Norman P. Tanner - New Short History of the Catholic Church

References to publications. References to books and articles are given in the body of the text, not in footnotes. For the works referred to frequently, see Abbreviations below. Other references are given in the following form: author or first word(s) of title, as appropriate, followed by the date of publication and the pages (or numbers etc.) referred to, thus: (Baur, 1998, p. 443). The full title of the book or article can be found in the Bibliography, under the chapter in which the reference occurs.

Bible. In references to Scripture, a recognizable title of the book is given together with the chapter and verse, thus: Genesis 4.13.

Dates of birth and death. For most individuals who appear in this book, the year of birth and, in many cases, that of death is not known with certainty. The policy has been to give dates wherever possible, rather than question-marks (?) or spread-dates (1370/75), but the year indicated often indicates an approximate rather than a definite date.

Abbreviations

From an early age history has been crucial for the people of God. Much of the Old Testament recounts the history of the Jewish people, while the story of Jesus and the early Church is told in the New Testament. The history of the Catholic church the subject of this short book forms perhaps the most fascinating story of any institution in world history. But for Catholics this history is more than just interesting, it is crucially important on account of the normative role of Tradition. That is to say, Catholics have held firmly to the belief that the Bible must be accompanied by an awareness of how its message has been lived and interpreted through the centuries, by a sense of how the contents of Scripture have been clarified by the teaching authorities within the Church and through the life, prayer, study and struggles of Christians. Tradition and the history of the Church complement the development of doctrine, they complete our understanding of Christ as the fullness of Truth and of Gods revelation to us.

Fortunately, writers have come forward through the centuries to record the history of the Church and so to help us with the necessary Tradition. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the fourth century, is acclaimed as the Father of Church History. Three centuries later Britain and France produced two church historians of the highest quality, Bede and Gregory of Tours. Church historians abounded in the Middle Ages and, with more polemical edge, throughout the period of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The nineteenth century witnessed many advances in historical scholarship which greatly affected the writing of church history. The twentieth century has reaped the fruits of these advances through multi-volume histories of the Church as well as shorter works. The present book fits squarely into the latter category of a short history.

The book divides conveniently and naturally into five chapters. Chapter 1 covers the early Church of the first four centuries, the period when the boundaries of the Church mainly coincided with those of the Roman Empire. During the first three centuries persecution was never far from the Church and greatly influenced its history. The fourth century witnessed the conversion of emperor Constantine to Christianity and resulted in first freedom and then a privileged position for the Church the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire.