Students are invited to continue on from a historical study of the Hebrew people to an investigation of the history of the Church. This was so evidently necessary to Christians of the fourth century that one of their own, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea, wrote the first book to recount the struggles and victories of the first followers of Christ. Students can now dedicate an entire year to learning the material those Christians began investigating almost 1,700 years ago.
In this course, Henry Chadwick’s The Early Church is used as the main text. Students are directed to Eusebius’ History of the Church when ancient testimony is appropriate.
About The Early Church:
“Henry Chadwick paints a portrait of the early Christians, constructed out of a mosaic of the ancient sources, giving the general reader a fresh awareness of the life of this momentous community. The Church is seen in close relation to its original setting in Jewish and Gentile society, to which the Christians were indebted, and yet at the same time, with the zeal of the martyrs, defiant. The internal controversies among the Christians are analysed with rare clarity. In conclusion, the author examines the conversion of Constantine and the suppression of paganism by Theodosius, which led to the development of the social and political role of the Church, and the contrasting institutions of Papacy and Monasticism, which continue to assert the independence of merely secular values. For further reading there is a list of books, which has been brought up to date for this revised edition.” (from the publisher)
