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  3. The Cambridge History of Christianity
  • Cited by 21
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
2006
Online ISBN:
9781139054836
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521812399
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - Religion
Subjects:
Ancient History, Classical Studies, Regional and World History: General Interest, Religion, Church History
Series:
Cambridge History of Christianity
Information

Book description

The first of the nine volume Cambridge History of Christianity series, Origins to Constantine provides a comprehensive overview of the essential events, persons, places and issues involved in the emergence of the Christian religion in the Mediterranean world in the first three centuries. Over thirty essays written by scholarly experts trace this dynamic history from the time of Jesus through to the rise of Imperial Christianity in the fourth century. It provides thoughtful and well-documented analyses of the diverse forms of Christian community, identity and practice that arose within decades of Jesus's death, and which through missionary efforts were soon implanted throughout the Roman Empire. Origins to Constantine examines the distinctive characteristics of Christian groups in each geographical region up to the end of the third century, while also exploring the development of the institutional forms, intellectual practices and theological formulations that would mark Christian history in subsequent centuries.

Reviews

'The Cambridge History of Christianity is a most ambitious project … The full collection is intended to blend sociological, demographic, cultural, and institutional historical perspectives with the developement of worship and liturgical traditions and theological developement. Given the goal of the series, [this book] is a major success. Professor Mitchell … and Professor Young … have successfully combined their vast talents to edit a compendium of essays rich in detail and true to the objective of avoiding revisionist history … This volume is a must-read for all interested in the early church. It is written for an academic or professional audience and is a required addition to any well-equipped library. While each reader will find areas where more material would be of great interest, the extensive bibliographies (ninety-two pages) provide a wealth of supplemental resources.'

Source: History and Society of 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.'

Source: Journal of Ecclesiastical History

'The utility of the Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine lies primarily in its comprehensive treatment of discrete aspects of the early church, covering a wide range of themes, issues, persons and events. Its insightful chapters are supplemented by useful illustrations, maps, detailed bibliographies and index. Origins to Constantine is a valuable resource for the lay-person and scholar alike. While the cost of the book will be prohibitive for some, libraries and scholars able to invest in this volume and the series will yield intellectual dividends for years to come.'

Source: Studies in Religion

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Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • 24 - Monotheism and creation
    pp 434-451
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Monotheism was a fundamental article of faith from the beginning of the church. God was defined as omnipotent, as the ruler of the universe, leading the human race on the way to salvation. Creation out of nothing was originally a Hellenistic-Jewish formula expressing the power of the creator God. The most influential philosophical school in the first two centuries after Christ was Stoicism. Philo was probably from one of the noble families of Jewish Alexandria and had received an extensive philosophical training. A little later than Justin, in the seventies of the second century, Athenagoras of Athens wrote his apology: Legatio pro Christianis. His book is more sophisticated than Justin's apologies. During the second half of the second century the 'Great Church' began to resist the propaganda of Marcionites and Gnostics more and more rigorously. The most important Christian theologians of the time before and around 200 were Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons.
  • 25 - Monotheism and Christology
    pp 452-469
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The Trinitarian concept of God and the christological claim that two natures, human and divine, were present in the one Christ. Scripture provided a way of accounting for the veneration of Jesus within the fundamentally monotheistic outlook which had always characterised Christianity, but its principal purpose was to hang on to the lines anchoring Christian belief in the created order and in the material realities of a genuinely historical life. The evidence for tracing the course of the monarchian controversies is confused, not least because the names of leading figures, such as Sabellius and Paul of Samosata, were used as labels to condemn rivals in later controversies. Origen, thinker of the Alexandrian church, developed a complex form of logos theology, which probably owed something to his predecessor in Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher Philo, and which, for good or ill, left a legacy for subsequent theologians of the east.
  • 26 - Ecclesiology forged in the wake of persecution
    pp 470-483
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The persecutions under the emperor Decius divided the churches and had lasting consequences for the way the church was perceived and organised. The curing of sinful members by repentance is urged upon the churches in the figurative revelation to Hermas in the mid-second century. Where restoration was permitted, it involved penitential behaviour such as fasting, almsgiving and attendance for prayer among the catechumens for a matter of years before final restoration. This chapter outlines Cyprian's ecclesiology that was apparent: whatever privilege God might grant to confessors, the fundamental structure of the church rested in the duly appointed bishops, in whom final authority was vested. Cyprian had made clear his view that a bishop who committed idolatry or schism ceased to be a priest. The dispute between Stephen, a new bishop of Rome, and Cyprian concerned whether baptised in heresy and schism, including Novatianism, are to be treated as already baptised, or subjected to the church's baptism.
  • 27 - Towards a Christian paideia
    pp 484-500
  • View abstract

