The Final Class (sniff, sniff, single tear)

The Trial of John Huss

This is the outline for the final class before the exam. this will set the stage for Christian History II in the winter semester.

Seeds of Discontent

The Decline of the Papacy & the Growth of Reform

I. Western Europe “Born Again”  

            A. Black Death

            B. Renaissance

            C. Growth of Nationalism

            D. Humanism

II. Decline of the Papacy

           A. Increased Immorality

           B. The “Babylonian Captivity”

                 i. Avignon

                 ii. Rome

                 iii. The Great Schism

          C. Will the real Pope please stand up?

                 i. Ending the “Great Schism”

                 ii. Conciliar Movement

                 iii. The Tail That Wagged the Dog

III. Responses

            A. Mystics & Monastic Reforms

            B. Imitation of Christ

            C. Growing Prominence of Women

                        i.Catharine of Siena

                        ii. Joan of Arc

                        iii. Julian of Norwich

            D. Inquisition

                        i. Factors

                        ii. Effects

IV. Early Reformers

            A. Wyclif

                        i. Lollards

            B. John (or Jan) Hus

                        i. Hussites

            C. Council of Constance

            D. Latin v non-Latin Europe…

Quotes:

“It is one thing to be of the church, another thing to be in the church. Clearly it does not follow that all living persons who are in the church are of the church. On the contrary, we know that tares grow among the wheat…Some are neither in name nor reality in the church—such as reprobate pagans. Others are in the church in name only—such as, for example, reprobate hypocrites. Still others are in the church in reality and, although they appear to be in name outside it, are predestined Christians—such as those who are seen to be condemned by the satraps of the Antichrist before the church.”

 ~Jan Hus, de ecclesia, chapter 3~

“if you do that which I am going to tell you now, you will have reached a consummate perfection and nothing will be wanting in you. It is the attainment of an ardently desired and perseveringly sought disposition of the soul in which you are so closely united with me and your will so conformed to my perfect will that you never wish not only evil, but even the good that I do not wish.”

~Catharine of Siena, Dialogue~

“When we see the host we ought to believe not that itself the body of Christ, but that the body of Christ is sacramentally concealed in it…We Christians are permitted to deny that the bread which we consecrate is identical with the body of Christ, although it is the efficacious sign of it…”

~John Wyclif, The Eucharist, 1:2~

GOD WILLS IT!

The Crusades:

 Theology for Christian War

I. Introduction

  Crusades in the 21^st century

  1066: The Battle of Hastings (penance after fighting)

  1071: The Battle of Manzikert (Byzantine army destroyed)

  Alexius I Comnenus looks west for mercenary help

II. The first crusade (1095-1099)

Crusaders are victorious and reclaim Jerusalem in July 1099

Major Battles: Nicaea, Dorylaeum, Antioch, jerusalem

Crusade theology: penitential warfare, remission of sins, martyrdom, free the holy land, warfare in both testaments, service to Christ

iii. Inter-Crusade time

Levant governing

Intermarriage

Knights Templar

Bernard of Clairvaux

 

Iv. The Second Crusade (1147-1149)

Edessa Falls to zengi

Pope Eugene III orders Bernard to preach the Crusade

Louis Vii’s army destroyed at Anatolia

Crusaders attack Damascus

They are repelled and the levant is weakened and reduced

Theology: sin brought defeat

V. The Third Crusade (1189-1192)

Saladin united the Muslim World

Captured Jerusalem in 1187

Richard & Philip united

“Saladin tithe” & the business of crusading

Legend of the lionheart

Ultimately a stalemate but Christians can return to Jerusalem

Theology: remain pure or crusaders will lose, saladin as God’s instrument of wrath

vi. The fourth Crusade (1202-1204)

Christendom’s civil war

Dandolo & Zara

The Siege of Constantinople

Excommunicated armies attacked Christian cities and won the approval of the pope

Theology: Zara-reported past behaviour gave the Crusaders cause to attack plus their complete lack of financial resources

Constantinople-a tentative claim to the throne brought them to the city; the refusal of the patriarch to submit to Rome (in 1045) gave them just cause.

Crusaders successfully besieged both cities and returned home

The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229)

Crusading at home

Cathars believed: Matter was corrupt, Worldly authority was a fraud, Their god, unconcerned with the material, simply didn’t care if you got into bed before you were married, had a Jew or Muslim for a friend, treated men and women as equals, or did anything else contrary to the teachings of the medieval Church

Theology: if crusades are to be successful, then Europe must be pure; heretics and schismatic’s are as great a threat as muslims, maybe greater. Same Indulgences granted for a much shorter trip.

