The Last Four Great Fathers of the Catholic Church: Epilogue

With the labor of the late Fathers of the Church, Europe witnessed her miraculous recovery from chaos in the wake of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the weakening of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the invasion of Saracens. With the conversion of Heretics, Schismatics, Apostates, and Pagans beginning in the 5th century, many potential civil wars were prevented.

The conversion of the former enemies of the Church created the urgent needs of the Church to not only defend true doctrines but also educate the tribes and peoples of Europe. Among the late Fathers, four of them deserved the highest applaud:

(1) Isidore of Seville, Spain (Isidorus Hispalensis / Ισίδωρος Σεβίλλης) (560-636);
(2) John of Damascus, Syria (Ioannes Damascenus / Ιωάννης Δαμασκηνός) (676-749);
(3) Bede of Northumbria, England (Bedas Northanthyboriae / Βέδας Νορθουμβρίας) (672-735); (4) Hraban of Mainz, Germany (Rabanus Magnentius / Ράμπανους Μαγκεντίος) (780-856).

The establishment of new kingdoms and empires provided the Church better opportunities to exert Her influence, since the Church gained a chance to preach the Word of God since the beginning of these new political entities, as opposed to preaching in the Roman Empire, which had already been established for centuries. The humanist efforts of the Church in different parts of Europe earned true respect of people on Catholicism, and as Pope Leo III gracefully coronated Charlemagne as the Most Serene Augustus and Emperor of the Romans, the influence of the Church reached its peak since her Foundation.

Saint Isidore, while not the first Catholic dignitary to compose an encyclopedia, was the one to establish the encyclopedia tradition in not only the Church but also in Europe, influencing both polymathic figures and encyclopedia compilers in the High Middle Ages with his <<Etymologiae>>. Coupled with his intense piety, the Spanish Prelate became the model for an ideal Bishop in the Iberian lands.

Saint John, on the other hand, despite the polymathic characteristic common to his age among Christian authors, wrote relatively little regarding profane arts and sciences and only incorporated his knowledge when needed in his Philosophical and Theological works, leaving no dedicated secular works. His <<De Fide Orthodoxa>> directly inspired <<Libri Sententiarum>> of Peter Lombard when teaching in the great University of Paris, which was, in turn, studied and commented on by virtually every Medieval Scholastic Philosopher and Theologian. Equally importantly, his Mariological doctrines, together with the doctrines of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) and Saint Cyril of Alexandria (376-444), formed the basis of Catholic Mariology to be developed by Aquinas and Scotus, defended by Canisius, and formalized by Suarez, in a same way the doctrines of Saint Athanasius (296-373) formed the basis of Catholic Christology.

Saint Bede and Saint Hraban had a much closer relationship due to their shared Benedictine lineage and the immense influence of the former on the latter. The influence through encyclopedia was not the first or most important connection, however. Bede, in fact, was the first Bible scholar to write so extensively on Bible by systematizing the writings of previous Fathers of the Church and synthesizing the two major schools of exegesis. The method of compiling and analyzing the interpretations of previous Fathers was

adopted by Hraban and would later formally become known as the Catenist tradition, or the practice of compiling Biblical Catena, inspiring great works like <<Glossa Ordinaria>> and <<Catena Aurea>>.

In general, although Saint Isidore and Saint John were regarded by a great many as the First Scholastics, and Saint Bede and Saint Hraban were regarded as the greatest Biblical scholars throughout the Middle Ages, they were generally not known for their original teachings, for most of their works, with the rare exceptions of a few points and paragraphs, were of a compilation nature, a character common to writers of the Late Patristic Age. These compilations would later come into fruition through Medieval Scholastic Philosophers and Theologians, many of the most influential of whom were Dominicans and Franciscans, including Thomas Aquinas (Doctor Angelicus Et Communis), Duns Scotus (Doctor Marianus Ac Subtilis), Albertus Magnus (Doctor Universalis), and Bonaventura Balneoregiensis (Doctor Seraphicus), and their Renaissance and Baroque successors, including Francisco Suarez (Doctor Eximius Ac Pius) and Gabriel Vasquez (Doctor Acutus), and modern Exegetes, mostly Jesuits, including Alphonsus Salmeron, Ioannes Maldonatus, Hieronymus Prado, Sebastianus Barradius, Benedictus Pereira, Franciscus Ribera, Immanuel Sa, Ioannes Pineda, Nicolaus Serarius, and Cornelius Lapidus, the last of whom being the most famous. Thus, these late Fathers of the Church of the Late Patristic Age were best-renown as great educators.

With the Catholic Church becoming more central and powerful in European societies in the High Middle Ages, styles and features of arts and sciences began to gradually shift, exemplified by the popularization of Gothic architectures, reflecting a less secular and humanist and more religious and mystical social life, and the dissemination of the Aristotelian theory of matters and forms, emphasizing a less experimental and more abstract focus in a Scholastic context.