What do you think?
Rate this book
The Christian Tradition #1
The Christian Tradition 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100-600
By the year 600 Christian doctrine had achieved what Jaroslav Pelikan terms an "orthodox consensus"—the foundation for the development of doctrine in later periods. Beginning with the "Christian declaration of independence from Judaism," the years 100 to 600 were a period of Greg ferment and vitality when the fundamental affirmations of Christian dogma emerged from a welter of beliefs and teachings.
The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition is the history of this critical, troubled time. Pelikan focuses upon what the faithful believed, what teachers—both orthodox and heretical—taught, and what the church confessed as dogma during its first six centuries of growth. In constructing his work, Pelikan has made use of exegetical and liturgical sources in addition to the usual polemical, apologetic, and systematic or speculative materials.
The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition is the history of this critical, troubled time. Pelikan focuses upon what the faithful believed, what teachers—both orthodox and heretical—taught, and what the church confessed as dogma during its first six centuries of growth. In constructing his work, Pelikan has made use of exegetical and liturgical sources in addition to the usual polemical, apologetic, and systematic or speculative materials.
394 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 1971
97 people are currently reading
2108 people want to read
About the author
Jaroslav Pelikan
176 books132 followersJaroslav Jan Pelikan was born in Akron, Ohio, to a Slovak father and mother, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Sr. and Anna Buzekova Pelikan. His father was pastor of Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois, and his paternal grandfather a bishop of the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches then known as the Slovak Lutheran Church in America.
According to family members, Pelikan's mother taught him how to use a typewriter when he was three years old, as he could not yet hold a pen properly but wanted to write. A polyglot, Pelikan's facility with languages may be traced to his multilingual childhood and early training. That linguistic facility was to serve him in the career he ultimately chose (after contemplating becoming a concert pianist)--as a historian of Christian doctrine. He did not confine his studies to Roman Catholic and Protestant theological history, but also embraced that of the Christian East.
In 1946 when he was 22, he earned both a seminary degree from Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Pelikan wrote more than 30 books, including the five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971–1989). Some of his later works attained crossover appeal, reaching beyond the scholarly sphere into the general reading public (notably, Mary Through the Centuries, Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible Is It?).
His 1984 book The Vindication of Tradition gave rise to an often quoted one liner. In an interview in U.S. News & World Report (June 26, 1989), he said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
"Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."
According to family members, Pelikan's mother taught him how to use a typewriter when he was three years old, as he could not yet hold a pen properly but wanted to write. A polyglot, Pelikan's facility with languages may be traced to his multilingual childhood and early training. That linguistic facility was to serve him in the career he ultimately chose (after contemplating becoming a concert pianist)--as a historian of Christian doctrine. He did not confine his studies to Roman Catholic and Protestant theological history, but also embraced that of the Christian East.
In 1946 when he was 22, he earned both a seminary degree from Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Pelikan wrote more than 30 books, including the five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971–1989). Some of his later works attained crossover appeal, reaching beyond the scholarly sphere into the general reading public (notably, Mary Through the Centuries, Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible Is It?).
His 1984 book The Vindication of Tradition gave rise to an often quoted one liner. In an interview in U.S. News & World Report (June 26, 1989), he said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
"Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
November 5, 2019
A definitive history of Christian Doctrine.
This is probably not the best place to begin learning about the subject, since Pelikan assumes an acquaintance with such terms as Sabellianism, Pelagianism, hypostasis, ousia, etc, but I believe that even a beginner--at least one equipped with a strong theological interest and a good theological dictionary--could benefit greatly from this volume.
Pelikan is not only a profound thinker, but an organized one, and he writes clear, elegant, accessible prose.
February 17, 2018
This volume is the beginning of Jaroslav Pelikan's legendary treatment of Christian Tradition. Not only does he examine the beliefs of the ancient church, but he also highlights ideas and concepts, along with beliefs, that will spring up into controversies in the Medieval and Reformation periods.
Pelikan begins his treatment with a hearty emphasis on the importance of tradition. He notes that radical solae scripturae philosophies, while wanting to have orthodox conclusions, do so by denying yet presupposing the normative role of tradition. It is seen that the heretics (be they Roman, Eastern, or Protestant) are the ones who have deviated from the old paths.
The Church's origin is found in the Old Testament, or rather it's fulfillment is in being the New Israel. This New Israel would fundamentally rework the Old Testament categories around the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. From this point the church would address (and at the same time be influenced) by Classical philosophy and Mediterranean paganisms (less so on the latter). These two foils, in the parts where they were true, were "preparations for the gospel," particularly the Logos movements that gave rise to Logos Christologies.
Having established a base the Church began to address "heretical" movements: Montanism, Gnosticism, and Novationism. The only way the Church could successfully deal with these movements was to establish the criteria of apostolic continuity: an apostolic creed, an apostolic canon, and an apostolic succession.
Discussions would soon move to formulating the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Special attention is given to "why" different heresies would arise from Alexandria and Antioch and while Chalcedon provided a via media, it, too, raised new problems.
Pelikan then moves to Nature, Grace, and St Augustine. St Augustine is seen as the champion against Pelagianism and Donatism, but early interpreters of St Augustine saw he paid too high a price with his predestinarianism. Nonetheless, even denials of Augustinianism were phrased in Augustinian concepts and language. The later church had to reject St Augustine's "double predestination" because it was not the faith that the catholic church had always believed, which is the summary of Pelikan's last chapter.
Pelikan begins his treatment with a hearty emphasis on the importance of tradition. He notes that radical solae scripturae philosophies, while wanting to have orthodox conclusions, do so by denying yet presupposing the normative role of tradition. It is seen that the heretics (be they Roman, Eastern, or Protestant) are the ones who have deviated from the old paths.
The Church's origin is found in the Old Testament, or rather it's fulfillment is in being the New Israel. This New Israel would fundamentally rework the Old Testament categories around the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. From this point the church would address (and at the same time be influenced) by Classical philosophy and Mediterranean paganisms (less so on the latter). These two foils, in the parts where they were true, were "preparations for the gospel," particularly the Logos movements that gave rise to Logos Christologies.
Having established a base the Church began to address "heretical" movements: Montanism, Gnosticism, and Novationism. The only way the Church could successfully deal with these movements was to establish the criteria of apostolic continuity: an apostolic creed, an apostolic canon, and an apostolic succession.
