In this final lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia discusses the “fall” of the Roman Empire, reviews the state of Christ’s church at the end of the classical period, and previews the challenges the church would face in the medieval period.
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admit just personally it’s really hard to imagine the world without the United States that the United States existing and being a great power to me and I’m biased as an American it feels like the us is going to always continue as it is we’ve teetered on the edge of disaster many times before but it just seems like America always pulls through surely we will in the future no I feel this way but when I think about it I realize that such a feeling is naive just looking at history no great power or Empire has lasted forever and America while it feels like such a well-established country it is relatively Young when you compare it to other nations in history other States we are a mere 246 years old that’s not very old and it’s only been for the last 100 years or so that America has been a great power who says it’s always going to be the case many kingdoms Empires and Nations lasted much longer than we have and they’re no longer around or at least not in any and not in the great power that they once were we would like to think that we are the exception we Americans our nation we have a superior political and social institutions we have Divine favor that will make our country stand the test of time but you know what that’s what every inhabitant of the kingdoms and Empires before has thought about their own state as Solomon says powerfully in the Book of Ecclesiastes everything in life is Havel it’s vapor and that includes political States Generations come Generations go but the Earth remains fundamentally unchanged what has happened is what will happen there’s nothing new Under the Sun Book of Daniel adds that it is God most high who raises up kingdoms and casts them down he bestows power on sovereignty on whomever he wishes when it suits God he then takes that power and sovereignty away from rulers from kingdoms often he allows for a time of judgment to store up on a nation before he unleashes it on them now God doesn’t reveal to us when or how or why he will test Nations or destroy Nations yes we do see that sometimes in the prophets specifically with the Nations around Israel and Israel and Judah but generally this is Deuteronomy 29 29 the secret things belong to the Lord we don’t know what he’s going to do with Nations and we don’t know what he’s going to do with America will the United States remain a country The Next Century will we remain a great power will we become even more prosperous God can make that happen or could God lay low this nation judge this nation shatter our power and prosperity transform it into something else you could do that too but when everything starts to fall apart in our society what will Christians do will Christians be panicking despairing and need may do need they do so need we do so the answer is no because we have God we have the promises of scripture God has promised to provide for his people in whatever circumstances they go through whether they are good or bad and as nations rise fall or transform he has promised that he will care for his people in his perfect way he will do that for us should any of us live to see the United States fall from its position and he has done it for people throughout history including our brethren in the Roman Empire when it’s fell when it declined and fell now let’s talk more specifically about what happened to the Roman Empire yet I have to back up one more time because before we can talk about the what we got to talk about the when when did Rome fall the most traditional date for the fall of Rome is 476. 476 A.D there’s a fair amount of debate about whether that is an appropriate date for representing the fall the real fall of Rome was it earlier was it later and this date is often tied to the beginning of the Middle Ages in general historians place the middle age period the medieval period between 500 and 1500 A.D lots of more specific dates but generally that’s what we’re talking about for the purpose of our course and the next level of this course when we get there I’m going to treat the Middle Ages as running from 476 to 1453.
in 476 the last Western Roman Emperor is deposed in Rome no more Emperors in the West and in 1453 well does anybody know what significant event takes place in 1453 no French Revolution comes later 1453 is the fall of Constantinople Constantinople is conquered by the Ottoman Empire the last Eastern Roman Emperor is deposed it’s also the first major European battle featuring gunpowder so we have the fall of Roman 476 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 I’m going to use that to bracket what I’m calling the medieval period you know some historians will always tell you that designating periods dates it’s a little bit arbitrary because things are not so cut and dry in history but for the sake of organization that’s what we’re talking about with the European I mean with the medieval period and the fall of Rome that’s the when but now let’s clarified that what in 476 as I said the Western Roman Empire or the the last Western Roman Emperor is deposed the Western Roman Empire is very obviously at that point replaced by a collection of kingdoms Western Roman Empires do not rule again the Western Roman Empire has fallen but notice I keep saying Western because there is a difference understand that aside from Constantine in the 4th century and theodosius at the end of the 4th Century so Constantine the beginning theodosius at the end after the third Century the Roman Empire is continually ruled by two different Emperors there’s one in the west and one in the east however these Western Roman emperors they gradually weaken they lose their power they become puppets symbolic rulers only real power rests with certain Roman generals or Barbarian Warlords who are controlling the Western Roman emperors this is not a good situation for this Western State the Western Empire gets weaker and weaker gradually seeding territory to barbarians on its borders and sometimes within its borders until we get to the point that the city of Rome itself becomes vulnerable to attack Roman Rome was hadn’t been sacked since the BC period but the first time it sacked in the ad period it was sacked by Alaric The Goth in 410.
