Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity

2014 Midwest Publishing Association Award of Excellence (Scholarly/Reference) 2014 Readers' Choice Awards Honorable Mention The Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity covers eight centuries of the Christian church and comprises 3,220 entries by a team of 266 scholars from 26 countries representing a variety of Christian traditions. It draws upon such fields as archaeology, art and architecture, biography, cultural studies, ecclesiology, geography, history, philosophy, and theology. This three-volume encyclopedia offers unparalleled, comprehensive coverage of the people, places and ideas of ancient Christianity, including:

• cultural currents
• events and movements
• philosophy
• iconography and architecture
• archaeology
• texts and translations
• theological terms
• doctrines
• liturgy
• spirituality
• monasticism
• Christian sects
• heresies
• controversies
• councils

The encyclopedia's A-to-Z coverage extends from "Aaron (iconography)" to "Zosimus, pope" and chronologically from Christianity's origins to Bede (d. 735) in the West and John of Damascus (d. ca. 749) in the Greek East, with detailed emphasis on the first four centuries of Christian history. Its geographical range reaches across:

• North Africa
• Mauretania
• Numidia
• Africa Proconsularis Byzacena
• Libya
• Egypt
• Nubia
• Ethiopia
• Asia
• Adiabene
• Armenia
• Bithynia & Pontus
• Georgia
• Cappadocia
• Lycia and Pamphylia
• Phrygia
• Syria
• Mesopotamia
• Arabia
• Palestine
• Persia
• China
• Europe
• Gaul
• Spain & Portugal
• Italy
• Germany
• Britain and Ireland
• Scotland
• Pannonia
• Dalmatia
• Macedonia
• Moesia
• Thrace
• Cyprus
• Crete

This edition updates and expands on previous Italian and English-language editions with the addition of more than 500 new articles (added to the current Italian or English edition), including the following 30 articles exclusive to IVP's edition:

• apostolic see
• Capua
• Carmen de synodo Ticinensi
• China
• cosmopolitanism
• death
• diakonia/diaconate
• Dialogi de sancta Trinitate IV-V
• doorkeeper (porter)
• dynamis/energeia
• eternity
• forgiveness
• freedom/free will
• good
• Hierotheus
• incubatio
• infinity/infinitude
• libelli miraculorum
• love
• Mara bar Serapion (letter of)
• oikeiosis
• old age
• presanctified
• Serapeion (Serapeum)
• subdeacon
• Theosebia
• Triumphus Christi heroicus
• Tychon
• unity
• Virgo Parens

Extensive cross-referencing provides ease in exploring related articles, and helpful bibliographies, including primary sources (texts, critical editions, translations) and key secondary sources (books and journal articles), give access to the very latest in-depth scholarship in countless disciplines of study. IVP's new Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (2014) is translated from Nuovo dizionario patristico e di antichita cristiane (2006-2008), produced by the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, the world's foremost center for partristic studies, under the direction of Professor Angelo Di Berardino, and it greatly updates and expands the 1992 Encyclopedia of the Early Church (Oxford University Press/James Clarke).