Early Christianity

Chapter 2

Tradition and revelation:

the historical quest for

early Christianity

The study of early Christianity is not a new subject. Its origins

go back to the very earliest days of the church, when, for example,

the authors of the books of the New Testament sought to articu-

late their views about the origins of the movement to which

they belonged, either through accounts of Jesus Christ’s life and

the activities of his followers (thus the gospels and the Acts

of the Apostles), or through works of spiritual advice or apoca-

lyptic prophecy (the New Testament epistles and the book of

Revelation). Some of these writings will be discussed later in this

book, and in this chapter I want to examine how the topic has

been approached by those who have looked back on the period

from Christ to Constantine as a unit. Even with this restriction,

we are still dealing with an area of research boasting a long pedi-

gree, with efforts to narrate the history of early Christianity and

excavate its material remains both beginning under Constantine

himself.

In what follows, I aim to survey how the study of early

Christianity has developed over the last seventeen centuries. It

will emerge that interest in early Christianity has often been chan-

nelled in such a way as to reflect the concerns of later ages.

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