First CRC Library

In the fourth century one man – Athanasius – saved Christianity from near-destruction by a surge of “Arianism,” a heresy denying the divinity of Christ. The story of Christianity then shifts to the complete destruction of the western Roman empire by successive hordes of barbarians invading from forests and steppes to the north and east. In many ways the equivalent of an all-out nuclear war, this catastrophe brought to an end the ancient world, and ushered in the beginnings of medieval Christendom. There are chapters on Augustine, Patrick and the Irish reconversion of barbarian Europe, the kingdom of the formidable Franks, and the founding of the Byzantine Christian empire in the East.