Why then apply patristics?

This December the first volume of professor Garth Fowden's works on the first millennium will be published at Princeton University Press under the title “Before and after Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused”.
Garth Fowden is interested in reconsidering the history of early Islam, and although Islam is not the main topic on this blog, Fowden’s idea of watching history anew and with a broader scope than usual is appealing for a patristic scholar like me.
Already in 2010 Fowden had the idea for his forthcoming book, and he outlined it in an article, called "Contextualizing Late Antiquity: The First Millennium". You can find the article in Johann P. Arnason and Kurt A. Raaflaub (eds.): "The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives", p. 148-76, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
In this article Fowden points to the benefit of widening the horizons in historical research. Fowden wants to go beyond a rigid periodization of Late Antiquity. He sees the need for a broader time frame that takes long-term cycles of cultural transformation into consideration. Only in the light of the long span of intellectual history is it possible to understand the present. Fowden writes:

“Greek and Roman Antiquity and the medieval West lie at the roots of European civilization, and Late Antiquity has promoted its claim to attention by emphasizing, not just its intrinsic interest to academic research, but also its decisive role in both the final articulation of the classical tradition, and the early articulation of Christianity. In other words, Late Antiquity helps us understand how we became what we now are.”

Furthermore, Fowden recognizes that historical investigation has “as much to do with social and political developments in our own contemporary world as with strictly historical considerations.”
To me, Fowden’s points justify the endeavor of applying patristics: one thing is the fact that ideas do not disappear, and that we potentially are able to contemplate our own reflection critically in the mirror of the past. Another thing is that we are determined by the present, and the act of applying ideas back and forth, crossing the span of history, only makes us more aware of the pros and cons of our own time. I think.

- Maria Munkholt