Analyzing Christianity: The First 3000 Years
June 28th (Chapter 6)
Reading chapter 6 of Christianity: The First 3000 Years (MacCulloch, 189-222), and supplemental materials, the themes are many, but mostly encapsulate both the institutionalization and imperialization of Christianity. With the help of Constantine, Rome became a Christian empire and shifted dramatically. Constantine went so far as to create a new capital city named Constantinople, and helped foster tolerance for Christians throughout Rome. With the major changes in the Roman empire came important Christian symbology. The Chi-Rho was adopted as the symbol of Christianity, and the city of Constantinople itself was to be representative of a new Rome, one in which the Church and State worked together (MacCulloch, 192). Monasticism too became increasingly popular in the age of Constantine, as many regional populations were unhappy with the Church as a large, overarching institution. In reading this week, it is hard to overlook the overarching omnipresence of the Church as a variable in the creation of different sects of Christianity, both in theology and in practice.
The institutionalization of the Church can be substantiated by reading the sources provided this week. In MacCulloch’s Christianity, there are many pages that note this phenomenon. MacCulloch notes that bishops, people who had typically led “small, intimate grouping[s]” were now becoming extensions of the State and magistrates to the community as the Church became an extension of the Roman Empire (MacCulloch, 197). The State’s involvement in the affairs of Church can be seen in the case of Caecilian, Diocese of Carthage. Caecilian made efforts to restrain certain behaviors in his locality. These restraints were challenged until the State eventually allowed and promulgated Caecilian’s duties as it pertained to upholding religion (Bettenson, 19). During this time as well the idea of what it meant to even be a Christian was up for debate, some believed that to be Christian meant to be aligned with the Roman Church, while others believed that to be Christian meant to create an imitation of God onto oneself (Meister, 112). As professor Scott Ables points out in his thematic lecture, the institutionalization of Christianity had to many the effect of “watering-down” their religion, as they did not want to adapt to the Roman Empire’s interpretation of Christianity (Ables, Thematic Lecture, 6:20). These factors all played into the shifts to and from Christianity in the age of the Roman Church, and would have lasting impacts for centuries to come.
July 12th (Chapters 9 & 10)
The main theme in reading chapters 9 & 10 in Diarmaid MacCulloch’s book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (MacCulloch, 2011), seems to be the natural precursor to the last unit; the institutionalization of Christianity. The theme for this section examines the centralization of authority in the Christian religion, especially within the Roman empire. These main themes include how the Latin roots of Christianity were slowly adapted and sometimes changed as the religion evolved into the Western world. From there, we look at Augustine’s record in how he shifted the populations that supported Christianity and gained support for the Roman aristocrats. The last and overarching theme of this week is how the new relationship between church and state exist, and from there how missions worked on behalf of the state in order to spread the message of faith.
In reading these chapters and analyzing the historical themes of this time period; it seems that there was no theme more influential than Augustine of Hippo’s transformation of the Church, and just as importantly, those that the Church reached. Perhaps Augustine’s most pivotal contribution to Christianity was his idea of Original Sin.
This is the idea that the original sin of Adam and Eve is inherited by every human being and is inescapable. This idea, while extreme at the time, would become central to Christianity in later generations. Augustine’s idea of Original Sin would be the basis for the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine of “Total Depravity,” which gave credence to the idea that humans are born with sin, and need God to alleviate it (Ables, Thematic Lecture, Week 3). This too can be seen in Romans 13, “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling or jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Coogan, et al., eds., 2031).” These two verses seem to signify that in order to absolve from sin (“no provision for the flesh”), one must embrace God (“put on the Lord Jesus Christ”). As MacCulloch notes, these are the verses Augustine turned to during his internal struggle with sin and sexuality (MacCulloch, 303). While Augustine’s idea of Original Sin would become prominent in later generations, that did not mean that it was without significant pushback at the time. Pelagius, a theologian whose theology might have been the antithesis to original sin, wrote “every good and everything evil, in respect of which we are either worthy of praise or worthy of blame is done by us, not born with us (Bettenson, 58).” Pelagius’s philosophy would ultimately not play out, but does show the enormous philosophical shift that Augustine pushed.
July 22nd
The overarching theme in the readings for this week in the Christianity: The First 3000 Years (MacCulloch, 428-468), seem to be in painting the picture of the time period that was the precursor to the East-West Schism of 1054. Beginning in the second half of the first millennium, major outgrowths of established Christianity began to challenge one another, ranging from Orthodox Christianity in eastern Europe and the emergence of Islam in the Middle East. The accelerant to this even seems to be the fall of the Roman empire and the subsequent Byzantine empire. It seems to be that the overextension of the Roman church eventually led to its own downfall, as various other denominations questioned the Papal authority.
In Chapter 13 of Augustine Casiday’s Christianity, it is noted that many primary sources outside of the Roman empire note that both the Roman empire itself, as well as the Roman Church both held an unusually close relationship (Casiday, 285). The influence of the Church-State relationship extended beyond Byzantine borders, that even churches in varying parts of the world were based on the “canons and creeds” of the Western Church (Casiday, 286). The Roman Church as an institution in some cases grew in power due in part to the needs of the Church to maintain order in various regions. In the Western states, the Roman Church ended up with a monopoly on administrative order, and was one only entity capable of maintaining it at the time (Church & State, Encyclopedia Britannica). In part because of the ability of the Church to administer order within these states, it also was able to influence power within these regions. As time progressed the Church became involved in an increasing portion of the lives of both local and distant communities. One of the ways in which it did that was through the religious institutionalization of Marriage (Mengal & Wolverton, 12-13). The Church legitimized marriage based on its own rules and built up rules and procedures around the institution itself. One of the famous effects of this was King George XIII’s divorce and creation of the Anglican church.
August 23rd
For our analysis of Christianity: The First 3000 Years this week, the themes in chapters 19 and 20 seem to be the growing internal strife and friction caused by varying visions regarding the Church’s future and direct; the other main theme seems to be the examination of the role Christianity played as it entered the New World. The New World served as a blank canvas for varying religious denominations to make their claims for conversion, and various denominations developed strategies that played off eachother.There were elements of strategy to the spread of religion, Protestants were friendlier to Jews in part because Jewish scholarship was helpful to the Protestants in the fight against Catholicism (MacCulloch, 684). Religion followed trade in many instances, or vice versa, as had occurred with Alessandro Valignano (MacCulloch, 708). King Phillip II of Spain during this time backed the Spanish Inquisition largely as a strategy to achieve his desired ends (MacCulloch, 672).
Perhaps the biggest overarching theme of this time period is the relationships that different denominations had with each other and how they used them strategically to their advantage. John Winthrop, though not trying to strategically succeed over other religions, he dreamt up the idea of a separation between Church and State, in some part to weaken King Charles I as he made attempts to silence non-Anglican religious views (Barry, 2012). The Jesuit-Franciscan tension occurred in the New World as well, where the “strategic importance” of Detroit had been vital to trade, and expanding on that, conversion (Handy, 2012). Changing to a new environment is not new to the Church, John Owen of England had led three different congregations throughout the course of his life, all three congregations varying wildly from one another. This too suggests that the clergy in different ways employ strategy to adapt to changing forces (Davies, et. al., 2019). Religious institutions of all denominations have been known to adapt to changing environments and situations; this too was the case in the New World and syncretized and introducing religions to each other like they never had been before.
