Video Transcript: Lesson 12

 Unit 07 02 Christianity

Hello, welcome back to the Christian leaders Institute course on ancient history. We're looking at civilization from the beginning, basically until 1500 ad in this class, and we're in the middle of the course, we're going to finish up the central section today, covering the years 500 BCE through 101,000. Ad. When we left, left off in the last discussion, we saw that the the ancient empire of Rome was divided in the fourth century, by Constantine the Great, and it was actually divided beforehand, but he inherited that and conquered it. And it was it really existed from that after in basically two different parts and eastern part, and a western part. This map reflects the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and the western part. They were one unified empire, but very clearly administered in two different ways. Constantine, and this is a statue of his monumental statue, huge statue of his that's enrolled right now. And he was admired by many thought of as a great emperor, a great general. But he had a huge problem, he had to find a way to unify east and west, during this very period of time is when their Christian religion arises. And we noted last time that while it had its beginnings, of course, in Jesus of Nazareth, and the Apostle Paul and the other apostles and early Christians in Palestine, in the province, the Roman province of Syria, sub province of Judea, it soon spread and the Apostle Paul's remembered as the apostle to the Gentiles. And it went beyond just a small Jewish group, and got into the Hellenistic Greco Roman world, noted that it was very mostly popular with the lower classes, although certainly it did have some wealthier people who supported it, and often would host in their homes. It was under suspicion as a mystery cult and as being unpatriotic. That is, it didn't give its heart and soul its unqualified allegiance to the Roman Empire. Around the year 112 ad, in the province of Bithynia, which is part of today, Turkey, in Asia Minor, there was a governor by the name of Pliny the Younger. And he wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan, in which he tried to explain how he was handling the situation of these Christians. And it's very famous and very, very important correspondence between plenty and Trajan. You'll find that in plenties, book number 10, it's letters 96, and 97. You may work still look those up online, but I thought it was worth quoting some of that, and I'll get to it in a minute, let me set a little context for this. In the ancient world, particularly during the time of the empire, one of the things that plagued the Empire is they had a law that said that if one person accused another, then that would have to be investigated. And the deal was if the accusation proved to be true, then the person who made the accusation basically took control of the accused and convicted persons property. So it was a very profitable thing to do to turn your neighbor in. And the charge greatest of all was that one was unfaithful to love to run. One was unpatriotic. And that had happened in Asia Minor in Turkey, and happened throughout the empire. But here plenty received the accusations about a group who are called the Christians. And so he begins a trial proceeding and brings them together. But he he's not sure exactly how to handle these people. And so what he does in this letter is he's writing the Emperor and asking for advice. He's explaining what he did, and asking for his advice. Now, let me just read some excerpts from this from this letter.

He writes, plenty writes how Having never been present at any trial of the Christians I'm unacquainted with a methods and limits to be observed either in examining them or punishing them. Whether any differences to be made on account of age, or no distinction allowed between the youngest and adult, whether repentance admits to pardon. Or if a man has once been a Christian, it avails him nothing to recant. Whether the mere profession of Christianity, I'll be it without crimes, or only the crimes associated there with our punishable in all these points, I am gratefully doubtful, excuse me. In the meantime, I have observed toward those who are denounced to me as Christians, this, I interrogated them whether they were Christians, if they confessed it, I repeated the question twice, again adding the threat of capital punishment. If they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed. For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel no doubt that their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy deserve chastisement. There were others also possessed of the same deprivation, but being citizens of Rome, I directed them to be carried feathered. So he interrogates those who are accused him of being Christians. He asked him if there's to recant, and if they do, he lets him off. And if they don't, he just has them executed. But those are only those who are not Roman citizens or Roman citizens, he sensed presumably to Rome. He's not clear he writes, whether these accusations spread from the mere fact of being investigated, and several forms of mischief came to light. A, he hangs a placard on them. Or rather, there is a public notice put up a placard, without any signature, accusing a large number of people by name. So somebody wrote on there, so and so as a Christian, and so and so as a Christian, and so and so is a Christian. Those who deny they were or have ever been Christians, who repeated to me, after me and indication to the gods, and offered adoration with wine and frankincense to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose. Together with the other gods, and who finally curse Christ, none of which acts is said, those who are really Christians can be forced into performing, I thought it proper to discharge, others who were named by that and farmer at first confessed to me that there they were Christians, and then denied it. True, they had been of that persuasion that they had quit some three years ago, others many years, a few as many as 25 years ago. Now remember, this is around the year 112. So now we're getting back into the early, mid first century. So those who denied Christ, they all worshipped your statue, and the image of the gods and curse Christ. So if they did that, they were set free. By but in the interrogation, they affirmed, however, the whole of their guilt or their air was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate versus a hymn to Christ, as to God, and found themselves by solemn oath not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, dafter adultery, never to falsify their word or deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up. After which it was their custom to separate and then reassembled to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. Even this practice, however, they had abandoned after the publication of my edict, by which according to your orders, I had forbidden political associations. I think I mentioned in the last session, that the Romans during this period of time would not allow groups of more than 10 or 20, to gather, for whatever reason, because they were afraid that that would lead to rebellion. And so we hear plenty talking about how he had published that edict he had prevented that ad that some of these Christians stopped meeting together, even in small groups.

