The essential objective of this study is to unpack the complicity between historians and secularization theory in the study of late ancient and early medieval Christianity—and then suggest a way out. In this work of historiography of religion, Enrico Beltramini argues that religious history is inherently secular and produces distorted representations of the Christian past. He suggests moving from an epistemological to a hermeneutical approach so that the supernatural worldview of the Christian past can be addressed on its own terms. This work also engages Markus’s saeculum and replaces Markus’s secularized relationship between the Kingdom and the government of the civitas with the Augustinian association of the Kingdom and divine government.

Enrico Beltramini specializes in Christian theology and history, focusing particularly on historical and political theology as well as history and historiography of religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous book chapters, and he has contributed over 60 peer-reviewed articles to academic journals. He is on faculty at Notre Dame de Namur University, California. Beltramini has been trained as a theologian, historian, and social theorist, and he has earned doctoral degrees in theology, history, and business.

FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION
SACRAMENTAL ONTOLOGY
ONTOLOGICAL TURN
HISTORY AND THEOLOGY
SAECULUM
ANCIENT AND MODERN CHRISTIANITY
AUGUSTINIANISMS
SAECULUM RETOLD
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY