Download PowerPoint Notes III

A. The Barbarians
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The conversion of Europe, & the Xianizing
of the whole western world, may owe its
accomplishment to what appeared at first
as a disaster to both Xianity & the empire:
the invasion of vast hordes of barbarians.
1. From Invasion To Conversion
– Already we have seen Alaric & the Visigoths
sack Rome in 410.
– While Augustine was dying in 430, the
Vandals were besieging Hippo.
– Barbarian invasions were to last for 600 yrs.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– Already we have seen Odoacer of the
Ostrogoths dethrone the last of the western
emperors in 476.
– In rapid succession of a number of barbaric
kingdoms were set up:
Visigoths (415-711) in Spain & southern Gaul
 Ostrogoths (493-554) in Italy
 Burgundians (443-543) in southeastern Gaul
 Vandals (429-533) in North Africa
 Franks under the Merovingians (486-752)
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A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– In rapid succession of a number of barbaric
kingdoms were set up:
Lombards (586-774) in northern Italy
 Angles, the Saxons, & the Jutes left Denmark & n.
Germany & settled in south Britain (443-485)
 Slavic tribes also moved into the eastern empire.
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– Culturally, the invaders were not savages;
neither were they nomads.
– They were agricultural people who sought
new lands because of overcrowding.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– In the arts they were not primitive.
– The Germanic people brought precise
principles of law which later furnished the
basis for the ecclesiastical practice of penance
& indulgences.
– Salvian (5th c. Xtian) claimed the barbarians
were morally more chaste than the nobility of
the empire, & he especially commended
Gaiseric, the Vandal, for closing the brothels
of Carthage.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– Religiously, the barbarians were of 2
backgrounds.
– There were pagans; but many barbarians
already claimed to be Xtians of the Arian
variety.
– Most of the Goths had come to embrace Arian
Xtianity under Ulphilas, the apostle of the
Goths, who had given them an alphabet &
translated the Bible into their tongue.
– All of the Teutonic tribes were eventually
converted to Xtianity.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– From the Visigoths Xtianity came to the
Ostrogoths, the Vandals & the Lombards.
– One of the most notable conversions of the
period was that of Clovis, King of the Franks
(Gaul).
– At the repeated insistence of his wife, Queen
Clotilde, a Catholic Burgundian princess, C.
finally embraced Xtianity, was baptized, &
compelled his entire army to be baptized.
Baptism of Clovis
Clovis I was king of the Franks
from 481 to 511. In 496 he converted to Christianity, which gained him the support of the Roman
Catholic Church for his conquests
of other tribes in western and
Central Europe. During his rule
Clovis enlarged the Frankish
territory to include most of
modern France and Germany.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– Using his new religion as a political weapon,
C. overthrew the Arian king of the Visigoths,
Alaric II, & consolidated his dominions with
the aid of Catholic bishops & Roman officials.
– His codification of the Salic law & his efforts to
fuse the Romans & the Teutons laid the
foundations of the modern French nation.
– The e.g. of C. was repeated throughout all of
Europe.
– Naturally there was little evidence of
individual conversion in these mass
conversions.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– Thus the people brought their old beliefs &
mores into the ch.
– For Clovis, Jesus was a tribal war god; the
people saw X as the heavenly ruler rather
than the suffering redeemer.
– The archangel Michael of the flaming sword
became a spiritual champion & his name was
given to the citadel of Mont St. Michel.
– Chs & monasteries were built in great
numbers, but people & rulers fell far short of
NT standards.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– After defeat by Clovis, the Arian Visigoths
settled in Spain & continued in Arianism until
Recared, King of Spain was converted to
orthodox Xtianity in 587.
– The Burgundians were the 1st barbarians to
give up Arianism for orthodoxy; they provided
the pagan Clovis with his Xtian queen.
– The Arian Ostrogoths in Italy capitulated to
orthodoxy after defeats at the hands of
Justinian in 553.
A. The Barbarians
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1. From Invasion To Conversion
– The barbarian states were established
because they had the military might to
subdue the Roman Empire, but they did not
have the education or experience to govern it.
– Everywhere they were a minority, with the
majority being Roman & Catholic.
