The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity

by Robert L. Wilken

“[A] brilliant survey of the development of Christianity . . . tells a riveting story of a struggling young religion searching for an identity.” —Publishers Weekly   This sweeping history begins with the life of Jesus and narrates the remarkable story of Christianity as it unfolded over the next thousand years. Unique in its global scope, the book encompasses the vast geographical span of early Christianity, from the regions around the Mediterranean Sea through the Middle East and beyond to central Asia, India, and China. Robert Louis Wilken, beloved professor and renowned author, selects people and events of particular importance in Christian history to bring into focus the full drama of the new religion’s development. The coming of Christianity, he demonstrates, set in motion one of the most profound revolutions the world has known.   Wilken tracks the growth of Christian communities around the ancient world and shows how the influence of Christianity led not only to the remaking of cultures but also to the creation of new civilizations. He explores the powerful impact of the rise and spread of Islam on Christianity and devotes several chapters to the early experiences of Christians under Muslim rule in the Middle East, Egypt, north Africa, and Spain. By expanding the telling of Christian history to encompass perspectives beyond just those of the West, Wilken highlights how interactions with new peoples and languages changed early Christian practices, even as the shared rituals of Christian people bound them in spiritual unity despite their deep cultural differences.  “Ambitious and wide-ranging . . . [This] highly accessible volume abounds with lively tales and fascinating connections.” — The Christian Century

Genres: History, Religion, Church History, Christianity, Nonfiction, Christian, Theology

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 10, 2009

Reviews

[Claire Gilligan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, non-Euro-centric history of the first millennium of Christianity! Gives great context for the Eastern churches, and doesn't shy away from the rise of Islam in formerly Catholic areas. Clearly meticulously researched, yet easily readable even for the non-academic; just often enough, he recaps what he's just explained at length, highlighting the overall importance of what might otherwise seem like minutiae. (Downside for academics: No footnotes, although a lengthy bibliography at the back.) AND each chapter is an even ten pages, which made it perfect for bedside reading!

Definitely highly recommended. It exceeded my expectations, and shifted my worldview just a bit! Well done.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Robert Louis Wilken is fantastic, but this is the weakest book of his that I have read. It is not that it is bad, or wrong, or stupid, in any way. It is that it falls into the genre I call “capsule history,” where many short chapters cover different happenings, and only a loose framework connects the chapters. The result is that a reader can learn something, or can even learn quite a bit, but the experience is too much like reading an encyclopedia. On the other hand, the book does consistently excel in one thing—communicating the loss suffered when Islam dominated or exterminated Christianity in its lands of first flourishing, from northern Africa to Mesopotamia. And if you’re looking for a factual overview of the first thousand years of Christianity, you’ll certainly get it here.

Throughout the book Wilken emphasizes several themes, so there is at least some integration among chapters. One is the centrality of community to Christians since the earliest years of Christianity, with consequent collective memory, often tied to tangible things. This was always an extremely demanding community, for centuries requiring public confession and rigorous penance. (That’s one reason why I always laugh with contempt when dullard American progressives claim that Jesus taught “inclusion and acceptance”—i.e., that Christianity doesn’t demand, and hasn’t always demanded, extremely specific actions and inactions. Although, among those demands is not having contempt for others, unfortunately for me). Moreover, Trinitarian theology also emphasized the communality of God, of which Christian communality was a reflection, creating a type of virtuous circle of community, reaching from Heaven to earth.

This ties to a second theme—the development of theology over time. Not new theology, but the deepening of thought and understanding on many topics. In his earlier "The Spirit of Early Christian Thought," Wilken discusses the theology of the Trinity through this lens; here, the focus is on the development of the theology surrounding the simultaneous divine and human natures of Christ. I find this fascinating, just as I find Christian heresies extremely interesting. Yes, I know such things have no direct impact, necessarily, on an individual Christian’s life, and doubtless it is true that today we face problems and threats of immediate and great import, so it is important for comity and tactical advantage to gloss over divisions, and probably we should therefore not emphasize parsing confessional differences over the nature of Christ. Still, we shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of these matters—not only does this process of reasoning and subtle theology distinguish Christianity from all other religions, but that the best minds of the world spent generations struggling to reconcile revelation and reason about these matters should suggest, as a first cut, not that they were wasting their time, but that they were on to something, and we should pay attention.

