Theology Chapter 2: history
Ch. 1: The Ancient Church: From the Beginnings of Christianity to the Edict Milan (313) with additional content added.
Basic Jewish Background of the Jesus Movement:
1. The call of Israel:
a. God initially creates all humankind for communion with him, but eventually, as a result of human sin, decides instead to fashion a particular people for himself, with whom he forges an unbreakable bond so as to establish his home on earth among them. Israel thus becomes the object of special divine attention. God summoned Abraham.
2. The significance of the Jewish temple:
a. It represented the heart of the Jewish nation, the whole life and purpose of the people of Israel
.
3. An independent Jewish state was first formed:
a. 168 B.C. Judas Maccabeus revolts from the Greek-Syrian Seleucid Dynasty, which tried to eradicate Judaism.
4. The Jewish messianic expectation?
a. The Messiah for whom the Jews longed was not only a religious leader, but a national liberator in the mold of Judas Maccabeus. Since Jesus excited hopes that he was the Messiah, he must have appeared to the ruling powers as a serious threat to the political stability of Judaea. The peace was the responsibility of the High Priest.
5. Basic Dates (Just read through this a few times, do not need to memorize this)
· Ca. (circa= around) 6 BC – Jesus is born
· Ca 28 AD – Jesus begins his public ministry and John the Baptist is executed
· Ca. 30 or 33 AD – Jesus is Crucified
· C. 34 – (First Martyr) The Hellenistic Jew, Stephen, who is a follower of Jesus, is tried by the Sanhedrin (the Jewish legislative body) and convicted of blasphemy and then is stoned to death. (First Christian Martyr)
· Ca 43 – according to tradition the Apostle Thaddeus arrives in Armenia preaches the gospel, he was later martyred
o In the early centuries of Christianity the gospel message travelled far along the thriving trade routes opened up by Hellenistic Culture.
· Ca 49 A.D. Jerusalem Conference – Meeting of James, Peter, and Paul on the question of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles
· Ca 52 – The Apostle Thomas is reputed to have brought Christianity to India
· 54-58 A.D. – Paul writes his principal letters – Letters to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, etc.
· 58-60 AD – Paul is imprisoned in Caesarea and then sent to Rome
· 62 AD – James, the disciple of Jesus, is stoned to death by the Pharisees.
· 64 – The Roman Emperor Nero blames Christians for the burning of Rome and executes Peter
· 67 – Paul is executed in Rome.
· Late 60s AD.- Mark’s gospel is written
· 70 A.D. - In response to the Great Jewish Revolt against Roman Occupation, the Romans destroy the temple in Jerusalem.
· 80s A.D – Gospels of Matthew and Luke are written
· 90s AD – John’s gospel is written
· 100s AD - the first Christian institution of higher learning was established in Alexandria, Egypt.
· Ca 125 – (Apologist) – The apologist Quadratus addresses his defense of Christianity to the emperor Hadrian
· Ca. 150 – St. Justin Martyr (one of the greatest apologists and also later was martyred) writes his First Apology to Antonominus Pius and the Roman Senate
· Ca. 180 – St. Irenaeus of Lyon writes Against the Heresis
· CA 201: First Christian Kingdom. Abgar IX (r. 179-216 CE) King of Edessa (southwestern Turkey) becomes Christian. First Christian Chuch in 202 CE
· Ca 250 – Paul the Hermit, the first recognized Christian hermit takes refuge in the Egyptian desert to escape the Decian persection, lived in the desert for 20 years
· C.a 285 – Anthony of Egypt gives his worldly wealth to the poor and lives in the Egyptian desert, over time other hermits gather around him and he forges them into a monastic community.
· 301 - Armenia is earliest country to become Christian when Tiridates proclaims Christianity the official state religion.
· 300s - Christianity in Ethiopia emerges
o People in India would have contact with Christians through merchants (Judaism had also been in Ethiopia for centuries; nevertheless, Ethiopia became Christian because of the shipwreck of two Christian merchants (Frumentius and Aedesius) in the 4th century A.D., who were sold into the service of the Royal Court, which led the Royal Court to convert to Christianity.
