, even as our fathers, who were beforementioned, approved themselves with humility both with regard to God the Father and Creator and to all men. First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 62.2 (tr. Charles H. Hoole, 1885).
ST. CLEMENT OF ROME: For concerning faith and repentance and true love and continence and soberness and patience, we have touched upon every passage, putting you in mind that you ought in righteousness and truth and long-suffering to be well-pleasing to Almighty God with holiness, being of one mind—not remembering evil—in love and peace with instant gentleness, even as also our fathers [the Apostles] forementioned found favor by the humility of their thoughts towards the Father and God and Creator and all mankind. Second Clement, chap. 62 (ANF 9.247-248).
ANONYMOUS: This proclamation having been made by the herald, the whole multitude both of the heathen and Jews, who dwelt at Smyrna, cried out with uncontrollable fury, and in a loud voice, “This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, and the overthrower of our gods, he who has been teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods.” The Martyrdom of Polycarp, chap. 12 (ANF, 1.40).
ST. ATHENAGORAS: On this account, too, according to age, we recognize some as sons and daughters, others we regard as brothers and sisters, and to the more advanced in life we give the honor due to fathers and mothers. On behalf of those, then, to whom we apply the names of brothers and sisters, and other designations of relationship, we exercise the greatest care that their bodies should remain undefiled and uncorrupted; for the Logos again says to us, “If any one kiss a second time because it has given him pleasure, [he sins];” adding, “Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be given with the greatest care, since, if there be mixed with it the least defilement of thought, it excludes us from eternal life.” A Plea for the Christians, chap. 32 (ANF 2.146).
ST. JUSTIN MARTYR [speaking to the elderly Christian man who introduced him to the Faith]: “But, father, the Deity cannot be seen merely by the eyes, as other living beings can, but is discernible to the mind alone, as Plato says; and I believe him.” Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 3 (ANF 1.196).
LETTER FROM CHURCH IN LYONS TO THE BISHOP OF ROME: “We pray, father Eleutherus, that you may rejoice in God in all things and always. We have requested our brother and comrade Irenaeus to carry this letter to you, and we ask you to hold him in esteem, as zealous for the covenant of Christ. For if we thought that office could confer righteousness upon any one, we should commend him among the first as a presbyter of the church, which is his position.” Eusebius, The Church History, bk. 5, chap. 4 (NPNF2 1.218).
ST. IRENAEUS: Since, therefore, this is sure and stedfast, that no other God or Lord was announced by the Spirit, except Him who, as God, rules over all, together with His Word, and those who receive the Spirit of adoption, that is, those who believe in the one and true God, and in Jesus Christ the Son of God; and likewise that the apostles did of themselves term no one else as God, or name [no other] as Lord; and, what is much more important, [since it is true] that our Lord [acted likewise], who did also command us to confess no one as Father, except Him who is in the heavens, who is the one God and the one Father. . . .
And if He did indeed teach us to call one Being Father and God, while He does from time to time Himself confess other fathers and gods in the same sense, then He will appear to enjoin a different course upon His disciples from what He follows Himself. Such conduct, however, does not bespeak the good teacher, but a misleading and invidious one. The apostles, too, according to these men’s showing, are proved to be transgressors of the commandment, since they confess the Creator as God, and Lord, and Father, as I have shown—if He is not alone God and Father. Jesus, therefore, will be to them the author and teacher of such transgression, inasmuch as He commanded that one Being should be called Father, thus imposing upon them the necessity of confessing the Creator as their Father, as has been pointed out. Against Heresies, bk. 4, chap. 1.2-2 (ANF 1.463).
ST. IRENAEUS: For [the word] “son,” as one before me has observed, has a twofold meaning: one [is a son] in the order of nature, because he was born a son; the other, in that he was made so, is reputed a son, although there be a difference between being born so and being made so. For the first is indeed born from the person referred to; but the second is made so by him, whether as respects his creation or by the teaching of his doctrine. For when any person has been taught from the mouth of another, he is termed the son of him who instructs him, and the latter [is called] his father. Against Heresies, bk. 4, chap. 41.2 (ANF 1.524).
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: It is a good thing, I reckon, to leave to posterity good children. This is the case with children of our bodies. But words are the progeny of the soul. Hence we call those who have instructed us, fathers. The Stromata, bk. 1, chap. 1 (ANF 2.299).
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: And He is called Wisdom by all the prophets. This is He who is the Teacher of all created beings, the Fellow-counsellor of God, who foreknew all things; and He from above, from the first foundation of the world, “in many ways and many times,” trains and perfects; whence it is rightly said, “Call no man your teacher on earth.” The Stromata, bk. 6, chap. 7 (ANF 2.493).
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: But when he recognized John [the Apostle] as he advanced, he turned, ashamed, to flight. The other followed with all his might, forgetting his age, crying, “Why, my son, dost thou flee from me, thy father, unarmed, old? Son, pity me. Fear not; thou hast still hope of life. I will give account to Christ for thee. If need be, I will willingly endure thy death, as the Lord did death for us. Who is the Rich Man that Shall Be Saved? chap. 42 (ANF 2.603).
