Lesson 3: Roman Expansion

 

 

Pictured here is a "christogram" found painted on the walls of the catacombs under the streets of Rome in the early fourth century. X and P (chi & rho) are the first two Greek letters in the word "Christ,"and are often used as a shorthand form for that word. A (alpha) and W (omega) are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. To say that Jesus Christ is the "alpha and omega‚" is to say that he is the first and the last, or as we might put it "the beginning and the end."

 

 

Despite persecution and theological division, the Christian church continued to grow throughout the third century (the 200 s A.D.). A final wave of persecution under the Emperor Diocletian attempted to exterminate Christianity. He decreed in 303 that all Christians should be killed, all copies of the Scriptures should be publicly burned, and all churches destroyed. In this period the Church lost many ancient documents and buildings. Christians found it necessary to worship in secret caves and tunnels dug under the streets of Rome. These tunnels, called the catacombs, are a rich source of Christian art and information.

 

This link will show you some excellent pictures of the catacombs:

http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/DarleneBishop/rome/Catacombs.html

 

Christians also went underground into catacombs in some other major Roman cities such as Paris and Lyons in Gaul (modern France). At the same time the list of martyrs swelled to an unprecedented number. However, the Christian faith would not die. In fact it continued to attract followers who were tired of the old Roman sexual immorality and the bloody games in the Colosseum. Many converts found the high morals of the Christians attractive. No longer confined to the lower classes, some wealthy and influential members of the Roman nobility were converted to Christianity.

 

 

 

This picture shows the gravestone of a Christian woman who worshiped underground and was buried there in the catacombs under the streets of Rome. Fish were an important part of early Christian symbolism. The Greek word for "fish" is ICQUS.These letters are the initials for the phrase "Jesus Christ Son of God Savior."

 

 

A wealthy woman named Helena was the mother of Constantine, who became Emperor in 312 A.D. She made a pilgrimage to Palestine to see the sites where Jesus had lived and died. Many of the churches built over the location of Jesus' miracles had recently been destroyed by the Roman persecutors, but there were Christians still living in Palestine who remembered the location of the sites of Jesus' birth, death, and burial. They showed Helena these places and she ordered new churches built over these sites.

When Helena's son Constantine became Emperor, one of the first things he did was to make Christianity a legal religion. With this edict all persecution stopped. Two years later in 315 A.D. Constantine went even farther and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. The effects of this edict were both positive and negative for the church. Many Christians both then and now realized that Constantine' edict made the church politically stronger and morally weaker than it had ever been. On one hand, Christians no longer had to fear for their lives. On the other hand, now everyone, good or bad, born into the Roman Empire was automatically a Christian. No one had to make a commitment to live for God, but was routinely baptized as soon as they were born. Previously the Church had stood against the evils of the Roman Empire. Now the Church WAS the empire, and the empire WAS the Church. There has been a long debate about whether Constantine really believed in the Christian faith, or whether he simply used Christianity as a force to unite his empire.

One can easily see how the Bishop of Rome began to rise in importance. Since Rome was the largest city and the capital of the Roman Empire, many bishops of smaller cities began to accord to him increased respect. They would ask his opinion on various matters, unofficially at first. Yet gradually the Bishop of Rome became a "first among equals" of all the Christian bishops. This process eventually gave rise to the notion that the Bishop of Rome holds primacy over all other Christian bishops, a notion that resulted in the holder of that office being referred to as the " Pope," (Latin "Papa"or "Holy Father") of the Church.

 

 

 

 

Day 2

 

Even though the Christian Church gained a large measure of political power with its acceptance by Emperor Constantine, the doctrinal disputes did not end. Usually the church dealt with these doctrinal controversies by calling an ecumenical (worldwide) council.   Christian bishops from all over the world would agree to meet together to hear the arguments on all sides of a dispute, then they would pray for God's guidance and pronounce what they believed was God's decision on the issue in question. The first ecumenical council is known as the Council of Jerusalem, and is described in Acts 15. The question there was whether Gentiles should be admitted to the church or not.

