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    Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity
    Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity
    Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity
    Ebook444 pages6 hours

    Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity

    By Kyle Smith

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    About this ebook

    A cultural history of how Christianity was born from its martyrs.
     
    Though it promises eternal life, Christianity was forged in death. Christianity is built upon the legacies of the apostles and martyrs who chose to die rather than renounce the name of their lord. In this innovative cultural history, Kyle Smith shows how a devotion to death has shaped Christianity for two thousand years.
     
    For centuries, Christians have cared for their saints, curating their deaths as examples of holiness. Martyrs’ stories, lurid legends of torture, have been told and retold, translated and rewritten. Martyrs’ bones are alive in the world, relics pulsing with wonder. Martyrs’ shrines are still visited by pilgrims, many in search of a miracle. Martyrs have even shaped the Christian conception of time, with each day of the year celebrating the death of a saint. From Roman antiquity to the present, by way of medieval England and the Protestant Reformation, Cult of the Dead tells the fascinating story of how the world’s most widespread religion is steeped in the memory of its martyrs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of California Press
    Release dateNov 8, 2022
    ISBN9780520975712
    Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity
    Author

    Kyle Smith

    Kyle Smith is the author of Love Monkey, the hit novel that was adapted into a CBS television series starring Tom Cavanagh and Jason Priestley. He is also a movie critic for the New York Post, which posts his reviews online each week at nypost.com. He lives in New York City.

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      Cult of the Dead - Kyle Smith

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