patristic

Patrology vs. patristics

Some scholars, chiefly in Germany, distinguish patrologia from patristica. Josef Fessler, for instance, defines patrologia as the science which provides all that is necessary for the using of the works of the Fathers, dealing, therefore, with their authority, the criteria for judging their genuineness, the difficulties to be met within them, and the rules for their use. But Fessler's own Institutiones Patrologiae has a larger range, as have similar works entitled Patrologies, for example, that of Otto Bardenhewer (tr. Shahan, Freiburg, 1908). Catholic writer Karl Keating argues that patrology is the study of the Early Fathers and their contemporaries as people, and the authenticity of the works attributed to them. Patristics, on the other hand, is the study of their thought.