· 325 – The First Council of Nicaea
o Defines the Son as truly God
· 354 – The Birth of St. Augustine of Hippo (in North Africa)- he dies in 430 AD
· 381 – The First Council of Constantinople
o Definition of God as three persons, one essence
· 451 – Council of Chalcedon
o Defines the nature of Christ – Christ is fully human and divine (two natures) in one person (the person of the Logos)
o Oriental Churches including the Armenia, Malankara Churches. the Copts and the Ethiopian Churches, disagree with the pronouncements at Chalcedon and break with the Eastern and Western Christian communities (Could be considered the first division within Christianity)
6. What was the Jewish Diaspora (Gonzalez, ch. 1)?
7. What was the Septuagint?
8. What was the significance, for followers of Jesus, of the requirement of Roman Citizens to worship the emperor? (Ibid.)
9. The first issue for followers of Jesus was how it understood itself in relationship to Judaism. A central question was the relationship of the followers of Jesus to non-Jews.
a. Indicate the result of the meeting in Jerusalem (i.e. the Jerusalem Conference) of Paul with Peter and James. What was its significance?
b. Paul’s understanding of God’s promises to Israel being fulfilled in Christ, which is the basis for his argument that he should be able to spread the gospels to the Gentiles such that the Gentiles (non-Jews) did not have to become Jewish first to follow Jesus:
i. All of God’s promises to Israel had been fulfilled in Christ, and all nations of the earth were included in the these promises The law was essentially made obsolete: for what made Jews and Gentiles alike inheritors of God’s covenant with Abraham was their common participation in Abraham’s faith, not their obedience to the Mosaic code. After all, as Paul argued, the covenant preceded the Law.
10. What likely caused Peter (a Jew) to accept Gentiles (non-Jews) as Christians?
Peter had a vision prior to seeing the Roman Centurion Cornelius in which God told Peter to partake of foods of any kind whether Kosher or not.
11. How did the early community understand wealth and possessions? Held possessions in common and the rich sold their property to assist the poor members of the community.
12. Where did early Christians meet and what did their gatherings include? Homes and they celebrated the last supper, but an actual shared meal on the first day of the week Sunday. (Women presided over these gatherings because women were in charge of the home.) This practice would develop into the sacrament of Eucharist. (see Gonzalez, bottom of p. 30 top of 31 for Eucharist, Baptism, and formation of ministerial offices)
13. What was the ritual of initiation into the followers of Jesus? Baptism. We saw in Matthew’s resurrection account that the disciples were called to go out and baptism all nations in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (MT 28: 17-20). Baptism in the early Church is a ritual of initiation into the Christian community in which the person receives the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) and in which the person has died and risen with Christ and is thus clothed with Christ (Paul Letter to the Romans 6:1-4, Galatians 3:26-27).
14. Why did the office of bishop and priest emerge? The first community of apostles starts to die out, the early communities then formed leadership roles of bishop and priest to preserve historical continuity and preserve theological and moral rectitude. Bishops and priests became responsible for the celebration of the Eucharist the distribution of goods for the relief of the poor and the general governance of the community. Ignatius of Antioch (late first early 2nd century) emphasized the role of the bishop because of the prevalence of false teachers.
15. From Diarmaid MacCulloch video #1 (I have included the basic info here in this study guide so you do not need to go back and rewatch this video.)
a. Know about the movement of Christians to the East in relationship to the fall of the temple in the first century
b. Know about the Christian community in Edessa (now Urfa in Turkey)
c. Know about the Nestorian missions to the East, including the Far East. Note by the early Middle Ages, the most widespread (covering the most territory) Christian communion in the world was the Syrian Nestorian Church (i.e. the Church of the East)
d. Note that Baghdad became an important center in the Church of the East.
e. Note their interaction with Muslims
f. Note his comment regarding Imperial Christianity (by 381 Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire) in the Mediterranean world while Eastern Christianity existed in a hostile world and was not supported by the dominant rulers. In this way, Eastern Christianity was more used to dialogue and this dialogue with cultures was very fruitful. Though Rome fell in the 5thCentury, the Eastern part of the empire continued for a thousand years.
