Customer Reviews

Rise of Christianity

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This is not an easy book to read, because it is not a shallow treatment of its subject; it's densely written and highly detailed.

But it is the book that you should start with, because, given the degree of religious partisanship that attends this subject, it's crucial that your first exposure come from a trustworthy source. To all appearances, Frend is such a source; he writes without apparent bias, with abundant humanity, and he ends each chapter with a staggering bibliography of the primary and secondary sources on which he's relied. In fact, the bibliography itself is worth the price of the book.

I predict that if you purchase this book, it will become the standard by which you judge other Church histories.

Although long and somewhat daunting the book is well written, and flows easily making the huge book manageable. It's arguments are persuasive and logical, but as with almost any work, it is certainly not the last word on the topic. I hope a person thinking about getting the book is not scared away by the lenght of the book, it really is a good book, and you may find yourself not wanting to put it down.

When I was on the high school football team, breaking my back in the summer drills, my coaches would yell encouragement at us to work hard, for the victories in the fall. "Come on guys, you've gotta' really want it!" The same could be said for the Rise of Christianity. It is a bit of a grind, but when you are done, it will seem worthwhile.

Frend is certainly a master historian. His prose flows smoothly from one topic to the next, and he has a great grasp of primary sources. This book, however is not for the beginner. There are numerous instances where Frend will try to clarify a point by some reference to another event, which, to a beginner, may or may not shed light.

He also uses the John Wayne philosophy of "listen and listen tight, `cause I'm only gonna' say this once" when he describes a new theological idea. Because it took me several months to get through the book, I found my index worn out by having to refresh my memory on Apollinarianism, or Pelagianism, or any of the other myriad -isms in Christian history. This slowed me down quite a bit.

Like those summer two-a-day training camps in high school, getting through it did prove to be rewarding. The bibliography is great, the time line is very nice, and the book will be a well-used reference in the future.

As a reader in search of a better understanding of of Christianity, I found this book asnwered the myiad questions that the church has reluctantly acknowledged, and rarely discussed openly. This knowledge of historical issues helps me to better understand the more current issues facing Christianity as it enters the next millenia. However, it will be challenging read for those not seriously interested in the subject.

Fantastic work, that while historical in nature shows respect for most all of the various factions, sects, 'heresies', etc. during this critical time in the development of the world's top religion (in headcount). I suggest reading it with 'The Other Bible' as a reference book, along with a standard canonical bible.... one can put the non-canonical texts and gospels in perspective with the currently accepted versions, including which sects favored the use of various texts and interpretations. I had to laugh at Frend's description of Paul as 'that indefatigable little man'...surely an understatement for Paul's tireless missions to establish Christianity outside the Jewish race. I can think of no better historical overview and analysis of a very complex topic.

The size of this book is daunting (some 900 pages of text, and then about a hundred more of appendices), but Frend is tirelessly clear in his explanations. He moves through stages of the early church, offering an overview of the political situations, the major players, and the Zeitgeist of each time period. I bought this originally a textbook for a college course, but I've picked it up again as a valuable resource. His synthesis of primary sources is neither obnoxiously conservative or obnoxiously liberal (those familiar with writings on the early church will know what this means). Every chapter inspires me to read through his sources; the book provides an excellent conceptual framework for further study.

Called by many as Frend's "Magnum Opus", The Rise of Christianity provides analysis of the history of Christianity from the first century B.C., to the seventh century A.D. Frend's knowledge of the primary sources of early Christianity is outstanding, his treatment of all branches of the growing faith is balanced and fair, and he is able to keep the subject moving in an interesting way. This is the book against which others in the field are measured

