Why “patristicism” is a great word
Patristicism is the collective body of theological doctrine, scriptural interpretation, and ethical thought produced by the foundational theologians of the early Christian church. From Late Latin *patristicus* (relating to the Church Fathers, from *pater*, 'father') + *-ism* (forming nouns of action, system, or doctrine), it was first attested in 1864. Unlike 'patristics' (the modern academic study of these early writers) or 'scholasticism' (the later, logic-bound medieval system built upon their work), patristicism is the formative substance itself. It is the scent of candle-wax and papyrus in a desert cell, the echo of a Greek philosophical term bent to a new gospel, and the patient, communal labor of defining orthodoxy against a riot of competing voices—the deep, collective foundation, still felt beneath every subsequent layer of dogma, like the cool, buried stone of a cathedral's earliest floor.