noun
definition
The study of the works of the early Christian Church Fathers.
Examples of patristics in a Sentence
But when Luc d'Achery turned from exegetics to patristics and the lives of the saints, as a sort of Christian humanist, he led the way to that vast work of collection and comparison of texts which developed through Mabillon, Montfaucon, Ruinart, Martene, Bouquet and their associates, into the indispensable implements of modern historians.
In 1493 he went to Paris and thence to Italy, studying canon and civil law, patristics and the rudiments of Greek.
International contacts are also institutionalized in the International Patristics Conference, regularly hosted by Oxford.