Their influence over southern French nobility was serious

© James Robertson 2010

QUOTES:

Unlike Islam, Christianity had no well-defined concept of holy war before the Middle Ages. Christ had no army at his disposal, nor did his early followers.” ~Madden, 1.

The Crusades are among the most remarkable phenomena of the Middle Ages. Their causes were many and complex…The internal colonization of previously uninhabited regions within Europe was matched by the external colonization of land inhabited by Muslim ‘infidels’ or by ‘schismatic’ Greeks….Spiritual considerations, however, were no less influential than material ones…The crusader’s ‘taking of the cross,’ his life of self-sacrifice as Christ’s liegeman, was seen as an imitation of the monastic life and as an approximation of the monk’s higher spiritual perfection…The piety of the time also placed great value on pilgrimages to holy places, above all to the land hallowed by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.”

~Walker et.al., History, 283

“the Lord seeing that the land of his birth and place of his passion had sunk into an abyss of turpitude, treated with neglect his inheritance, and suffered Saladin, the rod of his wrath, to put forth his fury to the destruction of that stiff-necked people; for he would rather that the Holy Land should, for a short time, be subject to the profane rites of the heathens, than that it should any longer be possessed by those men, whom no regard for what is right could deter from things unlawful “ ~Geoffrey de Vinsauf

“they showed to the pilgrims that the war was a righteous one; for the Greeks were traitors and murderers, and also disloyal, since they had murdered their rightful lord, and were worse than Jews. Moreover, the bishops said that, by the authority of God and in the name of the pope, they would absolve all who attacked the Greeks. Then the bishops commanded the pilgrims to confess their sins and receive the communion devoutly; and said that they ought not to hesitate to attack the Greeks, for the latter were enemies of God. They also commanded that all the evil women should be sought out and sent away from the army to a distant place. This was done; the evil women were all put on a vessel and were sent very far away from the army” ~Robert de Clari~

Further Reading:

Madden, Thomas F. The New Concise History of the Crusades: Student Edition. Toronto: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.

Phillips, Jonathan. The Crusades, 1095-1197. Toronto: Pearson Education, 2002.

Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades A History: Second Edition. London: Yale University Press, 2005.

______________. The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. London: Athlone Press, 1993.

Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades Volumes I-III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951-1953.

________. The First Crusade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Seward, Desmond. The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders. London: Penguin Books, 1995

Tate, Georges. The Crusaders Warriors of God. New York: Henry N. Abrams Inc., 1996.

Tyerman, Christopher. Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Lost Christianities

Painting of the world from the 16th century. Note how Jerusalem
is the center of the world and the other continents grow
out from it. For much of Medieval History this was the view of
Jerusalem; that it was the geographical and spiritual centre of the
world.

Here is the outline for the Lost History of Christianity classes that we will be learning about. We will not get through this in one class so we will, most likely, only get through points 1-3 this Monday (the 15th). Then we are going to look at the interaction between the East and the West and Medieval Christianity through the crusades (after all, when Western Crusaders entered the Holy Land they found Christians already there; it is those Christians we are about to meet). In the third week we will return to this topic and conclude with points 4 & 5. I hope you will find meeting these oft-overlooked brothers and sisters in the faith as exciting as I do!

CH1A03 Christian History I

15 November 2010

The Lost History of Christianity:

Global Christianity

“Any history of Christianity that fails to pay due attention to these Jacobites and Nestorians is missing a very large part of the story.” Jenkins, Lost History, xi.

I. Beyond the Pale

            A. Council of Chalcedon

            B. Not Fringe

            C. Terrible History

II. Global Christianity

            A. Semitic Christianity

            B. The Eastern Charlemagne

            C. Creative “Gospeling”

“we are all in a dark house in the middle of the night”

Timothy of Seleucia

III. Churches of the East

            A. Monophysites of Africa

            B. Armenian (Gregorian) Christianity

            C. India

            D. China/Japan

“No one has been sent to us Orientals by the Pope. The holy apostles aforesaid taught us and we still hold today what they handed down to us.”