Related to this second theme is a third, that intra-Christian disputes were the norm, rather than the exception, throughout the first thousand years of Christianity. This was true among theologians, and it was also true among the various centers of ecclesiastical power in the East (with the West, centered on Rome, also being involved during much of the period, with a gap after the decline of the Western Roman Empire). We are used to the idea that ongoing Christian disputes are rare, of minor importance, and either, for Protestants, decided by the individual, or for Catholics, ultimately decided by the Pope (at least until the past few years, when we have been disserved by Pope Francis). But this was most definitely not true of early Christianity, where significant disputes were common and usually settled by church councils. Some of those disputes were with currents of thought wholly outside mainstream Christianity, most notably Gnosticism. Others were within Christianity, but still were very substantial and led to lasting cracks. These included iconoclasm, which tore the Eastern Roman Empire apart more than once, as well as multiple arguments related to the vision of Christ’s nature. The latter led to whole groups regarding themselves as partially separate, including the Nestorian Christians, whose persecution by the Byzantines resulted, in part, in their cooperation with Muslim conquerors, whom they saw as heretics, not a new religion, a blind spot they recognized too late.

Beginning at the beginning, in Jerusalem, Wilken moves outward in time and space, first to the journeys of Paul, and thence to other areas of the Middle East to which Christianity spread, gradually increasing its hold on the population. Almost all of these areas are areas we think of as Muslim today. He also talks about numerous important individuals, some still famous today (Origen; Gregory of Nyssa; Athanasius; Maximus the Confessor) and many less famous, at least in the West (Shenoute, abbot of the giant White Monastery in Egypt; Mashtots, inventor of the Armenian alphabet, created as part of the work of conversion). He talks of persecutions (quoting, for example, from a variety of fascinating primary Roman sources involving interrogations of Christians; if this topic interests you, there is no better place to go than Wilken’s "The Christians as the Romans Saw Them"). He talks of church dependence on the state, and of its independence. He also discusses the tangled Christian relationship with the Jews—not the later, medieval one of pogroms, but one where Jews, who had large numbers in the Roman Empire, often persecuted Christians, and got the same and more in return.

Naturally, Church councils, including Nicaea and Chalcedon, receive a lot of attention, both for the events themselves and for their subsequent ripples through history. Monasticism, a uniquely Christian practice, also gets a lot of ink, among other things for the leading role of women (Christianity is the only major religion that has always theologically treated women as not inferior to men, contrary to the common modern myth propagated by those who don’t actually know anything about Christianity.) Art and architecture, music and literature, are also extensively covered. Wilken includes a picture of the Christ Pantokrator painted in the sixth century and now in Saint Catherine’s Monastery, my favorite religious picture. Unfortunately, Saint Catherine’s is now located in Egypt, where Muslim literalists are on the march continuing the millennium-old Muslim cleansing of Christians from these lands, so it is at risk of destruction. But perhaps keeping such hordes at bay is what tungsten rods dropped from orbit are for. That’s just a stopgap–we probably need re-conversion of the Muslim lands, which is not impossible. If there is one thing that comes through clearly in this book, it’s that massive unanticipated changes in history are the norm, not the exception.

More mundane matters also crop up, such as the creation of recognizably modern hospitals by Basil of Caesarea, in the fourth century, far pre-dating Islam (hospitals are one of the many “inventions” often falsely claimed by Muslim apologists). Finally, as Islam crests over the historic Christian heartlands, Wilken turns more to the West being reborn, through the Carolingians, the spread of Christianity to the British Isles, and the groundwork for the Crusades being laid as Islam continued to choke the life out of Christians and their culture in the places conquered by the troops of Muhammad and his successors.

But all of these topics get covered in chapters of ten pages or less, and multiple topics are covered in each chapter. Again, this is inherent in the structure of capsule history, and in trying to cover a thousand years in a day. So, as I say, this is not a bad book, but it does not glitter like some of Wilken’s other works. My original plan was to use this as an audiobook to educate my older children in the car as I drove them to school. It’s not available as an audiobook, so I dropped the plan, and just read the book to myself. As an education device for teenagers, this book may be boring to them, and a little boring to me, but it communicates all the relevant information, so maybe I will make them read it after all! Communicate information is all it does, though, which should be enough, but somehow I was expecting more.

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently researched. I REALLY appreciate that he not only references the primary sources but often quotes them at length! It's neither too difficult to follow nor is it dumbed down.
History is far more interesting than anything we could have made up and church history even more so. I love the "zoomed in" details that Wilken includes to help bring the events to life.

Wilken seems to be a Christian as he holds scripture as authoritative, but does not come across as too biased in any direction (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant) and has critiques for all, while also understanding how each developed (although of course, since this is just the first 1,000 years he does not really address Protestantism). Something interesting to me is he also pointed out the tension between how the spread of Christianty was so dependent on the given government to embrace it officially, but that the union of Church and State inevitably led to issues of doctrine and wrong motives.

