Customer Reviews

Macarius of Jerusalem: Letter to the Armenians, AD 335 (Avant Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The fascinating letter written to the Church in Armenia in the fourth century would be reason enough to want to read this book, but Abraham Terian's commentary on the letter adds to the interest and worth of this book. To read such an eary letter, and one that contains descriptions of the early Church's beliefs on Baptism, the Eucharist and the Clergy, is a most wonderful thing.

Ante-Nicenean Fathers refers to the Christian leaders and theologians that came immediately after the generation of the original apostles and their acolytes. Macarisu Of Jerusalem, who lived and worked in the 4th Century A.D. was one of these influential men who were to shape the course of the Christian movement during the increasingly oppressive activities of the Roman Empire which finally ended with Emperor Constantin's 'Edict of Milan' in A.D. 313 which legalized and legitimized the Christian Church throughout the empire. We have only a relative scattering of letters and other writings to document the struggle of these early church fathers, but one such surviving document has now been translated with an informed and informative introduction and commentary by Abraham Terian and published by the St. Vladimir's Seminary Press as "Macarius Of Jerusalem: Letter To The Armenians, A.D. 335". An significant and critically important contribution to 4th Century Christian Studies, "Macarius Of Jerusalem" is an academically impressive model of meticulous and painstaking scholarship, and presents a seminal body of informed and informative work that is solidly recommended for personal, pastoral, academic, and seminary Christian History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.