16. The Rise of Asceticism and Monasticism:
a. Ascetics engage in rigorous practices for a goal. Christian ascetics engaged in the purification of their hearts and the perfection of charity in their wills
b. Examples of early Ascetics:
i. 250 AD - Paul the Hermit takes up in the Egyptian Desert to escape the Decian Persecution
ii. 285 – St. Anthony of Egypt. St. Anthony of Egypt went from an individual ascetic to founding a monastery. Other hermits gathered around his retreat over the years so he forged them into a more orderly monastic community.
iii. 317 - St Pachomius (c. 290 – 346) established several monasteries that housed more than 7000 people and he established a monastic rule that set the pattern for all later monastic rules including the most influential rule in the West, The Rule of St. Benedict. He was the founder of cenobitic (community) monasticism.
17. The followers of Jesus’ conflict with Jewish authorities produced martyrs and the conflict with the state produced both martyrs and apologists. Please explain (see Gonzalez., ch. 1)
18. After the Apologists came the great teachers of the faith who would be involved in the formation of the Canon, central theological debates, and the formation of the central doctrines of the faith. What has been known as the Fathers of the Church (see Gonzalez p. 29 and p. 30, just read this, no need to memorize this. We have dealt with Origen and Irenaeus and we will treat Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and Augustine. These are all Fathers of the Church)
19. There were other challenges that arose that required Christians to define their scriptures and doctrines. This led to the following:
a. The Development of the Canon of the NT, which I lectured on. See those notes.
b. Development of the major Creeds from the Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), and Chalcedon (451). These will be dealt with in the next part of the course. Just know their dates in terms of the overall chronology. (See next section)
Chapter 2: The Christian Empire: From the Edict of Milan (313) to the Fall of the Last Roman Emperor of the West (476)
1. Explain the rise of Constantine as emperor and its significance for the growth and development of Christianity. Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine defeats his brother-in-law Maxentius after purportedly having a vision where he saw an emblazoned cross and heard a voice tell him, by this cross you shall conquer. Constantine as the Emperor of the West together with Licinius the Eastern August promulgated the Edict of Milan (313), granting toleration to Christianity. Constantine defeats Licinius in 324 and is the emperor of East and West. He moves the seat of government in 330 to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople.
2. What did Constantine’s support of Christianity mean for Christian worship?
3. Four main responses to Constantine granting toleration to Christians.
a. One way was typified by Eusebius of Caesarea, please explain.
b. The other way was the continued growth of monasticism, please explain.
c. The other way was the way of the Donatists, please explain.
d. The pagan reaction, please explain
4. What did Jerome do?
5. In this period was the development of the major Creeds
a. Development of the major Creeds from the Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), and Chalcedon (451). These will be dealt with in the next part of the course. Just know their dates in terms of the overall chronology. (For this test I just want you to know this statement)
6. What was the issue in the debates about Christ in the 5th Century? (Just aware of this, we will treat this in great detail in the next part of the course)
a. The relation of the divine and human natures and their unity
7. When was the Council of Chalcedon and what was the final doctrinal definition regarding Christ at the Council of Chalcedon? (Just aware of this, we will treat this in great detail in the next part of the course, you do not need to memorize this)
a. 451, Christ possess two natures (divine and human) within the unity of one divine Person of the Logos
8. Why did the Council lead to division within Christianity? What was the role of linguistic misunderstandings in this? What was another factor in this division?
a. The ancient churches of the East, the Oriental Churches, rejected the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451); that Christ has both a human and divine nature in one person, and that person is the person of the Logos and thus had severed their ties to the Rome Church in the West in the 5th Century and Byzantine Church in the East in the 6th Century. (Could be considered the first division within Christianity)
i. Monophysites – did not mean to deny the full humanity of Christ.
ii. Nestorians did not mean to deny the unity of God and man in Christ
iii. Resentment of imperial power also played a role for the monophysite communions
iv. The Coptic Church of Egypt, the Ethiopian Church, the Syrian Jacobite Church, the Armenian Church – broke with Constantinople and Rome. So did the Nestorian communion, in East Syria and Persia. Collectively, these are now referred to as the Oriental Churches.
