Reviews of History of the Catholic Church From Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium
A ane book history of the Catholic Church building is quite an undertaking and to practice it in a flake over 530 pages is not a simple task. Writing but 500 pages on any century of the Church would exist a hard task. Creating a one volume history imposes many expected limitations, but if done well tin provide a very valuable service. There are several one book histories of this type, although I accept mainly read either the multi-volume sets such as The History of Christendom by the late Warren H. Carroll or histories covering specific area. What James Hitchcock has pulled off if quite exceptional. This is a summary history that sweeps through the ages of the Church. While it leaves you wanting to know many more details of the history described, still you lot are given the all-time overview possible for this format. For the most role this is a sequential sweep through the history of the Church building from its birth to the present. While by and large the history is sequential some of the capacity are focuses on specific areas and tin contain large sweeps of history regarding that topic. I was hooked from the introduction on. The information is presented in topic focused paragraphs with a topic title displayed to the right or left of the text. The topics are usually only a couple paragraphs in length. I really liked the format of the book because I will be using it in the hereafter as a reference. Besides the lengthy alphabetize the topic headings next to the text make it very easy to scan and observe specific information yous might want to become back to. I have heard complaints almost Harry Crocker's one volume history "Triumph: The Ability and the Celebrity of the Catholic Church" for existence triumphalistic (doesn't that become with the title). So you lot might wonder how James Hitchcock presents the history of the Church. Well to sum it upwardly the history of the Church can be described using Charles Dikens' kickoff of "A Tale of Two Cities". It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, information technology was the season of Lite, it was the season of Darkness, information technology was the leap of hope, information technology was the winter of despair, we had everything before the states, we had nothing earlier united states, we were all going direct to heaven, nosotros were all going direct the other manner. The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes starts off "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this historic period." This history displays that tension and does not whitewash the history of the Church building. He does not gloss over serious evils that occurred. This history is nicely balanced as a presentation and this is certainly the way I adopt it. Really the history of the Church is sort of a proof for the Catholic Church building. If it was just up to u.s.a. Catholics the Church would be a historical footnote by now. If she were not a divinely given institution she would accept passed similar all man-made institutions. It does the Church no good to minimize what has happened and it is e'er a temptation to do this. For example some apologists will minimize witch-hunting every bit something that mainly occurred among Protestants. As he states witchcraft persecutions were an "action carried out by Catholics and Protestants with equal zeal." And so while the low points are not left out, neither are the glories of Christendom reduced. This is only a great history of the Church that gives a topological summary giving you the birds-eye view. I really similar how he crafted the topic summaries to pack in the information. This succinctness I am sure took some serious work to pull of. I as well similar that in that location is little editorializing of history while still delivering some fine insights. Plus peppered throughout were little details at times that added to the enjoyment. At times I thought that perchance he might accept left something out only to find it a couple of paragraphs subsequently or separated into one of the more topic focused capacity. To sum it up I think this is a quite a major work and just a great one book await at Church history. At that place was only one fourth dimension in the whole volume where I scratched my head a piffling where a footnote regarding Joan of Arc read "She was canonized in 1920. Her sanctity is problematical insofar every bit she acted simply equally a French patriot, but her canonization was based on her heroic virtue.". Although if you can become through 500 plus pages of a book of Catholic history and only have one quibble, that is a pretty amazing achievement.
