The Church in the Dark Ages, Volume 1

The Church in the Dark Ages is the second installment in Henri Daniel-Rops' monumental History of the Church of Christ. This volume includes the first five chapters of that work, skillfully studying St. Augustine of Hippo, whose genius governed Christ­endom for centuries; the "Great Invasions" of the Barbarians and their conversion under the great popes, Gregory and Leo; the sanctifying influence of such saints as John Chrysostom, Patrick, and Boniface, and the scholars and missionaries of East and West; the grandiosity of Byzantium and its most illustrious leaders, Justinian and Theodora; and Christianity's descent into the "night of barbarism" and the heroic efforts of St. Benedict and the monastic expansion which sought to draw it from those dark depths. A magnificent presentation of six centuries' worth of Church history, The Church in the Dark Ages proves the aptness of the term les temps barbares. From 400 a.d. to 1050 a.d., the world endured-in Rops' eloquent phrasing-"a night in which humanity seemed to be groping blindly amid the bloody confusion of today and the anguish of the morrow. Only the Church, guided by a transcendent ambition, pursued her course unwaveringly, and in working to her own supernatural ends she became the most effective means of ensuring the salvation of civilization."