Although W.H.C. Frend's "The Rise of Christianity" is approaching its 30th birthday (and while there has been an immense proliferation of scholarship on Early Christianity and Late Antiquity in the interim), this is still an authoritative and fundamental survey of the first 7 centuries of the Christian Church. Frend has the advantage of being educated in the early 20th c. British primary school system, where Ancient Greek and Latin were standard, and of subsequent Oxford University training. Thus he has the excellent command of the ancient languages crucial for any study of the primary sources, as well as the German and French and Italian necessary for the truly prodigious amount of secondary literature. Scholars like Frend will not soon be minted again.
"The Rise of Christianity" is a thorough accounting of its subject. It is not the easiest read, as there is a great deal of information packed into each page, and it is over 900 pages long, but it is not overly difficult. I read it front to back (all be it with frequent pauses for other books) over many months, and it took Frend 10 years to write; but it can also be used as a reference work. In either case, the footnotes at the end of each chapter are a goldmine for continued reading in the ancient and Late Antique sources, as well as the huge constellation of modern scholarly journals, articles, and books in many languages. The footnotes solidly anchor all of Frend's historical and analytical prose.
It would probably be helpful to have a cursory knowledge of Ancient Greek and Roman history, or at least of its general arc. The book proceeds in a roughly chronological narrative, with sub-sections on particular historical and ecclesiastical figures and movements. The account begins with the crucial pre-Christian Jewish context, through Jesus of Nazareth, James, Peter, and Paul. Frend grounds his narrative in the religious texts, and the contemporary secular Greek and Roman and Syriac histories, as well as the archaeological, epigraphic, and manuscript evidence. The formidable body of Patristic (Church Fathers) literature is incorporated, and in Frend's pages, figures such as Origen, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Anthony, Pachomius, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Paul of Samosata, John Chrysostom, Athanasius, and many more, come alive. You will learn how Irenaeus of Lyon (ca. 130-200AD), who knew Hebrew as well as his native Greek, and Latin, helped define Orthodoxy and the Christian Canon, as well as fend off early Gnostic heresies such as the teachings of Valentinus. Tertullian, Bishop of Carthage (ca. 160-220), was also an enemy of anything remotely heretical, and is remembered as a firebrand of North African Christianity. However, Tertullian, like most of the early Church Fathers, was thoroughly versed in Classical learning, and was able to cogently debate any topic. Augustine (354-430AD), Bishop of Hippo (in modern Algeria), was an accomplished teacher of rhetoric and pagan follower of the Persian "prophet" Manichee, before converting to Christianity. He became (along with Tertullian), the "father" of Western (Roman) Christian theology which posits human flesh as irretrievably sinful and corrupt, except through the wondrous Grace of Jesus Christ's Resurrection. (Indeed, just over a 1,000 years later, Martin Luther began his training as an Augustinian monk.)
Augustine later purported to "hate" any pagan author, but the erudition of Classical learning pulses through his monumental body of work. Though North Africa is predominantly Muslim today, it was a cradle of the Western Christian Church, and it helps that Frend has done extensive archeological fieldwork here and knows the landscape firsthand.
In the East, Origen of Alexandria (185-254AD), was perhaps the greatest early Christian scholar. He knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and, working at a pace that exhausted his assistants and students, produced an immense body of subtle scholarship (including his famed "Hexapla") that helped Eastern "0rthodox" Christianity incorporate Platonic philosophy into its theology. Origen was the forefather of the later "Cappadocian Fathers" of the 4th c. AD.
Frend's "The Rise of Christianity" also includes excellent chapters of a more historical nature that profile the epochs of such Roman emperors as Augustus, Nero, Septimius Severus, Decius, Diocletian, Constantine, Julian, Constantius, and Justinian. He also elucidates the "competition" for status among the bishoprics of Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and, later, Constantinople. It is interesting to observe that, from a very early date, Rome consistently championed what eventually became orthodox Christian doctrine, even if one does not agree with all the teachings of today's Roman Catholic Church.
The varieties of sects and heresies (Valentinianism, Sabellianism, Marcionism, Monarchianism, Arianism, Monophysitism, etc.)can become bewildering, and here the index helps.
Frend's weighty (literally, especially in Hardback) tome includes excellent maps of the Mediterranean, Near East, and Coptic regions, but not every place-name cited in the text is indicated on the maps.
This is scholarship of the highest order, but it is not an inspirational, evangelical text, even if one may find inspiration in the story of the rise of the Church. Frend was a conservative Anglican minister, as well as Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Glasgow. Like F.F. Bruce, Frend was a practicing Christian who was also a first-rate scholar.