As the title implies, the emphasis of the book is on Christianity spreading globally, not just west. He ends by musing on the fact that while Christianity is not a "western religion" as many think of it, it is also not exactly an eastern religion. Jerusalem, where is all began, is in just such a particular location exactly between the two (or four?) hemispheres in many ways (easy access to both Europe and north Africa via the Mediterranean, easy acces to Asia via the red sea, and eastern Europe, etc). And the only reason Christianity has kept a stronger hold in the west politically and historically is because of the impact of Islam in the east. But prior to the 7th and 8th centuries, Christianity was very global, and thanks to the work of modern missionaries, it is today as well.

[Hanna Richter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned - & hopefully will retain - more history in this book than maybe all history classes I took in school combined. The more surprising thing is that I actually enjoyed it - even tho I only read it as a required text for a summer grad school course.

Easy to digest, broad in scope, entertaining in bits, inspirational from many saintly leaders, & educational in content.

I've been thinking about the Roman Empire almost every day since reading this for the past 6 weeks, so I now slightly understand male interest in this topic from the TikTok trend.

[Monica Mitri · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book offers a more or less decent survey of the first millennium of Christianity. It is highly readable. Its chapters are short and the author maintains a quick momentum. The book also covers a wide geographical scope, something to be commended for a work on western Christianity.

The author is at his best when he writes on early and western Christianity. But when he turns to eastern Christianity in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, there was much I could not agree with. The author writes from a position of Western-Chalcedonian normativity, with hints of supremacy. He claims that controversies over the nature of Christ arising from the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE continued for almost 'two hundred years' (p. 204), as if 'Monophysites' (he does not use the more acceptable 'Miaphysites') were not still around today. His norm is western Christianity, and the author often expresses surprise that other expressions of Christianity (most notably those writing in Arabic under Islam) managed to produce the literature they did despite being isolated from Greek- and Latin-speaking Christians in the early Middle Ages (p. 315)! He then claims that such literature continued to be produced only for 300 years ... despite the fact that some of these communities still survive today, and have been writing their theology in Arabic for over a thousand years.

To make the book accessible to a wide audience, the author uses no endnotes or bibliography (only a list of suggested readings at the end). But it quickly becomes obvious that, at least in areas outside his specialty (western Christianity), he relies on old scholarship that presents an essentialist and often monolithic view of Christianity. For example, the prolific Coptic archimandrite Shenoute presents an unsophisticated native Coptic Christianity, untainted by Greek influences (p. 208) and the same with Ephrem as concerns Syriac Christianity (p. 223). Both these viewpoints have been debunked by scholarship-'native, non-Greek, pure' Christianities are a modern myth and not a historical reality.

While the book makes for good and even enjoyable reading, readers should be aware of its biases and shortcomings.

[Sherif Gerges · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. Wilken delivers a masterful historiography of Christianity’s first millennium, situating its origins within the Mediterranean and Levant rather than what emerged later in Europe. This is neither hagiographical nor anachronistic, making for good history, and Wilkens meticulously traces Christianitys intellectual and theological development in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, where luminaries such as Origen, whose speculative brilliance expanded doctrinal frontiers, and Augustine, whose introspective profundity continues to shape Christian thought, laid its foundations. With lucidity and methodological rigor, Wilken beautifully describes the ascendancy of monasticism, the volatility of doctrinal disputes, and the inexorable expansion of the Church. He also does a great job describing the “secular” elements of Christians, I.e the creation of the first hospitals, music, architecture and philosophy.

His conclusion underscores monasticism’s role in safeguarding Christian identity, the religion’s capacity to assimilate indigenous cultural traditions, and the importance of proselytization in ensuring its perpetuity. Although certain theological controversies receive cursory treatment, Wilken’s most enduring contribution is his ability to synthesize an intricate and expansive historical epoch with precision, clarity, and a lovely coherent narrative.

An awesome and objective history of the world’s largest religion. As someone raised a Middle Eastern Christian, this was more educational than 20 years growing up in the Church.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilken's book is a shining exemplar of solid, elegantly written historical narrative, accessible to non-scholars. In my mind, it displaces Chadwick as my top recommendation for nonspecialists. One of the things I appreciate is the way Wilken challenges the traditional ancient/medieval periodization by venturing past the fall of the western Roman empire with an extended treatment of the rise of Islam, conversion of the Slavic lands, and much more. He approaches the history of the church as a history of cultures and societies as much as it is a history of ideas and beliefs.

Here are some of the topics Wilken highlights that don't get as much attention in traditionally assigned histories:

-Coptic, Nubian, and Ethiopian Christianity
-The Church of the East (and other Syriac-speaking communions)
-Central Asia, India, and China (the spread of Christianity along the Silk Road)
-Christianity under Islam in North Africa, Egypt, and Spain

I recommend this book highly for anyone wanting to learn more about Christianity's first millennium!

[Wyatt Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOOM!

