This history of Christian thought takes the reader from the canonical writing of the New Testament to the cutting edge of modern theology. The work, in two volumes which cover as many millennia, can be broken up into six major segments: I. The Theology of the New Testament; II. The New Wisdom's Encounter with Hellenistic and Roman Culture; III. The Church as a State Religion and the Rise of Political, Liturgical, and Dogmatic Systems (4th to 10th century); IV. Monastic, Scholastic, and Humanistic Theology, the Ideal of the Ultimate Good. (11th to 15th century); V. The Struggles of the Fifteenth Century Reformers, Mystics, Moralists, and the Encyclopedists of the Baroque period; VI. The Search for a Genuine Evangelical Spirit in a World Jealous of Its Independence. The thought and actions of Christians are examined in the context of a philosophical and scientific evolution of social, political, hermaneutic, and esthetic forms. This two thousand year trek through the history of Christian theology with its best and worst of times, and with its dynamism, at once rigid and flexible, serves to orient the reader before a rich, variable, and, occasionally contradictory legacy. What is of critical importance is to see clearly, based on one's knowledge of the past, towards the future and the new forms that are already at hand. Among the great protagonists of Christian thought discussed in Volume I are Paul, John, Justin, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Leo, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John Climac, Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, and Simon the New Theologian.