A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

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In Eusebius' church history, he claims Constantine campaigned against the temples as well as sacrifice, however, there are discrepancies in the evidence. [244] Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. [245] Part 2. From Martyrs to Inquisitors (250 AD to 450 AD) – Diocletian's persecution, Constantine's conversion, first official Church, Arianism, Pelagianism, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine.

Part 5. The Third Force (1500 AD to 1648 AD) – Reformation and Counter reformation, with an emphasis on Erasmus. There is nothing more of Christianity in Gaul until the beginning of the 4th century excepting one inscription, which can possibly be dated to the early 3rd century, from the cemetery of Saint Pierre l’Estrier in Autun. [120] North Africa [ edit ] Roman provinces of North Africa Roman Empire - Africa Proconsularis (125 AD)

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It’s hugely on the rise. It is the largest world religion, and there is no sign of it decaying. In Europe, it’s becoming a minority practice, but Europe is completely untypical. There are perhaps billions of Christians we don’t even know about in India and China. If you’re interested in numbers, the future is bright for Christianity. It’s all sorts of different forms of Christianity, you really cannot say yet what form is going to dominate. My own selfish hope is that no form dominates. It’s very bad when one identity of a religion becomes the top dog. But my money is on Pentecostalism, and whatever happens next to Pentecostalism (no, not necessarily the jumping-up-and-down, happy-clappy, tambourine-bashing version). Pentecostalism represents a listening to the spirit, not relying on text, on the Bible all the time – and a lot of its success has been to do with getting beyond words, because that can also leap cultures.

Donald Cantuar in Churchman (1977) expresses deep appreciation to Johnson's " tour de force", as for example in his estimation of Paul's impact: "The truth is that Paul did not invent Christianity. Or pervert it; he rescued it from extinction. Paul was the first pure Christian: the first to comprehend Jesus’s system of theology, to grasp the magnitude of the changes it embodied, and the completeness of the break with Judaic law." (p.35) [10] No. For a start, the book is called ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, but it covers 1500 years, from Augustus to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. It’s absurd to call that a story of ‘decline and fall’ – it’s far too long. What modern historians would say is that this is a story of transformations, and one of those transformations was the alliance between emperors and Christianity, which made the Empire very different. Far from the Empire falling after Christianity, it lasted another 1000 years, in the form of Byzantine Christianity in Constantinople. So that idea doesn’t really work. But what you do see in Gibbon is a very exhilarating rejection of priestcraft, the claims of the Church to absolute authority, and the attempts of the Church to boss people around in their lives. It’s an attitude which seems to me to be hugely important at the present day. I would love to hear Gibbon’s comments on fundamentalism in the United States, or in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He would be searing in what he said. In his day, the big enemy was the Roman Catholic Church, but all the same things applied. He was not an atheist, he was not anti-religious, but he was anti-clerical, he distrusted clergy – and that seems to me a very healthy instinct. During this time, there were several groups of Christians with different ideas about how to interpret scripture and the role of the church.

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But these are small flaws in a triumphantly executed achievement. This book is a landmark in its field, astonishing in its range, compulsively readable, full of insight even for the most jaded professional and of illumination for the interested general reader. It will have few, if any, rivals in the English language. The story is told with unobtrusive stylishness as well as clarity. And at a time when Christianity's profile in our culture is neither as positive nor as extensive as it has been, this book is crucial testimony to the resilience of the Christian community in a remarkable diversity of social settings. The first three thousand years do not seem likely to be also the last. According to the text, Jesus was born to a young Jewish virgin named Mary in the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Christians believe the conception was a supernatural event, with God impregnating Mary via the Holy Spirit.

Taking in wars, empires, reformers, apostles, sects, churches and crusaders, Diarmaid MacCulloch shows how Christianity has brought humanity to the most terrible acts of cruelty - and inspired its most sublime accomplishments. The early Christian community in Jerusalem, led by James the Just, brother of Jesus, was singularly influential. [160] [161] According to Acts 9, [162] they described themselves as "disciples of the Lord" and [followers] "of the Way", and according to Acts 11, [163] a settled community of disciples at Antioch were the first to be called "Christians". [note 12] The Church of Saint Peter near Antioch (modern-day Antakya), the city where the disciples were called "Christians". [167] Gentile Christianity [ edit ] Following the administrative pattern set by the Empire, the territory administered by a bishop came to be known by its ordinary civil term: diocese. [136] The bishop's actual physical location within his diocese was his "seat", or "see". [137] John P. Meier (1991-2016). A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, v. 1-5. Anchor Bible Reference Library Series, Yale University Press.

The third thing about it is that it’s just delightful. Christian history had been going for six centuries or so; there were little fragments of history in some big books. But Bede is really readable. He has wonderful stories, human interest stories, and he talked to people – very old men who remembered things before his time. He was careful about getting documents, and there are all sorts of little ways in which he feels a bit like a modern historian. I find that very engaging and exciting – that you can meet someone from this very remote place, this very remote world, and still feel, ‘Yes – I could talk to this person.’ Alan Brien in The Sunday Times called it "vivid, colourful, clear and often at once impassioned and witty", a history "not be left to students and scholars" and "a treat for the general reader." The narrative begins with Paul of Tarsus making his way from Antioch to Jerusalem, probably in 49 AD, to meet with the remaining followers of Jesus. [3]

She has the most wonderful stories about these disciplines: for example, one sea captain who was visiting from the Netherlands and went out on the razzle one night and had a wonderful time drinking and fornicating and when he had a hangover the following day he felt so guilty that he went to the local church and offered himself for penance before the congregation. You get the sense of people struggling with their own consciences and trying to fit into this world. And there’s another lovely story about the Stool of Repentance. It only existed in Scotland, and an Englishman came up to visit Edinburgh one day, and he went to church on a Sunday. He was looking around for a pew, and the church was crowded, but he saw one empty pew at the front, and he thought, ‘Oh, I’ll sit there – I’m a gentleman, I’m important, and it looks an important seat.’ So he sat down on it, and of course it was the Stool of Repentance and the whole congregation burst into laughter at seeing this stupid foreigner sit where you should never sit. And it goes on like that. It’s a great book. In terms of his specific argument – that Christianity helped cause the collapse of the Roman Empire by, amongst other things, preaching ‘patience and pusillanimity’ – has that been borne out by modern scholarship? How did an obscure personality cult come to be the world's biggest religion, with a third of humanity its followers? This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main facts, ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organization and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. Bede lived in the 7th and 8th centuries of the Christian era. He lived in England, and he’s very, very conscious of being what he would call an Anglus, or Englishman. He’s writing about 130 years after the English had first experienced Christianity, and so one reason to choose Bede is that if you’re in any sort of English-speaking tradition, his history is the first really, really big piece of history in that tradition. If you’re in the United States or in Australia, you’re still in a sense the heir to this man’s book. Jesus was raised Jewish, and according to most scholars, he aimed to reform Judaism—not create a new religion.This volume is a propitious opening to the eight which will follow … This is an important, sophisticated and intelligently edited volume which should aid and abet the student of earliest Christianity for many a year to come. Higher praise could not be bestowed upon a handbook of this kind.'