The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church

by Jimmy Akin, Marcus Grodi (Foreword)

The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church is a unique resource. It introduces you to the teachings of the first Christians in a way no other work can. It is specially designed to make it easy for you to find the information you want and need.

Amazing features in this fact-packed book
- More than 900 quotations from the writings of the early Church Fathers, as well as from rare and important documents dating back to the dawn of Christian history.
- Mini-biographies of nearly 100 Fathers, as well as descriptions of dozens of key early councils and writings.
- A concise history of the dramatic spread of Christianity after Jesus told his disciples to evangelize all nations.
- Special maps showing you where the Fathers lived, including many little-known and long-vanished locations.
- A guide to nearly 30 ancient heresies, many of which have returned to haunt the modern world.
- The Fathers' teaching on nearly 50 topics, including modern hot-button issues like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce.

This groundbreaking work presents the teachings of the early Christians in a way unlike any other book. It flings open the doors of the crucial but little-known age covering the birth of Christianity and the triumphant march of the gospel throughout the ancient world.

Genres: Catholic, Theology, Religion, Christian, History, Christianity, Faith

450 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 2010

About the author

Jimmy Akin (b. 1965) was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant pastor or seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith. Eventually, he was compelled in conscience to enter the Catholic Church, which he did in 1992. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to This Rock magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Akin performs an interesting service, grouping teachings by “founding fathers” of the Church’s first several centuries by topic. The main sections concern God, Creation, The Sources of Faith, the Church and the Pope, Morality, Sacraments and Worship, Mary, the Saints, the Miraculous, and The Last Things.

I think the quotations given show the church at an early stage of its development, For example, they endorse the old Jewish belief that dead believers will lie in the grave until the Day of the Lord, at which point they will be bodily resurrected, and live with immortal bodies upon the earth forevermore. Later of course, the prevailing view was that souls of the saved rise into heaven immediately after death, and the body is left behind. However, Akin seems to present these early teachings as eternally true pronouncements of an infallible church, as if teachers could not be holy unless they were inerrant. He explains that “heresy … is the refusal to accept a point of doctrine that has been revealed by God and infallibly defined by the church.”

I copy here a few of the said inerrant doctrines:

“God, the wonderful artisan will, with a wonderful and inexpressible speed, restore our flesh from the whole of the material of which it is made, and it will make no difference to the reconstruction whether hairs go back to hairs and nails go back to nails, or whatever of these … be assigned to other parts of the body, while the providence of the artisan will take care that nothing unseemly result.” – Augustine, Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 89, 421 CE.

Concerning the “brothers” of Jesus mentioned in Mark 6:3 and 15:40, we have the following defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity: “Surely, we cannot deny that regarding the sons of Mary the statement is justly censured … For neither would the Lord Jesus have chosen to be born of a Virgin if he had judged she would be so incontinent, that with the seed of human copulation she would pollute the generative chamber of the Lord’s body, the palace of the eternal king.” – Pope Siricius I, Letter to Bishop Anysius. 392 CE

“The genital part of the body … has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring.” – Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6:23:19, ca. 307 CE

[Meghan Gentry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really meant to be read cover to cover but can bring great insight into the Catholic faith. I really enjoyed it and will probably use it as a reference for the rest of my life.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the last few months I have finished three books by Jimmy Akin. Each has been a great read in its own way, but this particular book I loved. Having spent over 20 years in University as an undergrad, and 10 of that part time working on a religious Studies Degree, with a focus on Roman Catholic Thought, I have encountered the church fathers a number of times. I have read a few different collections of sayings of the church fathers and sections of a number of other books by and about the Desert Fathers and Mothers. I will state that this book is the best book I have read to date on this topic. This volume pulls it together differently than any other book I have encountered. In past readings of the desert fathers some sort strictly by author, some by topic and some in chronological order. What Jimmy does different is that he sorts by major topic, then sections within the topic and then in chronological order. Jimmy also ties the quotes from the desert fathers to church canons from Church Council’s.

