Christianity
The Old Testament
The Old Testament is a collection of religious writings
by ancient Israelites that compose the first section or part of
Christian theology. The Old Testament is a Christian term, despite the
fact that the writings are used in another faith, Judaism, for the fact
that they are referred to as the 'Old' Testament (juxtaposed with the
New Testament). Between different subdivisions of Christianity, however,
the writings and teachings derived from the Old Testament can vary
quite drastically.
The religious writings of the Old Testament can be divided into
several smaller sections, called Books, which cover the writings of
different Christian prophets and historians.
The books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and Deuteronomy
cover the stories of Genesis, which refer to everything from the
creation of man in the Garden of Eden, all the way to the death of
Moses. The Torah, a Jewish religious text, is also composed of these
books. Very few scholars believe the five books remain genuine to their
original writings in the Persian period (538-332 BC). It is likely the
authors and translators that produced the books as we know them today
were composed of the theologians who controlled the Second Temple at the
time of translation (516 BCE-70 CE).
Following those are the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings.
These four books cover the period of time from the Conquest of Canaan to
the Siege of Jerusalem circa 587 BC, though scholars agree that the
books were written later, around 6th century BC, during the Babylonian
exile. The books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and
the book of the Minor Prophets were written between the 8th and 6th
centuries. The Books of Job and Book of Proverbs can be traced back to
between the 5th century BC and 1st century BC.
The New Testament
The New Testament comprises the second part of the major
theological documents of Christianity, and is considered a sacred
scripture alongside the Old Testament. The New Testament accompanied the
spread of Christianity through the world, serves as a source document
for Christian theology, and has affected drastic influence and change on
philosophy, politics, literature art and music.
The New Testament is an anthology of Christian works, written in
Greek, and at different times by the Jewish followers of Jesus of
Nazareth. Today, the anthology consists of 27 books in total: A
collection of epistles, Acts of the Apostles, the Book of Revelation and
the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The gospels act as
narratives of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The
epistles were written in the form of letters, extolling the doctrine
and theology of Christianity, and were authored by many different
people. The Act of Apostles is a collection of the narratives of
ministries of the 12 Apostles, created early in the church. The Book of
Revelation acts as a prophecy, containing information and prophetic
symbology about the end of time and the return of Jesus Christ.
Early Christianity
This period of Early Christianity is generally defined as
portion of time between the origin of Christianity as a sect of
Judaism, and the First Council of Nicaea in 325. This period began in
the early 1st century AD during the time when Jesus of Nazareth preached
to the people. During his time preaching, according to Christian
theology, Jesus of Nazareth taught others using proverbs and allegory,
healed the sick and preformed miracles, including but not limited to
curing lepers and returning eyesight to the blind.
Jesus of
Nazareth was eventually arrested, tried by the Roman official Pontius
Pilate and his court, and sentenced to death by crucifixion. Christian
religious texts state that after three days, the body of Jesus was
resurrected.
The Exhortation to the Apostles by James Tissot (1886-1894)
Shortly after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the 12 Apostles
began to spread the news of the death and resurrection themselves. This
period in Early Christian history is generally referred to as the
Apostolic Age.
During the beginning of the Apostolic Age, Christianity had yet to
become more than an off-shoot of Judaism but within a decade of the
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the 12 Apostles had spread
the Good News from Cyprus, to Crete, to Thessalonica, to Corinth. As
Christianity continued to spread through Roman territory the messages of
Jesus of Nazareth were adopted by people who were not Jewish and did
not follow the Torah, the Laws of the Jewish faith.
Jewish followers of Jesus and new followers who did not obey 'Jewish
Law' argued over several practices in the Jewish faith, including
circumcision. Things came to a head c. 85 in at the Council of Jamnia,
when those who claimed the Messiah had already come (specifically those
who believed that Jesus of Nazareth had been the Messiah) were openly
condemned. Many Jewish Christians continued to worship in synagogues for
centuries after the dispute but over time, the attendance of Christians
at the synagogue began to dwindle.