which is what prompted Augustine to write the city of God this was a big shocking moment Romans were saying how could such a storied City experience this pillaging that was in 410 but that wasn’t the only time that happened Rome was nearly pillaged again in 452 by Attila the Hun it was plundered in 455 by the vandals and finally in 476 Rome was not just plundered but conquered by the Barbarian otawaka rather than taking what wealthy could and just leaving he decided he would set up a kingdom in Italy and so you finally have a barbarian ruling in Rome that was the ostrogoths what caused the deterioration of the Western Roman Empire why did they keep on weakening so much well that is the subject of much debate many many books have been written about what caused the decline of the Western Roman Empire and we’re very interested in this probably As Americans because the Western Roman Empire is a direct link in our inheritance of Western Civilization we Trace our cultural history even linguistic history and many other aspects of ourselves to this part of the Empire we want to know this Empire we admire so much and inherited so much from Why didn’t it continue and can we learn any lessons for applying to our own country and state today actually I was just reading I just saw an article in my my news feed that talks about inflation in the Roman Empire and comparing it to the inflation we’re dealing with now people always want to learn the lessons why did Rome the two-year rate in the West well the problem with answering this question is that there isn’t much evidence to point us to what the answer is and what evidence exists is variously interpreted it certainly is clear that third Century 4th Century that’s the beginning of the fifth century the Western Roman Empire was gradually losing territory its cities were shrinking in size its tax revenues were drying up its military was declining in quality and its trade was diminishing but what was the underlying cause to really to dig into that question we would need a whole separate course probably a year long but to give you a summary there are four main perspectives as to what happened to the Roman Empire in the West I’ll give you each of these briefly could it have been Decay owing to General malaise this is one Theory this is the idea that there was something about the way the Roman Empire was born and constructed something fundamental to its essence that doomed it to fall maybe it was the Empire’s Reliance on its citizens and voluntarily practicing civic virtue you know people donating aqueducts and games and things like that it relied on that that disappeared the Roman Empire fell or maybe it was the costly civil wars that often determined the succession of Emperors this is a bad thing not sustainable it was essential to the Roman way but it doomed the empire or maybe it was the plunder economy which was fine while Rome was expanding but it dragged the Empire down once the Romans Empire stopped growing maybe it was Decay owing to General malaise related to Rome’s essential system or alternatively monocausal Decay this theory is that there was a factor outside of the fabric of the Roman Empire that doomed the Empire’s existence maybe it was plagues maybe it was the loss of fertile Farmland with climate change or maybe it was lead poisoning it wasn’t the Empire’s fault it just something happened to it that was like the Achilles heel that brought it down that’s the second theory a third theory is catastrophic collapse in this Theory the Roman Empire’s thought to have been built quite solidly but it was exposed to a combination of challenges in the fourth and the fifth centuries that were just too much for it to bear has barbarians outside and inside the borders it has constant Wars with assassinids in the East that’s draining men and resources it has destabilizing Civil Wars it has inflation and economic decline individually the Empire could handle these challenges but all at once it just couldn’t keep going that’s the third Theory the fourth theory is transformation those who hold to this Theory argue that Rome never really fell at all it just changed the system of Empire no longer worked in the New World landscape of late Antiquity and so that system was exchanged for a different system one that could adequately protect and feed the inhabitants living in Roman territory after all we have to admit even after the fall of Rome Roman customs and institutions lasted for centuries people who The Barbarians who set up Kingdoms in in Rome’s land they wanted to be Roman they wanted to imitate and co-opt many Roman institutions and we actually like I said have inherited so many Roman institutions cultures and and ways of thinking even to this time so did Rome really fall according to adherence to this Theory barbarians did not replace the Roman way of life rather Roman and Barbarian culture combined to create something new and that was necessary for living at that time so we have these four main theories of course we have to admit as Christians knowing the scriptures that whatever the human reasons for this change the Western Roman Empire ultimately declined and or transformed because it was God’s will it fit his purpose God bestows Dominion on whomever he wishes and so by the end of the fourth into the fifth century God was saying to the