Rabban Bar Sauma, ca. 1290

IV. Another World

            A. Heaven & Earth

            B. The Elect & the Age of Miracles

            C. Scholarship

                        i. The Last Flowering

            D. From the Early Ages

            E. Church and the Bible

                        i. Interpretation

                        ii. Christian & Asian

                        iii. Bar Sauma’s Dream

“In the year 1639 [A.D. 1328] that is the Dragon Year. This is the grave of Pesoha the renowned exegetist and preacher who enlightened all cloisters through the light—extolled for wisdom, and may our Lord unite his spirit with the saints.”

Syriac grave inscription from Kyrgyzstan

V. The End of the World

            A. The Great Tribulation

            B. New Masters

                        i. Muslim Masters

                        ii. Dhimmis

            C. Survival

                        i. Great Persecutions

                        ii. Becoming Turkey

                        iii. Destruction

            D. The Last Christians

“The bloodstained annals of the East contain no record of massacres more unprovoked, more widespread or more terrible than those perpetuated by the Turkish Government upon Christians of Anatolia and Armenia in 1915.”

James Bryce, the 1^st Viscount Bryce

© James Robertson 2010

From Conan to Christian: The Barbarian Faithful

Here is the order for the upcoming lecture on 8 November 2010.

United We Stand

Barbarians, Charlemagne & the Birth of Christendom

I. The New Constantines

            A. Clovis

            B. Conversion of Kings

            C. Clovis as Constantine

II. Making Barbarian Christians

            A. The Aristocracy

            B. The Benefits of God

            C. The Way of Adaptation

                        i. Private Penance

            D. Militant Christianity

III. The Empire Strikes Back

            A. The “Hammer” & The “Short”

            B. Charlemagne

                        i. goals

                        ii. Coronation

IV. Christendom

            A. City of God

            B. Church & State

            C. Carolingian Renewal

            D. In the Wake of Greatness

V. The 1,2,3

1 Event

Donation of Pepin (754): The Frankish War-Lord gave the papal states to the pope after defeating the Lombards.

2 Names

Clotilde (A.D. 474-545): Frankish queen she was instrumental in Clovis becoming Christian

Charles “The Hammer” Martel (A.D. 690-741): Frankish warrior of the Carolingian line who stopped a Muslim incursion into his lands and earned him the nickname “The Hammer” as well as fame and prestige as a defender of Christianity

3 Terms

Holy Roman Emperor:  The title which, in theory, made someone the heir of the ancient Roman emperors and the ruler of the Western Empire. In reality, Holy Roman Emperors only ruled portions of central Europe. German kings possessed the title from A.D. 962 until A.D. 1806 when Napoleon banished it.[1]

missi dominici: Latin for “envoys the the lord [ruler]” These teams (usually a clerical and civil adminstrator) were used by the Frankish kings (notably Charlemagne) to insure that the laws were being followed throughout the realm.

Pactus Legis Salicae or Salic Law: The first surviving version of the Lex Salica or Salic Law, the law of the Salic Franks. It combined customary law, Roman law and royal edicts, and it followed Christian ideals. Salic Law would influence French and European law for centuries. Most likely devised during the time of Clovis

Quotes:

“Charles, by the Will of God, Roman Emperor, Augustus…in the year of our consulship…”  

~How Charlemagne signed many of his letters after his coronation A.D. 800

“If any one shall have killed a free Frank, or a barbarian living under the Salic law, and it have been proved on him, he shall be sentenced to 8000 denars.

But if he shall have thrown him into a well or into the water, or shall have covered him with branches or anything else, to conceal him, he shall be sentenced to 24000 denars, which make 600 shillings.”

~Excerpts from the Salic Law

“Thus while some outward rejoicings are preserved, they will be able more easily to share in inward rejoicings. It is doubtless impossible to cut out everything at once from their stubborn minds: just as the man who is attempting to climb to the highest place, rises by steps and degrees not by leaps.”

~Letter from Pope Gregory regarding adapting

for the benefit of missions (A.D. 601)

© James Robertson 2010

---

[1] Jones, Christian History Made Easy, 62.

Do NOT call them the dark ages!

With the Roman Empire crumbling around them, those who called themselves Christian faced entirely new struggles to both survive and spread the faith in new and dangerous times. The church emerged as a stabilizing and unifying force in the West but, some might argue, at the cost of compromising the faith in order to appease the Barbarian hordes that threatened to detroy everything. Gone were the days of the Early Church, gone were the days of the Imperial Church, here were the dawning days of the Barbarian Church.