This book is excellent. A bit hard to follow because it jumps dates a lot, but an amazing, globally encompassing account of Christianity in it’s first millenium. Thanks be to Colson for the recommendation!

If nothing else, read up on Christian history. I wish I had grown up with this knowledge and stories of the saints to parallel those in the scriptures. This book has completely changed my perspective on so many things.

[Avery Amstutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really good. It did its best to cover all of Christianity and not just the west which was helpful. My favorite part of this book was the chapter on Christians and art. It was interesting how Christians used pagan artists styles and embedded their own beliefs into them. It was also interesting to see how quickly Christian jewelry became a thing as a counterpoint to pagan iconography. It made me rethink my relationship to wearing Christian iconography. I used to reject all “Christian” jewelry because it tends to be cheesy and consumerist. Maybe there is a place to follow the early Christians in representing Christianity in the symbols we wear.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over 400 pages (or over 17 hours on audio) of church history starting in Acts and ending with the reign of Charlemagne will educate you on the origins of Christianity. Filled with quotes and source material I learned a lot and appreciated that each chapter was between 25-35 minutes. I am not often willing to shell out money for full price books but this is one that is being added to my library.

Bookworm challenge: A book over 400 pages

[Porter Sprigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate the broad scope of Wilken’s work, including churches like the Armenian Church, the Egyptian church, or the Slavic church that have been underreported in other church histories. Each chapter is interesting and engaging by itself, but for some reason they didn’t coalesce into a narrative whole. It seemed more like a collection of essays than a cohesive story. Fascinating and important information but sometimes clunky in execution.

[مي صالح زيتون · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very easy book to read divided into short chapters. Each chapter focuses on a period or region during the first 1000 years of christianity. I have learnt a lot about christianity and the important firgures during its history and the book made so many things clearer. As a muslim i have noticed the animosity he felt for islam and muslims so keep a conscious and wary mind while reading any opinion he has about anything that is not christian.

[Rayna · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the beginning I was a little worried about the author's knowledge base when he wrote that Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist (I don't know where people got this idea from, the gospels don't say this) and quoted "the sword verse" without understanding it. But he got on track and most of the book is quite interesting and well-written (though he really needs to learn how to use semicolons). Due to the fact that it covers history across three continents over the span of a thousand years, there is a great deal of information that did not make it into this book. Indeed, any one of the subjects of the chapters in this book could fill an entire book of its own. Robert Wilken made an effort to discuss as many of the most important and influential events and figures in Christian history as he could fit into 350 pages, and a more complete Christian history would without a doubt require many more volumes. With that said, I do wish he had talked more about Christian women. I already know that Christian women played a huge role in the early church, but so far I only know a little about them.

Anyway, here are the parts that are my favourite or otherwise noteworthy.

- It was Christian monks who invented the system of musical notation that enabled musicians to write down their melodies. Prior to that, people had to memorize melodies performed by experienced singers. Since music was such an integral part of Christian worship, monks such as Guido of Arezzo and Hucbald decided to take on the task of creating a method with lines and notes for writing music that could be passed down through the generations.

- The Christian church played a vital role in the preservation of history. Christian monks and nuns were very good at keeping records and making copies of important historical, literary, and liturgical works. Prior to the Middle Ages, many languages were spoken only and had no written form. If you wanted to read and write, you had to learn the lingua franca of your region, which in the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire were Latin and Greek, respectively. A written language was necessary for the creation of Christian culture and record keeping, so Christians created alphabets for languages. For example, an Armenian monk called Mashtots created the script for the Armenian language, and two Byzantine missionaries called Cyrus and Methodius created the letters that influenced the alphabets of the Slavic languages (Cyrillic).

- The early church was very dedicated to helping the poor and caring for the sick. They developed an organised system of gathering money, food, and clothing to provide for the needy. Christians built the first institutions that treated the sick and dying. Even lepers, the outcasts of society, were given a safe place to be cared for.

- The most significant debates that divided believers concerned the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. The Council of Nicaea of 325 eventually established that Jesus was both God and man, "being of one substance with the Father." The Nicene Creed has undergone some modifications over the years but every modern version I've seen in churches today still bears strong resemblance to the original.

- For about the first 300 years of Christianity, the Christians were a minority in the Roman Empire. Persecution was, for the most part, infrequent and limited to certain towns and cities. But there were a few emperors (such as Diocletian and Julian) who were hostile to Christians and made a more systematic effort to eliminate their religion. Christians were demanded to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods. Those who complied were later instructed by bishops to do penance for the sin of idolatry in order to be reconciled to the church community. For some Christians, the penalty for refusing to sacrifice was not as severe as torture or death, but rather something like losing the privilege of acting as a plaintiff in a law court or being discharged from the military. Other Christians weren't as fortunate. According to the Scriptures, Christians are forbidden to deny their faith even when faced with persecution and death, so the Romans also murdered some Christians who refused to denounce their faith. Martyrs were venerated for their courage.

