What are the main features of the history of Christianity?

The general setting of Christianity in history. The youth of Christianity. The limited area of early Christianity. The unpromising rootage of Christianity. 2. The immediate background of Christianity: Judaism. The rise of Judaism. Jewish beliefs and literature. Apocalypse, eschatology, and messiah.

What is the best book on the history of Christianity?

“A History of Christianity” by Kenneth Scott Latourette Vol. 1, pp. 3-494 The Pre-Christian Course of Mankind. 1. The general setting of Christianity in history. The youth of Christianity. The limited area of early Christianity.

What are the social origins of the early Christians?

The social origins of the early Christians. Persistent opposition and persecution. A breathing space and rapid growth. The sudden storms under Decius and Valerian. A generation of peace and prosperity.

Is Christianity a religion of history?

For Christianity was essentially a ‘religion of the book’ – that is, a historical religion. It taught that certain things had happened, and that certain things were going to happen.

What is the first political act in the history of Christianity?

1 – The Rise and Rescue of the Jesus Sect (50 BC-AD 250) Some time about the middle of the first century AD, and very likely in the year 49, Paul of Tarsus travelled south from Antioch to Jerusalem and there met the surviving followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified about sixteen years before. This Apostolic Conference, or Council of Jerusalem, is the first political act in the history of Christianity and the starting-point from which we can seek to reconstruct the nature of Jesus’s teaching and the origins of the religion and church he brought into being. We have two near-contemporary accounts of this Council. One, dating from the next decade, was dictated by Paul himself in his letter to the Christian congregations of Galatia in Asia Minor. The second is later and comes from a number of sources or eye-witness accounts assembled in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. It is a bland, quasi-official report of a dispute in the Church and its satisfactory resolution. Let us take this second version first. It relates that ‘fierce dissension and controversy’ had arisen in Antioch because ‘certain persons’, from Jerusalem and Judea, in flat contradiction to the teaching of Paul, had been telling converts to Christianity that they could not be saved unless they underwent the Jewish ritual of circumcision. As a result, Paul, his colleague Barnabas, and others from the mission to the gentiles in Antioch, travelled to Jerusalem to consult with ‘the apostles and elders’. There they had a mixed reception. They were welcomed by ‘the church and the apostles and the elders’; but ‘some of the Pharisaic party who had become believers’ insisted that Paul was wrong and that all converts must not only be circumcized but taught to keep the Jewish law of Moses. There was ‘a long debate’, followed by speeches by Peter, who supported Paul, by Paul himself and Barnabas, and a summing up by James, the younger brother of Jesus. He put forward a compromise which was apparently adopted ‘with the agreement of the whole Church’. Under this, Paul and his colleagues were to be sent back to Antioch accompanied by a Jerusalem delegation bearing a letter. The letter set out the terms of the compromise: converts need not submit to circumcision but they must observe certain precepts in the Jewish law in matters of diet and sexual conduct. Luke’s record in Acts states that this half-way position was arrived at ‘unanimously’, and that when the decision was conveyed to the Antioch congregation, ‘all rejoiced’. The Jerusalem delegates were thus able to return to Jerusalem, having solved the problem, and Paul carried on with his mission. This, then, is the account of the first council of the Church as presented by a consensus document, what one might call an eirenic and ecumenical version, designed to present the new religion as a mystical body with a co-ordinated and unified life of its own, moving to inevitable and predestined conclusions. Acts, indeed, says specifically that the ruling of the Council was ‘the decision of the Holy Spirit’. No wonder it was accepted unanimously! No wonder that ‘all’ in Antioch ‘rejoiced at the encouragement it brought’. Paul’s version, however, presents quite a different picture. And his is not merely an eye-witness account, but an account by the chief and central participant, perhaps the only one who grasped the magnitude of the issues at stake. Paul is not interested in smoothing the ragged edges of controversy. He is presenting a case to men and women whose spiritual lives are dominated by the issues confronting the elders in that room in Jerusalem. His purpose is not eirenic or ecumenical, still less

How long was Manfred’s daughter in prison?