Discussions would soon move to formulating the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Special attention is given to "why" different heresies would arise from Alexandria and Antioch and while Chalcedon provided a via media, it, too, raised new problems.
Pelikan then moves to Nature, Grace, and St Augustine. St Augustine is seen as the champion against Pelagianism and Donatism, but early interpreters of St Augustine saw he paid too high a price with his predestinarianism. Nonetheless, even denials of Augustinianism were phrased in Augustinian concepts and language. The later church had to reject St Augustine's "double predestination" because it was not the faith that the catholic church had always believed, which is the summary of Pelikan's last chapter.
January 23, 2023
Having read several other books on church history, I had looked forward to beginning Jaroslav Pelikan's 5-volume history of The Christian Tradition. Judging from the comments of historians such as Henry Chadwick, Alister McGrath and Justo Gonzalez, Jaroslav Pelikan's work was as close to the definitive church history as had been written.
Unfortunately, I found this book to be overly academic and less helpful than these other authors' works. Pelikan carefully holds himself to his subject, the Christian tradition, as opposed to a history of Christian thought or Christian doctrine. Pelikan's frequently reiterated definition of Christian tradition is that which the church "believed, taught and confessed." The seemingly minor differences between these three is actually important, for one does not necessarily teach everything that they believe, and the faith one confesses before the unbelieving world may very well be a reworked version of the creed taught to the faithful.
The focus on what the church "believed, taught and confessed" comes at a cost to external influences, such as personality conflicts, politics, culture, language, etc. Pelikan too easily relegates such influences to other disciplines or to another sort of book, making this book rather academic; that is, overly one dimensional and lacking vivacity.
A recurring lesson of this book is that doctrine was never formed in a vacuum. The Apologists of the first and second century engaged the Jewish and Greek worldviews, and this engagement impacted both the topics that were debated as well as the form of the arguments. From this portion of the book, I especially enjoyed Pelikan's discussion of the immortality of the soul, which along with the absoluteness of God, was "one of the most reliable indications of the continuing hold of Greek philosophy on Christian philosophy." This holdover has had ramifications that are still felt in the Christian faith's doctrine of hell.
Debates with heretics within the Church were the catalysts for many of the statements of what the church "believed, taught and confessed." I came to greatly appreciate the challenge of being a Christian in the first and second centuries, when there was as yet no clear answer to the question "what are the scriptures." Indeed, the orthodox answer came as a response to a canon formed Marcion the heretic. In other debates within the church regarding heresy (such as Arianism) I noticed how discussions became unnecessarily polarized.
At the end of the book, Pelikan discusses Augustine's battles with the Donatists and Pelagians, which earned him the title Doctor Grace. I found especially interesting to read of the development of various doctrines of predestination at this early time. Throughout the book, it became clear that Christians today wrestle with many of the same heresies or questions as they did many centuries ago.
As Pelikan concludes his story of the development of doctrine from 100-600, he shows how an orthodox consensus in both the East and West emerged. The decisions of four important church councils were instrumental factors toward this consensus. (These councils were Nicea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451). That they came to be received "as the four books of the Holy Gospels" reminds one of the objections of a certain disrupter of consensus, whose 95 Theses would change the Church and ensure that church historians had a few more books to write.
Unfortunately, I found this book to be overly academic and less helpful than these other authors' works. Pelikan carefully holds himself to his subject, the Christian tradition, as opposed to a history of Christian thought or Christian doctrine. Pelikan's frequently reiterated definition of Christian tradition is that which the church "believed, taught and confessed." The seemingly minor differences between these three is actually important, for one does not necessarily teach everything that they believe, and the faith one confesses before the unbelieving world may very well be a reworked version of the creed taught to the faithful.
The focus on what the church "believed, taught and confessed" comes at a cost to external influences, such as personality conflicts, politics, culture, language, etc. Pelikan too easily relegates such influences to other disciplines or to another sort of book, making this book rather academic; that is, overly one dimensional and lacking vivacity.
A recurring lesson of this book is that doctrine was never formed in a vacuum. The Apologists of the first and second century engaged the Jewish and Greek worldviews, and this engagement impacted both the topics that were debated as well as the form of the arguments. From this portion of the book, I especially enjoyed Pelikan's discussion of the immortality of the soul, which along with the absoluteness of God, was "one of the most reliable indications of the continuing hold of Greek philosophy on Christian philosophy." This holdover has had ramifications that are still felt in the Christian faith's doctrine of hell.
Debates with heretics within the Church were the catalysts for many of the statements of what the church "believed, taught and confessed." I came to greatly appreciate the challenge of being a Christian in the first and second centuries, when there was as yet no clear answer to the question "what are the scriptures." Indeed, the orthodox answer came as a response to a canon formed Marcion the heretic. In other debates within the church regarding heresy (such as Arianism) I noticed how discussions became unnecessarily polarized.
At the end of the book, Pelikan discusses Augustine's battles with the Donatists and Pelagians, which earned him the title Doctor Grace. I found especially interesting to read of the development of various doctrines of predestination at this early time. Throughout the book, it became clear that Christians today wrestle with many of the same heresies or questions as they did many centuries ago.
As Pelikan concludes his story of the development of doctrine from 100-600, he shows how an orthodox consensus in both the East and West emerged. The decisions of four important church councils were instrumental factors toward this consensus. (These councils were Nicea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451). That they came to be received "as the four books of the Holy Gospels" reminds one of the objections of a certain disrupter of consensus, whose 95 Theses would change the Church and ensure that church historians had a few more books to write.
November 28, 2017
Pelikan is a master. This work is worthy not only of a read, but of a re-read. His writing is superb, his knowledge of the sources extensive, and the breadth of his work impressive. Even where the reader might disagree with him, he remains helpful and worth reading. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give him is that his work helped inspire me to read the fathers and other figures of the early church for myself. For a narrative history of the early church one will have to look elsewhere, but for a doctrinal history of the early centuries of the Christian faith, Pelikan will be hard to beat.
