Hist 297 - Midterm Review Notes

Hebrew scriptures

• Split into three parts:

1. Torah or Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)

• Most important section for Jews because of its laws, commands, etc that are supposed to be followed

• Traditionally are also considered important because it was written by great Hebrew prophet Moses (nowadays people sometimes recognize that Moses may not have actually written them because the texts were edited/revised after Moses lived)

2. Prophets

3. Writings (miscellaneous collection of different types of writings)

• Jewish scriptures have previously been known as the “Old Testament”, which has its issues because “old” can imply that it needs to be replaced or updated or that it’s worn out

• Christian scriptures have typically been known as the “New Testament”

• Problematic because it implies that one religion is better than the other

• Now, scholars refer to Jewish texts as the Hebrew bible/scripture or the original/first testament

Septuagint and apochrypha

1. Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures

• Called this because according to tradition

• (c. 250 BCE)

• They got 70 translators together to translate scriptures from Hebrew to Greek and separately, they all came up with the same exact translation

• Basis for early Christian understandings of the Hebrew scriptures

• Contains some books that most Jews reject today (Judith and Maccabees)

• Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bibles still sometimes contain Judith and Maccabees

2. Texts that don’t appear in Hebrew scripture but do appear in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scripture but don’t appear in Protestant scripture

Creation story #2

Probably the older story of the two but shows up second, tells the story of God creating the world in a very orderly fashion, creation of light on day 1, water on day 2, land and plants on day 3, and so on

• Creation finishes with humankind on day 6 and God rests on the 7th day

• Orderly and repetitive

• Contains no mention of any other gods (completely monotheistic), strain of polytheism that needs to be ‘cleaned up’

#2

Creation story info

• Some modern scholars use the creation stories as evidence against them, because some things are not scientifically accurate

• Scientific and narrative consistency wasn’t necessarily the goal of the ancient authors

• Hebrew bible has its own understanding of history and theology, working from ideas of myth to explain natural phenomena

• Point of the two stories is that both present God simultaneously in two ways:

1. Transcendent: God exists on an entirely different plane/level of existence that humans cannot comprehend

2. Immanent: God exists/is active in the world and is personally involved in people’s lives and in His creation

Prophets

• Some of the most important figures in Hebrew scriptures

• God’s speakers on earth, who act under His inspiration

• Sometimes would predict the future, but more often would urge people to re-commit to Abraham’s covenant more deeply

• The most important prophet in Christianity is Isaiah, and that book was written around the 700s BCE

• Isaiah wrote that there would be a Messiah (figure from God) who would eventually come to earth to get rid of evil and to save the good people

• Said the Messiah would be a child born from a virgin, the child will come from the line of David, and the child would eventually sacrifice Himself for the good of humanity

• Since Jesus isn’t the messiah in Judaism, most Jews believe we’re still waiting on a messiah and that Jesus wasn’t the messiah

• Since Jews are still facing a lot of persecution, their messiah still hasn’t come

• Difficult to tell exactly when Jews became fully and committedly monotheistic (hints in scriptures that there might be other gods) 

• Originally, there isn’t a concept of good vs bad in the Hebrew afterlife 

  • Initially, everyone goes to a watery, murky, dark place (sheol); not really a punishment place

  • It’s only much later that Jews develop the idea of a paradise-type heaven and a punishment-filled hell

  • Even today, not all Jews agree with the newer idea of the afterlife

  • By the time that Jesus lived, the idea of there being a heaven and hell did exist in parts of Judaism

  • It’s what Jesus and His followers would’ve believed 

• ‘Hellenized’ Jews tried to emulate cultural practices of the ancient Greeks (usually a way of fitting in)

  • Often didn’t practice circumcision

Groups of interest

1. Pharisees: wanted to strictly follow the Torah in order to maintain Jewish identity while they were being ruled over by the Romans; had the most political power of all the Jewish groups

2. Sadducees: wanted to cooperate with the Romans to maintain social stability (assimilate into Roman culture)

3. Zealots: advocated for anti-Roman violence/open rebellion (we need to kick them out)

• Many Jews, regardless of group, believed that God would soon bring an end to the injustice they were experiencing (being ruled over by Rome) and looked for a Messiah figure who would rule as king and judge the wicked and righteous 

• The very first Christians were Palestinian Jews, who believed that Jesus was that Messiah that had been sent

Life of Jesus

• Four gospels are often called the canonical gospels because they form the ‘canon’ (official parts of the story)

• Gospels were written somewhere between 70 and 100 CE

• Gospel comes from the Greek word for “good news”

• Gospels are more interested in providing theology rather than biography

• There’s enough overlap between the four that we can piece together the career and teachings of Jesus

Theological elements of Mary and Joseph

• Immaculate conception: refers to Mary’s conception, not Jesus’

• It’s not that Mary didn’t sin at all, it’s that she was born without original sin

