Peter of Alexandria (d. 311)

What is a Father of the Church?

The honorific name of Fathers of the Church is given to certain great theologians who did not limit themselves to apologetics alone, but set as their principal aim the theological deepening of the heritage of the faith, on the basis of revelation. Most of them were bishops, hence the name Father, originally reserved for the bishops of the communities. But some were simple priests, like Jerome, or laymen, like Tertullian. Later doctrine, in order to establish belonging to the group of the Fathers of the Church, indicates as fundamental characteristics:

1. orthodoxy in doctrine.
2. holiness of life.
3. approval by the Church.
4. belonging to Christian antiquity.

Thanks to this last characteristic, the Fathers of the Church were distinguished from the doctors (men and women) of the Church, who lived and taught in the Middle Ages and in modern times.

The themes of patristics were inspired, to a large extent, from outside and corresponded to a legitimate need of the time. Very close contact with Hellenistic philosophy and with sapiential doctrine, for example, had favored the danger of no longer considering Christianity as a pure divine revelation, based on Sacred Scripture and on apostolic tradition, but of interpreting it erroneously with syncretistic gnostic speculations.

Moreover, from the earliest times, a gnosis that in its essence was absolutely pagan tried to infiltrate Christianity, abusing the allegorical exegesis of Sacred Scripture in order to validate its intricate reasoning about the creation and redemption of the world, and mixing the genuine heritage of revelation with pagan theories of a strongly dualistic stamp.

Faced with the danger of gnosticism, it was necessary to determine exactly the limits of the Christian faith and the sources of revelation, in order to fix definitively the number of those writings which constituted the norm of faith and morals (=canon), establishing a precise number of the books of the canon of Sacred Scripture. With the aim of clarifying still better the character of divine inspiration precisely for those Scriptures and of reserving the authentic interpretation exclusively to the bishop.

To the arbitrary biblical exegesis of individual heretics there was thus opposed, as the norm and as the only legitimate interpretation, the understanding of Scripture in the spirit of the apostolic tradition (Traditio). The only criterion that could guarantee the pure preservation of the revealed patrimony, transmitted by the apostles, lay in the continuity of the episcopal tradition, which remained uninterrupted through apostolic succession. The Fathers of the Church, therefore, emphasized with extreme firmness that the true Christian gnosis can only be the one that includes faith in the sense of the apostolic tradition. Orthodoxy can only be found in union with the bishops, the legitimate successors of the apostles. Whoever separates himself from the bishop certainly falls into error.

Christian scientific theology was born precisely from the contrast with gnosis and other heretical doctrines. Its themes concerned essentially the person and work of Christ (Christology), the saving work of Christ (soteriology), and His relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit (doctrine on the Trinity). These were, in fact, the main topics that occupied theological meditation in the centuries that followed. And for this reason, when we approach Mariology in the Patristic age, it is related to and complements the truth about Christ, corresponds to the history of salvation, and evokes the different relations of Mary with the persons of the Most Holy Trinity. Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Word, and Temple of the Spirit.

Bishop Peter of Alexandria

After having directed the catechetical school of Alexandria, he was elected bishop of this city around the year 300. He died as a martyr in 311. Only fragments of several works survive, in Greek and in the ancient Eastern versions. A Christmas homily, much later than his own time, was preserved in Arabic under his pseudonym.
The Marian fragment that we report belonged to the work On the Divinity, today lost. This passage was read publicly at the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431, confirming the correct doctrine on the hypostatic union of the two natures in the Word.

On the Divinity

The evangelist also affirms the truth, saying: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. That is, from the moment in which the angel greeted the Virgin thus: “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you”. That expression: “The Lord is with you” here, in the mouth of Gabriel, must be understood in place of: “The God of the Word is with you”. In fact, it indicates the Word who was begotten in the womb and became flesh, as it is written: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the Power of the Most High will cover you with His shadow. Therefore the holy one who is born will be called Son of God”.
God the Word, however, became flesh in the womb of the Virgin without relations with a man, by the will of that God who can do all things. Nor did He need the labor and the presence of a man: in fact, the Power of God that covered the Virgin together with the Holy Spirit who descended upon her acted much more powerfully than the power of a man.

(De deitate, I,1,2,39)

To deepen the study of patristic Mariology, consult the encyclical Redemptoris Mater of John Paul II, which situates Mary at the heart of the theological tradition of the early Church.

Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.