September 26, 2024
Not your standard Christian history book, but a history of “what the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the word of God: this is Christian doctrine.” In other words, more a history of Christian thought than a history of Christian events (though the latter are inevitably woven through), and more a history of what Christians believed, taught, and confessed (which is more narrow) than just a history of what they thought. The first of five volumes, this covers doctrinal history through 600 AD. It’s dense and probably works best with prior background of early Christian history, but his analysis is excellent, insightful, and fair. From chronicling early responses to Marcion, to the multifaceted Trinitarian controversies, to how Christians confronted and assimilated the breadth of Augustine’s thought into early Christian orthodoxy, maybe the best compliment I can pay to Pelikan through it all is that I can’t quite tell what team he’s on, other than the team of history. A Lutheran pastor at the time of publication, whatever his personal views, they don’t discolor or betray his sense of doing history right, being circumspect and generous to all players on all sides of the historical faith divide.
May 22, 2025
A bit dry and stodgy, but overall excellent. A great way to get acquainted with the basic figures, heresies, controversies, writings, and ideas of the patristic era.
February 24, 2024
Erudite. Comprehensive. Well-organized. Deeply informative. What a book!
May 6, 2025
Haven't read this since my seminary days, but still find it as impactful now as back then. This is not a suitable introduction to church history or the history of Christian doctrine; however, it is a valuable higher-level study along with its five companion volumes.
September 26, 2021
Pelikan provides a thorough overview of how theologians in the early church understood the Scriptures. The consistent reference to primary sources allows Pelikan to argue clearly that the orthodox catholic faith present today is rooted in the early churches understanding of the teaching of the apostles and what they taught concerning the Old Testament. In the midst of this he shows how the doctrines progress and are further developed in the west through the councils and the teachings of leaders such as Augustine. This argue for doctrinal progress is well thought out and logical. For the limited scope of the work, Pelikan provides a practical understanding of orthodoxy and the Scriptural support for such constructs.
March 5, 2023
Not only magisterial in it’s scholarship and breadth, but also well written and structured. It took me quite some time to finish, but was a very enjoyable read. I learned a great deal.
August 23, 2025
Not great for an introduction. The parts I enjoyed most I already knew a thing or two about so I had a frame of reference. Glad I read it. But it was a slog and had to look things up along the way to gain context and understanding.
September 10, 2019
An excellent beginning to Pelikan’s history of doctrine series. There’s a lot of great information in this series that’s really helpful for studying the early church as a whole. As Pelican helpfully explains in his definitions, this isn’t a work of historical theology (he is not surveying individual theologians), nor is it a history of Christian thought. Pelican defines “doctrine” as that which is “believed, taught, and confessed.” (3)
This is certainly a unique and helpful volume for historians and theologians who desire to understand the early days of Christian doctrine. I’m eager to see what Pelican does in the rest of the series.
This is certainly a unique and helpful volume for historians and theologians who desire to understand the early days of Christian doctrine. I’m eager to see what Pelican does in the rest of the series.
October 9, 2014
This book is comparable to Kelly's Christian Doctrine as regards content and approach, but more detailed as it is part of what became a five volume series. Pelikan is a constructive Christian in the sense that he essays a positive appropriation of the many streams of the tradition without much seeming to favor one over another. It is, in other words, an ecumenical Christian work. Pelican himself converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy in his later years and his work lacks the Western Roman orientation of many such surveys.
May 22, 2023
2022 Dec. If God wills, 2023 will be my year of Pelikan. Feeling some confidence now that I've started praying regularly, read the Apostolic Fathers (once through, in an old volume) and refreshed my memory with Mike Aquilina's helpful "Way of the Fathers" podcast.
Takeaways:
* "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living" (9).
* On Jewish-Gentile-Christian relations:
- "For Jewish Christians, the question of continuity was the question of their relation to their mother; for Gentile Christians, it was the question of their relation to their mother-in-law" (14).
- "The end result of these disputes with Judaism and with classical thought was a schematization of the relation between Christianity and other religions that assured the finality of God's revelation in Christ while acknowledging the partial validity of earlier revelations" (55). For instance, Clement of Alexandria's comparison of the Decalogue and pagan ethics (56-57), Origen on the moral example of Socrates (58), and numerous fathers on the poems of Vergil and the utterances of the Sybil (63-65).
* On the rule of faith in the late second century, esp. Irenaeus: "To validate its existence, the church looked increasingly not to the future, illumined by the Lord's return, nor to the present, illumined by the Spirit's extraordinary gifts, but to the past, illumined by the composition of the apostolic canon, the creation of the apostolic creed, and the establishment of the apostolic episcopate" (107, 108-120).
* On the development of Christian apocalyptic: "Eschatology that denied the creed was anathematized; eschatology that merely went beyond the creed was tolerated as a private opinion (as in the case of the Origenism of Gregory of Nyssa) or as a remnant of earlier and less refined apocalyptic thought (as in the case of millenarian imagery)" (129). "The plain fact was that the categories of an undifferentiated apocalyptic were inadequate to the needs of a faith whose content was a history that had already happened" (130).
* On the distinctively Christian supernaturalism, in contrast with other ancient religions: "from the Old Testament [the church] learned to redefine the 'supernatural,' drawing the line of demarcation not between 'the spiritual world' and this world, but finally between God the Creator and all his creatures" (141).
* On models / accounts of soteriology:
- "[W]hen a modern Western Christian turns to the Christian writers of the second and third centuries for their understanding of salvation in Christ, it is neither their attention to the teachings and example of Christ (which he may, rather superficially, identify with that of Protestant liberalism) nor their preoccupation with the passion and death of Christ (which he may, with some justification, see as an ancestor of the orthodox doctrine of vicarious atonement), but their emphasis on the saving significance of the resurrection of Christ that he will find most unusual.... To be sure, other ways of speaking about the atonement were too widespread even among the Greek fathers to permit us to ascribe exclusive or even primary force to any one theory, but Christ as victor was more important in orthodox expositions of salvation and reconciliation than Western dogmatics has recognized" (149).
- Several imperfect, implicit parallels among patristic accounts of salvation: Christ's life and teaching correspond to salvation as "revelation of the truth"; his suffering and death correspond to salvation as "forgiveness of sins and justification"; and his resurrection and exaltation correspond to salvation as "immortality and deification" (152).
