From Jesus to Christianity : A History of the Early Church, by Thomas F. Madden (on CD)

I love these Modern Scholar titles. This particular professor was quite different from the one who did the last one, and it took a little time to get used to his style. Much drier, but very organized.

OK, so he covers the early Jesus-followers, tracing the evolution of the beliefs from the early years through house-churches and the expulsion of Christians from Judaism and the occasional persecutions of Rome. One of the things I found interesting is that the Romans didn't have a problem with Christianity as a religion, but they didn't regard it as a religion; it seemed more like atheism to them (the whole concept was confusing, but I think it was something about Christians talking about God's son dying...?).

As the beliefs change and evolve into the faith of the later Roman Empire--because Constantine converts--Madden talks about how this was gradual and kept very separate from the running of the state. Most important people who were Christians weren't baptized until the time of their final illness because they theory was that if you were baptized you absolutely couldn't do things that were anti-Christian, like killing people as a soldier.

One really good, if trivial, piece of information that I found out is the reason that the base of the church in England is in Canterbury as opposed to London, or at least some other major city of the time (York comes to mind, for instance). The reason is that when England was reconverted in the 6th (or 7th) century after the Romans had been gone for centuries, the bishop sent to do this arrived in Canterbury to start. The original plan was for him to also go to London and elsewhere, but he never left Canturbury. And that's why the head of the English church is the Archbishop of Canterbury even now.