PODCAzT 188 – Voices of the Fathers 03 – Should Christians Go To The Public Games?

I was recently going through some old books and found a slim volume entitled The Osterley Selection from the Latin Fathers, edited by Joseph Crehan of Heythrop College, was compiled chiefly for seminarians, especially late vocations, at Campion College, Osterley, a Jesuit formation house in the Archdiocese of Westminster that closed in 2004. The 1949 preface praises the great classical authors—Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Virgil—yet insists that Christian writing shows a different kind of beauty. Pagans, it says, wrote with studied grace; Christians with passionate conviction. The volume includes selections from Ambrose and Augustine, Tertullian, Vincent of Lérins, Jerome, and others.

Some of you get Patristic readings in the office of readings in the Liturgy of the Hours but do you hear them?  That’s another question.  There are 42 brief readings in the book by authors whom you will more than likely recognize.    I propose to read an English translation, make some comments and read the Latin.

Today we hear from the ancient Latin language wild child Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus of Carthage (c. 160–c. 220) a.k.a. Tertullian.

Tertullian (c. 155–after 220) was one of the earliest and most formidable Christian writers in Latin. Born in Roman Carthage and trained in rhetoric and law, he converted to Christianity as an adult and quickly distinguished himself by his incisive intellect and combative prose. Tertullian was a prolific apologist, theologian, and moralist, addressing persecution, heresy, discipline, and Christian identity within a pagan society. His works shaped the vocabulary of Western theology, especially in articulating Trinitarian and Christological concepts. Fiercely rigorous in moral matters, he later aligned himself with the Montanist movement, which emphasized prophecy and strict asceticism. Despite this controversial turn, Tertullian’s influence on Latin Christianity remains foundational.

Eric Osborn aptly characterizes Tertullian as “the first great Latin theologian, whose thought is driven by argument and controversy rather than by any desire for system”. Doctrine, for Tertullian, is hammered out in conflict with error and compromise.

Since the embedded player could be improved, here’s the link: HERE

The last Voices Of The Fathers about the Martyrdom of St. Cyprian is HERE