– Besides the Anglo-Saxons in England, the only
barbarian kingdoms which survived at the
close of the 6th c. were the Franks in Gaul &
the Visigoths in Spain, & they were both
solidly Catholic.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– The barbarian invasion provided the setting
for the ascendancy of one of Catholicism’s
most famous leaders—Gregory I (546-604).
– He was the 4th & last of the traditional Latin
“Doctors of the Church” (with Ambrose,
Augustine & Jerome).
– He was pope from 590 to his death (604) &
became father of the medieval papacy.
– Of the 180 bishops of Rome between
Constantine & the Reformation, none was
more influential than Gregory.
Dove (Holy Spirit) dictating
to Gregory the Homilies on
Ezekiel.
Homilies
on
Ezekiel
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– The last of the Germanic tribes to enter the
Roman Empire, the Arian Lombards, invaded
Italy in 568 & the ineffective imperial
governor was unable to combat them.
– This actually had a positive effect on the
position of the ch at Rome; the R. bishop
became the leader & protector of the people.
– Gregory was the son of a Roman nobleman &
at 1st sought a career in civil administration.
– He entered monasticism in 574, selling his
family estates, founding 7 monasteries, &
giving the rest to the poor.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– The pope made him an envoy to the court at
Constantinople.
– He returned to R. in 585 to become abbot of
his monastery.
– When the pope (Pelagius II) died (one of the
1st victims of the bubonic plague), the people
of R. unanimously chose Gregory.
– He was the 1st pope to have been a monk &
from this time Benedictine monasticism was
closely allied with the papacy; these 2
institutions gave medieval Catholicism its
distinctive character.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– a. Peace with the Lombards.
– G. found Italy in an alarming state,
devastated by famine, pestilence & Lombard
invasion.
– According to legend, the bubonic plague was
miraculously ended.
– G. set the civil affairs of R. in order, collected
taxes, provided for welfare, repaired buildings
& streets & raised & trained an army to repel
the Lombards.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– a. Peace with the Lombards.
– Although he was technically under the
emperor, he acted independently, garrisoned
his army, sent orders to generals in the field,
& negotiated with the Lombards.
– No bishop or pope before G. had dared to do
half as much.
– He appointed governors over certain areas &
increased his papal authority until the papacy
was the largest, wealthiest, & most powerful
institution in Italy.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– b. Conversion of Britain.
– As a monk, G. had been deeply moved by the
sight of some attractive young children in the
slave market.
– When he found they were “Angli” from
England & pagans, he determined to be a
missionary to that land.
– After he became pope, he commissioned
Augustine, prior of his monastery in R., to
accomplish this mission for him.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– b. Conversion of Britain.
– Ethelbert, king of the Jutes in Kent, was one
of A’s first & most notable converts; he &
10,000 subjects were baptized on Xmas Day,
597.
– Ethelbert was also overlord of the neighboring
kingdoms of Essex and East Anglia & so
Catholic Xtianity came to 3 or 12 Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– b. Conversion of Britain.
– G. appointed A. archbishop & King E. gave the
new archbishop his own palace in Canterbury,
which became the 1st episcopal center in
England.
– A. met opposition from the Celtic ch, which
refused to adopt the Roman tradition of
baptism or the Roman dating of Easter.
– Later, after A’s death, at the Synod of Whitby,
664, England severed her connection with the
old Iro-Celtic ch in favor of Rome.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– G. left an indelible imprint on ecclesiastical &
theological issues.
– As a theologian, he was not original, building
mainly on the works of Augustine of Hippo.
– He did, however, initiate several enduring
practices.
– He est. the mass as a repetition of the
sacrifice of X that would benefit the living or
the dead.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– He formulated the doctrine of purgatory,
which played so large a part in the religion of
the Middle Ages.
– He was interest in liturgy & popularized the
Gregorian chants.
– His contributions to the medieval papacy were
even more noteworthy.
– He repudiated the Patriarch of Constantinople
when he used the title “Ecumenical Patriarch”
(universal bishop).
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– G. called this a flagrant violation of the
primacy of R., & referred to himself as “the
Servant of the Servants of God.”
