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Henry Chadwick

The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church) Paperback – October 1, 1993

by Henry Chadwick (Author)

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Examines the beginning of the Christian movement during the first centureis AD, and the explosive force of its expansion throughout the Roman world.

Print length

314 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin
Publication date

October 1, 1993
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.1 x 0.75 x 7.79 inches
ISBN-10

0140231994
ISBN-13

978-0140231991
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Henry Chadwick was a Regius professor at both Oxford and Cambridge; head of Christ Church, Oxford, and Peterhouse, Cambridge; recipient of a honorary doctorate from Chicago, Harvard, Yale, and Uppsala; a member of the German Order of Merit; a fellow (former vice-president) of the British Academy; and a corresponding member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and the Gottingen and Rhineland academies. He was made a knight in 1989.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; Revised edition (October 1, 1993)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 314 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140231994
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140231991
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.75 x 7.79 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #111,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #155 in Ancient Roman History (Books)
- #199 in History of Religion & Politics
- #204 in Church & State Religious Studies

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242 ratings

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Robert Batey

Church history was not meant to be boring and it isn't!

Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2018

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If you thought the Church was a simple collection of people trying to worship the same God that has always existed and with the same understanding of what it is all about, then read this book. It is a superb narrative of the evolution of the Church over centuries and it makes clear the complexity of the Church and its structures today. Superbly researched and written in a way that captures the reader, even though some of the names of the major players are difficult and similar and very ancient. This objective recounting of the story of the Church as it developed and sought to clarify complex theological issues is very helpful for those who do have some misgivings about some of the taught Mantras of our own day. The author has done a marvellous job in making the debates and the philosophical issues that impacted on Church doctrinal developments comprehensible and he does it in a non judgemental and objective way. Our beliefs are not simple, never have been, never will be. Our God is not understandable in the way we would like Him/her to be.

15 people found this helpful

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El Viejo Topo

Dense

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2019

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I'm not a scholar of early Christianity, but I appreciate the insight and erudition that Chadwick brings to this little book. You do see how the wilder ideas in early Christianity were progressively suppressed until we got something that, alas, could form the basis of a much simplified, much less advanced, and altogether less exciting vision of what the coming of Jesus Christ had meant. It's not easy going by any means, but if you grew up with the Baltimore Catechism, you owe it you yourself to see just how radically thoughtful some of the Church Fathers were. Who knows, maybe there were Mothers too, but the Curia isn't likely to admit them to the magisterium soon, no?

4 people found this helpful

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... the second I have read this book and I enjoyed it more the second time reading it

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2017

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This is the second I have read this book and I enjoyed it more the second time reading it. It is dense with information and the language is on the esoteric side. It explains the struggles, decisions and life of the early church. The author does a good job of bringing to life important moments and issues of the early church using carefully chosen quotes and examples from ancient texts.

14 people found this helpful

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Gendun

Dry, dense, and edifying

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2012

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Chadwick's history of the early church is widely regarded as the standard work on the subject, and it's easy to see why. It's a dense, dry read, jostling with facts and ideas about the development of Christianity between the ministry of Jesus and the Iconoclasm Controversy in the Early Middle Ages that marks the sundering of the Eastern and Western Churches.

Chadwick explores the complex interplay of social, political, and doctrinal forces that worked together to drive the history of the church forward. It's not easy reading and I wouldn't recommend it as a place to start. It greatly benefits from some familiarity with the historical context, particularly the late Roman Empire, and familiarity with the core disputes of early theology, such as the early Trinitarian controversies and the conflict between Catholic and Gnostic forms of Christianity.

By and large, the facts are presented without much context of big-picture-building. I was frustrated to find a serviceable presentation of the big picture only in the final pages, in the book's conclusion - it would have been helpful for me if his broad interpretation had been integrated into the story as he was telling it. I would recommend that most readers start with the conclusion, since it's not exactly going to give anything away, and possibly even refer back to it periodically throughout the read.

The book evidences several ignominious flaws, which, although commonplace in Christian literature, are no less tedious for it. Women receive little consideration, for example. One might think that not a single woman lived in all of Christendom between Monica and Hildegard of Bingen, reading this book. While the roots of monasticism are considered at length, the origins of the orders of nuns receive not a single word.

It probably goes without saying that extra-canonical views are generally treated unsympathetically, to say nothing of so-called "pagans." In the opinion of this reader, it is high time for that imprecise polemical term to be rejected by academic literature.

Despite all that, Chadwick does an admirable job in coolly surveying the various forces at work, and is often judicious in recognizing a meaningless political spat in theological guise for what it is. Armed with a general familiarity of the topic, any reader will certainly come away enriched.

