Customer Reviews

Christianity and Roman Society (Key Themes in Ancient History)

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Gillian Clark has written an excellent book. It is highly readable and will be of interest to those seeking to get to the bottom of essential religious debates which occurred in the early centuries AD. The book also transports the reaer very much into th epsychology of the period, with its intensive treatment of such difficult phenomena as martyrdom and asceticism.

Clark is an unpretentious prose writer and does her best to simplify advanced discussion with pithiness. This is an effective strategy and enhances the readability of the book. For anyone seriously interested in ingesting alot of importnat material quickly, this is the place to go: a top class ancient historian is the guide and she provides ample referencing to enable further enquiry. Clark, though, is not afraid to write provocatively: her thinly veiled criticism of Ramsay Macmullen at one point is interesting.

If you can't see youorself lasting the course of the epic Chadwick/Frend contributions on the early church, this is a very viable alternative staring place and is more user friendly to boot.

Chadwick's Early Church is still recommended, but Clark's book is a fantastic companion to get a quick, organized, detailed and accurate understanding of the position of Christians, in all their variety, in Roman society.

She underscores all of the main issues relating to the trainistion from Jew to Christian in the sense of societal perception, heretics, gnostics, pagans, etc. All top notch and very up to date bibliography, which is great for further study.

She has a few minor erros in dating, and glosses over some of the nuances of Jewish monotheism, sacrifice and conversion, but this is now, in my view, one of the best books to get on the subject. And its slim size adds attraction to students who are assigned 14 books for a semester in one class!