9. Know the dates for the fall of Rome to the Barbarians and the date of the last Roman Emperor in the West. Important to note that the Empire continued in the east (i.e. Byzantium) for another thousand years.
Chapter 3, The Early Middle Ages: From the Fall of Romulus Augustus (476) to the Schism between East and West (1054)
1. What were the linguistic differences between the East and West?
2. What contemporary countries constituted the West in the 5th century?
2. Who was the father of the distinctively Western Monasticism and what centuries did he live in?
a. Benedict of Nursia (5th and early 6th Century)
3. What was this person’s greatest contribution to the West?
a. The rule composed for his communities of monks. Its purpose was to establish a code of communal harmony, love of God, prayer and service to others.
4. How did monasteries prevent the destruction of many of the cultural achievements of the ancient world?
a. As the West was progressively sealed off from the high civilization of the Eastern Christian world, and knowledge of Greek became scarce in the West, the only institution that could boast any continuity with the culture of antiquity was the Church. After Boethius, it was the monks that preserved classical Greek and Roman literature – Virgil, Cicero, Pliny, Horace, Senenca, as well as portions of Plato, Aristotle and the Greek Church Fathers as were available in Latin.
5. In the 4th and 5th Century, what was the most civilized province of the Western Empire? What is this area named today?
a. Gaul, France
6. Who was the first French king to forsake paganism and embrace Christianity and when did this happen (what Century)? Clovis 5th Century
7. Who was a central figure in preserving and furthering the faith in the British Isles, especially Ireland? What century did he live?
a. St. Patrick, 5th Century
8. Who united and revitalized the ancient Christian Roman world in the 6th century after the decline of Rome in the West? What was the city where this revitalization took place?
a. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and his wife Theodora
b. Ravenna (contemporary Italy on the Northeast coast)
9. The Church of the East: The Nestorian Missions
a. What was the largest and widespread Christian communion in the world in the early Middle Ages?
i. The Church of the East (Syrian Nestorian Church, East Syrian or Assyrian Church.
b. How far east did this Christian community extend from the 7th Century to the 13th Century?
i. All of Asia east of the Euphrates. East Syrian Christian missions followed the trade routes to the Far East – including Central Asia, India, and China.
c. What benefits did this community provide to places it spread to?
i. Provided trained physicians, scholars, built schools, libraries, and hospitals.
d. What was Christianity called in the 8th Century in China?
i. The Radiant or Illustrious Religion
10. A New Power in the World: the rise of Islam
a. From the 4th Century to the beginning of the 7th Century Christianity had encountered no cultural power comparable to itself.
b. By the end of the 7th century and the first decade of the 8th century vast stretches of the formerly Christian World had become Muslim, including most of North Africa, virtually all of Portugal and Spain, and much of Gaul
c. By the end of the 9th Century to the middle of the 13th Century, the Islamic world was scientifically superior to Western Christendom and rivalled Byzantium (though western Europe was surpassed both in terms of technological innovation).
11. Baghdad, which is a city Iraq and which US troops occupied during the Iraq war, in the 8th Century became a Christian center to rival Alexandria and Rome in their greatest periods.
12. The Rise of Charlemagne and the Franks in the West
a. In the late 8th and early 9th Century the empire of the Franks and Charlemagne emerged and laid the foundation for political and cultural achievements of western medieval Christendom.
b. The Holy Roman Empire began in the West (though the term Holy Roman Empire was coined in the 13th Century) Christmas Day in the year 800 when the Pope crowned Charlemagne emperor. This unprecedented and legally meaningless gesture seemed to suggest that the emperor derived his authority from the Church. It extended for a thousand years until 1806.
