Early Christianity

3 The search for early Christianity: sources

and their interpretation 64

Christian literature 65

Jewish and pagan literature 82

Documentary sources and material remains 88

Using the sources 93

4 Messiahs and missions: contexts for the

origins and spread of Christianity 97

Christian origins and the problem of Judaism 98

Mission and conversion: the expansion of early

Christianity 108

Case study: inscriptions and the missionary journeys

of Paul 125

5 Doctrine and power: orthodoxy and

organization in early Christianity 142

How many bishops attended the council of Nicaea? 143

The ideal of unity in early Christianity 146

Organization and personnel 149

Ritual 156

Orthodoxy and heresy 158

Truth, tradition, text 165

Case study: the Nag Hammadi discoveries and

early Christianity 167

6 Confronting Babylon: early Christianity

and the Roman empire 186

An age of persecutions? 188

Christian alienation from Roman society 196

Christian attitudes to the Roman empire 202

Towards Christendom: an uneven progress 206

Case study: Pliny the Younger and the

Christians 210

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