Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine

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Summary: Cult of State and Cult of Christ become One
Review: If you want to know how, and why, romanitas became christianitas, this is the book for you. But make no mistake, this isn't any gloss of the process, this is an in-depth as a how-to discussion of surgery.

I've been through this book twice, and I'm always amazed by Cochrane's ability. It helps me (always) to have a primer on Roman history out as I go through it - to check on some of his references and "name-dropping." A Latin dictionary doesn't hurt, either (my Latin's a little rusty since college).

If you want an extensive examination of the christianization of the Roman empire, get this book!

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Summary: A pillar of philosophical, religious, and cultural analysis
Review: Originally published in 1940, Christianity And Classical Culture: A Study Of Thought And Action From Augustus To Augustine by Charles Norris Chochrane (1889-1945) is a thoughtful, insightful, informative examination of the contrast and sometimes clash between the classical era's culture and struggle to understand the world in purely rational terms, and the completely new understanding of the world developed and spread by Christianity. From divisions of church and state; to the impact that Constantine and the spread of Christianity had; to a technical dissection of propositions concerning sometimes starkly different worldviews, Christianity and Classic Culture has survived the test of time to remain a pillar of philosophical, religious, and cultural analysis.

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Summary: The Fall of Rome and the Rise of Christendom
Review: This is a comprehensive narrative of the decline of the classical pagan world and the rise of the Christian middle ages. It is aptly subtitled, "A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine," for those two men stand out as the bookends of the transition. The story begins with Eternal Rome at the end of the Republic, and generally with the claims of pagan Rome to finality and mastery -- perfected science in the classical sense -- over the political order of the world. It ends with the destruction of the Empire and the seminal thinker of the next thousand years, Aurelius Augustine. On the way, Cochrane weaves together military history, theology, poetry, philosophy, law and politics in a prose that is certainly not to be confused with Gibbon, but is nonetheless quite readable. Cochrane's avowed mission is to let the classical authors, pagan and Christian alike, speak for themselves and for their positions, and this he does with remarkable fairness. A principal question of the book is, who won the war of philosophers and theologians? Did Athens conquer Jerusalem, imposing classical pagan or Platonic ideas on a Christianity now lost, or did Jerusalem conquer Athens, replacing the classical ways of thought in a radical way? The answer, as one might expect, is complicated, but intelligible. The book is 500 pages long, but will repay multiple readings.