Western Roman Empire your purpose has been fulfilled and now it is time for you to go now again with the Western Roman Empire disintegrating the area was filled up by various kingdoms some of which would form the basis for the Nations of our modern world the Franks The Barbarians known as the Franks they took over the province of Gaul they called it Francia which is where France comes from and the Anglo-Saxons later taking over Britannia and calling it angle land which is where we have England later now while the Western Roman Empire gradually disappeared things were quite different in the east because if Eastern Romans were around today they would probably get really annoyed about all this talk about the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 they probably say uh hello we’re Roman 2 and we didn’t fall at that time fact the Eastern Roman Empire as we’ve already seen would survive for another Thousand Years which is incredible when you think about it if you add up the Roman Empire before it split into two parts along with the existence of the East into the 1400s the Roman Empire then lasted for 1500 years that’s six times longer than our country has existed that it is an incredibly long-lasting Empire and it’s not like the citizens in the east stopped being Roman we often call the Eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire but the people at the time didn’t call it that even though they didn’t rule the city of Rome or even speak Latin after a Time the people in the Byzantine Empire they call themselves Romans we called them the Byzantine empire for the sake of historical convenience to emphasize it was a change in the Empire with the loss of its Western portion and Byzantine by the way comes from the name of the ancient name of the site on which Constantinople was later built that town was called byzantion or Byzantium in Latin and that’s where we get Byzantine Empire but there is the Eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire would continue all through the medieval period it would have periods both are prosperity and decline one period of prosperity was under an emperor named Justinian the first I don’t know if you’ve heard of him great Byzantine Empire who ruled from 527 to 565. he actually reconquered a good portion of Western Roman territory during his Reign he took over Rome again most of Italy part of North Africa he also created the a document called the Corpus euris sevillas a codification and rewriting of Roman law kind of bringing it all together and that actually served as the basis of civil law for many nations in the medieval period And even today we actually go back to the code created by Justinian additionally Justinian constructed the Haya Sophia the church of Holy wisdom or the church of Saint wisdom in Constantinople you see a picture of it there reportedly after finishing this church Justinian mused Solomon I have outdone you I know you can see in the picture there are four towers around the Haya Sofia does anyone know what those are not watchtowers not cell towers they’re minarets that’s because after the Muslim conquest of constance an opal in 1453 the highest of fear was later converted into a mosque which is where the Minimates came from but today it is neither a church nor mosque it is a museum though people have talked about using it for religious purposes again anyways Justinian did all these great things but well after him and almost immediately after him maybe because of how much he spent on all these projects the Empire declined again it lost a lot of its territory it had taken from the west but then later it improved and then declined and then improved and then declined and just keeps on going back and forth in the medieval period nevertheless the Byzantine Empire would remain a great power throughout most of the Middle Ages until a mortal blow comes against it in 1204. what happened then well those poor Eastern Romans had the unfortunate responsibility of fighting against every Middle Eastern Empire that emerged in the medieval period they had the Strategic spot in Constantinople basically it’s kind of like a a gate to the rest of Europe and so whenever you’re trying to get to those Europeans you have to go through Constantinople and through Eastern Roman territory so the byzantines are often fighting against assassinated Persians and then the Arab Empire and then the Celtic Turks and then finally the ottoman Turks they’re like the bulwark and they were doing okay against their enemies in these different Wars until they made a crucial mistake of accepting the help of Western Crusaders around the year 1200 now it’s a very hilarious and also tragic Fiasco as to what takes place I’ll tell you about it in a later lesson when we get to the medieval course but due to a series of unfortunate circumstances Western Crusaders who were supposed to be fighting against Muslim Warriors instead ended up fighting against the byzantines and taking over Constantinople they attacked they sacked the city this is Christian on Christian violence and they set up a Latin or Western Kingdom there now the byzantines they eventually threw off the control of the western Knights but they never really recovered from this blow and they gradually declined in power and influence until Constantinople itself felt the Ottomans in 1453.
