The Early Church is an introduction to the patristic period, covering up thru 461 A.D. The author gives great attention to the social and political realities surrounding and affecting events, personalities, and disputes in the Christian movement. His is an interdisciplinary approach to history. W.H.C. Frend provides the reader with an unusually comprehensive and penetrating view of the church's initial centuries. Includes notes, brief bibliographies, an index, and a chronological table of events. W.H.C. Frend is Emeritus Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. This item is an abridged form of the much more extensive early Church history by the same author: The Rise of Christianity