– While Leo I is often recognized as “the first
pope,” G. is the 1st to exercise universal
authority & openly declare himself to be pope.
– In deed as well as name, he was patriarch of
the West.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– He ordered the African bishops to oppose the
Donatists & punished those who had fallen
into Manichaeism—setting the precedent for
the subsequent inquisitions.
– He brought Spain from Arianism into
orthodoxy, directed the mission campaign in
Britain & took the Emperor Maurice to task
over his restrictions on soldiers entering
sacred orders.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– Anywhere & everywhere he did whatever he
deemed necessary to govern the entire ch.
– G’s period as pope, by its extension of the
pope’s authority, marks the transition from the
ancient world of imperial R. to medieval
Xtendom united by the Roman Catholic Ch.
– The Medieval Period (Middle Ages) is so called
because of its chronological position between
ancient & modern times.
A. The Barbarians
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2. Gregory The Great
– c. Gregory’s Contributions.
– It forms the transition from Greco-Roman
civilization to the Romano-Germanic
civilization which was to control the future of
the western world.
– Pope G. stood on the threshold between the
old & the new order of things.
– He was the last Church Father as well as the
1st medieval theologian.
– He was the last Roman bishop & the 1st
medieval pope.
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– Xtians in the R. Empire immediately saw &
met the challenge of converting the
barbarians who had come to them.
– But there were some with a wider vision who
were awakened to the possibility of missions
in the homelands of the invaders & beyond.
– a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739)
– Wilfrid began with a brief preaching tour in
Frisia on a trip to Rome; on his return to Eng.
he called for missionaries for Frisia & monks
swarmed over north-western Europe.
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– Xtians in the R. Empire immediately saw &
met the challenge of converting the
barbarians who had come to them.
– But there were some with a wider vision who
were awakened to the possibility of missions
in the homelands of the invaders & beyond.
– a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739)
– Wilfrid began with a brief preaching tour in
Frisia on a trip to Rome; on his return to Eng.
he called for missionaries for Frisia & monks
swarmed over north-western Europe.
Willibrord
Willibrord Stamp
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739)
– The most successful was Willibrord of Saxon
Northumbria, the “Apostle to the
Netherlands.”
– W. went to Frisia in 690 & was made
archbishop of Frisia in 695.
– By his death he had established the
archepiscopal see of Utrecht & had converted
most of the people of the southern part of the
Low Countries.
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– b. Boniface in Germany (680-754).
– Willibrord’s assistant for 3 yrs was Winifrid
who became known as Boniface, “doer of
good,” who became known as the “Apostle of
Germany.”
– He was so successful that Pope Gregory II
made him missionary bishop to Germany in
722.
– One of B’s major achievements was the
consolidation of existing chs into one
ecclesiastical body.
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– b. Boniface in Germany (680-754).
– Extremely popular, he single-handedly
demolished their superstitions, nature
divinations & ritual incantations.
– Before he was 60 he had converted practically
the whole territory east of the Rhine & north
of the Danube.
St. Boniface
Martyrdom of St. Boniface (15th c. French painting
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– c. Scandinavian Missions.
– Denmark & Sweden were first evangelized by
Anskar (801-865), the “Apostle of the North.”
– Norway was Christianized from Eng. thru the
efforts of 2 Norwegian kings, Olaf Tlryggvason
(995-1000) & Olaf Haraldson (1015-30).
– The 1st Xtian king in Sweden was Olaf
Lapking, baptized in 1007.
– From the Scandinavian countries Xtianity
spread to Iceland, Finland, & Greenland.
A. The Barbarians
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3. Missions On The Continent.
– d. Slavic Missions.
– “The Apostles of the Slavs” were 2 brothers
from a Gk family in Thessalonica, Cyril &
Methodius.
– Emperor Michael III sent them as missionaries
to what is now Moravia.
– Cyril invented an alphabet for the people
called Glagolithic (also Cyrillic) & became the
founder of Slavonic literature.
– A Xtian princess brought Xtianity to Bohemia,
& from there it spread to Poland & Hungary.
B. The Moslems
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While Xtianity was making great gains
among the barbarian tribes of western
Europe, a new storm was swirling down
upon the empire from the deserts of
Arabia.