• Jesus was born in Bethlehem, sometime between 4 and 1 BCE

• Grew up in the village of Nazareth

Jesus’ ministry

• When Jesus was around 30, He went south to the Jordan River and was baptized by John the Baptist (Jesus’ slightly older cousin)

• John was a prophet who warned that God was coming soon to judge humanity, and said that sinners needed to be baptized in water as a sign of spiritual cleansing

• After Jesus was baptized, Jesus began a public ministry that lasted no more than 3 years

• Jesus performed healings, miracles, and was a very charismatic teacher, which gained Him followers and believers

• 3 main disciples are 3 fisherman: Peter, John, and James

• Jesus broke many social norms, such as befriending and eating with women

• As Jesus’ ideas and teachings grew in popularity, he aroused resentment among the religious establishment (ex. Jews who were in power in His area)

• Jesus arrived in Jerusalem just before Passover (which celebrates the escape of Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt; always in the spring)

  • For several days, He taught in the second temple

Jesus’ death

• Jesus celebrated the last supper (probably the Passover seder/ritual meal) 

• He was then brought before a council of Jewish leaders, who handed Him over to Pontious Pilate (Roman governor of the area)

• Pilate feared that Jesus was a threat to public order and had Him crucified within a week

• He was reluctant to crucify Jesus but felt he had no choice (but he could’ve said no)

• All 4 gospels state that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus when he was baptized and this baptism was a way of renewing the covenant with God that Abhraham had made 

• Spiritual circumcision of the heart through baptism is more important than bodily circumcision

• Jesus didn’t come to renew the covenant but to fulfill it (meaning the old Jewish covenant with Abraham has come to and end and He is the new covenant)

• Women found an empty tomb and Jesus found the women and told them that He rose from the dead and proclaims to all people that they can now have an afterlife through Him

• Jesus remained on earth for 40 days after that, and then ascended to heaven

• The author of the book of Acts is the same as the author of Luke, tells us that these early believers in Jesus spent a lot of time together in the Jewish temple

  • They were Jews who continued to live and worship as Jews

  • It didn’t occur to them that their beliefs gave them a new religious identity

  • Thought of themselves as Jews who’d recognized the Messiah that had come

Teachings of Jesus

• Jesus most often spoke in parables (stories that use images from everyday life in order to illustrate bigger spiritual ideas)

• Often spoke of a future kingdom of God in which people respond with love and obedience to God’s will

  • This kingdom is open to everyone who repents and renounces sin

• The true meaning of the Torah was in the intention (it’s not enough not to murder someone - you shouldn’t hate anyone in your heart enough to want to murder them)

• This idea of a pure heart and love is at the centre of Jesus’ teachings

• You should love your enemy as yourself (if not more)

• You should love people with a similar love that you love God (without worshipping those people)

Sin and human nature

• People can be good, but ultimately, inherently, as human beings, we are unable to rise above sin

• Unable to be as loving, humble, generous, righteous, as we should be

• Christianity explains salvation by using the Jewish language of “sacrifice”

• During Jesus’ lifetime, the understanding of Jewish sacrifice was that the sins of people were ritually placed onto animals that were then ritually sacrificed

  • The animals are innocent victims for the sins of human beings

• Christianity directly uses that idea in describing Jesus as the sacrificial lamb

• Jesus has two natures: divine and human

  • Jesus’ divine nature allowed Him to do things for humans that they couldn’t do themselves (ex. escape sin) and He could atone for humanity’s suffering

  • The problem there is that as a divine being, Jesus can’t actually sin; can’t be sacrificed as a God

  • That’s where the human element comes into play - as a human, Jesus could suffer the consequences of other people’s sins and be killed for them

Heaven

Perfect and eternal union with God; can be understood as a physical place or a spiritual state of being

• Christian scriptures never really describe heaven in detail, so there’s some ambiguity there

• References to a paradise and a future home of believers 

• References to an everlasting life and a great reward

• Have parts of your body that were lost being restored to you

Hell

Not so much a punishment for sinning, but more so the self-imposed consequences of rejecting God and Jesus as God’s son on earth

• Can be understood as a physical place or spiritual state of being

• Overall idea is that it’s pain and permanent, eternal separation from God

• Christian scriptures describe hell as a state of being separated from God

• Only gets the idea of being an actual physical place in the middle ages (500s-600s), as a subterranean pit of fire and horror

• Some people thought hell involved the body being broken down and broken apart

Purgatory

Specific to Roman Catholics, a kind of in-between place between earthly life and heaven, where the souls of the dead have temporary punishment for sinning

• Heaven is perfect, and you cannot allow sins into heaven

• So if you die without having gotten forgiveness for some of your sins, then you need to be cleansed of those leftover sins before you can get into heaven

• People believe in Jesus and Christianity but still have lingering stains of sin that they haven’t gotten atonement for

• An opportunity to finish repentance for your sins

• “Cleansing fire” that you will emerge from

• Will PURGE you of any remaining sins

• A painful process, you’re in a land of fire but it’s temporary

• Protestants reject purgatory because there’s no scriptural basis for it

• Idea of purgatory first shows up in texts that are from mystical visions of people who took a tour of heaven and hell (in the 500s and 600s); start to get developed more concretely and theologically in the 1100s and 1200s