About the time Constantine came to power there was a Christian teacher in Alexandria, Egypt named Arius, who taught that Jesus Christ must have been created at some point in time. Thus, he was a creature just as all other human beings are creatures. As he put it, "There was a time before which Jesus Christ did not exist." He was opposed by Athanasius, the secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius taught that Jesus Christ could not have been created at a certain point in time because he is the eternal Son of God. If Jesus Christ were only a mere created man and not part of the Eternal God, then he could not fully save us from all our sins. Athanasius insisted that Jesus Christ must be fully human and also fully, eternally and unchangeably divine.

            Emperor Constantine neither understood this theological dispute, nor cared how the bishops resolved it---but resolve it they must. The stability of his empire was in danger. He wrote to a bishop in Spain expressing his disappointment saying that he had used Christianity as a force to consolidate his empire, but now Christianity itself was divided. In 325 an ecumenical council was called in the town of Nicaea (pronounced ny-SEE-ah), in the northern suburbs of modern Istanbul, Turkey. There the bishops debated and found in favor of the followers of Athanasius. They produced a second important Christian creed, the Nicene Creed. This creed was a big step toward the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, a very rich teaching that even though there is only one God, He reveals Himself in many ways. We describe the many ways God appears to us by saying that the one God reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Arius and his supporters were condemned and banished from the empire, their books were burned, and some of those who followed him were arrested. The decision of Nicaea, however, did not put this controversy to rest. Probably more Christians in the world at that time believed in Arius' position, even though more of the powerful bishops followed Athanasius. Ten years later in 335, a synod met in the Palestinian seaport of Tyre and declared Arianism to be the correct position, Arius and his followers were released from exile, and the controversy dragged on for another century even though the official position of the Roman Church-State never changed. Constantine must have liked the location of Nicaea, because in 330 he established the nearby town of Byzantium as the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. He renamed the city after himself "Constantinople, which means "the City of Constantine."

The Emperor Justinian (482-565) set up a new law code and governmental structure that allowed Constantinople to remain the most important city in the world for more than a thousand years. Justinian was a devoted Christian who is also noted for building great churches. The present Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over the grotto where Jesus was born, was constructed by Justinian. An identical copy of that church still stands in the city of Split in the Yugoslav Republic. A very famous church he built in Constantinople was the Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Hagia Sophia in the Greek language. Until the reconstruction of St. Peter's in Rome during the Italian Renaissance 900 years later, the Hagia Sophia was the largest and most impressive church building in all of Christendom. Justinian was attempting to make a house of God as beautiful as King Solomon's Temple, described in the Hebrew Bible. When his church was finished, Emperor Justinian looked at it and declared, "Solomon, I have outdone you!"

 

[IMAGE]

 

To learn more about Constantinople, look at some of the links found here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/byzantium/images.html#ex3

 

Your parents are helping you with this confirmation material, I hope. If they would like to do some further reading on this period in history (or if you are a good reader with lots of time and are just curious), you might like to check out some of the links at this web site.

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/ancient.html

 

 

 

Day 3

 

When the Roman Empire took the Christian Church into itself as the official religion, the Church also took the Roman Empire into itself, with all of its brutality, excess, immorality, and oppression. It was difficult for some sensitive Christian souls to tolerate the evils that came with the merger of the Church and the Empire. Because they could not change the world, they decided to leave it. When the multitudes streamed into the churches, the monks streamed out into the desert.

St. Anthony may have been the first Christian to become a hermit. He left the bright lights of Alexandria, Egypt and lived the rest of his life out in the desert caves away from human contact. He spent his time in prayer, battling the demons that brought evil into the world and into his own heart. Many of these solo holy men went out and became engaged in some rather extravagant practices of self-denial and even self-punishment. Some, in order to pay for their sins, would whip themselves until they bled. Others monks would compete with one another to see who could endure in the desert the longest without sleep, food or water. Quite a few died in this way. Many stopped bathing or changing clothes until their bodies were crawling with vermin. Some wore hair shirts against their irritated skin. One monk punished himself by standing only on one foot for years; another lived at the top of a tall column, exposed to sun, rain, cold, and the insults of less dedicated humans. It all got to be rather strange, in fact. This practice of punishing the body for the sake of religion is known as asceticism (a-SET-i-si-sim). Even so, monks were regarded by most ordinary Christians as very holy men.