Marching under the banner of a new
theocracy called Islam, they posed the
greatest external threat yet to both empire
& Xtendom.
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– The religion of Islam was the product of the
mind & spirit of a single individual,
Mohammed, its prophet (570-632).
– Orphaned at 6, M. was reared by an uncle in
the Quraysh tribe, which had control of the
Kaaba, the national religious shrine of the
Arabs.
– The Kaaba contained the sacred Black Stone
& the well reputedly kicked up by the infant
Ishmael when Hagar left him to search for
water (Gen. 21:8-21).
The Kaaba
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– M. became disillusioned by the idolatrous
worship & degenerate behavior he observed
in connection with Arabian religion, & when
he began making caravan trips to Syria &
Palestine, his religious feelings increased.
– He became the business manager of a rich
widow, Khadijah, whom he married.
– His 2 sons by Khadijah died in childhood, &
only 1 of 4 daughgters, Fatima, survived.
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– His wealth enabled him to have wider
religious contacts & more leisure time for long
periods of reflection on religion.
– One night in the hills near Mecca, in a cave on
Mt. Hira, he said that he had a vision of the
angel Gabriel telling him to recite.
– He went home & produced the entire 96th
sura of the Koran.
– In a 2nd appearance, Gabriel commissioned
him a prophet of the Lord, & subsequent
revelations that make up the Koran came
frequently.
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– M. began proclaiming the Day of the Lord in
the marketplace.
– The day was to be one of resurrection, final
judgment, & everlasting fire.
– Though people were impressed with his
poetic oratory, after 4 yrs he had only 40
converts.
– Because of his attacks on the Kaaba, the
Quraysh disturbed his meetings with violence,
& he feared for his life.
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– 300 mi to the north, 6 men left the Medina to
seek out Mohammed as the leader who might
bring the tribes of Medina & Mecca together.
– They arrived in Mecca just in time to help him
escape assassination.
– Thus, in 622, M. & his followers made their
great Hegira flight to Medina, marking the
beginning of the Islamic calendar.
– In Medina he became the undisputed leaders
of a religious theocracy, defended the city
against Meccan attacks & boldly attacked &
captured Mecca itself.
Mecca
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– Within 8 yrs M. had become the strongest
chieftain in all Arabia.
– He stripped the Kaaba of its idols & images,
but continued to pay tribute to the Black
Stone.
– By 632 M. was dead at 62, but he had
instituted a new religion that would unify the
Arabian people into one brotherhood.
B. The Moslems
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1. Mohammed The Prophet
– The strict monotheistic faith of Islam made
rigid moral & spiritual demands on the people
which they eagerly accepted, for M. had
convinced them that they were divinely
appointed to bring all peoples into submission
to the will of God.
Medina
B. The Moslems
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2. The Religion of Islam
– Islam implies “submission to the will of God,”
& means “the submitters.”
– It must be understood in order to evaluate
the historical developments of wars,
conquests, & expansion.
– The fanatical followers of M. have always
been on a holy crusade to capture & convert
the world for the God (Allah).
– Islam is built around 5 basic doctrines:
B. The Moslems
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2. The Religion of Islam
– 1) There is no God but Allah, & M. is his
prophet.
– 2) God’s work is carried on among men by
angels, the mediating spirits of God.
– 3) The will of Allah is written down in the
Koran, which contains all a Moslem needs to
know to obtain salvation.
– 4) The great figures of Judaism & Xtianity are
revered by Islam, but its own prophet M.
surpasses them all.
B. The Moslems
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2. The Religion of Islam
– There are 6 great prophets: Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Mohammed, the
greatest of them all.
– 5) There will be a resurrection day & a final
judgment for every individual; the followers of
M. will cross into the Gardens of Paradise, &
infidels (non-Moslems) & sinful Moslems will
fall into the abyss of hell.
– There are 4 religious practices to which every
Moslem is bound:
B. The Moslems
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2. The Religion of Islam
– There are 4 religious practices to which every
Moslem is bound:
– 1) prayer, 5 times a day, facing Mecca in the
bodily position described in the Koran;
– 2) almsgiving, including both the Jewish tithe
& additional charity;
– 3) fasting from all gratifications of the senses
during the entire month of Ramadan;
– 4) pilgrimage to Mecca during one’s lifetime,
either personally or by proxy.