The Roman Empire
Some Early Christians and Jewish Christians also faced
condemnation, judgment and possible execution at the hands of the Roman
Empire. Judaism had only been acknowledged as a separate religion under
the protection of Roman law in the late 1st century, and all those who
wished to practice Judaism were required to pay a steep tax.
As
Christianity continued to separate itself ideologically from Judaism it
created some serious problems. C. 98 the Roman Emperor Nerva announced
that Christians were not required to pay the same tax that was demanded
of the Jewish citizens of the empire. This declaration essentially made
official the difference between practitioners of Judaism and
practitioners of Christianity, and allowed for the persecution of
Christians who refused to worship the Gods of the Romans, andwere no
longer part of a legally-protected religion.
Until 313, for a period of nearly three centuries, Christians were
persecuted by the Roman Empire, albeit the severity of said persecution
depended more upon the local culture and authorities. By about the
mid-2nd century, mob violence, assaults, robberies and stonings
inflicted upon Christians were not uncommon. Provincial governors had to
do little more than state that an individual was a suspected Christian
before they were granted the rights to hold a trial within their
province. The Roman Empire did very little to set a standard for these
cases, so the outcome generally fell upon the whims of the governors
themselves, as they heard the case, decided the verdict and passed the
sentence they deemed fit.
As a result, the punishments and acquittals of Christians were
drastically different from place-to-place. The most common outcome of
these trials was that the suspected Christian was given a chance to
either deny or renounce their faith. Once the individual in question
either denied the practice of Christianity or swore to leave the faith,
they were made to give sacrifice to the Roman Gods and swear fealty to
the Emperor. Persistence in practicing Christianity or refusal to
denounce the religion would end in execution, and by extension,
martyrdom. Not all governors and Roman officials were so strict,
however. A handful of governors refused to bring Christians to trial or
outright acquitted them.
Though the Roman Empire persecuted Christians, the majority of people
that were brought to trial were not executed, as Roman governors were
charged with keeping the peace in their area and excessive executions
may have led to rioting. Moreover, in many cases, the persecution of
Christians was driven more by financial need, as the tributes paid to
the Roman Gods were an important source of capital for the Roman Empire.
It was not until 313, when Constantine I became the Roman Emperor,
that Christianity would become a sanctioned religion. It was in the
latter part of the 4th century that Emperor Theodosius I made
Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The Middle Ages
The Christian church, particularly the Roman Catholic
Church, became a tremendous and influential political presence soon
after the fall of the Roman Empire and rise of the Middle Ages. The
Middle Ages also marked the beginning of several centuries of religious
expansion and missionary work, bringing Christianity to the Slavic,
Baltic, Germanic and Celtic peoples.
Circa 500, St. Benedict established a set of regulations and
practices to develop and maintain monasteries, also known as Monastic
Rule or Monasticism. Monasteries allowed people to renounce worldly
needs and ideals in order to seclude themselves and reflect on their
faith. Over time, monasteries became ideal places to collect and study
all kinds of information and eventually became hubs of knowledge and
education. By the 11th century, many old cathedral schools had been
converted to universities, like the University of Paris and University
of Oxford, though students at these universities were only educated as
physicians, lawyers, civil servants and clerics.
It was during the Middle Ages that some of the most violent religious
battles, wars and mass killings of non-Christians were perpetrated as
well. These drastic actions were taken primarily by the Roman Catholic
Church and its constituents during the Crusades.
The Battle of Antioch by Gustave Dore
In
1095, Pope Urban II launched the first in what would become a long
series of military campaigns throughout the Holy Land, called the
Crusades. The first campaign, specifically called the People's Crusade,
was launched in response to a request for aid from Alexios I, the
Emperor of Byzantine, in order to quash Turkish expansion into the
Byzantine Empire. In addition to giving aid to Alexios I, the church
claimed that the Crusades were enacted in order to restore Christian
access to the Holy City of Jerusalem, and its surrounding area.