13. The Iconoclast Controversy
a. What does iconoclasm mean? What was the central theological issue raised in the iconoclast controversy of the 8th and 9th century?
i. The shattering of images
ii. Did the veneration of sacred images violate the second commandment – the commandment prohibiting idols
14. John of Damascus (ca 675 – 749), which is Damascus Syria argued that that images should be allowed distinguishing between the second commandment at the time of Moses and how it functions after the Incarnation of the Word in Christ.
a. The prohibition of images in the Mosaic code was appropriate at the time of Moses because God had not yet been fully reveled and so all images of gods were false and misleading portraits of beings who did not exist. But God revealed himself in Christ and provided the perfect icon of himself. Making icons of Christ affirms that in Christ God has truly become man.
15. At the 7th Ecumenical Council in 787 the use of icons in prayer and worship was affirmed.
16. What were differences between Eastern and Western Christianity that ultimately led to the division between Eastern (Orthodox) and West Christianity (Roman Catholic) ?
a. Among the several issues concerning faith and practice that led to this difference the most important was the theological issue of the filioque.
i. If this remained a theological dispute, then it would not have been such an issue, the problem was when it entered the Creed.
ii. It was first added in Spain at the Synod of Toledo in 447. This development was rejected by People Leo III (d. 816). In 1014 the version of the creed with the filioque was first employed in Rome at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (972-1024) on the occasion of his coronation mass.
b. Jurisdictional Prerogatives between the Bishop of Constantinople and Rome in the 9th Century (like who had jurisdiction over the Slavs) also created great problems. Jurisdictional Prerogatives were not matters merely of ecclesiastical concern but of imperial policy as well. There were two empires – The West dominated by the Franks and the east at Constantinople. Episcopal authority could not be separated from political authority.
17. What is the filioque clause? Why was it first introduced?
a. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son
b. It was introduced to affirm the full divinity of the Son, over against the Arianism of the western barbarians, most particularly the Visigoths.
18. In the tenth century, the Russian people became Christian under Prince Vladimir the Great, who is a saint in the Orthodox tradition.
19. The “official date” (though there were divisions before and loose unity after this date) of the separation into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches was 1054.
20. What gave rise to the decline in trade and the rise of Feudalism (see Gonzalez, p. 47-48) and what effect did this have on the Christian Church in the West
Chapter 4: The High Point of the Middle Ages: From the Schism between East and West (1054) and the Beginning of the Decline of the Papacy (1303)
1. During the first millennium of Christian history, the eastern half of the Roman world enjoyed every advantage – demographic, economic and cultural – over the western. In addition, the long centuries of barbarian government that succeeded the old Roman order, Western European society excelled in practical technologies and the art of war, but the Byzantine East was more advanced culturally. In the second millennium of Christian history, Western Christendom came fully of age.
2. How did the rise of the reform movement in the West lead to the monasticization of the Church? Indicate who initiated these reforms and the apex of in the Church in terms of celibacy, simony, and investiture.
a. Because the reforms came out of monasteries the reforms included mandatory clerical celibacy, poverty, and obedience. In addition the reforms included
3. Period of the Spanish Reconquista, Christians pushed the Muslims out of Spain, where they had been since the 8th century, so that by the end of the 13th Century all that remained in Muslim hands was the kingdom of Granada.
4. The Early Crusades
a. Prior to the first Crusade Christian rulers such as Justinian in the East and Charlemagne in the west for the purpose of state unity had shown themselves willing to coerce faith from their subjects. But, to our knowledge, they did not represent their military adventures as divine missions.
b. The great irony of the Crusades is that the idea that war might not be merely just but also a sacred cause infiltrated Catholic thought as a result of the effort of the Catholic Church to discourage and limit warfare.
i. It was at the Council of Clermont in 1095, which reaffirmed and expanded the Truce of God, that Pope Urban II (1035-1099) called the First Crusade.
ii. The Truce of God was meant to protect the defenseless against the depredations of violent men. In this vein, Urban called the Crusade to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land who had been robbed, enslaved and murdered by the Turks as well as appeals by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I for military aid in resisting the Seljuq aggressions.
iii. What did some of the Crusaders do to Jews in Germany on their way to the Holy Land, though they never reached the Holy Land? Robbing and murdering Rhineland Jews in the thousands in 1096 and even attacked local bishops who tried to protect the Jews. They disbanded before ever reaching the East. This set the stage for the persecution of Jews in the following centuries.