B. The Moslems
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3. The Moslem Conquests
– Believing that they were divinely
commissioned to subdue all people to God’s
will, Moslems did not hesitate to organize,
train & give military expression to their
missionary call.
– In developing Arabian unity around Islam, M.
used violent as well as nonviolent means with
his own people.
– Then he personally led them in their first
military conquests of Xtianity in 629.
B. The Moslems
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3. The Moslem Conquests
– It was not, however, until after his death that
Islam spread like a devouring fire over the
East.
– Armed with the belief that death in combat on
behalf of Allah would ensure entrance into
paradise, the terrifying Moslems swept down
on Damascus in 635, conquering it almost
instantly.
– Jerusalem held out longer, but fell under a
bloody siege in 637.
B. The Moslems
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3. The Moslem Conquests
– 638 saw the fall of Antioch, Tripoli, Tyre,
Caesarea & 15 other cities on the
Mediterranean coast.
– By the end of 639 nothing of the eastern
empire was left in Syria.
– Mesopotamia surrendered, by 641 all of Egypt
had been conquered, & the advance across N.
Africa had begun.
– Iraq fell in 637, & by 649 had subdued all of
Persia; by 652 (only 12 yrs) Moslems
controlled most of Asia Minor.
B. The Moslems

3. The Moslem Conquests
– Attempting to capture Constantinople, they
were turned back by the awesome Taurus
Mountains.
– Determined to take C. they organized a navy
& took Cyprus (648), Aradus (649) & Cos &
Rhodes (654).
– They defeated Emperor Constans II in a naval
battle at Phoenix (655), but the Moslems were
spread too thin.
– For 5 yrs (673-678) they tried to take C. by
land & sea, but were repeatedly driven back.
B. The Moslems

3. The Moslem Conquests
– A peace of sorts was affected in 679, but
hostilities resumed in 695.
– In 732 Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks,
turned the tide in the West by his decisive
victory over the “Saracens” (a word used by
medieval writers of Arabs generally & later
applied to the M. nations against whom the
crusaders fought.
– The Battle of Tours (732) was the decisive
event.
B. The Moslems
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3. The Moslem Conquests
– If the invading Arabs had not been turned
back at Tours, they might well have engulfed
all of Europe.
– Though they had finally been stopped, the
Moslems in 45 yrs (633-678) had torn from
the eastern empire some of its richest & most
populous provinces, & had left it only a
shadow of its former self.
– The occupation of the Holy Land by the
Moslems was especially offensive to Xtians
throughout the world.
B. The Moslems
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3. The Moslem Conquests
– Centuries later, the Crusades of the 11th, 12th
& 13th c. were undertaken to recover the Holy
Land from the clutches of Islam.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– Xtianity had been depleted like the empire.
– The gains of Xtianity in the West had been
counterbalanced by excessive losses in the
East.
– a. The Consolidation of the Church.
– 3 of the patriarchs were now in Moslem
territory.
– Rome was gaining political autonomy, & C.
was enjoying imperial patronage, but
Alexandria, Antioch, & Jerusalem had been
humiliated.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– The patriarchs of Alexandria & Antioch lived
abroad in exile, but Sophronius stubbornly
remained in Jerusalem.
– Multitudes of Xtians found it more expedient
to exchange Xtianity for Islam, & within a
generation, the majority of the population of
N. Africa, Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, & even
Palestine became Moslem.
– The Xtianity that survived was greatly
modified, & faithful Xtians found themselves
cut off from the rest of Xtendom for centuries.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– These events were beneficial for the
consolidation of the ch.
– The patriarch of C, which had been one
among 4 equals, became the head of eastern
Catholicism.
– The 424 dioceses throughout the Balkan
peninsula & Asia Minor came under the direct
rule of the see of C.
– The loyalty and integrity of the clergy were
strengthened with new & stringent
requirements.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– Society in general appeared to be intensely
religious during this period.
– Attendance at ch was large & regular.
