After Rome

1
After Rome

• A Computer Workbook

2
The Nature of the Class

• In this computer assisted class, you will have
  two different types of learning experience
• 1. You will get information from the slides.
• 2. You will have some experience using the
  Internet to find material the Treasure Hunts.

3
The Treasure Hunt

• Each topic will have a list of items that you may
  wish to explore further.
• You should use a good search engine, such as
  Google, to search for those items.
• You will have completed the lesson when you have
  completed the outlines and the highlighted
  searches.

4
How Much Time Should This Class Take.

• You should be able to read the slides very
  quickly. You might want to review them several
  times to have the outline in mind.
• Most students will not find all the items in the
  Treasure Hunts. You should spend no more than
  three hours in your searches.
• Some students, who are just beginning to develop
  their technical skills, will not get very far in
  the three hours allotted. Real technophiles will
  finish or almost finish the whole.
• The idea is to work on some important research
  skills. This is not a graded assignment.

5
Did Rome Fall?

• Many people have envisioned the fall of Rome as a
  sudden event.
• The Barbarians are said to have invaded.
• The picture is of one army and state replacing
  another.

6
Another View

• The Barbarians had been coming slowly into the
  western empire for more than a century
• Most of the victorious Barbarian generals held
  high rank in the Roman Army
• Throughout the Southwestern Part of the Empire,
  the basic outlines of Roman Civilization, the
  Catholic Church, the Villa, and the Town remained.

7
The Catholic Bishop

• In many of the towns in Southern Europe, the
  Catholic Bishop became the socially and
  politically dominant leader.
• The Bishop took over the older Roman
  administration, often having task that ranged
  from the inspection of brothels to the
  maintenance of the water supply.
• It was Rome Without Emperors.

8
Great Figures of the Transition

• Pope Gregory the Great
• Very wealthy and very educated young Roman
• Became a monk, then, Pope
• Put the Churchs property in order
• Wrote the Pastoral Rule outlining his vision of
  the pastor-bishop as the one with the Cure of
  Souls
• Developed doctrine of Purgatory.

9
Cassiodorus

• Roman who worked for the Ostrogothic Kings
• Established a monastery on his very rich estates
• Built the great Latin library at Vivarium c 580
• Established his monastery as one of the great
  schools of Europe, continuing and maintaining the
  traditions of good Latin and protecting the
  transmission of the Scriptures.

10
Rome in the East

• The Eastern Roman Empire exists until 1453 when
  the Turks conquer Constantinople
• The Great Emperor Justinian is able to
  reestablish Roman Rule in Italy for a season
• The Great Church of Hagia Sophia in
  Constantinople
• The Codification of Roman Law
• Ravenna

11
First Treasure Chest

• Locate a map of Europe showing the various
  western areas that passed out of Roman Rule
• What was the Sack of Rome

• Find Justinian
• Take a Virtual Tour of the Great Church of Hagia
  Sophia
• Take a Virtual Tour of Ravenna, Justinians city
  in Italy.

12
The Churches of the East

• The aftermath of the Christological controversies
  was a deeply divided church in the East
• Many of the common terms for these churches are
  drawn, perhaps, unfortunately by western
  historians from the heresies supposedly taught
  by their leaders. Nestorian, monophysite,
  etc.

13
Christianity in the Persian Empire

• The Persian Empire was the constant opponent of
  Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries,
  BCE.
• Officially Zoroastrian in faith
• Christianity was very widespread in this Empire
  as a minority religion, especially, in the most
  western areas.

14
Persian Christianity

• Deeply influenced by Theodore of Mopsuestia
• Very committed to a strict Biblical hermeneutic
• Most characteristic practice was reading the
  Bible aloud qeryana
• Although Nestorius was received by this church
  after his exile, it was not a Nestorian church.
• The Great University of Nisibis
• Spread from Antioch of Syria

15
As Far as China

• Syrian Christianity was known in China as early
  as 635 when Christians presented an apology for
  monotheism at Hsian-fu.
• A Monastery was established there to house works
  of Syrian Christianity.