thanks for nothing Western Crusaders so if you really want to talk about the fall of the Roman Empire you need to denote two false you have the fall of the West and 476 or traditionally dated to 476 and then the fall of the East 1453.
but no matter when you date the official fall it was definitely a time of change for Roman Christians in both the East and the West was all that change bad well this is where I need to get on my soapbox to defend the Middle Ages a little bit just listen to that term for our next period of History the Middle Ages the phrase suggest okay there’s a beginning and an end and we’re not in either those places we’re in the middle okay maybe there’s an element of compromise in this period certainly with middle there’s something like an idea of transition that this age isn’t so important in its own right it’s just a transition from one age to another what would be the important periods that flank the Middle Ages we just come from the Roman period The Classical period and what comes after the Middle Ages Reformation but thinking more secularly what’s that period called the Renaissance and what does renaissance mean rebirth this is all a little condescending to the people in the Middle Ages don’t you think they didn’t think they were in a mere transition time to them medieval was Modern and an even worse term for this period is the Dark Ages because what does that suggest death ignorance sadness people were backwards and ignorant the world got worse during this time period many medieval historians really don’t like that term and were the Middle Ages really the Dark Ages well it depends on your point of view it depends on what you value because guess when we first start to see terms like Middle Ages and dark ages to refer to this period of time roughly from 500 to 1500.
much goes well say that again well we’ll talk about whether there’s much gospel but when did the terms Dark Ages Middle Ages get applied to this period for the first time in the Renaissance and the enlightenment period and what is it that people valued many people valued in these periods of time well they valued reason classical literature classical art classical ideas those in the enlightenment in particular and so that’s 1600 1700s roughly they look back with disdain on the Middle Ages because the enlightenment emphasized human ability through reason to understand and solve all the world’s problems middleweight the Middle Ages while not forgetting the value of Reason nonetheless asserted greater value in faith belief in God reasons subordinated to Faith reason only being able to take you so far now as Christians isn’t that middle-aged concept something that we would get behind but for the people in the enlightenment many in the enlightenment they look down on medieval persons we probably find it easy to believe the intellectual narratives constructed for us regarding the Middle Ages because they’re nice and simple it’s a neat way to divide history to say well here’s where civilization was great kind of lost itself for a while and then found itself again in the Renaissance or from a Protestant perspective it’s very neat and tidy to say here’s where the church was right the gospel was being proclaimed got totally lost in this middle period and then was found again in the Reformation well history is more complicated than that we often think of the Middle Ages as being a downgrade and pretty much everything that’s good science art culture spirituality but the more we find out about the Middle Ages and when we find that this is not the case for instance you may have heard that people in the Middle Ages thought that the Earth was flat but that’s not true virtually no scholar after 300 BC expressed belief in a flat Earth that was fake news that was misinformation that was a myth provided in the 19th century about the Middle Ages actually the medieval period saw the invention or the adoption of many new and important Technologies like the heavy plow fifth century the Stirrup 6th Century the Horseshoe 9th century The Wine Press 12th century the rib Vault 12th century and the chimney 12th century just to name a few these people are not fools in the medieval period and in terms of Art well style and preferences in the Middle Ages were different than in The Classical period but skilled Artistry continued even today we have many beautifully decorated book bindings and book pages elaborate tapestries religious icons gorgeous but kind of creepy reliquaries and awe-inspiring buildings from the medieval period those in the pictures writing continued as well in the medieval period though mostly from clergy there were secular authors as well but the Middle Ages saw many hymns hate geographies that’s stories of saints lives theological treatises philosophical treatises histories poems and even epics you’ve heard of some of these some famous works from this period include Beowulf Canterbury Tales song of Roland and the summit theologica now some might say okay we’ve got arts and culture but what about safety isn’t it true that the Middle Ages were essentially Anarchy people living in fear that some roving barbarians or Knights were going to come by and slaughter them at any moment and take their stuff well that’s partially true violence was a big part of the medieval period but actually many people were more well protected by their feudal Lords than by the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire’s last two centuries as I was saying especially in the west the Emperors weren’t really able to protect their borders anymore and what’s going to happen when their barbarians come through the Roman borders well they’re going to attack people take their stuff A lot of times One Source I saw claimed that life expectancy actually went up in the Middle Ages and not down so violence it’s