Plagues, priests, and demons
Subtitle: sacred narratives and the rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New
By: Daniel T. Reff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
Subjects: Jesuits -- Missions -- Mexico -- History; Missions -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Communicable diseases -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History; Mexico -- Church history
Description: This comparative interdisciplinary study of the rise of Christianity in the late Roman Empire and in colonial Mexico reveals that epidemic disease undermined pre-Christian societies, contributing respectively to pagan and Indian interest in new forms of social and religious life. Christian clerics and monks in early medieval Europe and, later, Jesuit missionaries in colonial Mexico, reacted by introducing new beliefs and practices and accommodating indigenous religions as well.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-279) and index
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Introduction; title: Introduction; title: Introduction-- Conclusion