• One of the major theologians of purgatory is Gertrude the Great

Josephus

• c. 37-100 CE

• Jewish man who allied himself with the Romans during a time in the late 60s CE when the Jewish people were rebelling against the Roman empire in order to regain control of their lands

• Jews were split (not every Jew wanted to rebel)

• Identified the leader of the Christians in Jerusalem as a man named James

• Says that James is Jesus’ brother (“brother” is unclear and has been debated for centuries)

• His text (story of Jewish rebellion) identifies Jesus as “the Messiah” but that’s probably a later edition of the text, added by a different author

• We know that there were some people around in the 60s who believed in Jesus as the Son of God, were calling themselves Christians, and people knew about them

• This Jewish rebellion against Rome didn’t end well for the Jews, so Rome put down the rebellion harshly and destroyed the second temple in 70 CE (a third one has not been built)

Pliny the younger

• Local provincial leader who wrote to the emperor Trajan at the time, and essentially asked “what do I do with these people who are calling themselves Christians?”

• Had to explain what the Christians were doing:

  • Met before dawn 

  • Sang hymns on a specific day of the week

  • Swore oaths not to kill, steal, or perform sins against each other

  • Took a meal of bread and wine after meeting with each other

• See very early descriptions of what becomes basic Christian rituals

Start of gospel writing

Around 70 CE:

• Peter (the Rock) was executed in Rome in 64 CE, and Paul (an influential early follower of Jesus) was executed around 65 CE

• Second temple was destroyed in 70 CE

• Lots of upheavals happening in a short period of time

• Eyewitnesses to Jesus were starting to die off at this point

• Very early Christians believed that Jesus was coming back to earth right away, but as more and more time passed, without Jesus returning, early Christians started realizing that they needed a written record that preserved these stories

Nag Hammadi

• Shortly after WWII, there was a complete chance discovery of a lot of these ancient texts (documents from 200s and 300s) found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, found in a tomb

  • Our largest collection of the non-canonical/Nag Hammadi gospels

• A lot of gaps in the gospel of Judas because it was found in very bad condition

The gospels

• Generally believed that Mark was written first

• Matthew and Luke come next

  • The authors of these texts clearly had access to Mark and drew on Mark as a source

  • But, there’s significant information in Matthew and Luke that does not appear in Mark, which Matthew and Luke share (clearly getting it from somewhere that is not Mark) 

• Scholars believe that there was another older document that is now lost that both Matthew and Luke used as a source for their gospels

  • That text, the Q-source, has been lost to time

  • Q is from the German word Quelle, which means “source”

• None of the pregnancy, infancy, or childhood of Jesus is mentioned in Mark, but it is talked about in Matthew and Luke, indicating that there was another source

• Gospel of Thomas has been suggested to be the possible Q-source

• Syriac infancy gospel goes into more detail about Jesus’ childhood

• Two source hypothesis is generally quite well supported and agreed upon

• Mark either didn’t have access to the Q-source or was written before the Q-source was

Synoptic gospels

Follow the same general storyline and make similar points about Jesus, whereas John is a more mystical text (although it follows the same sequence of events)

• The followers of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) almost certainly did not write their respective gospels, since they were mostly illiterate fishermen

• Matthew was a literate tax collector, but still highly unlikely that Matthew actually wrote the gospel of Matthew

• John was the last of the 4 gospels written, and wasn’t written down until the year 110 CE, and it’s extremely unlikely that John wrote down his experiences with Jesus when he was 110 years old

• Names that later editors gave to these texts when they were compiling them and the names just got stuck with the texts

• Not until the 300s that you get a set version of the 4 (and ‘only’) gospels

• There were early attempts to combine the 4 gospels into a single narrative

• St. Ignatius advocated strongly for the 4 gospels in the 100s to be classified as the only 4 gospels

Paul

• Majority of the New Testament is comprised of letters written by Paul

• Paul never actually met Jesus during his lifetime

  • Instead, he was a Jewish tax collector who wasn’t too keen on the Christians, until he had a mystical vision of encountering Jesus after Jesus had died

  • After this encounter, he converted to Christianity

• As a tax collector, Paul was literate and he wrote a number of letters, sent to different Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean 

• Out of these letters of the New Testament, 7 can be authentically confirmed to have been written by Paul, 4 are forgeries (letters written in the style that Paul used but not written by Paul himself; still became influential in Christianity; based on language, words used, and slight inconsistencies in theology, can tell that they weren’t written by Paul), and 3 letters that are up for debate (regarding whether or not they were written by Paul)

• Colossians, Ephesians, and first and second Thessalonians are the fraudulent letters

• First and second Timothy and Timus are the 3 up for debate

• Still some debate in the Christian community about whether or not all the letters were written by Paul

