Christianity in late antiquity
Christianity in late antiquity traces
Persecution and legalisation
The
The Emperor
In 313, he and
The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian Emperor in the Church. Emperors considered themselves responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and thus they had a duty to maintain orthodoxy.[4] The emperor did not decide doctrine — that was the responsibility of the bishops — rather his role was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity.[5] The emperor ensured that God was properly worshiped in his empire; what proper worship consisted of was the responsibility of the church. This precedent would continue until certain emperors of the fifth and six centuries sought to alter doctrine by imperial edict without recourse to councils, though even after this Constantine's precedent generally remained the norm.[6]
The reign of Constantine did not bring the total unity of Christianity within the Empire. His successor in the East, Constantius II, was an Arian who kept Arian bishops at his court and installed them in various sees, expelling the orthodox bishops.
Constantius's successor,
Christian Emperor).However, although state persecution ended, by the early fifth century there was still much remaining prejudice within the empire against Christians: a popular proverb at the time was, according to Augustine of Hippo, "No rain! It's all the fault of the Christians."[7]
State religion of Rome
On
On this date, Theodosuis I decreed that only the followers of Trinitarian Christianity were entitled to be referred to as Catholic Christians, while all others were to be considered to be practicers of heresy, which was to be considered illegal. In 385, this new legal authority of the Church resulted in the first case of many to come, of the capital punishment of a heretic, namely Priscillian.[9][10]
In the several centuries of state sponsored Christianity that followed, pagans and heretical Christians were routinely persecuted by the Empire and the many kingdoms and countries that later occupied the place of the Empire,[11] but some Germanic tribes remained Arian well into the Middle Ages.[12]
Theology and heresy
Heresies
The earliest controversies were generally
The development of doctrine, the position of orthodoxy, and the relationship between the various opinions is a matter of continuing academic debate. Since most Christians today subscribe to the doctrines established by the
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
Later
Ecumenical councils
During this era, several Ecumenical Councils were convened.
- First Council of Nicaea (325)
- First Council of Constantinople (381)
- First Council of Ephesus(431)
- Council of Chalcedon (451)
These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes and represent an attempt to reach an
Council of Nicaea (325)
Emperor Constantine convened this council to settle a controversial issue, the relation between
The council drew up a creed, the
The Council was opposed by the Arians, and Constantine tried to reconcile Arius, after whom Arianism is named, with the Church. Even when Arius died in 336, one year before the death of Constantine, the controversy continued, with various separate groups espousing Arian sympathies in one way or another.[18] In 359, a double council of Eastern and Western bishops affirmed a formula stating that the Father and the Son were similar in accord with the scriptures, the crowning victory for Arianism.[18] The opponents of Arianism rallied, but in the First Council of Constantinople in 381 marked the final victory of Nicene orthodoxy within the Empire, though Arianism had by then spread to the Germanic tribes, among whom it gradually disappeared after the conversion of the Franks to Catholicism in 496.[18]
Council of Constantinople (381)
The council approved the current form of the Nicene Creed as used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches, but, except when Greek is used, with two additional Latin phrases ("Deum de Deo" and "Filioque") in the West. The form used by the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is part of Oriental Orthodoxy, has many more additions.[19] This fuller creed may have existed before the Council and probably originated from the baptismal creed of Constantinople.[20]
The council also condemned Apollinarism,[21] the teaching that there was no human mind or soul in Christ.[22] It also granted Constantinople honorary precedence over all churches save Rome.[21]
The council did not include Western bishops or Roman legates, but it was accepted as ecumenical in the West.[21]
Council of Ephesus (431)
The council deposed Nestorius, repudiated
The result of the Council led to political upheaval in the church, as the Assyrian Church of the East and the Persian Sasanian Empire supported Nestorius, resulting in the Nestorian schism, which separated the Church of the East from the Latin Byzantine Church.
Council of Chalcedon (451)
The council repudiated the
The Council of Chalcedon resulted in a schism, with the Oriental Orthodox Churches breaking communion with Chalcedonian Christianity.
