From Roman Empire to Christian
Europe
What is Jesus' significance?
Jesus’ legacy
• Jesus –Hebrew prophet, but also the bearer of a message
that was to transform the world
• His life ended in crucifixion –this event is a point of
intersection of the three main developments of the ancient
world –Hebrew, Greek, and Latin:
• Hebrew prophet
• Executed by a Roman governor
• His teachings were written down in Greek:
• These documents became the sacred texts of a church that
was associated with the Roman empire
• The church outlasted the destruction of the empire
• Why was Jesus’ teaching
revolutionary?
Jesus’ teaching
• Revolutionary in terms of Greek, Roman, and
Hebrew tradition
• Hebrew idea of God, who was omnipotent, just,
was broadened to include mercy that tempered the
justice
• Greek, Roman religion: outward- ritual acts
• Christianity: inward, spiritual
• All human beings are equal in the eyes of the
creator – this idea ran counter to the institution of
slavery
Jesus, Hebrew Prophet,
The Anointed, The Messiah
th
6
c. Representation of Jesus
Rubens, Jesus
Rubens, The Descent from the Cross
• How did Jesus become
the expression of
divine mercy?
• Jesus was rejected by his contemporaries
• His resurrection provided his followers with a
symbol of a new dispensations:
• The son of God in human form suffering to
atone for the sins of humanity
• Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, changed
Christianity from a Jewish sect to a worldwide
movement all over Asia minor, Greece, and Rome
• Frailty and corruption of this life and the
certainty of resurrection
El Greco, Apostle Paul of the
Gentiles
• How did the Roman
empire collapse?
Rome’s decline
• 218-268 A.D. one short-lived emperor after
another was killed by his own troops
• The Goths to the north and the Persians to
the east invaded the eastern provinces
• Economic resources of the empire were
drained to pay and equip the armies
• Debasement of the gold and silver currency
•How did Christianity
survive?
The growth of Christianity
• Through all the years of turmoil the
Christian church, persecuted by imperial
authorities (Nero, Marcus Aurelius,
Diocletian) – was growing in numbers and
influence
• 305 A.D. Constantine declared himself
Christian and enlisted the support of the
Church in his reorganization of the empire
Constantine
•How did the empire
become two separate
states?
Rome’s split
• Rome could no longer serve as the strategic center of the
empire
• The western and eastern halves of the empire needed
separate administrative and military organization
• The two halves of the empire were distinct cultural and
linguistic entities :Latin and Greek
• Constantine established a new capital for his reign on the
site of the Greek city Byzantium and renamed it
Constantinople
• 391 –Theodosius made Christianity the official religion
of the Roman empire
Byzantium
• How did the church
separate?
The church
• In the east the capital founded by Constantine maintained
a Greek-speaking Christian empire for many centuries
until, after a long battle against the advance of Islam, the
city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453
• In the west, in 410 Rome fell to the Visigoths
• Many of the western provinces had been overrun by new
people moving south
• But the Church survived, to convert the conquerors to the
Christian religion
• The church established the cultural and religious
foundations of the European Middle Ages
Rubens, St Augustine
Rubens, St. Augustine