Plan
1. Origins and Development of Christianity
2. Origins of Christianity
Origins and Development of Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic
religion based on the life, teachings, death by crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus
of Nazareth as described in the New Testament. Although Christians are
monotheistic, the one God is thought, by most Christians, to exist in three persons,
called the Trinity. Most Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God and the
Messiah of the Jews as prophesied in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible).
According to other traditions, however, Jesus is thought to be a human Messiah
that instructs his followers to worship God alone. Christianity encompasses
numerous religious traditions that widely vary by culture, as well as thousands of
diverse beliefs and sects; over the past two millennia, Christianity has been
grouped into three main branches: Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and
Protestantism. It is the world's largest single religion, with over 2.2 billion
followers.
Christianity is characterized by a number of reported miracles attributed by
Christians to Jesus and his followers.
Origins of Christianity
Christianity originated in the first century. According to Acts 11:19 and
11:26 in the New Testament, Jesus' followers were first called Christians by nonChristians in the city of Antioch, where they had fled and settled after early
persecutions in Judea. After Jesus' death, early Christian doctrine was taught by
Paul of Tarsus and the other apostles.
Jesus, a descendant of Judah, is reported to have declared himself to be the long
awaited Messiah (John 8:23-24, John 14:11), but was rejected as an apostate by the
people generally considered to be the Jewish authorities (Matthew 26:63-64). He
was condemned for blasphemy and executed by the Romans around the year 30.
The formal charge cited in his execution was leading a rebellion (Luke 23:1-5): he
was called the "King of the Jews" by Pontius Pilate (John 19:19-22, Luke 16:8) on
the titulus crucis or statement of the charge hung over the condemned on the cross.
The Gospels indicate that the Roman charge was actually an attempt to appease the
Jewish authorities, although some scholars argue that it was an ordinary Roman
trial of a rebel. According to Christians, the Old Testament predicted the death and
humiliation of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. Examples include the book
of Isaiah that alludes to the slapping (Matthew 26:67-68, Isaiah 52:14-15, Isaiah
50:6, Mark 14:65, Luke 23:63-64), whipping (Isaiah 53:5, John 19:1, Matthew
27:26) and general humiliation that is centered on the given references.
Jesus' apostles were the main witnesses of his life, teaching and resurrection
from the dead, although some of the early traditions of the church name numerous
disciples (as many as 70 including James Adelphos, Mark, Luke, Mary Magdalene,
etc) who also followed Jesus in his travels and witnessed his miracles and
teachings. After his crucifixion, his apostles and other followers claimed that Jesus
rose from the dead, and set out to preach the new message. The original apostles
are believed by most Christians to have written some of the New Testament's
Gospels and Epistles.
Many of the New Testament's twenty-seven books were written by Paul of
Tarsus. Twelve Epistles name him as writer, and some traditions also credit him as
the writer of the book of Hebrews. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the
Apostles are stated as having been written by Luke, whom many believe to have
been under Paul's direct influence. Acts cites Paul as a student of Gamaliel (Acts
22:3), a leading figure amongst the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 5:34-40) and a
noteworthy authority in his own right (Acts 28:16-22) considering that the Jews of
Rome sought his opinion on Christianity. Paul was the principal missionary of the
Christian message to the Gentile world.
Plan
1. The Early Christian Church
2. Emergence of national Churches
The Early Christian Church
Christianity spread rapidly over the first three centuries aided by the relative
internal peace and good roads of the Roman Empire:
 via Egypt into North Africa, Sudan and Ethiopia
 via Mesopotamia to Persia, Inner Asia and India
 via Greece and Rome to Europe
There were two main communities of Christians, the Jewish Christians and the
Hellenistic Christians. Jewish Christians were those Jews and Gentile converts who
stuck closely to the Judaic beliefs including male circumcision, dietary restrictions
and the concept of purity. Hellenistic Christians were those who were more
influenced by the Greek-speaking world and believed that the central message of
Christianity could be re-presented in ways more appropriate for Gentiles. Both
these groups contributed to the New Testament and both contained within them a
wide spectrum of beliefs.
The first great writer of Christianity, Tertullian, sums this up in a rhetorical
address to a Roman governor with the fact that, as for the Christians of Carthage
that just yesterday were few in number, now they "have filled every place among
you— cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes,
companies, palaces, senate, forum; we have left nothing to you but the temples of
your gods" (Apologeticus written at Carthage, ca 197).
Over the course of the first few centuries after Christ, classically trained
theologians and philosophers such as Origen and Augustine developed Christian
theology and Christian philosophy, which some argue was a synthesis of Hellenic
and Early Christian thought.