16
Second Treasure Hunt

• Locate a description of Zoroastrian religion.
• Why could the Christians survive as an active
  minority where the Magi were the dominant
  religious tradition?
• Find a map of the Persian Empire and try to
  envision this central Asian empire as the great
  bridge between East and West

17
Never Win A War

• The Romans defeated the Persians finally and
  absolutely under Heraclius in 627.
• Both sides were totally exhausted by the rigors
  of this warfare.
• The Eastern Roman Empire was now open to fresh
  invasions from the East.
• This is the background for the Great Islamic
  Conquests.

18
Islam

• Begin among the Arabs, a people caught between
  the Persians and the Romans
• Deep debates among the Arabs between the
  advocates of Christianity and the advocates of
  Judaism.
• The Prophet Mohammed receives his poetry that
  stressed monotheism and obedience to God.
• The Quran is a collection of his verses written
  down many years after his death. Mohammed
  himself could not read or write.

19
Arab Conquest

• Very quickly Islam, a religion of warriors,
  became the successor of the Persian Empire and
  conquered Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa.
• Constantinople would face continuous War until
  the Turks triumphed in 1453, partially as a
  result of the plague.
• Remember that until the 16th century, the First
  World was the East. The West was comparatively
  disadvantaged.

20
Churches in Arab Lands

• Islam has a long and complicated history. These
  points only deal with Arabic Islam before 900 CE.
• The Arabs were, like the Persians, generally
  tolerant. The Churches of the East continued to
  flourish
• Early Islamification was primarily through
  discriminatory taxation and through the partial
  enslavement of Christian and other populations.

21
Third Treasure Hunt

• Find a site that deals with the life of Mohammed.
• Locate an Internet picture of the Quran in
  Arabic Script.
• Find someone reading the Quran on the Net. (You
  may need Real Player.).
• Find a list of the pillars (basic practices of
  Islam).

22
Celtic Britain and Ireland

• Danger Myth Makers At Work.
• Irish and Celtic Christianity are often
  almost codes for present day religious concerns.
• Be critical of all accounts of early Irish
  Christianity, including this one.

23
Rome Leaves Britain

• Britain was among the first Western Areas to lose
  its Roman legions
• Much of Roman civilization, especially, language,
  law, and religion remained.
• These Roman remains would be important for the
  evolution of Christianity in the area.

24
Ireland

• A Land Never touched by Roman Rule
• The Irish would eventually replace the native
  peoples of Scotland and give Scotland its name
  and its historical language. Scotti was old
  Irish for sea rovers.
• Tribal Society, very poor.

25
Patrick

• We have some of his writings.
• He came from Roman Britain and knew Latin and
  some Celtic dialects.
• May have been a contemporary of King Arthur.
• Returned to Ireland after escaping slavery as a
  pig herder on the island.

26
A Christianity of Monks

• The Christianity that Patrick and his successors
  established was based on rural monasteries.
• This was an adaptation of an urban religion to a
  rural and tribal environment.
• These monasteries were more like those of the
  East, especially, Greece and Egypt, than the
  gentle monasteries of St. Benedict.
• Extreme asceticism.
• Different Dates for Easter and a different
  tonsure.

27
The Irish and Latin

• The Irish monasteries treasured whatever Latin
  literature they could acquire.
• Irish Latin, unlike the contemporary Latin of
  such people as St. Gregory or St. Benedict, was
  always a learned language.
• Often, or so it is said, the Irish found and used
  obscure Latin words that they had learned from
  their literary researches.
• Begins of the new Latin of Christian Europe.

28
Irish Missionaries

• Irish Monks carried on many of the traditions of
  the Desert Fathers.
• The ideal of isolation and voluntary exile.
• Many Irish monks traveled through Europe,
  establishing monasteries. Later Anglo-Saxon monks
  would also follow this same practice.
• Semi-missionaries. Often there were strong
  pockets of faith there before they came.
  Monasteries often served as organizational
  centers for rural type of faith.