• There is evidence within Paul’s letters that he was in contact with Peter, James, and John around the year 48 CE, and they decided that Paul would preach to the Gentiles, and Peter preached Gentiles

• Paul sets up a lot of theological concepts of what would become Christianity

• Paul is sometimes seen as the founder of Christianity, since he takes the first steps in setting up a coherent theology of how all these things fit together (how to be a Christian)

Competing christianities general info

• Many competing Jesus groups, who all have the same general beliefs but the specifics vary between groups

• One version of Christianity won out, and persisted until the Protestant Reformation (and technically continues on in Roman Catholicism)

• Initially, people were okay with the different groups, until early church councils started calling some of the groups heretics (someone who believes the wrong thing about a religion)

  • Believes in the religion but is incorrect about some of their individual beliefs

  • A word that gets applied to other people

• All competing Christianities all end up being heresies

• No guarantee that they’d be the losing group

Theological questions

• Jew vs Gentile: 

  • Can only other Jews be Christians?

  • Or is this religion also open to Gentiles?

  • One council determines that this religion is also open to Gentiles

• God vs human: 

  • How this God can also have a human body that can feel pain and die (how do you kill a god?)

  • How do you have a god in a human body

  • How do you divide up divine and human (half and half or intertwined)

• The Holy Spirit:

  • What is the Holy Spirit?

  • An abstract concept, and never 100% defined

  • A difficult concept to understand

• Christianity kinda seems monotheistic (one God) but also polytheistic regarding the trinity

• Simultaneously Jewish and Christian; not easily understandable

• Takes centuries to figure out, and in the meantime, different possible views/answers to these questions aris

Marcion

• Circa 85-160, Marcionites, son of a bishop (had grown up with very early Christianity), well-educated 

• Had read Hebrew scriptures

• Argued that the God of the Hebrew scriptures was not the same God that Jesus proclaimed

• The Hebrew God was really angry and wrathful (destroying the world, back and forth with Hebrews not following God and then He sends punishment and they apologize and recommit and then go back to worshipping other gods and the cycle repeats)

• This didn’t make sense to him, because Jesus spoke about a single God of salvation, forgiveness, and love

• Marcion started his own movement (got some followers) advocating for this two-god theory

• In doing so, he created his own collection of holy texts and said that the only thing Christians needed were 10 of Paul’s letters and an abbreviated, shortened version of Luke

• Other Christians found these ideas fairly concerning, because Marcion was very charismatic (good speaker), and was quite convincing with what he had to say

• He was on the verge of becoming the bishop of Rome (later known as the Pope)

• If that’d happened, Christianity today would be very different from how we actually understand it

• Obviously, his movement failed

• He was the first person who said that we did need a set group of scriptures/texts for this religion**

• Some other early bishops disagreed, and wanted to form their own set of texts

• But Marcion’s ideas are ultimately the beginning/foundation of the creation of the New Testament

Gnoticism

• Not a defined movement; more of a loose group of people who tended to believe in similar concepts

• Involves a concept of cosmic dualism (difference) between the spirit and the flesh; between the spiritual and physical world

• There’s a God and then a very powerful spirit (who’s not a god)

• The God creates the soul/spirit/life force/intelligence and that’s all GOOD

• The powerful spirit creates the material/tangible world (body, physical objects, plants, animals, the earth, etc) and that’s all BAD

• It’s a dualistic battle between the good senses and soul vs the bad flesh and body and world and temptations of the flesh

• Tends to be a very mystical form of Christianity

• Deals a lot with being an esoteric religion (AKA “revealed religion”, one that you learn in stages - video game level up)

  • Develop a basic knowledge and then get to level 2 and so on

  • Texts are usually not beginner-level; designed to be for people who are already familiar with the basics 

  • Information was only given to those who have demonstrated full knowledge of the basics 

  • In contrast, the opposite is Judaism/Christianity/Islam where the basic beliefs are just laid out for you (might need help interpreting/understanding but it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to believe in)

• Knowledge may not be accurate because those counterarguments present a distorted, biased view

• Gospel of Judas wasn’t written until the late 100s, and tells Judas’ story (presents him as Jesus’ best disciple) 

  • The other disciples are presented as bad people

  • Jesus is always laughing at them

  • Was written to go against the practice of becoming a martyr

• Gospels exist of Peter, the Marys, Thomas, etc

Docetism

Believed that Jesus didn’t suffer and feel pain on the cross when He was being crucified (denies the human side of Jesus and undermines His sacrifice); a movement in very early Christianity

• Shows up very briefly in the gospel of Peter (supposed to be Jesus’ disciple Peter)

• Very similar to the canonical gospels, but declared non-canonical/heretical because of docetism

• People found this concept problematic

• If the movement hadn’t happened, the gospel of Peter would probably be in the New Testament today

• Knew of gospel of Peter’s existence because of texts that argued against it

Arianism

Believes that Jesus didn’t always exist and that God the Father came before God the Son; and that God the Father is above/more powerful than God the Son

