Invitation to Patrology

The work offers a brief introduction to some of the Church Fathers, accompanying it with an anthology of selected texts. Each chapter reproduces the teaching module of a lecture. The choice of texts has been made according to an exegetical perspective, attempting to emphasize essentially the biblical aspects of the patristic texts that, while representing a natural continuation of Scripture and often contemporary with it, did not enter the canon as uninspired. It is, therefore, a thematic choice, which is one of several ways of presenting this subject. As indicated in the title, this work is intended to be a start that encourages the student to delve deeper into the reading of patristic texts. Jerónimo Leal is professor of Patrology at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce, has obtained his doctorate at the Patristic Institute "Augustinianum" in Rome, where he usually carries out teaching activities. Among his publications we remember: The anthropology of Tertullian. A study of the polemical treatises of 207-212 A.D. ("Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum" 76, Rome 2001); Tertullian, To the pagans. El testimonio del alma (Introduction translation and notes by Jerónimo Leal, Ciudad Nueva, Biblioteca de Patrística, Madrid 2004); Actas latinas de mártires africanos (Ciudad Nueva, Fuentes Patrísticas, Madrid 2009); Credibile... quia ineptum: Tertuliano y el problema de la interpretación (Quaderni di Storia della Chiesa n. 2, Roma 2012).