Tried by Fire
The Story of Christianity's First Thousand Years

This is probably one of the best, most readable of all the books I've found so far on the history of the early Christian church. Bennett covers the incredible bravery and faithfulness of the Christian martyrs, evangelists, intellectuals, and church fathers. But this is more than just hagiography. Th......more

An overview of Christianity’s first 1000 years. This is exactly what I wanted to learn about the church. With the timeline in mind, now I can go back and further dig into various people or times. Dr. Bennett also provides an index so I can kind of use this book as a reference to refresh my memory on......more

This is a well written account of the first thousand years of the Christian Church. My husband read it out loud over the course of several months which was a great way for us to discuss it as we read. I learned a lot about the spread of Christianity from a small regional sect of believers to its pla......more

I learned so much from this book, including: ancient church history, ancient Roman/Byzantine history, about the barbarians and the birth of Europe, and not to mention, the intertwined nature of church/state for long stretches of time. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is an extremely useful and......more

William Bennett's 'Tried by Fire' is a very interesting and readable account of the early history of Christianity. Most interesting is Bennett's account of how Christianity spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean area, southern and Western Europe in the first 2-4 centuries after the death of Chr......more