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The End of Ancient Christianity

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Author: R. A. Markus, University of Nottingham

Date Published: February 1991
availability: Available
format: Paperback
isbn: 9780521339490

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About the Authors

This study is concerned with one, central historical problem: the nature of the changes that transformed the intellectual and spiritual horizons of the Christian world from its establishment in the fourth century to the end of the sixth. Why, for example, were the assumptions, attitudes and traditions of Gregory the Great so markedly different from those of Augustine? The End of Ancient Christianity examines how Christians, who had formerly constituted a threatened and beleaguered minority, came to define their identity in a changed context of religious respectability in which their faith had become a source of privilege, prestige and power. Professor Markus reassesses the cult of the martyrs and the creation of schemes of sacred time and sacred space, and analyzes the appeal of asceticism and its impact on the Church at large. These changes form part of a fundamental transition, perhaps best described as the shift from "Ancient" toward "Medieval" forms of Christianity; from an older and more diverse secular culture towards a religious culture with a firm Biblical basis.
- Accessible study of early development of Christianity
- Offers the social and cultural history of this period of change
- Markus a leading scholar in the field yet able to write in an accessible style
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Reviews & endorsements
"As usual, Markus is illuminating on many issues." The Journal of Religion
"...a magisterial analysis of Western Christian intellectual, spiritual, and social history." Religious Studies Review
"The End of Ancient Christianity offers within 250 elegantly written pages, with documentation to satisfy the specialist and a lucidity to entrance the general reader, a survey of the transformation of Christianity and the Christian world in the Latin west between Augustine and Gregory the Great. The center of attention is not high politics but the common life of the Church and people. The astonishing rise of monasticism rightly attracts his attention as the forcing ground on which the issues of these decades were confronted. The powerful figures of Augustine and Gregory loom large over these pages, but Markus's vision is not distracted or distorted by them; there is no better book to bring this period to life." The Catholic History Review
"...this is a work of great learning and sophistication, based on a fresh reading of a wide array of sources, and at the same time it is sensitive to theological questions." Robert L. Wilken, First Things
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Product details
- Date Published: February 1991
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521339490
- length: 280 pages
- dimensions: 228 x 151 x 17 mm
- weight: 0.4kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Part I. The Crisis of Identity:
1. Introduction
2. A great multitude no man could number
3. Conversion and uncertainty
4. Augustine: a defence of Christian mediocrity
5. 'Be ye perfect'
Part II. Kairoi: Christian Times and the Past:
6. The last times
7. The martyrs and sacred time
8. Secular festivals in Christian times?
9. The christianisation of time
Part III. Topoi: Space and Community:
10. Holy places and holy people
11. City or Desert? Two models of community
12. Desert and City: a blurring of frontiers
13. The ascetic invasion
14. Within sight of the end: retrospect and prospect
Sources referred to
Secondary literature referred to
Index.
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Author
R. A. Markus, University of Nottingham