Often patristic theology has been caricatured as some form of lapse from the higher standard of the biblical age that preceded it. The thought of the Fathers is supposed, by some, to represent dogmatizing at its worst: wrangles of venal bishops, summons to the secular arm to enforce orthodoxy when reasonable debate has failed and cartloads of obscure philosophy and semantics muddying the clear streams of the Scriptures. This is, perhaps, a widespread sentiment, though few, when asked,