He, who made us both one...

Traditionally, the Fathers have been used as an arsenal, from which weapons have been drawn to combat one’s opponent; from the fourth century, they have been used as authorities to defend positions against other positions, held to be in error, as departing from the tradition of the Church. The Ecumenical dimension of modern patristic scholarship abandons such polemical use and suggests a more fruitful way of using the Fathers: as a treasury, wherein we can find the riches of the Church’s tradition, handed down from the Apostles through the Fathers. […] It seems to me that the labors of patristic scholarship have changed the landscape of the Fathers of the Church. We now know them so much better, or at least we have the resources to acquire such knowledge. Some of the ways in which we have opposed the traditional categories of Orthodox and heretical only make superficial sense.