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.

John was born at Antioch towards the middle of the fourth century. His father was a military commander; his mother, left a widow at the age of twenty, was a devout Christian who gave all her attention to her son. John showed exceptional intelligence and studied to be a lawyer under the great teacher Libanius, who when dying named as his successor, ‘John, if the Christians had not stolen him from us’. John's eloquence was extraordinary; but he gradually turned from his first goal towards a life of renunciation. He could not bring himself to take a fee for arguing a false case. He was baptised and then ordained as a reader. His desire to become a monk was resisted by his mother, who pleaded that he should not make her a widow a second time. So he stayed at home; but he lived an ascetic life. He ate little, slept on bare ground, prayed, and lived in almost unbroken silence. Later, he went into the mountains south of Antioch, where he followed the guidance of an old Syrian monk. Finally he lived in isolation in a mountain cave where he slept and ate so little, that at the end of two years his health was broken and he had to return home to Antioch. These years left their mark on his body and mind. Back at Antioch he was ordained as deacon in 381, and as priest five years later.

An examination of early Christian ethics may begin with a brief appreciation of those contemporary factors which make this enterprise appropriate now. The study of ethics has, in the last thirty years, moved towards a wider recognition of the complexity and diversity of ethical problems. If moral philosophy is a practical science concerned with questions of the form ‘What shall I do?’ then, one writer insists, ‘no general answer can be given to this type of question. The most a moral philosopher can do is to paint a picture of various types of life in the manner of Plato and ask which type of life you really want to lead.’ Another sees the function of moral philosophy as ‘that of helping us to think better about moral questions by exposing the logical structure of the language in which this thought is expressed’. For him moral judgements are prescriptive, can be universalised, are descriptive and may be logically interrelated. Reason, good reason for acting in one way rather than in another, provides another way of looking at ethical inquiry or moral judgements. The crucial thing is that we should have moral points of reference which we have deliberately adopted. ‘To become morally adult is… to learn to use “ought” -sentences in the realisation that they can only be verified by reference to a standard or set of principles which we have by our own decision accepted and made our own.’

At the end of ‘Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy’, the editor, I. T. Ramsey, stressed the urgent need for ‘such a thorough biblical and patristic study, including a study of Christian moral theology down the ages, as enables us both to formulate the most reliable Christian principles and the moral obligations they express, relating this understanding to some key-phrase in terms of which the full Christian commitment is given’. This book springs from a sense of the same need. It begins with an account of the function of ethical patterns. After the historical background and New Testament beginnings, the ethics of Clement of Alexandria, Basil, John Chrysostom and Augustine are examined. The four patterns of righteousness, discipleship, faith and love are seen in the distinctive thought of each writer. Exposition is tied to text because ethical terms are either ambiguous or meaningless when lifted out of context. Two necessary features of any Christian ethic emerge–a respect for the contingent and a challenge to perfection.

The obstacles to a work of this scope are considerable; there is too much material. The New Testament possesses an ethical complexity which has been carefully explored. Clement's writings are oriented to ethics and intricate in content. Basil poses questions to which there are no answers. Suidas said that it was for God, not man, to know all that John Chrysostom had written; Isidore of Seville confidently asserted that anyone who claimed to have read all of Augustine was a liar.

There are four questions which may be considered in the light of what has been learned. Each pattern has at least one problem. The account of righteousness raises the question of natural law, discipleship raises the problem of imitation and the Jesus of history, faith raises the question of how much non-Christian ethics can exist in a Christian ethic and love raises the problem of situation ethics. These issues have all been discussed during the last twenty years. Happily the study of patristic ethics illuminates each of these questions.

NATURAL LAW

Natural law, with its ambiguities, dug itself into Christianity during the patristic period. During its long history the term has come to mean three main things–a universal system of laws, a rational foundation of ethics, and a theory of natural rights. The first two themes play some part in early Christian thought but are far removed from their development in later centuries. The Apologists appealed to a law which was sovereign over all men and to right reason as the guide to conduct; but they did not make the wide claims of Justinian or Aquinas under these headings. Nature was subordinate to the central notion of Logos. The key move is made by Justin, whose scheme is dominated by the Christ who is both Nomos and Logos. Standing in continuity with Matthew's gospel, he speaks of the culmination of all divine law in Christ.

Augustine was born in 354 at Thagaste in North Africa. His pagan father was Patricius and his Christian mother was Monica. Through the generosity of a rich man of his town, he was able to go to Carthage in 370 to study. It was there in 371 he took a mistress and in 372 his son was born. He found Carthage attractive in all kinds of ways. Here he could study, here he could enjoy himself. Here at the age of eighteen the first great point in his intellectual life was reached. While reading a dialogue of Cicero he was inspired with a love of truth. He writes, ‘Every vain hope at once became worthless to me and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise that I might return to thee.’ The journey of the prodigal to the father's house was to take many years yet; but the intellectual fire never left Augustine and it was his mind as much as his heart that brought him home to God. He found the Bible barbaric and incomprehensible after the literature of the schools. He joined the Manichees because they were always talking about truth and their dualism made some sense of the problem of evil; but he never went far in their religion and remained an ‘auditor’ for nine years. He returned home in 373 and became a teacher in Thagaste. The following year he returned to Carthage where he remained until 383, when he left for Rome with hopes of high appointment and more agreeable students.

