This is the history of 2000 years of thought and practice in Christian pastoral ministry. Until comparatively late in that story the bulk of the formative thinking took place in the Middle East and in Europe and this forms the background for recent developments in understanding human nature, and the ways in which that understanding has influenced our thinking in pastoral care.
Subjects covered range from the Biblical foundations to the sects and new religious movements; from the Fathers, the monks, the Friars, the Templars to the changes at the end of the twentieth century.