not as if there wasn’t violence in the Roman period there was there was violence in the medieval period too it’s just the system transformed to deal with that violence now what about spirituality wasn’t the medieval Church corrupt and apostate weren’t medieval Christians superstitious and focused on external righteous righteousness only weren’t all Christians just rabid Muslim haters these are oversimplifications the later Middle Ages were a period in which the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox Church to a certain extent we’re increasingly corrupt an apostate and many Christian followers in these churches consequently became lost and confused but the Early Middle Ages were not like that when we do our next church history course the Middle Ages we’re going to speak positively about church leaders in the early medieval period even people like Pope Leo the first and Pope Gregory the first these were men who even in the 5th 6th and 7th centuries they were True Believers in our Lord Jesus Christ faithful leaders in the church and Proclaimers of the true gospel even the reformers like Calvin will look back positively on these popes really the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is one of very gradual movement away from the true Faith with various reformers along the way saying hey we’re seeing unbiblical things in the church we need to get back on track actually you know who’s saying that who are some of the people who are saying that early popes the Bishops in Rome saying hey we got problems we gotta we gotta reform the Church Bishops Regional councils popes they were rejecting at different times prayers to the Saints clergy members not fulfilling their duties by preaching in their actual churches and other on biblical practices so when we think about the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic church and Greek Orthodox church I suggest to you that we should think of it as an imperfect yet true body of Christians throughout most the Middle Ages the breaking point probably comes about at about the year 1200.
we are going to see some obviously corrupt popes from 800 to 1000.
as the papacy becomes more and more political but it’s really at the fourth lateran Council in 1215 that we finally see articulated Roman Catholic sacramentalism as we know it today where doctrines like transubstantiation and confession to priests they are officially asserted officially asserted by the Roman Catholic Church as Dogma Thomas Aquinas the high Middle Ages scholar he would emphasize this movement toward apostasy in his work the summit theologica which officially articulated the Roman Catholic Church’s seven sacraments and explained their saving and sanctifying abilities now were these ideas in the Roman Catholic Church before 1200 they were but they weren’t everywhere they weren’t officially embraced by all congregations or were asserted as official Dogma from Rome but they would be after 1200.
so as you build a mental timeline about the church and the medieval period and when and how it goes off track we’re really talking about the late Middle Ages not the whole period and even in the late Middle Ages God didn’t leave himself without a Remnant without a witness to the true gospel because he never does though the Reformation is thought traditionally to begin in 1517 with those nailing in the 95 Theses guess when we first start seeing big pre-reformation movements in the church the 1200s the waldensians well I would say the first big pre-reformation movement they appear in 1170.
right around the time that the official church is embracing apostasy so we need to more closely examine some of the things we’ve heard or thought about the Middle Ages it wasn’t the Dark Ages that some people would make it out to us to be I know this isn’t to say that everything we’ve heard about the Middle Ages is untrue did International Trade decline in Europe during the medieval period it did Europe’s economies became more Regional more self-sufficient serfdom was a big part of that did literacy decline from what it was in The Classical period it did likely yes since reading and writing were not important for most people in society whose primary occupations were Soldier and farmer therefore the literate either those who were Rich enough to afford it or they were clergy monks did much of Europe change from one ruling power to many ruling powers during the medieval period yes but whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on your point of view so and trying to correct our misconceptions about the Middle Ages I don’t want to paint two Rosie a picture period it had its bright spots and it had its dark spots like every other time in human history I hope you appreciate by the early by the end of our course in the early church it’s not like the early church it was the golden age for Christianity we’ve heard about the heresies we’ve heard about the persecution we’ve heard about the paganization and the politization and the ritualization of the church there were a lot of problems in the early church period and guess what there are a lot of problems in the medieval period too but not everything is a problem there were good things as well just trying to keep us from automatically taking too negative of you in the Middle Ages so to come back off my soapbox as Western Roman Christians and Eastern Roman Christians moved into the 400s and into the 1500s and Beyond it’s not necessarily true that life became worse for some of them it became very different yet God’s promises and God’s gospel remain true so that whether under Rome whether under Islam or whether under a new barbarian king Christians had everything that they needed for life and godliness and joy the same more simply Christianity survived the fall of Rome and that’s good news for us because that