A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

One of the most numerically successful movements of modern Christianity, Pentecostalism, has centred its appeal on a particular form of communication with the divine, speaking in tongues, which was severely mistrusted by Paul of Tarsus and which (despite the understandable claims of Pentecostals to the contrary) has very little precedent in Christian practice between the first and the nineteenth centuries CE.

Ch2 Israel 1000 BCE to 100 CE

He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.27

Part Two One Church-One Faith-One Lord 4 BCE to 451 CE Ch 3 A Crucified Messiah 4 BCE to 100 CE

One of his central commands is a commonplace of ancient philosophy, and is a conclusion at which most world religions eventually arrive: ‘whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them’ – what has come to be known as the Golden Rule.18

Ch 4 Boundaries Defined 50 tc 300 CE Shaping the Church

CANON, CREED, MINISTRY, CATHOLICITY

Ch 5 The Prince, Ally or Enemy 100-300 The Church and the Roman Empire 100-200

From Persecution to Persecution 250-300

Ch 6 The Imperial Church 300 451

Constantine, Arius and the One God 306-325 AC

Charles Kingsley

Part 3

The expansion of pilgrimage was only one symptom of profound changes in Church and society which Cluny Abbey embodied. What happened in the eleventh century was a Reformation, but unlike the more familiar Reformation of the sixteenth century, it was not a rebellion in the ranks but directed from the top, resulting in the most magnificent single structure of government which Christianity has known. Whether we approve of this achievement or not, it deserves the title of Reformation as much as the actions of Martin Luther and John Calvin, and we will not do it justice to see it, as later Protestants did, as a deliberate conspiracy by selfish clergy. The Church in the West was reacting creatively to change in the nature of power and wealth in the society to which it ministered. In the early medieval period, the chief way of gathering wealth was by warfare, yielding plunder and slaves; as we have seen, as late as the Carolingian period kings survived by giving handouts to their warlords (see p. 349). By the eleventh century this system was coming to an end. The change was symbolized by the collapse of Carolingian central authority in much of Europe over the previous century, which, whatever short-term disruptions it caused, was to lead to a new settled order in Western society. That was also encouraged by a gradual end to the wave of invasions of non-Christian peoples from north and east which had been a constant source of insecurity during the ninth and tenth centuries.

First Reformation