Manfred’s daughter Beatrice was kept in prison for eighteen years ; his three bastard sons never emerged – one was still alive in 1309, having been in papal custody forty-five years. Of Frederick’s children and grandchildren, ten died by papal violence or in papal dungeons.

What was the result of Christianity’s avoiding or absorbing extremes?

There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or , as Paul would have put it, of freedom. There was a gain in stability and collective strength. By the end of the third century Christianity was able to confront and outface the most powerful corporation in ancient history – the Roman empire.

How did the conversion of Constantine affect the Christian Church?

The conversion of Constantine had aligned the Roman empire with the Christian Church in a working partnership. But the empire, as the earlier institution, had changed the less of the two; in some ways it had barely changed at all – it had replaced one State religion by another. The Church, by contrast, had changed a great deal. It had adapted itself to its State and imperial function; it had assumed worldly ways and attitudes, and accepted a range of secular responsibilities; and in the emperor it had acquired a protector and governor whom it might influence but could not directly control. Hence the Church, by marrying the imperial Roman State, was necessarily influenced by changes which overcame that State in the fifth and sixth centuries. In effect the empire split into two. In the East, the government succeeded in maintaining a trading system and a strong gold-based currency; hence it could afford to pay regular armies, and so maintained its frontiers. The process of integration of Church and State, begun by Constantine, continued until the two became inseparable: the Byzantine empire became, in effect, a form of theocracy, with the emperor performing priestly and semi-divine functions, and the Orthodox Church constituting a department of State in charge of spiritual affairs. This conjunction endured for a thousand years, until the remains of the empire were overrun by the Ottoman Turks in the mid fifteenth century. The western sector of the empire, after the closing decades of the fourth century, lacked a coordinated economic system which could be policed, and so taxed, by a central government. Unable to collect taxes, the authorities could not maintain a currency and pay the legions. There was, in effect, a vacuum of government. After 476, no further western emperors were elected; and except for a period in the mid sixth century, when Constantinople succeeded in reestablishing its authority in Italy, Spain and North Africa, the old imperial system of government was inoperative in the West. Byzantium had a powerful navy. Until the Arab-Moslem conquests of the late seventh century, the Byzantine empire had naval superiority throughout the Mediterranean, when it chose to exert it. This meant it controlled the Adriatic, and from Ravenna on the east coast of Italy it maintained a residual connection with the West. The Pope, as Bishop of Rome, ruled what was a duchy of the empire, and paid taxes accordingly. The West as a whole became an area of tribal settlement, in which semi-barbarous kingdoms existed behind fluctuating frontiers. In these circumstances, the western Church found itself the residual legatee of Roman culture and civilization, and the only channel by which it could be transmitted to the new societies and institutions of Europe. It thus faced a greater challenge and opportunity than at the time of Constantine’s conversion. It had the chance to recreate the secular framework of society ab initio, and in its own Christian image. It was the only organized international body left with ideas, theories, a sophisticated hierarchy and advanced cultural technologies, in an empty world which possessed little but tribalism. Moreover, the Church, in the writings of St Augustine, possessed an outline – albeit a pessimistic one -of how a Christianized, earthly society should work. During these four centuries, then, the Church acted as a ‘carrier’ of civilization rather as, in its formative period, the Hellenistic religious-culture machine had ‘carried’ Christian Judaism into a Roman, Universalist context. The great merit of the Latin Church – the chief reason for its success – was that it was not anchored in any particular racial, geographical, social or political context. It bore

What happened after Herod’s death?

Immediately after Herod’s death in 4 BC, perhaps in the very year of Jesus’s birth, there had been disturbances in Galilee, and some 2,000 Jews had been crucified by Varus. Galilee was an area of mixed religious cults, where Judaism was active and becoming predominant by vigorous and aggressive proselytizing.

How did the favour of the State affect the bishops?