- Most of the first Christians had been poor people, women, and slaves who were drawn to the message of love and forgiveness and the promise of a heaven that didn't care how shoddy one's circumstances had been on earth. Christian monks, missionaries, and merchants carried the gospel to many lands within those first few centuries: there are records of early Christian communities in Greece, Persia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nubia, Armenia, Georgia, China, and India. Some of these communities of Christians were persecuted almost to extinction because the non-Christian majority perceived them as having betrayed their old gods or customs. (That is what the sword verse means! Matthew 10:28-39.)

- After the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, it spread rapidly throughout the empire. Theodosius made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was a huge turning point in not just Christian history but the history of the world. What started from humble beginnings in the Roman province of Palestine was, a few centuries later, being adopted by emperors and kings and used as a political tool to form alliances. Germanic tribes accepted Christianity in Western Europe, and Clovis was the first Frankish king to be baptised in the Christian faith. When monarchs converted to the new religion, many of their people followed suit.

- Near the end of the fourth century, an Egyptian abbot named Shenoute presided over a monastery that included separate living quarters for the sexes. Out of about 4000 people in the community, about 2200 were men and 1800 were women.
"Shenoute was the abbot for the entire community, and the members were called the "people of Apa Shenoute," although he seems to have had difficulty keeping control over the women's houses. Among his letters there are at least ten that deal directly with problems he faced dealing with the women. They range from disputes about food and clothing, homoeroticism among the younger women, ("who run after their companions in a fleshly desire"), resistance to superiors appointed by Shenoute, relations with family members, such as husbands or sons among the male monks, malicious gossip, jealousy, and the like. In some cases the women rebuffed his interventions.
No doubt similar problems arose among the men, but the women lived apart, almost as members of daughter houses of the main monastery, and they had their own women superiors. The physical separation made it more difficult for Shenoute to exert his authority, and it seems that the women preferred things that way."

- According to legend, a pious slave woman named Nino was responsible for introducing Christianity to the kingdom of Iberia (Georgia). She won the favour of the queen when she called on the name of Christ to heal her from a sickness. The queen tried to give Nino gifts of gold and silver to express her gratitude, but Nino refused them and told her she would rather the queen accept Christ instead. So the queen converted to Christianity. Her husband the king converted shortly afterward when he was saved from danger on a hunting trip. It's too bad it's impossible to ascertain how much of this story is true because Nino is one of the only female missionaries spoken about in this book.

- The rise of Islam in the seventh century was a devastating blow to Christianity. As Muslims conquered the Middle East, North Africa, and southern Spain, Christians fell under Muslim rule and struggled to adjust to life as second-class citizens. Christians were required to pay the jizya, a heavy tax imposed on non-Muslims. As the Muslim population grew and the Arabic language took over the culture, Christians realised they had to adapt lest they be further pushed to the margins of society. As time went on, more Christians converted to Islam so they could enjoy the rights and privileges of the Muslims. The Spaniards finally drove the Muslims out of Spain after 800 years. But in the Middle East and North Africa, Christians are still a highly persecuted religious minority.

[Tanner Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adding this retroactively to preface my next post. Great book with a very thorough and unbiased covering of the first millennium post-Christ. About a third of the way through, the book begins to give history of regions rather than a purely linear narrative, which was really helpful to be able to observe the arc of Christianity in places like India and Ethiopia that don't get much attention in western tradition. The book also gives a very transparent portrayal of the legitimate diversity within Orthodox Christianity that many would sweep under the rug for the first few centuries to pretend like there was a time of universal agreement about every open question of the faith. Would highly recommend if you're a history fan and/or if you still fall into the Christian tradition that you were first exposed to but have always wondered what the shared history of the seemingly irreconcilable branches of Christianity that exist today. It's a really easy read (if a little bit long).

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilkens has given us a readable, accessible, comprehensive history of the spread of Christianity over its first 1000 years. He covers not only the rise of Latin Christianity but of all the movements including, Byzantine, African, Eastern, Slavic and Greek. He shows how the church starts as a group of outsiders committed to proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus and creating communities wherever they went. But as it grew, even through persecution, it gained acceptability through the conversion of prominent people. This led to societal transformation, including schools, written languages, laws, monestaries, hospitals and, of course, churches. He discusses, architecture and art as well as philosophy and the key theological debates across the first thousand years. Above all this is the story of the progression and digression of people of faith and the communities they developed.

[Mike Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great intro to the early history of the Christian church. Dr. Wilken writes clearly and engagingly. Each chapter is self contained and focuses on a particular person, cultural shift, movement, or some significant thing or event. Overall, it attempts to give a flavor of the history rather than a comprehensive view (hence it is 350 pages rather than 3500 pages).

