Early Christianity And The First Christians

The fifteen essays in this volume, rooted in the work of the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section of the SBL, examine the works of Philodemus and how they illuminate the cultural context of early Christianity.

The fifteen essays in this volume, rooted in the work of the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section of the SBL, examine the works of Philodemus and how they illuminate the cultural context of early Christianity.

Originally confined to a small circle of believers centered in Jerusalem, Christianity's stunning transformation into the world's most popular faith is one of history's greatest, most miraculous stories.

"One thousand years apart, Christianity's rapid rise in Europe and in Mexico coincided with plague and social dislocation, but this was no coincidence. Crossing disciplines with apparent ease, Daniel Reff offers a fresh, erudite, and compelling explanation of how Jesuit missionaries in Mexico advanced their cause by echoing the rhetoric and strategies of early Christians." David J. Weber, author of The Spanish Frontier in North America and the forthcoming, Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment "Scholars have spent a generation abjectly recognizing that they cannot fully understand 'the other'. Now it is time to re-recognize that we are all members of the same species. In Plagues, Priests, and Demons we see that Europe in the first centuries AD and Mexico in the first post-Columbian centuries suffered similar pandemics and population crashes, and reacted similarly by accepting a new religion." Alfred W. Crosby, Professor Emeritus in American Studies, History and Geography, University of Texas at Austin