TERTULLIAN: That most gentle father, likewise, I will not pass over in silence, who calls his prodigal son home, and willingly receives him repentant after his indigence, slays his best fatted calf, and graces his joy with a banquet. Why not? He had found the son whom he had lost; he had felt him to be all the dearer of whom he had made a gain. Who is that father to be understood by us to be? God, surely: no one is so truly a Father; no one so rich in paternal love. He, then, will receive you, His own son, back, even if you have squandered what you had received from Him, even if you return naked—just because you have returned; and will joy more over your return than over the sobriety of the other; but only if you heartily repent. On Repentance, chap. 8 (ANF 3.663).
TERTULLIAN: The prayer begins with a testimony to God, and with the reward of faith, when we say, “Our Father who art in the heavens;” for (in so saying), we at once pray to God, and commend faith, whose reward this appellation is. It is written, “To them who believed on Him He gave power to be called sons of God.” However, our Lord very frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us; nay, even gave a precept “that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens:” and so, in thus praying, we are likewise obeying the precept. Happy they who recognize their Father! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, “I have begotten sons, and they have not recognized me.” Moreover, in saying “Father,” we also call Him “God.” That appellation is one both of filial duty and of power. Again, in the Father the Son is invoked; “for I,” saith He, “and the Father are One.” Nor is even our mother the Church passed by, if, that is, in the Father and the Son is recognized the mother, from whom arises the name both of Father and of Son. In one general term, then, or word, we both honor God, together with His own, and are mindful of the precept, and set a mark on such as have forgotten their Father. On Prayer, chap. 2 (ANF 3.682)
TERTULLIAN: So, too, righteousness—for the God of righteousness and of creation is the same—was first in a rudimentary state, having a natural fear of God: from that stage it advanced, through the Law and the Prophets, to infancy; from that stage it passed, through the Gospel, to the fervour of youth: now, through the Paraclete, it is settling into maturity. He [the Holy Spirit] will be, after Christ, the only one to be called and revered as Master; for He speaks not from Himself, but what is commanded by Christ. On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 1 (ANF 4.28).
TERTULLIAN: But let us proceed with our inquiry into some eminent chief fathers of our origin: for there are some to whom our monogamist parents Adam and Noah are not pleasing, nor perhaps Christ either. To Abraham, in fine, they appeal; prohibited though they are to acknowledge any other father than God. Grant, now, that Abraham is our father; grant, too, that Paul is. “In the Gospel,” says he, “I have begotten you.” Show yourself a son even of Abraham. For your origin in him, you must know, is not referable to every period of his life: there is a definite time at which he is your father. On Monogamy, chap. 4 (ANF 4.63).
TERTULLIAN: Burning, armed with the love of peace—yet not
As teachers (Christ alone doth all things teach),
But as Christ’s household—servants—o’er the earth
They should conduct a massive war; should raze
The wicked’s lofty towers, savage walls, Five Books in Reply to Marcion, bk. 4 (ANF 4.156).
ST. ALEXANDER OF CAPPADOCIA: For this, as thou knowest, was the will of God, that the friendship subsisting between us from our forefathers should be maintained unbroken, yea rather, that it should increase in fervency and strength. For we are well acquainted with those blessed fathers who have trodden the course before us, and to whom we too shall soon go: Pantaenus, namely, that man verily blessed, my master; and also the holy Clement, who was once my master and my benefactor; and all the rest who may be like them, by whose means also I have come to know thee, my lord and brother, who excellest all. From an Epistle to Origen (ANF 6.154).
ST. GREGORY THAUMATURGUS: The meats are no burden to us, most holy father. Canonical Epistle, Canon 1 (ANF 6.18).
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the following quotation, “Papa” is equivalent to pope. At Rome this word meant nothing more than the fatherly address of all bishops.
ANONYMOUS: The presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, to Father Cyprian, greeting. The Presbyters and Deacons Abiding at Rome, to Cyprian. (ANF 5.307).
ST. CYPRIAN: The new man, born again and restored to his God by His grace, says “Father,” in the first place because he has now begun to be a son. “He came,” He says, “to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.” The man, therefore, who has believed in His name, and has become God’s son, ought from this point to begin both to give thanks and to profess himself God’s son, by declaring that God is his Father in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and carnal father, and that he has begun to know as well as to have as a father Him only who is in heaven, as it is written: “They who say unto their father and their mother, I have not known thee, and who have not acknowledged their own children; these have observed Thy precepts and have kept Thy covenant.” Also the Lord in His Gospel has bidden us to call “no man our father upon earth, because there is to us one Father, who is in heaven.” And to the disciple who had made mention of his dead father, He replied, “Let the dead bury their dead;” for he had said that his father was dead, while the Father of believers is living. On the Lord’s Prayer, chap. 9 (ANF 5.449-450).
ST. CYPRIAN: [M]artyrs who witness themselves as the sons of God in suffering are now no more counted as of any father but God, as in the Gospel the Lord teaches, saying, “Call no man your father upon earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus, chap. 11 (ANF 503-504).
