November 22, 2014

Christianity and the Late Antique World

Paganism

Those who practiced the old religion

Christians became committed to rooting out pagans
Religious practices could be found in everyday practices such as weddings, agriculture, in
streams, ect
The gods were honored with shrines and alters, as well as stone temples; they were included in
Olympic games, worshiped in wars, music, medicine ect
Could travel to visit Delphi in Greece
Asclepius was the god of medicine; he was worshiped far and wide due to his abilities
There were favouring offered to the gods for different reasons such as fertility, crops, ect
Used the gods in philosophy , and could contribute to emotional and mental needs

The Rise of Christianity

Until the middle of the fourth century, only a small minority of the Roman world was Christian

The New Testament and the Gospels

GOSPELS four books of the New Testament (Christian part of the bible) that record the words
and deeds of Jesus, the son of a carpenter who became a prophet and a teacher
All the texts in the New Testament were written in koine Greek
Produced translations of the Hebrew bible and by 400 CE there was a coby translated into Syric
The Vulgate was a Latin translation
Three of the four gospels are synoptic (seeing together) and tell similar stories
Jesus wrote down nothing himself, and facts such as his birth are hard to pin down
MIRACLES
o The first three gospels mainly talk about Jesus miraculous deeds, mainly that of healing
and exorcisms. He heals blindness, deafness, paralysis, leprosy, and a woman w/ chronic
bleeding
o Mental illnesses were often thought of as demonic possession
PARABLES AND THE APOCALYPSE
o Parables stories with ordinary things that had an allegorical meaning
o Jesus often lectured using parables
o the idea of a day of judgement complete with punishment for evildoers and the
salvation of a chosen group, and the resurrection of the dead is known as apocalyptic
o not clear whether Jesus thought of himself as the son of god

JESUS AND SOCIETY

o Gospels portray Jesus as an authority on Jewish law, debating Pharisees, and scribes on
several points
o Thinks of alternative ideals on Jewish law
o Gospels social message is one of inclusion and equality, although it is also
unconventional and radical
o He is executed by crucifixion and it is blamed on a Jewish council of elders
PAUL
o Apostles deputies or messengers of Jesus
o Christianity died out among Jewish in the mid 2nd century CE
o Paul was born in Tarsus, and was a tentmaker. He was a Pharisee, educated in Jewish
Law. He opposed Christianity at first but converted.
o He argued for a simpler dietary code and banned blod of animals that had been
sacrificed to pagan gods, idealized sexual abstinence, condemned sex outside of
marriage
o Pauls letters are a source of early Christian practises
o There are certain themes that reflect tensions in society with the churchwomen are also
prophesying with their heads uncovered

Persecution and Martyrs

Conflicts over religions were rare, but there were exceptions

A series of incidents for Jewish Law led to the revolt of 66 CE in Britain and Gaul
The earliest known source of persecution of Christians was by Nero who used them as a
scapegoat for the fire that consumed Rome in 64 CE and made spectacle of torturing them to
death
Pagans associated Christians with sexual indulgence, incest, cannibalism and other moral
outrages
Many Christians were killed but a lot preformed sacrifices to save their lives or obtained forged
certificates
The largest scale one was in 303 to 311 CE when Diocletian and his successor Galerius
persecuted the Christian populations
BISHOPS AND THEOLOGIANS
o Most Christian documents are written under false names to protect identities
o Writings include apologies, theological works on the nature of God, and Christ
o Authors are sometimes known as church fathers
o The leaders of important churches are known as episkopoi (bishops)
o Their disputes on theology give rise to heresies

The Conversion of Constantine

In 312, Constantine converted as he prepared for his battle with Maxentius to occupy the city;
he had a dream about the cross, and the following day he won the battle
The pervasive network of patronage and dependence that turned Roman society into a densely
interconnected web was well suited to the spread of a new religion one that converted of
high status would influence his/her entourage of slaves, freedmen, and friends
One key to the growth was the commitment as the Christian god demanded that one stopped
worshiping other gods
New laws began to favour Christians and outlawed pagan practices
Changes were slow: began to ban Gladiatorial contests in 325 and addressed doctrinal conflicts
within the church hesitantly and ineffectively, relying on his advisers: they were matters which
he did not understand
In 313 Christianity was legalized
The basilica a church that was rather large was built
Lots of advantages to conversion, including laws
After Constantine, the surviving literary works were mainly Christian as those of paganistic
nature were destroyed