September 2, 2013 A Review by Anthony T. Riggio of James Hitchcock's History of the Catholic Church building (From the Apostolic Age to the Tertiary Millennium). I am neither a philosopher nor a theologian simply am a Cosmic interested in knowing more most the origins of my ain Faith. I do love history and the evolvement in the Catholic Church is a lesson in history that takes all of us through the evolution of Western Civilisation. As a history major in higher and the product of a parochial school education, I have studied Western homo'southward history over many years and only recently was able to conclude the ubiquity of the Catholic Church building's impact on human's thinking and philosophical quest for knowledge and meaning of life. I have read iv very pregnant works which have whetted my appetite for understanding how my Church began and survived the times for more than 2 one thousand years. The Catholic Church as an organization is the longest standing institution Human has ever witnessed. In those 2 thousand years it has grown, albeit with many phases and continuing clarifications on practices but never on dogma. After reading The Futurity Church, I came across the current book by Hitchcock from an Amazon notification and immediately bought it and left it on my volume shelf for a couple of months as I needed a respite from reading about the Catholic Church building and waited until the Spirit moved me to crack open this book in mid-August 2013 and completed it on September one, 2013. Like all tomes on History (especially religion) it is a slow reading attempt and initially I found myself a little bored past the repetitive outline of the Church'south history. Equally I continued my struggle, the book became somewhat exciting and the reading was enlightening and I came to a thought of why we demand the Catholic Church. Of class at that place are a multitude of reasons that can exist raised and argued, just for me, it was the realization that the Church has never inverse from its core belief tenants' correct from day 1. And it is quite simple in its outline. Christ was built-in into the globe to save mankind (all of Mankind) and certain teachings he presented (The Gospels) included the purposes he gave to his Apostles during the short period of his ministerial life including instructions for a hierarchy, as he appointed Peter as the "stone" upon which volition build his church building. As elementary in his pedagogy as Peter was and as human as he was to deny Christ and so beg forgiveness, the Church needed a cracking intellect to give thought substance His message He accomplished this through "other" apostle, Saul/Paul. Paul provided the reasoning and intellectual construction to the Church likewise as the raison de etre for instruction to the Gentiles or non-Jews. Christ's invitation remains open to all Jews providing they accept the invitation. As the belief system of Christ's teachings was starting time to be formulated, many adult interpretive views of Christ and his teachings, questioning his divinity and purpose. Through the efforts of the early Church fathers, formal structure was added and description of beliefs was spiritually achieved. I began to call back, as I read, that man is such an intelligent being and the diversions he attempted to touch on on Christ's Church was alike to the concupiscence human being encountered either in the Garden of Eden or at some betoken in the evolutionary process where Homo could believe he was equally smart as God. It is the Prometheus moment where Man became Man. Some would argue that Man became desirous or "sinful". I believe, that Human being Homo used his ain ego to interpret God's message. The book goes through all of the history of Western Civilisation and the Cosmic Church building's bear on on all men in the Western earth. It is a fascinating read and presented in a very readable format past topics with peachy margins for notation takers that similar to highlight or note significant passages in the book. The author describes all of the "breakaway" or schismatic conventionalities systems using the instance of intersecting circles, where each new belief system's circle intersects with the circumvolve representing the Catholic Church simply just embraces a part of the Cosmic circumvolve. Which is like to what I was taught growing up and that is the Catholic Church was the pie and each slice out of that pie represented the breakaway churches. Many of my Protestant brothers would fence that ane will become to heaven through the acceptance of Christ as his personal savior and Hitchcock'southward volume makes it very clear that "Solo Scriptura" may be insufficient for conservancy by itself. The author emphasizes tradition and doctrine of the Cosmic Church is just equally important and maybe more so. In any outcome doctrinal differences bated, I found the book most interesting and the scholarship superb. I highly recommend reading this book both for its historical value too as for a clear agreement of the many secular and spiritual hurdles the Catholic Church has encountered over the last 2 millennium. I gave the volume five stars in my rating.
I have read and reviewed "The Sword of Constantine" by James Carroll; "Christianity" past Diarmaid MacCollouch; "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" by Thomas Bokenkotter; "The Hereafter Church" by John L. Allen Jr., and rated them accordingly on both Goodreads and Amazon.
This is conspicuously evidenced as i reads the History of the Catholic Church building. The Christian belief organization first became the pawn or tool for secular leaders and rulers and then the playground for thinkers and philosophers. This unfortunately included Men who were members of this church. Separations and Schisms' were adult taking and using those parts of the Church building teachings that they wanted or despised.
