The Church of the Fathers (Newman, John Henry, Works. V. 5.)

Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman, Francis McGrath

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John Henry Newman’s The Church of the Fathers contains some of his earliest writings on fourth-century Christianity. Composed at about the same time as The Arians of the Fourth Century and the first Tracts of the Oxford Movement, this polemical book was aimed at the general reader and is filled with extracts from Patristic writings.

In 1833 British Parliament enacted the controversial Irish Church Temporalities Bill, which proposed abolishing ten of the twenty-two sees of the Anglican Church of Ireland. Newman accused the State of violating the ancient doctrine of Apostolic Succession. In The Church of the Fathers, Newman draws parallels between the situation facing the Church in the fourth century and the Anglican Church in his day.

Published here for the first time in more than a century, this edition of The Church of the Fathers reunites material that had become separated in ongoing republications of Newman’s works. The text and appendices also contain original Newman material that has never before been published.

FRANCIS MCGRATH, F.M.S., is an Australian Marist Brother and author of John Henry Newman: Universal Revelation.