Table of Contents

Joseph Streeter: Introduction. Ste. Croix on Persecution
1: Aspects of the `Great' Persecution
2: The Fourth Edict in the West and the Date of the Council of Elvira
3: Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?
4: Voluntary Martyrdom and the Early Church
5: Heresy, Schism, and Persecution in the Later Roman Empire
6: G. E. M. de Ste. Croix and Michael Whitby: The Council of Chalcedon
7: Early Christian Attitudes to Property and Slavery

About the Author

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix was Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College, Oxford from 1953 until 1977. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1972. He published Origins of the Peloponnesian War in 1972 and The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World in 1981; the latter book was translated into Spanish and Greek, and won the Isaac Deutscher Memorial prize for 1982.

Reviews

While the most important pieces in this volume are already well known to scholars the collection is to be welcomed for gathering together the writings of one of the most interesting historians ever to write about early Christianity...this volume remains a reminder of the power of history written with both intellectual acuity and personal political and social engagement. Lucy Grig, Journal of Ecclesiastical Histoy It is a pleasure to report that Streeter's introduction is outstandingly good, offering a balanced assessment of de Ste. Croix's achievement together with a thoughtful and comprehensive survey of current scholarly debates about persecution and martyrdom...The volume as a whole is a bracing reminder of a formidable and much-missed scholar. G. W. Bowerstock, The Catholic Historical Review The historian will find much to inform...him in these late papers. M. J. Edwards, Journal of Theological Studies