A note on how to read patristics

When reading ancient texts from writers who are likely not to share our fundamental assumptions, it is easy to miss the fact that an entirely different frame of assumptions may be operating, because our mind is so busy filling in the gaps to make sense of things and supplies the thought structures that are already available to us wherever necessary. Sometimes, however, you'll notice something that doesn't make sense, something that jars you, or something that seems to indicate a fundamental contradiction in the text. Focus on such discontinuities. These gaps may be the keyhole to the whole work, unlocking a set of different fundamental assumptions. Spend time letting the gaps be, if you see a gap. Do not be hasty to fill it in with some tool from your box, but circle around it and peer into it and allow it to pose questions to you. Reread the work with special attention to the gaps and see if they connect to some other law at work. This is how scientific revolutions occur-- some piece of data doesn't fit in an otherwise watertight system, and it is discovered that the whole system was inadequate and an entirely new worldview is necessary to account for that one inexplicable deviation.

Another fundamental point of patristic research is not to look far afield for influences or solutions to problems when there is source material readily available already within the tradition common to all: the scriptures, etc. For instance, one need not look abroad very far to discover the source of the Valentinian yarns, as alien as they seem. They draw directly upon a Johannine source material, but without the mediation of the OT scriptures and the canon of truth, and thus create a totally different picture. But one need not seek out purely hypothetical influences from mystery religions or philosophies when the material of a given heresy was already available in some form within the Christian tradition.