St. Pachomius, a disciple of St. Anthony, realized that perhaps such religious rigor needed to be channeled to yield true spiritual benefit. He was the first to gather together those who would be monks into communities, who, although they lived out in the desert caves, followed a common rule about eating, drinking, praying and working. These communities of monks who lived together under a certain set of rules were called coenobitic (pronounced koi-no-bit-ic) monks.

The creation of communities of monks under a certain rule continued in both the Eastern and the Western Roman Empire. A whole network of religious houses was founded by St. Basil in the East starting in the year 358. A century and a half later, a similar network was established in Western Europe under the Rule of St. Benedict.

Because the men in these monastic communities were considered to be especially holy, whenever the church needed to elect a new bishop, they turned to the monasteries. For centuries bishops coming from the ranks of the monks brought monastic practices into the church as a whole. From setting certain hours for prayer, to making rules for worship, to creating a calendar of worship for the Christian year, these monks had a powerful impact on the life and practice of the Christian Church for a thousand years. Even after the Roman Empire collapsed and the cities were laid waste by the Barbarians, the monasteries continued to be little islands of faith, learning, and political structure that had existed in the glory days of the Roman Empire.

 

For more information on monasticism take a look at this link. Read as much or as little as you choose

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry?id=32020

 

 

 

Day 4

 

Some Study Questions

Print out this section, write your answers on your paper copy, and bring your completed questions to class. You may get help from your parents or another member of the class.

 

1.      The Roman Emperor who made Christianity the official religion of the Empire was named __________________.

2.      He really did not care a great deal about religion but used Christianity as a kind of "glue" to do what? __________________________

3.      When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman government, the empire's capital city became the capital city of the Church. It is easy to understand why more power then flowed to the Bishop of what city? The bishop of this city is also known as The _______.

4.      There was a controversy about whether Jesus Christ was a created being, or whether he is an eternal part of the Trinity. The Christian scholar who said Christ was created was named __________, and his opponent was _________________

5.      This theological controversy finally had to be decided at a worldwide meeting of the church, known as an e____________  c_______________.

6.      The meeting at which the Arian controversy was settled met in which town outside of Constantinople? ____________________

7.      At about this same time, the church began to teach the doctrine of the Trinity, that is, the idea that there is only one God, but that He shows Himself in three ways that we call F____________, S_____, and H_______ S__________.

8.      Christians who felt that the general population had become so sinful they had to leave it by going into deserts and caves were known as __________.

9.      The practice of punishing the body for religious reasons is known as ____________.

10.  The monk who established a network of communities for monks in the East was _____________. The monk who established a similar network in the West was ________________.

 

 

 

 

Day 5

 

Toward the end of the fifth century the city of Rome suffered repeated invasions from various barbarian tribes. As a result of these invasions the Roman government was greatly weakened, no longer able to defend itself or to provide services to its citizens. Some historians mark the invasion in the year 476 as the end of the Roman Empire. After that date a succession of Germanic kings set themselves up as the ruler of Rome, but the Empire in the West had effectively collapsed. The Empire in the East, however, ruled from the city of Constantinople continued to exist for another thousand years.

With the collapse of the Roman political structure, art, law, and army there was a general decline in communications, education, and civilization. With the passing of time people forgot how to read. Within a few generations the Roman language (Latin) was changed by the individual barbarian groups that tried to use it, and it was transformed into a hundred dialects. Sometimes people who lived in the countryside could not even understand their neighbors who lived on the other side of a river or mountain. Roads and aqueducts fell into ruins and people stopped traveling far from home. Because there was no effective law enforcement, highwaymen and thieves made travel very dangerous.