• Made beliefs appealing to Germanic (warrior) groups coming into contact with the Roman Empire in the 300s-500s

• Biggest and longest lasting movement heretic movements (lasted for centuries before it was eliminated)

• Preached by the bishop Arius in Egypt

• Contrast to Arianism is Nicene Christianity (what ultimately becomes Roman Catholicism; based on Nicene Creed); determined at the council of Nicea (year 315) which was called together by the Emperor Constantine (Roman emperor who somewhat converted to Christianity) and made it legal to be Christian in the Roman Empire

• Constantine was about order and stability, and saw all the different Christian groups floating around and said we need ONE version that everyone agrees on

• So, he called together the council of Nicaea (bishops and priests) to settle some of the disputes on Christianity, which resulted in the Nicene Creed

• Arius was one of the bishops at the council, and because he wouldn’t shut up, one of the other bishops slapped him to shut him up (St Nicholas)

Donatism

Completely opposes denying being Christian, saying that you’ll go to hell if you do that, and says that all Christians should be ready to die for their beliefs

• Donatus (died around 355)

• Grew out of the idea in early Christianity (before Constantine legalized Christianity) that some Christians were persecuted for being Christians

• Some died for their beliefs, but not every Christian became a martyr

• Some people went back to their original religion, whereas others denied being Christian in front of Roman authorities

• Those who did die for their beliefs received a lot of praise and were seen as the ‘best’ Christians

• For the majority of people however, being willing to die for your beliefs is a step too far

• Donatism dies out because it’s too strict and demanding too much of people

• Doesn’t last long after Donatus’ death

Centrist christians

• Don’t like most ideas and beliefs in these movements, and consider them to be too extreme

• Put forth their own ideas and ideologies and advocated for their own group of sacred texts

• Some scholars consider this group proto-Orthodox

  • Problem with this is that it suggests that what ultimately becomes the Orthodox Christianity was always going to win, but in reality, it could’ve been almost any of them

Irenaeus

• C. 130-202, theological grandson of one of Jesus’ disciples

• Really pushed for the 4 canonical gospels

• A very learned influential bishop, who had been taught by Polycarp (69-155)

  • Polycarp had heard the teachings of one of Jesus’ actual disciples, John the Evangelist, and is the last known direct link to Jesus’ disciples

• Irenaeus is the source for what a lot of other gospels and texts say (writing against those texts)

• Sometimes his summaries line up, other times, not so much (sometimes due to his own biased understanding or agenda, or because he didn’t have access to/be able to read absolutely every possible text)

• Sometimes he wrote about what other people told him they’ve read (second or third hand information about what a text says)

• What we think and what we have about Christianity today is not just limited to the 4 official gospels, and there are many other texts and movements that exist

Weird christianity

• Most religions at the time were polytheistic, and Christianity is monotheistic

• Religious cannibalism (transubstantiation)

• Proselytizing (spreading the word and trying to convert people to your religion)

-

• Jews were monotheistic and the Romans thought they were weird too, but the Jews weren’t proselytizing, so Rome was willing to tolerate them

• Because Christianity was spreading throughout the Roman Empire, Rome began to see them as a serious problem/threat to the Empire itself

• Some Roman emperors took that threat seriously so there were times when Christians were tolerated, and other times when they were very heavily persecuted

• Some Jews believed Jesus was the Messiah (later called Christians) but most Jews just believed that the Messiah would come eventually

  • This belief in Jesus as the Messiah was the start of a new religion

Perpetua

• c. 182-203

• She was imprisoned for being Christian

• She kept a diary while she was in prison (firsthand account of her suffering); finished by another author after her death

• Not a lot of biographical information known, but can we assume:

  • She was from the upper class because she was literate

  • She had converted to Christianity was very adamant/committed to her beliefs

  • She was a young mother with a nursing infant

  • She was in Northern Africa

  • She was executed with some friends and servants who were also Christian

• Felicity was one of Perpetua’s servants who was executed with her

Sebastian

• c. 255-288

• Middle of the spectrum of historical and legendary 

• Young man in Rome who is always depicted with arrows coming out of him because he was shot with arrows as part of his torture

• The arrows are part of his iconography (the study of images; often religious in nature)

• According to tradition, he was shot with arrows because he was Christian, as a way of torturing him

• He was rescued and healed by another saint (Irene) 

• Shortly after he recovered, he went to the emperor Diocletian to tell him he was a horrible person and why he was wrong and what was going to happen to him as a non-Christian and that he was going to hell

• The emperor had Sebastian beaten to death by clubs

Diocletian

• Ruled from 285-305, anti-Christian

• Joined the army, rose through the ranks, and became emperor with the support of the army (common at the time)

• Considered to have stabilized the Roman Empire (outside threats and was undergoing a general malaise) 

• Fixed through tetrarchy (four rulers of the Empire, too big to govern efficiently by one person), so he sets up a hierarchical system to keep things orderly and flowing in terms of handing off rulers when one dies (assembly line - 2 becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, etc)

