The Darkening Age

The Darkening Age PDF Author: Catherine Nixey
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544800931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, Spectator, Observer, and BBC History Magazine, this bold new history of the rise of Christianity shows how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizations. The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to "one true faith." Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyrs' deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless, and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth, and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the first century to the sixth, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial, and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces, and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written, and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

The Darkening Age

The Darkening Age PDF Author: Catherine Nixey
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544800931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Get Book Here

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, Spectator, Observer, and BBC History Magazine, this bold new history of the rise of Christianity shows how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizations. The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to "one true faith." Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyrs' deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless, and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth, and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the first century to the sixth, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial, and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces, and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written, and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

Understanding Early Christian Art

Understanding Early Christian Art PDF Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135951705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Understanding Early Christian Art is designed for students of both religion and of art history. It makes the critical tools of art historians accessible to students of religion, to help them understand better the visual representations of Christianity. It will also aid art historians in comprehending the complex theology, history and context of Christian art. This interdisciplinary and boundary-breaking approach will enable students in several fields to further their understanding and knowledge of the art of the early Christian era. Understanding Early Christian Art contains over fifty images with parallel text.

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them PDF Author: Robert Louis Wilken
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300098396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.

Christianity in the Greco-Roman World

Christianity in the Greco-Roman World PDF Author: Moyer V. Hubbard
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441237097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard's creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul's letters and applying their message to our lives today. Addressing a wide array of cultural and traditional issues, Hubbard discusses: • religion and superstition • education, philosophy, and oratory • urban society • households and family life in the Greco-Roman world This work is based on the premise that the better one understands the historical and social context in which the New Testament (and Paul's letters) was written, the better one will understand the writings of the New Testament themselves. Passages become clearer, metaphors deciphered, and images sharpened. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard's unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.

Religious Violence in the Ancient World

Religious Violence in the Ancient World PDF Author: Jitse H. F. Dijkstra
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108494900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
A comparative examination and interpretation of religious violence in the Graeco-Roman world and Late Antiquity.

Women in the World of the Earliest Christians

Women in the World of the Earliest Christians PDF Author: Lynn Cohick
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441207996
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Lynn Cohick provides an accurate and fulsome picture of the earliest Christian women by examining a wide variety of first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman documents that illuminate their lives. She organizes the book around three major spheres of life: family, religious community, and society in general. Cohick shows that although women during this period were active at all levels within their religious communities, their influence was not always identified by leadership titles nor did their gender always determine their level of participation. The book corrects our understanding of early Christian women by offering an authentic and descriptive historical picture of their lives. Includes black-and-white illustrations from the ancient world.

Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity

Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity PDF Author: A.D.(Doug) Lee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136617388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
In this book A.D. Lee charts the rise to dominance of Christianity in the Roman empire. Using translated texts he explains the fortunes of both Pagans and Christians from the upheavals of the 3rd Century to the increasingly tumultuous times of the 5th and 6th centuries. The book also examines important themes in Late Antiquity such as the growth of monasticism, the emerging power of bishops and the development of pilgrimage, and looks at the fate of other significant religious groups including the Jews, Zoroastrians and Manichaeans.

Christianity & Western Thought: Faith & reason in the 19th century

Christianity & Western Thought: Faith & reason in the 19th century PDF Author: Colin Brown
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830817535
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
In this much-anticipated sequel to Colin Brown's Christianity and Western Thought, Volume 1, Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett follow Christianity and philosophy's interaction through the monumental changes of the nineteenth century.

Christianity in Ancient Rome

Christianity in Ancient Rome PDF Author: Bernard Green
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0567032507
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
of the Pope." --Book Jacket.

Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity

Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Jeremy M. Schott
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812203461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Jeremy M. Schott examines the ways in which conflicts between Christian and pagan intellectuals over religious, ethnic, and cultural identity contributed to the transformation of Roman imperial rhetoric and ideology in the early fourth century C.E. During this turbulent period, which began with Diocletian's persecution of the Christians and ended with Constantine's assumption of sole rule and the consolidation of a new Christian empire, Christian apologists and anti-Christian polemicists launched a number of literary salvos in a battle for the minds and souls of the empire. Schott focuses on the works of the Platonist philosopher and anti- Christian polemicist Porphyry of Tyre and his Christian respondents: the Latin rhetorician Lactantius, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and the emperor Constantine. Previous scholarship has tended to narrate the Christianization of the empire in terms of a new religion's penetration and conquest of classical culture and society. The present work, in contrast, seeks to suspend the static, essentializing conceptualizations of religious identity that lie behind many studies of social and political change in late antiquity in order to investigate the processes through which Christian and pagan identities were constructed. Drawing on the insights of postcolonial discourse analysis, Schott argues that the production of Christian identity and, in turn, the construction of a Christian imperial discourse were intimately and inseparably linked to the broader politics of Roman imperialism.