At times, you can get lost in the details and loose the big thread. Covering a significant chunk of the earth, it is also easy to lose track of what things are happening at the same time. The pictures chosen seem somewhat random, and more of them would have been nice. All these are minor criticisms of an excellent book.

[Tim S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, it is a well written overview of the first millennium. It reads well and he ties in multiple points from various chapters in with one another. As you might expect with a volume of this length, the author has to pick and choose which events, places and people are the focus. Even in that, he does a job that doesn't steer into focusing on the typical events one may have read or heard of among Western, and particularly American Christians.

[Fr. Zachary Galante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Wilken writes a detailed narrative of the History of Christianity. It takes into account the various geographical, political, theological, and cultural realities that affected the spread of, and at times the decline of, Christianity over the first 1,000 years. I found it to be honest, helpful, and fair to the many sides of the story. As always with history, it’s complicated. It is by the grace of God that certain things happened when they did.

[Christina C · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent review of church history. It does not present a full picture of any one point in time or one person but adequately covers all major points with enough detail the reader is left sufficiently satisfied. A very factual summary of the early church with little to no commentary on the "rightness" of the actions of the church or individuals.

[Scott Kohler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilken’s history of Christianity’s first millennium is a great work, in which his lifetime of learning is distilled into 36 relatively brief chapters (about 10 packed pages each). It loses a little of its narrative sense in the last sections, when Wilken has to point in the various directions that Christianity was spreading/declining/developing after the rise of Islam. The final chapters read a little more like a textbook than the first 30 or so chapters. But this book is a wealth of knowledge and I have a page of notes at the back of my copy with names I want to track down to explore more deeply.

[Josiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting overview of Christianity in its first 1000 years. Educational, well written.

[Erin Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

For it covering so much time, I think Wilken did a great job at giving an overview to the millions of things happening during this time. Love him as a writer.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezy overview of early Christianity. Good coverage of early theological questions and cultural transmission.

[Drkshadow03 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a survey of the first thousand years of Christianity starting with the life and teachings of Jesus and ending with the conflict between the eastern and western churches to court and convert the different Slavic peoples culminating in the baptism of the Rus prince Vladimir. Wilken states his goal is “to depict the central developments in early Christian history with an eye to the form of Christianity that spread around the ancient world and endured into the Middle Ages (5)” geared towards a general reader and not a scholarly audience. He considers Christianity “one of the most profound revolutions the world has known (1)” in how it shaped civilizations and cultures across the globe, while also acknowledging that each new culture in turn shaped Christian practice. Despite documenting how cultural differences often led to unique elements in the Christianity practiced in different regions, Wilken identifies six shared practices that unified the most Christian communities such as baptism, the Eucharist, the Bible, the role of Bishops, the Nicene Creed, and monasticism.

The first chapter deals with the life and teachings of Jesus, relying primarily on the Gospels, which the author regards as based on oral traditions from Jesus's earliest followers. Jesus’s ministry was directed toward the poor and marginalized, emphasizing humility, forgiveness, mercy, and compassion—taught largely through parables like the Good Samaritan.

The earliest Christian communities formed in Jerusalem under the leadership of Peter and James and were an offshoot of Judaism. These Jewish Christians clashed with Paul whose mission to promote Christianity to the Gentiles led him to reject many aspects of Jewish law as necessary for converts. While Paul founded many Christian communities, the book points out there were other missionaries who founded Christianity communities as well in these early days.

The early church was beset with controversy and disagreements of doctrine from without and within. Gnosticism rejected the material world as corrupt realm created by God from the Old Testament and argued Jesus had brought esoteric knowledge of a spiritual world. In response to the Roman persecutions under Diocletian, the Donatists rejected the validity of clergy who had renounced their faith during these persecutions and formed their own church hierarchy within North Africa, threstening the unity of the church. Arianism was a heresy that argued Jesus was not fully divine and a lesser member of the trinity. While figures like Nestorius, created controversy by rejecting the title Theotokos (God-bearer) for Mary. Even decisions and language about what words to use to describe Christ’s two natures (one human and one divine) after the Council of Chalcedon led to division, especially within the various different regions that made up the Eastern churches.

