FAT BOY 



3095 



FATHERS OF THE CHURCH 



Fat Boy, THE. Character in 

 Dickens's Pickwick Papers. Page- 

 boy to Mr. Wardle, Joe is enor- 

 mously fat and given to somno- 

 lence in the intervals between 

 meals. On his own confession he 

 delights in making people's flesh 

 creep by making himself the vehicle 

 for unpleasant news. 



Fatehganj. A village of the 

 United Provinces, India. In the 

 district of Bareilly, it is 23 m. S.E. 

 of Bareilly, and was founded to 

 commemorate the British victory 

 over the Rohillas in 1774. A few 

 miles N.W. in the same district 

 there is another village of this 

 name, where the Rohillas were 

 defeated by the British in 1796. 

 Pop. 2,569, two-thirds Hindus. 



Fatehgarh. Town of the United 

 Provinces, India. The headquar- 

 ters of Farrukhabad district, it 

 forms with Farrukhabad city, 3 m. 

 to the W., a single municipality. 

 The fort near the Ganges was built 

 in 1714 by Nawab Mahommed 

 Khan. A monument commemo- 

 rates the European residents who 

 lost their lives in the Mutiny. See 

 Farrukhabad. 



Fatehpur . Dist. and town of the 

 United Provinces, India, in the Alla- 

 habad division. The* area of the dis- 

 trict, which lies between the Ganges 

 and the Jumna, is 1,642 sq. m. 

 Slightly more than half the district 

 is under cultivation, the chief crops 

 being gram, barley, wheat, rice, and 

 cotton. Fatehpur town is on 

 the E. Indian Railway. Pop. dist., 

 676,939, 90 p.c. Hindus ; town, 

 16,939, almost equally Hindus and 

 Mahomedans. 



A second town of the same 

 name, which is situated in the 

 Bara Banki district of the United 

 Provinces, is noted for its old 

 buildings, some of which tradition 

 assigns to the 14th or 15th century. 

 Pop. 6,801, three-fifths Mahome- 

 dans, two -fifths Hindus. A third 

 town belongs to the Sikar chiefship 

 in Jaipur state, Rajputana. It 

 is 146 m. N.W. of Jaipur. Pop. 

 17,294, two-thirds Hindus, 30 p.c. 

 Mahomedans. 



Fatehpur Sikri. Town of the 

 United Provinces, India. It is 

 23 m. W. of Agra city, and was 

 founded in 1569 by the Mogul em- 

 peror, Akbar, to whom the saint 

 Salim Chishti foretold the birth 

 of a son. A wall nearly 5 m. long 

 runs along three sides of Akbar' s 

 town. The modern town lies 

 near the western end. Prominent 

 among the buildings are the mosque 

 with Salim Chishti's mausoleum in 

 the quadrangle, the palace named 

 after Akbar' s Rajput wife, and his 

 own palace and audience halls. 

 Pop. 6,132, three-fifths Hindus, 

 the rest Mahomedans. 



Fates. In classical mythology, 

 goddesses who presided over the 

 destinies of men. By the Greeks 

 they were called Moirai, by the 

 Romans Parcae. They were three 

 in number, and were daughters 

 of Zeus and Themis, or daughters 

 of Night and Erebus. Clotho, the 

 youngest of the three sisters, held 

 the distaff which spun the thread 

 of life ; Lachesis mixed good and 

 evil fortune with it ; Atropos cut 

 the thread at the allotted moment. 

 They were very powerful goddesses, 

 with whose decrees even Zeus him- 

 self was unwilling to interfere. In 

 art the Fates are generally repre- 

 sented as aged women, but some- 

 times as maidens of grave mien : 

 Clotho with a distaff or book of 

 fate ; Lachesis pointing with a staff 

 to a globe ; Atropos with a pair of 

 scissors or a pair of scales. 



Father. Word common to most 

 Indo-European languages, the 

 forms of which differ slightly in 

 accordance with phonetic laws. 

