The Influence of Patristic Writings On John Wesley' s View of Scripture
Dr. Mark Weeter
During his stay at Oxford, Wesley earned the nickname "Mr. Primitive Christianity" (Baker,
1970, 34). That Wesley's views on a variety of topics were greatly influenced by his study of the
Church Fathers is undeniable. Dr. Ted Campbell in his book John Wesley and Christian Antiquity
(1991), traces possible influences of Patristic writers upon Wesley over a wide range of issues
concerning both doctrine and polity. For example, he discusses how Wesley used the Church Fathers
in discussing the centrality of Christian experience (58-61), the human condition (62), divine
initiative and human response (62-65), sin and repentance in believers (64), and holiness and
perfection (65-66). In chapter 5 Campbell discusses how Wesley was influenced in more practical
areas such as, the new persecution of his followers (83), miraculous signs (83-85), Christian
societies (86-87), the order of the ministry and the power of ordination (89-93), baptism (95), the
eucharist (96), vigils and fasts (98), and the love feast (97). Thus we see, according to Campbell,
there was scarcely any area in theology or practice which was not influenced in some manner by
Wesley's studies of patristics.
Campbell is not alone in pointing out the influence of the Church Fathers on Wesley's
thought. Gordon Rupp in his article "Son of Samuel: John Wesley Church of England Man," quotes
Alexander Knox when he states that Wesley's:
standard of Christian virtue was pure and exalted. He formed, his views in the school of the
Greek Fathers, and in that of their closest modern followers, the Platonic divines of the Church
of England (Rowe, 1976, 52).
In considering a critical doctrine, such as the concept of Christian perfection, Albert Outler
maintains that Wesley's insistence in using the word perfection was an illustration of his
indebtedness to the Greek Fathers. He understood the word in its Greek connotation as a dynamic
concept, and not in the Latin sense of a static stage of grace. Outler goes on to state that in the