One of the unifying institutions of the church was the office of bishop. The early Christian communities were led by councils of elders (presbyters), but during the 2nd century the bishop arose as the head of Christian communities, especially in cities, which was followed by the development of hierarchy of offices beneath him. They appealed to apostolic succession for their authority. The bishops led the fight against many of the controversies and heresies that plagued the early church, helping formulate Orthodoxy. One of the early church fathers Ignatius of Antioch emphasized unity and obedience to the bishop, introducing the term “Catholic Church” in his letters written before his martyrdom. Cyprian of Carthage defended the bishop’s authority to forgive and maintain unity in light of those who lapsed in the face of persecutions. Ambrose of Milan defined the bishops role as spiritual leader of the church and doctrine in his confrontations with Emperor Theodosius. While the bishop of Rome began asserting primacy over other bishops based on apostolic succession from Peter, while the patriarch of Constantinople defended its authority on its proximity to imperial power, which led to tensions between the western and eastern churches that would deepen over time. Bishops also met in Councils convened to deal with many of the early controversies and define Orthodoxy such as the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Constantinople, Council of Ephesus, and Council of Chalcedon, which are all detailed throughout the book.

The most important bishop and thinker was St. Augustine. He wrote works dealing with almost every single topic of theology, philosophical issues like metaphysics and the nature of time, and dealt with various heresies such as Donatism, and Pelasgianism. He also responded to the psychologically terrifying event of the sack of Rome by the Goths in The City of God, where he challenged the previous Christian perspective that the fate of Rome and the church were intertwined, instead arguing that there were two cities with separate fates: the earthly city and the heavenly city.

Another institution that was a unifying element across different regions and types of Christianity was monasticism. Its origins were ascetics living in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Figures like Pachomius pioneered monastic communities as an alternative to the solitary individual. While writings such as Athanasius’s Life of Anthony about the ascetic monk of that name popularized it and Basil the great provided theological justification for the monastic way of life. The most influential figure was Benedict of Nursia who developed a particular set of rules for guiding monastic life that became the norm within Western christianity. Figures like Boethius helped preserve classical learning, with Cassiodorus extending the role to monasteries.

The books real strength is its global-scale, exploring Christianity as it developed in other non-European cultures, while still limiting itself to the first thousand years (so no Americas), devoting multiple chapters to these lesser known Christian communities such as the Coptic Christians of Egypt and their relationship to the more mainstream Eastern church of Alexandria. Christianity spread beyond the borders of the empire to places like Nubia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Georgia, and India, usually following a pattern in which the conversion of a king or queen led to the conversion of the populace. Many times these places formed their own unique versions of Christianity. For example, Ethiopian Christianity observed both Saturday and Sunday as holy days, followed Jewish practices related to sex, dietary laws, and circumcision, and had a unique biblical canon that includes many books other would consider apocrypha such as Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Susanah, 1 and 2 Esdras, the four books of Maccabees, Enoch, Jubilees, and the Ascension of Isaiah. Whereas the West relied on Latin, many of the Eastern churches used local languages like Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Slavic for the Bible, its liturgy, and religious writings. In many cases, Christian missionaries invented alphabets to represent local languages, which was the case with Slavic. The book also explores how the Islamic conquest of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Spain affected the Christian communities living there, showing how their cultures and religion adapted, changed, collaborated, survived, and diminished with their Arab rulers.

Throughout the narrative Wilken highlights the inventiveness of Christians that extends far beyond theological disputes and debates of doctrine. They created entirely new alphabets to spread their religion to new cultures that are still used by those cultures, created the musical notation system we use today to standardize religious hymns from one place to another, developed their own religious architecture and art that became a dominate part of the physical landscape of Europe and the East, and the Carolingian church invented a new form of script with lowercase and uppercase letters, and grammatical marks that improved the writing and reading a manuscript.

While the author doesn't overtly express personal belief, subtle word choices (like referring to Jesus after the resurrection as “the living Christ”) suggest a personal reverence for the figure of Jesus and not just a neutral scholarly appreciation. The sheer scope of the book is both its strength and weakness. The book does a great job of highlighting the key works, key developments, key ideas, and key innovations of Christianity and Christian thinkers in both the west and east, including many thinkers that were obscure to me. While the coverage of Christian communities outside of Europe is admirable and the best feature of the book, it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the details.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the history books I've had to read, I probably enjoyed this one the most of all. This is a book that is written almost in story book fashion. It's not like a textbook like it was meant to be. As the title points out, it covers the first thousand years of Christianity and its rise. It begins with a very brief overview of the life of Jesus. It talks about the Acts of the Apostles; the controversies in the early Church such as: food, circumcision, and welcoming gentile believers. It outlines the formation of the organized church, Papias (Greek Apostolic Father, Bishop of Hierapolis) pushing for the Gospels to be written down, and for the rule of Bishop like you'd see in the early Catholic church. It covers a broad range of topics like the first instances of Monasticism, the Gnostic Gospels and arguments against them, and the people started them. There's a lot more, and too much for an overview.