iv. Despite the promise of safety for the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon the fall of the city, the crusader army massacred Muslims, Jews and Arab Christians, including women and children.
v. There were 8 crusades in all lasting from 1096 to 1270. The fourth crusade is particularly noteworthy:
a. The Crusader army sacked Constantinople in 1204, murdering unarmed civilians, raping women (including nuns), despoiling churches and desecrating their altars.
b. The result was that the schism between East and West was now beyond all remedy
5. In part as a result of the Crusades commerce flourished and cities, as centers of trade grew. This gave rise to the bourgeoisie (i.e. people from the city) who lived by trade and would later develop industry. The 13th Century saw the rise of the mendicant orders as a response to the rise of cities. Francis was from bourgeoisie and the Franciscan order emerged out of the inspiration of St. Francis, and the Dominic order, was founded by St. Dominic.
6. The mendicant orders also penetrated the universities and became the leaders in scholastic theology
7. The high middle ages saw the rise of new architectural styles, including the Romanesque (or Norman Style) and the Gothic Style, which is misnamed because it did not come from the Goths.
8. What were some of the features of a Gothic Cathedral? Flying buttresses, ogival arches, vast high ceilings allowed for large windows that allowed for as much light as possible to penetrate their interiors.
9. The first public hospital in Western Europe was founded in the fourth century by the Roman noblewoman and Christian ascetic St. Fabiola (d.c 399), but it was in the later Middle Ages that a great hospital movement within Christian Europe took place.
10. Western Europe hospitals were influence by the advanced medical techniques known to Byzantine, Syrian Christian, and Muslim Physicians, which came into Western Europe through the interchange of cultures during the Crusades.
11. The Benedictines, which were founded by the Benedict of Nursia, founded thousands of hospitals.
12. Perhaps the great accomplishment of the High Middle Ages for the later development of Western Civilization was the cultivation of scholarship not only in philosophy and theology, but also in the humane, natural, physical, and theoretical sciences which led to the great flourishing of the universities.
13. What was the first university in Eastern Christendom and the first University in Western World and when were they founded?
a. University of Constantinople (849)
b. University of Bologna, 1088.
b. In the 12th and 13th century in the West there was the development of the first systematic method for scientific experimentation and biological field research.
6. The Dominican St. Albert the Great in the 13th Century undertook studies in mechanical physics, studying the velocity of falling bodies and the centers of gravity of objects; and he insisted that empirical evidence – rather than metaphysical speculation- was the only sure source of scientific knowledge of the natural world.
7. Christian scholars developed mathematical models to understand the laws of physical motion in the 13th and 14th Centuries.
8. Even though universities in the West were ecclesiastical institutions, dependent upon popes and princes for their charters, they encouraged freedom of inquiry and debate.
9. Universities were independent, self-governing institutions that together constituted a unified European intellectual community that transcended national boundaries. They governed themselves and were legally and financially independent of their cities and were unified in that they accepted each other’s qualifications and certifications and shared a common language; namely, Latin.
10. Boethius (c. 476 – c. 526) wanted to translate from Greek into Latin the whole of Aristotle’s work (and comment upon it), but he was not able to complete this task before being unjustly executed so that only the works of Aristotle treating philosophical logic were translated and available in the West.
11. After the 5th Century Syrian Christians carried Greek medical, scientific, and philosophical wisdom eastward into cities that are now in Turkey (the ancient cities of Nisbis and Edessa) and Iran (the ancient city of Jundishapur). With the rise of Islam in these regions it was Syrian Christians who administered the House of Wisdom in Baghdad (i.e. contemporary Iraq) and translated Greek texts into Arabic. This had a profound influence on Islamic thinkers who in turn were read by the great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. These translations went forth into the greater Islamic world, including Muslim Spain. These texts from ancient Greek authors, most importantly most of the remaining works of Aristotle, were then translated from Arabic to Latin by the Arabic speaking Christians of Spain (e.g. the Scottish born Michael Scot), western European scholars, and Spanish Jews starting in the 12th Century. Once these works of Aristotle became known they were also translated directly from the Greek to Latin. For instance the Belgian Dominican Priest William of Moerbeke translated Aristotle’s Metaphysics from Greek into Latin and it was this text that St. Thomas Aquinas read and commented upon.