St. Augustine, Bishop of the city of Hippo on the northern coast of Africa, attempted to explain why God had permitted the Roman Empire to collapse. In his book The City of God, Augustine writes that Rome represents the city of man, doomed to collapse because of its sin, while the Church represents the City of God, which must finally win.

Because the monks had insulated themselves from the world in their monasteries, however, they continued to read, to write, to copy books, and to add artistic decorations to their manuscripts. When the political structure in the West collapsed, the structure of the bishops, priests, and deacons of the church remained intact. In many ways, the monasteries kept the light of learning flickering as the so-called "Dark Ages"covered Europe. If the ages were "dark,"though, they were dark only in Western Europe. In the Eastern Empire the light of civilization continued to burn brightly for centuries.

Some of the barbarian tribes that moved into the area formerly claimed by Rome were already Christian, and some were converted by zealous monks. Most of these barbarians, though Christian, adopted Arianism, a fact very displeasing to the Bishop of Rome. Gregory, a monk in the little hamlet of Tours in Gaul, tells the story of Bishop Remigius (St. Remy) converting Queen Clotilda, who then attempted to convert her husband King Clovis.  Once before a battle with the German tribe called the Alemanni he had prayed to the Christian God for victory, then defeated his enemy. He declared that everyone in his kingdom was to worship the Christian God. Thus Christianity entered the old Roman province of Gaul (modern day France) around the year 500. At the same time missionaries were sent throughout Germany and into Russia spreading the news that God had come in Jesus Christ. Sometimes these "conversions" were rather shallow. If a missionary could convince a tribal king to become a Christian, he would then simply decree that all of his subjects were Christians too. In some cases Teutonic tribal deities, or even the Roman gods, were simply assigned new Christian names.

Pope Gregory I ruled the Church from Rome around the year 600. He did two things that were noteworthy. In the first place, since there was a power vacuum in Rome, this powerful leader began to exercise not just spiritual power, but political power as well. Afterwards there were many disputes about who really ruled an area - the Pope or the King. Most Christians believed that the king ruled by divine right. In other words, it was God who gave the king his authority. Kings were crowned by the Pope or some other bishop, and the belief spread that the Pope had the authority to decide who was to be the king. In some cases when there were competing claimants to the throne, the Pope awarded the crown to the one who promised to do more for the Church. You can imagine that there are several important instances when the authority of the Pope and that of the king clashed.

Another thing Gregory did was to send missionaries to the British Isles. St. Augustine (the less) converted the Britons to Christianity for the first time from his log and mud church in the little crossroads of Cantabriensis (Canterbury). A young man named Padraigh was kidnapped by tribal enemies, then escaped, gave his life to God and carried the gospel for the first time to Ireland. We know him today as St. Patrick.

 

 

 

The Rise of Islam

 

Around 571 a young man was born in the distant wild deserts of Arabia who would change the history of the Christian Church and also that of the whole world. His name was Muhammad. His parents died when he was very young and he was raised by relatives in his family, part of the Quraysh (pronounced koo-RAYSH) tribe. As a young man he would often go to a particular cave, where he claimed an angel spoke to him. He wrote down what the angel said, and kept it in a book that has become known as the Quran (koo-RAHN). This book claims to show the will of God (the Arabic word for "God" is "Allah.") Most of Muhammad's family and friends did not believe he had really seen an angel, and they rejected him, and expelled him from his hometown of Mecca. Muhammad went to a nearby town called Medina, where there were a number of warring tribes. He united them, defeated all their enemies, and they believed that he really had talked to an angel. They called him "The Prophet," and made him their political and religious leader. He led an army of followers back to his hometown in 622 A.D. and conquered Mecca. This journey back to Mecca is known as the Hejira, and marks the year 1 in the Islamic calendar. Muhammad then united all of the tribes in Arabia under his new religion, which he called Islam (Submission). A person who follows this religion is known as a Muslim one who submits).

