Legal Ethics, Christian Wisdom, and the Love of the Good

William J. Chriss, University of Texas

Abstract

This article argues that the moral teaching contained within early Christian wisdom literature that has only recently been translated into English can be adapted to provide sound advice to lawyers on how to behave ethically and professionally. The content of that advice might surprise religious zealots of various stripes who are unfamiliar with patristic literature. The focus of the Christian thinkers described herein below was neither righteousness nor victory over the unbelieving. It was the inner struggle for dispassion, virtue, and clarity of vision, concepts more often associated in the popular mind with Buddhism and other eastern wisdom traditions than with Christianity.