A New History Of Early Christianity, by Charles Freeman

It is clear that the author of this book has a great interest and knowledge of the ancient world. It is also clear, from reading the book, that the author comes from a humanistic perspective that values Athens far higher than Jerusalem, and that seeks for space to hold the Bible in ill repute because it fails to meet the levels of rhetoric of classical Greek (which ought to be additional evidence that it was written in the modest circumstances it claims) and because of a desire to find contradiction in order to avoid the ethical demands of the Bible. The author is fortunately honest in his bias, so that those who do not share it may find what is of value in the book without agreeing with it.

The main thesis of the book is that there was no original Christianity, but that there was a multiplicity of Christianities from the very start, and that no unity was possible without a powerful central authority to enforce it. This has been my experience as well, that unity in doctrine requires force because it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to grasp spiritual truths as mere human beings. Rather than glorying in our capacity of reason as a cause of seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, we ought to be humble in the face of our limits even as we seek to do the best with what we have been given. The book seeks to pit scriptures against each other, to use critical techniques to create space for him to respect Christianity without having to believe. In short, he is much like Felix of Festus, which accounts for his sympathies with the pagan world.

This book takes a chronological view of the history of early Christianity, presenting an account that shows the diversity of the Roman Empire and of Christian thought, showing the tensions between scripture as well as political necessary. This book shows, very wisely and honestly, that we see in Christianity what we are, and not what it is. This was true in the ancient world, and it is certainly true today. This book happens to be scholarly, tolerant, but ultimately unbelieving, and it represents the virtues as well as shortcomings of its authors well. With an interest primarily in literature as well as politics, this particular book shows a humanist in cultured and polite form, seeing for tolerance and attempting to assert the value of reason independent of faith. The author seems to find Hellenistic Christianity notable largely for its Hellenism as apart from its Christianity, although he does seem to appreciate the Jesus of the Gospels for his view on social justice, and takes a dim and Marcionite view of the Old Testament as well.

Although this book has its flaws, they are the flaws of someone who is clearly an intellectual and not someone who is essentially mean-spirited. The author has a sort of disdain towards fundamentalists, like the way a scholar would look down on those who insult the intellect in a dialectic of godless intellect and reason-free faith that fails to represent a genuine perspective of the options that exist. The “intellectual” Christianity that the author would appear to value the most is the sort of intellect that is clearly a Hellenistic Christianity that is deeply unbiblical in nature, however appealing to those like the author. We make God in our own image when we refuse to be remade into His, and although this book is clearly flawed, it is not hostile reading and there is much that we would agree on, like the stultifying nature of the Roman Catholic Church and its attempts to force through agreement and shut down the frontiers of the mind.