means if America Falls we will survive as well the Lord’s people will survive the Lord’s truth will survive now how is the church doing at the end of the early church period let’s overview the state of the church this is kind of like a review of some many of the things we’ve seen throughout the course where are we in the 400s let’s say around 500 as we go into the medieval period well the saving gospel is intact as we go into the medieval period it is being preached and praise the Lord for that many heresies prominent heresies in the early church have been soundly defeated arianism mostly dealt with gnosticism pretty much gone true Christianity at this point is not being persecuted mostly it was the it was and is the official religion of the Roman Empire the Eastern Roman Empire as it goes into the period And even for the Barbarian rulers taking over some of the western portions where Christianity had spread well many of them are soon converting to Christianity to Nicene Christianity you want to know an interesting fact three of the Barbarian kingdoms that get set up visigoth ashwagos and the vandals they were actually already Christian when they took over but they were Aryan kind of while the Roman Empire was finally getting rid of arianism there were some missionaries Aryan missionaries who had already gone to the Barbarian kingdoms converted them and by the time they came back they’re like oh you know this is heresy while we were gone this thing got condemned well these barbarians when they came over and set themselves up in Roman land they were Aryan they’re like okay well you know these Catholic Christians these Nicene Christians will will let them do their thing and we’ll do our thing over here well over time those Aryan kingdoms became Catholic they embraced the Christianity that the rest of the western East Christians had embraced as for the Franks they went straight from Barbarian paganism into Catholic Christianity and that happened around 500 for the rulers of course that’s the conversion of the aristocracy for the common people it’s going to take it’s going to take time and that’s what we see but true Christianity mostly not persecuted as we are at the year 500 the Barbarian kingdoms are actually converting to Christianity slowly as we saw with the Classical period continues into the medieval period the state is either tolerating true Christianity soon converting to it and then persecuting false religion and heresies there’s some Toleration for the Jews as a unique thing but the state feels like it is its role to go after Heretics and that’s going to continue into the medieval period it’s not to say though that the whole empire and those lands are christianized at this point there are still many Informer Roman lands who are holding on to Roman polytheism especially in rural areas actually especially in Rome the city of Rome itself was not like a Christian Bastion that’s where a lot of Roman Aristocrats who are holding on to the old ways kind of gathered and set themselves up so there’s still a substantial portion of the Mediterranean world that is polytheistic but Christianity is continuing to spread in the most important centers and most important people in power they’ve embraced Christianity but paganization being brought into the church is definitely a problem at the end of the early church period we talked about this this is where a lot of weird practices erroneous practices sinful practices come into the church idolatrous practices because they were just brought over from paganism praying to the Saints uh doing things for the Dead worshiping Mary that’s the result of paganization ritualization is also a problem as we go into the medieval period there’s once Christianity was recognized and promoted as the official religion of the empire there’s this kind of Imperial element that slips into the way the church does things even the way that the priests dress and the way the service is conducted it’s very Emperor ritual like and when you add on top of that the supersessionism which has become dominant in this period the idea that the church has replaced Israel well you’ve got basically the Israelite priesthood and the Israelite Kingdom being superimposed on top of Christianity Roman rulers even Barbarian rulers converting to Christianity they are trying to imitate Old Testament Kings and the church is often trying to imitate Old Testament levitical priesthood and that’s why we see even language of the Eucharist the communion elements being spoken of as sacrifice we’re seeing the ritualization both from the Imperial side and the Old Testament side affecting the church in the way it conducts itself this is not a good thing and this is a problem that’s going to continue in the medieval period going into the year 500 assess asceticism is very much respected and entrenched you heard as we’ve learned about these great men from the 4th Century that as soon as they become Bishops they get rid of their worldly Goods they decide they’re never going to marry and they become ascetics well that’s going to become pretty par for the course as we go into the medieval period it’s never officially said you need to be celibate if you’re going to be the leader in a church or you need to get rid of your worldly Goods but that’s the expectation in a lot of times and I mean think about it if you are a Christian in a congregation and you’re trying to think about who’s going to be the next Pastor the next lead pastor of the church do you want the guy who’s really sold out for the Lord because he’s you can even see it he’s sold all his stuff he’s not going to get married because he just wants to serve Christ or a guy who’s just doing what the rest of the world does now if you get to know these guys a little bit better you can make a better judgment but just judging