Part One     Part Two     Part Three

If the church fathers are not the church fathers, then who are the church fathers?  Can we even know?  If we know, then how do we know who they are?  If the church fathers are not the church fathers, how did that occur, that they became the church fathers?

Two Possible Paths or Trajectories — One True and the Other False

The history of the church takes one of two possible paths or one of two possible trajectories.  One route says the true or right path is a very broad one that travels through Roman Catholicism, then Eastern Orthodoxy, after that the Protestant Reformation, and then it splinters into many different denominations and even cults.  This first possible way has offered or given a state church or state churches, religious wars, allegorical interpretation, inquisitions, popes, mysticism, layers of lies, and the Dark Ages.

The other way, a very different and straight one, moves to and through the cross of Jesus Christ, yes, a trail of blood, the suffering church, a persecuted church.  It travels always separate of and in contrast with a state church.  It is known by different names:  On April 8, 1860, C. H. Spurgeon in a sermon at the New Park Street Chapel in London said these words:

Remember your forefathers, not merely your Christian forefathers, but those who are your progenitors in the faith as Baptists. . . . Think of the snows of the Alps, and call to mind the Waldenses, and the Albigenses, your great forerunners.

He continued:

Your whole pedigree, from the beginning to the end, is stained with blood. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been made to suffer the violence of men.

Identifying the True Church and Its Fathers in History

The Suffering Church

After the completion of the New Testament, the earliest history of true churches traces to the persecution of the Roman Empire.  This divided the true from the false and sped along the false, the above first and broad path.  John T. Christian writes of the separating principles for a pure church in the first paragraph of the third chapter of his The History of Baptists:

Step by step some of the churches turned aside from the old paths and sought out many inventions.  Discipline became lax and persons of influence were permitted to follow a course of life which would not have been tolerated under the old discipline. . . . The dogma of baptismal regeneration was early accepted by many and men sought to have their sins washed away in water rather than in the blood of Christ.  Ministers became ambitious for power and trampled upon the independence of the churches.  The churches conformed to the customs of the world and the pleasures of society.

Earlier in chapter one he wrote:

[I]n every age since Jesus and the apostles there have been companies of believers, churches who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament as now proclaimed by the Baptists.

Versus Pseudo History

He explains why there is little historical evidence for this true line of churches to begin his second chapter:

The period of the ancient churches AD 100-325 is much obscured.  Much of the material has been lost.  Much of it that remains has been interpolated by Mediæval Popish writers and translators and all of it has been involved in much controversy.  Caution must therefore be observed.

John T. Christian explains the first and false line of history.  It was one perpetuated and protected by Roman Catholicism.  The Roman Catholic Church made sure that it kept its own pseudo history as an authority for its own existence.

Perpetuity of True Churches

The basis of belief in the perpetuity of the true church with the true gospel are the promises of God.  He would preserve His churches.   God also promised to preserve His Word and His Words, which He did.  And those are the basis for identifying the true church and for a true evaluation of history.  Jesus promised in Matthew 16:18:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The Lord in His Word also promises that only some will depart from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1), not all.  Not until the total apostasy prophesied by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 will true churches disappear.  Based upon those presuppositions, believers look at history.  In company with the promises of scripture, enough evidence exists in history of the line of those true churches.

Baptists Through History Known by Different Names

Berlin Hisel in his Baptist History Notebook writes:

Baptists have been known by many different names in the past. They have been called by the name of the place in which they lived. They have been called by the name of the powerful leader among them. In was not until the time of the Reformation that they were called “Baptists.” If time stands, we may be called by another name.

John T. Christian writes:

The first protest in the way of separation from the growing corruptions of the times was the movement of the Montanist churches. This Montanus, the leader, was a Phrygian, who arose about the year A.D. 156. The most distinguished advocate of Montanism was Tertullian who espoused and defended their views.

A good online account of the Montanists as an early sample and explanation of Baptists, even against modern enemies, is the one by Berlin Hisel.

The Church Fathers

Then the Novations, the Donatists, the Cathari, the Paulicians, the Petrobrusians, the Waldensians, the Albigenses, and the Anabaptists among others bridge the historical gaps to form the line of a true church separate from a state church.  Much historical evidence exists for a true church since Christ known by different names.  The line of churches led to the Baptist churches.  It is the History of the Baptists.  Those are the church fathers and not the others, who are very often called “the church fathers,” but are not.