Biblical canon
The Biblical canon—is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and thus constituting the Christian Bible-- developed over time. While there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 2nd century.[25]
Constantine commissions Bibles
In 331,
Current canon
In his Easter letter of 367,
Nonetheless, a full dogmatic articulation of the canon was not made until the 16th century and 17th century.[36]
Church structure within the Empire
Dioceses
After legalisation, the Church adopted the same organisational boundaries as the Empire: geographical provinces, called dioceses, corresponding to imperial governmental territorial division. The bishops, who were located in major urban centers by pre-legalisation tradition, thus oversaw each diocese. The bishop's location was his "seat", or "see"; among the sees, five held special eminence: Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. The prestige of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders, from whom the bishops were therefore the spiritual successors, e.g., St. Mark as founder of the See of Alexandria, St. Peter of the See of Rome, etc. There were other significant elements: Jerusalem was the location of Christ's death and resurrection, the site of a 1st-century council, etc., see also Jerusalem in Christianity. Antioch was where Jesus' followers were first labelled as Christians, it was used in a derogatory way to berate the followers of Jesus the Christ. Rome was where SS. Peter and Paul had been martyred (killed), Constantinople was the "New Rome" where Constantine had moved his capital c. 330, and, lastly, all these cities had important relics.
The Pentarchy
By the 5th century, the
Among these dioceses, the
. The prestige of most of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders, from whom the bishops were therefore the spiritual successors. Though the patriarch of Rome was still held to be the first among equals, Constantinople was second in precedence as the new capital of the empire.Papacy and Primacy
The Bishop of Rome has the title of Pope and the office is the "papacy." As a bishopric, its origin is consistent with the development of an episcopal structure in the 1st century. The papacy, however, also carries the notion of primacy: that the See of Rome is pre-eminent among all other sees. The origins of this concept are historically obscure; theologically, it is based on three ancient Christian traditions: (1) that the apostle Peter was pre-eminent among the apostles, see
Outside the Roman Empire
Christianity was by no means confined to the Roman Empire during late antiquity.
Church of the East
Historically, the most widespread Christian church in Asia was the Church of the East, the Christian church of Sasanian Persia. This church is often known as the Nestorian Church, due to its adoption of the doctrine of Nestorianism, which emphasized the disunity of the divine and human natures of Christ. It has also been known as the Persia Church, the East Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church, and, in China, as the "Luminous Religion".
The Church of the East developed almost wholly apart from the
Persian Empires
The Church of the East had its inception at a very early date in the buffer zone between the Roman Empire and the
Caucasus
Christianity became the official religion of Armenia in 301 or 314,[40] when Christianity was still illegal in the Roman Empire. Some[who?] claim the Armenian Apostolic Church was founded by Gregory the Illuminator of the late third – early fourth centuries while they trace their origins to the missions of Bartholomew the Apostle and Thaddeus (Jude the Apostle) in the 1st century.
Christianity in
Ethiopia
According to the fourth-century Western historian
Germanic peoples
The
From the 6th century AD, Germanic tribes were converted (and re-converted) by missionaries of the Catholic Church.[citation needed]
Many Goths converted to Christianity as individuals outside the Roman Empire. Most members of other tribes converted to Christianity when their respective tribes settled within the Empire, and most Franks and Anglo-Saxons converted a few generations later. During the later centuries following the
Goths
In the 3rd century, East-Germanic peoples migrated into Scythia. Gothic culture and identity emerged from various East-Germanic, local, and Roman influences. In the same period, Gothic raiders took captives among the Romans, including many Christians, (and Roman-supported raiders took captives among the Goths).
Wulfila or
Between 348 and 383, Wulfila translated the Bible into the Gothic language.[44][46] Thus some Arian Christians in the west used the vernacular languages, in this case including Gothic and Latin, for services, as did Christians in the eastern Roman provinces, while most Christians in the western provinces used Latin.
Franks and Alemanni
The
Monasticism
Monasticism is a form of asceticism whereby one renounces worldly pursuits (in contempu mundi) and concentrates solely on heavenly and spiritual pursuits, especially by the virtues humility, poverty, and chastity. It began early in the Church as a family of similar traditions, modeled upon Scriptural examples and ideals, and with roots in certain strands of Judaism. St. John the Baptist is seen as the archetypical monk, and monasticism was also inspired by the organisation of the Apostolic community as recorded in Acts of the Apostles.
There are two forms of monasticism:
See also
- Ante-Nicene Period
- Church Fathers
- Christian monasticism
- Christianization
- Development of the New Testament canon
- History of Calvinist-Arminian debate
- History of Christianity
- History of Christian theology
- History of Oriental Orthodoxy
- History of the Eastern Orthodox Church
- History of the Roman Catholic Church
- List of Church Fathers
- Patristics
- State church of the Roman Empire
- Timeline of Christian missions
- Timeline of Christianity
Notes
- ^ Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum ("On the Deaths of the Persecutors") ch. 35–34
- ^ "Persecution in the Early Church". Religion Facts. Archived from the original on 2014-03-25. Retrieved 2014-03-26.