During this period of first organization the Christian church had to deal mainly
with occasional, but sometimes severe persecutions. The life of the martyr, who
would rather die than renounce his faith, became the highest virtue. The canonical
books of the New Testament were agreed, early translations appeared, and a
church hierarchy emerged: the Bishops of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome assumed
the title Patriarch.
The Roman Emperor Constantine I was converted in 312 and with his Edict
of Milan (313) he ended the persecution of Christians. Persecution was briefly
revived during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363) who tried to restore
paganism to the empire; Christianity was later made the officially favored religion
in about 382 by Emperor Theodotius. Similar events took place in neighbouring
Georgia and Armenia. But in Persia, which was at constant war with Rome, the
Christians struggled under the oppresive Sassanids, who tried to revive the
Zoroastrian religion.
In the Persian empire, at the synod of Seleucia in 410, the bishop of Seleucia
was pronounced Catholic and replaced the Patriarch of Antioch as the highest
authority of the Assyrian Church of the East. Soon after, during the Nestorian
Schism, this church broke all ties with the West. It would be the dominant church
of Asia for more than a millennium, with bishopries as far away as India, Java, and
China.
Emergence of national Churches
The question of Jesus's divinity was central to early Christians. A wide range of
early writers, including Justin Martyr and Tertullian testify to belief that Jesus was
God. At the same time, various Christian groups did not share that belief. The
situation came to a head with the teaching of Arius, who brought large numbers of
bishops and faithful to his belief that Jesus was a created being.
The issue was settled by vote at the First Council of Nicaea, convened by
Emperor Constantine I, where the teaching championed by Athanasius,
trinitarianism, was enshrined as dogma. Although Constantine ordered all Arian
books burned and Arius exiled, Arianism continued to exist and thrive in the
empire for several decades, and among the Germanic tribes for almost two
centuries, after the decision of the council.
This was only the first of several ecumenical councils for resolving doctrinal
issues. These councils sought to unify Christianity, and were supported by the
Byzantine Emperors in order to promote political stability. Some of the theological
terminology of these councils may have been misunderstood by those Orthodox
whose main language was Syriac, Armenian, or Coptic. As a result differences in
later theological constructs lead these national branches of the church to break
away from the rest, forming Oriental Churches, sometimes called the
Monophysites.
By the second millennium, Christianity had spread to most of the Western
world, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and had made some small inroads into the
Far East as well. For the most part it had remained fairly unified in its fundamental
beliefs with major theological disagreements being resolved in council. But as the
millennium approached, certain major differences in theology and practice became
increasingly troublesome. The Great Schism of 1054 split the Church into Western
and Eastern churches: the Western church gradually consolidated into the Roman
Catholic Church under the central authority of Rome, while the Eastern church
adopted the name "Orthodox" to emphasize their commitment to preserving the
traditions of the church and resistance to change. This Eastern Church refused to
be consolidated under a single bishop, as this was completely alien to the structure
the church had hitherto enjoyed. The Eastern Church recognized the Patriarch of
Constantinople as the "First among equals" of the numerous bishops in charge of
its autocephalous churches.
In the European Reformation of the 1500s, Protestants and numerous similar
churches arose in objection to perceived abuses of growing Papal authority and to
perceived doctrinal error and novelty in Rome. Key questions in the Reformation
controversy are summed up in five famous 'solas': Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone does the church's authority derive solely from correctly interpreting the Scriptures,
or does it have a separate authority?), Sola Fide (Faith alone - is a man saved
through faith in Christ alone, or do the Church, good works and the sacraments
contribute?), Sola Gratia (Grace alone - is a man's salvation purely and exclusively
due to God's unmerited grace, or do individual works make a contribution?), Solus
Christus (Christ alone - is Jesus the only mediator between man and God, or does
the Church and its priests play a part?) and Soli Deo Gloria (To the glory of God
alone - does 100% of the glory for man's salvation belong to God, or are the
Church and its priests eligible for a part?). The Reformation sparked a vigorous
struggle for the hearts and minds of Europeans. Disputes between Catholics and
Protestants sparked persecution and were caught up in various wars, both civil and
foreign.
Catholicism and Protestantism arrived in North America (and later
Australasia) with European settlement. Lacking any central authority in either
Rome or national governments, Protestants worshipped in hundreds, and later
thousands, of independent denominations. Protestantism was taken to South
America and Africa by European colonists, especially in the 16th to 19th centuries.