from externals you want the guy who’s gotten rid of all his worldly stuff he seems like a really spiritual man well that’s what a lot of people felt at that time so you’re seeing asceticism respected entrenched in the church and remember where this came from as paganization of Christianity and worldliness comes into the church with nominal Christians who are baptized but not converted True Believers want to stand apart they want to say I don’t want to be like the rest of the world I don’t want to be like these fake Christians I want to be serious about the Lord and how’d you do that at that time you became a monk you became a nun or you embraced some elements of an aesthetic lifestyle monasteries I said this in a previous class they were kind of like the seminaries of that time you wanted to find good people for your church you went to your local monastic communities and actually monks would become great missionaries going from the end of The Classical period into the medieval period how does parts of Germany become christianized how do the islands of Britannia become christianized the uh the Irish people the Scottish people how do they become christianized Monkish missionaries so as much as there might be problems with monasticism it was used for a good thing as we go into the medieval period but asceticism is is very entrenched Church Authority at this point is largely centralized remember we talked about how starting with irenaeus in the second century they had this movement toward monopiscopacy where there’s one Elder one Overseer in the church who’s going to be like the chief one and everybody needs to submit to him and there was this language distinction Bishop they called the Chief Elder and the other ones they called presbyters or priests this is firmly entrenched by the time we go into the medieval period and it’s most centralized example was the existence of the pentarkey if you remember that five Bishops throughout the Mediterranean who were considered to have the most Authority who had the most influence and there was one in Rome one in Constantinople one in Antioch one in Jerusalem and one in Alexandria these are going to be the main Christian centers and the main Christian leaders going into the medieval period but what’s interesting what’s going to affect the development of the papacy is that a number of these patriarchies or patriarchates are going to fall outside of Roman control outside of Christian control as the Muslims conquer the lands of Africa Jerusalem Antioch and Alexandria those three patriarch case are going to fall under Muslim rule so then you’ve only got two left Constantinople and Rome and the only one in the west is Rome so if you’re looking for a religious Authority it’s going to be Rome at least in the West so Church Authority largely centralized by the end of the early period which is an unfortunate thing that’s not biblical but that’s history that’s just what happened something I haven’t gone to talk too much about but by the end of the early period there is a large amount of confusion in the church about the ordinances both the Eucharist and baptism we did say we did see something about the Eucharist already how it’s being thought of being described more in terms of sacrifice actually Roman Catholic historians will often point to the early church and say look they believe the same thing that we did they actually believed in transubstantiation look at the way they talk about it it is true that some of the language does seem to sound a little bit transubstantiation like to be fair though a lot of times these early authors are just quoting the Bible when Jesus says this is my body or they’re speaking poetically about how Jesus body is our food or his blood was our drink and there’s biblical precedent for that but the way the communion elements are being described by the end of the early church period is sounding a little bit like Roman Catholic medieval Doctrine but baptism the situation of the baptism is even more concerning already in the early church there’s infant baptism in the second century or beginning of the third Century tertullian actually writes something a document called concerning baptism where he argues that children should not be baptized or that there should be a large degree of caution of baptizing children and he has a really good paragraph there where he says like let them be converted first before they become baptized let them actually learn the ways of Christ and what it means to follow him before you baptize him well why would he need to say that wouldn’t that be obvious it seems to be that there was already a push towards baptizing infants now why would they do that well you can understand and as largely largely to do with fear parents have about the salvation of their children combine this with a misunderstanding of what baptism does by the end of the early period we’re already starting to see pretty strongly ideas of baptismal regeneration you will hear some early churchmen even people like Augustine say things like if you are not baptized you are not saved you cannot be saved without being baptized now that’s obviously sounds like a problem right because that’s not what the Bible teaches and that does seem to really make a ritual a work as necessary for your salvation that’s a compromise on the gospel but what’s weird though is that if you press these early men who on the one hand were saying salvation by faith and on the other hand we’re saying you need to be baptized to be saved they were being inconsistent actually Augustine in particular he would admit that well you don’t actually have to be baptized to be saved if you just wanted to be baptized well then you would be saved too he thought as a mark of true faith and obedience that if you if you were willing to follow the lord in baptism well