 That conscience was so central a concept in St. Paul’s writings guaranteed it an important place in the moral theology of the Greek and Latin Fathers, especially St. Basil, John Damascene and St. Ambrose. Amongst these early writers, however, it was a text from St. Jerome that was particularly consequential since it introduced into the debate a neologism that would have an important impact in the later Middle Ages: the concept of synderesis.