  • The thought was to gain experience before becoming the main emperor

  • Can respond more quickly to local concerns but still have centralized control

• Also stabilized taxes and instituted a rule that if you were a man, whatever your father did for a living, you also did (he was all about stability)

• Change in governance was a really big shift in the Empire

• Yet you still have a group of Christians that are growing in number and not practicing the Roman religion (he saw this as very destabilizing)

• His reign saw the largest persecution of Christians of the Roman Empire

• One of the members of the tetrarchy was Constantius, and he rose from being a lower-level ruler to being one of the more senior ones, but is ultimately not that important

  • Even though he did destroy some predominantly Christian towns under Diocletian’s orders, he doesn’t seem to have actively persecuted Christians himself

  • Didn’t take initiative to go after Christians on his own

  • Some indication that he himself might’ve been Christian (evidence is mixed)

Constantine

• c. 272-337

• Emperor who legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire

• But didn’t make it the official religion

• Some question as to how Christian he was, he may have been Christian while also still worshipping some of the Roman gods at the same time

• Battle of the Milvian bridge, in which he fought to become the only emperor (tetrarchy ended with him)

• The night before the battle, he saw an image in the sky: (source 1) it was a cross (source 2) it was a chi-rho (p with an x, first two letters of the word “Christ” in Greek)

  • Both versions say that Constantine heard a voice that said “By this sign, you shall conquer.”

• He had the image put on shields and won the battle

• Sources tell us that this convinced him of the power and reality of the Christian God

• In 313, he issued the Edict of Milan, that made Christianity legal for the first time

Abraham

• 1700 BCE: Abraham’s historical existence is questioned

• Abraham is a patriarch: one of the founders of what becomes Judaism (no fully formed Judaism at this point)

• Abraham is the most important figure of ancient Judaism

• Makes a covenant (holy promise) with God that says Abraham and his descendants will populate the earth if Abraham shows obedience to God and if his descendants continue to show that obedience

• God also says that Abraham (who was from modern day Iraq) should settle in the land of Canaan which is more or less modern day Israel and Palestine

• Abraham’s problem with populating the earth is that his wife Sarah are childless and they’re in their 90s

• To solve this, Sarah gives her slave girl (Hagar) to Abraham to have sex with and produce a child

• Ishmael is Abraham and Hagar’s child (Muslims trace lineage back to Abraham through Ishmael)

• God reappears to Abraham and renews their covenant/promise, says Abraham will have a child with Sarah in the next year

• Sarah then gives birth to Isaac (Jews trace their lineage back to Abraham through Isaac)

• Hebrew scriptures say Hagar and Ishmael are banished

• God tests Abraham’s obedience by telling him to sacrifice Isaac (we know how that ends)

• Islam has the same story except it’s Ishmael who’s being sacrificed

Hebrews’ struggle

• ~500 years later~ 1200 BCE, Hebrews find themselves in Egypt enslaved by Pharaoh 

• While the Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt, the hero Moses emerges

• Moses considered to be favoured by God

• Egyptians who have enslaved the Hebrews are not favoured by God, so He sends a series of plagues onto the Egyptians

  • Ex. plague of frogs, locusts, Nile River turning to blood

• Eventually, Pharaoh gets fed up and lets the Hebrews leave

• Moses and the Hebrews pack up and get out of Egypt because the Pharaoh changed his mind and said wait I’m gonna pursue and re-enslave you

• Moses parts the Red Sea, and all the Hebrews make it across, but Pharaoh and his army get drowned

• Hebrews return to Canaan and settle there

• Hebrews are not a cohesive, centralized nation (loosely-connected group of city states that are united by the same religious beliefs and speaking the same language)

• A pattern starts to develop: when the Hebrews are faithful to God, He blesses them and they prosper (ex. conquer neighbouring groups, good crop yields, lots of kids), but they keep messing up by worshipping other gods, and then God punishes them (ex. sending famines, having them lose battles), and then they’re like sorry and the cycle repeats

• Central theme is that it’s very difficult to keep people from worshipping other gods and to maintain monotheism and resist the temptation of worshipping additional gods

Hebrews want king

• Eventually, around 1000BCE, the Hebrews start wanting a king to unite them and to bring more order

  • God doesn’t think that’s a great idea, but eventually makes Saul

• Saul is a good man but doesn’t always worship God like he should

• So then, God sends Samuel the prophet to name a new future king named David

• Samuel didn’t kick Saul off the throne but said a new and better king named David will be coming

David

• David ends up in Saul’s court, and is a good warrior

• Initially Saul likes David (he’s good at playing music which helps Saul fall asleep), but eventually Saul gets jealous and starts to see David as a rival/enemy, and tries to have David killed

• David flees to the south and becomes the king of the southern tribes of Hebrews

• Two years later, northern tribes also accept David as king, and Saul dies in a battle against the Philistines, making David king of all the Hebrews