    Summary

    By the mid-third century, have clear evidence that a Christian teacher like Origen could offer a complete philosophical education, which paralleled that which was offered in schools all over the Graeco-Roman world. Teaching and learning were characteristic of Christianity from the beginning. It is plausible to suggest that some early Christian communities were modelled largely on the Jewish synagogue, an organisation that had both religious and 'school'-like properties. Teachers, as well as prophets, have a prominent role in texts coming from the earliest churches, and a teaching function is assumed for bishops. Origen's love of philosophy, together with his conviction that philosophy was the foundation of true piety towards God, was what persuaded Theodore to stay in Caesarea and give up his homeland and friends, as well as his intended career. The contribution of Origen was to stimulate the development of a genuine intellectual tradition within Christianity. Scripture became the crown of his Christian paideia.
  • 28 - Persecutions: genesis and legacy
    pp 501-523
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the 250 years that separate the Neronian persecution in 64 CE from the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, c. 312, Christianity was an illegal and suspect religion whose members were subject to arrest, condemnation and, in many cases, death. During the last half of the second century, instinctive popular anger against the Christians generated the violent, sporadic persecutions recorded by Eusebius. The Jews are now less prominent, though at this time the Platonist critic Celsus still regarded the Christians as apostates from Judaism. In Alexandria, where Dionysius, bishop through two persecutions, was an eyewitness, we find the same conflict but without equally tragic results. His account of his interrogation by the deputy prefect, Aemilian, is preserved by Eusebius. In Palestine, there were forty-seven executions recorded by Eusebius in his Martyrs of Palestine, most for provoking the authorities. The majority of recalcitrant Christians, however, were sent to work in the mines of Egypt.
  • 29 - Church and state up to c.300 ce
    pp 524-537
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on the development of early Christian thinking on the political order. According to a strong and influential research tradition, there were mainly three concepts that were the basis for early Christian thinking as to 'church and state'. All three, it is said, can be traced back to current Hellenistic Jewish attitudes towards the Roman empire. As their main representatives, on the one hand, rank the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, a great admirer of the Roman empire, and, on the other, the apostle Paul, and his younger Jewish contemporary, Rabbi Hananiah. Paul and Hananiah shared the opinion that the empire is a God-given institution, destined to protect and discipline humanity. The Christian attitudes towards the Roman empire during the first three centuries CE seem to have generally followed what the bipartite Christian Bible recommended. Christians have to intercede for the 'Romans' in order that the horrors preceding the millenarian rule be delayed.
  • 30 - Constantine and the ‘peace of the church’
    pp 538-551
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The reign of Constantine was momentous for Christianity. Before it, and indeed during Constantine's first years, Christians continued to suffer persecution; after it, all but one emperor followed Constantine's example in supporting Christianity. The term the 'peace of the church', used by Christians to denote the ending of persecution, is something of a misnomer in light of the violent quarrels which followed during the rest of the fourth century and after. The years 305-12 CE saw the breakdown of the tetrarchic system established by Diocletian under the pressure of individual ambition, of which Constantine was by nomeans innocent. Constantine is remembered for his alleged vision of a cross in the sky immediately before he went into battle against Maxentius. This version depends on the later and highly embellished story in Eusebius's De vita Constantini, which he claims came from the emperor himself.
  • 31 - The first Council of Nicaea
    pp 552-567
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The first Council of Nicaea was summoned in 325 CE by Constantine, within seven months of the victory that installed him as sole ruler of the empire. Eusebius of Caesarea seems none the less to disapprove of the Council of Nicaea altogether when he imputes the beginnings of it to malevolence. Few considerations may have induced Eusebius of Nicomedia to take up the cause of Arius. Eusebius may have thought in good faith that his suppliant had been wrongly condemned, for, while he does not appear to have held that the Son was out of nothing. Whatever the provenance of the 'Nicene symbol', earliest text of it is quoted in the letter of Eusebius, which is appended to the treatise of his opponent Athanasius, De decretis Nicaenae synodi. The Council of Antioch had ratified the condemnation of Arius while purging the creed of clauses which, in the eyes of easterners, were more of a snare than a prop to orthodoxy.
  • 32 - Towards a Christian material culture
    pp 568-585
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Most historians agree that few examples of recognizably Christian art and architecture can be identified and dated prior to the beginning of the third century. Although older scholarship sometimes argued that this 'late arrival' of Christian art was due to Christians original resistance to visual art or specially constructed worship spaces, more recent studies have pointed to the difficulty of distinguishing pagan artefacts from Christian ones or secular domestic architecture from house churches. Evidence of pre-Constantinian church building outside of Rome exists. A fifth-century octagonal church building at Capernaum was built over an existing domestic structure, believed to have been an early house church located in St Peter's basilica. Both the man and woman have companions, one of them in the posture of prayer. Such religiously ambiguous iconography might have come from artisans workshops, with a limited catalogue of motifs, which were patronised by pagan and Christian clients.

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