The Early Church

William H. C. Frend, who has devoted more than fifty years to the study of the early Church, has since become one of the foremost church historians in the English-speaking world. He has published a series of pioneering books on this period, drawing...

A history of the formative period of the Church, this text includes an account of Rome and first-century Judaism, the gnostics and the conflicts of Eastern Christendom. It examines such figures as Origen, Arian and St Augustine of Hippo.

This is a discussion of "primitive" - or original - Christianity. Covering the first five years, it argues that neither a theology nor a history can do justice to the subject and discusses the two main crises in the early Church - the split with...