An appallingly slipshod, error-strewn piece of work that is an enormous thwarting not just coming from Hitchcock, but likewise from Ignatius Press, which used to be a reliable outfit. This book should not exist recommended or read for reasons I discuss in part hither: http://easternchristianbooks.blogspot...
Standing the ecumenical strand in my reading, I tackled a rather ambitious History of the Cosmic Church building packing over 2000 years of history into ~500 pages. I take read a book of similar scope almost the Orthodox Church concluding twelvemonth (review hither) and I went through a huge Chesterton phase a few years back. Only getting a bird'southward eye view, so to speak, has been extremely helpful. I was able to connect all the dots between the events of the New Testament to the Church building of the Middle Ages to events of today. This history of the Church takes the perspective of a knowledgeable laic, perhaps comparable to Saints in the Latter-Day Saint tradition, at least in terms of tone. It attempts to be comprehensive, but how to practise that well in so brusk a infinite? The author organizes the volume into fourteen capacity, further broken into mini-sections of two-5 paragraphs. I didn't like the format at start, every bit it fell too superficial. But for it serves its purpose every bit a broad overview, and I found myself looking upwards additional books on topics I would like to read upwardly on in more particular. While the book does accost controversial aspects of the Cosmic Church, information technology clearly has its biases. For instance, on the Inquisition the author writes: The primary purpose of the Inquisition was to persuade the defendant heretic to recant, in which case he was made to exercise public penance... Torture was permitted in gild to obtain a confession, merely it was used sparingly in heresy cases, since an individual who denied being a heretic was considered to take recanted. On the topic of indulgences: Technically, the indulgence was not being sold; recipients had to exist truly penitent of their sins, too as give coin, and poor people could gain an indulgence without payment. But even some orthodox theologians considered the practice of granting indulgences overly mechanical and self-centered, and some of the indulgence preachers were extremely aggressive and appeared to be engaged in a sordid trade. In this strain, the writer acknowledges bad behavior, merely doesn't become into sordid detail and seeks to put it in the virtually positive lite possible. This is understandable, and it is valuable to understand the history of the faith from the perspective of a believer. As Krister Stendahl taught, when you are trying to sympathize another faith, you lot should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies. I do appreciate cocky-cogitating pieces too that seeks to acknowledge fault and do justice in low-cal of it, and I am certain there is plenty of that genre in Catholicism. While the whole volume is fascinating, I found the adaptations of the Church to the mod era to be of particular interest. While the Catholic Church has been a continuous arrangement for 2000 years, there was a definitive shift in the last century. Pius IX was the last pope to rule every bit a prince when the Papal States became a office of Italy. The writer commented: The question of the papacy's "temporal ability" remained an upshot in Catholic circles for many years. The argument in its favor was both theoretical—the Papal States were bestowed past God—and practical: How could the Pope exist secure in the exercise of his spiritual potency unless he ruled an autonomous principality free of the secular powers? But on balance, the loss of the Papal States proved to be benign to the Church. They were only a delicate protection for papal autonomy, and xv hundred years of fighting for territory oft had a deeply corrupting effect on the papacy. While Pius Ix oversaw the loss of temporal ability, Pope John XXIII struck an entirely dissimilar image of what information technology meant to be pope: In a sense, the "manner" of the new Pope was more important than his specific policies. Apart from anything he decreed or authorized, John immediately effected a revolution in the public paradigm of the papal role, an abrupt transition from the concept of the pope as ruler to the pope as kindly pastor. Throughout the Middle Ages, the popes played a major part in politics, for better or for worse. From the perspective of today, information technology seems very distasteful. It smacks of church and country being intermingled. But one thing that Fareed Zakaria points out in his