Peter Robert Lamont Brown

"This book offers a history of the first thousand years of Christianity. Ranging across the Christian world from China to Iceland, the narrative illustrates the diversity of Christian beliefs and practices. It also places the rise of Christianity in the context of other religious traditions, especially Islam. The author draws penetrating portraits of individuals and communities, from St. Patrick and the Irish Church to the Christian communities of Armenia and Mesopotamia." "For the second edition, the book has been thoroughly rewritten and expanded. It includes two new chapters, on monasticism and Irish Christianity. The author has also added an extensive introduction in which he reflects on the scholarly traditions that have influenced his work and explains his current thinking about the book's themes. The revised edition contains new maps, a substantial bibliography, and a number of chronological tables to guide readers."--BOOK JACKET.

The Christianisation of the Roman world lies at the root of modern Europe, yet at the time it was a tentative and piecemeal process. Peter Brown's study examines the factors which proved decisive and the compromises which made the emergence of the Christian 'thought world' possible. He shows how contemporary narratives wavered between declarations of definitive victory and a sombre sense of the strength of the pre-Christian past, reflecting the hopes and fears of different generations faced with different social and political situations. He examines the social factors which muted the sharp intolerance which pervades the contemporary literary evidence, and he shows how Christian holy men were less representatives of a triumphant and intransigent faith than negotiators, at ground level, of a working compromise between the new faith and traditional ways of dealing with the supernatural world. His illuminating analysis of religious change as the art of the possible has a wide relevance for other periods and regions.