Unlike many other books on the church Fathers Jimmy starts out with setting the ground work. He defines what he means by Church Father, as compared to ecclesial writers. He also sets the church fathers in their time. He has sections about the fathers, their world, And the regions that these writings draw from. In fact the Sections in this book are:

Foreword by Marcus Grodi
PART ONE
I. Introduction
1. About This Book
2. About the Fathers
II. The World of the Fathers
3. The World at a Glance
4. “My Witnesses in Jerusalem”
5. The Second Holy Land
6. Greece and Rome
7. The Far West
8. North Africa
III. Ad Fontes!—“To the Sources!”
9. Know Your Fathers
10. Know Your Councils
11. Know Your Writings
12. Know Your Heresies

PART TWO
IV. God
13. The One True God
14. God Has No Body
15. The Trinity
16. The Three Persons of the Trinity
17. The Divinity of Christ
18. The Eternal Sonship of Christ
19. Filioque
V. Creation
20. Creation out of Nothing
21. Creation in Genesis
VI. The Sources of Faith
22. The Canon of Scripture
23. Apostolic Tradition
VII. The Church and the Pope
24. The Catholic Church
25. Apostolic Succession
26. Peter the Rock
27. Peter’s Primacy
28. Peter in Rome
29. Peter’s Successors
30. The Authority of the Pope
VIII. Morality
31. Mortal Sin
32. Abortion
33. Contraception and Sterilization
34. Homosexuality
35. Astrology
IX. Sacraments and Worship
36. Baptism as a Means of Grace
37. Baptismal Regeneration
38. The Necessity of Baptism
39. Trinitarian Baptism
40. Infant Baptism
41. Confirmation
42. The Real Presence
43. The Sacrifice of the Mass
44. Confession
45. Bishop, Priest, and Deacon
46. Women Priests?
47. The Permanence of Marriage
48. Sabbath or Sunday?
X. Mary, the Saints, the Miraculous
49. Mary, Full of Grace
50. Mary, Mother of God
51. Mary, Ever Virgin
52. Intercession of the Saints
53. Ongoing Miracles
54. Private Revelation
XI. The Last Things
55. Salvation Outside the Church
56. Reward and Merit
57. Purgatory
58. Hell
59. Reincarnation?
60. The Resurrection of the Body
61. The Antichrist
Translations Used
Documents Used
Scripture Index
Notes

There is a lot to digest in this book and the way that Jimmy presents the material. In fact I often rip through books in a day or two, but took my time with this volume and spent over a week working my way through it. I have also already added it back into my to be read pile to revisit it again later this year or early next year. Some books you can read once and be done with them, others you come back to again and again, my feeling is this book by Jimmy Akin will be in that latter category for me, and likely for many other readers.

There are a few things that make this book excellent for personal study or for evangelization. First Jimmy predominantly draws upon publically available translations, that way you can go further in your readings with specific fathers or topics. Second he draws mainly from protestant commentaries, or translations of the quotes. For the most part the times he does not is when those sayings have been dropped from the protestant editions. And finally because of the format with an introduction, then the quotes, the material has been wrapped and packaged in a much easier way to digest. Some versions just have the quotes with no context, but Jimmy goes the distance to give us context and cohesion across the specific topics.

As I stated above of the numerous books with quotes about the desert fathers this is now my favorite. It will be the one I recommend to friends and family. It will be the one I encourage seekers to read when the topic is broached. And it is the one that I will reread again and again. An excellent resource for any serious Christian who cares about the early years and traditions of our faith!

Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2017 Catholic Reading Plan!

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more than just a collection of quotes from the Church Fathers. The first major section contains a lot of information on the Church Fathers and related subjects. Ably and fully answered is the definition of what the definition is of a Church Father in the first place compared to who would come under the column of an ecclesial writer. A list of the Church Fathers along with short biographies and the time frame is provided along with other useful lists concerning the various councils and heresies from this period. Some of the stories included in the biographies are quite interesting and it is obvious care was taken to provide just information that could be historically verified.

The majority of the book is broken up into major topics and then sections within those topics. These sections such as the Trinity, Primacy of Peter, Women’s Ordination contain an introduction followed by multiple quotes which are sorted by earlier to later Church Fathers. Where applicable along with these quotes are also listed any canons from Church Councils pertaining to the subject. The introductions are very good and give a good summary of the subject from scripture, tradition, and magisterial teaching.

