The Church of the Classical Age: The Era of Great Splintering, Volume 1

By Henri Daniel-Rops The Church of the Classical Age: The Era of Great Splintering is the seventh installment in Henri Daniel-Rops’ magnificent History of the Church of Christ. This vol­ume surveys the eighteenth century’s intellectual revolution, wrought by Galileo, Descartes, and Rousseau (among others); appraises the Church’s missionary efforts—in Asia, with the Chinese rites controversy and the spirited work of de Nobili and de Britto in India; in Canada, with the heroic endeavors of Sts. Isaac Jogues and John de Brébeuf; in the New World and Africa, where clashing cultures and tumultuous race relations deepened the difficulty of evangelization; and in Russia, where the Jesuits labored to re-establish fraternity with the Orthodox Church; and, lastly, opens a candid examination of the “churches outside the Church,” beginning with the proliferation of European Protestant sects and the emergence of new groups like the Quakers and the Pietists. Bearing within it a secret wound, the ne