Quotes from Christopher A. Hall

the church fathers do not provide detailed codes and laws for answering the question of sufficiency and need. Instead, they spend much more time describing the kind of person who can possess and administer goods safely and wisely.

Many conservative Protestant interpreters, though uncomfortable to find themselves slumbering with Enlightenment and postmodernist bedfellows, will fail to discern or acknowledge the necessity of studying the fathers. The deep-seated Protestant suspicion of tradition and its confidence in the ability of renewed reason alone to understand Scripture will lead many to shy away from investing time and energy in exploring patristic thought

Time removes us from all texts and subtexts and so cripples our ability to detect tacit references—which is why, as history marches on, annotated editions of the classics, including the Bible, become longer and longer.

Origen himself warned that in "advanced matters of theology absolute confidence is possible only for two classes of people, saints and idiots.

It is clear that, although beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts . . . and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession. But the more such things happen, the more do other persons and in larger numbers become faithful believers and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus. JUSTIN MARTYR, DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO

To release our anger to God, especially when we have been wronged, is to trust that God remains active in his world and will right all wrongs. Thus, anger therapy, at least from a Christian perspective, is eschatological. God will make all things right. This truth does not release us from the responsibility to seek the justice of Christ's kingdom, but it does diffuse our tendency to take matters into our own hands and to seek revenge when God desires for us to manifest mercy.

Gregory's words remain a sharp and timely rebuke to the continuing temptation to practice theology as though we could separate the exercise of our mind from the development of our character.