"If you are confronting someone who has accused St. John Chrysostomos of anti-Semitism, enlightening such a person may be a difficult thing. You will face endless citations from his writings that most simply refuse to put in context. Moreover, there are people who simply refuse to relinquish the idea that anti-Semitism links Christianity, the Reformation, and The Third Reich. This comfortable view of history helps them to avoid that complexity that characterizes the true course of human experience. It also allows them to attribute to the Fathers of the Church a meanness of spirit by which they can separate themselves from the Patristic witness and thus the compelling force of Orthodox Christianity."
Just a couple interesting quotes that I picked up.
Excellent article. Historical and cultural context is unavoidable when judging the past. Nothing short of the equivalent of "being there" will provide an accurate sense of why and what transpried. Judging the past with "the cognitive dimensions of modernity" is a sure way to misunderstand or misuse history. And one cannot overemphasize the importance of knowhing the original language used.
In fact, the body of information required for an accurate picture (and I mean that literally and fuiguratively) is so vast and overwhelming that it can be achieved—to a satisfactiry proximity7#151;only with super computers, crunching information bits no human being alone could process of acquire in his lifetime. We can only aporach a vague idea at best on our own.