{"product_id":"9781531297923","title":"A Short History of Christianity","description":"From the PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION:\u003cp\u003eAN attempt to write the history of Christianity in the space of an average novel is so obviously open to objections that, instead of trying to parry them, I will merely state what seems to me the possible compensation of brevity in such a matter. It is or may be conducive to total comprehension, to coherence of judgment, and in a measure even to the understanding of details. A distinguished expert in historical and philological research has avowed that specialists sometimes get their most illuminating ideas from a haphazard glance into a popular and condensed presentment of their own subject. Without hoping so to help the experts, I humbly conceive that the present conspectus of Christian history may do an occasional service even to an opponent by bringing out a clear issue. Writers of a different way of thinking have done as much for me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe primary difficulty is of course the problem of origins. In my treatment of this problem, going as I do beyond the concessions of the most advanced professional scholars, I cannot expect much acquiescence for the present. It must here suffice to say, first, that the data and the argument, insofar as they are not fully set forth in the following pages, have been presented in the larger work entitled \u003ci\u003eChristianity and Mythology\u003c\/i\u003e, or in the quarters mentioned in the Synopsis of Literature appended to this volume; and, secondly, to urge that opponents should read the study on the Gospels by Professor Schmiedel in the new \u003ci\u003eEncyclopedia Biblica\u003c\/i\u003e before taking up their defensive positions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the drawbacks of short histories is that in them at times a disputable proposition has to be summarily put. I doubt, however, whether this occurs oftener in the following pages than in lengthy treatises, where full discussion is fairly to be expected. For instance, I have held that the reference in Rev. ii, 8, to \"the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan,\" is to the Pauline or other Gentilizing Jew-Christists. That is the view of Renan. Harnack, who passes for a more solid authority, pronounces summarily that the phrase is cast by Jew-Christists at orthodox Jews. Such a decision seems to me to be irrational, but it is impossible in such a work to give space to a refutation, where Harnack has offered no argument on the other side in a monumental treatise. The same authority has justified masses of conformist historiography by the simple dogmatic assertion that the time is near at hand when men will universally recognize, in matters of Christian origins, \"the essential rightness of tradition, with a few important exceptions.\" In putting forth a sketch which so little conforms to that opinion, I would but claim that it is not more unjudicial in its method than more conservative performances.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter the period of \"origins\" has been passed, there is happily less room for demur on any grounds. The statements of facts in the second and third parts are for the most part easily to be supported from the testimony of standard ecclesiastical historians; and the general judgments sometimes cited in inverted commas, in all four parts, are nearly always from orthodox writers. What is special to the present treatise is the sociological interpretation. It was indeed to the end of such interpretation that the researches here summarized were begun, over sixteen years ago; and in a documented work on \u003ci\u003eThe Rise of Christianity, Sociologically Considered\u003c\/i\u003e, I hope more fully to present it. But as my first perplexity was to ascertain the real historical \u003ci\u003eprocessus\u003c\/i\u003e, I have never subordinated that need to the desire for explanation....\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Laconia Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147153654000,"sku":"9781531297923","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781531297923_p0.jpg?v=1763740887","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781531297923","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}