The Early Years of Christianity (A Comprehensive History of the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church) (Set of 4 Volumes)

This monumental work was meant to erase doubts of ignorance which extensively prevailed then as to the nature and origin of Christianity. The present study releases the readers from the shallow scepticism created by other scholarly works in this genre. All the historical documents and titles that were never examined, have been employed scrupulously to retrace the history and covering all major turning points of primitive Christianity.

The book presents a well-thought and organized history in 4 vols. Vol. 1 is about The Apostolic Age'; inter-alia covering Period from Pentecost to the Council of Jerusalem, Period from the Apostolic Church up to the death of St.Paul, and Period of St. John or Close of the Apostolic Age. Vol. 2 continues the history by exhibiting The Martyrs and Apologists'; thereby covering subjects like Christian Missions and Pagan Persecutions, The Fathers of the Church in the Second and Third Centuries, and The Attack and Defence of Christianity in the Domain of Controversy. Vol. 3 carries forward the voyage by detailing on 'Heresy and Christian Doctrine'; covering topics like Heresy and Development of Christian Doctrine in the Second and Third Centuries. The journey reaches its destination in Vol. 4 as it covers 'Life & Practice in the Early Church; thereby presenting Admission of Converts into the Church, Organisation- Discipline, Mutual Relations of the Churches in the 1", 2 & 3 Centuries, The Crisis in Rome, The Celebration of Worship, Christianity & the Family, Christianity in Its Relation with the State & Society.

This exceptional study is meant for those who seek to understand the evolution of Christianity right from the crux. It is well equipped with Footnotes, Notes, Index of Subjects, Passages of Scriptures Quoted, Index of Authors for the better understanding of readers. The book is a delight for Historians, Theologians, Church Ministers, Christian Laity, Church Clergies, Libraries, Christian Colleges, Seminaries & Institutions, Researchers and Students, alike.

Edmond Dehault de Pressense (1824- 1891) born in Paris, was a French Protestant religious leader. He was a powerful preacher and political orator. In 1847, he became a pastor in the Evangelical Church at the Chapel of Taitbout in Paris. From 1871, he was a member of the National Assembly and from 1883, a life senator. In 1890, he was elected as a member of the 'Académie des sciences morales et politiques'. He laboured for the revival of biblical studies and contended that the Evangelical Church ought to be independent of the power of the state.

OF all the topics of the day, none is of graver importance than the early history of Christianity, and the foundation of the Church. Everything points inquiry in this direction. A bold criticism claims the right to snatch from our hands the documents of this great history, and to scatter them in fragments to the winds. It is not enough for us to take refuge in our faith as in an inviolable sanctuary; we must establish that faith on solid ground, and produce its original titles. Our part is not to linger on the shore, lamenting the constraint which keeps us there, but rather to abjure the false dominion of a faith imposed by authority, to cross the stormy sea, and plant our feet in the enemy's country, on the much-cultivated soil of contemporary criticism. The fact is not to be disguised that science, hostile to Christianity, has long ago left the lonely height from which it was once wont to bend a pitying eye upon the ignorant masses. No lips take up in our day the cry, "Odi profanum vulgus;" everyone feels that such a motto would be the confession of weakness. The law of most democratic reform has finally asserted itself in the world of thought; we are governed by the universal suffrage of minds. Therefore science has assumed, in its hostility to Christianity, a popular form. It has not contented itself with the light, quivering arrows, as piercing as they were brilliant, discharged in such rapid flight by the great satirist of the eighteenth century. It has forged other weapons; it has transfused into the vulgar tongue the results of criticism; it has coined a currency, which circulates from hand to hand, out of those heavy ingots which seemed immovable in their ponderosity. While in Germany, Strauss's "Leben Jesu" has been read and pondered in cottages and work- shops, men in France, unaware of the very existence of that famous book, have been initiated into its conclusions, M. Renan's "Vie de Jésus"-circulated by thousands of copies-has given a new popularity to the results of negative criticism, by casting them into a poetic mould. Thus, from day to day, a form of scepticism is being developed which is so much the more dangerous because it conceives itself better informed. It is present in the very air we breathe it finds its way into the lightest publications; the novel and the journal vie with each other in its dif- fusion; short review articles, skilled in giving grace and piquancy to erudition, furnish it with arguments which appear weighty, because they are so in comparison with the pleasantries of Voltaire. Such a condition of things is critical, and calls for grave and special consideration. If those who are convinced of the divinity of Christianity slumber on in false and fatal security, they must be prepared to pay dearly for their slothfulness; and the Church and mankind-- which have need of each other-will pay dearly for it also. The voice of scepticism will alone be heard, and the sweeping assertions of an unbelief-ofter more credulous than bigotry-will pass for axioms.

There can be no doubt of the ignorance which extensively prevails, even among the highly cultivated, as to the nature and origin of Christianity. This is the newest of themes, because that which has fallen into deepest oblivion. We are persuaded that the best method of defense against the shallow scepticism which assails us, and which dismisses, with a scornful smile, documents, the titles of which it has never examined, is to retrace the history of primitive Christianity, employing all the materials accumulated by the Christian science of our day; for it must be well understood among us that there is in truth such a thing as Christian science in the nineteenth century. Those who have taken upon themselves, during the last few years, to initiate other countries into the scientific movement of Germany, have only brought into view one side. The other side deserves a like pub- licity; and as this very subject of the early history of Christianity has been treated with a marked pre- dilection by the greatest Christian divines of our age, we are bound, in approaching it, to remember their labors, and profit by all the treasures their patient researches have amassed.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages