"A groundbreaking history of how the Christian "West" emerged from the ancient Mediterranean world"--

The renowned historian Christopher Dawson devoted his long and brilliant career to precisely the kind of historical research of which theologians and churchmen stand in great need, particularly if they are to meet the authentic demands of the ecumenical e

A groundbreaking history of how the Christian “West” emerged from the ancient Mediterranean world In this acclaimed history of Early Christendom, Judith Herrin shows how—from the sack of Rome in 410 to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800—the Christian “West” grew out of an ancient Mediterranean world divided between the Roman west, the Byzantine east, and the Muslim south. Demonstrating that religion was the period’s defining force, she reveals how the clash over graven images, banned by Islam, both provoked iconoclasm in Constantinople and generated a distinct western commitment to Christian pictorial narrative. In a new preface, Herrin discusses the book’s origins, reception, and influence.

Reproduction of the original: Church and State as seen in The Formation of Christendom by Thomas W. Allies