The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

"In the present collection, I have adduced the Fathers, not as original
authorities, but as witnesses to the meaning of Holy Scripture. I have
alleged them on the, old, although now, on both sides, neglected rule, that
what was taught 'everywhere, at all times, by all,' must have been taught to
the whole Church by the inspired Apostles themselves. The Apostles
planted; they watered; they appointed others to take their ministry, to teach
as they had themselves taught from God. A universal suppression of the
truths which the Apostles taught aid the unmarked substitution of
falsehood, is a theory which contradicts human reason, no less than it does
our Lord's promise to His Church. There is no room here for any alleged
corruption. The earliest Fathers, St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus,
St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian; or St. Hippolytus, state the doctrine
of the Real Presence as distinctly as any later Father.
"And now, reader, if you have got thus far, review for a moment from
what variety of minds, as of countries, this evidence is collected. Minds the
most simple and the most philosophical; the female martyrs of Persia, or
what are known as the philosophic Fathers; minds wholly practical, as
Tertullian or St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, St. Pacian, or St. Julius; or those
boldly imaginative, as Origen; or poetic minds, as St. Ephrem, or St. Isaac,
or St. Paulinus; Fathers who most use a figurative and typical interpretation
of the Old Testament, as St. Ambrose, or such as, like St. Chrysostom,
from their practical character, and the exigencies of the churches in which
they preached, confined themselves the most scrupulously to the letter;
mystical writers, as St. Macarius; or ascetics, as Mark, the Hermit, or
Apollos, or the Abbot Esaias; writers in other respects opposed to each
other; the friends of Origen, as St. Didymus, or his opponents, as
Theophilus of Alexandria and St. Epiphanius; or again, St. Cyril of
Alexandria or Theodoret; heretics or defenders of the faith, as Eusebius
and Theodorus, Hereacleotes, Arius, or St. Athanasius; Apollinarius or St.
Chrysostom, who wrote against him, Nestorius or St. Cyril of Alexandria-all
agree in one consentient exposition of our Lord's words, 'This is My
body, this is My blood.'