20 people found this helpful

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Scorchio

A very narrow slice of church history with little real analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2018

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This is a slightly odd, very old-fashioned history of the church. Rather than telling the history of the church as a movement, it instead concentrates on a small number of "big men" who were successful in the power struggles of the early church to define doctrines and denounce rivals as heretics.

From the very early days of Christianity there seems to have been disagreements about points of doctrine. For example, was Jesus fully human or fully God? Did Jesus come into existence at the time of His conception, or did he already exist before He was conceived? To the modern mind these questions seem bizarre and mostly irrelevant to the Christian faith. The Bible says very little about these questions, so even if at some point Jesus said something about it, nobody thought it was important or interesting enough to write it down. Strangely, once Christianity started to spread, it seems that major conflicts started to emerge around these sort of esoteric questions. In the absence of supporting evidence, it was easy for anyone to adopt almost any opinion about them. Preachers and church leader would often try to get others to adopt their opinion as an article of faith rather than a simple opinion. Different Christian struggled to establish their brand of Christianity as the one true faith, and denounce their rivals as heretics. The opinions of successful groups became orthodox Christian faith, and those holding slightly different opinions were declared heretics. Indeed, a notable feature of church history is that those who succeeded in declaring their opponents as heretics were often themselves later declared to be heretics, in a seemingly endless round of denunciations.

This book tells the story of several influential leaders and thinkers within the chuch who won these early struggles. There are two main aspects of this history that are odd and disappointing. The first, is that the book barely deals with the history of the church as religious movement at all, and instead concentrates on these bizarre hair-splitting arguments. Secondly, the book provides no real analysis of what the arguments were about, why anybody cared, and what were the effects on the church of one group triumphing over another in the endless rounds of arguments and denouncements. Did anybody actually care about these points of doctrine, or were these arguments simply a mechanism to denounce opponents in the battle for influence and power in a growing church?

This book would live up to its title much better if it instead were to tell the broader story of the spread of Chistianity during the period that it covers. How did Christianity spread across the empire before Constantine? How did Ethipia become Christian? What do we know about the spread of Christianity into Persia, and were their conflicts with Zoroastrianism? We;ve all heard of Christianity spreading across central Asia to China, but how much of this happened during the period described in the book? How did Armenia become the first Christian state? How did the early church interact with that other great monotheistic faith of the Roman Empire, Samaritanism? These big historical issues are barely mentioned in this book.

10 people found this helpful

Mrs. M. Connolly

Hard going but last chapter good on the liturgy, music and art.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2018

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First published in 1967 and revised in 1993, Chadwick's 'The Early Church' covers the first 500 years or so of the history of the church in 250 pages. A glance at the chapter list suggests that the book deals with this in a logical and clear manner, and that after reading it, the student will have a broad overview on which to base further study. Unfortunately, Chadwick does not include any illustrations, maps, tables of emperors or popes, timelines or other useful aids to understanding. Although the chapters are divided into sections, the dense style of the narrative is hard to read, and the facts difficult to internalise. Another reviewer has commented that the book was useful when writing an essay, and as this would tend to lead the reader to the close study of a small section of the book, I think that this would be the best use for this book. It is not the place to start if you are looking for a clear account of the development of the early church.
I was hoping to find clear short explanations of the major heresies, scholars, councils, set out in such a way as to help make them memorable. I did much better looking these topics up in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Apart from being politically useful to powerful men, it is not made clear why anyone would have wanted to become a Christian,
However, the final chapter covering the development of the liturgy, church music, and art is excellent, and covers this material in a much more accessible manner, which is like a breath of fresh air after the previous super-dense 257 pages.

2 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Great introduction to church history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2019

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Still the best introduction out there. Thoroughly recommend it. Read this first, then move onto other books that might give more depth.

Anna Zachariasen

An achievement.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 23, 2015

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The Penguin Church History is overwhelming.The Church History is traditional,following the main thread from the Early Church up to modern times The Early Church was characteristic of persecution and martyrs;Under Emperor Constantine the Christian Church was recognized. Later the Church was divided in East and West.The story is told through seven volumes

2 people found this helpful

Mrs. Margaret M. Hall

Early Christian Doctrine

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2010

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I was directed to this book as a readable history of the early church. I have found it well-written, comprehensively historical, with a wealth of detail. However, it is quite heavy going, unless the reader is totally focussed and has a desire to follow the diverse doctrines and discussions that have occupied the Christian Church from earliest times. I would not recommend it as an easy read, but to someone making a study of the Christian religion, I can imagine it is a 'must read'.

14 people found this helpful

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