Protestants and Catholics both claim that the early Church heritage of theology and broad consensus of the Church fathers leans more towards their own view. Protestants, from the beginning of their existence, claimed to be “reformers” of the Catholic Church; that is, they felt themselves to be hearkening back to the more pure doctrines of the early Church and the Church fathers, rather than overturning historic Catholic doctrine.
I shall contend in this book, by means of massive documentation, that the “historical case” for Catholicism becomes stronger as the accumulation of patristic evidence piles up. Catholics need not fear patristic data any more than they need fear the Bible, as both (with all due respect to our esteemed non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters) firmly support our theology and doctrine.