The Path of Christianity: The First Thousand Years

by John Anthony McGuckin

John Anthony McGuckin, one of the world's leading scholars of ancient Christianity, has synthesized a lifetime of work to produce the most comprehensive and accessible history of the Christian movement during its first thousand years. The Path of Christianity takes readers on a journey from the period immediately after the composition of the Gospels, through the building of the earliest Christian structures in polity and doctrine, to the dawning of the medieval Christian establishment. McGuckin explores Eastern and Western developments simultaneously, covering grand intellectual movements and local affairs in both epic scope and fine detail. The Path of Christianity is divided into two parts of twelve chapters each. Part one treats the first millennium of Christianity in linear sequence, from the second to the eleventh centuries. In addition to covering key theologians and conciliar decisions, McGuckin surveys topics like Christian persecution, early monasticism, the global scope of ancient Christianity, and the formation of Christian liturgy. Part two examines key themes and ideas, including biblical interpretation, war and violence, hymnography, the role of women, attitudes to wealth, and early Christian views about slavery and sexuality. McGuckin gives the reader a sense of the real condition of early Christian life, not simply what the literate few had to say. Written for student and scholar alike, The Path of Christianity is a lively, readable, and masterful account of ancient Christian history, destined to be the standard for years to come.

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

2020 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 21, 2017

About the author

John Anthony McGuckin is the Nielsen Emeritus Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, and currently professor of early Christianity in the Theological Faculty of Oxford University. An archpriest of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has written more than thirty scholarly books. He lives in the UK.

Reviews

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of Christianity is filled twists and turns that need to be documented, explored, and interpreted. One cannot understand church history outside the flow of history itself, for every act of faith occurs within that broad stream. As a church historian I appreciate those persons who understand the complexity of the story, who can lay it out in a thoughtful manner.

This book, The Path of Christianity: The First Thousand Years by John Anthony McGuckin is massive. It is thorough and nearly comprehensive. McGuckin offers this book as a text book, though I see it as more of a reference book. I cut my teeth on Latourrette's history of Christianity, which is itself fairly massive, but not as massive as this text, which takes us from the first century to the Great Schism in the mid-eleventh century. While I think that Justo Gonzalez' two volume textbook is more useful for helping students get the narrative down, I believe that this volume should prove very helpful to teachers and students.

McGuckin's background is firmly in the eastern tradition, but he has good grasp of the overall flow of early Christian history. He helps the reader connect theology with culture and political structures. At times he seems to want to explore every possible thread, which makes the book more complex and lengthy. It's easy to get lost in the details at times. Yet, that is why it offers the serious student a foundational text, just not an introductory one.

The book is composed of two parts. Part one is titled "The Church's Pilgrim Path." In this first section McGuckin provides the narrative foundation, beginning with he calls "The Fertile Second Century." He introduces the reader to key teachers and groups, and shows us how Christianity began to theologize the faith, laying the foundations for much that comes later. He then moves forward through persectutions, Roman religous and political context, and on through the third century and beyond to the embrace of Christianity by the Roman imperial government. McGuckin reminds us that Constantine looked to Christianity for stability, and thus needed a stable foundation, whatever that might be. What we discover is that the imperial court preferred Arianism over its rival. As time passes we see how parties emerge, dividing the church and the empire.

Part one takes up the first 759 pages of the book, concluding with the "The Great Parting of the Ways" (chapter 12). Each chapter ends with a "short reader," providing excerpt from primary texts. There is also a nice bibliography offering further reading on important elements discussed in the chapter. These are helpful if this is used as a textbook, at least for the first thousand years.

Part two is topical in orientation. There are chapters on the interpretation of the bible in the early church, views of war, women, hymnody, prayer, healing, authority, and more. These chapters allow the reader to delve into key issues that faced the Christian community during this formative period.

I did not read the book cover to cover. I sampled and skimmed and explored sections of the book, which was sent to me by the publisher for review. From what I read, McGuckin is a thoughtful, careful historian. He understands the subject matter, and guides us through it. While I think it has use as a text for a graduate level course, I think it would have helped to be more concise at points in the presentation, so that room might been left for illustrations and maps. Perhaps some of the players in the story could have been introduced using text blocks. This is why I think Gonazalez is more useful. Still, this is an amazing work, a capstone on a career.

[Jon Pentecost · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two parts of this book. There is the history-proper which proceeds chronologically up til the 1000's. Then there is a more topical section. I would rate the first section 5 stars, the second 2.

The first section is particularly strong in discussing the 1-6th centuries (especially the 2nd century). McGuckin helps clearly lay out the doctrine at stake in controversies as well as the personalities at play. He excels in this area when explaining christological debates. The later chapters lose steam, I think partly as a result of it being harder to summarize the center of church history as the church spreads, and partly by his interest in issues of forms of liturgy instead of the doctrinal content behind and within those liturgies as time proceeds.
What I especially appreciated was his ability to present the church Fathers as they were--men, striving to work out what faithful doctrine was according to Scripture. This mighty figures of church history were also just ordinary men, just like Christians today. There is something deeply encouraging about seeing that reality play out in such crucial times of the church's history.

In the second section, McGuckin's own liberal biases come out in full force. He clearly has a very low view of Scripture. It records early church tradition, in his mind, not revelation from God. This means that his exegesis of Scripture in attempting to explain and summarize the overall teaching of the church in different areas is actually much weaker than his exegesis of theologians. While the first section helped me enter and understand the world of the early church, the second section taught me much about McGuckin's own beliefs, but not that much about what the early church thought in those areas.

[Vanjr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't lie, this one took a few years till I really started making progress, but it was a really worthwhile review of the first 1000 years of Christianity.
Unlike some of the other reviewers I did read this book cover to cover and I think the themes and flow make it much more useful to the reader to read cover to cover rather than reading it like an encyclopedia. The second "half" is written more topically and can be read as such, but the strength of the work is seeing the flow of Christianity within the surrounding culture.
This is the history that you are really not going to get in many protestant settings, and of course its topic pre-dates Protestantism by 500 years.
Dr. McGuckin also wrote a number of scholarly articles that are referenced in the volume. A nice touch is a "short reader" of each chapters topic. The references are abundant and a great resource for those who want to dig deeper. Clearly McGuckin is an expert in this era. I am most certainly ready to read another similarly qualified expert about the second 1000 years of Christianity after finishing this large volume. (Note the total book is under 1000 pages, but the topics and unfamiliarity of the topics makes it a difficult-albeit rewarding effort to finish).
I try not to give 5 stars to my reviews unless I think the book is special. This one is difficult, but outstanding.

[Lori Neff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so I didn't read this book cover to cover, but what I DID read was so helpful. What a wonderful resource to have on hand!

[Andrew Hay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magisterial introduction to the first millennium of the Christian past. McGuckin’s sections on Byzantium are especially illuminating.

[FrDrStel Muksuris · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, an absolutely solid and fantastic read of the first thousand years of the Church's history - unbiased, fair, and no holds barred for any of the sides. This tome is the best and most readable I have ever seen in this field. Definitely worth the money and most certainly worth the avid bibliophile's time. Every serious historian, academic or not, should have this book on their shelves ... no dust should ever need to accumulate on its cover or pages. Stellar scholarship!