The Rise of Christianity

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The Rise of Christianity
HIS1104 Tradition and Transformation in Western
History
2
Background

• Roman Empire
• 3rd 4th centuries internally, anarchy economy
  ?
• Externally, barbarian invasions
• ?spiritually, looking for new relief,
  liberation
• promises------ salvation, eternal life
• yet, with precedent examples
• Egypt Isis (resurrection)
• Persia Mithras (dualism)
• Plato unmoved mover, uncaused cause. (prime
  mover) monotheism

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Background

• Jesus charismatic, a prophet, a preacher, a
  teacher, a social worker (?), the son of a
  carpenter, humble (not legendary).
•  
• Historical person------warm, magnetic leader
• Miraculously healed the sick,
• raised the dead
• stilled the wind
• Amazing Grace

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Hebrew Monotheism

• Hebrew monotheism well-grounded, strong ideology
• Discipline organization
• Appealing to the majority the poor women
• had powerful appeal to the distressed,
  down-trodden, disinherited, despairing.
• Equality of all men all men are brothers
• No distinction slave freepoor rich
• ?appealed especially to the poor.

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The Rise of Christianity

• Luke 14 8-11
• For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
  and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
• Blessed are the sorrowful, for they shall find
  consolation, Blessed are the merciful, for they
  shall obtain mercy.
• ?Hope promises
• ------Life beyond death in the Kingdom of God
  (Heaven) salvation eternal life??
• Love, forgiveness, charity

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Luke 6 20-29

• Love your enemies, do good to those who hate
  you, bless those who curse you, pray for those
  who treat you spitefully.
• When someone hit you on the cheek, Offer him the
  other cheek, too. When a man takes your coat, let
  him have your shirt as we.
• Treat others as you would like them to treat
  you.
• Love thy (your) neighbors as thyself.

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Favorable Condition for Spreading

• 1st century Pax Romana
• Roman Empire------united, good roads,
  (communication)
• Peter Paul (good leaders)
• architects of the Christian Church
• flexible
• preached without regards to the races (not just
  for the Jews)
• ?no circumcision (??)

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Persecutions

• not thorough, inconsistent
• uncompromising attitude of the Christians?martyrs
  (??)
• impressive stimulating
• ____________________________________
• Constantine Legalized
• Christianity in A.D.312 (Edict of Milan)
•  
• Theodosius (r. 379-395)
• Christianity became the only religion in the
  Roman Empire

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Latin Doctors

• St. Ambrose (c. 340-397)
• Bishop of Milan (?????)
• administrator, orator, theologian
• Plato, ?
• Cicero, ? ?? Christianity
• Virgil ?

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Latin Doctors

• St. Jerome (c. 240-420)
• (????) Latin Bible
• Preserve Greco-Roman culture
• translation (footnotes)
• Hebrew Greek Bible into Latin
• nightmares Christianity pagan Homer. Virgil,
  Horace, Cicero?
• (Similarly, St. Augustine)

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Latin Doctors

• St. Augustine of Hippo (Bishop) (c. 354-430)
• ?????????
• City of God or ????
• ????

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The Rise of Christianity

• 4th 5th c. R.E. was a period of profound
  disturbances, marking the transition from the
  classical civilization of Greco-Roman to
  Christian civilization of Western Europe
• bridge the thought of the antiquity that of
  the Middle Ages Christian faith
• synthesized Classical Christian culture
  foundation of medieval theology
• 8th c. (classical Christian) Germanic
• ? Birth of Europe
• Robert Lopez, The Birth of Europe

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Conclusion

• To what extent did Christianity cause the
  decline fall of the (western) Roman Empire?

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The City of God

• (De Civitate Dei)
• August 24, 410 Alarics sack of Rome for 3 days
• Shock!
• St. Jerome (who was born in Rome), then in
  Jerusalem
• Shock!
• the end of the world?!