After that was published. I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth with the assistance of torture from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses. But I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition is another The way in which the Romans viewed early Christianity it was a depraved and superstitious it was one of those mystery religions that they had no time for. I therefore, during the proceedings of the took myself at once to your counsel, for the matter seemed to me worth referring to you especially considered the numbers endangered. So now he's going to talk about how many people who lived in Bithynia lived into his province of Asia Minor, are involved in this Christian faith. So very instructive. persons of all ranks and ages and a both sexes are and will be involved in the prosecution. For this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities alone, but is spread to the villages and rural districts. It seems possible, however, to check and curate, it certain at least, that the temples, which had been almost deserted, are now being frequented, and the sacred festivals after a long intermission, are again revived, while there is a general demand for sacrificial animals, which for some time, have met with a few purchases. So what he's seen is that, due to these measures of persecution, and the edict that Christians are, people aren't allowed to meet together in groups. He sees that the Christian faith had grown. But now we're shrinking back again, and people are going back to their other ways of worshipping the Emperor, and worshiping the ancient gods. From dense, it's easy to imagine what multitudes may be reclaimed from this air, if adore, be left open to repentance. So plenty is asking the Emperor's advice, but also sort of giving him a notion about policy, we should we should allow these people opportunity to turn away from their faith to deny Christ, to offer worship to the, to the ancient gods and to your statue. And if they do that, we should allow them back and not punish them. This is a 112 ad, the Christian faith is very new, less than 100 years old. And this is in Turkey. The Emperor replies to plenty. This is what Trajan, the Emperor at the time writes, you observed proper procedure, my dear planning in sifting the cases of those who had denounced to you, who had been denounced to you as being Christians, for it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out. If they are denounced, that is someone has turned them in and proved guilty, guilty of being a Christian, they are to be punished with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian, and really proves it. That is by worshipping our gods, even though he has been under suspicion in the past, she'll obtain pardon, through repentance, but anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in the prosecution. So that practice of putting people's names up in public and saying so and so is a Christian, so and so as a Christian, so and so as a Christian, the Emperor tells plenty, pay no attention to those that kind of turning people in is both a dangerous kind of precedent. And out of keeping with the spirit of the age, the Romans loved order and law. So that is a very instructive and very early on correspondence between the Emperor and one of his governors. And really shows us the condition of early Christians, particularly in the east, particularly in Turkey.

It is the case that the Christian faith was much more common, much more common in the provinces of Syria and Turkey, than it was in let's say, the West and Italy or Greece, Spain. Also, it was early on, perhaps not quite this early, but early on into the second century. It had become very, very commonly practiced in Egypt so that we see that the growth of Christianity is really not in Italy, so as much as it is in Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. So that means in the US division of the empire between East and West, Christianity is much more significant factor in the east than it is in the West. And we see that being played out under Constantine, when it's he's trying to reunite the divided empire into eastern West. One of the things that had been going on was that in Alexandria, there was Alexandria, Egypt. And Egypt, by this time had become mostly Christian. There was a great theologian by the name of areas and areas was teaching a particular view of who Christ was, especially Christ nature, human and divine and how that worked. And Christ's relationship with God the Father. Others were teaching a different kind of point of view. And one of those associated with that, although he was a very young man at the time, is a man named Athanasius. This theological dispute, disagreement was causing great disruption and rebellion, even revolts. There were arguments in the streets. There was kind of an old saying, if you wanted to start an argument in Egypt, it had to do was say something about the nature of Christ. One find that kind of hard to believe these days, but people were very interested in this theology. So Constantine needed a way to unify his empire. And he had decided that the way to do that was to have a singular view of what it meant to be Christian, sort of established what would be the Orthodox point of view. And so he calls together and he sponsors it. He calls together, counseled the bishops, he invites all the bishops and about 500 or so attend to a council at a place in Turkey, very near Constantinople, the city that he would have built and named after himself, a place called nice cm. And this is known as the first Ecumenical Council. So bishops come and as well as other officials in their churches. They come to Nicea, to settle a number of issues. What is the date of Easter, among other things? You can look up the Council of Nicea online, but a primary issue is this theological one. Is there going to be more the view of areas and Alexandria? Or is it going to be more the view of Athanasius, and those particular in the east. So this is a Christological controversy. And that is one of the major first controversies theological controversies. In the church, the Trinitarian controversies would flow from this, and they would be discussed and debated and more or less resolved within the next 150 years or so. But the Christological controversy is first, what is the relationship between the human and divine nature of Christ? And what is his relationship to the Father, it's important to understand that this was for Constantine, at least less a matter of theology, theology, because he didn't seem to care. Which position what out what he wanted was just to have a singular position, so that he could use a singular perspective on Faith Christian faith, in order to unite

