Early Church History

Often called the "Father of Church History", Eusebius was the first to trace the rise of Christianity during its crucial first three centuries from Christ to Constantine. Our principal resource for earliest Chrisitianity, The Church History presents a panorama of apostles, church fathers, emperors, bishops, heroes, heretics, confessors, and martyrs. This audiobook edition includes Paul L. Maier's clear and precise translation, historical commentary on each book in The Church History, and numerous maps, illustrations, and photographs.

Over 330,000 copies sold. This is the story of the church for today's listeners. Bruce Shelley's classic history of the church brings the story of global Christianity into the twenty-first century. Like a skilled screenwriter, Shelley begins each chapter with three elements: characters, setting...

Dr. James Papandrea introduces you to all the major theologians, philosophers, and martyrs of the early Christian church and explains the theological principles that guided the Church from the New Testament era through the apologists, and, ultimately, to the development of the major doctrines. He uniquely situates the teachings of the early Church Fathers against the social and cultural context of the Roman Empire and its relationship to the Church.

This classic text gives a broad overview of the early Christian church, how it was formed, and how it dealt with the Roman empire, which was at first hostile to Christianity, and then under Constantine the Great how it came to embrace the new faith. The author, George Hodges, also examines the many heresies that beset the church from within, and the various figures that would defend the correct definition of the faith.

In The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1, Justo L. González, author of the highly praised three-volume History of Christian Thought, presents a narrative history of Christianity from the early church to the dawn of the Protestant reformation. From Jesus' faithful apostles to the early reformist John Wycliffe, González skillfully traces core theological issues and developments within the various traditions of the church, including major events outside of Europe, such as the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the New World.

Based on Pope Benedict XVI's weekly teaching on the relationship between Christ and the Church, this book tells the drama of Jesus' first disciples—his Apostles and their associates—and how they spread Jesus' message throughout the ancient world. Far from distorting the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, insists Pope Benedict, the early disciples remained faithful to it, even at the cost of their lives.

From before the creation of our world, God intended to have a people to love forever, enjoying their company as they enjoyed His. Jesus told his disciples that he would build this church, and nothing could destroy it (Matthew 16:18). God has kept his promise. For two thousand years, Christ has continued to preserve His church even when destruction looked likely. Simonetta’s book starts after the death of Jesus’s 12 apostles and continues to today: it’s a fascinating story that helps you know the God who planned it and who is keeping His church for an even more exciting future.

Church history is important because it shows us how God's faithful dealings with His people in the Bible continue in the ongoing life and work of Christ in our world. If you have ever wished for a short book highlighting church history's most important events that will enlighten your mind and pique your interest, this is the one you've been waiting for. Three prolific church historians collaborate their efforts in Church History 101 to present you with a quick listen of church history's high points.

Church History, Volume Two chronicles the events, the triumphs, and the struggles of the Christian movement from the years leading up to the Reformation through the next five centuries to the present-day. Looking closely at the integral link between the history of the world and that of the...

The “marvelous” (Reza Aslan, bestselling author of Zealot), New York Times bestselling story of how Christianity became the dominant religion in the West. How did a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official...

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power and hierarchy. In A People's History of Christianity, historian and religion expert Diana Butler Bass reveals an alternate history that includes a deep social ethic and far-reaching...

For many Christians, our understanding of the history of the church universal jumps straight from what we read in the New Testament to a basic understanding of the Reformation. We're missing more than a millennium! And it was a busy, fascinating, tumultuous thousand-or-so years during which Christianity spread across three continents. In places as distant and different from each other as China, Sudan, and Britain, the gospel was spreading, the church was growing, and believers were expressing their faith in myriad ways.

What was the early Church like? Contrary to popular belief, Rod Bennett shows there is a reliable way to know. Four ancient Christian writers - four witnesses to early Christianity - left us an extensive body of documentation on this vital subject, and this book brings their fascinating testimony to life for modern believers. With all the power and drama of a gripping novel, this book is a journey of discovery of ancient and beautiful truths through the lives of four great saints of the early Church Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons.

From the bestselling author of The Lamb's Supper and Signs of Life comes an illuminating work that unlocks the many mysteries of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist. Long before the New Testament was a document, it was a sacrament. Jesus called the Eucharist by the name Christians...

A bold, heartfelt tale of life at Green Gables . . . before Anne: A marvelously entertaining and moving historical novel, set in rural Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, that imagines the young life of spinster Marilla Cuthbert, and the choices that will open her life to the...

What was the starting point of Christianity? Was it in a little town in Bethlehem, just as the lyrics of our favorite Christmas songs contend? In truth, in the earliest days of Christianity, when Peter and Paul first set out to preach the gospel, the belief systems of early Christians were viewed as merely a new sect of Judaism.

When Jesus sent 70 disciples on ahead of him, part of their mission was to heal the sick. In fact, they were supposed to heal the sick before they preached the Gospel. Best-selling author Mike Aquilina calls this command the healing imperative. And it's an imperative that ushered in the world of modern medicine. In The Healing Imperative: The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine as We Know It, Aquilina reconstructs the fascinating history of a uniquely Christian institution: the hospital.

You are invited to witness the enormous power of the early church when it connected to the ultimate power. Then you are invited to request and experience it for yourself. You will again witness the enormous power of the early church as you listen to The Acts of the Apostles, a remarkable commentary on the book of Acts. Then you are invited to request it and experience it for yourself and your church.

Athanasius rightly knew that upon one’s view of Christ hung one’s eternal destiny. As he wrote to the bishops of Egypt in 356: “as therefore the struggle that is now set before us concerns all that we are, either to reject or to keep the faith, let us be zealous and resolve to guard what we have received, bearing in mind the confession that was written down at Nicaea.” And, by God’s grace, his victory in that struggle has been of enormous blessing to the church ever since.

Glory to God for the men of old who endured the persecutions of this world with joy and faith. Much can be learned from those who have looked death in the face and yet remained true to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.