– Worship developed into an exquisitely
beautiful art, with sacramental worship, rather
than preaching, becoming central.
– Baptism was universally & officially conferred
upon infants.
– Penance was not obligatory, but was
encouraged.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– Marriage was regulated & controlled by the ch
– Fasting before communion was required.
– Theological writings were few & inconsequential;
there seemed to be an abnormal desire to spurn the
spiritual & intellectual, & to fix religion in concrete
terms.
– This was especially expressed in the compulsion of
people everywhere to see, handle & kiss relics &
icons.
– This widespread practice precipitated one of the
greatest controversies in the eastern ch with effects
in modern times.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– Icons, technically speaking, are flat pictures,
usually painted in oil on wood, but also made
in mosaic, ivory, & other materials, used to
represent X, the Virgin Mary, or some saint.
– Iconoclasm, used in our vocabulary as a
synonym for destruction, means the
shattering of something established to make
room for something new & different.
– In ch. hist. it refers to the effort to abolish
images, pictures, or any material likenesses of
any sacred personage or event.
B. The Moslems
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4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– The iconoclast thus were the destroyers of
icons or sacred images.
– The iconoclasts called the people who
worshiped or venerated images the
iconolaters.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– In 726, Emperor Leo III published an edict
declaring all images idols & ordering their
destruction, thus becoming known as Leo the
Iconoclast.
Icon—The Nativity of the
Theotokos
Icon of the
Archangel Michael
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– Leo believed that the use of icons was a chief
obstacle to the conversion of Jews &
Moslems.
– The Jews were offended by icons because of
the 2nd com which forbids the making of
graven images.
– As a soldier on the eastern frontier of the
empire, Leo had been impressed with the
Moslem rejection of idolatry in any form.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– When he became emperor, L. accepted
iconoclasm as a divine mission he was
ordained of God to perform & set about to
eliminate image worship from his empire.
– The b. of R. condemned Leo for his
iconoclastic decree, & in retaliation the
emperor reapportioned Sicily, southern Italy,
& the entire western part of the Balkans &
Greece from R. to the patriarchate of
Constantinople.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– Disturbances erupted throughout the empire,
& a systematic persecution was loosed
against the more ardent defenders of the
icons.
– John of Damascus wrote apologies against
the iconoclasts, & Pope Gregory III held two
synods at Rome condemning Leo’s
supporters.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– In 741, was L. was succeeded by his son
Constantine V who continued his father’s
policies.
– In 753, he called the Synod of Hieria; the
synod held that by representing only the
humanity of X, the icon worshipers either
divided his unity as the Nestorians or
confounded the two natures as the
Monophysites.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 1) Leo the Iconoclast.
– The synod also declared that the icons of the
Virgin Mary & the saints were idols & decreed
the destruction of all of them.
– 2) John of Damascus (675-749).
– The iconoclastic disputes produced the
greatest medieval theologian of the eastern
ch who was also the ablest defender of
images in the early days of the controversy.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 2) John of Damascus (675-749).
– J. appealed to the images mentioned in the
Bible, the brazen serpent in the wilderness, &
the lions in Solomon’s temple, but his primary
argument was from the incarnation & the
Eucharist.
– If God himself became flesh, then physical
things cannot be evil, & if X is bodily present
in the bread & wine, then sensory aids to
religion are not wrong.
John of Damascus
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 2) John of Damascus (675-749).
– He also argued from Plato’s notion that
everything in this world is really an imitation
of the eternal, original “form.”
– J’s work greatly influenced the 787 council at
Nicaea where images were sanctioned again.
– Under Constantine’s son, Leo IV (775-80), the
persecution subsided.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– 2) John of Damascus (675-749).
– After his death, the Empress Irene, acting as
regent reversed the policy of her
predecessors.
– She called the 7th General Council at Nicaea in
787 which undid the work of the Synod of
Hieria, set limits to icon veneration, & decreed
their restoration throughout the country.
– Iconoclasm, however, retained a strong
following, especially in the army.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– In 814, the “Second Iconoclastic Controversy”
took place under Leo V the Armenian, a
general elected emperor by the army.
