Christianity in Ancient Rome: The First Three Centuries

by Bernard Green

Overview

The reader is taken from the very first generation of Christians in Rome, a tiny group of Jews who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, down to the point when Christianity had triumphed over savage persecution and was on the verge of becoming the religion of the Roman Empire.

Rome was by far the biggest city in the Roman world and this had a profound effect on the way Christianity developed there. It became separate from Judaism at a very early date. The Roman Christians were the first to suffer savage persecution at the hands of Nero. Rome saw the greatest theological movements of the second century thrashing out the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

The emergence of the papacy and the building of the catacombs gave the Roman Church extraordinary influence and prestige in the third century, another time of cruel persecution. And it was in Rome that Constantine's patronage of the Christian faith was most evident as he built great basilicas and elevated the personal status of the Pope.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567032508
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/15/2010
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dom Bernard Green is a monk of Ampleforth and Fellow and Tutor in Theology at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, UK.

Table of Contents

1) The city of Rome - size, ethnic and cultural diversity; the Jewish community, large but very different from that in Alexandria
 

2) Christianity's origins in Rome; the Letter to the Romans; persecution under Nero; the separation of Christianity from Judaism earlier in Rome than almost anywhere else; the Christian claim to be the true Israel in 1 Clement (96) and the Shepherd of Hermas (c 130)

 

3) Disputes in Rome about the core doctrines of Christianity; Valentinus and gnosticism; Marcion and the Old Testament; Justin and the Logos doctrine and self-justification to the pagan world; Sabellius and modalism

 

4) The evolution of the papacy - when and how? Hippolytus and Callistus; the catacombs

 

5) The 3rd century crisis of the Empire - Rome no longer the capital; persecutions of Decius and Valerian; Rome and Cyprian of Carthage on the lapsed and the Novatian schism (the meaning and character of the Church); survival and growth of the Roman Church; the use of Latin instead of Greek

 

6) Constantine: the end of persecution; triumph at Rome in 312; his buildings and patronage - the Lateran, St Peter's etc; Christianity in the city and the cult of martyrs; the figure of the pope

Editorial Reviews

'Bernard Green provides a wonderful introduction to the life and circumstances of the earliest Christians in Rome.'--Sanford Lakoff

'In this scholarly and readable account, Bernard Green provides an excellent analysis of early Christianity in its capital city in the West. Literary and visual sources are presented alongside modern scholarship in five chapters succinctly entitled "Origins," "Community," "Persecution," "Catacombs" and "Constantine." Christians in their inner lives are probed alongside the political and social frameworks within which they lived. As a result, readers can appreciate better the fascinating story of how divine assistance and human endeavour blended together during an epoch that proved formative for the Christian church and, thereby, for world history.' - Norman Tanner, SJ, Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome, Italy--Sanford Lakoff

'The history of Christianity in Rome before Constantine is notoriously obscure. Bernard Green threads a learned, careful and surefooted path through a long series of scholarly minefields. He presents the evidence in an exemplary fashion and he sets out the problems of interpreting it sensibly and with good judgement: I only wish that such a sensible guide to a difficult subject had been available for me to use as a textbook while I was still teaching undergraduates!' - Timothy D. Barnes, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. --Sanford Lakoff

'This admirably clear and forthright account presents the development of Christianity in Rome as a series of interactions with the city's political, social and cultural environment. Green is a wise and urbane guide through fiendishly difficult territory; his commentary upon emperors, popes, and the succession of turbulent priests and disputatious theologians who helped give Christian Rome its distinctive cast is at once thoughtfully balanced and wryly opinionated.' - Neil McLynn, Faculty of Classics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK--Sanford Lakoff

'Undergraduates and their teachers will find this a useful, lively, and, on the whole, reliable introduction to the early history of Christianity in Rome, its materials and its problems.'--Sanford Lakoff

[Green's] readings of the characters that populate his history, and the literature they created, are subtle; his writing is precise and elegant. In all, this is a fascinating and compelling study of the origins of the church in Rome.--Sanford Lakoff "Church Times "

Green's book, which grew out of his Oxford lectures, gives us an exemplary model of the genre: clear and cogent presentation, marked none the less by the lecturer's own original and critical perspective... Bernard Green has produced an interesting and important account of his subject.--Sanford Lakoff

Reviewed in Church Times, 1st October 2010 (UK) 'A fascinating study of the origins of the church of Rome'

Reviewed in Augustinianum 51

Reviewed in Church Times, 1st October 2010 (UK)'A fascinating study of the origins of the church of Rome'

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