Intervarsity Press, 2009. Complete 5-Volume Set. Minor rubbing to jackets, bindings and texts like new (found a very few pages with smudges). A fine set. View More...
Since this book was first published in 1931 the English church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has been studied in depth, yet Z. N. Brooke's The English Church and the Papacy, now reissued with a new introduction by C. N. L. Brooke, remains the indispensable point from which all expeditions over this territory begin. The author set out first to determine what the law of the English Church was, and to seek the books on which it was based; then to draw out the consequences of what he had discovered in a general survey of the relations of England and Rome. The crisp, clear judgements on the... View More...
This is the definitive study not only of early Christian attitudes toward sexual renunciation, But also toward marriage, gender, and anthropology generally. While beginning with the realization that ''a great gulf is fixed'' between our own outlook and that of the Christians of late antiquity, Peter Brown nevertheless throws a great deal of light on the variety and complexity of diverse strands of early Christian thought from St. Paul to the end of the fifth century. However strange and at times repugnant these views might be to modern sensibilities, Brown's relentlessly sympathetic understand... View More...
In this groundbreaking work, Peter Brown explores how the worship of saints and their corporeal remains became central to religious life in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period, earthly remnants served as a heavenly connection, and their veneration is a fascinating window into the cultural mood of a region in transition. Brown challenges the long-held "two-tier" idea of religion that separated the religious practices of the sophisticated elites from those of the superstitious masses, instead arguing that the cult of the saints crossed boundaries and played a d... View More...
This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface, additional color images, and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power. - Clear and vivid history of Christianity's rise and its pivotal role in the making of Europe - Written by the celebrated Princeton scholar who originated of the field of study known as 'late antiquity' - In... View More...
A sweeping intellectual history of the role of wealth in the church in the last days of the Roman Empire Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and th... View More...
The "holy poor" have long maintained an elite status within Christianity. Differing from the "real" poor, these clergymen, teachers, and ascetics have historically been viewed by their fellow Christians as persons who should receive material support in exchange for offering immeasurable immaterial benefits--teaching, preaching, and prayer. Supporting them--quite as much as supporting the real poor--has been a way to accumulate eventual treasure in heaven. Yet from the rise of Christian monasticism in Egypt and Syria to present day, Christians have argued fiercely about whether monks should wor... View More...
Of those raised Catholic, just 13% still attend Mass weekly, and 37% say they have 'no religion'. But is this all the fault of Vatican II, and its runaway reforms? Or are wider social, cultural, and moral forces primarily to blame? In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the prophecy that 'a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendour'. Desiring 'to impart an ever increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful', the Council Fathers devoted particular attention to thelaity, and set in motion a series of sweeping reforms. The most significa... View More...
In the present work it has been the author's design to describe the remarkable half century from the accession of Diocletian to the death of Constantine in its quality as a period of transition. What was intended was not a history of the life and reign of Constantine, nor yet an encyclopedia of all worth-while information pertaining to this period. Rather were the significant and essential characteristics of the contemporary world to be outlined and shaped into a perspicuous sketch of the whole. View More...
First published in 1924, this volume contains the Donnellan lectures given by Francis Crawford Burkitt (1864-1935) at Trinity College Dublin in June 1923. Their subject is Manichaeism, a dualistic form of Christianity that thrived during the fourth and fifth centuries in Central Asia. Burkitt focuses especially on the discovery of fragments of Manichaean literary texts in Chinese Turkestan, near the Siberian border, early in the twentieth century. The first lecture introduces the history of the Manichees and reviews the sources of information available about them. The second discusses the Mani... View More...
Used - good. End pages stained, a very clean, solid copy overall. Dustjacket good with rubbing, worn spine ends & corners, tears along upper front edge. 173 pp. View More...
Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries A.D., investigating the discourse's essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence. Scholars of late antiquity and general readers interested in this crucial historical period will be intrigued by her expl... View More...
