Rare scholarly insight into the early church -- still relevant for the church today This anthology offers a choice selection of writings by one of the twentieth century's premier church historians, Sir Henry Chadwick. Many of Chadwick's considerable contributions to a fuller understanding of the early church were unpublished or not circulated widely during his lifetime, but here they are compiled in a convenient, accessible form. Reflecting Chadwick's wide-ranging expertise, this volume contains his essays on a variety of themes pertaining to the early church, including the emerging faith's relationship to classical culture; the interaction between piety, politics, and theology; councils in the early church; the power of music in the church; and more. As relevant for the study of early Christianity today as when they were first written, Chadwick's essays remain a valuable resource for better understanding the church both past and present, shedding light on ecumenical problems that still keep Christians visibly divided.
The Church in Ancient Society provides a full and enjoyable narrative history of the first six centuries of the Christian Church. Ancient Greek and Roman society had many gods and an addiction to astrology and divination. This introduction to the period traces the process by which Christianitychanged this and so provided a foundation for the modern world: the teaching of Jesus created a lasting community, which grew to command the allegiance of the Roman emperor. Christianity is discussed in relation to how it appeared to both Jews and pagans, and how its Christian doctrine and practicewere shaped in relation to Graeco-Roman culture and the Jewish matrix. Among the major figures discussed are Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Constantine, Julian the Apostate, Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine.Following a chronological approach, Henry Chadwick's clear exposition of important texts and theological debates in their historical context is unrivalled in detail. In particular, theological and ecclesial texts are examined in relation to the behaviour and beliefs of people who attended churchesand synagogues. Christians did not find agreement and unity easy and the author displays a distinctive concern for the factors - theological, personal, and political - which caused division in the church and prevented reconciliation. The emperors, however, began to foster unity for political reasonsand to choose monotheism. Finally, the Church captured the society.
The life and works of Augustine of Hippo (354-430) have shaped the development of the Christian Church, sparking controversy and influencing the ideas of theologians through subsequent centuries. His words are still frequently quoted in devotions throughout the global Church today. His key themes retain a striking contemporary relevance - what is the place of the Church in the world? What is the relation between nature and grace? Augustine's intellectual development is recounted with clarity and warmth in this newly rediscovered biography of Augustine, as interpreted by the acclaimed church historian, the late Professor Henry Chadwick. Augustine's intellectual journey from schoolboy and student to Bishop and champion of Western Christendom in a period of intense political upheaval, is narrated in Chadwick's characteristically rigorous yet sympathetic style. With a foreword by Peter Brown reflecting on Chadwick's distinctive approach to Augustine.
By his writings, the surviving bulk of which exceeds that of any other ancient author, Augustine came to influence not only his contemporaries but also the West since his time. This Very Short Introduction traces the development of Augustine's thought, discussing his reaction to the thinkers before him, and themes such as freedom, creation, and the trinity. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
This volume of essays honours Henry Chadwick, probably the greatest and best-known of English scholars of early Christianity. The essays, written by many of the leading theologians and church historians in the English-speaking world, discuss different aspects of how Christianity developed norms and standards in its teaching, how it came to have - and to enforce - a definition of orthodoxy and heresy. It is a collection of fundamental work by internationally recognised experts. It covers issues of orthodoxy from the first right up to the sixth century, and its wide-ranging surveys of centrally important material in early Christianity will find broad appeal among scholars and students of Old and New Testaments, medieval history and patristics.
This third collection of articles by Henry Chadwick brings together a series of studies on Augustine, written in light of the new texts now available, and on other individual Christian authors of antiquity, in other words of the age when Christianity was acquiring its now familiar shape. A number of papers published here appear in print for the first time, or make accessible to English readers studies which first saw the light in German. These include a substantial discussion of the idea of conscience, important in the highly ethical context of early Christianity, and a study of ancient anthologies, and are complemented by other essays on general themes in the history of the early Church.
The Consolations of Philosophy by Boethius, whose English translators include King Alfred, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth I, ranks among the most remarkable books to be written by a prisoner awaiting the execution of a tyrannical death sentence. Its interpretation is bound up with his other writings on mathematics and music, on Aristotelian and propositional logic, and on central themes of Christian dogma. Chadwick begins by tracing the career of Boethius, a Roman rising tohigh office under the Gothic King Theoderic the Great, and suggests that his death may be seen as a cruel by-product of Byzantine ambitions to restore Roman imperial rule after its elimination in the West in AD 476. Subsequent chapters examine in detail his educational programme in the liberal arts designed to avert a threatened collapse of culture and his ambition to translate into Latin everything he could find on Plato and Aristotle. Boethius has been called `last of the Romans, first of the scholastics'. This book is the first major study in English of a writer who was of critical importance in the history of thought.
The greatest Christian split of all has been that between East and West, between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, a rift that is still apparent today. In this text, Henry Chadwick provides an account of the emergence of divisions between Rome and Constantinople.
The greatest Christian split of all has been that between east and west, between Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox, which is still apparent today. Henry Chadwick provides a compelling and balanced account of the emergence of divisions between Rome and Constantinople. Starting with the roots of the divergence in Apostolic times, he takes the story right up to the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century.
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