his church, his his country. There was an agreement that the nature of Christ is that he is of the same substance, with the Father Light of Light, God of gods, the Nicene Creed, if you look that up, you'll hear that emphasis so that they are identical. And yet he is still the son who proceeds from the Father and later from the spirit, at least in the West. There are still there were variations just because the Council of Nicea said this is going to be the official doctrine doesn't mean that everybody accepted it. As a matter of fact, the East remained primarily Aryan and even many parts of Europe did. But the official doctrine was that of Nicea following in 325 ad, lots of variations and Egypt in the Coptic phase remained yet a different perspective. This map Is of Turkey. And it comes out a little bit later time. But here is nicea where the conference was later conferences are places like kalsa, Don, and others, but they all focus much around Constantinople. Which is right here. Here's Cal Sudan, which was where the Trinitarian discussions and controversies were officially settled. So the rise of Christianity goes from plenty of time and 112, to a faith that is certainly not appreciated, looked on as unpatriotic, on Roman. And within 150 years, with some ups and downs becomes the official religion of Rome. The eastern part of the Roman Empire lasts actually for about 1000 years yet. And it's often not called East Rome. It's often goes by the title, Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire. And here is a signed reading for you. The article by Livius, entitled The Byzantine Empire, please read that and read that carefully. Byzantine is an adjective that's used to describe something that is overly complicated and complex, filled with intrigue. And for many years that was viewed as characteristic of the Byzantine Empire. unclear whether that's true or not, but sometimes you might describe something as Byzantine. And that just means much more complicated than it needs to be. The Byzantine Empire lasted for, as I said, almost 1000 years until the year 1453 ad, when finally, the Ottoman Turks rolled over Constantinople. It was the Christian empire. And it was the center of Christianity for nearly that whole time. Those of us who were raised in the West, we right away think of Rome as being the center of Christianity. But that is that's not historically true. Historically, true business, the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople is really the center of the Christian faith. It the Christian faith becomes the dominant faith throughout Egypt, Asia Minor in the Balkan regions, so you can Slavia in the in the like in those regions, and reaches up into Russia. And we'll focus on that in just a minute a little bit how the Christian faith got into Russia. The Byzantine Empire is remembered as being highly cultured. They continued many of the Hellenistic traditions in architecture, in trade. They were extremely wealthy, they were at the end of the Silk Road. And were major players in trade between India, China, Europe, Africa, many of those goods all flowed through the Byzantine cities and the Eastern Roman Empire.

