Spirit of Early Christian Thought

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God by Robert Louis Wilken, 321 pages

It is highly significant that this book is titled The Spirit of Early Christian Thought and not The History of Early Christian Thought or A Compendium of Early Christian Thought.  Through the writings of the Church Fathers, returning most frequently to Origen, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Augustine, and St Maximus the Confessor, Wilken attempts to enter into the minds and hearts of the early Christians, to hear them as still living voices.

Wilken succeeds admirably in bringing the moral, ritual, and intellectual world of early Christianity to life.  He convincingly demonstrates how the early Church, far from paganizing Christianity, baptized elements of classical culture, offering the world something authentically new and still vital two thousand years later.