Book description
Fools. Rebels. Ignorant peasants.
That's how the Roman world saw the first Christians. Led by fishermen,
tax collectors and renegade Pharisees, the first Christians shunned
power and welcomed the poor and uneducated. Roman commentators mocked
their upside-down values, but the apostle Paul - himself a Roman
citizen, and a Pharisee to boot, affirmed that 'God chose what is
foolish in the world to shame the wise.'
Its followers were persecuted and its leaders killed, yet this ragged
collection of lowly tradesmen, women, slaves - and a smattering of
turncoat high-born Jews - created a movement that changed the world. How
did this happen? How did the kingdom of fools conquer the mighty empire
that was Rome?
In this fascinating new biography of the early church, Nick Page sets
the biblical accounts alongside the latest historical and archaeological
research, exploring how the early Christians lived and worshipped - and
just why the Romans found this new branch of the Jewish faith so
difficult to comprehend.
THE KINGDOM OF FOOLS is a fresh, challenging, accessible portrait of a
movement so radical, so dangerous, so thrillingly different that it
outlasted the empire that tried to destroy it and went on to become the
driving force of our cultural development - and claims more followers
today than ever before in history. 'This is a book written by a highly
experienced, technically brilliant and detailed writer.' Nick Page is
a writer and speaker based in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He is the author of
over sixty books for both children and adults.
