History of Christian Thought

JONATHAN HILL has a first class degree in Philosophy and Theology from Oxford University and an MPhil in Theology (also from Oxford). He has worked in publishing and broadcasting since leaving Oxford in 1997 and is the author of Faith in the Age of Reason in the Lion Histories series.

This is an enormous subject, tackled in a lively and accessible way. Beginning with the Greek philosophers and the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire, Hill follows the faith through great eras like the Reformation and the Enlightenment, right up to existentialism and postmodernism, telling Christianity's story through its great figures and theologians. His goal is to 'help the reader understand and sympathise' with those thinkers who have both reached up to God themselves, or felt the hand of God on their shoulders. As such the book acts as a biographical reference work for figures of the stature of Luther, Calvin, Tillich and Barthes. And if you wanted to know how the Second Vatican Council differed from the first, this book will tell you.

• Introduction 7Part 1: The Church Fathers 10Greek Philosophy 11Justin Martyr 13Rome 14Irenaeus of Lyons 21Gnosticism 22Tertullian 30Origen 37Alexandria 37Neoplatonism 46The Conversion of Constantine 57Arianism 58The First Council of Nicea 59Athanasius 60Constantinople 63The Cappadocian Fathers 65The First Council of Constantinople 67The Desert Fathers 72Pelagianism 73Augustine of Hippo 75Cyril of Alexandria 88The Council of Ephesus 90The Council of Chalcedon 93Part 2: The Byzantine Empire 95Byzantium 96Pseudo-Dionysius 97The Second Council of Constantinople 97Maximus the Confessor 101The Third Council of Constantinople 102The Second Council of Nicea 104Symeon the New Theologian 105The Rise of Islam 107The Great Schism 109Gregory Palamas 110Mount Athos 112The Third Rome 116Part 3: The Middle Ages 118The Dark Ages 119Augustine of Canterbury 120The Holy Roman Empire 121Erigena 122The Monasteries 123Anselm 125Feudalism 126Chivalry 130Peter Abelard 134Paris 135The Mendicant Orders 140Thomas Aquinas 142The Rediscovery of Aristotle 144Bonaventure 154John Duns Scotus 157Oxford 157Medieval Mysticism 160John Wyclif 161The Inquisition 163Jan Hus 164Part 4: The Reformation 171The Renaissance 172Martin Luther 175The Conquistadors 176John Calvin 188Geneva 189The Later Reformation 199The Council of Trent 200Puritanism 203Pietism 204John Wesley 205ContentsPart 5: The Modern Era 211The Enlightenment 212Gotthold Lessing 214Immanuel Kant 216Romanticism 217Friedrich Schleiermacher 220Tübingen 221Søren Kierkegaard 235Geology and Biology 238Evangelicalism 241Albrecht Ritschl 245John Henry Newman 247The Oxford Movement 247The First Vatican Council 252Albert Schweitzer 253Part 6: The 20th Century 257Karl Barth 258Rudolf Bultmann 269Existentialism 270Dietrich Bonhoeffer 277Reinhold Niebuhr 285Paul Tillich 291Karl Rahner 297The Second Vatican Council 298Process Theology 304Liberation Theology 306Pentecostalism 307Jürgen Moltmann 308Feminist Theology 312Postmodernism 313Wolfhart Pannenberg 316African Christianity 319Asian Christianity 321Epilogue 324Glossary 327Further Reading 336Index 345