Church and State in Early Christianity

Download or read book Church and State in Early Christianity written by Hugo Rahner and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fr. Hugo Rahner, a renowned church historian, presents for the first time in English a very clear and readable study of the relationship of the Church and State during the first eight centuries. From being persecuted, to tolerated, to being mandated as the Empire's official religion, the Church encountered, during those early centuries, in principle all the forms of the Church-State relationship she could face in the future. With unsurpassed knowledge of the historical sources, Rahner brings to light what the Church herself through the bishops, the Pope, and the great theologians came to understand as the proper relationship between the spiritual society of the Church and the temporal society of the State.