ISBN: 978-1-68192-148-8 (Inventory No. T1868)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-150-1
LCCN: 2018957747
Cover design: Amanda Falk
Cover art: Shutterstock
Interior design: Amanda Falk
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
“Historical analysis is never an end in itself; it is not made solely with a view to knowing the past; rather, it focuses decisively on conversion and on an authentic witness of Christian life on the part of the faithful.”
Pope Benedict XVI, 2007
To my sons: Maximilian, Luke, Jeb, and Martin
May the story of the Church and the actions of your brothers in the Lord, who came before you, inspire you to manfully defend the Faith and live it throughout your lives.
Contents
The Beginning — Pentecost and the Spread of the Gospel
The Family Weakens — Prelude to Division
The Great Divorce — Revolt against the Church
Author Preface
“The historian, like the novelist, tells a story; a story of some portion of the past; he describes (rather than defines). The novelist has it easier: he can invent people who did not exist and events that did not happen. The historian cannot describe people and events that did not exist; he must limit himself to men and women who really lived; he must depend on evidences of their acts and words — though, like the novelist, he too must surmise something about their minds.” 1
John Lukacs, 2011
From the beginning of the Church, Christians have told her story, because history is integral to the Faith. God does not ignore his creation, but rather entered human history in a unique manner in the Incarnation, intimately involving himself in that history. The writing of Church history should acknowledge this super-natural reality and follow certain principles, such as accepting the miraculous in human affairs, seeing the impact of the actions of the saints, and recognizing the primacy of the Vicar of Christ (the pope) in the life of the Church and Western Civilization.2
Saint Luke provided the first example of Christian historical writing when he recorded the events of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles. Early Church historians concentrated on recording the lives and deaths of the martyrs, so that their heroic sacrifices could be remembered through the centuries. Romans, such as Tacitus and Suetonius, wrote histories of their empire and the emperors who ruled it. Similarly, Christians began to write histories of the Church. The “Father of Church History” is Eusebius of Caesarea (263–339). His Ecclesiastical History is a gold mine of information about the Church in the time of Roman persecution, and the Empire’s eventual conversion.
In later centuries, many other great historians have contributed their time and efforts to telling the story of the Catholic Church. The pantheon of Church historians includes such men as Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Saint Gregory of Tours (538–594), Saint Bede, called the Venerable (672–735), Cardinal Baronius (1538–1607), Ludwig von Pastor (1854–1928), Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), Christopher Dawson (1889–1970), Henri Daniel-Rops (1901–1965), and Warren H. Carroll (1932–2011).3 These authors followed the Catholic principles of history, and wrote books whose influence continues to the modern world.
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