They were on the border of the conflicts with the West, with Europe. And with the rise of Islam, again, we'll come to that in a little bit. But the Byzantine Empire was often understood as being the vanguard of the Christian faith in its conflict with Islam, at least in that part of Asia. And as I mentioned, they were sustained primarily by trade over the Silk Road. This is a map just to the Byzantine, little bit of the Byzantine Empire comes from a later point in time, but at one time, it had controlled almost all of Asia Minor, guard all of Asia Minor, and much of Persia, much of Asia, it lost that over time, particularly it lost it when Islam rose, but it retained particularly in the Greek areas. Significance, held Constantinople until 1453. And it also spread its influence greatly from the Balkans, to the Baltic. So this whole area becomes significantly influenced by this dies antium and the eastern view of Christianity, and then of course, all into Russia, and those nations we know today. So Byzantines is the continuation of Rome and and saw itself assess. One of the things that happened is that in the eighth and ninth centuries, the Slavic people just go back to this map. Slavic people or folks who lived in this, this region of Europe, Hungary, up to Poland, into key at the Principality of Kiev, and Russia. And they control the trade routes, particularly on the Danube and the Volga. And extremely actually, they became extremely wealthy trade routes with the Scandinavian countries and the Byzantine Empire were going on at this period of time. That all pass through Slavic lands, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and that would be comparable to the Pope in Rome. So the patriarch is the religious person in charge in Constantinople. And the Byzantine church, the Eastern Church, often called the Orthodox Church might be useful just to remember, I'll try to remember to be consistent in the way I talk about it. We talk about the Latin Church, which is really the Catholic Church in the West, and the Orthodox Church, which is the Catholic Church in the east. Orthodox east, Latin West, the Orthodox Church sent missionaries into that Slavic area and to the Slavic people. Cyril and Methodists are two of the famous names of early missionaries, I think they both died for their faith. And they began to convert bring the Christian faith to the Slavic people. The Eastern Slavic people adopted that orthodox or Eastern point of view, whereas the Western Slavic people adopted more of a Roman point of view, they became more Latin. In the year 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, and cab was a large, important principality at that time, not just a city, Vladimir is baptized, he marries a Byzantine Princess Anna, and Christianity comes to Russia. And then for the next

900 years, more or less. Russia is in many respects the center of the Orthodox Christian faith. Today, you might hear about Greek Orthodox, Syrian, Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and other sorts of Orthodox faith. And these are all continuations of that Byzantine point of view. We have to go back out west a little bit to the fall of Rome. As as you know, we have the eastern part of the Empire the western part of the Empire, the Eastern keeps going to Byzantium for another 1000 years. But the West soon falls around the year 376, for instance, it's often remembered as an important date. Rome has lost considerable authority. It has retrenched from its borders. It's continually trying to defend itself, against invasions from all sorts of different groups, the Huns, in particular, you may have heard of Attila and others sweep, almost always a they're coming from the east and they come east, in waves and migrations and armies, the Goths and Visigoths and Lollards. And just as many, many different groups come and many actually control Rome, and even sacrum. There's a period of time in which Rome is almost completely without population, because it has been so overwhelmed by the barbarian invasions. Finally, it is reduced to rubble by the Germanic invasions. And for 7680 is a traditional date to talk about the end of the Western Roman Empire that is its purely secular state. I thought it would be significant just to pause and talk a bit about the giant theological figure, Christian figure of this time by the name of St. Augustine. He comes very near the end of the Roman Empire. It's clear clearly crumbling, By that time, and he lives in writes out of that situation. St. Augustine is his name, his bishop becomes Bishop of Hippo, which is in North Africa. Then he's also from North Africa. His early years he was a brilliant young man was stet spent studying predict particularly different philosophies. He was deeply, deeply engaged with a philosophy called manic key ism, which posed duality of good and evil, kind of on equal basis, they were the world's is a conflict between good and evil. And you never know which one's going to win. He embraced a sort of a hedonism a philosophy that basically said, Let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we might die. And the goal of life is to enjoy yourself as much as possible, very self centered. He learned a lot about Plato and a take off of Plato's philosophy called Neo Platonism. And continue that influence, even after he became a Christian, but around the year 31. When he was 31 years old, he has a major conversion. And he writes about this conversion, and one of the most important works of Christian theology in the West, called the confessions of St. Augustine. He tells about his early life, he tells about his conversion experience, and he tells about his soul searching. This is a this is a dramatic change from the way theology is discussed previously, and the Christian faith is discussed previously. Before it was much more intellectual, it was the theological debates. It was not personalized, it was not turned into sort of a psychology prior to St. Augustine, this is the the main thing that we should remember about him, turn the Christian faith into one that is personally significant, not just politically significant, not just socially significant, not just ritually significant, but is significant for how it's affects one's inner life. And we, that's a lot of the influence of Neo Platonism.