– Again icons were removed from chs & public
buildings, & defenders of icons were exiled,
imprisoned, & martyred.
– Leo was assassinated in 820; his son &
grandson followed his policies, but on the
death of the grandson, Theophilus, the tide
turned once more.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– Theodora, widow of Theophilus, acting as
regent, had the monk Mehtodius elected
patriarch in 843.
– On the first Sunday of Lent a great feast was
celebrated in honor of the icons, a feast which
has been solemnly kept ever since in the
eastern ch as the “Feast of Orthodoxy.”
– The long controversy was over.
– The icons had persevered & won.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– The iconoclastic controversy in the East had
very little theological repercussions in the
West, but it did have a profound practical
effect.
– This particular controversy is usually
considered the last step toward the great
schism between East & West, before the
actual breach.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– The iconoclastic issue was a showcase
example of Caesaropapism, the system
whereby an absolute monarch has supreme
control over the ch within his dominions &
exercises it even in doctrinal matters normally
reserved to ecclesiastical authority.
– The popes in R. viewed the flagrant
Caesaropapism in the East during the icon
dispute with growing apprehension.
B. The Moslems

4. Effect On Christianity
– b. The Iconoclastic Controversy.
– The unity achieved by imperial decree at
Nicaea in 787 & again in 843 proved to be
temporary.
– With the development of the temporal power
of the papacy, the way was prepared for the
final separation between the independent ch
of the West & the ch of the Byzantine Empire.
The East-West Schism



A. The Holy Roman Empire
In the 700s the Lombards were again
threatening to overthrow Rome.
But if R. were to maintain any semblance
of independence from Constantinople, it
would have to look for protection from
some other source than the emperor.
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– In 739 Gregory III appealed to Charles Martel
for aid against the Lombards, but in vain.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– When Charles Martel died, his son Pepin the
Short became virtual ruler of the Franks.
– He quickly saw that he & the papacy could be
of mutual assistance to each other.
– He desired the kingly title as well as the kingly
power in France so he sought the moral
sanction of the ch for a revolution against the
last of the Merovingians.
– He received this approval from Pope
Zacharias.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– In 751 P. was formally made king of France,
crowned by no less than Boniface, the great
missionary to Germany.
– In exchange for papal assistance, P. had
agreed to drive the Lombards from Italy,
which he did in 755 & 756.
– P. has been eclipsed by his son Charlemagne,
but he must be remembered for establishing
two critically important precedents.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– The 1st was the acquiring of the throne by the
sanction of the pope.
– Charlemagne’s coronation is much more
famous, but P’s was actually the 1st
demonstration of the papacy’s power in
setting up governments, which led to the
reestablishment of the empire in the West.
– The 2nd precedent was the granting of
territory positions to the pope.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– After defeating the Lombards, P. created the
papal states, consisting of 22 cities & their
environs, stretching across Italy from Rome to
Ravenna.
– In this action known as the “Donation of
Pepin” (756), he gave outright to the R. ch &
its bishops all the cities won by him from the
Lombards.
– This act was justified by the precedent of a
fabled document called “The Donation of
Constantine.”
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– In this document Constantine the Great was
supposed to have donated grants of land to
Pope Sylvester for curing him of leprosy.
– In this spurious account, C. gave Sylvester &
all succeeding popes all the cities of Italy &
the western regions.
– So Pepin appeared to be merely returning
lands to their “rightful” overlord.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– The “Donation of Constantine” was generally
accepted as authentic throughout the Middle
Ages, until its forgery was exposed by
Nicholas of Cusa in 1433 & Lorenzo Valla in
1440.
– The imp result of the “Donation of Pepin” was
the establishment of an entirely new
commonwealth on the map of Europe, a
commonwealth which was to continue in
existence from 756 until the unification of
Italy in 1870.
Lorenzo Valla on Donation of Con.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 1. The Donation of Pepin
– P. had laid the foundation of the ch-states &
constituted himself & his successors as
protectors of the Holy See.
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– P. died in 768 & his kingdom was divided
between sons, Charles & Carloman; when
Carloman died in 771, C. became sole ruler &
began the legendary reign that fused his
name with greatness—Charlemagne (Charles
the Great).
