(P/B) THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

Παρουσίαση

In the last few decades interest in the history of early Christianity has undergone a significant revival. Professional church historians apart, an increasing number of ancient historians are including early Christianity in their field of research. Christian sources, such as the New Testament, the sermons of the Church Fathers, saints' lives, are being examined for the evidence they provide in matters not just of religious, but of secular, history. More significantly, religious developments are now being studied through the same methods as other philosophical, political and ideological processes. A new generation of scholars is carrying out a systematic and consistent examination of early Christianity within its historical context, as an integral part of the history of late antiquity. To most historians today early Christianity is indeed an element of ancient history.
Systematic interest in early Christianity has an almost continuous history of more than three centuries. But when this interest first emerged, it fell under a number of distinct headings. Biblical studies were not directly related to church history and the latter was considered independently of the sermons of the early Fathers and of saints' lives. Attention was focused on each subject for different motives: as I see it, historical investigations proper are always preceded and structured by philosophical conceptions of history or by new philosophies of history - of which historians need not always be conscious. The urge to acquire firsthand knowledge of the works of the early Church Fathers - in particular those which had not been handed down through continuous tradition - was felt in the sixteenth century within the intellectual climate of Renaissance humanism: one of the earliest scholars to attempt the publication of such text was Erasmus. [...] During the whole of the eighteenth century, other scholars continued to produce critical editions and commentaries which have not lost their value today. [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Acknowledgements
Foreword by G.E.M. de Ste. Croix
Introduction
Part I: Christianity Among Slaves and Freedmen
1. The Oppressed Class Theory
2. Christianity, Slavery and the Slaves
Slavery in the Ancient World
Christian Attitudes to Slavery
Christianity and the Slaves
Slaves and their Christian Masters
3. Christianity, Manumission and Freedmen
Manumission
Christian Attitudes to Manumission
Christian Freedmen
4. Christianity and the "Familia Caesaris"
The "Familia Caesaris"
The Christianization of the "Familia Caesaris"
The Significance of the Christianization of the "Familia Caesaris"
Part II: Christianity in Cities and Countryside
5. From the Palestinian Countryside to the Cities of the Roman Empire and Back to the Countryside
6. Christianity and the Cities
The Christianization of the Upper Classes
Social Developments in the Cities
Patterns of the Christianization of the Upper Classes
Power and Leadership in the Urban Christian Communities
7. Christianity and the Countryside
The Spread of Christianity in the Countryside
City-Country Relations
The Case of Egypt
Social and Economic Developments in Rural Egypt
The Financial Position of the Christian Churches
Christianity in Rural Egypt
The Social Character of Christianity
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliographical Acknowledgements
Bibliography and Abbreviations
Index of Names and Places
Index of Modern Authors