In order to gather soldiers and volunteers to join the People's
Crusade, Pope Urban II promised plenary indulgences, or remission and
forgiveness of a temporal punishment gained through sin, to
approximately 20,000 people. The Crusading army marched toward the Holy
Land after Easter in 1096, upon reaching the Byzantine Empire the army
was sent a warning by Alexios I to wait for the additional armies of the
Western nobles. Instead, the army proceeded further into the territory
and was ambushed by the Turks. The army of 20,000 was slaughtered. After
the ambush, only 3,000 of the Crusaders had survived, prompting
Christian outrage that sparked what can be called the First Crusade.
The armies of both Italy and France set off on the First Crusade in
late 1096, only a few months after the People's Crusade that Pope Urban
II had begun. The combined armies of various nobles reached a staggering
100,000 people (including non-combatants) and were split into four
separate parts to make their way to Constantinople, the capitol of the
Byzantine Empire. Upon arriving at the capitol, the nobles of the
crusading armies pledged to Alexios I that territories that had been
taken by the Turks would be restored to him. After that, the army made
its way to the city of Antioch, a city held by Muslims.
From October 1097 to June 1098, the Crusaders laid siege to the city.
After months, the Crusaders were finally able to enter Antioch, and
slaughtered everyone inside. A relief army was sent in response to the
Crusaders' attack but was also defeated by the crusading army. A relief
army sent in response to the attack was also defeated by the crusading
army. The city was then secured by a noble, Bohemond, and his men.
Bohemond chose to retain control of Antioch however, rather than return
the territory to Alexios I as promised. What remained of the original
crusading armies then moved south to capture Jerusalem. On July 15th,
1099 the Crusaders entered the city, massacring the Jewish and Muslim
inhabitants (many of them civilians), pillaged mosques and completely
ransacked the city.
The Second Crusade was a short one. The armies of France and South
Germany, led by the kings Louis VII and Conrad III marched toward
Jerusalem. Over the next couple years, however, the armies failed to win
major victories or claim territory. By 1150 both kings returned to
their countries with very little to show for the endeavor. In 1187,
Muslims were able to unite under the leadership of Saladin. As a
tremendous, single state, Saladin easily led his army to victory after
victory, and eventually retook the Holy City of Jerusalem on September
29th 1187. The Crusaders and the Muslim armies arranged terms of
surrender, and on October 2nd, 1187 Saladin finally entered the city
himself.
The news of Saladin's victory came as a shock to many. In fact, Pope
Urban III was startled so badly that he actually died of a heart attack
on October 19th, 1187. Ten days later, the newly named Pope Gregory VIII
issued a proposal to form a Third Crusade to retake Jerusalem. This
time, King Philip II of France, King Richard I of England, and Emperor
Frederick I Barossa of Germany answered the call to action. Emperor
Frederick died en route to the Holy City, unfortunately, and only the
armies of Philip II and Richard I successfully arrived in the Holy Land.
Unfortunately, the French and English armies found themselves
constantly embroiled in political strife. Philip II returned to France
when the infighting became too much, but he left the majority of his
army with Richard I. Richard I and his combined armies then marched
along the Mediterranean, retaking the cities of Jaffa and Acre. The
Crusaders finally came within sight of the Holy City but a supply
problem crippled the army's ability to take the city. Instead, Richard I
formed a Treaty with Saladin that allowed unarmed Christians to make
pilgrimages to Jerusalem while it remained under Muslim control.