* On baptism: Tertullian lists "four basic gifts of baptism" in AGAINST MARCION, "the remission of sins, deliverance from death, regeneration, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit" (163). Pelikan comments that this summarizes "what the doctrine of the church was at his time--as well as probably before his time and certainly since his time." Concludes with a quotation from Ernest Evans, a Tertullian scholar: "by the end of the second century, if not fifty years earlier, the doctrine of baptism (even without the aid of controversy to give it precision) was so fully developed that subsequent ages down to our own have found nothing significant to add to it" (166). Later: Augustine agrees (304).
* On the Eucharist: "no orthodox father of the second or third century of whom we have record declared the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist to be no more than symbolic (although Clement and Origen came close to doing so) or specified a process of substantial change by which the presence was effected (although Ignatius and Justin came close to doing so)" (167). Earlier: "Chrysostom...spoke of 'the Lord being sacrificed and laid upon the altar and the priest standing and praying over the victim,' summarizing the sacrificial language about the Eucharist which had also become accepted practice" (25). Later: Augustine largely agrees ("What was important about the sacraments was neither their definition nor their number, but their divinely appointed function as conveyers of grace" [306]), but sometimes he could sound awfully Protestant (305).
* Most of the complicated Trinitarian and Christological disputes (Chapters 4 and 5) are beyond me. I had no idea that even the heretics worked at such a high philosophical level. But I managed to understand a few bits and pieces:
- Analysis of OT Christological material into four groups: passages of adoption, identity, distinction, and derivation (175-183); also four biblical terms or names for Christ: angel, Spirit, Logos, and Son of God (182-190).
- The spark that started the Arian wildfire was the interpretation of Proverbs 8:22-31 (193). The orthodox (Didymus, Ambrose, Hilary) eventually resolved the phrase "he created me" in two ways: interpreting the verb as bearing "an improper sense," or in reference to the "created humanity" of Jesus (205); they prefer the latter. "It had been the wish of the bishops at Nicea to confine themselves to the simple words of Scripture, but this proved bootless" (209, cf. 202).
- Relevant to PARADISE LOST: For an all-too-brief moment in Book Nine, after Eve has eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam pauses to reflect on the situation. Suppose an alternative plot in which Adam decides not to follow Eve's bad example; could the not-yet-fallen Adam have offered himself as a sacrifice on Eve's behalf, taking her place and penalty, dying for her as Christ eventually dies for the Church? According to Athanasius, no. In Pelikan's paraphrase, "Only he who had called men out of nonbeing into being would be able to recall them after they had fallen back into the nothingness that threatened them" (205; cf 285). The problem of sin is more than injustice, disobedience, dishonor, and broken relationship; it is ontological, even (as Milton implies twice in Book Nine) cosmological.
- "Gregory of Nazianzus conceded as late as 380...that 'to be only slightly in error [about the Holy Spirit] was to be orthodox'" (212).
- UPDATE: After reading the second chapter in Volume Two (on the development of three Eastern christologies in the 7th-9th centuries), I've revisited Chapter 5 with more profit. He begins by identifying six doctrinal presuppositions among all disputants:
1. The absolute impassibility of God
2. Salvation as the gift of (participated) impassibility
3. Confidence in the unity of truth across the person and work of Christ
4. Shared formulae in Eucharistic theology. Even Theodore of Mopsuestia writes, "He did not say, 'This is the symbol of my body,' but 'This is my body'" (237)
5. The worship of Jesus Christ
6. The legitimacy of Mary's title "Theotokos" (a concord extending even, eventually, to Nestorius! See 242)
Then Pelikan lays out three "theologies" of the Incarnation: Antioch's "theology of the indwelling Logos," Alexandria's "theology of the hypostatic union," and the "theology of preexistence, kenosis, and exaltation" common throughout the Western Christian lands (Hilary, Augustine, Leo). In 451 AD, Chalcedon authoritatively resolves the problem for most Christians, partly by paring back from some of the thornier metaphysical questions (259-266). After this helpful review, I'm heading back into Volume Two.
* What a relief to turn from pure theology to theological anthropology! Having read Augustine's CONFESSIONS many times, I'm more or less comfortable with the terrain covered in Chapter 6:
- First, an earlier relevant line: "To a considerable degree, the definition of sin in church doctrine appears to have developed a posteriori, by a process which, proceeding from the salvation in Christ and from infant baptism, made the diagnosis fit the cure" (204).
- Early theologians and apologists emphasized human will, as opposed to divine sovereignty, because they were responding to a fatalistic pagan culture (280-286). Over time, two elements of the liturgy—"the confession of the virgin birth of Christ and the practice of infant baptism"—led to the doctrine of original sin (286-292). Augustine invented neither the doctrine nor the terminology, but he definitively articulated it, and contextualized it in a larger doctrine of divine grace, which he presented as sovereign, necessary, and sacramentally mediated (292-307, esp. 306).
- The paradoxes of Augustine. E.g., "If the grace of God was sovereign in its predestinating efficacy, God could not be said to be absolutely bound by the church and the sacraments; but he was bound to them" (302). Both Protestant and Catholic Reformers could cite him so freely (305) because of the "many inconsistencies and changes in his thought" (307); more on this below.
- One fascinating thread I hope Pelikan returns to: paraphrasing and quoting Augustine, he writes that "Adam had been endowed with the qualities requisite to being human, such as rationality, as well as with the special gifts of grace necessary for obeying the will of God. 'He did not need grace to receive good, because he had not yet lost it; but to abide in it he needed the aid of grace, without which he could not do this at all'" (298-299). In other words, not even in Genesis 2 was Adam 'independent' of grace, in either his being or his action. Follow-up: nope, doesn't return to it.
- On Augustine's conflicts with heresy: polemics with the Donatists led Augustine to a strong emphasis on the unity of the church catholic and the objectivity of sacramental mediation (309-313). Polemics agains Pelagianism underscored the priority of grace in salvation (313-318). A provincial synod (Carthage 418) raised much of Augustine's teaching to dogma--but not double predestination.
- On another batch of opponents to Augustine, who agreed with him about grace but rejected double-predestination, John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, and Faustus of Riez (318-329): "The penchant for tagging every doctrinal position with a party label has led to the invention of the name Semi-Pelagianism, which is even less useful than most such designations" (318). The dogmatic upshot (as confirmed by the Synod of Orange in 529, then verified by the bishop of Rome) was a retreat to ambiguity on the question of double-predestination (327-328). Augustine's adherents just couldn't gainsay 1 Timothy 2:4.