Even if we like diversity, the task of sketching New Testament ethics at first seems formidable. As well as variety of expression there is variety of setting. Every part of the New Testament must be understood against its historical background and the framework of the book in which it is found. We cannot take statements of Matthew and blend them with verses of the Apocalypse. One work is written in the face of the challenge of Judaism redivivus and the other in the face of Nero redivivus. There is a difference of style but that is the smallest thing. The same could be said about the differences between the three Synoptics, Matthew's new law, Mark's mysterious son of man and Luke's world church, even before we move on to the Fourth Gospel with its lord of glory and its community under the word. However, ethical patterns can guide us through this diversity. ‘What then does the New Testament effectively provide, in ethics as in doctrine? It yields certain perspectives, patterns and priorities and it forms the Christian mind which then turns to the examination of contemporary issues.’ The four main patterns are righteousness (or justice), discipleship, faith and love. We glimpse their New Testament outlines before considering their later development.

RIGHTEOUSNESS

Righteousness dominates two parts of the New Testament–the Epistle to the Romans and the Gospel according to Matthew.

Clement had already wandered far, when he came to Alexandria, looking for knowledge. He found the teacher he wanted in Pantaenus, a converted Stoic. After nearly thirty years in Alexandria, he left during the persecution of 202; this is probably the reason why his successor, Origen, who had strong ideas on martyrdom, never mentions him. We hear of him again in two letters written in 212 and 215. The first letter confirms his survival until 212. The second letter establishes his death prior to 215 for it speaks of him as one of ‘those blessed fathers who have gone before us’. His three main writings Protrepticus (Exhortation), Paedagogus (Instructor) and Stromateis (Miscellanies) form a progressive account of Christian knowledge. The Exhortation calls men to faith and salvation. The Instructor guides the believer to a Christian life. The Miscellanies present ‘gnostic notes concerning the true philosophy’, and have been the subject of much controversy. It seems likely that they represent the highest stage of Christian knowledge for their disordered contents are rich in thought and insight. They show the Christian philosopher or teacher as the ideal which determines Clement's own approach to life and morals. Clement discredits the gnostic heresy by putting forward a true form of gnosis.

Christianity did not come to terms with classical thought gradually. As with Judaism the decisive steps were taken quickly. During the second century the problems of converted intellectuals, of pagan ridicule and philosophic attack combined to make Christians insecure.

Basil was born in Caesarea of Cappadocia about 330 of rich but honest parents. His father was a teacher of rhetoric, a lawyer and a wealthy land-owner. One of his grandfathers had died a martyr. The piety and devotion of Basil's mother was reflected in her children, three of whom became bishops, one a nun and another a monk. Three of these children were canonised. After careful training at home, he studied rhetoric and philosophy in Caesarea and Constantinople. In 351 he went to Athens where for five years he took advantage of its rich intellectual life. He returned to Caesarea as a professor of rhetoric for two years, and then turned from the bright prospects of his academic future, was baptised and entered a life of religious discipline. After visiting Egypt and Syria to observe the monks, he selected a quiet country retreat, and gathered a few others who wished to live a hermit's life. He wrote in moving terms of the rich beauty of his surroundings and of its silence. Seeing the dangers of solitary life, he organised monks into a community. He gave to his community a set of rules and a detailed pattern of life. Far more than Pachomius had done in Egypt, he put emphasis on the common life which members shared. Together with his learning, sanctity and perception, he had great powers of organisation. Monasticism in the East has retained the shape which he gave it.

The third volume of my History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1969) was divided into two parts, entitled respectively ‘The World of the Sophists’ and ‘Socrates’. By issuing the two parts separately in paperback form, the Press hopes to make them more easily and cheaply available to students. This book reproduces the second part, with the minimum of alterations necessary to allow it to appear as a separate publication. Mentions of‘vol. I’ or ‘vol. II’ in the text refer to the earlier volumes of this work.

Books have most frequently been referred to in the text and notes by short titles, and articles by periodical and date only. Full particulars of books, and titles and page-references for articles, will be found in the bibliography. The fragments of the Sophists, and other texts relating to them, are included in the Fragmente der Vorsokratiker of Diels and Kranz (abbreviated DK). The texts in an ‘A’ section of DK (Testimonia) have their number preceded by this letter, and those in a ‘B’ section, purporting to be actual quotations from the philosopher in question, are designated ‘fr.’ (fragment).

Translations, from both ancient and modern authors, are my own unless otherwise stated.