R. A. Markus - Böcker

This book is concerned with one central historical problem: the nature of the changes that transformed the intellectual and spiritual horizons of the Christian world from its establishment in the fourth century to the end of the sixth. The End of Ancient Christianity examines how Christians, who had formerly constituted a threatened and beleaguered minority, came to define their identity in a changed context of religious respectability in which their faith had become a source of privilege and power.

In this book Professor Markus's main concern is with those aspects of Augustine's thought which help to answer questions about the purpose of human society, and particularly with his reflections on history, society and the Church. He relates Augustine's ideas to their contemporary context and to older traditions, and shows which aspects of his thought he absorbed from his intellectual environment. Augustine appears from this study as a thinker who rejected the 'sacralization' of the established order of society, and the implications of this for a theology of history are explored in the last chapter.

Markus's new and accessible work is the first full study of Gregory the Great since that of F. H. Dudden (1905) to deal with both Gregory's life and work as well as with his thought and spirituality. With his command of Gregory's works, Markus portrays vividly the daily problems of one of the most attractive characters of the age. Gregory's culture is described in the context of the late Roman educational background and in the context of previous patristic tradition. Markus seeks to understand Gregory as a cultivated late Roman aristocrat converted to the ascetic ideal, caught in the tension between his attraction to the monastic vocation and his episcopal ministry, at a time of catastrophic change in the Roman world. The book deals with every aspect of his pontificate: as bishop of Rome, as landlord of the Church lands, in his relations to the Empire, and to the Western Germanic kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and, especially, his mission to the English.

Markus's new and accessible work is the first full study of Gregory the Great since that of F. H. Dudden (1905) to deal with both Gregory's life and work as well as with his thought and spirituality. With his command of Gregory's works, Markus portrays vividly the daily problems of one of the most attractive characters of the age. Gregory's culture is described in the context of the late Roman educational background and in the context of previous patristic tradition. Markus seeks to understand Gregory as a cultivated late Roman aristocrat converted to the ascetic ideal, caught in the tension between his attraction to the monastic vocation and his episcopal ministry, at a time of catastrophic change in the Roman world. The book deals with every aspect of his pontificate: as bishop of Rome, as landlord of the Church lands, in his relations to the Empire, and to the Western Germanic kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and, especially, his mission to the English.