Heresy
Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God
Published on 7. March 2024
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-5290-4035-7 (ISBN)
Description
'Heresy is a brilliant book' - The Times
'Enthralling' - The Sunday Telegraph
'In the beginning was the Word,' says the Gospel of John. This sentence - and the words of all four gospels - is central to the teachings of the Christian church and has shaped Western art, literature and language, and the Western mind.
Yet in the years after the death of Christ there was not merely one word, nor any consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. There were many different Jesuses, among them the aggressive Jesus who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead.
Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviours, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable - even heretical - and they faded from view.
Now, in Heresy, Catherine Nixey tells their extraordinary story, one of contingency, chance and plurality. It is a story about what might have been.
'Enthralling' - The Sunday Telegraph
'In the beginning was the Word,' says the Gospel of John. This sentence - and the words of all four gospels - is central to the teachings of the Christian church and has shaped Western art, literature and language, and the Western mind.
Yet in the years after the death of Christ there was not merely one word, nor any consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. There were many different Jesuses, among them the aggressive Jesus who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead.
Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviours, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable - even heretical - and they faded from view.
Now, in Heresy, Catherine Nixey tells their extraordinary story, one of contingency, chance and plurality. It is a story about what might have been.
Reviews / Votes
Heresy is a brilliant book - sometimes frightening, occasionally funny, frequently unsettling and always a thrill to read. It probes painfully into the pathology of belief. * The Times * Enthralling . . . Heresy illuminates a forgotten world - and it's an absolute pleasure to read. * The Sunday Telegraph * Enthralling ... What shines through is a kind of exasperated love for the tradition in which she was raised and an impossible-to-suppress laugh at the idea of a Virgin Mary who blasts out flames from every orifice as if it were some kind of Marvel superpower. -- Kathryn Hughes * The Guardian * 'Brilliant, forthright and challenging ... a fine book for those who like to think differently; it's an enlightening, provocative, sharp exegesis of religious, and consequently human, history' * Irish Independent * [Nixey] has a magpie-like eye for the gold in any story. As such, Heresy is a joy to read. Page after page is studded with fascinating gems and well-crafted phrases, laced with Nixey's dry humour. The strangeness of the ancient world is on full display. * The Spectator * Wide-ranging, smartly conceived and imaginatively written ... Heresy is a sparkling, entertaining, thought-provoking book. In an age of quasi-universal intellectual conformism, heresy may be our best chance to remain sane. * Literary Review * How on earth could an ancient Greek word meaning 'choice' come to be used exclusively negatively to mean heresy? Catherine Nixey, expert in the darkening age of Late Antique religiosity, has all the answers, brilliantly resurrecting a teeming plurality of non-canonical, non-orthodox, and above all allegedly non-Christian ideas and practices with cool intellectual clarity and vivid literary skill. -- Paul Cartledge, author of <i>The Spartans</i> and <i>Thermopylae</i> I cannot praise Nixey highly enough for her eloquence, narrative gifts and scholarly rigour. A must-read for anyone interested in why some ideas succeed as dramatically as they do. -- Matthew D'Ancona * The New European * The best non-fiction kindles interest in a subject that you were not interested in before. Catherine Nixey achieves that in Heresy . . . It tells a moreish intellectual story and shakes up your understanding of Western history. At the same time, somewhat improbably, it supplies at least one good joke per paragraph; you have to keep turning back to enjoy them again. * The Economist *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Illustrations
16pp colour plates
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
632 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-4035-7 (9781529040357)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Catherine Nixey studied Classics at Cambridge and now works as a journalist at The Economist. Her writing has previously appeared in The Times, and The Financial Times, among others. She lives in England with her husband. Her first book, The Darkening Age was an international bestseller, and won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award.