ABSTRACT
In the preface to his 1889 translation of Christoph Ernst Luthardt’s History of Christian Ethics, William Hastie welcomes the ‘methodical cultivation of Christian Ethics’ as one of the achievements of the modern German research university. This chapter assumes that all early Christian writers understand right Christian attitudes, actions, and relationships as rooted in the salvific relationship between God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the faithful. It traces developments relatively before turning to some of the developments in adjacent disciplines which might productively inform future research. The chapter suggests how study of the vast, fascinating, and centrally important aspect of early Christian thought and practice might evolve in the next generation. The relationship between Christian ethics and Hellenistic philosophy has interested scholars since the nineteenth century, and recent studies have compared diverse aspects of Stoic, Platonist and Cynic with Christian ethical thinking.