There. After St. Augustine for the next 800 years or so, and I would think quite arguably, even to the president, because the Protestant wing of the Latin Church is primarily Augustinian in its theology. So he still has tremendous influences, writing, thinking theology, still has tremendous influence. the sovereignty of God was probably one of his primary themes. He discusses election, for instance, and all the later debates that you'll get within Lutheranism, and Calvinism and among Baptists and the rest, about election and predestination. All go back to Augustine. The notion of depravity and human depravity of the original sin, goes back to Augustine in significant ways. He writes about that he connects it very much with sexuality and being human. Again, that's his Neo Platonism coming out, significant discussion of Trinitarian understanding and he speaks of God as the the lover, love and the lover, beloved. And the love is one way to talk about the Trinity. He is very engaged and ruminates on the relationship between church and state what we would call today that relationship. He writes, as Rome is crumbling, and how can it be that the city and the empire that has ruled for 1000 years that he knows? How can it be that that it is crumbling? And where is God and all of this and how does one understand that? He writes about just war theory? When is it appropriate? When is it right to take up arms as a Christian, and many other things, he is known as one of the primary if not the primary church father, for Western Latin Christian doctrine, for the next 800 years or so up until the time of Thomas Aquinas. Now, historically, we can also say he advances a platonic or Neoplatonic view of world an ideal view of the world where the Due to reality is not found is here, the found in the ethereal, found in the ideal. Just jumping ahead a few 100 years, when we get to say Aquinas will see that Aquinas is primarily passing on a philosophical tradition of Aristotle, which is very this worldly. And we see a significant change in how doctrine, Christian doctrine develops. So the Roman Catholic Church today is primarily following Aquinas, and the Protestant side is primarily following St. Augustine, it's not accidental that Martin Luther was a monk in the Augustinian order. We're gonna move just quickly through the last period of time for the fall of Rome, at a time of St. Augustine, through the early medieval period, Augustine is often seen as that sort of transitional period between antic antiquity, the ancient world, and the medieval world. Europe today, places of Spain, Italy, France, Germany, is officially, with quotation marks officially, still part of the Western Empire and ruled by Byzantium, the emperor in Rome, or the anti emperor in Constantinople is still the emperor in these other places, but gives very little support to the western part. They ask for support from him, but very little comes. Europe is under constant threat, and constant invasion by barbarians, various groups move through Slavic tribes, Germanic tribes, later we're going to see

in a later time, the Mongol tribes. So Rome is under constant pressions society is, is in a great upheaval, there is no central authority in Western Europe at this time, it devolves into just sort of local kings who can local lords who can have their manor house and who, you know, can do a certain amount of protection. And life is cheap. It is a time in which plagues ravage Europe, plates come and go throughout ancient civilizations and into the medieval times. But it is a particularly strong period of time, there's estimates that maybe a third of the population of Europe dies during this early medieval period because of the plague, and because of smallpox. Often it's called the Dark Ages. That really a very historical way of looking at things, but it is a time in which there is a serious decline of culture, people would draw within trade falls apart at its subsistence living literacy, which would have been very high among the Romans. When, when the Roman Empire was in charge, there's a great deal of literacy throughout Europe, declines to almost nothing. Almost no one can read a little bit is kept alive in the monasteries, particularly when we get to to Ireland. We have the Irish monks to thank for keeping reading alive in the Western tradition, that otherwise, it is a culture that has shrunken, it is a civilization that really has fallen apart in the early Middle Ages. This is back to that map and you just get some impression. This is around the year 1000 of how it's divided up into all these various kingdoms. Italy is divided. The German Empire here is the kingdom of the Franks, and they are constantly fighting each other and constantly threatened by invasion. About the only authorities that had sway beyond just a local level is the church. It is officially under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch in Constantinople. But gradually over time, the Pope and the Roman church, the Latin Church begins to in this assert sort of an independent authority An example of that is Pope Gregory the first who's Pope from 590 80 through 604. So about 14 years, Gregory began as a monk. And the monastic movement, by the way, is early on as an expression of Christian faith begins in Egypt, but spreads up and here. These are community of people who sort of reject society and want to live a pure life devoted to prayer and devoted to fraternal living. There's both monks, as well as the nuns. Gregory emphasizes sacramental worship, and there are reforms that he brought to that he sent many missionaries out he wanted the faith to spread, he sent them particularly into England and into the British Isles. And he begins the process, because there is no central authority. He begins the process of wedding together, the spiritual authority of the Church, and the political authority of the Church. He has his own army, by the way, he fights mother Christians, their area and Christians, but they're a barbarian tribe called the Lombards, who are up in northern Italy, and fights with him for a while, but then later on makes peace. So Gregory, the first is, should be remembered as one of those early Pope's who helped combine the secular and sacred authority of the Church that is so much a story of medieval Europe. I think that we'll pause here for today, and finish off Europe next time and also see how Islam arises and so changes World History. Thank you very much and God bless you today.