The Early Christian World

1. The Mediterranean context of early Christianity
2. Armies, emperors and bureaucrats
3. Graeco-Roman philosophy and religion
4. Jewish tradition and culture
5. The Galilean world of Jesus
6. Early Jewish Christianity
7. From the Hellenists to Marcion: early gentile Christianity
8. The Jesus tradition: the gospel writers’ strategies of persuasion
9. The second and third centuries
10. From Constantine to Theodosius (and beyond)
11. Jewish and Christian interaction from the first to the fifth centuries
12. Mission and expansion
13. The development of office in the Early Church
14. Christian regional diversity
15. Monasticism
16. Reading the New Testament in Roman Britain
17. Sex and sexual renunciation I
18. Sex and sexual renunciation II: developments in research since 2000
19. Women, children and house churches
20. Worship, practice, and belief
21. Ritual and the rise of the early Christian movement
22. Communication and travel
23. Christian realia: papyrological and epigraphical material
24. Scriptures in early Christianity
25. Saints and hagiography
26. Translation and communication across cultures
27. The Apostolic Fathers
28. The Apologists
29. Early theologians
30. Later theologians of the Greek east
31. Later theologians of the west
32. Creeds, councils and doctrinal development
33. Biblical interpretation
34. Early Christian architecture: the first five centuries
35. Art
36. Music
37. Imaginative literature
38. Political oppression and martyrdom
39. Graeco-Roman philosophical opposition
40. Popular Graeco-Roman responses to Christianity
41. Internal renewal and dissent in the early Christian world
42. Gnosticism
43. Montanism
44. Donatism
45. Arianism
46. Manichaeism
47. Origen
48. Tertullian
49. Perpetua and Felicitas
50. Constantine
51. Anthony the Great
52. Pachomius the Great
53. Athanasius
54. John Chrysostom
55. Gregory of Nyssa
56. Jerome
57. Ambrose
58. Augustine
59. Ephrem the Syrian
60. Julian the Apostate

Since its publication in 2000, The Early Christian World has come to be regarded by scholars, students and the general reader as one of the most informative and accessible works in English on the origins, development, character and major figures of early Christianity. In this new edition, the strengths of the first edition are retained. These include the book’s attractive architecture that initially takes a reader through the context and historical development of early Christianity; the essays in critical areas such as community formation, everyday experience, the intellectual and artistic heritage, and external and internal challenges; and the profiles on the most influential early Christian figures. The book also preserves its strong stress on the social reality of early Christianity and continues its distinctive use of hundreds of illustrations and maps to bring that world to life. Yet the years that have passed since the first edition was published have seen great advances made in our understanding of early Christianity in its world. This new edition fully reflects these developments and provides the reader with authoritative, lively and up-to-date access to the early Christian world. A quarter of the text is entirely new and the remaining essays have all been carefully revised and updated by their authors. Some of the new material relates to Christian culture (including book culture, canonical and non-canonical scriptures, saints and hagiography, and translation across cultures). But there are also new essays on: Jewish and Christian interaction in the early centuries; ritual; the New Testament in Roman Britain; Manichaeism; Pachomius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. This new edition will serve its readers for many years to come.