• David is a complicated figure because he is sometimes presented as a great king of a golden age for the Hebrews, favoured greatly by God, whereas other times, he’s portrayed as a serial adulterer, had mistresses’ husbands killed, and had a very dysfunctional household (ex. one of his sons rapes his half-sister and tries to stage a coup against David)

• Eventually, northern tribes break away and form their own kingdom (partially because of David’s chaos)

• Regardless, David is understood to be favoured by God

• Jesus claims descent/lineage from David

• After David dies, his son Solomon becomes king

Solomon

• Solomon has his own issues, he lives very richly and luxuriously, but most people are very poor at this time

• He practiced a lot of polygamy, which in that time and culture was considered okay (what IS a problem is that Solomon often married foreign/non-Hebrew women and Solomon’s court was seen as polluted by foreign influences)

• Solomon built temples to other gods (not cool dude) but also built a large main temple for God (temple of Solomon, which became the main temple for practicing Judaism)

  • Temple doesn’t last very long, but it’s a concrete, dedicated temple to God

• Solomon is generally viewed positively, very wise

• Hebrew people split into 2 groups (Israel in the north, Judah in the south) after Solomon’s death

Hebrews being conquered

• Assyrian empire conquered Israel in 721 BCE and Judah managed to hang on (“Jew” likely derived from Judah) but has to pay special taxes and tributes to the Assyrians

• 598 BCE, Judah was conquered by Babylonians who had conquered the Assyrians

  • Solomon’s temple was destroyed and many Jews were (forcibly) sent off to Babylon; sometimes called the Babylonian captivity

• Doesn’t last long, because the Persians end up conquering the Babylonians and in 539 BCE, the Persian emperor (Cyrus the great) paid to rebuild Solomon’s temple to God and allows the Jews to return back to their original area

• Second temple of Solomon lasts from 539 BCE up to 70 CE, when it’s destroyed by the Romans

  • This 600 year period is called the “second temple period”

• exact dates are NOT important

• In the 300s BCE, Alexander the Great (part of Greek culture) conquered the Persians and many other nations, and the Jews were under his control

• When Alexander died, his empire was split into 3

Jewish rebellion

• In 167 BCE, Jewish unhappiness under Greek rule and culture led to a rebellion led by Judas Maccabeus and the Jews regained control of the holy land for the first time in 500 years

  • This successful rebellion is celebrated as Hanukkah, specifically with the idea that after they’d conquered the land and driven out the Greek ruler Antiochus IV, they went to the temple to pray and discovered there was only enough oil to keep the lamps lit one night, but it lasted for 8 nights instead

• Only hold onto the territory for ~100 years

• In 63 BCE, the Romans conquer the territory

Apostolic/petrine succession

• Apostle Peter (d. c. 67-80)

• Peter becomes Jesus’ successor  (1st pope)

• Greek word “Petra” means rock/stone

• Peter was crucified in Rome and before he died, he handed over leadership to Linus, which sets up the concept of an apostolic/Petrine succession

  • The leader of the church in Rome has direct connection all the way back to Peter

• Originally, the pope was just the bishop (church figure who has authority over a certain geographical area) of Rome 

• Pope technically still is the bishop of Rome today

• Equally powerful other bishops in other important cities (ex. Constantinople, Alexandria, and other major cities in the Roman Empire)

• Bishop of Rome was considered to be powerful, but he was one among other equals

• Over time, as the Roman Empire in the west got weaker, and eventually ended in 476 with the death of the last emperor in the west, the bishop of Rome started to claim additional power as the administrative structure of the Empire got weaker in the west

• The institutional church takes over some of the administrative functions that the Roman government had been responsible for up until that point (bishop of Rome is now in charge of them)

• Rise in power of Roman bishop was contested/argued about by other bishop, particularly those ones in the Eastern part of the Empire

• In Europe itself, the bishop of Rome did gain power and eventually developed this position of the Pope (in charge of all other bishops in Europe)

Gregory the great

• c. 540-604

• Considered to be the first true Pope (ruled from 590-604)

• Real power, authority, and ability to be recognized as the leader

• Took a while to get a figure strong enough to assert the power of being the Pope

• Expands papal powers to establish the position beyond just being the bishop of Rome (I’m at the top of the hierarchy)

• Brought together/standardized a lot of early Christian thought into single, coherent documents 

• His administrative structure in the church is much stronger than what remained of the governmental structure of the Empire

• Also known for organizing the first large-scale missionary movement, based out of Rome itself

  • Augustine travelled to Canterbury in England and converted the English people in that area to Roman-based Christianity (he was sent by Gregory)

• The idea of the pope having more power came with some controversy

  • During the Middle Ages, popes had their own large lands/nations, usually located in Central Italy (both a religious and political ruler)

  • Not everyone agreed with that - didn’t like it when the pope tried to conquer some of their territory and take it for himself

Diocese

Territory that bishops control; overlapped significantly with ancient Roman administrative divisions during this time

