How To Read Church History Volume 1

This is a survey of fifteen centuries of church history. Three features make it different from other books, so that it appeals to the widest possible audience.

First, it does not separate church history from the wider history of the world in which it is set. Christians live in that wider world and political, social and economic developments have often determined the life of the church.

Secondly, it uses all the available traces of the past to tell its story- buildings, works of art and the results of archaeological investigations- and includes line-drawings to illustrate many of them.

Thirdly, it provides direct quotations from the written sources in translation.

As much importance is attached here to texts from the past as the presentation of events, and the main narrative, maps and charts help the reader to find the contect of these texts, understand them and appreciate them. It fultils for church history the role which Etienne Charpentier's How to Read the Old Testament and How to Read the New Testament have fulfilled so admirably for the Bible.

Other companions to this volume are: How to Read the Old Testament, How to Read the New Testament, How to Read Church History Vol.2, How to Read the World: Creation in Evolution, How to Understand Marriage, How to Understand God, How to Understand the Sacraments, How to Read the Church Fathers, How to Read the Apocalypse, How to Understand the Virgin Mary, How to Understand Hinduism, How to Understand Judaism, How to Understand the History of Christian Mission.

JEAN COMBY is a professor in the Catholic faculty of the University of Lyons.