For all its limitations, I hope that the book will touch on
areas that are of interest to most students of early Christianity,
and that it will give beginners some guidance on how the subject
might be studied. I should stress, however, that this book is
intended as a starting point, nothing more. If you are using it for
your studies, then use it in conjunction with some of the other
works suggested in chapter 7 and listed in the bibliography. You
cannot learn everything from one book! Above all, try to immerse
yourself in the ancient sources, either through the many excellent
sourcebooks available or, preferably, by reading translations
of complete texts. If you can read the texts in their original
languages, then so much the better.
Finally, I do not think that it is out of place to say some-
thing of the perspective of the author, even if some may see this
as pretentious. To study early Christianity is to touch on topics
that have meant, and still mean, a great deal to many people. As
chapter 2 shows, the manner in which early Christianity has been
studied in the past was shaped by the agendas of scholars of the
times. Moreover, attitudes to early Christianity have been inex-
tricably linked to areas of debate where emotions run high and
where, in some extreme cases (such as the relationship between
Christianity and Judaism), there has been conflict and even the
spilling of blood. These are sobering considerations for the histor-
ian of early Christianity. It is hardly possible to approach such a
topic without bringing along one’s own intellectual or emotional
baggage. For my own part, I am not in any sense a committed
Christian; nor did I experience a religious upbringing beyond
a conventional trip to the baptismal font as an infant. Even so,
I did grow up amid religious friends and relatives in a society
saturated by Christian values. My early childhood was spent in
Northern Ireland during a period when sectarian violence between
Christians was rife, although I left before I was of an age when
such sectarian differences would have had any serious impact on
my life. (Indeed, it was only in my last weeks there that other
pupils at my predominantly Presbyterian primary school surmised
that, on account of my Roman Catholic baptism, I must therefore
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