NOVATIAN: It is written, and they cannot deny it, that “there is one Lord.” What, then, do they think of Christ?—that He is Lord, or that He is not Lord at all? But they do not doubt absolutely that He is Lord; therefore, if their reasoning be true, here are already two Lords. How, then, is it true according to the Scriptures, there is one Lord? And Christ is called the “one Master.” Nevertheless we read that the Apostle Paul also is a master. Then, according to this, our Master is not one, for from these things we conclude that there are two masters. How, then, according to the Scriptures, is “one our Master, even Christ?” In the Scriptures there is one “called good, even God;” but in the same Scriptures Christ is also asserted to be good. There is not, then, if they rightly conclude, one good, but even two good. How, then, according to the scriptural faith, is there said to be only one good? But if they do not think that it can by any means interfere with the truth that there is one Lord, that Christ also is Lord, nor with the truth that one is our Master, that Paul also is our master, or with the truth that one is good, that Christ also is called good; on the same reasoning, let them understand that, from the fact that God is one, no obstruction arises to the truth that Christ also is declared to be God. A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity, chap. 30 (ANF 5.642-643).
ANONYMOUS: Were all the limbs of my body to be turned into tongues, and all the joints of my limbs to utter articulate sounds, it would noways be sufficient to express who, how great and how good, was our most blessed Father Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria. The Genuine Acts of Peter (ANF 6.260).
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: The bishop, he is the minister of the word, the keeper of knowledge, the mediator between God and you in the several parts of your divine worship. He is the teacher of piety; and, next after God, he is your father, who has begotten you again to the adoption of sons by water and the Spirit. He is your ruler and governor; he is your king and potentate; he is, next after God, your earthly god, who has a right to be honored by you. Apostolic Constitutions, chap. 26 (ANF 7.410).
ST. BASIL: Now I accept no newer creed written for me by other men, nor do I venture to propound the outcome of my own intelligence, lest I make the words of true religion merely human words; but what I have been taught by the holy Fathers, that I announce to all who question me. In my Church the creed written by the holy Fathers in synod at Nicaea is in use. To the Church of Antioch, chap. 2 (NPNF-2 8.204).
ST. JEROME: “No one should be called teacher or father except God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the Father, because all things are from him. He alone is the teacher, because through him are made all things and through him all things are reconciled to God. But one might ask, “Is it against this precept when the apostle calls himself the teacher of the Gentiles? Or when, as in colloquial speech widely found in the monasteries of Egypt and Palestine, they call each other Father?” Remember this distinction. It is one thing to be a father or a teacher by nature, another to be so by generosity. For when we call a man father and reserve the honor of his age, we may thereby be failing to honor the Author of our own lives. One is rightly called a teacher only from his association with the true Teacher. I repeat: The fact that we have one God and one Son of God through nature does not prevent others from being understood as sons of God by adoption. Similarly this does not make the terms father and teacher useless or prevent others from being called father. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, chap. 4.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: For what saith He? “But be not ye called Rabbi.” Then follows the cause also; “For one is your master, and all ye are brethren;” and one hath nothing more than another, in respect of his knowing nothing from himself. Wherefore Paul also saith, “For who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers?” He said not masters. And again, “Call not, father,” not that they should not call, but they may know whom they ought to call Father, in the highest sense. For like as the master is not a master principally; so neither is the father. For He is cause of all, both of the masters, and of the fathers.
And again He adds, “Neither be ye called guides, for one is your guide, even Christ;” and He said not, I. For like as above He said, “What think ye of Christ?” and He said not, “of me,” so here too.
But I should be glad to ask here, what they would say, who are repeatedly applying the term one, one, to the Father alone, to the rejection of the Only-begotten. Is the Father guide? All would declare it, and none would gainsay it. And yet “one,” He saith, “is your guide, even Christ.” For like as Christ, being called the one guide, casts not out the Father from being guide; even so the Father, being called Master, doth not cast out the Son from being Master. For the expression, one, one, is spoken in contradistinction to men, and the rest of the creation. Homily on Matthew, chap. 72 (NPNF1 10.420).
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “For though,” saith he, “ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers.” He is not here setting forth his dignity, but the exceeding greatness of his love. Thus neither did he wound the other teachers: since he adds the clause, “in Christ:” but rather soothed them, designating not as parasites but as tutors those among them who were zealous and patient of labor: and also manifested his own anxious care of them. On this account he said not, “Yet not many masters,” but, “not many fathers.” So little was it his object to set down any name of dignity, or to argue that of him they had received the greater benefit: but granting to the others the great pains they had taken for the Corinthians, (for that is the force of the word Tutor,) the superiority in love he reserves for his own portion: for that again is the force of the word Father. Homily on First Corinthians, chap. 13.4 (NPNF1 12.74).
ST. PALLADIUS: After fifty years his sister, grown old by this time, heard that he was still alive; and she was about to break down if she did not go see him. Unable herself to go to see him in the Great Desert, she entrusted the local bishop to write to the fathers of the desert that they should send him so she might see him. Historica Lausiaca, chap. 39.
ST. VINCENT OF LERINS: Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors. The Commonitory, chap. 2.6 (NPNF2 11.132).