CH1A03-Christian History

1 November 2010

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death
The Fall of Rome, the Rise of the Papacy & Celtic Christianity

I. The Great Recession

A. The invaders

B. is for Barbarians

C. Muslim Forces

D. In the east

E. In the west

F. Descent into Darkness

II. The Great Ascension

            A. Victory over Arianism

            B. Monasticism

            C. The Papacy

                        i. Gregory the Great

                        ii. Donation of Constantine & Isidorian Decretals

III. How the Irish Saved Civilization

            A. peregrini

            B. Patrick

            C. is for Columba

            D. The Conversion of the English

                        i. The English missionaries

IV. The 2, 4, 6

2 events

Synod of Orange (529): Working against the Semi-Pelagianism of its day, this council had much to say concerning the constitution and fallen nature of humanity, together with God’s remedy of redemption through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The synod drew its inspiration from Augustine who had died almost a century before.

Barbarian Invasions (A.D. 500-950): For the sake of argument, these are the dates given to discuss the series of crushing military blows that would come to shape Western Europe as well as Christianity in those regions. Dated from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West.

4 Terms

peregrini: From the Latin peregrinus meaning "from abroad" these “Intrepid Irish Adventurers for God” went into Western Europe and helped spread Christianity to numerous pagan tribes as well as be instrumental in the Christianizing of the British Isles. Their work helped the Church function throughout the 6^th to the 10^th centuries before Scandinavian raiders greatly damaged Ireland’s monastic communities.

Isidorian Decretals: Forgeries from the ninth century professing to have been written by one Isidore Mercator. The decretals depicted that the Popes of Rome were considered superior from the beginning, permitted all bishops to appeal directly to the Pope thus limiting archbishops and regarded Bishops and Popes as free from secular control.

servus servorum Dei Latin for ‘servant of the servants of God.’ It was a name given to Gregory the Great. It did not originate with him, but it did seem to suit his character.

Donation of Constantine: Most likely an Eighth-century forgery. It proclaimed to be written by Constantine describing his conversion, baptism and healing from leprosy by Pope Sylvester I. In it Constantine, out of gratefulness, hands over his Roman palace and the territories of Italy to the Pope and his successors.

6 names

Patrick (ca. A.D. 387-461): The patron saint of Ireland. Although much of his life is wrapped in hagiography and legend, it is fairly safe to say that he is largely responsible for the conversion of the Ireland to Christianity.

Columba (A.D. 521-597): Irish monk who began the monastery on the Isle of Iona (extant today). Iona was the launching point for many Irish missionaries that were destined to bring Christianity to numerous Barbarians, including the tribes on the neighbouring island of England.

Gregory ‘the Great’ (A.D. 540-604): Arguably one of the most influential popes ever. He worked tirelessly to both unite the greatly fractured Western European tribes as well as brought a new period of primacy to the papal office. He was instrumental in increasing the prestige of the Church throughout the West.

Augustine of Canterbury (d. 26 May 604): Appointed by Pope Gregory (the Great) to evangelize the English. He was remarkably successful and eventually established his archbishopric in Canterbury. He also established an important bishopric in York, both of these remain in existence in this very day. His work tied the English Church to Rome until the time of Henry VIII.

Julian I: Byzantine Emperor who did much throughout the 6^th century to strengthen the Roman Empire and spread Christianity as well. A thoughtful scholar, statesman and faithful Christian who did much to spread and support Chalcedonian Theology.

Isidore of Seville (AD.. 560-636): His brief summary of Christian doctrine Book of Sentences was to be studied for centuries in the West as a textbook of theology. His name was used in the title of an 9^th century forgery known as the Isidorian Decretals that argued, among other things, that the Bishops of Rome were superior from the beginning of the Catholic Church.

Quotes:

“Christianity continues to bear the imprint of its Jewish heritage and of the Greco-Roman world into which it first moved, but more than any of the other faiths of [humanity] it has proved its capacity to outlast cultures with which it has seemed to be identified and some of which it helped to create.”

~LaTourette, History, 1:271.

“Supreme egotism and utter seriousness are necessary for the greatest accomplishment, and these the Irish find hard to sustain; at some point, the instinct to see life in a comic light becomes irresistible, and ambition falls before it.”

~William V. Shannon

If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:126); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).

~Canon 1 from the Synod of Orange (A.D. 529)

The Emperor Constantine the fourth day after his baptism conferred this privilege on the Pontiff of the Roman church, that in the whole Roman world priests should regard him as their head, as judges do the king. In this privilege among other things is this: “We-together with all our satraps, and the whole senate and my nobles, and also all the people subject to the government of glorious Rome-considered it advisable, that as the Blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted vicar of the Son of God on the earth, so the Pontiffs who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the clemency of our earthly imperial serenity is seen to have conceded to it, choosing that same chief of the apostles and his vicars to be our constant intercessors with God.

