The Knowledge of Dead Men

For myself, I knew I could never master the Church Fathers within my lifetime, so I decided simply to trust Newman’s judgment that the claims of Catholicism are consonant with the patritic testimony. Newman certainly knew the Fathers better than most men, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox.
— Fr Alvin Kimel, in a Comment to Francis J. Beckwith, My Return to the Catholic Church

More and more one comes across the recognition that some who are now dead knew more about things worth knowing than some who are now liviing.