The Fourth Crusade, started in 1202, was fueled primarily by the
political drive and ambitions of Philip of Swabia, the German king and
Doge Enrico Dandolo. Philip of Swabia's marriage to Irene of Byzantium
linked him to Alexios IV Angelos, the exiled heir to the Byzantine
throne. Were Alexios to be restored to the throne, Philip would benefit
greatly. Dandolo, for his part, believed that a new crusade would
increase what land belonged to Venice. When Pope Innocent III called for
the recruitment of Crusaders, it quickly became obvious that the
Crusaders did not have enough funding to pay for the provisions and
fleets they required from the Venetians. Rather than turn the Crusaders
away, however, Dandolo and Philip of Swabia agreed that so long as the
Crusaders shared any loot that they obtained during the Crusade and
Alexios was restored as Emperor of Byzantine that would be sufficient
payment. The Crusaders immediately seized the Christian city of Zara as
collateral for the Crusade. Pope Innocent III was shocked and disgusted
by this turn of events and outright excommunicated the Crusaders from
the church. The Fourth Crusade continued, regardless.
The crusading army sailed down the Dardanelles successfully attacked
Constantinople via its sea walls. An unexpected coup led to the death of
Alexios IV Angelos and the failure of one of the key goals for the
Crusade. In light of this conflict, the crusading army was forced to
retreat and recuperate. In April 1204, the Crusaders laid siege to
Constantinople again, this time obliterating the city and its defenses.
Crusaders destroyed churches and buildings, pillaged what could be found
and butchered citizens in the streets. The army then divided up what
remained of the Byzantine Empire amongst their constituents, turning the
land into Venetian colonies and Latin fiefs.
In 1215, just over a decade since Pope Innocent III had
excommunicated the individuals who had participated in the Fourth
Crusade, he declared that the Fifth Crusade would commence in 1217.
Crusaders arrived from Glanders, Frisisa, Germany, Hungary and several
additional countries. This crusading army, together with John of Brienne
the King of Jerusalem, formed an attack on the city of Damietta in
Egypt. The armies entered and claimed the city in November of 1219.
Ayyubid Sultan Al-Kamil rallied Egyptian forces, however, prevented
further gains in Egypt and eventually forced the surrender of the
crusading army. The city of Damietta was returned to Egypt and the
contending armies formed an eight-year truce.
Despite being excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, Emperor Frederick II
initiated the Sixth Crusade in 1228. Frederick set sail with a small
army in June of that year and arrived in Egypt. Emperor Frederick II did
not engage in any battles while travelling, and instead formed a treaty
with Al-Kamil the ruler of Egypt. The treaty that the two arranged
granted Christians rule over the majority of the city of Jerusalem,
along with a strip of land from Acre to the Holy City. Muslims were
allowed to maintain control over their holy places in Jerusalem,
however. In turn, Frederick promised to protect Al-Kamil from all
potential enemies, even if they were Christian.
The Sixth Crusade ended in 1229 and in the following years, until
1272, three more crusades were enacted by King Louis IX of France and
others, over Jerusalem and Damietta. Smaller, more politically motivated
Crusades occurred intermittently over the course of the 14th century.
The Protestant Reformation & Counter Reformation
The Protestant Reformation marked another key change in
Christianity, this time through the creation of new denominations of the
faith. Martin Luther, a German professor of theology and a monk, is
said to have sparked the Reformation in 1517 when he nailed his
Ninety-Five Theses onto the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg. The
document, as implied, included ninety-five objections to and
condemnations of the rituals, doctrines and papal hierarchy of the Roman
Catholic Church. In 1529, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther from the
Roman Catholic Church.
In response to demand for reform, Pope Paul III and a commission
of cardinals called the Council of Trent initiated the Counter
Reformation. During the Counter Reformation, the church converted many
Northern Europeans to Catholicism, and sent some of the first Christian
missionaries to Central America, South America, Africa and many parts of
Asia.
Though the Protestant Reformation is commonly said to have begun with
Martin Luther's theses, it might be more accurate to consider the
Ninety-Five Theses as the "straw that broke the camel's back". The
general public's trust in the Catholic Church had already waned over the
years due to a handful of issues, including the Western (or Papal)
Schism, the church's inability to help those with the Black Plague, and
the introduction of the printing press, which help spread the core
principles of the Reformation throughout Europe.
