"Few areas or scholarship are so misted by clouds or romanticism as the relationship of the early Christian church to the surrounding Roman society. Some have viewed the Christians as an almost suicidal band of innocents decimated by ravenous lions in the Arena. Marxist writers have described a miniature socialist state, purged of the work ethic and largely of lower-class origins. Robert M. Grant has gone to the original sources to find out exactly what the early church was like. His discoveries will dismay some, surprise others, and enlighten all. Early Christianity and Society challenges some of the most cherished assumptions about the nature of the church. Among its documented findings: Christianity was not a proletarian mass movement but a relatively small cluster of intense, largely middle class groups. Roman political authorities were to be honored by Christians because their authority was given them by God. To disobey would be to resist the will of God The church even went so far as to pattern its own government after that of the Roman state. Tax exemption was actively sought and often won by the church. The "work ethic" was alive and well in the early church. Christians rarely criticized slavery and criticized avarice chiefly because they favored social mobility. Christians cast a decidedly jaundiced eye on compulsory communal sharing of property. Christians scrapped with the pagans for temples and funds, culminating in the takeover of pagan property and monies. For those who want more than cliches about the early life of Christians= communities, Early Christianity and Society tell their story untinged by propaganda from either left or right." -Publisher