For the most part the quotes are taken from a publicly available Protestant translation of the Church Fathers. So this is perfect for apologetics work and this makes it easy for others to see the full context of the original writings. In some cases fair use quotes of Catholic translations are used because they were left out of the aforementioned Protestant translation.

This is really one of the best references concerning the Church Fathers in that it is very easy to find information on the topic you want and their are multiple indexes in the back to make this easier. It is quite fascinating just to read through what the Church Fathers had said especially where you can see the development of doctrine or to see just how early and in-depth a doctrine had been fleshed out. Some things that I though had become more developed in the age of the Scholastics I was very surprised to see thought out in much detail very early in the Church.

As a one volume reference this is a worthy entry in the field of Patristics and I recommend it fully.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference book. Jimmy organizes the writings of the early Church Fathers into a table of contents that resembles the Apostles Creed that walks the reader through the Faith. He writes a brief intro to each theological chapter, including helpful contextual information, and then lets loose with four or five pages of 500 years worth of Church Fathers' quotes, boiled down to just those parts relevant to the subject at hand. A few of the nearly 1,000 quotes seemed to reach for its connection to the topic, and some quotes apply to multiple secitons, but the rest will paint a pretty striking picture that the Church Fathers were the bridge that seamlessly connects Christ's teachings to the Church today. I found reading it cover to cover to be especially rewarding because some quotes reinforce the topics of other chapters, but Jimmy mercifully avoided repeating the same snippets wherever they applied (except for a few choice instances referenced above.) Awesome resource. After reading it, it's incredibly difficult to think of the Church Fathers as anything other than Catholic.

[Jon Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rocks! I helped the author on it and I'm credited in the intro (one of my proudest career achievements). Anyway, this book traces doctrines of the Catholic Church like the authority of the Pope, Marian doctrines, and hot button issues like abortion, by tracing them back in time using the writings of the early Christians. There are over 900 quotes from "Church Fathers." If you're interested in finding out how Catholic the early Christians were, this book is awesome.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to the understanding the early church fathers, how they viewed the sacraments, the church, the scriptures, the creeds, response to heresies. Many will be surprised at how dismiliar their views were from those following the Protestant Reformation. Although written from a Catholic perspective, those in the Orthodox or high-church Anglican tradition will find much familiar territory here.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Similar to other books in my library, Mr. Akins divides the quotations attributed to the Church Fathers by topic. This section is found in Part Two, the largest portion of the book. Topics in Part Two are: God, Creation, The Sources of Faith, The Church and the Pope, Morality, Sacraments and Worship, Mary, the Saints, the Miraculous and The Last Things. Topics are further broken down into subtopics, some of which cover the so-called hot topics of the day: female ordination, the permanence of marriage, contraception and sterilization and abortion. I would consider this portion the go-to section for those engaging in apologetics or wishing to better understand why Catholics believe what they do.

Lastly, but most interesting to this apologist wannabe, Part One is a refreshing addition to what can be a very repetitive study in other books covering the teachings of the Early Church Fathers. Often missing from other books, Mr. Akin concisely explains where the writings of the Fathers came from and explains the relationship between the Magisterium and the Fathers' teachings. He then includes maps of various regions where they lived and preached. Brief biographies shed light on some lesser known ECFs and refresh the memory about more familiar names. Closing out Part One of the book, additional writings which are referred to are explained and early heresies and schisms are explained. While reading through the section on heresies, I was struck by how many of them are quite visible in society (and sadly, sometimes in our own Church) today.

The Fathers Know Best is undoubtedly an essential book for learning about the early Church and how deeply Scriptural the Church yesterday and today truly is.

[Rusty Tisdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect introduction to the Church Fathers. Not exhaustive, but it doesn't claim to be.

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A number of years ago now (pre-internet), I found myself wondering: I know about the New Testament church, and I generally know about the Reformation and since that time, but what happened between 50-60 AD and the events leading up to the Reformation? If I call myself a Christian, shouldn’t I know this stuff? So I began reading whatever I could find and of course since the development of the internet, research into any subject has become much easier.

I’ve just started reading the Ante-Nicene Fathers (currently in Volume 2) and I bought this book as a reference to learn more about the individual Fathers and the heresies in the Apostolic Age and following. Part 1 contains all that and more.

