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How the faith grew and spread
Leslie Houlden reads a useful account of the Church’s beginnings
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| Formation and Struggles: The birth of the Church AD 33-200 Veselin Kesich
St Vladimir’s Seminary Press £13.99 978-0-88141-319-9) Church Times Bookshop £12.60 DR KESICH has written the first volume in a series called The Church in History. The series is being brought out, under the editorship of Professor Andrew Louth of Durham, by Vladimir Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States, where the author has been Professor of New Testament. This work is a painstaking account of the Church’s beginnings, from the ministry of Jesus down to the earlier years of the third century. If you are uninformed about this crucial period, but have a degree of familiarity with, especially, the New Testament, and would like to know more, this book may be a useful and not too demanding guide. It begins, as we should expect, with the life and ministry of Jesus. Then we move on to the Church’s birth in Jerusalem, and its expansion to Syria and beyond. With the outline established, we move on to the work of Paul, and then the gradual rift between Christians and Jews. Only the last third of the book is given to the Church’s development in the second century — the gradual spread of Christian faith and life around the Mediterranean; the leading figures whose writings survive; and the often strange teachings that came to command allegiance on the fringes, and sometimes close to the centre, of the Christian communities. Dr Kesich provides a readable guide to these matters. How satisfactory is it, and what are its limitations? If you know little about the subject, you are likely to feel content with what you are given, even perhaps glutted with information — although you may think that the text is, from time to time, rather roughly presented. If you already have experience of the territory, you may feel that you are getting too straightforward a ride. Are there not more difficulties than are recognised here with the story of early Christian mission as told in the Acts of the Apostles compared with the earlier evidence found in Paul’s letters? And are there not problems with the Pauline authorship of some of the letters that carry his name? May not the truth be less simple and direct than we are being led to suppose? In other words, we are given much information, with a high degree of clarity; but perhaps we might have been trusted with more about some of the intractable difficulties in interpreting these documents of so long ago. The Revd Leslie Houlden is a former Professor of Theology at King’s College, London. To order this book, email the details to Church Times Bookshop |
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