Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity

Religious ideas take shape through encounters between communities in Kirsopp Lake's account of the early Church. His chapters move through Galilee, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome and Ephesus, placing Christian belief alongside the traditions of the Roman Empire. The opening discusses local worship, Greek philosophy and imported religious cults, then considers the distinctive position of Jewish religious thought within that changing environment.

Based on lectures given at Oberlin College in 1919 and expanded for publication in 1920, the book presents historical arguments in a less technical form. Its topics include the teaching of Jesus, repentance, baptism and the hope of immortality. Lake compares ideas of salvation across ancient religious traditions and questions familiar explanations for Christianity's spread. Readers studying religious history can use it to examine how an early twentieth-century scholar connected the development of doctrine with the beliefs circulating around the first Christian communities.