In the narrower sense thus indicated the "fathers" of the Church are the great bishops and other eminent Christian teachers of the earlier centuries, who were conspicuous for soundness of judgment and sanctity of life; and whose writings remained as a court of appeal for their successors.
Are all the Christian writers of a given period to be included among the "fathers," or those only who wrote on religious subjects, and of whose orthodoxy there is no doubt ?
Thus, the sons inherited their fathers' hunting-ground, but bore their mothers' name and therewith the right to certain women for wives.
Migne, following the example of the editors of bibliothecae patrum who preceded him, swept into his great collection all the Christian writings which fell within his period; but he is careful to state upon his title-page that his patrologies include the ecclesiastical writers as well as the fathers and doctors of the Church.
They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men.
