This book is the fruit of a long-standing dream. Some thirty years ago, when I had completed the first edition of From Nicaea to Chalcedon, I felt tooled up to produce what I then conceived as a Theology of the Fathers, somewhat on the model of theologies of the New Testament. But that idea stimulated the question as to what exactly such a thing might be. Did it mean an exercise in strictly historical reconstruction? Or would it be a hermeneutical exercise in retrieval or appropriation, or some kind of dialogue between theology then and now? One thing I was clear about – that I wanted to explore theological argument in a historically responsible way, rather than pursue the so-called development of doctrine. Circumstances over the years meant that this project was left for the so-called leisure of retirement, though meanwhile attempts were made to scope what might be involved, and ideas were tried out in various papers, lectures and talks along the way, excerpts being incorporated into the text of this book. Now, in the aftermath of the second edition of From Nicaea to Chalcedon, this dream was realized in the Bampton Lectures for 2011. Each chapter in the book corresponds to one lecture, but here considerably more material is presented than could be delivered on any occasion.

I am grateful to the Bampton Electors for providing the opportunity, and for their encouragement and hospitality. I acknowledge with thanks invitations to deliver series of lectures at King's College, London and New College, Edinburgh, in which ideas were developed and tested out; neither the F. D. Maurice Lectures nor the Croall Lectures have been published, but both were significant steps towards what is now here. The enterprise of dialogue with the fathers was anticipated at a more popular level in the Sarum Theological Lectures, published as Brokenness and Blessing: Towards a Biblical Spirituality, though that work focussed on key themes rather than doctrines.