-
Random History
- Jules Mazarin 1602-1661 | The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy
- The Medieval Church as Institution | Church and Society in the Medieval West
- Macedon and The Achievements of Philip II | The Greeks
- Kievan Russia | Byzantium and Islam
- Mercantilism and Colbert | The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy
- Justice and Education | The Enlightenment
- Bonaparte's Rise | Napoleon and France
- Beowulf
- The Ionian Cities, the Threat to Greece, Marathon | The Greeks
- Theories of the Papal Monarchy | Church and Society in the Medieval West
-
Recent Comments
- Scozyjof-online on Le Grand Monarque
- Agnes on Nobles and Serfs, 1730-1762 | The Enlightenment
- Rolanda on Nobles and Serfs, 1730-1762 | The Enlightenment
- Denali on Twentieth Century Thought and Letters
- LOL on A Second Step: German Rearmament, 1935-1936 | The Second World War
- Bree on France After World War One | The Democracies
- Chumani on Music | The Renaissance
- Finn on Dazzling the Barbarian
- Suki on Conflict in Asia, 1953-1970 | The Second World War
- Marmara on Oliver Cromwell
Tags
Between The World Wars Byzantium and Islam Church and Society in the Medieval West European Exploration and Expansion Judaism and Christianity Modern Empires and Imperialism Romanticism, Reaction, and Revolution The Beginnings of the Secular State The Democracies The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe The Enlightenment The First Civilizations The First World War The French Revolution The Great Powers in Conflict The Greeks The Industrial Society The Late Middle Ages in Eastern Europe The Late Twentieth Century The Modernization of Nations The Non-Western World The Old Regimes The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy The Protestant Reformation The Renaissance The Rise of the Nation The Romans The Russian Revolution of 1917 The Second World War The Written Record Twentieth-Century Thought and LettersPages
Tag Archives: Judaism and Christianity
The Christian Triumph as a Historical Problem | Judaism and Christianity
Why did Christianity triumph in the fourth century? It began as a despised sect in a rich, well-organized, sophisticated society, yet it took over that society. In general, we might postulate the need for a religion of peace in the savage and insecure world of Rome. Jesus' teachings gave Christianity certain advantages over the mystery cults. For example, the cult of Isis lacked a missionary priesthood and was chiefly for women. The complexity of its rites and the lack of a great leader or teacher to make clear the ideas associated with the cult gave it little sustained popular appeal.
Posted in History
Leave a commentAugustine: Free Will and Predestination | Judaism and Christianity
Later in life Augustine found himself engaged in a final philosophical controversy with Pelagius (c. 354-420), a Christian layman who had lived for many years in Rome and who believed that humans not only could, but must, perfect themselves. He denied original sin and believed in free will. Yet such an exaltation of human possibilities is in its essence non-Christian, since it diminishes God's majesty.
Posted in History
Leave a commentAugustine: The City of God | Judaism and Christianity
In a new work, The City of God, written between 413 and 425, Augustine combated the pagan argument that it was Christianity that had been responsible for the catastrophic sack of Rome. It was easy to show why many pagan empires had fallen in the past, and Augustine quickly moved beyond his original subject. He attacked traditional pagan worship and of pagan interpretations of Roman history, systematically demolishing pagan philosophy.
Posted in History
Leave a commentAugustine: Conversion and The Confessions | Judaism and Christianity
At Milan, Augustine abandoned the Manichaean faith and fell under the spell of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Better educated than Augustine, a superb preacher, indifferent to the demands of the flesh, Ambrose stimulated Augustine to reexamine all his ideas. And Augustine's mother, who had followed him to Milan, eagerly drank in Ambrose's words "as a fountain of water."
Posted in History
Leave a commentAugustine: Early Life | Judaism and Christianity
We know Augustine (354-430) intimately through his famous autobiography, The Confessions. He was born in a small market town in what is now Algeria, inland from Carthage, the administrative and cultural center of the African provinces. Here the population still spoke Punic (Phoenician), but the upper classes were Latin speaking, wholly Roman in their outlook, and deeply imbued with the classical traditions of Rome. Prosperous planters lived on their great estates, while peasants toiled in the fields and olive groves.
Posted in History
Leave a commentThe Rise of Christian Literature | Judaism and Christianity
In the West pagan literature declined and virtually disappeared, while in the East a few passionate devotees of the old gods still made their voices heard. Christian writings increasingly took the center of the stage. In the East, writers devoted much energy to polemical statements on doctrinal questions and disputes. In both East and West the best minds among Christians faced the problem of how to treat Greek and Roman literature. At first, a few thinkers, mostly in the West, advised against reading anything but Scripture.
Posted in History
Leave a commentThought and Letters in the First Christian Centuries | Judaism and Christianity
Though a good deal of dislike and misunderstanding had always characterized the attitudes of most Greeks and Romans toward each other, Roman admiration for Greek literature and art deeply influenced the work of Roman writers and artists. The triumph of Christianity tended to contribute new sources of misunderstanding and tension to the relationships between Easterners and Westerners.
Posted in History
Leave a commentThe Debate over the Two Natures of Christ | Judaism and Christianity
Long before Arianism disappeared, a new and related controversy had shaken the Eastern portion of the Empire to its foundations. Exactly what was the relationship of Christ the god and Christ the man? He was both man and god, but how was this possible? And was the Virgin Mary the mother only of his human aspect, or, if not, how could a human being be the mother of god?
Posted in History
Leave a commentThe Nicene Creed
The early centuries of Christianity saw a series of struggles to define the accepted doctrines of the religion—orthodoxy—and to protect them against the challenge of rival or unsound doctrinal ideas—heresy. The first heresies appeared almost as early as the first clergy. In fact, the issue between those who wished to admit gentiles and those who wished to confine the Gospel to the Jews foreshadowed the kind of issue that was to confront Christianity in the first few centuries.
Posted in History
Leave a comment
Summary | Judaism and Christianity