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Ancient The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity. By Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson. [Alcuin Club Collections, 86.] (Collegeville, MN: A Pueblo Book, Liturgical Press. 2011. Pp. xvi, 222. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-814-66244-1.)
Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson, both professors of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, here provide an excellent introduction to recent scholarship on early Christian feasts, fasts, and seasons. The book is also readily accessible to nonspecialists interested in these topics. The twenty chapters cover the whole range of the field from the emergence of Sunday as a weekly celebration of the coming Parousia to the beginnings of Marian worship at an earlier date than has often been assumed. The authors take positions, where evidence and argument permit, while judiciously leaving undecided matters that remain controversial.
The authors persuasively overthrow many of the conclusions of...