Church history.

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damooster

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What book recommendations do you have regarding Church history? I’m not looking for opinion pieces, just straight history.

Thanks.
 
One of the best is by Jedin, History of the Church in 10 volumes. There is also an abridged version in 3 volumes.

A good one volume book is by Logan, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages. But this stops short of the Reformation.
 
Any history of ANYTHING is going to be “his story,” with opinions and evaluations by the writer. Even mentioning this and not mentioning that will involve some evaluation. This includes Church history.
 
We are using Laux and de Wohl. The first is specifically written at a high school/adult level of the 1940s. The latter is from the early 1960’s and is written more like a story than the former, which is very textbook-like. I got the latter for much less through AbeBooks.
 
My wife is reading “Keepers of the Keys of Heaven” by Roger Collins which is a history of the papacy. She says it’s a fascinating read especially about all the decisions that needed to be made in the very early church. She says that it really shows the Will of God that the Catholic Church survived in the first few centuries.
 
Robert_Michael said:
You could buy some encyclopedias which contain the writings of the Church Fathers. 🙂

christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=30815&event=CF

(If you prefer to buy a volume at a time, they are just $5)

Others: christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?event=HPT&N=1111403+5401&Ne=1000000&Nso=1&Nu=product.endeca_rollup&category=Books&Ns=product.number_sold
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This is also available on CD from various places for much less.

Either would be a good inventment!
 
damooster said:
What book recommendations do you have regarding Church history? I’m not looking for opinion pieces, just straight history.

Thanks.
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How about Eusebius: The Church History for the first few centuries of Christianity. This book helped me a lot.
 
Should someone happen to recommend Anne Carroll or Warren Carroll, don’t read those. They have incredible Catholic bias, wrong facts, etc.
 
Ichbinian said:
Should someone happen to recommend Anne Carroll or Warren Carroll, don’t read those. They have incredible Catholic bias, wrong facts, etc.
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Oh c’mon. Carroll loved our faith and told what he believed to be true with rigorous documentation. Carroll gives tons of footnotes for almost everything except Queen Isabella’s flaming red hair blowing in the breeze! But joking aside, he is an apologist to be sure. But I find his considerable Catholic bias to be understandable. (Maybe I don’t know what you mean by describing his particular bias as “incredible”. That would seem to be saying you can’t believe how biased he is. On the other hand…Anyway I don’t follow your meaning.) People often write about what they care about. Sometimes about what they love. Sometimes about what they despise. We always have to consider these biases.

A dose of Carroll is good for those Catholics who have been cowed by moderns into think their Fathers in the Faith were shameful because of Crusades or Inquisitions. Without excusing sinners among us, he takes us into a world that had never heard of Thomas Jefferson, or separation of church and state and puts events for which we are not proud into contexts that permit us to see that the Church Herself was still holy. He shows very well that the vivid resilency of the Catholic Church has survived every obstacle and temptation that has been placed in her path.

So…I recommend Warren Carroll especially for those who have assumed that popes and other princes of the Church were powerful temporal rulers during long periods who could dictate political policy or even church policy without regard for the secular arm. This popularly held false assumption needs to be addressed if one would like to embrace the history and continuity of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church from the beginning, to the middle, and on to the present.
 
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