Iustitia Dei Part 1

"For the first 350 years of the history of the church, its teaching on justification was inchoate and ill-defined. There had never been a serious controversy over the matter, such as those which had so stimulated the development of Christology over the period. The patristic inexactiude and occassional apparent naivety on the question merely reflects the absence of a controversy which would force more precise definition of the terms used. If the first centuries of the western theological tradition appear be characterised by a "work-righteousness' approach to justification, it must be emphasised that this was quite innocent of the overtones which would later be associated with it" [1]

[1] pg 38 of "Iustitia Dei" by Alister McGrath