Remembering the Christian Past

Jaroslav Pelikan
—Yale University
"Although I have read most of these chapters in their earlier form as articles or essays, it was only when I read them together that I discerned their underlying thematic unity. As those who know his work would expect, that unity is grounded in Robert Wilken's thorough grasp of the texts and topics of early Christian history, both Eastern and Western; but it achieves coherence through his deep instincts for scholarly integrity, intellectual honesty, and theological soundness. My favorite among these pieces is probably the essay on the Trinity, which manages to make the familiar controversies and concerns fresh and vital. I hope that in this form Wilken's work will reach — and teach — a whole new set of readers."

Joseph A. DiNoia, O.P.
"No scholar of Christian antiquity surpasses Robert Wilken in making the literature of that period speak with direct relevance to the intellectual debates of our own time. This remarkable gift is deployed to great effect in these essays on religious pluralism, apologetics, the Trinity, virtue, and the passions."

Robert W. Jenson
—St. Olaf College
"Robert Wilken's memory is stocked with perhaps unequaled knowledge of the ancient church and its intellectual and social milieu and with a wide and quirky knowledge of the church and Western culture generally, more reminiscent of an earlier generation of English scholars than of the contemporary American academy. . . . He illuminates the contemporary situation of Christian intellect with such simplicity and ease that the result can even be called a good read."