In spite of long truces and temporary agreements, Christianity and the State had become two rival powers striving for the mastery of the world, and until the close of the final contest under Diocletian there could be no real peace between them. The Church was herself fully prepared for the struggle. During the first century of her existence she had perfected her organization, and her leaders, the bishops, had obtained unquestioned authority. -from "The Conquest of Heathenism by Christianity: A.D. 161-A.D. 313" With equal measures of reverence and erudition, this classic 1891 history of Christianity offers a succinct survey of the Church, from its pre-Christian foundations in Israel through its ascendency to an absolute force for cultural and religious power during the Dark Ages. In crisp, readable prose, Foakes-Jackson, a respected and prolific Biblical scholar, discusses: -how Jewish synagogues forged the path to churches -the rise of the family of Herod -the societal impact of Jesus during his lifetime -the work of the apostles in the decades after the Crucifixion -clashes between the Roman government and the Church -the origins and principles of Gnosticism -Christian thought in the early centuries of the Church -the organization of the Church -the influence of Constantine -and much more. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Foakes-Jackson's A Brief Biblical History: Old Testament. British theologian FREDERICK JOHN FOAKES-JACKSON (1855-1941) was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and a professor of Christian institutions at New York City's Union Theological Seminary. Among his many works are An Introduction to the History of Christianity, A.D. 590-1314 (1921), Josephus and theJews: The Religion and History of the Jews as Explained by Flavius Josephus (1930), and Peter: Prince of Apostles: A Study in the History and Tradition of Christianity (1927).

Although it is fashionable among modernists to claim that globalism emerged only since ca. 1800, the opposite can well be documented through careful comparative and transdisciplinary studies, as this volume demonstrates, offering a wide range of innovative perspectives on often neglected literary, philosophical, historical, or medical documents. Texts, images, ideas, knowledge, and objects migrated throughout the world already in the pre-modern world, even if the quantitative level compared to the modern world might have been different. In fact, by means of translations and trade, for instance, global connections were established and maintained over the centuries. Archetypal motifs developed in many literatures indicate how much pre-modern people actually shared. But we also discover hard-core facts of global economic exchange, import of exotic medicine, and, on another level, intensive intellectual debates on religious issues. Literary evidence serves best to expose the extent to which contacts with people in foreign countries were imaginable, often desirable, and at times feared, of course. The pre-modern world was much more on the move and reached out to distant lands out of curiosity, economic interests, and political and military concerns. Diplomats crisscrossed the continents, and artists, poets, and craftsmen traveled widely. We can identify, for instance, both the Vikings and the Arabs as global players long before the rise of modern globalism, so this volume promises to rewrite many of our traditional notions about pre-modern worldviews, economic conditions, and the literary sharing on a global level, as perhaps best expressed by the genre of the fable.