• Were usually modelled very closely with older Roman setups

Mary of Egypt

• She’s an example of a desert mother (from Egypt and it’s a desert) 

• Important because her story gets combined with other Marys (happens a lot with holy figures - their stories often combine with one another)

• Zosimus is a priest who encounters Mary of Egypt and who gets told her story and gives her communion

• She walked Jordan River back and forth

• Removed herself from a life of sin

• No one is beyond the grace of God

• Respect the priesthood

Hagiography

Study of the sacred or holy

• Usually biographies of holy figures who often become saints

• Used to teach people about how to live a good, moral, holy life 

• Teach about deeds of martyrs/holy people of the past

• Designed to be inspirational, didactic (educational), and entertaining

• Have meanings/purposes/goals

• Was used as a way to accessibly communicate with illiterate people

Christian monasticism

• Ascetic: comes from the Greek ”askesis”, which means disciplined

  • In Christianity, you discipline the body for the good of the soul

  • This idea comes from the desert fathers and mothers, and it spread when the people themselves spread out

• People who lived disciplined and regimented lives in the name of their religion

• Activities ultimately develop over time into Christian monasticism

• Monasteries house people who live ascetic lives, and often become some of the biggest buildings around 

• Had anything you need, almost like little towns in the Middle Ages

• Monasteries started being built in the 400s-500s

• After Constantine and Christianity being legalized, you couldn’t really become a martyr anymore in the Roman Empire

  • Roman Emperor Julian (360s), was pagan and persecuted Christians for a couple years before he died

  • Small blips on the radar of mini persecutions, such as above example

  • After Constantine, most emperors were Christian as well so they didn’t go back on his legalization

• Yet at the same time, Christianity is spreading more and more

  • But if you can’t die for your faith anymore, and can’t prove your total and utter commitment to Christ by dying for your religion, if you’re really invested, you do the imitatio Christi

Imitatio Christi

Latin, meaning “in the imitation/style of Christ”

• The idea is that Jesus willingly suffered so significantly for humanity that you have to give Him a “thank you” and acknowledge His suffering

  • One way to do that is to suffer yourself, in the imitation of Christ

• You’re never actually going to suffer as much as He did, but you want to make an effort to take on some of the suffering yourself

• This leads to things like fasting, sleeping on the floor, denying yourself sleep, flagellating yourself, etc

• For very early Christians (200s and 300s), they looked at some of the gospels and believed that you needed to go into the desert in order to withdraw yourself from worldly temptations and benefits of being in a city, as a way to imitate the sufferings of Christ 

  • Became the early desert fathers and mothers

• Ends up (around 300s) that the deserts of Egypt are full of Christians trying to prove their devotion (deserts were quite populated)

• Stories often involve rich people who give up everything to go live in the desert (built on the idea that is seen in Matthew and Luke that it’s easier to put a camel in the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter heaven)

2 types of people who withdraw

1. Achroite: ascetics who did it completely alone (ex. living alone in a cave); earliest ascetics

2. Cenobite: ascetics who lived in a community (ex. monks and nuns) and do their disciplinary practices as a group

   • Tend to be less severe than the achorites

• Anchorites continue to exist, but became fewer as time went on

• Cenobites started as few but became more numerous over time (way of life was more doable since humans are social beings), but then declined significantly leading up to present day

• Eremetics: hermits, wander by themselves

• Gyrovagues: groups of monks that wander about aimlessly (but were technically supposed to be alone)

  • Both groups often looked down upon, seen as insufficiently committed to the faith

Rodriges and Harding

• Hard to define religion because people have many different ideas and opinions on what that constitutes

• “Being grasped by an ultimate concern”

• You can do things religiously without them actually being religious too, adding to the complexity

• It’s more about what’s in your heart than what you do

• Often a supernatural aspect to it

• Religious education = bias, attempting to sway someone or impose your views upon them, studies religion while immersed in it

• Religious study = more open, often self-guided, often less bias, sees religion as the object of study, more detached

Matthew, Luke, Romans

• Lots of parables explaining the kingdom of heaven

• Some things aren’t meant to be taken literally

• People didn’t thank Jesus very well for His generosity

• Romans is scary

Gospel of Thomas

• …what

• Some contradictory stuff with the canonical bible

• More gnostic because it requires a certain level of understanding to interpret it

• Easy to find connections to the canonical bible

Martyrdom of St Perpetua

• On the spectrum of history and legend

• Perpetua had visions about her martyrdom and other Christian related things

• In the end, it was HER choice to die

• Mystic special people doing special things

• She had God’s support

• Checks a lot of martyrdom boxes

• She was imprisoned for being Christian but refused to renounce her faith, despite having numerous chances to do so

• She cared more about her modesty than about surviving in the place with the animals

St. Benedict’s Rule

• A lot of rules for monks

• Some don’t make a lot of sense to an uneducated-in-that-area person

• Abbots are leaders of monasteries

• Apparently on the more achievable side of rule books for monks

• Emphasis on silence, reverence, and obedience