Scripture documents spiritual history up through the apostles through its detailed accounts of prophets, sinners, leaders, disciples and apostles. Does the Church have anything that continues that tradition of documenting spiritual history?
Yes, the Church Histories. The most famous Church History is the one by Eusebius of Caesarea. The book is called “
Ecclesiastical History,” and it begins with a summary of the Gospels and Acts from Book 1 up to Book 2 chapter 22, and then from Chapter 23 on it’s all original material, up to 324 A.D., right before the first ecumenical council.
A parallel Church History is the book
History Against the Pagans by Orosius. It tells the history of Christianity up to 417 A.D., and the book was written by Orosius on behalf of his friend St. Augustine. I don’t think it was nearly as popular in the early church as Eusebius’ book though.
Four authors, named Rufinus, Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret, all took it upon themselves to continue Eusebius’ work, and they each continued the story of early Christianity up to different times.
Rufinus completed Eusebius’ work out to 395 A.D.,
Socrates Scholasticus to 439 A.D.,
Sozomen to 425 A.D., and
Theodoret to 429 A.D.
A man named Evagrius Scholasticus was a big fan of Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and wrote
a book continuing the narrative out to 593 A.D. By this time the Church’s saints had gotten in on the writing of Church History, and St. Gregory of Tours published his
History of the Church in France at about this time, which tells the story of Catholicism in France from 250 A.D. out to 591 A.D.
St. Bede the Venerable then published an enormously valuable book of Church History that has helped make him the patron saint of historians. This is his
History of the English Church, which tells the story of Catholicism in England from the early 200s, but really gets going from 596 A.D. to 731 A.D.
Paul the Deacon also published a Church History about this time, and covers Catholicism in Italy out to 743 A.D.
Two Byzantine Catholic historians from about this time are
St. Nikephoros I of Constantinople, whose Church History covers the period from 602 A.D. to 769 A.D., and
St. Theophanes Confessor, whose Church History continues the story out to 813 A.D.
I haven’t found much more in the way of famous Church Histories after that. At some point between 300 A.D. and 800 A.D., chronicles of history gradually became more popular than narratives of history, and chronicles aren’t nearly as interesting to me. The most common form of chronicle that I’ve seen is basically this: draw up a table of years from the beginning of the chronicle to the end, and for each year list important events that happened. Yeah, they aren’t as interesting reading material, as least not to me.
You do get some interesting narratives of the Crusades and other historical events after the 800s, but I’ve yet to see anything after the 800s that matches the majesty of the History of the English Church by St. Bede or the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius. But yeah, people have been documenting spiritual history for much longer than just the place where Acts of the Apostles leaves off.
