Download Quick Lists Roman Empire and Christianity and Printing Press

The Roman Empire and Christianity:
 In spite of Christianity’s great appeal and organizational success, to worship
as a Christian remained dangerous for more than three hundred years.
 Christians devised secret codes and signals, and practiced their services and
ceremonies in hidden places, often in underground chambers called
catacombs.
 Roman persecution was a constant peril, and many Christians were arrested
and executed.
 Worshipers who died for their faith were known as martyrs.
 Ironically, the campaigns of persecution, rather than destroying the new
religion, only strengthened the resolve of the followers.
 Moreover, the bravery and dignity with which many of the martyrs perished
often attracted new converts.
Legalization and the Formal Organization of Christianity:
 In 313 C.E., legal status was granted to Christianity by the Edict of Milan,
handed down by the emperor Constantine.
 In 380 C.E., Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire,
and in 392 C.E., it was proclaimed to be the empire’s only faith.
 Free from persecution, the church turned to questions of ecclesiastical
organization, setting up a formal hierarchy of priests and bishops (by the
fifth century C.E., the bishop of Rome, a position traditionally said to have
been held by the apostle Peter, was becoming known as the pope).
 Only men could serve as clergy.
 The newly legalized church also found it necessary to establish a body of
dogma, an officially agreed-upon set of beliefs.
 Important issues included the nature of Christ (considered to be both fully
human and fully divine) and the doctrine of the Trinity (the belief that God
has a triune nature, existing in the three persons of God the Father, Jesus
Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit).
 Beliefs that were not declared to be part of dogma were condemned as heresy
[adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma].
 Another task was to decide which religious texts would be considered sacred.
 In this way, the books of the Christian Bible were compiled.
 The Bible consisted of two main parts: the Old Testament (containing the
Hebrew Torah, stories from Jewish history, and the writings of Hebrew
prophets) and the New Testament (comprised of the four Gospels, episodes
from the history of the early Christian church, and letters written by the
Apostles).
 Decisions about dogma and the Bible were made at a series of councils held
during the 300s C.E. and afterward.
 The first of these was the Council of Nicaea, called by the emperor
Constantine in the 320s C.E. and resulting in the Nicene Creed, a declaration
of fundamental Christian beliefs.

The priests and scholars who attended the councils or helped to clarify and
defend the councils’ decisions are often referred to collectively as the church
fathers.
 Among the most famous are Jerome (347 – 420 C.E.), whose Vulgate Bible
was the first Latin translation of the holy book, and Augustine (354 – 430
C.E.), whose City of God is considered to have laid the intellectual foundation
for the further development of Christian doctrine.
Christianity after the Fall of the Roman Empire:
 With the collapse of the Roman Empire during the 400s C.E. came a new era
for the Christian church.
 In Asia Minor, the Middle East, and North Africa, where the Roman legacy
was carried on by the Byzantine Empire, metropolitan centers such as
Antioch, Alexandria, and especially Constantinople were the great centers of
Christian worship.
 In the west, where Europe was collapsing into political confusion and social
breakdown, the headquarters of the Christian church was Rome.
 Although the Christian church called itself catholic, or universal, it was, in
reality, deeply divided.
 Doctrinal disagreements, geographical separation, and the simple passage of
time all caused the western and eastern churches to grow apart after the 500s
C.E.
 By 1000 C.E., a rupture was imminent, and, in the Great Schism of 1054
C.E., the western and eastern churches broke with each other formally and
permanently.
 Eastern Orthodoxy remained the faith of the Byzantine Empire, and it was
the form of worship adopted by most Christians in the Middle East, the
Russian lands, and much of eastern Europe.
 Roman Catholicism remained the favored form of Christianity in western
Europe.
 During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church became one of the
most important institutions in Europe, providing Europeans with a sense of
religious unity, preserving Latin manuscripts and texts from the Roman era,
and exerting a tremendous sway over secular and political affairs.
 Further splits within the western Christian church would come later, during
the 1500s and 1600s C.E.
 But, during the medieval era, its power and influence remained paramount.
Movable-Type Printing Press:
 Another element in Europe’s remarkable cultural development during the
early modern period was the invention of the movable-type printing press by
the German printer Johannes Gutenberg in the 1430s.
 Almost single-handedly, the printing press – which spread throughout
Europe, then elsewhere – was responsible for raising literacy rates, spreading
information, increasing the impact of new ideas and scientific theories, and
encouraging the expansion of libraries and universities.
 The spread of the Renaissance and Reformation increased due to the press.
Constantly Risking Absurdity
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence