I am looking on reading some church fathers and I was wondering who everyone's favorite Church Father was.
I'm not going to answer the question directly but I will give you a piece of advice for reading the fathers: begin with a comparison of St. Paul's epistle to the Philippians and St. Polycarp of Smyrna's epistle to the same church. In particular, notice when and how Polycarp references Paul.
I would advise against jumping straight from Polycarp to Gregory of Nyssa. There was a lot of development in the writings of the Fathers before one gets to Gregory and his material is fairly dense and sometimes controversial. Fr. Tom and I are working on a project to get the postulants reading the fathers. We have decided to choose from each of the first five centuries (to borrow from Lancelot Andrewes' famous approach) and identify a key work for them to read. This is a difficult task with authors as prolific as Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine of Hippo, and John Crysostom. The early centuries are fairly easy: Polycarp and Clement, Justin Martyr, Cyprian of Carthage. Another suggestion: read the Shepherd of Hermas. Not really a work by the fathers in the conventional sense but a very important work in the early period of the church. It is in the Biblical canon of a few of the Orthodox churches. I personally think it belongs in the NT but that is a private opinion. One of these days I'm going to sit down and write a study guide for the Shepherd.
Why do you think it should be in the Canon? Perhaps I will just go to Polycarp and then Clement then.
When I get around to preparing a study on the Shepherd, I am going to write an essay defense as well. Stay tuned.
bwallac2335, you've motivated me. I've got one or more big events scheduled each month through the end of April but starting in May I am going to sit down and work over the Shepherd of Hermas. That will be my big project for the summer.
Glad I could be of some help in some way. I just ordered a book about the apostolic fathers and one by St. Polycarp