Robert Louis Wilken

My worn and heavily marked copy of the original hardback edition of Peter Brown’s biography of St. Augustine, its binding held together by sturdy book tape, sits on a bookshelf close to my desk as it has since it first appeared in 1967. On the inside cover I have a little note, “Reviewed . . . . Continue Reading »

Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intoleranceh. a. drake johns hopkins, 609 pages, $68 The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Romeelizabeth de palma digeser cornell, 199 pages, $39.95 The ritual pronouncement of anathemas against Constantinianism has become so commonplace that . . . . Continue Reading »

The goal of life for Christians is the kingdom of God, but early in the Church’s history the men and women of the desert realized that the practice of the Christian life re­ quired more proximate goals. In their writings the phrase used most often to depict what one strives for in . . . . Continue Reading »

In the wake of the Enlightenment’s assault on tradition no field of theology has suffered more than the study of the Bible. With the emergence of “scientific” history in the nineteenth century and of new disciplines such as archaeology, the Bible came to be seen as less a book of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Midnight of December 31, 1999 is the symbolic ending of one Christian millennium and the beginning of another. (We say “symbolic,” being well aware of the scholarly consensus regarding the date of Christ’s birth, and the literal claim that the second millennium ends with the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East By William Dalrymple Henry Holt. 483 pp. $30 At the end of the sixth century a monk from Palestine by the name of John Moschos set out from the flourishing monastic world in the Judean desert east of Jerusalem to visit the . . . . Continue Reading »

For two generations Christian theology has been engaged in a fundamental rethinking of Christianity’s relation to Judaism and to the Jewish people. This work has been carried out by biblical scholars, historians, theologians, educators, and bishops and other leaders of Christian communions. . . . . Continue Reading »

The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 By Caroline Walker Bynum Columbia University Press. 368 pages, $29.95 In canto fourteen of the Paradiso , Dante writes, When, glorified and sanctified, the flesh is once again our dress, our persons shall in being all complete, please . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the lessons read at the Easter vigil is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. It is a good story, told well and not without irony. Each year when it is read I can hardly conceal a smile as the author lists (and not just once) the titles of the king’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of Ancient Christianity by Robert Markus Cambridge University Press, 258 pages, $49.50 In fourth-century Syria John Chrysostom complained that when a Christian couple was married a priest was not allowed to bless the union. Like many of the institutions and customs of the ancient world, the . . . . Continue Reading »