29
Saxons and Other Invaders

• England and its language were deeply influenced
  by the invasion of the Saxons who settled in the
  eastern regions of the island.
• Gregory originally send Augustine to England,
  not to establish Christianity, but to convert the
  Angles, a Saxon tribe.

30
Augustine of Canterbury

• The mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury.
• Commissioned by the Pope to go to England which
  had recently pasted from Celtic to Anglo-Saxon
  control.
• Established the Sees of Canterbury and York.
• Sought to spread many Roman customs.

31
Did Roman and Celtic Christianity Conflict?

• Historians often talked of a struggle between the
  two forms of Christianity that was settled at the
  Council of Whitby (664) when England joined
  Europe. The Great Archbishop Wilfrid is said to
  have orchestrated the merger.
• Actually change came very slowly with some Ionic
  (after Iona, a famous center of Celtic
  monasticism) monasteries lasting well into the
  next millennium.

32
Why Roman Christianity Triumphed?

• Irish Christianity was never as isolated as
  legend had it. Always in close contact with
  Europe and Latin learning.
• The wealth and majesty of episcopal Christianity
  served to establish Roman practices in a rapidly
  reurbanizing Britain. Remember Irish monasticism
  was a rural form of faith.
• The importance of Latin Culture to both Saxon and
  Irish Church Leaders

33
The Great Boniface

• Wynfrith renamed Boniface at Rome. d. 754
• Saxon Christian who went as a missionary to
  Germany and Holland
• More an organizer than a creator
• Great problem was a mixed Christianity that often
  included and featured pagan elements.
• He cut down the Great Oak of Hesse to prove the
  superiority of Roman Christianity.
• Established Fulda, the Great German Monastery

34
Bede

• Great English Church Historian
• Works are still studied. May be one reason why
  so much attention is paid to English and Irish
  Christianity at this period.
• For him, Anglo-Saxon Britain is the New Israel
  under a new Davidic monarchy.

35
Confession and Spiritual Counsel

• The Great Gift of Irish Christianity to the
  Church private confession.
• Came from the monastic practice of the Soul
  Friend or the Spiritual Director.
• The root idea was from medicine. To find cures
  for sin. In monasteries, these were usually such
  practices as additional fasting, prayer, or
  sleeplessness.

36
Confession Part II

• Spread from monasteries to concerned lay people,
  especially, women.
• The Irish monks codified the various penances in
  books called Penitentials.
• Great effort made to make the punishment fit the
  crime.
• Often dealt explicitly with sexual sins,
  including different positions for intercourse.
• Retained the monastic distrust of sexuality and
  sexual behavior.

37
Fourth Treasure Hunt

• Find a Medieval map of Ireland.
• Locate a site dealing with Patrick.
• Find Patricks writings on line.
• Find a site devoted to Irish monasticism

• Note the importance of the coming of the Saxons
  to England
• Find Iona on a map and trace the spread of
  Christianity from this Irish monastery.
• Find sites related to Boniface.

38
A Final Debate

• The Debate over Holy Pictures or Icons
• Eastern Emperors, pressed by the Muslims, wanted
  to strip Christianity of representative religious
  pictures.
• People often prayed before the icons and saw them
  as talismen to protect them from evils.
• The decade lasted several centuries in the East
  with the defenders of Icons finally winning

39
John of Damascus

• Greatest Theologian of the Early Middle Ages.
• Widely read in both East and West
• Gave the most noted defense of holy pictures
• They were needed to educate the poor.
• They should only reserve respect and not true
  worship.
• As symbols or likenesses they contained and
  meditated the thing or person depicted.

40
Last Treasure Hunt

• Find sites related to Icons.
• Locate John of Damascus writings.
• Find a description of the use of icons in Eastern
  Catholic worship.

41
Thats All Folks

• Please send me an email telling me how you did
  with this class.
• This is an experiment in which I tried to blend
  the use of an outline with some drill in how to
  do net-based research. Did you
• Develop more of a sense of how to use the net
• Do you have significant questions about material
  that you were unable to answer from the net?
• Please email me any questions that you have about
  this material.