The Western Schism lasted for forty years, from 1378 to 1418, and began
with the death of Pope Gregory XI. Pope Gregory's death erupted into
conflict when several men either claimed to be, or were elected to be
the next Pope at once. It was not until 1414 that the (claimed) Pisan
Pope John XXII organized a council to determine the proper successor to
the Papacy, as agreed to by himself, Gregory XII and Benedict XIII. In
1415 John XXII and Gregory XII stepped down (Benedict XIII was
excommunicated) and ceded the Papacy to the newly elected Pope Martin V.
Martin Luther was not the only reformer of note, however. The scholar
Ulrich Zwingli and theologian John Calvin also contributed to the
Protestant Reformation's widespread reception and relative success. In
the Swiss Confederation, Zwingli wrote a piece similar to the
Ninety-Five Theses, entitled Sixty-Seven Conclusions. In 1529, The
German Prince Philip of Hesse arranged for a meeting called between
Luther and Zwingli, believing that they could help form a strong and
united Protestant church. The two theologians were unable to reach an
agreement in the Christian ideologies of consubstantiation and
transubstantiation, however. Luther became furious at their
disagreement, going so far as to carve "Hoc Est Corpus Meum" (This is my
body) into the table. The failed meeting has since been dubbed the
Colloquy of Marburg.
John Calvin, for his part, helped establish a basic Protestant
doctrine across many of the countries in Europe, including Scotland and
Hungary as well as Germany and Switzerland (where Luther and Zwingli
began their respective parts of the Reformation). Martin Luther and John
Calvin's contribution to the Protestant Reformation also resulted in
the formation of the Christian denominations of Lutheranism and
Calvinism, respectively, and contributed to the formation of many other
denominations like Anglicanism.
The Roman Catholic Church's Counter Reformation began in 1545, and
focused on four key ideas: Papal structure, political influence,
spiritual teachings and religious orders. The council reviewed
Protestant demands for a re-structuring of the basic tenants of the
Roman Catholic faith and rejected them, choosing to reaffirm its
doctrines and sacramental systems. The council also reaffirmed the
veneration of saints, the veneration of the Virgin Mary, pilgrimages and
the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
The Council of Trent did make some small changes, however. The Pope and
cardinals observed a lack of education amongst many rural priests and
clergy members; it was decided that priests were to be given better
education in Catholic theology and practices. The Council of Trent also
put in motion an attempt to improve the administration of the
church--changing practices that allowed individuals to be appointed
bishops for political reasons and reducing instances of 'absenteeism', a
term describing bishops who lived in Rome, or in estates, rather than
in the dioceses that they presided over.
New religious orders were set in place in order to help check the spread
of heresy, and to help restore interest in the regeneration of the
Roman Catholic clergy. Each order was named, and became responsible for a
certain facet (or facets) of the Counter Reformation. The order of the
Ursulines focused on the education of girls and young women in the
teachings of the Catholic Church. The Jesuits were sent to work in rural
communities and parishes, in order to re-educate local priests. The
Franciscan order was made responsible for the care of the sick and the
poor. Members of orders both in Europe and in portions of the New World
also became missionaries, travelling and converting new people to
Catholicism.
Immaculate Conception
During this season of conversions abroad, and the immigration of many
European Christians to new colonies in America, the Catholic Church
solidified a number of doctrines. One notable contribution to Catholic
creed occurred in 1854, when Pope Pius IX announced that the belief in
Immaculate Conception was to be regarded as fundamental to the Catholic
faith.
Immaculate Conception refers to the idea that Mary was exempt from
original sin, and was herself conceived entirely sinless, because she
would one day be mother to Jesus Christ. Orthodox Christians did not
accept this claim, believing sinlessness to have been a characteristic
that is uniquely Christ's. However, Catholics are staunch supporters of
Immaculate Conception, and offer celebrations and feasts on December
8th. Many Catholic nations even allow for a public holiday in honor of
their belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception.
For a more detailed article, please visit our dedicated page about Immaculate Conception.
No comments:
Post a Comment