www.alphadictionary.com

I stumbled upon this word recently and recognized that it belonged to the family of related words generated by the Latin word "pater": paternal, paternity, patrimony. I also noticed that our good Doctor Goodword has not yet explored this rich terrain.

Perhaps this one is a bit limited in its meaning? It's strictly Christian church related, is it not?

In Christian studies, patristics refers to the Church Fathers, which includes the post-Biblical writers, such as Origin, Clement, and others from the first and second century. Their importance cames from the overlap with the Biblical age and their proximity to doctrinal formulation. There were initially several versions of Christianity, such as gnosticism, as the new faith related to Greco-Roman and other cultures. The Fathers helped steer that doctrine ad well as contributing to the formulationoff the NT canon.

No reason the word would have to be that limited, however. I would think we could say The Federalist Papers take us into the patristic world of the founders of our nation.