The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, information technology kept a power that could rival the power of the state, in effect keeping state power in check. Zakaria traces this back to Constantine'due south decision to leave the pope backside in Rome when he moved to the E: The church never saw itself every bit furthering private liberty. But from the offset information technology tenaciously opposed the power of the country and thus placed limits on monarchs' rule... The Catholic Church building was the first major institution in history that was independent of temporal potency and willing to claiming information technology. By doing so information technology cracked the edifice of country power, and in nooks and crannies individual liberty began to grow. The book felt very different for me as information technology started to take hold of up to events of today, specifically everything after the 1960s. I don't recall it's simply considering it starts to cover events from my lifetime or my parents' lifetime; I started to feel the writer take stances on the political issues of today and was decidedly pessimistic near modern advancements. In sweeping generalizations like this: In 2010, the frontiers of morality stood at a betoken that had been mere science fiction at the fourth dimension of Vatican II. Besides ballgame, euthanasia, and suicide, the issues included induced sex changes, bogus insemination, cloning, and "creation" of life in laboratories, ofttimes to be destroyed from embryonic stalk cell enquiry. The crisis was metaphysical more moral, in that the very identity of humanity was being called into question by a seemingly irresistible, all-devouring applied science and by men determined to deny both higher moral truth and any concept of inherent human significance. The author seems to think that everything has gone downhill since Vatican II right before the 60s. Vatican II was a Pandora's box that opened concessions to modernity. He is articulate that he doesn't blame either Popes John XXIII or Paul VI. Merely something definitely was amiss: For many, the postconciliar period therefore proved to be a time of rudderless experimentation, with change itself obviously at present the merely new finality. In that environment, the distinction between essentials and nonessentials was for many people no longer clear. If Catholics could now swallow mean on Fridays, why would they not get divorced, especially if the purpose of the Council, and of "Skillful Pope John", was to brand the faith less burdensome? I couldn't help but encounter many touchstones with my ain organized religion. The media reception of Vatican II felt all too familiar reminding me of reading Twitter commentary of Full general Briefing: The gist of such reporting was that at long last the Church was albeit her many errors and coming to terms with modern civilisation. The Council Fathers were divided into heroes and villains, "liberals" and "conservatives," and the conciliar deliberations were presented every bit morality plays in which open-minded progressives repeatedly thwarted the plots of Machiavellian reactionaries. The volume left me feeling with a greater appreciation of the Cosmic church and its history. I know in my own faith community we tend to paint the Catholic church in a negative light, and it is in a large part due to ignorance. I notice myself increasingly drawn to our similarities.
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March 7, 2020 DNF @33% Confusing, because the author seems to exist unorganized. Word moves from one topic to another in the next paragraph, still may move back to the initial topic a few pages later. Why did the author non organize the contents more chronologically, topically and / or per specific effigy, I have no thought. As a result, information technology was a pretty disjointed, confusing and not at all enlightening reading experience. Furthermore, as a historical book, I find the lack of commendation to exist really concerning. I'd call back a lot of the claims on the historical events presented in the book may demand to exist properly referenced to some other reliable source(due south). Similarly, I don't know if the author provides the correct interpretation of some of the creeds, concepts, ideas that were debated past the early Church building Fathers, considering he does not provide proper citation. Every bit a effect, it may seem similar a lot of the theological discourses are of his personal interpretation. Overall, a disappointing read, peculiarly because I really exercise desire to learn the histories of the Catholic Church from an accurate historical POV.
