Description: This revised and expanded edition of a book that first appeared in 1945 offers an inside look at the growth and spread of Christianity in the second century by providing source materials from pagan witnesses, Christian churches, and movements that became known as heretical. Reading these selections provides a first-hand sense of issues and...
Brief description: Robert M. Grant is Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School in Chicago, Illinois. He is a renowned authority on the history of early Christianity.
Review Quotes: "Providing in this new edition a welcome section on "Pagan Witnesses," Grant still includes many of his original selections with a few additions and new bibliography. He displays Christian communities which, even in their geographical and cultural differences, share essential commonalities in faith and practice. Yet his material reveals one other phenomenon: stiff competition between communities for the name Christian. Through his choices, organization, commentary, and translations, Grant employs his fragments masterfully. The result is anything but fragmentary."