I thought this was a very well-written history book. It has more of a storybook type tone that really guides you through different time periods in an interesting and frankly enjoyable way to read. I would recommend it to anyone who would like to know more about the early church, and the formation of the church as you would see it today. I give it 5 stars.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a pretty remarkable achievement - a highly read-able, comprehensive, truly global in perspective (ie. not centered on Europe) account of the first millenium of Christian history in about 350 pages. Willken does an admirable job of synthesizing vast amounts of historical theory, while also maintaining a sense of narrative throughout. He also brings a nuanced perspective to controversial chapters (like the ascent of Constantine) and wisely incorporates the story of Islam into the shifting geo-political grounds of the time period.

The story of Christianity is complicated, more so than can really be captured in less than 400 pages, but I can't think of a better introduction to the time period than this book, especially for someone with little previous study. I will probably be pulling this off the shelf from time to time for a quick refresh. Highly recommended!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I have taught much of this era to college history classes, I learned a lot from several chapters in this book. It provided great insights into the formation of the structures of worship in the church which we often take for granted as always having been there. Wilken writes well about the influence of the church on the development of art and music. It came highly recommended and deserved the high rating. The author's writing is interesting and accessible...for the most part. A couple of the later chapters seemed to be written just to fill out his consideration of the "global" aspects of early Christianity.

[Lance Kinzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a relatively brief book "The First Thousand Years" covers a great deal of ground in an engaging fashion. As a matter of necessity many important issues and figures are treated in only summary fashion, but as an introduction it is a valuable work. I wish that the author had given greater attention to the substance of Western arguments against the veneration of icons and the Filioque question, but of course there are more specialized works where these can be found.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly good history of the first thousand years ending with the Baptism of Vladimir and the Slavs. Fills in a lot of gaps that most introductions to Church history fail to cover like art and architecture. I also appreciate him getting into the ancient Nubian church which lives only in the memory of a small company of scholars today.

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some things that stood out to me:
--the global-ness of Church history and Christian expansion (i.e., there's more to Church history than what happened in the West)
--how the place of Jerusalem in the hearts of Christendom when through phases
--the seismic changes in the Christian landscape when Islam exploded on the scene
--the inter-relatedness of Christianity and politics in the first millennium
--the variety of approaches to missions
--the variety of characters who populated and led the Church throughout the early years and the middle ages.

To give a flavor, this book, among other things, ...
--reminded me of Ethiopia's Jewish-looking Christianity and its claimed connection to Solomon;
--heightened my appreciation for such figures as Cyprian, Origen, and Augustine;
--emphasized the importance of bishops, kings, missionaries, and monks in the spread of Christianity;
--introduced me to the courageous "martyrs of Cordoba," as well as to the brother missionaries from Thessalonica, Cyril and Methodius.

Overall, a good read. At times I got lost in the geography and the large cast of characters and peoples, which detracted a bit.

A few excerpts:

On Ambrose's courage: "At a time when the Christian cult could have become a department of the imperial administration, Ambrose drew clear boundaries around the Church. This is all the more impressive because as the Christian community grew the line separating the church and 'the world' were blurred if not erased." (135)

On Augustine's premiere position in history: "It is a conspicuous, if seldom noted, historical detail that during the first millennium of Christian history the Church attracted many of the most gifted thinkers in the ancient world. The parade of luminaries is impressive: Clement and Origen of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and of course the four doctores ecclesiae (teachers of the Church), Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great. Yet Augustine towers above all. It is not hyperbolic to say that during his lifetime he was the most intelligent man in the Mediterranean world. From the time of Plato and Aristotle, the great philosophers of ancient Greece, across more than fifteen centuries until Thomas Aquinas in the High Middle Ages, he has no equal.
"Augustine surpasses measurement. More than any other Christian author in the early centuries, he is a world. He lived very long, seventy-six years, and wrote more profusely and thought more profoundly than any other early Christian, and his vigorous intelligence and fertile imagination moved across a much larger canvas." (183)

On the death of Cyril of Alexandria one of his opponents Theodoret of Cyrrhus wrote, "His departure delights the survivors, but possibly disheartens the dead; there is some fear that under the provocation of his company they may send him back to us.... Care must be taken to order the guild of undertakers to place a very big and heavy stone on his grave to stop him coming back here." (200)

On the cultural-transforming power of Christianity (remarking here on Clovis, king of the Franks' decision to convert): "'Conversion' not only meant adopting new beliefs; it would bring changes in customs, such as marriage practices, impose new laws, alter the rhythms of communal life - Sunday as a holy day, festivals such as Easter and Christmas - reconfigure public space, construct a new past informed by Christian history and the Bible, introduce new words into the local language,..." (260)

On the transformative rise of Islam: "No event during the first thousand years of Christian history was more unexpected, calamitous, and consequential than the rise of Islam. Few irruptions in history have transformed societies as rapidly and irrevocably as did the conquest and expansion of the Arabs of Islam in the seventh century. And none came with greater swiftness." (288)