The author is a well-known Catholic apologist and Part 2 of the book goes through basic Catholic teaching followed by excerpts from the Fathers and other early Christian writings in support of each topic. Now, I’m a lifelong Protestant, but as I’ve been reading the Fathers, and this book, I have found myself persuaded by many — not all, but many*— of the Catholic doctrines. But as I continue to read and study and learn, well, who knows?

*The early Fathers (from the late 1st century on) are virtually unanimous in their belief of the Real Presence in the Eucharist although there’s no discussion that I’ve found so far as to how; likewise, practically all I’ve read so far understand Matthew 16:18 to mean Peter is the rock on which the Church is built which is of course contrary to the Protestant interpretation I’ve always heard that Jesus is actually referring to himself as the Rock.

[Ben Bachman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since most of my reading is usually done pursuing entertainment, I figured one goal I’d work on this year would be to put forth some of the effort into reading Church history and better understanding my own faith. With that in mind, my dad purchased this for me. And it has been excellent piece for starting what I stated. The author states that he intends for this book to be a resource that the reader could jump to any topic at any time and not necessarily read just back to front. And from now on I certainly will do that, but I had to start back to front my first time through and I am glad I did. This book seems extremely well researched provides a great historical background of the Church and its teachings. I look forward to coming back to it quite often.

[Lexi Lonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a great book to learn about Catholic doctrine and the beginnings of the Church. Some quotes were repetitive in several sections. The quotes from early church fathers were good, but would have liked more of an explanation of the doctrine before going into the quotes for some sections. Overall, good book and would highly recommend.

[Joshua Birdsong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book containing the Saints writings on many different topics. A must read, especially for Clergy.

+Dcn. Josh Birdsong

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book to see the true catholicity of the early church!

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book I'll keep on my shelf to use as a reference. There's a short bio on the Church fathers followed by their writings on many topics that concern us today.

[Deborah]

Interesting book full of writings of the church fathers - some of whom I had heard of but never read. Organized well to help with understanding.

[Kenneth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because it was one of the sources for Tom Holland's "Dominion" which I quite liked. I'm afraid that this book did not quite do it for me. I expected it to be an explication of the development of the early Catholic Church and the philosophical and theological disputes among the Church fathers that created the Church as I know it. Instead it was kind of an index of the church fathers thoughts on various topics along with some biographical and geographic background for the fathers. I think this is because the author, a Catholic convert from protestantism, had a fundamentally different objective in mind. The topics he covers are, largely, those the protestant sects dispute with Catholicism. He is trying to establish the validity of church doctrine by an appeal to the authority of the fathers.

I have to admit, this was somewhat unsettling to me. Virtually all of the points of Catholic theology he asserts in the book I repeat weekly at mass during the recitation of the Nicene Creed. So, I've already accepted these points of dogma, largely on faith. So to have a person assert their truth on the basis of a claim to the authority of the church fathers seems, to me, actually a weaker argument though, I have to admit, that the reason that I accept them on faith is because the authors of the Nicene Creed accepted them on the basis of the appeal to the authority of the fathers. So, in a way, the book weakened rather than strengthened my faith.

But only marginally so.

[Simon Eriksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ønsket om å lære om den tidlige kristendommen og kirkefedrene kjøpte jeg dette oppslagsverket på Kindle. Kindle-brukere skjønner da sikkert hvordan opplevelsen var - klumsete. Når det kommer til oppslagsverk er fysisk bok bare fullstendig overlegen kindle.
Når det kommer til bokens innhold så oppsummerer den historien til mange helgener i et-to avsnitt. Dette oppleves som overfladisk og utilstrekkelig. Det skal sies at de korte oppsummeringene nok har en funksjon, men jeg opplever at jeg bare må kjøpe flere bøker for å tilfredstille tørsten jeg trodde denne boken kunne stille.
Etter helgen-oppsummeringene følger en tematisk gjennomgang av lære som går mer i dybden på debattene og perspektivene helgene hadde. Her kan man lære om hva kirken trodde om dåp og seksualitet m.m. Denne delen er bedre, men fremstår veldig 'leksikonsk', så man får ikke noe spesielt inspirerende ordlegging, som jo heller ikke er målet.
Jeg har ikke lest hele boken, men jeg tillater meg likevel å anmelde den til 3 stjerner. Jeg tror at opplevelsen ville vært mye bedre med en fysisk bok, så den sanne kvaliteten på boken for meg er kanskje 4 stjerner, men jeg fikk ikke den opplevelsen nå.