- ^ R. Gerberding and J. H. Moran Cruz, Medieval Worlds (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) p. 55
- ^ Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476–752 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) pp. 14–15
- ^ Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476–752 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) p. 15
- ^ Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476–752 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) p. 16
- ISBN 9780140448948.
- ISBN 9780819601896.
- ^ Halsall, Paul (June 1997). "Theodosian Code XVI.i.2". Medieval Sourcebook: Banning of Other Religions. Fordham University. Archived from the original on 2007-02-27. Retrieved 2006-11-23.
- ^ "Lecture 27: Heretics, Heresies and the Church". 2009. Retrieved 2010-04-24. Review of Church policies towards heresy, including capital punishment (see Synod at Saragossa).
- ^ Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Yale University Press, September 23, 1997
- ^ "Christianity Missions and monasticism", Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- ^ G. T. Stokes, “Sabellianism,” ed. William Smith and Henry Wace, A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines (London: John Murray, 1877–1887), 567.
- ^ R. Gerberding and J. H. Moran Cruz, Medieval Worlds (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) p. 58
- ISBN 0-19-514183-0.
- ^ "canon 6". Archived from the original on September 15, 2008.
- ^ "canon 7". Archived from the original on September 15, 2008.
- ^ a b c "Arianism." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ "Armenian Church Library: Nicene Creed" (PDF).
- ^ "Nicene Creed." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ a b c "Constantinople, First Council of." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ "Apollinarius." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ a b c "Nestorius." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ "CHURCH FATHERS: Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)". www.newadvent.org.
- ^ The Cambridge History of the Bible (volume 1) eds. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans (Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 308
- ^ McDonald & Sanders, The Canon Debate, pages 414-415, for the entire paragraph
- ^ ISBN 1-4051-1078-3.
- ^ David Brakke, "Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria's Thirty Ninth Festal Letter", in Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994) pp. 395–419
- ^ McDonald & Sanders' The Canon Debate, 2002, Appendix D-2, note 19: "Revelation was added later in 419 at the subsequent synod of Carthage."
- ^ Everett Ferguson, "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon", in The Canon Debate. eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320; F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 230; cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 22.8
- ^ F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 234
- ^ F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 225
- ^ Everett Ferguson, "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon", in The Canon Debate. eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320; Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origins, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) pp. 237–238; F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 97
- ^ F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 215
- ^ The Cambridge History of the Bible (volume 1) eds. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans (Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 305; cf. the Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the New Testament
- Eastern Orthodox.
- ^ cf. Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476–752 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) p. 9
- ^ Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476–752 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) pp. 10 and 12
- ^ see J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio 3, p. 559
- ^ "Armenian History : Chapter III - The First Christian State in History". February 14, 2003. Archived from the original on 2003-02-14.
- ^ a b "Georgia, Church of." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Ethiopia". www.newadvent.org.
- ^ a b Padberg 1998, 26
- ^ a b Philostorgius via Photius, Epitome of the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, book 2, chapter 5.
- ^ Auxentius of Durostorum, Letter of Auxentius, quoted in Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 141-142.
- ^ Auxentius of Durostorum, Letter of Auxentius, quoted in Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 140.
- ^ 497 or 499 are also possible; Padberg 1998: 53
Print resources
- Guericke, Heinrich Ernst; et al. (1857). A Manual of Church History: Ancient Church History Comprising the First Six Centuries. New York: Wiley and Halsted.
- González, Justo L. (1984). The Story of Christianity: Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 0-06-063315-8.
- ISBN 0-06-064952-6.
- Shelley, Bruce L. (1996). Church History in Plain Language (2nd ed.). ISBN 0-8499-3861-9.
- Hastings, Adrian (1999). A World History of Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4875-3.
External links
- History of Christianity Reading Room: Extensive online resources for the study of global church history (Tyndale Seminary).
- Sketches of Church History From AD 33 to the Reformation by Rev. J. C Robertson, M.A, Canon of Canterbury
- Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). pp. 330–345. .
- Theandros, a journal of Orthodox theology and philosophy, containing articles on early Christianity and patristic studies.
- Fourth-Century Christianity