Although different in both scope and content, Kevin Clarke and Gail Ramshaw have written two books that overlap in one fundamental dimension: in addition to being valuable to academics interested in historical theology (and, in Clarke’s text, patristics), both have a pastoral aim, as well.

Clarke’s Seven Deadly Sins, for example, begins by establishing a historical and interpretive framework for identifying and understanding the seven deadly, or capital, sins, and how they came to number “seven.” Tracing the discussion of “vice” into pre-Christian philosophy (especially Plato and Aristotle) and Old Testament theology, Clarke emphasizes that the Christian fathers, while influenced by these sources, primarily draw on the New Testament in formulating their positions on the nature of sin and the harm it inflicts on body and soul. Clarke notes that different Church fathers create different lists of sin—and within those lists, different hierarchies of which sin is more foundational—yet he maintains that most of them would agree on the following seven: 1) gluttony, 2) lust, 3) greed, 4) anger, 5) sloth, 6) envy and sadness, and 7) vainglory and pride.

Clarke constellates the sayings of Church fathers, from both the eastern and western traditions, around these sins, dedicating a chapter to each. The result is pithy collection of wisdom from diverse Church voices that still has the power to prick one’s conscience, despite the centuries of distance. On anger, for example, Augustine writes, “Try harder to agree among yourselves than to find fault, for, as vinegar corrodes a vessel if it is left in too long, so anger corrodes the heart if it goes over to the next day” (94). Or on gluttony, from John Chrysostom: “Now, if abstinence is the mother of health, it is plain that eating to repletion is the mother of sickness and ill health, and brings forth diseases defying the skill of physicians themselves” (26).

The text is replete with this kind of wisdom (or common sense that has become so uncommon that it now sounds like wisdom!).Taken together, a distinctive moral pattern emerges that should awaken contemporary minds—minds, Clarke notes, that have been numbed to the existence of sin itself—to the centrality of vice and its corollary, virtue, in the Christian tradition. It becomes clear a) that the Church fathers agree that being a Christian necessarily entails becoming a virtuous person (not just a person who “believes”), and b) that the capital sins are not mere peccadillos, but, as their name suggests, pathways towards actual spiritual and physical death—pathways, moreover, that usually mutually imply each other (for example, the one who is angry is prideful, the glutton is lustful, the slothful is sad, etc.).In an age in which life expectancy has started to decline because of diet and drug use, among other forms of fatal behavior, a firm reminder from the past about the possibility of another path is most welcome.

Ramshaw’s book does not carry the same theological and moral weight as Clarke’s, yet still provides an abundance of material for reflection. It is important to note that the “saints” she draws upon are not all “saints” in the Roman Catholic tradition, but, rather, individuals from the past who Clarke believes can help Christians, and pastors in particular, develop more liturgically-rich sermons and homilies (hence the “Sunday” in the title). Each chapter contains a brief biography on the “saint’s” life, followed by Clarke’s reflection on how that saint aids the Christian in reflecting on an important liturgical theme. Chapters are named, for example, “Assembling on Sunday with Justin [Martyr],” “Assessing Emotion with Julian of Norwich,” “Praising and Thanking with Thomas Cranmer,” etc.

While Ramshaw offers diverse theological materials for Christians to ponder as they seek an ever “truer” understanding and expression of the faith, the book, by Ramshaw’s own admission, leaves the readers with more questions than answers. In this respect, despite the book being more pastoral in tone, the collection of sayings in Clarke’s book ends up being more pastoral in nature: generating good questions, as Ramshaw does, it is certainly a helpful exercise, but all of us would ultimately prefer that we get good answers, too—something the Church fathers frequently provide.