 Originally denoting a male parent, 

 then by extension a remoter rela- 

 tionship such as ancestor or fore- 

 father, it came to be applied to the 

 inventor or first person prominent 

 in any art or pursuit. Thus, the 

 Greek historian Herodotus is popu- 

 larly called the father of history. 

 Father is also a term of respect, as 

 conscript fathers for the senators of 

 ancient Rome ; father of his coun- 

 try for Cicero, Augustus, and other 

 emperors ; father Thames and 

 father Tiber. Special applications 

 are the Pilgrim fathers, the first 

 settlers in North America ; father 

 of the House, the member of the 

 House of Commons who has sat in 

 it longest without a break. In 

 theology, Father is used for the 

 Supreme Being, the First Person of 

 the Trinity ; for a priest of the 

 Roman Catholic Church; and for 

 the earliest Christian writers. In 

 Rome the father of the family had 

 very wide powers over his chil- 

 dren and household. See, Family ; 

 Patria Potestas. 



Fatherhood. Theological term 

 for one aspect of the relationship 

 of God to the universe generally, 

 and to man particularly. In most 

 ancient religious systems the idea 

 of paternity, usually associated 

 with that of maternity, is connected 

 with the Deity or the chief of the 

 deities worshipped. The deity is 

 married, and is a father, but the 

 goddess never ranks on an equality 

 with him. In monotheistic systems 

 the two ideas of paternity and 

 maternity are combined in one 

 God who is the cause and pro- 

 genitor of all existence. 



In Christian theology the term 

 father is applied to the First Person 

 of the Trinity, both as expressing 



a special relationship to the Son 

 and an attitude as Creator, sus- 

 tainer and chief benefactor of the 

 human race. This aspect of God 

 as the Father of His people was 

 only gradually unfolded in the 

 Hebrew Scriptures, and it was not 

 until post -exilic days that the 

 idea of a warrior king appears to 

 have been superseded by that of 

 a loving and merciful Father. The 

 teaching of Christ developed the 

 doctrine to a degree unknown 

 before. He claimed to be in a 

 special sense the Son of God, 

 and in Him all Christians are 

 the children of God by adoption 

 and regeneration. This feature 

 of Christ's teaching was unique, 

 and is the key to the whole 

 Christian system. It is because 

 God is our Father that His love 

 prevails over His wrath at man's 

 disobedience, and He sends forth 

 His only begotten Son to be an 

 atonement and to make possible 

 the repentance of the sinner and 

 the pardon of his sin. See Trinity. 



Father Lasher. Marine species 

 of bullhead. Common around 

 the British coasts, it has a large 

 flattened head, and the spines can 

 inflict an unpleasant wound if the 

 fish is carelessly handled. The 

 male acts as guardian of the spawn. 

 See Bullhead. 



Father of the Chapel. Name 

 given to one who presides over the 

 meetings of employees in a printing 

 or newspaper office. See Chapel. 



Fathers of the Church. Term 

 specially applied to early Christian 

 writers pre- eminent for learning and 

 sanctity, whose works are regarded 

 as having authority next after that 

 of the Bible. The name seems to 

 have been generally accepted by the 

 4th century. It has, however, always 

 been used rather loosely. Even 

 writers like Origen, whose ortho- 

 doxy was open to dispute, have 

 been included among those who are 

 known as fathers of the church. 



The prominent writers of the 1st 

 century were known as the apos- 

 tolic fathers from their personal 

 association with the apostles,whose 

 teachings they are held to reflect. 

 The list of the church fathers has 

 been held to include writers down 

 to the 12th century ; but in com- 

 mon practice it is restricted to 

 those antecedent to S. Gregory the 

 Great (A.B. 604) in the Western 

 Church and to John of Damascus 

 (A.D. 756) in the Eastern. Some 

 authorities, however, regard S. 

 Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) as 

 the last of the fathers. 



The chief church fathers are usu- 

 ally divided as follows : Doctors of 

 the church Athanasius, Basil the 

 Great, Gregory Nazianzus, Chrysos- 

 tom, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, 



