A new history of early Christianity / Charles Freeman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Freeman, Charles, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Church history--Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600.

Church history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The relevance of Christianity is as hotly contested today as it has ever been. A New History of Early Christianity shows how our current debates are rooted in the many controversies surrounding the birth of the religion and the earliest attempts to resolve them. Charles Freeman's meticulous historical account of Christianity from its birth in Judaea in the first century A.D. to the emergence of Western and Eastern churches by A.D. 600 reveals that it was a distinctive, vibrant, and incredibly diverse movement brought into order at the cost of intellectual and spiritual vitality. Against the conventional narrative of the inevitable "triumph" of a single distinct Christianity, Freeman shows that there was a host of competing Christianities, many of which had as much claim to authenticity as those that eventually dominated. Looking with fresh eyes at the historical record, Freeman explores the ambiguities and contradictions that underlay Christian theology and the unavoidable compromises enforced in the name of doctrine.Tracing the astonishing transformation that the early Christian church underwent-from sporadic niches of Christian communities surviving in the wake of a horrific crucifixion to sanctioned alliance with the state-Charles Freeman shows how freedom of thought was curtailed by the development of the concept of faith. The imposition of "correct belief," religious uniformity, and an institutional framework that enforced orthodoxy were both consolidating and stifling. Uncovering the difficulties in establishing the Christian church, he examines its relationship with Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy and Greco-Roman society, and he offers dramatic new accounts of Paul, the resurrection, and the church fathers and emperors.

Contents:

Part one: Beginnings. A trial ; The seedbed : Judaism in the first century AD ; Jesus before the Gospels ; Breaking away : the first Christianities ; What did Paul achieve? ; The letter to the Hebrews ; Fifty years on : the Gospel writers reflect on Jesus ; John and the Jerusalem Christians ; Creating a New Testament ; No second coming : the search for stability

Part two: Becoming Christian. Toeholds in a wider empire ; Open borders : the overlapping worlds of Christians and Jews ; Was there a gnostic challenge? ; The idea of a church ; To compromise or reject : confronting the material world

Interlude one: the earliest Christian art

Celsus confronts the Christians

The challenge of Greek philosophy

Origen and early Christian scholarship

New beginnings : the emergence of a Latin Christianity

Victims or volunteers : Christian martyrs

The spread of Christian communities

Part three: The imperial church. The motives of Constantine ; Debating the nature of God ; The stifling of Christian diversity ; The assault on paganism ; 'No one is honoured before him' : the rise of the bishop

Interlude two: the art of imperial Christianity

An obsession with the flesh

The end of optimism : Augustine and the consequences of sin

Divine but human

The closing of the schools

A fragile church : Christianity and the collapse of the western empire

Faith, certainty, and the unknown God.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-300-16658-3

OCLC:

811405743