[From the Foreword] "Most readers of this book will find themselves on foreign ground. In the first volume of this series, they had been at home. They knew the players and they knew the roles they played because the first book mostly furnished a historical background for the New Testament. With this volume, however, they venture forth into unknown lands, where both the people and many of the places are unfamiliar. The reader may even become suspicious of the individuals encountered here, inwardly asking: Were Ignatius and Irenaeus really Christians? Did Origen believe the same things I believe? Did Justin have the same ideas of right and wrong? Were Blandina and Perpetua born again? What they were, the reader must decide. But one thing is clear. never before or since has the Word of God been preached with such startling, positive, and sweeping effect. By the volume's end, the early believers are well on the way to converting the world as they knew it, though at a fearful price, most of it paid by "little people," undistinguished by anything beyond their astonishing courage and heroism.", ISBN13: 9780968987315 ISBN10: 0968987311 Material Type: hardcover