Reading the Fathers Today

The call to ‘Return to the Fathers’ produced tremendous fruits over the course of the past century. I would like to take up that call here, but now in the context of the twenty-first century, to ask how, now, do we read the Fathers, for it seems that today this is one of the most important and difficult questions. In one sense, it has never been easier: we have great critical editions, translations and an abundance of secondary studies and instruments. But in another sense, it has never been more difficult or contested: how should one read their texts and why?