- On Augustine's complicated but pervasive influence on the theology of the Middle Ages: "Shorn of its predestinarian elements and in this sense harmonized with his anti-Donatist sacramentalism, Augustine's anti-Pelagian doctrine of grace became the official teaching of Latin Christianity" (329). The poles of Augustinian paradox set the terms and terrain for various disputes for the next thousand years. In the Reformation, "both sides claimed to be defending the Augustine heritage and to be recovering the true Augustine. Both sides were right, and both were wrong" (331), because the heritage contained unresolved tensions.
* Gregory the Great, "last of the fathers and first of the popes" (349) had remarkable respect for the first four ecumenical councils: "...all the four synods of the holy universal church we receive as we do the four books of the holy Gospels" (335).
* Pelikan is disturbed by the Areopagite mystic, less so by Boethius, in some ways his Western counterpart: "There is both historical significance and theological irony in the chronological coincidence between the condemnation of Origen and the rise of Dionysian mysticism, for most of the doctrines on account of which the Second Council of Constantinople anathematized Origen were far less dangerous to the tradition of catholic orthodoxy than was the Crypto-Origenism canonized in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite" (348). "Like Dionysius, Boethius provided orthodox Christian sanction for ideas whose non-Christian origin might otherwise have disqualified them" (349).
* Quotes JND Kelly: "...the Athanasian Creed, which, despite its official name, could more aptly have been called 'the Augustinian Creed'" (351). This creed's "first unquestionable testimony comes from Caesarius or Arles" (mid 6C).
* Gregory's role in systematizing the doctrines of (1) purgatory and (2) the Mass as sacrifice (355-356).
2006 May. Began but quit after a few chapters.
Takeaways:
* "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living" (9).
* On Jewish-Gentile-Christian relations:
- "For Jewish Christians, the question of continuity was the question of their relation to their mother; for Gentile Christians, it was the question of their relation to their mother-in-law" (14).
- "The end result of these disputes with Judaism and with classical thought was a schematization of the relation between Christianity and other religions that assured the finality of God's revelation in Christ while acknowledging the partial validity of earlier revelations" (55). For instance, Clement of Alexandria's comparison of the Decalogue and pagan ethics (56-57), Origen on the moral example of Socrates (58), and numerous fathers on the poems of Vergil and the utterances of the Sybil (63-65).
* On the rule of faith in the late second century, esp. Irenaeus: "To validate its existence, the church looked increasingly not to the future, illumined by the Lord's return, nor to the present, illumined by the Spirit's extraordinary gifts, but to the past, illumined by the composition of the apostolic canon, the creation of the apostolic creed, and the establishment of the apostolic episcopate" (107, 108-120).
* On the development of Christian apocalyptic: "Eschatology that denied the creed was anathematized; eschatology that merely went beyond the creed was tolerated as a private opinion (as in the case of the Origenism of Gregory of Nyssa) or as a remnant of earlier and less refined apocalyptic thought (as in the case of millenarian imagery)" (129). "The plain fact was that the categories of an undifferentiated apocalyptic were inadequate to the needs of a faith whose content was a history that had already happened" (130).
* On the distinctively Christian supernaturalism, in contrast with other ancient religions: "from the Old Testament [the church] learned to redefine the 'supernatural,' drawing the line of demarcation not between 'the spiritual world' and this world, but finally between God the Creator and all his creatures" (141).
* On models / accounts of soteriology:
- "[W]hen a modern Western Christian turns to the Christian writers of the second and third centuries for their understanding of salvation in Christ, it is neither their attention to the teachings and example of Christ (which he may, rather superficially, identify with that of Protestant liberalism) nor their preoccupation with the passion and death of Christ (which he may, with some justification, see as an ancestor of the orthodox doctrine of vicarious atonement), but their emphasis on the saving significance of the resurrection of Christ that he will find most unusual.... To be sure, other ways of speaking about the atonement were too widespread even among the Greek fathers to permit us to ascribe exclusive or even primary force to any one theory, but Christ as victor was more important in orthodox expositions of salvation and reconciliation than Western dogmatics has recognized" (149).
- Several imperfect, implicit parallels among patristic accounts of salvation: Christ's life and teaching correspond to salvation as "revelation of the truth"; his suffering and death correspond to salvation as "forgiveness of sins and justification"; and his resurrection and exaltation correspond to salvation as "immortality and deification" (152).
* On baptism: Tertullian lists "four basic gifts of baptism" in AGAINST MARCION, "the remission of sins, deliverance from death, regeneration, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit" (163). Pelikan comments that this summarizes "what the doctrine of the church was at his time--as well as probably before his time and certainly since his time." Concludes with a quotation from Ernest Evans, a Tertullian scholar: "by the end of the second century, if not fifty years earlier, the doctrine of baptism (even without the aid of controversy to give it precision) was so fully developed that subsequent ages down to our own have found nothing significant to add to it" (166). Later: Augustine agrees (304).
* On the Eucharist: "no orthodox father of the second or third century of whom we have record declared the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist to be no more than symbolic (although Clement and Origen came close to doing so) or specified a process of substantial change by which the presence was effected (although Ignatius and Justin came close to doing so)" (167). Earlier: "Chrysostom...spoke of 'the Lord being sacrificed and laid upon the altar and the priest standing and praying over the victim,' summarizing the sacrificial language about the Eucharist which had also become accepted practice" (25). Later: Augustine largely agrees ("What was important about the sacraments was neither their definition nor their number, but their divinely appointed function as conveyers of grace" [306]), but sometimes he could sound awfully Protestant (305).
* Most of the complicated Trinitarian and Christological disputes (Chapters 4 and 5) are beyond me. I had no idea that even the heretics worked at such a high philosophical level. But I managed to understand a few bits and pieces:
- Analysis of OT Christological material into four groups: passages of adoption, identity, distinction, and derivation (175-183); also four biblical terms or names for Christ: angel, Spirit, Logos, and Son of God (182-190).
- The spark that started the Arian wildfire was the interpretation of Proverbs 8:22-31 (193). The orthodox (Didymus, Ambrose, Hilary) eventually resolved the phrase "he created me" in two ways: interpreting the verb as bearing "an improper sense," or in reference to the "created humanity" of Jesus (205); they prefer the latter. "It had been the wish of the bishops at Nicea to confine themselves to the simple words of Scripture, but this proved bootless" (209, cf. 202).