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– C. soon began his conquests—Lombardy,
Saxony, Bavaria, northern Spain, Austria, etc.
– Everywhere that C. marched & conquered, he
took the message & organization of Roman
Xtinaity.
– His military conquests & accompanying
missionary efforts were especially appreciated
by R.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– He ratified the donation of his father, made a
sacred compact with the pope, extended the
territories of the states of the ch, & promised
his protection always.
– In response to Pope Leo III’s enemies, C.
declared that “the Apostolic See has the right
to judge everyone but can itself be judged by
no one.”
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– 2 days later, on Xmas Day, 800, while C. was
kneeling at the altar in St. Peter’s, Pope Leo
III, evidently with no warning to C., placed an
imperial crown on his head.
– The assembled nobility & churchmen cried
aloud: “To Charles Augustus, crowned by
God, great and peaceful emperor of the
Romans, long life and victory.”
– It signaled to Constantinople that C. was
more than the king of France, he was
supreme ruler of the western world.
Coronation of
Charlemagne
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– It also signaled to Con. that the center of the
empire had returned to Rome.
– For the church, it announced that the new
emperor was dependent for his authority
upon the pope who had voluntarily conferred
it upon him.
– a. The State of Religion
– C. was devout, concerned & involved in affairs
of the ch.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– a. The State of Religion
– Every morning he went to mass & every
evening to vespers.
– He took an active part in the life of the ch,
summoning councils & interfering with their
decisions.
– The ch was virtually a department of state,
but C. never ascribed to himself any religious
designation.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– a. The State of Religion
– Instead, he preferred the role of David, who
with his sword defended the Ark of the Lord.
– There was outward reformation & inward
revival of monasticism under C’s pursuit of
genuine & spiritual Xtianity.
– New ch bldgs were erected, & a new
architecture emerged which proved to be the
forerunner of the later Gothic style.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– a. The State of Religion
– Because of C’s personal preference, the
Gregorian chant experienced a real revival.
– Baptism by immersion was replaced by
pouring, and the baptistry gave way to the
font.
– The one abiding contribution which the West
made to theology during this period was the
addition of the filioque to the NiceneConstantinople creed.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– a. The State of Religion
– Filioque means “from the Son,” & was added
to the creed as an affirmation that the HS
proceeds equally from the Father & the Son.
– Although generally adopted in the West, the
East refused the addition, preferring to say
the HS proceeds from the Father by the Son.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– b. The Carolingian Renaissance
– C inaugurated a revitalizing of culture and
learning by inviting to his court the most
renowned scholars of his time to from the
nucleus of a palace school where
administrators for the state & ch could be
trained.
– The Anglo-Saxon Alcuin (735-804) was head
of the cathedral school at York when called to
C’s court.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– b. The Carolingian Renaissance
– As royal tutor he established a palace library;
he also, as Abbot of Tours, set up an
important school & library at the monastery.
– A. was the principal intellect & architect of the
Carolingian Renaissance.
– He revived the ancient disciplines of grammar,
rhetoric & dialectic.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– b. The Carolingian Renaissance
– Classical Xtian culture was revived; A.
dreamed of “a new Athens enriched by the
sevenfold fullness of the Holy Spirit.”
– A. informed C. that he was not to use his
sword, the political power of the state, to
impose religion.
– He was the 1st to use the figure of the 2
swords with reference to the roles of ch &
state.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– b. The Carolingian Renaissance
– Thru A. (& others scholars) C. promoted the
revival of classical Xtian culture, & people
were taught to read & write & appreciate
books.
– Perhaps more than any other sovereign in
history, Charlemagne was head over all things
in his day.
– He was a warrior of great gifts, a patron of
learning, the kindly master of the ch, & the
preserver of order.
The East-West Schism

A. The Holy Roman Empire
– 2. The Reign of Charlemagne
– b. The Carolingian Renaissance
– When he died, he ruled all of modern
France, Belgium, Holland, nearly half of
modern Germany & Austria-Hungary,
more than half of Italy, & northeastern
Spain.
– He expanded his kingdom as conqueror,
but stabilized it as benefactor &
educator.