CONCLUSION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2009
Summary
So much for the problems–what positive points emerge? Each pattern has grown and developed. An image or picture is creative and can open up new possibilities. A code of law is hard and dead, but a pattern or picture is never still. The wide variety of insight expressed by very different people confirms the openness and creativity of the four patterns which have been examined. With prolific development there remains remarkable constancy. Clement, Basil, John and Augustine belonged to different historical settings, and were strong in personal idiosyncrasies. Yet, beginning from the variety of the New Testament background, we may move to Alexandria, Asia Minor, Constantinople and North Africa, passing in our travels through four centuries. In such a movement we find that Christian morality is seen by these four people as well as by the New Testament largely in terms of righteousness, discipleship, faith, freedom and love. Few things are as insular as moral discourse, and few things change more rapidly. Yet here in the moral life of people called Christians there is surprising continuity. This gives new reason for speaking of Christian morality as an identifiable phenomenon.
The value of the notion of ‘pattern’ has been amply proved. Further investigation is needed to clarify the logic of such patterns. The relation between key ideas and related principles is something like that found between principles of natural law and their original axiom; but there is clearly more to be said of the imaginative or aesthetic element.
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- Ethical Patterns in Early Christian Thought , pp. 214 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1976