~Chapter XIV from the Donation of Constantine

© James Robertson 2010

The Empire Strikes Up

Greetings everyone...here are the notes for the class where we begin to explore how Christianity changed and took shape when it was supported by the state. I am looking forward to the interesting discussions that this will, no doubt, create. How are the faithful to respond when they believe their religious institution has been corrupted?

CALLED OUT:

“OFFICIAL” FAITH & THE RISE OF MONASTIC ORDERS

I. Official Faith

            A. Julian “the Apostate”

            B. Julian and Christianity

            C. Faltering of Arianism

                        i. ANOMOIANS

                        ii. SEMI-ARIANS/HOMOIOUSIANS

                        iii. HOMOIANS

II. The Cappodocians

            A. Macrina

            B. Basil “The Great”

            C. Gregory Nyssa

            D. Gregory of Nazianzus

III.Theodosius I & the Nicene Creed (finally!)

IV. Imperium in imperio

            A. War

            B. Wealth

            C. Women

            D. Words

V. Monastic Response

            A. The Beginnings

            B. Monasteries Develop

                        i.Basil of Caesarea

                        ii. Martin of Tours

                        iii. Jerome

                        iv. John Chrysostom

VI. The 4,5,6’s

4 terms

Monasticism: From the Greek “monos” meaning alone, it is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work. The origin of the word is from Ancient Greek, and the idea originally related to Christian monks.

Semi-Arians: a name frequently given to the Trinitarian position of the conservative majority of the Eastern Christian Church in the 4th century, to distinguish it from strict Arianism

“Spiritual Sisters”: name given to the women who were living in the homes of supposedly celibate priests.

Imperium in Imperio: Latin for “an order within an order” it could also mean something along the lines of what the state empowers an individual or group to do in order to best serve the state.

5 (more) terms

Council of Constantinople: Called by Theodosius in 381 to affirm the Creed of Nicaea and deal with the Arian Controversy. Considered by most as the 2^nd ecumenical council, it was also the first one held in Constantinople (at the church of the Hagia Irene).

Eremetical: solitary monks

Laura: when monks lived in solitude but close enough to encourage fellowship

Cenobitic: when monks lived together in a community, governed by a leader.

Consubstantial: Used to define the term homoousios as it pertained to Jesus’ relationship in the Trinity. The idea was coined by Tertullian & found official sanction in the Nicene Creed.

6 names

Julian “the Apostate” (A.D. 331/332-363): Became Caesar in 355 and renounced Christianity & sought to restore paganism to its former pre-Constantine glory.

Theodosius I (A.D. 347-395): He made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the empire; he was also the last emperor to rule over both halves of the Empire.

Pachomius (ca. A.D. 292-348): Long considered the founder of Christian cenobitic monasticism. His name means “the falcon”

Basil of Caesarea (A.D. 330-379): established guidelines for monastic life that focused on community life, liturgical prayer, and manual labour. Together with Pachomius (A.D. 292-348): he is remembered as a father of communal monasticism in Eastern Christianity.

Jerome (A.D. 347-420): Well known for his work translating the Bible into Latin that came to be known as the “Vulgate”

John Chrysostom (A.D. 349-407): Influential church leader who received the name Chrysostom (which means “golden-mouthed”) due to his reputed eloquence and power as an orator. He also wrote against abuses of power by both the church and the state.

“The essential feature of heresy is that it is not unbelief…in the strict sense of the term, but a form of the faith that is held ultimately to be subversive or destructive, and thus indirectly leads to such unbelief. Unbelief is the outcome, not the form of heresy.”

Alister McGrath Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth, 33.

“No one else but the Saviour himself, who in the beginning made everything out of nothing, could bring the corrupted to incorruption; no one else but the Image of the Father could recreate [people] in God’s image; no one else but our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Life itself, could make the mortal immortal; no one else but the Word, who orders everything and is alone the true and only-begotten Son of the Father, could teach [people] about the Father and destroy idolatry…Two miracles happened at once: the death of all [people] was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and death and corruption were destroyed because of the Word who was united with it. By death immortality has reached all and by the Word becoming man the universal providence and its creater the leader, the very Word of God, has been made known.” Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word, 4:20, 54.

Writings of Athanasius on Arianism found here

© James Robertson 2010