I really wanted to like this book. Hitchcock has a good reputation, his Recovery of the Sacred is an important and worthwhile book, and I'd like to know a good readily available volume on the history of the Church. But the problem is that his command of theology is not as good as he thinks it is. From the introduction: God's program cannot exist thwarted, and human freedom is not at all the merely caption for evil. The trend to blame freedom for evil is a very modern ane--I have an early Twemtieth Century textbook whose authors knew meliorate. (Grace, Actual and Habitual (Volume 7); A Dogmatic Treatise; the primary author was a Jesuit, so my views on this signal are not just a function of my Dominican leanings.) Want more? That'southward where I quit reading. You tin call me overly picky if y'all like, but here's the bargain: When I read a non-fiction book, I take to trust the author. When he gets things incorrect that I know about, how can I trust him on things I don't know about?Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares teaches that good and evil exist together in the world, and the reality of human liberty provides the but satisfactory explanation of moral evil—God'due south mysterious willingness to grant that freedom and let its full exercise, even when information technology is used to thwart His divine programme.
a sometimes excessive concern for doctrinal clarity that was motivated by both the Greek passion for philosophical finality and the religious passion to be true-blue to the Gospel.
An example would exist handy. As information technology is, I accept no idea what he's talking about.Some books (Esther, Maccabees) appeared in the Septuagint but not in other compilations
Parts of Esther are in the Septuagint and not elsewhere, but most of it is right there in the Hebrew sources.But despite Augustine's enormous prestige, the Council [of Orangish] stopped short of fully embracing his own statement of the question, and information technology condemned the doctrine of predestination.
No, the Quango of Orange did not condemn predestination (once more, my Jesuit author and his translator/editor have a lot to say virtually it). Y'all can look at the canons from the Council of Orange for yourself and meet.
An excellent comprehensive view of Catholic Church History with an easy to use topical alphabetize to locate many different subjects. Hitchcock is one of the very best.
A good summary of Catholic history. Reads like an encyclopedia while having enough narrative style to keep the interest of the reader throughout. Can be used for reference or read straight from beginning to stop. The writer is a "bourgeois" Cosmic. For that genre the handling is fair with but a few foundational omissions. Apologetic in tone in addition to covering the latitude of cloth in a brusk volume, Hitchcock has washed an admirable job of mass marketing Catholic history for the laymen in the pews. The volume is stamped with the praise of loftier churchmen as well every bit neoconservative political writers associated with Ignatius Press. This type of thing I suppose qualifies for the "nihil obstat" (an essential mark of sanctioned Cosmic literature in, say, the proficient erstwhile days of Sheed & Ward). A pleasure to read, albeit other books accept been written in this vein quite ofttimes. This new try deserves some added attending. The work will exist read by the choir on the whole. Of detail note however due to the shelf space provided in the pitiable choice on faith in virtually corporate book stores.
From the outset, I will say that this book is overall acceptable if y'all consider merely the survey of full general events. I flat-out dislike the writer's biases; they have no historical basis and do nothing but injure his text by making the reader question the explanations of an event of theological concept. That said, I would recommend this if it were read in some sort of introductory course then that a discussion about these issues could occur. The lack of footnotes indicates it was probably written for such a purpose. The gist of my complaint is the book has a storybook experience. There is always a "foil" that Christianity ultimately gets the best of in the author'due south syntheses: Second Temple Judaism and Greek Polytheism are "corrected and unified" by the Early Church (with Acts and every word of the Gospels is taken every bit fact, despite the more prestigious priestly theologians of our fourth dimension finding this view as foolish and incorrect). Rome (during the height of its strength) was immoral and decaying whilst the post-Constantine Empires that accepted Christianity became a "corrected and unified" universal empire. Barbarians from the Dark Ages are roughshod beasts (despite running Rome's armies and most of its authoritative state for most two centuries before the fateful twenty-four hour period in 476) who brought civilization to its knees. Forget how 476 is at present generally accepted equally cipher just the replacement of one Gothic leader with a Greco-Roman puppet emperor for another Gothic leader who discarded the pretense)—it is merely through Christianity that the Carolingians, Alfred the Bully, and the Normans were "corrected and unified" to go powerful. This continues throughout the book and casts an eye-rolling air of bias and illegitimacy on the full general content. Every bit discussed below, the electric current big baddie (modernity) seems to have an upper hand and thus is cause for great concern going forward from the 2012 publication date. To put it in my own words: the writer does not like what has happened once the mutual masses finally had the socio-political opportunity to not attend church, not tithe, not send their children to catechists, access to public education. While he is entitled to that opinion on a personal or theological level, he permit information technology poison the historicity of the work equally a whole. If y'all have the chops to read material similar this, I would instead recommend the works of Pope Benedict 16 (and works published every bit Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), Fr. Josef Jungmann, and Fr. John P. Meier for your ecclesiastic history reading. In particular, though I recommend the relatively brief "Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church" past Professor Joseph Kelly. That writer manages to pack the same general events into a much more succinct piece of work that avoids the biases, armchair theologizing, and presumptions of the at-consequence work.