 

If you would like to read more about Islam in our world today, click on this link and follow its other links.

 

Muhammad died unexpectedly in 632 without naming a successor. A power struggle was resolved quickly and Mohammad's successors very rapidly conquered all of Palestine, northern Africa, and Mesopotamia. They even came to the city limits of Constantinople, and conquered all of Spain. They went into modern France, but were defeated at the city of Tours (where our friend Gregory the monk had lived a century before) in 732. Had the Muslims won, then it is possible that all of France might be a Muslim nation today! The Muslims were not finally expelled from Spain until 1492, the year Christopher Columbus discovered America. At about the same time, Muslim armies were camped on the outskirts of the city of Vienna, Austria. In our own time, fighting has renewed between Catholics and Muslims in Bosnia and the other Baltic States just north of the modern nation of Greece. In the ninth and tenth centuries, Western Europe was terrified of the Muslim armies camped on their doorstep.

Click on this link to see more maps showing Islamic expansion in the Dark Ages:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/map.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously the Christian nations were all frightened. Muslims had conquered Palestine, and controlled all of the holy sites where Jesus had taught and preached. Many churches were captured and turned into Muslim churches, known as mosques. The site of the Jewish Temple, for example, was captured and a famous mosque known as the Dome of the Rock was built on the site, where it remains today. It is pictured here.

 

 

The fear that this rapid Muslim conquest brought to the hearts of the Christian nations of the west caused them to become very defensive. They adopted a program of zero tolerance for anything except what they considered orthodox (Roman) Christianity that matched that of the Pope. The Holy Office (also known as the Inquisition) was established to stamp out any kind of heresy. This meant that many Muslims (if they could be captured), many Jews, and many heretics (Arians or other non-orthodox Christians) were rounded up and killed. The Holy Office was especially active in the few remaining Christian parts of Spain.

 

 

Some thought questions

Think about these questions, and jot down ideas in your notebook that will help you discuss these with your classmates on Sunday morning.

 

  1. Do you think any political leader such as Constantine can declare any religion to be "the official religion of the kingdom?" Why or why not?

  2. What were some of the reasons Rome fell? Can any government last forever?

  3. Do you accept St. Augustine's explanation of the fall of the City of Rome? Why or why not?

  4. Does God control the great events of world history, or has He put the world on "automatic pilot?"

  5. The conversion of Europe to Christianity was very shallow in many ways. Can you think of some better ways to spread the gospel?

  6. By the time of Pope Gregory, do you think that the Church was still spreading the teachings of Jesus? Why or why not?

  7. Under Pope Gregory the Church became very wealthy and powerful. Do you think it was still faithful to the teachings of Jesus? Could it have been?

  8. What do you think would have happened to the Christian religion if Constantine had not made it the official religion of the Roman Empire?

  9. The intense fear that the Christian West held for the Muslims caused them to react very strongly. Do nations today sometimes overreact to things we greatly fear? What are some of those things? Do you think the Church overreacted to the expansion of Islam and heresy, or were their fears justified?

  10. One of the things St. Augustine (the less) did not like about the Britons who came into his church was that they insisted on setting up a tree at Christmas and decorating it. He thought this was a pagan custom that should be stopped. What do you think? Can you think of some other non-religious customs that have been "adopted" by the Church? How deep is your conversion to Christianity?

  11. When Muslim armies overran an area, some Christians would convert to Islam. If your town had been conquered by Muslims, would you convert, or would you remain a Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian? Is it a matter of belief or behavior or both?

  12. Both Christians and Muslims sought to spread their faith by missionary activity and also by warfare and violence. Do you ever think it is a good idea to spread one's beliefs by violent means? Why or why not?

 

Looking Ahead

 

With the Church as the most powerful cultural and political force in Western Europe, and with the Islamic threat at its very gates, the church is poised for a response that will not only defeat the infidels, but also restore Christian access to the holy sites around Jerusalem. The stage is set for the next chapter - The Crusades.