Henry Chadwick’s The Early Church is the first of a remarkable seven volume series of the story of Christianity published by Penguin Press in England. This volume, first published in 1967 and revised in 1993, maintains present day relevance. Because of its broad sweep, the text is not drastically altered by recent discoveries or interpretations. Constantine’s “Donation” remain the fraud we studied generations ago. Because the author has focused heavily upon the developing theology and creedal development of Christian identity, and drawn extensively on Christian Fathers and congenial classical authors and philosophers, there is an element of timelessness to the text.
Chadwick begins with a survey of first century Christian relations with brother …show more content…
Justin, or Justin Martyr established a template for both Christian apologetics and the development of doctrine. He and subsequent authors would emphasize the continuity of the Jewish Scripture with the identity and mission of Christ. But Justin and others were not uncomfortable using the same methodology of incorporating the enduring wisdom of classical pagan authors. Quite the opposite. Justin and many of the Church’s greatest subsequent thinkers, on through Jerome and Augustine centuries later, were products of classical education and saw in Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and others a natural wisdom, a searching or predisposition to the ultimate truth of the Christian God revealed in Jesus …show more content…
With the weight of executive and military power shifted east, the Roman West would become a shadow of its old self. The sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 was such a profound religious and psychological event that St. Augustine was compelled to elaborate his “City of God” concept. And yet Rome possessed two irrefutable advantages: its long-held position in history as the mother church established by Peter himself under the aegis of Jesus’ own words and the very bones of the great Peter and