First Things
- Three concerns
for us today normally
- The content of their thought: what they thought about these issues
- Their theological methods: how they thought about these issues
- Their theological context(s): cultural, political, sociological, psychological...
- Today... the absence of 1 & 2 is an additional concern
- Patristic Theology isn't a thing. The differences are too great for any means of grouping Patristic thought other than by time1
- A huge variety in content / methods / contexts across the board
- Latin v. Greek (West v. East)2
- From Apostles until...
- 325 (Nicaea)?
- 700 (Isaac of Nineveh)?
- No need to settle these questions today, just pointing them out (it's what grad students are expected to do...)
1 This sounds like "no self." Pack it in, let's go Buddhist
2 I acknowledge that herein I completely neglect the anti-Chalcedonian, Copts, etc. In the manner of liberation theology, I acknowledge my own limited concerns and desire to repent of them. Unlike liberation theology, I don't think that repentance has to happen now; for now I've got work to do; spending an hour spelling out my context is really quite uninteresting