{"product_id":"2940012271174","title":"Beginnings of Christianity. Vol. II.","description":"IN the first volume of this work Professor Wernle deals with the rise\u003cbr\u003e   of the Christian religion as it manifests itself in the personality and\u003cbr\u003e   teaching of Jesus and His immediate followers. This is the creative\u003cbr\u003e   period, the period of great men. In the second volume we follow the\u003cbr\u003e   fortunes of the new faith when the great men are succeeded by a great\u003cbr\u003e   ecclesiastical organization. Henceforth it is within the rules and\u003cbr\u003e   forms imposed upon it by this mighty organization that the Gospel has\u003cbr\u003e   to find a footing and make its way among the populations of the ancient\u003cbr\u003e   world. The free creative period, the period of the unfettered spirit,\u003cbr\u003e   is succeeded by an age of anonymity in which institutions, dogmas and\u003cbr\u003e   sacraments rise up and fill the place originally occupied by the great\u003cbr\u003e   personalities of the first Christian generation. Many ecclesiastical\u003cbr\u003e   historians have regarded the elaborate process which took place in the\u003cbr\u003e   second century of incorporating the Gospel into a hard and fast group\u003cbr\u003e   of institutions, forms and ceremonies, as a time of decadence, and no\u003cbr\u003e   doubt it stands immeasurably below the classic and creative age of\u003cbr\u003e   primitive Christianity. But it must be remembered that the Christian\u003cbr\u003e   institutions of sub-apostolic times were the direct and inevitable\u003cbr\u003e   outcome of the conditions in which the new religion was placed; it was\u003cbr\u003e   only in the garment of an ecclesiastical organization that the Gospel\u003cbr\u003e   could retain its essential character and fight its battle with the\u003cbr\u003e   opposing forces of Jewish and Pagan thought.\u003cbr\u003e   THE author considers it advisable to direct attention to two points in\u003cbr\u003e   which a slight difference exists between the first and second volumes.\u003cbr\u003e   In the first volume the origin of the conception of the sacraments is\u003cbr\u003e   derived from St Paul (p. 273), and not from the earliest Christian\u003cbr\u003e   community; whereas vol. ii. presupposes the existence of the sacraments\u003cbr\u003e   in the earliest Church, and even suggests that they are anterior to\u003cbr\u003e   Christianity itself (vol. ii. p. 128). On this point the author has\u003cbr\u003e   accepted the arguments advanced by Bousset and Heitm�ller.","brand":"New Century Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081276604656,"sku":"2940012271174","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012271174_p0.jpg?v=1763554191","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012271174","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}