- Relevant to PARADISE LOST: For an all-too-brief moment in Book Nine, after Eve has eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam pauses to reflect on the situation. Suppose an alternative plot in which Adam decides not to follow Eve's bad example; could the not-yet-fallen Adam have offered himself as a sacrifice on Eve's behalf, taking her place and penalty, dying for her as Christ eventually dies for the Church? According to Athanasius, no. In Pelikan's paraphrase, "Only he who had called men out of nonbeing into being would be able to recall them after they had fallen back into the nothingness that threatened them" (205; cf 285). The problem of sin is more than injustice, disobedience, dishonor, and broken relationship; it is ontological, even (as Milton implies twice in Book Nine) cosmological.
- "Gregory of Nazianzus conceded as late as 380...that 'to be only slightly in error [about the Holy Spirit] was to be orthodox'" (212).
- UPDATE: After reading the second chapter in Volume Two (on the development of three Eastern christologies in the 7th-9th centuries), I've revisited Chapter 5 with more profit. He begins by identifying six doctrinal presuppositions among all disputants:
1. The absolute impassibility of God
2. Salvation as the gift of (participated) impassibility
3. Confidence in the unity of truth across the person and work of Christ
4. Shared formulae in Eucharistic theology. Even Theodore of Mopsuestia writes, "He did not say, 'This is the symbol of my body,' but 'This is my body'" (237)
5. The worship of Jesus Christ
6. The legitimacy of Mary's title "Theotokos" (a concord extending even, eventually, to Nestorius! See 242)
Then Pelikan lays out three "theologies" of the Incarnation: Antioch's "theology of the indwelling Logos," Alexandria's "theology of the hypostatic union," and the "theology of preexistence, kenosis, and exaltation" common throughout the Western Christian lands (Hilary, Augustine, Leo). In 451 AD, Chalcedon authoritatively resolves the problem for most Christians, partly by paring back from some of the thornier metaphysical questions (259-266). After this helpful review, I'm heading back into Volume Two.
* What a relief to turn from pure theology to theological anthropology! Having read Augustine's CONFESSIONS many times, I'm more or less comfortable with the terrain covered in Chapter 6:
- First, an earlier relevant line: "To a considerable degree, the definition of sin in church doctrine appears to have developed a posteriori, by a process which, proceeding from the salvation in Christ and from infant baptism, made the diagnosis fit the cure" (204).
- Early theologians and apologists emphasized human will, as opposed to divine sovereignty, because they were responding to a fatalistic pagan culture (280-286). Over time, two elements of the liturgy—"the confession of the virgin birth of Christ and the practice of infant baptism"—led to the doctrine of original sin (286-292). Augustine invented neither the doctrine nor the terminology, but he definitively articulated it, and contextualized it in a larger doctrine of divine grace, which he presented as sovereign, necessary, and sacramentally mediated (292-307, esp. 306).
- The paradoxes of Augustine. E.g., "If the grace of God was sovereign in its predestinating efficacy, God could not be said to be absolutely bound by the church and the sacraments; but he was bound to them" (302). Both Protestant and Catholic Reformers could cite him so freely (305) because of the "many inconsistencies and changes in his thought" (307); more on this below.
- One fascinating thread I hope Pelikan returns to: paraphrasing and quoting Augustine, he writes that "Adam had been endowed with the qualities requisite to being human, such as rationality, as well as with the special gifts of grace necessary for obeying the will of God. 'He did not need grace to receive good, because he had not yet lost it; but to abide in it he needed the aid of grace, without which he could not do this at all'" (298-299). In other words, not even in Genesis 2 was Adam 'independent' of grace, in either his being or his action. Follow-up: nope, doesn't return to it.
- On Augustine's conflicts with heresy: polemics with the Donatists led Augustine to a strong emphasis on the unity of the church catholic and the objectivity of sacramental mediation (309-313). Polemics agains Pelagianism underscored the priority of grace in salvation (313-318). A provincial synod (Carthage 418) raised much of Augustine's teaching to dogma--but not double predestination.
- On another batch of opponents to Augustine, who agreed with him about grace but rejected double-predestination, John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, and Faustus of Riez (318-329): "The penchant for tagging every doctrinal position with a party label has led to the invention of the name Semi-Pelagianism, which is even less useful than most such designations" (318). The dogmatic upshot (as confirmed by the Synod of Orange in 529, then verified by the bishop of Rome) was a retreat to ambiguity on the question of double-predestination (327-328). Augustine's adherents just couldn't gainsay 1 Timothy 2:4.
- On Augustine's complicated but pervasive influence on the theology of the Middle Ages: "Shorn of its predestinarian elements and in this sense harmonized with his anti-Donatist sacramentalism, Augustine's anti-Pelagian doctrine of grace became the official teaching of Latin Christianity" (329). The poles of Augustinian paradox set the terms and terrain for various disputes for the next thousand years. In the Reformation, "both sides claimed to be defending the Augustine heritage and to be recovering the true Augustine. Both sides were right, and both were wrong" (331), because the heritage contained unresolved tensions.
* Gregory the Great, "last of the fathers and first of the popes" (349) had remarkable respect for the first four ecumenical councils: "...all the four synods of the holy universal church we receive as we do the four books of the holy Gospels" (335).
* Pelikan is disturbed by the Areopagite mystic, less so by Boethius, in some ways his Western counterpart: "There is both historical significance and theological irony in the chronological coincidence between the condemnation of Origen and the rise of Dionysian mysticism, for most of the doctrines on account of which the Second Council of Constantinople anathematized Origen were far less dangerous to the tradition of catholic orthodoxy than was the Crypto-Origenism canonized in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite" (348). "Like Dionysius, Boethius provided orthodox Christian sanction for ideas whose non-Christian origin might otherwise have disqualified them" (349).
* Quotes JND Kelly: "...the Athanasian Creed, which, despite its official name, could more aptly have been called 'the Augustinian Creed'" (351). This creed's "first unquestionable testimony comes from Caesarius or Arles" (mid 6C).
* Gregory's role in systematizing the doctrines of (1) purgatory and (2) the Mass as sacrifice (355-356).