This book is a real enriching journey through the early theological history of the church. However at 900 pages the journey doesn't come easy. As they say nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The book traces the development of the church via its theological thought and organizational principles. It does talk about the over all historical events going on at that time but it gives only passing coverage of those events. By understanding how thought evolved a person better understands where the church is today.

One thing early in the book becomes crystal clear. There is no new issues for the church. The issues today that the denominations wrestle with are at times the exact issues it faced early on.

Frend's The Rise of Christianity is, as far as I can tell, far and away the best work on the first six centuries of the church. It is extremely well researched (Frend is obviously intimately familiar with both the primary sources and the major secondary sources), well written, and interesting to read. Many authors manage to take an interesting topic and make it exceedingly dull, but Frend entirely avoids this tendency, and is quite fun to read. He easily flows from one topic to another, and his extensive knowledge of the subject allows him to easily and persuasively connect the dots between various political, theological, and philosophical movements and historical events. After reading this book I looked around for more books on the early church, and most of them are rather disappointing compared to Frend's masterpiece. There are definitely sources which explain individual events/movements or short time periods better than this book, but as far as comprehensive surveys of the early church go, this one was well above the rest that I have encountered.

That said, there are a few problems with the book which perspective readers may wish to keep in mind. First, it is very long. Very, very long. Not only is it almost 1000 pages, but they are large pages. It will take a very long time to read this book, but it is entirely worth it.

Second, Frend sometimes forgets that his audience may not be as familiar as he is with everything that happened in the Roman Empire between 30-600ish, and throws out all sorts of names, events, and isms without explaining who/what they are or did. It doesn't happen all the time, but it is frequent enought to be very annoying to someone who can't follow him because they don't know what he's referring to. A similar problem is that once he tells you who a person is, or what a certain ism is, he never tells you again. He may mention some minor figure in passing, then several hundred pages later he starts using them to explain other things without reminding you who they were. It gets very confusing and frustrating from time to time, and the fact that many people shared the same name (Paul of X, Paul of Y, etc.) made it even harder to follow at times.

My biggest complaint, however, is that it is not detailed enough. I know it sounds crazy, but this should have been much longer. He tends to mention movements/persons and then move on, without ever getting into much detail. It would have been much earier to follow if he didn't just move to a new person/topic just when he got done introducing the last one. It's as if he wanted to cover everything, but didn't have space to do it, so instead of covering the most important things in detail he gives too little detail to nearly everything (there are notable exceptions to this, esp. Donatism, Constantine, and the major councils, which he devotes more detail to).

That said, I still recommend it, not just because it is better than the rest, but because it is legitimately good in itself. It will probably be a very long time before another book can replace this one as the definitive survey of the early church. Frend manages to bypass the two most unfortunate tendencies which plague books on the early church: the tendency of Roman Catholic scholars to read later tradition into the early church and the tendency of protestant schorals to both refuse to acknowledge the aspects of the early church which seem too similar to Catholicism and to focus on theology to the exclusion of historical and political events. Frend was himself Anglican, and seems to present a very fair portrait of both the early church and of the heretical groups he surveys (which is remarkably rare in books of this type). He is very sympathetic to many of the groups like the Donatists and Pelagians, not in the sense that he agrees with them, but in the sense that he understands and explains why they believed the things that they did and why they emphasized certain theological points. Frend seems to view heretics as people who have, usually for some good reason, taken divergent paths in their quest to properly understand Christianity rather than the usual view that implies that heretics purposely set out to destroy the church and Christianity.

While this book certainly has some flaws, and it is a very difficult book to tackle, it is very rewarding, and certainly worth the effort. It is by far the best book that I have yet encountered on the history of the church from its foundation to its transition into the Middle Ages.