List of New Testament Church Fathers

The following list of New Testament Church Fathers provides an overview of an important part of the secondary source evidence for the text of the New Testament (NT). The NT was quoted by early Christian authors, like Ignatius of Antioch, called the Church Fathers, and also in anonymous works like the Didache. Some anonymous works have traditionally been misattributed to better-known authors, and are now known by the name of that author, but with the prefix pseudo (meaning "false" in Greek), for example Pseudo-Dionysius. The other most substantial component of secondary sources for the text of the NT is its early translations into other languages, like Latin. Translations of the NT are known as versions.

History

Johann Jakob Griesbach stressed the importance of patristic data for New Testament criticism and laid the foundation for their usage.

• Patristic quotations should be cited individually.
• Patristic writings should be read in their entirety, using good editions.
• Quotations should be derived only from genuine works.
• Quotations should be included only from authentic Greek works.
• Quotations should be distinguished from allusions.
• Everything should be included as recited biblical text.
• Alterations to the biblical text should be noted.
• Differences between Patristic various quotations should be observed.
• All additions, omissions or alterations must be noted.

Gordon Fee suggests that the presentation of a Patristic quotation must be complete, including all known citations and adaptations, but not all allusions.

Fathers

• Criterion for inclusion: quoted or alluded to text of NT in writing, in copies of own work, or cited so by others.
• Name: historically most common form in English.
• Location: anglicised name of the city with which they are associated, sometimes a monastery, other times a province if location is imprecise. Name at time of writing, hence Byzantium and Constantinople, but never Istanbul. Some Fathers moved around, noted as: itinerant (Latin) or peripatetic (Greek).
• Date of Death (DOD): standard point of reference, differing levels of precision, different scholastic opinions. Where a Father is only known to within a century, the midpoint is given first, to allow sorting on the column, the century follows in roman numerals within parentheses.
• Language: Greek, Latin or Syriac. Typically Western Europe, Italy and North Africa were home to Latin Fathers; Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt were home to Greek Fathers. Some Fathers worked with both Greek and Latin.

Misattributed writings

Anonymous works

See also

• List of Church Fathers
• List of early Christian texts of disputed authorship
• List of early Christian writers
• List of New Testament papyri
• List of New Testament uncials
• List of New Testament minuscules
• List of New Testament lectionaries

Bibliography

• Altaner, Berthold.
• Quasten, Johannes.

Further reading

• Black M., Aland K., Die alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und Lektionare: der gegenwärtige Stand ihrer Erforschung und ihre Bedeutung für die griechische Textgeschichte, Wissenschaftliche Beirat des Instituts für neutestamentliche Textforschung, Berlin 1972.
• Norman Geisler, William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969.
• Osburn C.D., Methodology in identifying patristic citations in NT Textual Criticism, Novum Testamentum XLVII, 4, pp. 313–343.
• Gordon D. Fee, The Use of the Greek Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism, in. The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, ed. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, pp. 191–207.

External links

• Citation of Church Fathers in UBS — archived thread from B-Greek (Biblical Greek public email list).