Syllabus and reading list

Why study Ancient Church History? Because nothing really changes…everything remains the same!!

The early struggles to develop orthodox doctrines of the Christian Faith are really our daily struggles to do theology as pastors. If you know where the pitfalls are you are miles ahead of the game.

This prepares you to understand the forces behind the Reformation.

Here are the books I would like you to access. Some of them are available online so that you will not need to purchase them…unless you want to. I will list the ISBN codes and the stock numbers for Christian Book Distributors. They usually have the best prices

       THE EARLY CHURCH – HENRY CHADWICK

       CBD stock number – WW23199

       ISBN –   0140231994

       ISBN-13   9780140231991

This is an excellent little paperback that will give you a straightforward overview of the first 400 years of Church history. It will be the main anchor text for the class. You can just read it straight through. It might only take you an evening. We will springboard off of this for our other reading assignments.

        THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH – PHILIP SCHAFF

        CBD stock number – 3196X

        ISBN – 156531960

        ISBN-13     9781565631960

This is an 8 volume set and we will only be doing selected readings from the first two volumes. The most economical way to approach this is to use the website for Christian Classic Ethereal Library. The link is www.ccel.org

This is a gold mine. You can find volumes and volumes of Classic Christian literature which you can read online for free…or can download at a very reasonable price. Click the search tab and then enter either the name of the author or the title of the book. Call me if you have trouble and I will try to talk you through it. We will also look at selected readings from Irenaeus and Eusebius on this site.

That much said, I urge you to consider buying the whole set. CBD has a great price of only 119.00 for all 8 volumes. It is a great reference. I use mine all the time…but I paid nearly $300.00 for my set some 20 years ago!! So jump on this price if you like to have real books in your hands!

        CBD stock number – 228218

        ISBN –   0-87123-300-2

As stated in the course description, we will be looking at this important formative time of the Christian Church through an analysis of heresy and orthodoxy.   As a parish pastor you will be regularly confronted with creeping heresy. One of your members will read a book or attend some revival service and come back with a new teaching. If you are blessed, they will run it by you before they start teaching it to your entire Sunday school or youth group. Most of the time you won’t realize it until the phone starts ringing and the complaints start coming in.

Heresy, like all history, has a tendency to repeat itself. Thus, we will be using Walter Martin’s classic and easy to understand guidebook to familiarize ourselves with the various cultic expressions of pseudo religion that roam our streets today. Then I will be asking you to determine which 1^st century heresy they might best be associated with. Trust me… it’s fun!

     UNDER THE INFLUENCE- How Christianity Transformed Civilization– ALVIN SCHMIDT

     Zondervan Publishing

     ISBN - 0-310-23637-1

Did you realize that as the apostles were undertaking the first Christian missionary journeys that:

-          More than half of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were either slaves or some form of indentured servants?

-          Women, even Roman women, had almost no rights and their lives and fates depended on the whims of their husbands or masters?

-          Abortion and the exposure of newborns was rampant…especially girl babies?

-          The elderly were abandoned or left to fend for themselves…many starved to death?

-          The disabled or chronically ill were destitute and forced to beg to live?

Did you know that by 400 AD much of that had changed??...due almost entirely to the victory of the Christian world view!!! This book will show you how Christianity changed the Western world and it will give you ammunition for your next family reunion when your relatives say, “You’re going to school to become what????”

There is a reason why Christianity triumphed over every other religion in the world during its first half millennia. If we ever hope to recapture that glory, we had better learn why!!!

Other texts available on www.ccel.org from which there will be short assignments:

The Confessions of St. Augustine – by Augustine of Hippo

The Imitation of Christ – by St. Thomas ‘a Kempis

The Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea – first 300 years of the church

Against Heresies – Irenaeus Bishop of Lyon

Also:

Chapter 15 of Volume 1 –The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Progress of the Christian Religion

Available at www.ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_gibbon_1_15_1.htm