Of course the favour of the State enormously increased the value of clerical status, and the desirability of office, particularly higher ones. The council held at Sardica in the Balkans in 341, for instance, tried to prevent transfers of bishops from one see to another, as ‘a bad custom and a wicked source of corruption’. It noted severely: ‘We don’t find bishops wanting to transfer from a large see to a smaller one: all are aflame with the fires of greed, and are slaves of ambition.’ The historian Ammianus, a pagan but fair-minded as a rule towards Christianity, drew the connection between disputed episcopal elections and the revenues of the see. Thus after the election battle between Damasus and Ursinus for the bishopric of Rome in 366, Ammianus says that 137 bodies were found in a church – on the site of what is now St Maria Maggiore. Naturally, he adds, such things happened, since once in office, the bishops of Rome: ‘are free from money worries, enriched by offerings from married women, riding in carriages, dressing splendidly, feasting luxuriantly – their banquets are better than imperial ones. But they might be really happy if, despising the vastness of the city, in which they can hide their faults, they lived like provincial bishops, with harsh abstinence in eating and drinking, plain apparel, eyes cast to the ground – proclaiming themselves pure and reverent men to the everlasting deity and his true worshippers’. The Sardica canons also indicate that the rich and well-connected were making their way into the Church purely for material advancement. They lay down: ‘If a rich man, or lawyer, or state official be offered a bishopric, he should not be ordained unless he has previously acted as a reader, .deacon or priest, and so rises to the highest rank, the episcopate, by progressive promotion … ordination should only be conferred on those whose whole life has been under review for a long period, and whose worth has been proved.’ This canon proved totally ineffective, to judge by the number of famous clerics who broke it, or had it broken on their behalf. It was common for the State or private interest groups to push their nominees into key Church posts, irrespective of their status. St Ambrose was baptized, went through the various clerical ranks and was consecrated bishop of Milan all within eight days. Among laymen ordained direct to the presbyterate were St Augustine, St Jerome, Origen and Paulinus of Nola. Fabian was a layman when made Pope in 236; Eusebius was only a catechumen when made bishop of Caesarea in 314; other laymen-bishops were Philogonius of Antioch in 319, Nectarius of Constantinople in 381 and Synesius of Ptolemais in 410. Eusebius, it should be added, was enthroned by the military, as were Martin of Tours and Philiaster of Brescia. Gregory of Nazianzus says it was common in the fourth century for bishops to be selected ‘from the army, the navy, the plough, the forge’. Jerome complained: ‘One who was yesterday a catechumen is today a bishop; another moves overnight from the amphitheatre to the church; a man who spent the evening in the circus stands next morning at the altar, and another who was recently a patron of the stage is now the dedicator of virgins.’ Direct bribery was also common. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, found six cases of episcopal simony at the synod he held at Ephesus in 401. They came clean: ‘We have given bribes – the thing is admitted – so we would be made bishops and exempt from civil duties.’ They asked to be confirmed or, if this were impossible, to have their money back. They were evidently small men: ‘Some of us have handed over furniture belonging to our wives.’ They got their bribes back and, after Chrysostom’s fall, their bishoprics too, keeping their wives all the time. Almost from the start, the State tried to limit the exploitation of clerical privilege or, rather, use it for secular purposes. As early as 320, and again in 326, Constantine tried to prevent tax-evasion by the

Where were the majority of Christians?

Christians were in the majority only in Alexandria and certain Syrian cities. Generally, they preferred Arab-Moslem to Greek-Christian rule, though there were periods of difficulty and persecution. There was never, at any stage, a mass-demand from the Christians under Moslem rule to be ‘liberated’.

Why did Winfrith come to the continent?

Winfrith first came to the Continent to aid Willibrord. The precise year and place of his birth are not known, but the date was possibly 672 or 675 and the place not far from Exeter. In early childhood he expressed a wish to enter the monastic life, but only tardily won his father’s consent.

What was the last major controversy in the Justinian era?