12. The greatest figure in the Dominican intellectual tradition and one of the greatest theologians in the Middle Ages and all of Western Christianity was St. Thomas Aquinas.
13. Thomas believed that reason could not contradict faith because they originated from the same source; namely, God.
The Late Middle Ages: From the First Signs of Decline in the Papacy (1303) to the Fall of Constantinople (1453) (Gonzalez, ch. 5)
1. When did the Black death happen? What was the result? How did the Pope respond to the scapegoating of Jews?
a. Began in 1348, arrived from merchant ships from the Crimea, it ultimately killed 25 million people. Pope Clement VI issued a decree proclaiming the Jews innocence against charges against Jews of poisoning the wells. He pointed to the fact the Jews were dying with them.
2. The Black death caused great economic and political upheaval.
3. How did the rise of the bourgeoisie lead to the decline of the feudal system and the birth of modern nations?
4. How did Nationalism put an end to the medieval political dream? How did it alter the understanding of the papacy as a transnational institution?
5. Briefly, what was the Babylonian Captivity of the Church?
6. Briefly, what was the Great Western Schism?
7. What movement put an end to the reality of multiple Pope’s? Why did it not put an end to division within the Church?
8. The Renaissance involved the rediscovery of the lost wisdom of the ancient world, including philosophy, literature, painting, and art.
9. The Renaissance began in Italy for a host of possible reasons, one of which was that it long enjoyed privilege access to Byzantium, through Ravenna, and the Islamic East.
10. In the 15th Century as the Civilization of the Christian East (Byzantium) was dying, the Civilization of the Christian West experienced its great Renaissance
11. The rise of the Medieval university created the intellectual conditions for the rise of Renaissance humanism.
12. How did the concerns of the Renaissance popes differ from the Medieval popes?
13. What were the various factors during this period that created conditions for pope’s to try to increase their wealth, which had a corrupting influence on the various Popes?
a. During the Schism, in order to defend his position and viability each Pope had to increase his income.
b. The Renaissance Pope’s were interested in the joys of life, the capabilities of the human mind, the beauty of the human body (all aspects of Renaissance art) and became great patrons of the arts. This required raising money, which can be corrupting.
c. In an era of nationalism, the Popes tried to unite the Italian Peninsula in the form of the nation states and in the process became involved in wars and political intrigue and had to raise money for these campaigns.
14. Martin Luther in the 16th century began as a reformer of the Church, but there were calls for reform before Martin Luther. Below are some of the ways people sought reform.
a. Doctrinal Reform – John Wycliff and John Huss
b. Moral Reform – Savonarola
c. More radical groups – Beguines, etc. lived a life of contemplation at the margins of the Church
d. Reform through renewed Studies -Erasmus
e. Mystics – instead of reforming the Church sought union with God – Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystics.
15. The numbers above have dealt with the Church in the West, the numbers below will deal with the Church in the East
16. While there were the translations in the West of the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle from their Arabic versions to Latin in 12th and 13th century Spain, there was in the East the translation of classical and patristic Latin literature in the 13th and 14th century such that Byzantine theologians were reading the great Western theologians like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
17. The 14th Century saw a revival and flourishing of mystical theology both in the East and the West.
18. The Roman Empire of the West came to an end in the 5th Century, but the Roman Empire as a legal, cultural, and political institution persisted in the East until the 15th Century.
19. Hellenistic Culture survived in the East 1000 years after the decline of the Roman Empire in the West, but the Byzantine Empire was surrounded by too many enemies – Arabs, Slavs, Turks, Bulgars, Mongols – and from the seventh century was engaged in an almost continuous struggle with the immense power of Islam.
20. With the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th Century, the Byzantines were confronted with an enemy that could not be defeated, and that could not be resisted indefinitely. The Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453.