Heresy and Schism

While paganism tolerated diversity, Christianity did not; heresy (any doctrine rejected by that of
the church to enforce their views) was a disease to be stamped out
Orthodoxy straight thinking
Doctrine was often decreed on by a council, and arrived at an ideal by a voting
Donatism rejected the ideas of the authority of those bishops who had agreed to hand over
sacred writings for destruction
Relationship between Christ and God was debated on

Monks and Ascetics

ASKESIS - describes the monastic way of life

Some monks lived in isolation while others formed communities and lived according to simple
ways of life

Public Architecture

By 600, the population was in decline due to a variety of reasons; some cities were abandoned
or shrank, and others moved
Possible that this was due to Christanity
Aristocrats turned from funding public buildings like theatres to churches and the like; left
legacies to churches in their wills

WOMEN AND MARRIAGE

o Christianity tries to appeal to women through their sexuality and need for femininity

The Decline of the Western Empire

Collapsed around the 5th century CE due to long term deteriorations

There were civil wars that also pitted barbarian armies against other branches of their won
tribes lead by both barbarian general
Any barbarians ruling in the west part of the empire were visitors granted land for military
service
Roman emperors would relocate barbarian tribes onto Roman soil
Eastern part of the empire survived until Constantinople fell to the Ottoman empire in 1453
FRANKS
o Troops fought in the Roman army since the 3rd century and their units were prominent
in the army of the 4th century
o They reached the highest levels of command and later settled in normal Germany with a
colony called the Salian Franks
o When the Merovingian kings achieved domination in Gaul, they preserved some of the
administrative structure of the Roman empire; appointed nobles from the Gallo-Roman
population, and taxed the Gallo-Roman population as well
o Clovis converted to Catholic Christianity from either paganism or Arianism and
Charlemagne made legislating against forms of paganism happen in the late 8th century
VISIGOTHS
o Begins around 375 when a new seminomadic people, the Huns appeared in Europe, and
unsure of their origins could be multiethnic
o Served in the Roman army until 376 when there was a crisis and in 378, there was a
rebellion; they defeated Emperor Valens at Hadrianople
o Alaric wanted land for his followers wanted to create an independent barbarian
kingdom, but died unsuccessfully
OSTROGOTHS
o Their origins lie in the traumatic arrival of the Huns; after the death of Attila (leader of
the Huns), and the dissolution of his empire in the 450s, the emperor allowed several
different groups and waves of Goths to migrate to the Roman Empire where they were
united by Theodoric in the 480s.
o In 470, a roman general Orestes revolted against the western empire of Julius Neops
and installed his son Romulus at Ravenna (the then capital); he was deposed in 476 by
Odoacer, the son of a Hunnic general who had risen through the ranks of the Roman
army and rebelled with the troops under his command. He maintained a relationship
with Eastern emperor Zeno until 489
VANDALS

In 406, perhaps because of conflicts with the Huns, several barbarian tribes tried to
cross into the Rhine and devastated the pop. with a violent invasion.
o They reached Spain in 409
o In 429 under Geiseric they invaded north Africa and ten years later they captured
Carthage. Christian historians who suffered under Adrian Vandals prosecution of
orthodoxy in Africa did not insist on independence from the Roman Empire rather, they
wanted the emperors to acknowledge their dominion over parts of it, which they did in
a series of treaties
BARBARIAN LEGAL CODES
o In the late 5th 6th centuries, the Visgoths and the Franks both issued law codes as well
as the Burgundians do not know how much this influenced Germanic cultures
o Codes are compared with the Roman codifications of Theodosius and Justinian and
focus on matters such as property and inheritance, loans, as well as theft, homicide,
assault, and so on
JUSTINIAN
o Ruled from 527 565 and was an era of ambitious imperialism and momentous events
near the end of the antique world history
o He repressed the bloody Nika Riots at Constantinople in 532 and nearly died from the
bubonic plague
o Sponsored a building program including the basilica of Saint Sophia and ordered the
compilation of a massive legal code to become the judicial legacy to the medieval world
o Most ambitions conquest was the reconquest of the barbarian kingdoms in the West
o

Muhammad and the Rise of Islam

Was born in Mecca, in a pagan oasis city in the western part of the Arabian peninsula
Arabs traded with the farmers and the barbarians
Pre-islamic poetry shows values of Bedouin society and heroic ideals of bravery as warriors
In 610, angel Gabriel spoke to Muhammed and it became the Quran
After his death in 632, Islam conquered Rman Syria and Persia then later Egypt, before invading
Visigothic Spain in 711

East and West

By the middle of the 7th century, Rome was reduced to a small fraction of its former self
The fall of Rome was a process
Many Europeans claim Greco-Roman culture as civilized