The Justinian era. The final stages of the Christological controversy: Monotheletism. The western and eastern sections of the Catholic Church continue to drift apart. The coming of the Arabs and Islam. The slowing down of theological creativity in the Byzantine Empire. The last great figure in Greek theology, John of Damascus. The iconoclastic controversy. The continued

Why were monasteries so lax?

Monasteries became lax in the ob- servance of their rules, bishops tended to be secular magnates, and the morals of the clergy deteriorated. In the middle of the tenth century, the Papacy, deprived of the support of the Carolingians, became the victim of local factions in Rome and reached an all time nadir.

How long did Jerome live?

Jerome lived on until 420, surviving the death of Paula and several of his closest friends, and dying where he had spent the last thirty-four years, in Bethlehem. His was a tempestuous career, but by his ardent advocacy of monas- ticism he had given a great impetus to that movement, especially in the West.

What is the pre-Christian course?

The Pre-Christian Course of Mankind. 1. The general setting of Christianity in history. The youth of Christianity. The limited area of early Christianity. The unpromising rootage of Christianity. 2. The immediate background of Christianity: Judaism. The rise of Judaism.

Why were bishops placed on tablets?

Lists of bishops, emperors, and benefactors of the Church, both liv- ing and dead, were placed on tablets, called diptychs, for commemoration at the Eucha-. rist. Removal of a bishop’s name from the diptychs of another bishop was symbolic of excommunication.

When did the Byzantine revival begin?

The revival in the Byzantine Church was associated with the period which was spanned by the Mace- donian dynasty, 867 to 1056, a period of about two centuries.

Who was Nat Turner?

Life of Nat Turner (Baptist), Virginia slave revolt leader Life of Brigham Young, leader of majority Utah branch of Mormons after death of Joseph Smith Life of Charles Colcock Jones (Presbyterian), interdenominational missionary to USA slaves Life of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) Life of Samuel Wilberforce, Anglican bishop and advocate of British "mission civilisatrice" Life of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of U.S. Anti-Slavery Society Life of Wilhelm Weitling, evangelical advocate of class war, founder of League of the Just Founding of Christian Association of Washington County (PA) by Alexander Campbell, to evolve into Disciples of Christ American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions first mission to Africa Life of Richard Wagner, German nationalist composer, promoter of myths of Aryan superiority & neo-paganism Life of Henry Ward Beecher, famed American Congregationalist preacher 1813 1818 1820 1820± 1821 1826 1828

Who was the founder of Methodism?

Decree of Toleration (Peter) in Russia 1758 Life of John Edwards, Congregational cleric & Methodist evangelist to USA; helped stimulate the "Great Awakening" 1764 Life of Gilbert Tenant (Presbyterian) supporter of "Great Awakening," arguing that all who are called could preach 1791 John Wesley, founder of Methodism 1790 Life of Benjamin Franklin, American statesman and deist 1788 Life of Charles Wesley, brother of John and co-founder of Methodism; author of many hymns 1713 Episodes of Maya talking crosses and other syncretistic phenomena Apparition of the Virgin to Maya Dominica López Apparition of the Virtin to María de la Candelaria at Cancuc, Yucatán Dominica López executed for heresy Virgin movement of Cancuc, Yucatán, under Sebastián Gómez, rejecting Spanish church in Mexico 1770 Life of George Whitfield, British Methodist evangelist in USA, collaborator of John Edwards in the Great Awakening 1730± Reforms of Peter the Great diffuse Russian church power; reform 1804 1741 1796 1826 1784 1809 1764 calendar Russian missions centralized by Peter the Great Life of Immanuel Kant, philosopher who equated religion with morality; condemned Judaism as mere ritualism Vitus Bering explores Alaska for Russia Life of Catherine the Great of Russia Life of John Adams, American statesman and deist Mother Anne Lee, founder of Shakers (celibate communalists) Life of Thomas Paine, American statesman and deist Russian Agency of Covert Affairs under Dmitrii Sechenov assaults non-Christian religions 1750± First Great Awakening of revivalism in USA 1815 1826 1836 Life of John Murray, Methodist founder of American Universalists, believing in the salvation of all humans Life of Thomas Jefferson, American statesman and deist Life of James Madison, American statesman and deist 1764 1767 1767±

Who was the Puritan missionary who was banished to Rhode Island for advocating church-state separation?