2006 May. Began but quit after a few chapters.
Read
December 4, 2024Development pertains to history, and Dr. Pelikan addresses this very well. But not being a theologian, his evaluations of the many "theologies" of the period covered by this book could have been more thorough. But as he is an historian and not a theologian, this is to be expected. I doubt that there could be a better annal of historical development of this period of Church history than this one.
April 13, 2018
Very interesting, with a few, subtle, fundamental flaws: acritical acceptance of unbiblical developments of the II Century as if they were mere continuance from the Apostles, of the subordination of grace to ritualism, and some unexplained logical jumps.
November 25, 2024
Useful, probably a hair better than Kelly. I appreciated that Kelly was broken up a bit more, but Pelikan I found Pelikan clearer is certain ways and more thorough.
December 29, 2021
A mammoth task to undertake. Tracing the tangled roots of our orthodox faith with clarity and balance. A solid read
October 8, 2013
The first volume of the acclaimed five volume series by Jaroslav Pelikan on the history of Christian doctrine. This is quite different than any other church history I've read, focusing as it does on the slow development of doctrine over the centuries rather than on great men/women, national concerns, the papacy, etc. Pelikan does an excellent job in this first volume in showing how doctrines we now take for granted, as well as those we have all but forgotten, rose in answer to the most compelling questions Christians of the time had about their faith or the answers they wished to give to outsiders. Pelikan's skill as a writer makes the book quite readable, even in the sections about the most obscure or convoluted points of early Church Christology or Trinitarianism.
My friend, Rev. Dr. Charles Scalise, recommends these books to doctoral candidates. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
My friend, Rev. Dr. Charles Scalise, recommends these books to doctoral candidates. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
July 13, 2015
It's easy to see why this is a definitive text in the field. Pelikan's masterful opening volume to his great series is not always an easy read - it is pretty dense - but it is well-written, dense with references to ancient sources, and fascinating. This is what it purports to be: not an institutional, social, or liturgical history, but an intellectual history of the Christian movement from the time of the Apostles to the 6th century.
Anyone who cares about what Christians believe and how we got to those beliefs should read Pelikan, and forget Dan Brown. The true story is much more interesting than the usual silly dismissals of the formation of Christian dogma.
Anyone who cares about what Christians believe and how we got to those beliefs should read Pelikan, and forget Dan Brown. The true story is much more interesting than the usual silly dismissals of the formation of Christian dogma.
June 23, 2013
Pelikan is a peerless theological historian. One can find more specialized books than this one, but pound for pound, Pelikan delivers. The emphasis here is on doctrinal development rather than cultural history. Another positive is that this book is part of a series that covers the whole sweep of history, so finishing it primes one for the next installment.
August 28, 2022
This is an excellent book that covers in-depth the nuances of the development of Christian doctrine in the first six centuries. It is replete on every page with references and quotes of the original sources, while also interacting with the scholarship on the issue.
This book will walk you through the interaction between Jewish & Greek thought with Early Christian beliefs, the development of heterodox groups and the Christian response, the early christological developments as addressed by the first four ecumenical councils, and the early Christian development of the understanding of the relationship of nature and grace (although this is almost exclusively covered through the lens of Augustine and his immediate successors).
I would highly recommend this book to a person familiar with early church history and the general ebbs and flows and major figures of the first 500ish years of the early, but is seeking to flesh out their understanding of the teachings of the early church. It also gives the reader an excellent starting place if they are trying to figure out which Church Fathers to read and which writings to read on various important topics. I find this helpful, as the corpus of the church fathers is massive and can seem very intimidating to someone who isn’t sure where to start.
However, I would not recommend this book for people new to the subject. First, Pelikan is not going to take the time to take the time to explain complex terms like homoousios, nor is he going to give you a background of the general thought of figures such as Athanasius and Tertullian as he seems to expect his reader to have general background knowledge about these figures and ideas.
Second, he is very clear throughout the book that he is strictly covering “the history of the development of doctrine” this is related to, but distinct from, the history of the church, the history of liturgy, and other general historical areas that may helpful for fleshing out the context of the things discussed.
So this is an excellent book about the development of Christian doctrine, but I would caution anyone who believes this book would serve as a good introduction to church history.
This book will walk you through the interaction between Jewish & Greek thought with Early Christian beliefs, the development of heterodox groups and the Christian response, the early christological developments as addressed by the first four ecumenical councils, and the early Christian development of the understanding of the relationship of nature and grace (although this is almost exclusively covered through the lens of Augustine and his immediate successors).
I would highly recommend this book to a person familiar with early church history and the general ebbs and flows and major figures of the first 500ish years of the early, but is seeking to flesh out their understanding of the teachings of the early church. It also gives the reader an excellent starting place if they are trying to figure out which Church Fathers to read and which writings to read on various important topics. I find this helpful, as the corpus of the church fathers is massive and can seem very intimidating to someone who isn’t sure where to start.
However, I would not recommend this book for people new to the subject. First, Pelikan is not going to take the time to take the time to explain complex terms like homoousios, nor is he going to give you a background of the general thought of figures such as Athanasius and Tertullian as he seems to expect his reader to have general background knowledge about these figures and ideas.
Second, he is very clear throughout the book that he is strictly covering “the history of the development of doctrine” this is related to, but distinct from, the history of the church, the history of liturgy, and other general historical areas that may helpful for fleshing out the context of the things discussed.
So this is an excellent book about the development of Christian doctrine, but I would caution anyone who believes this book would serve as a good introduction to church history.
October 15, 2025
The first volume (the only one I need for one) of this legendary history of Christian doctrine is exactly what it assumes to be: a history of doctrine; except for the fact that it contains no history and 100% doctrine. This is ofc an exaggeration, but one who has read the book might excuse me this time. Pelikan is just exquisite in the way and the detail in which he tries to correlate diverse strains of thought into coherent, affirmed dogmas. Nothing is left on the side when it comes to sources: from the liturgical to the private theologians of the day to heresies. The complexities of each and every argument and position make this a very dense book, which is mitigated by the format of the book, giving each page a generous blank side in which all manner of sources and bibliographical notes make their appearance.
Conclusion:
Its very good and everybody knows it, so there's no reason for me to preach to the choir.
10/10
Obviously, the book is very old and the new reprints are not updated thoroughly. Until something fresh, new and better comes out, this still your best bet for a history of doctrine.
