Roman Empire
Founded in 500 BC
By 200 BC it ruled Italy
60 BC
180 AD
Growth from 44 BC to 180AD
146 BC Battle of Corinth
Roman Troops concur the city of Corinth.
Rome invented no art forms, constructed no original system of philosophy, and made no scientific
discoveries. They made good roads, systematic legal codes and efficient armies; for the rest they
looked to Greece.
~ Bertrand Russell (History of Western Philosophy)
Greek and Roman Gods
Rise of Christianity
Christianity began in 1st century AD Jerusalem as a minor
Jewish sect. It spread initially in the Near East, ultimately
becoming the state religion of Armenia in either 301 or
314, of Ethiopia in 325, of Georgia in 337, and then the
state religion of the Roman Empire in 380. During the Age
of Exploration (15th to 17th cent.), Christianity expanded
throughout the world, becoming the world's largest
religion.
Between 1st and 4th century – Growth of Christianity
Pagan Philosophers were replaced by Patrists (Fathers of the Church)
3rd Century –Battle of Milvian Bridge
Agreement of Milan
As Rome Grew, so did Christianity
Many Pagan symbols were incorporated into
Christian holiday traditions.
Video
Celsus
Celsus's work was an attack on Christianity and an appeal to
Christians to adopt paganism.
Arguments:
- Mary is too low born to be mother of a Christ.
- Jesus had a human father who Celsus claimed was “Pantara” a
Roman soldier
St. Justin Martyr
Born a Pagan in Jerusalem.
Tried on lots of philosophical ideas (e.g., stoic)
Finds Platonism and converts to Christianity.
Tries to reconcile Plato and Christianity.
Argues that the Socrates and Plato preaching the “seeds” of
Christianity.
“All Truth is God”.
Plotinus – 205 – 270
Neo-Platonism
Combined Plato with ethical concepts from
Christianity, Judaism and Near Eastern
Mysticism
Like Plato – Idealist
To get closest to the One, each individual must engage in divine work.
Each individual as a microcosm reflects the gradual ordering of the universe referred to
as the macrocosm. In mimicking the divine mind, one unites with it.
Thus the process of unification, of "The Being", and "The One", making each man a God
by replacing the concept of God as creator with themselves as creators, builders,
craftsmen of their own lives.
Augustine of Hippo (345 – 430)
•one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity
•Strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism.
Dualist
- humans have souls – animals do not.
Free Will (Choice)
Intrinsic motivation
Doing good leads to feelings of virtue
Doing evil leads to guilt.
People who choose evil deny themselves an afterlife
Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God distinct from the
material City of Man.
“Give me chastity and continency, but not yet”
Orthodoxy & Heresy
1st & 2nd Century – no authority = no Heresy
3rd Century – Bishop of Lyons Refutation of Heresies
- maintained that the Gospel message is for everyone. He was perhaps
the first to speak of the Church as "Catholic" (universal).
-
Gnostic Christians and
Pauline Christianity
Pauline Christianity placed all of the emphasis on Jesus' death and
resurrection, and the saving power of that death and resurrection.
Gnostic Christianity, on the other hand, placed its prime emphasis on
the message, the wisdom, the knowledge, the gnosis, that's where the
word gnostic comes from, the Greek word for knowledge, the
knowledge that Jesus transmits, and even the secret knowledge that
Jesus transmits.
Gnostics were dualists, teaching that there are two great
opposing forces:
good versus evil
light versus darkness
knowledge versus ignorance
spirit versus matter.
Since the world is material, and leaves much room for
improvement, they denied that God had made it.
How can the perfect produce the imperfect, the infinite produce
the finite, the spiritual produce the material?
Gnostic’s solution was to say that there were thirty beings called
Aeons, and that God had made the first Aeon, which made the
second Aeon, which made the third, and so on to the thirtieth
Aeon, which made the world.
They taught that Christ did not really have a material body, but
only seemed to have one. It was an appearance, so that he could
communicate with men, but was not really there.
They said that Jesus had had two doctrines: one a doctrine fit for the
common man, and preached to everyone, and the other an advanced
teaching, kept secret from the multitudes, fit only for the chosen few,
the spiritually elite.
The Gnostics, were the spiritually elite, and although the doctrines
taught in the churches were not exactly wrong, and were in fact as
close to the truth as the common man could hope to come, it was to
the Gnostics that one must turn for the real truth.
Heresy of Docetism
Jesus has no real body. Crucifixion was an illusion.
Jesus is God who cannot suffer.
Constantine backs the authority of the bishop (Paulian)
and confiscates the public property of heretics.
Persecuted become persecutors!
Concepts of original sin and just war
Unbelievers persecuted because of cruelty; Christians
persecuted because of love.
Science and Philosophy not in the service of
theology were suspect.
AD 385 – executions for heresy begin.
Priscillian (Bishop of Villa)
Held Gnostic beliefs
Charges with witchcraft.
Tried and Tortured; confessed and was executed.
Schisms in the Church
Montanus Heresy
475 Fall of Rome
475 – 1000 Dark ages
Middle Ages (500 – 1500)
• Crusades began around 1100 ad
• Plague
• Famine
• Writings were lost to western culture
• Schisims in the Church
Saint Anselm (1033 -1109)
Contrary to Christian belief he felt that reason
Could help better understand God.
Scholasticism – to join faith with reason
Defined theology as "faith seeking understanding."
Use logical deduction to account for traditional theological teachings.
Ontological Argument for God’s existence
If God did not exist, then something greater than He could be thought; thus,
God must exist.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1274)
Argued Reason and Faith are compatible
Reintroduced Aristotle theology
Tabla Rasa
Empiricist
Argued for the supremacy of reason – free will.
John Duns Scotus (1265 – 1308)
Criticized both Aquinas and Aristotle
Argued for the Supremacy of God’s will
If God’s will is subordinate to reason then it appears that God is limited,
which can not be. Thus God must be absolutely free.
God’s moral rules are good because God willed them to be good, not because
His wisdom recognized them to be. Thus one cannot understand morality
from a rational standpoint.
Dunsmen, Duncemen --- Dunces.
William of Ockham 1287–1347
Ockham’s Razor - the principle that when trying
to choose between multiple competing theories
the simplest theory is probably the best.
(K.I.S.S!)
Nominalist – Universals (truths) exist in name
only.
Charged with heresy & excommunicated.
Late Middle Ages – Famine, Plague, War, Peasant Revolutions
When you hit Bottom,
there is no where to go but up!!!
The first European medieval
institutions generally considered
to be universities were
established in Italy, France, and
England in the late 11th and the
12th.
Representation of a university class, (1350s).