Life of Roger Williams (Puritan), banished to Rhode Island for advocating church-state separation Life of John Eliot, Puritan missionary to Massachusetts Indians Life of Archbishop Nikon, Russian patriarch (1652-66), who sought to return Russian ritual practice to Greek original Assassination of Henry IV; persecution of Huguenots resumed under Cardinal Richelieu Guamán Poma’s "Talking Book" sent to Philip III in Spain complaining of Spanish treatment of Peruvians Synod of Dort; Calvinist doctrine of election clarified and Arminian Remonstrants condemned; Puritans free converted slaves Life of Archpriest Avvakum, Old Believer; condemned as heretic in 1667, burned for heresy Life of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers) based on direct encounter with God Westminster Confessor adopted by Presbyterians Islamic missionizing becomes capital crime in Russia Orthodox reforms of Nikon Reforms of Archbishop Nikon of Moscow offend Old Believers Society of Friends (Quakers) founded by George Fox 1672 1662 1662 1656 1725

Who was Heinrich Bullinger?

Life of Heinrich Bullinger, iconoclastic follower and successor of Zwingli in Zurich Luther studies theology in Augustinian seminary; ordained as priest Life of Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary to Asia Life of John Calvin (Jean Cauvin), major Protestant reformer, headquartered in Geneva; founder of Reformed movement Elder Philotheus (Russia) explains failure of world to end in 1492; end date declared unknowable Spanish conquest of the Americas Fifth Lateran Council; Giles of Viterbo argues for personal transformation, not changing the church Life of Teresa of Ávila, mystic; founder of Carmelite Reform; made Doctor of the Church in 1970 1516

Who was the defender of icons and sacred objects?

Leontius of Neapolis, defender of icons and sacred objects Persians capture and sack Jerusalem Heraclius recaptures Jerusalem from Persians Arabs capture Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria; Jews permitted to return to Jerusalem Jerusalem capture by Muslims Maximus of Turin exiled Life of the Venerable Bede, historian of Christianity in England ("Venerable" was a priestly title at the time.) Life of John of Damascus, who saw Islam as a Christian heresy Life of John of Damascus, advocate of icons, critic of excessive Marianism; viewed Islam as Christian heresy Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople

Who was the founder of the Syrian monasteries?

Jacob Bradeus of Nisibis, founder of Syrian monasteries Birth of St. Columba, founder of Scottish and Irish monasteries Reign of Justinian Building of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople 540± 604

Who was the first martyr?

Life of Paul Judas of Galilee argues against paying taxes to Rome Stephen stoned to death, the first martyr (sometimes called proto-martyr) at Jerusalem gate under gaze of pre-conversion Paul Life of Josephus, author of History of the Jewish War Paul discusses circumcision with Jerusalem church Gospel of Q composed Gospel of Thomas composed Apostle Thomas arrives on Malabar coast and forms churches Paul’s letter to Galatians composed Reign of Nero Life of Tacitus, Roman historian James, brother of Jesus, executed by stoning Great Fire in Nero’s Rome blamed on Christians Apostle Paul executed in Rome Nero begins persecution of Christians; Peter crucified in Rome Jewish War (rebellion of Zealots against Rome) Life of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, burned alive (pp. 77-78); famed as one of earliest well documented martyrs Pharisees finally emerge as dominant in Palestinian Judaism Temple Destroyed Gospel of Mark composed Last Zealots perish at Masada Reign of Titus Gospels of Matthew & Luke composed Life of Basilides, major founder of Alexandrian Gnosticism 85± 160

What is the starting point of Christianity?

There is a general belief that the birth of Christ is the starting point of Christianity . The

Which religion was formed out of Judaism?

practiced Judaism, Hence Christianity was formed out of Judaism.

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Preprints and early-stage research may not have been peer reviewed yet.