Evandro’s Reviews > Beginning to Read the Fathers > Status Update

Dictionary definition of apothegm: short, pithy, instructive saying; terse remark or aphorism. Although in the case of a Christian elder it is much more than that.

"With her thoughts preoccupied with looking down on other people, she was bereft of the guardian of temperance." (Palladius)

According to the author: "The Orthodox in particular find Augustine's distinction between the holiness of the minister and the holiness of the sacrament considerably less than satisfying." Well, I don't think this is true. The Orthodox constantly pray for the Lord to have mercy upon the members of the clergy - a habit not so easily found among Roman Catholics.

"The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members, and Christians love those that hate them. The soul is locked up in the body, but it is the very things that holds the body together, and Christians are shut up in the world as in a prison, but they are the very ones that hold the world together." (Epistle to Diognetus)

It's getting better. The exposition of the Fathers' thought is very clear and coherent. The introduction wasn't very promising, but despite the author's emphasis on the divergences among the Fathers, it seems that these are ignored when the exposition of their thought starts.