Philip Hughes was an English Roman Catholic priest and historian who finished his career as a professor of history at Notre Dame. He was able to complete a three-volume history of the Church from its beginnings through the revolt against Rome by Martin Luther. Hughes also produced a one volume history of the Reformation and an additional work on the Church councils from Nicaea to the First Vatican Council in 1870.

In Volume I of his three volume work, "The Church and the World in Which it was Founded, Hughes covers the period from the life and death of Jesus Christ, the apostolic succession, the alternating periods of persecution and toleration under the Roman emperors, the adoption of Christianity by Constantine and its eventual designation as the official religion of the empire, the decline of paganism, the rise of a multitude of heresies and the struggle between Rome and the Eastern patriarchies of Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria for the right to define the orthodox Christian dogma, the origins of church/state conflicts resulting from the need to adjudicate the claims of the various heresies which laid the historical groundwork for the eventual schism between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity.

As the above summary would suggest this is a crowded story featuring Apostles, Church Fathers, Roman emperors both East and West, heretical clergy who lost out in the theological controversies largely over the nature and status of the Holy Trinity and more specifically, Jesus. The Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Montanists, Manichees, et. al. are all treated here and the councils that defined the faith such as Nicaea and Chalcedon are discussed at length.

For those who are not steeped in this history it may come as a surprise, as it did to me, that the Council of Nicaea in 325 which gave us the creed to which all Catholics adhere was, in fact, called by Constatine and not attended by the Pope (Silvester I) who dispatched a few papal legates to represent him. It was also a surprise to learn that although Constantine adopted Christianity on the occasion of the Batlle of Milvian Bridge in 312 ,and gave it official recognition a year later in the Edict of Milan, he was not actually baptized until the year he died (337) and that the sacrament was administered by Eusebius one of the most prominent advocates of Arianism.

For those who are interested in the history of the institution that is the longest surviving bearer of what we call Western Civilization, Hughes' history of the early church is an excellent resource by an historian who knows the material and tells a a story that is accessible to the general public as well as the specialist. It is clear that Hughes, to the extent that he exhibits any partisanship in quarrels that consumed the Church its early centuries, like the Papacy, comes down on the side of the apostolic tradition and the faith as defined by Nicaea and defended often at great personal risk by the Church Fathers and their allies.

This volume includes a very helpful appendix listing side by side all of the Popes and Emperors down to the year 715. It also includes a Bibliography organized by chapter. The one thing it lacks, which would have been extremely helpful given the enormous cast of characters is an Index. ( )