History

Following the publication of his revised translations in The Apostolic Fathers in English, 3rd ed., Michael Holmes, a leading expert on these texts, offers a thoroughly revised and redesigned bilingual edition, featuring Greek (or Latin) and English on facing pages. Introductions and bibliographies are generous and up to date. In the textual apparatus, existing notes have been revised and expanded, and well over 200 new notes have been added. This handsome and handy one-volume, thin-paper edition will be an essential resource for students and scholars and a joy to book lovers.

As one of the most influential thinkers in Christian history, St. Augustine (354-430) had a flair for teaching and meditated deeply on the mysteries of the human heart. This study examines a little-known side of his career: his work as a teacher of candidates for baptism.

ln the revised edition of this seminal book, both the text and notes have been revised to better reflect the state of contemporary scholarship on Augustine, liturgical studies, and the catechumenate, both ancient and modern. This edition also includes new findings from some of the recently discovered sermons of Augustine and incorporates new perspectives from recent research on early Christian biblical interpretation, debates on the Trinity, the evolution of the liturgy, and much more.

This reconstruction of Augustine's catechumenate provides fresh perspectives on the day-to-day life of the early church and on the vibrancy and eloquence of Augustine the preacher and teacher.

'Jesus was a pest to the Romans and a threat to the religious leadership, so they threw him on to the rubbish dump. Little did they realize that it was like trying to put out a fire with petrol. The whole world exploded.' With characteristic style, John Pritchard takes us on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as he unpacks the five great events that made Christianity - Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. We explore: What happened? What did it mean? What does it mean for us? Absorbing, immediate and full of stories, this volume offers deeply considered theology, brilliantly communicated to connect with life as we actually experience it. 'Vividly elucidates the familiar but often not-quite-understood beliefs at the centre of the Christian faith.' Dominic Barrington, Dean of Chicago Praise for John Pritchard: Rowan Williams on God Lost and Found: 'Unusually honest . . . superbly well focused.' Justin Welby on Living Faithfully: 'A very good book by an exceptional leader . . . takes one back to the face of Christ and the realities of Christian discipleship.'

How did the movement founded by Jesus transform more in the first seventy-five years after his death than it has in the two thousand years since? This book tells the story of how the Christian movement, which began as relatively informal, rural, Hebrew and Aramaic speaking, and closely anchored to the Jewish synagogue, became primarily urban, Greek speaking, and gentile by the early second century, spreading through the Greco-Roman world with a mission agenda and church organization distinct from its roots in Jewish Galilee. It also shows how the early church's witness can encourage the church today.

A treatment of the evolution of Christian thought from the birth of Christ, to the Apostles, to the early church, to the great flowering of Christianity across the world. The first volume introduces the central figures and debates culminating in the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon among which the theologies of the early church were hammered out.

Eusebius's groundbreaking History of the Church, remains the single most important source for the history of the first three centuries of Christianity and stands among the classics of Western literature. His iconic story of the church's origins, endurance of persecution, and ultimate triumph--with its cast of martyrs, heretics, bishops, and emperors--has profoundly shaped the understanding of Christianity's past and provided a model for all later ecclesiastical histories. This new translation, which includes detailed essays and notes, comes from one of the leading scholars of Eusebius's work and offers rich context for the linguistic, cultural, social, and political background of this seminal text. Accessible for new readers and thought-provoking for specialists, this is the essential text for anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

Rudolf Bultmann's courageous thought has been right at the centre of living Christian theology ever since the 194os. There is no doubt that his challenge will be equally crucial for the 196os. What we have so far lacked is an account of `Bultmannism' clearly stating its message for preachers and lay people.
Now Dr Bultmann has himself supplied this lack, and has taken the opportunity of making his position sharply clear in response to criticism that he is abandoning the essence of Christianity. For all who ask how Christianity can be restated without the 'myths' of the first century, the appearance of this short book is a help and an encouragement.

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London--incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon--in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions.

The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the "Catholic Question," even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O'Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression--and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.

New historical sources shed a different light upon the teachings and actions of Lutherans under Adolf Hitler.

This book gives today's Lutherans a sense of heritage, identity and continuity, a sense of self-understanding. Readers will see themselves as part of a family. They can identify with the struggles, hopes, and frustrations of wave after wave of immigrants adapting to the strange new world of America and at the same time trying to preserve all they had known and loved and brought with them from the homeland. The genius of the entire volume is that it points beyond family memories to an ongoing and continuing life of which we and our children are a living part. Contributors: Theodore G. Tappert, Eugene Fevold, Fred W. Meuser, H. George Anderson, August R. Suelflow, and E. Clifford Nelson.

Just five months after Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses, 13--year-old Philipp was declared Landgrave of Hesse, ruler of one of the most powerful principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. To some, he was heroic. To others, he was despised as scandalous.