The general narrative through leads to the writer'southward mournful conclusion: in the absence of Christendom, both grace and salvation are ebbing at a unsafe rate.
This volume is in ways a very dry "artistic nonfiction" history where Early Christianity and Catholicism is the under-dog hero (whose bad actors were not all that atrocious) while its political and religious enemies are naught brusque of soul-corrupting and order-ruining evil. Whatever problem y'all have with today's world? Blame innovation.
Hitchcock'south "The History of the Cosmic Church" presents a brilliantly-done synthesis of the history of Roman Catholicism in chronological format, beginning with Christ'southward founding of the Church building and handing the key to its gates to the commencement pope, Saint Peter. Information technology then gain to an test of the Church Fathers, such as Origen, Ignatius, Polycarp, Eusebius, Tertullian, Augustine and others, and how they devised the creeds of the Church borrowing from elements of Neoplatonic philosophy, and speaking confronting the diverse heresies such as Arianism, Gnosticism, Docetism, and Marcionism effecting the Church. It documents the spread of the Church outside of the Most East, Greece, and Italy into the residue of Pagan Europe in the centuries proceeding the plummet of the Roman Empire and the "Nighttime Ages" of European History, and the preservation of the Bible in its original languages during the Middle Ages in places such equally Republic of ireland and in Cluny, France. Through the Center Ages, it moves towards the Renaissance, and the reinvigoration of the Church by scholars such as Saint Bonaventure and Roger Bacon, leading into the challenges of the Reformation, and the counter-Reformation reforms instituted by the Council of Trent. Moving forward to the Enlightenment, the key theme becomes the struggle betwixt the pseudo-Calvinism of the Jansenists and the orthodoxy of the Jesuits. The French Revolution and the secularism brought nigh by the Industrial Revolution saw both an increase in the ascension of bourgeoisie materialism and the ideologies of Marxism and working-class solidarity threatening the practice of traditional religion among Europe'south urban Catholic population, a reject that was balanced by the spread of the Catholic faith from the 16th century onwards into the Americas, Asia, and Africa, with the Catholic organized religion becoming particularly robust in Latin America (through Castilian and Portuguese control), Quebec (French colonization), the Philippines (Spain), the Kingdom of the Kongo in Westward Africa (Portuguese missionaries), and ultimately the United States past the 19th Century due to heavy Irish and German immigration (later augmented past Polish, Italian, other Slavic, French-Canadian, and Portuguese immigration). In the 20th Century the upheaval of the World Wars, the desperate declines in vocations to religious life, and most of all the conciliar reforms of the 2nd Vatican Quango, brought about major changes in worldwide Catholicism. The latter, in particular, brought about significant split up between Conservative/traditionalist Catholics, who opposed the liturgical changes and openness of the council, and liberals/progressives who embraced the Reforms. However, if at that place can be said to be i overarching/fundamental theme of Hitchcock's text, it can exist said to be the persistence of the unity of the Cosmic Church as a single body in spite of the many disagreements amid its members. Overall, this work does a bully task of weaving together the diverse philosophical, theological, and national elements that have and continue to brand upwardly the Cosmic Church building and showing how they construct role of a whole. 5 stars!
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