Conclusion:
Its very good and everybody knows it, so there's no reason for me to preach to the choir.
10/10
Obviously, the book is very old and the new reprints are not updated thoroughly. Until something fresh, new and better comes out, this still your best bet for a history of doctrine.
May 20, 2023
(3 stars)
Why did I rate this book 5 stars then bracket it as three stars? I'm glad you didn't ask. It's because the book deserves 5 stars for the author's sheer grasp of the subject matter. The book is on the history of the development of theology, and given the amount of material the early church put out, to be able to grasp the breadth of material in the original Greek and Latin and then synthesize it in order to discuss how different issues in the church developed is really impressive.
On the other hand, I read this book so that you don't have to, which is why I bracketed it as three stars. Reading about theology is quite boring—unless like my oldest brother, your basement is filled with dusty old books, each which would break your toe if you dropped the book on it. If that is you, then theology books probably excite you.
Let's face it, reading the various views on the Donatist controversy or the differing views on the hypostatic union, is not going to keep you awake. Why do I read it? I'm a glutton for punishment, and also now you won't have to.
Why did I rate this book 5 stars then bracket it as three stars? I'm glad you didn't ask. It's because the book deserves 5 stars for the author's sheer grasp of the subject matter. The book is on the history of the development of theology, and given the amount of material the early church put out, to be able to grasp the breadth of material in the original Greek and Latin and then synthesize it in order to discuss how different issues in the church developed is really impressive.
On the other hand, I read this book so that you don't have to, which is why I bracketed it as three stars. Reading about theology is quite boring—unless like my oldest brother, your basement is filled with dusty old books, each which would break your toe if you dropped the book on it. If that is you, then theology books probably excite you.
Let's face it, reading the various views on the Donatist controversy or the differing views on the hypostatic union, is not going to keep you awake. Why do I read it? I'm a glutton for punishment, and also now you won't have to.
September 28, 2021
This is a hard book to rate. Would I have picked it up if I hadn't been required to by my professor? Heck no. Did I HATE reading it? Nah. Was it hard to get through, dry, dense, and very slow-moving? Yesyesyes. Do I feel like I have a fuller understanding of church tradition after reading this? For the most part, yes.
The main thing this book is missing is MAPS and CHARTS. It is so hard to understand what parts of the world we're talking about without maps and modern-day names. Some visual guides would be helpful and appreciated.
Other than that . . . there was one early chapter I really liked--I think chapter 2--because it discussed the various heresies that were debated and eventually conquered, and some of those I found very interesting. May have to return to that chapter when it's time to decide what I'm writing my final paper on.
The main thing this book is missing is MAPS and CHARTS. It is so hard to understand what parts of the world we're talking about without maps and modern-day names. Some visual guides would be helpful and appreciated.
Other than that . . . there was one early chapter I really liked--I think chapter 2--because it discussed the various heresies that were debated and eventually conquered, and some of those I found very interesting. May have to return to that chapter when it's time to decide what I'm writing my final paper on.
February 15, 2022
Pelikan is a great thinker, and his work historical theology, led me to pick up this volume despite my hesitations regarding his style. While I typically enjoy scholarly works that are fairly dry and rigid, Pelkian was work to get through. His organization was good, his citations abundant and notable, but this work is repetitive at times with a bit of rambling. Not only this, but after reading various treatments on Nicaea, I found that Pelikan’s volume has outdated information here and there on a number of issues. Examples of some of the obvious ones being the roles and placement of Arius and Athanasius, in relation to the council of 325.
Regardless, Pelikan’s work is helpful and deep, and to be appreciated. At this point im not sure whether or not I’ll be picking up the second volume.
Regardless, Pelikan’s work is helpful and deep, and to be appreciated. At this point im not sure whether or not I’ll be picking up the second volume.
January 14, 2024
Dinged a star as the book was less exhaustive than I had hoped with not much reference to the liturgics, prayer devotions, or the rise of monasticism in the time periods the book covers.
Pelikan does a fantastic job weaving together the various events, councils, and teachers from the period of AD100 to AD600 and maintaining a non polemical balance to relaying the history especially concerning the events of the 3rd through 5th ecumenical councils.
Pelikan does an excellent job of pinpointing the innovations in thinking that would eventually lead to Rome's departure from the catholicty of the church. It is not surprising he eventually embraced the truth of Holy Orthodoxy.
An excellent resource due to its highly systematized reference list of Patristic writings.
Pelikan does a fantastic job weaving together the various events, councils, and teachers from the period of AD100 to AD600 and maintaining a non polemical balance to relaying the history especially concerning the events of the 3rd through 5th ecumenical councils.
Pelikan does an excellent job of pinpointing the innovations in thinking that would eventually lead to Rome's departure from the catholicty of the church. It is not surprising he eventually embraced the truth of Holy Orthodoxy.
An excellent resource due to its highly systematized reference list of Patristic writings.
February 26, 2025
This is a very thorough recounting of Christian tradition up to the point of the Eastern & Western Churches splitting.
Pelikan is rightly regarded as a thorough researcher & writer for all who wish to study Christian dogma/tradition.
The only complaint about the book is that it is very easy to get thoroughly bogged down in the weeds of controversies discussed, & the reader will likely need time to get away before returning with a more clear mind about the topics discussed.
Certainly would recommend this to anyone wishing to have a thorough understanding of early Christian tradition, but not so much for those seeking to simply trace Christian history.
Pelikan is rightly regarded as a thorough researcher & writer for all who wish to study Christian dogma/tradition.
The only complaint about the book is that it is very easy to get thoroughly bogged down in the weeds of controversies discussed, & the reader will likely need time to get away before returning with a more clear mind about the topics discussed.
Certainly would recommend this to anyone wishing to have a thorough understanding of early Christian tradition, but not so much for those seeking to simply trace Christian history.
September 3, 2020
The person who chose this for my book club should feel bad. Pelikan is clearly an erudite scholar but christ he is repetitive and rambling. Maybe if you're already very well-versed in the history of the theology of the early church you'll like this but I (along with the person who picked it out for the book club) have found it quite a poor introduction. Pelikan doesn't summarize his points clearly and seems to dwell on some extremely inane topics while jumping over others. This is made particularly clear in the ending where he essentially just trails off mid sente-
Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews