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).