Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought

George H. Williams (1914-2000) was Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University. Among his works are The Radical Reformation, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D., and The Role of the Layman in the Ancient Church. He was an editor of Harvard Theological Review, and of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, and a contributor to the Library of Christian Classics. Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought is an expansion of Dr. Williams’s presidential address to the American Society of Church History. It was delivered on the fiftieth anniversary of Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous paper presented to the American Historical Society on the influence of the frontier on American history.