Orthodoxy first arrived in North America via Russian settlers in the Alaskan region
in the 18th century; they came to North America from Europe in much greater
numbers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In the 19th and 20th centuries many Christian-oriented nations, especially in
Western Europe, became more secular as science and technology captured the
imagination of the people. Most communist states were governed by avowed
atheists, though only Albania was officially atheistic. Adherents to Fundamentalist
Christianity, particularly in the United States, also perceived threats from new
theories about the age of the Earth and the evolution of life.
Plan
1. There is one word to describe the culture in the Middle Ages and that is
barbaric.
2. Medieval Times
3. Everyday Life
There is one word to describe the culture in the Middle Ages and that is
barbaric.
While some countries were better than others at maintaining order and the
education of their society it was quite a rough time to exist when people had little
to no rights. There were certain aspects of the Middle Ages that seemed rather
glamorous such as kings, queens, knights, and other rumors that surrounded the
time period, but overall the Middle Ages were not a fun and fancy free type of
time.
There was a lot that occurred during the Middle Ages, plague, war, famine,
and literacy problems plagued many of the countries in Europe. It was not a good
time to have beliefs that differed from the church, and there was little to protect
any member of the country that spoke their mind if it differed from those in power.
The Middle Ages were exactly that a period after the fall of the Roman Empire and
Greek influence, but before the enlightenment of the renaissance. The Middle Ages
were the transition period that sat smack dab in the middle of those two time
periods.
Medieval Times
Most people think of Medieval Times as a place in history where a gallant
knight would ride off into the sunset to sleigh a dragon for the love of a princess.
They do not realize it was a huge time for superstition, and the lack of education
did not provide any support to disprove any of the more outrageous superstitious
beliefs.
Medicine was pretty much non-existent, so the treatment for someone that
fell ill or had some sort of medical issue was basically to wait it out and see what
God decides. Blood letting was a popular treatment for almost any disease, and that
was when a doctor would simply cut into an individual and drain blood from their
body. The belief was that ridding the body of the toxic blood would allow the body
to heal itself. The problem with this was that the blood draining would make the
individuals weaker and people would often drain off too much blood which would
eventually lead to death.
There were games and fairs that existed and the citizens of a town were often
all in attendance. These fairs provided a wonderful time and opportunity for many
families. There were shows, games, and many other trading or sales stands
available for people to purchase items or sell homemade items that they may have
to a wide audience. While there were local trade markets many of these people did
not get such a large audience as they would from a fair.
Everyday Life
The average person’s life was filled with a great deal of hard work and modest
earnings. The majority of families worked all day in order to grow and gather
enough food to feed their family and sell in order to purchase items such as
clothing that they may need. Most families were barely able to make ends
meet, and their children were often married off at a very young age. All of the
children were expected to help work in order to help feed the family, so
education was not pushed on the children. The expectancy of life for peasants
was very low. Many women experienced a great deal of miscarriages, and the
children often died at young ages to illness, disease or simply just accidents.
The wealthier people of society often had a much easier time in life. They did
not have to do much hard labor at all and in fact often had live in servants
that were there to take care of any need that they may have. Some members
would be invited to court which meant that they would go to keep the king or
queen company and to wait on them hand and foot.
Some people were just there to provide entertainment, and others were there
simply because the king may choose to want them close. This was an
extremely common practice for kings that often had affairs with the women
that were at court. Eventually the kings would tire of them or the women
would become impregnated and they would eventually send them away.
Art & Education
There could not be a bigger difference in a society’s concentration like that of
art and education during the Middle Ages. The culture in the Middle Ages
had a strong concentration on the artistic talents of many individuals. The
Middle Ages saw the sprouting of artists from individuals that lived and
worked outside of the monasteries which were completely different than it
had been historically. Some of the most famous artists in history were born to
farmhands or peasants during this time period.
Education took a back seat during the Middle Ages. It was not until the end of
the Middle Ages that the rulers began to realize that without education they
would just continue to make the same mistakes over and over again and
would never reach peace for their society. It was then that they began to focus
on the education of at least the higher end of society so that the countries
would be able to grow and flourish.
Branching Out
The culture in the Middle Ages expanded eastward. Due to open trade lines
with the east there were many aspects of society that began to change due to
the knowledge that they received from their much more educated eastern
neighbors. Religions, education, art, and even cooking were influenced by the
east. Bland food began to have a more vibrant taste due to spices and herbs
that were brought through the trade lines, and made the rest of Europe
realize that there was a much bigger world out there.
The culture in the Middle Ages was extremely limited due to strong
restrictions placed on society by the church. The church worried that the
more education the people received the more likely they were to question their
beliefs, so they encouraged the hindrance of the culture.