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The City of God

• 413 (St. Augustine age 59)
• 13
• 426 (age 72)
• St. Augustine saw Roman Empire declining people
  put the blame on Christianity
• refute
• 22 Books (Chapters)

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City of God

• That pagans themselves had already preached the
  same virtues that Christians are being blamed
• e.g. Did not Sallust praise the Romans for having
  chosen to forget injuries rather than punish the
  offender ?
• Sallust, The War with Catiline
• 9.5
• e.g. Did not Cicero praise Caesar because he
  wanted to forget nothing but the wrongs done to
  him?
• Cicero, Pro Ligario
• ?To St. Augustine, it was not Christianity, that
  caused the decline of the R.E., but rather, it
  was the vices (corruption within the Empire
  itself.)

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The City of God

• Book 1-9
• Romes glory was not granted by pagan polytheism
  but by ONE god
• Book 10
• World view of Christianity other religions
• Book 11-
• City of God earthly (secular) city
• Soul body
• Love of God love of desire

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The City of God

• Breakdown of an earthly empire a small event in
  world history (viewed from the perspectives of
  eternity)
• Vital contributions to political philosophy have
  been made more frequently in periods of political
  disturbance than in more peaceful times
• e.g. Plato, Aristotle ? Athens?
• e.g. St. Augustine ? Roman Empire?

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The City of God

• ?When men face serious difficulties which the
  traditional political system seems unable to
  solve
• When conflicts groups, classes, regions,
  religious sects were so intense
• ? political philosophy?
• --- exactly, St. Augustine lived wrote (4th
  5th c R.E.)

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The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire

• Edward Gibbon, The Decline Fall of the Roman
  Empire
• (??)
• (6 volumes)
•  
• Donald Kagan, ed., Decline Fall of the Roman
  Empire
•  
• Lynn White, Jr., ed., The Transformation of the
  Roman World

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The Decline Fall of the Roman Empire

• Edward Gibbon (1737-94)
• Historical background (Age of Reason)
•  
• What (define)
• Where (Western R.E.)
• When 476 (180? 410? Or 800?) Henri Pirenne
  (Pirennes Thesis)
• (Arnold Toynbee ???)
• How Why?

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The Decline Fall of the Roman Empire
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Socio-economic historians

• Lynn White, Jr.,
• Henri Pirenne,
• Marc Bloch

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Henri Pirenne

• Henri Pirenne (1920s)
• the Roman Empire survived in all its essentials
  until the coming of Islam---(800)destroyed the
  unity of the Mediterranean ended the Roman
  World.

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The Decline Fall of the Roman Empire

• Literary history (180) d. of Aurelius
• a Roman historian wrote Our history now
  descends from a kingdom of gold to one of iron
  rust.
• Barbarian invasions
• Huns pushing in the rear (from Central Asia) ?
  Attila, r. 434-53 Vandals
• Goths
• ? ?
• Visigoths Ostrogoths
• (Alaric 410 Sack of Rome)
• Finally, 476 Odovacar (a Germanic general in
  R.E.)
• Deposed Romulus Augustulus became the King of
  the Romans

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Effects of the barbarian invasion

• 1.  short-range / immediate results not
  revolutionary
• ? life was similar
• still Roman administration, law ( Germanic)
• (since the Germanic barbarians had no distinctive
  culture of their own, they accepted what they
  found in Italy)

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Effects of the barbarian invasion

• 2.  Medium-long range effects
• a further acceleration of the decline in the
  west
• ? West the barbarian West
• (the beginning of the Middle Ages)
• the Germanic principle of personal loyalty??
  prevailed in the west in the Middle Ages

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4 applicable categories

• 1. death by accident (J.B. Bury)
• 2. natural causes (Gibbon, Boak, Walbank)
• 3. murder ( barbarians ) (Gibbon Toynbee)
• 4. suicide (Westermann)
• ( psychologically, strategically,
  philosophically) stop expansion the beginning
  of the end of the R.E.
• Q
• Causes for the rise of Christianity
• To what extent did Christianity cause the decline
  fall of the R.E.?