[Dillon Reinkensmeyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anachronism would be one of the main things I would have to say about this. While there are a lot of good things about this book (church fathers overview, maps, heresy dictionary). There are several things which are poor. Namely the way that verses are cherry picked in order to represent a view (this could also be done to support an entirely different position). For the main Catholic specific dogmas, the author rarely cites early works but rather third century works. Reading back present day definitions into the text (purgatory, pope, etc). The author it seems is more apt to defend the Catholic Church rather than Christ. Unsurprising as the church is the mediator of grace in the catholic viewpoint. This book is dangerous to read without proper inoculation from the source texts, otherwise you could fall head over heels into what is being stated here

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short reading of selections of the church fathers, extremely catholic, and undoubtedly apologetic. Interesting reading, I found a lot of new books of the first Christians communities that I didn’t know that exist, for example the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas.

It’s not easy to judge this book, clearly have the old style of the first fathers of the church that doesn’t give a f*ck and if you were wrong they go for the yugular without compassion.

I think it’s a worth reading and give you good glimpses of the beginnings, but there is a lot of forgotten Christians that maybe needs to be remember.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fathers Know Best is an amazing book about Catholic faith. It doesn't have to be read cover to cover. Some quotes from Church fathers were a bit repetative.

It gives you a brief history of Church fathers, talks about heresies and touches subjects like Trinity, Divinity of Christ, Creation, Apostolic tradition, Pope, mortal sins, topics that are very popular today (such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality and astrology), the sacraments, women priests, Mary and intercession of the Saints, Hell and Purgatory, The Antichrist and many more. It's a well researches book and I loved reading this book and learning more about Catholicism.

[Paul Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In short, the strength of this book is not that it presents a strong series of arguments of why the Church Fathers had orthodox Catholic beliefs, but that it simply allows hundreds of primary sources from the Fathers to speak for themselves. It was an instrumental book in my own conversion, and I recently gifted it to someone I am sponsoring in RCIA.

I can't recommend this book more, especially as a quick-use reference for various topics in theology.

[Siobhain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read other books with the writings of the Church Fathers, I thought that I would love reading this. However, I had to push myself to read it like I would a school assignment. To me this book works better as a reference book, and I am glad I have it for that purpose. I just haven't needed to use it yet, so it hasn't been tested by me in that way.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book to the writings of the early Church. Each section of topics covered (like the Trinity, Mary, ever Virgin, etc) has a short and good introduction into the subject.

This is certainly a book to have at hand in the shelf as a fast and good reference to the early Christian faith and teachings. Very much recommended.

[Timothy Kalange · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great for accurate, simple information about heresies. A reference, but could be used well in a faith sharing book reading kind of small group.

If you’re new to the faith or just trying to learn more, it’s a great book, but not suitable for college or graduate-level study.

Akin is great at making complicated information more accessible.

[Thatcher Milton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhh. I think the only thing this book does is pose the question to someone discerning denominations. Would not recommend this in favor of the Catholic Faith. Quotes from the handful Church Fathers on topics don’t really get you far. Someone could do the same thing with on the topic of Icon Veneration and it wouldn’t go in favor for the Catholic Faith. Wasn’t a fan

[Rachel K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource to have. I actually do recommend reading it cover to cover first, unless you already think you have a good foundation of all of topics in our faith. I found it to be super helpful in strengthening mine, and then having the book as a resource to see what the Church Fathers have to say on those topics, will be invaluable.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really more of a reference book, and I didn’t read every part. But it’s perfect in what it attempts: a compilation of Church Fathers’ writings organized by topic with an explanation, in addition to an introduction of the Fathers themselves and how we regard them.

[Riley Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful reference book to what the early Church Fathers taught and practiced. Many of their beliefs are still prevalent in the Catholic Church today. I highly recommend this book to all apologists and those who want to know more about the early Church!

[Ruben Damian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good in site on the true Church.

To understand the beings of the Catholic Church. I now recommend this book to all brothers and sisters of the true faith. To those who have any doubt.