that was a mark of true salvation it wasn’t the ritual so much it was it was the heart but you do have this increasingly in the church people were seeing baptism as a ritual that really did something for you really cleansed you of sins in a mysterious way and so a lot of people were delaying their baptism possible to write before they died because that would seem to cleanse sin in the best way you wouldn’t add a whole lot more sin after that before your death and this is why there is this push towards infant baptism Batson’s going to do something for my child’s salvation especially before he’s old enough to even understand the gospel so has a lot of confusion about baptism even at the end of the early church period I remember I mean maybe you remember too that when we were going around Israel we sometimes found some Churches from the Roman period from the Byzantine period they would call it so I think 500 600s there would be some ruin of a church and sometimes there’d be a baptismal and you can see you know a big old like tub where people could be immersed hey that’s encouraging but then sometimes you’d also see a little tub where very small human could be immersed like oh no so there was confusion there’s confusion going into the medieval period and that’s going to get worse in the medieval period but it’s not it’s not total two other things we’ve also talked about allegorical hermeneutic is prevalent by the time we get to the end of the early church period it’s not saying that the literal meaning is not paid attention to at all it’s not lost but there is the allegorical interpretation laid on top of it which sometimes leads to problems and then lastly the church is pretty much all Millennial at this point it’s very interesting I can’t remember if I said this in class or not before but all historians all Church historians omit that in the first couple centuries the church is pre-mill they’re expecting the return of Christ after the tribulation and going into a literal Kingdom for a thousand years kind of makes sense when you’re suffering deadly persecution from Rome the deprivation of your goods you’re treated like prison on grata in society but then once the church emerges from persecution and once the allegorical hermeneutic becomes more and more popular once platonic Christianity becomes more and more prevalent where people see the spiritual as good and the physical is bad well premillennialism seems to fade and all Millennium comes in homologism comes in instead people are saying no there’s not going to be a literal Kingdom it’s just a spiritual Kingdom in fact it exists right now and when you see a Christian Emperor and when you see a tolerated Christianity in your Society you can see why people were more willing to accept an all-millennial point of view I would suggest to you I think this has proven over and over in history that people’s circumstances affects their eschatology a lot which is unfortunate because we want to be have it determined by the scriptures but based on how things are going in the world people will change their theology no it’s interesting too post-millennialism the idea that the the church is going to become more and more widespread the world’s going to get better and better until we reach this this Zenith of Christianity around the world and Christ is going to come back at that time that was actually a really popular idea until a certain world circumstance happened World War one and World War II and people started to see from circumstances hey things are not getting better and better and what do you know it affected their theology now I don’t believe the post-millennial millennialism is accurate but ultimately we don’t want our theology determined by circumstances we want to determined by the scripture but we have to admit at this point most people are all Millennial in the church actually uh eusebius of caesarea who’s one of our first major Church historians writing in the 4th Century he looks back on certain pre-millennialists writers from early and earlier in the early church and he mocks them for believing in a literal Kingdom so that’s where we are at the end of the early church period other things we could say but that just gives you a little bit idea of what the church is looking like as we go into the medieval period a lot of good things but there are still some issues that are going to become exacerbated as we go into the medieval period but this is the way the church always is right it’s never perfect it’s always trying to recover certain things that is lost and trying to deal with compromises that have been made even today but what would be some of the unique challenges of the medieval period I’ve already talked about it broadly but some unique issues that will emerge over the next Thousand Years the rise of Islam for one early 600s we have Muhammad we have the expansion under her successors the church is going to have to figure out what to do how to respond to not only the religion of Islam but the invasion and the expansion militarily of the Islamic Empires you have further centralization of power and wealth in the church resulting in the rise of the papacy as more and more wealth and power comes to the Pope in Rome it’s going to result in corruption and this is what we’re going to see doctrinal drift sacramentalism corruption are going to increase during the medieval period it’s gradual it’s not everywhere but it’s going to be a challenge monasticism is also going to increase we’re going to we’re going to see this funny pattern in the medieval period where there’ll be monks everybody’s like man these guys are great let’s give them a whole bunch of money and money corrupts that monastic order and then some new monks come around and they say we need to get a new order that doesn’t care about wealth we need to be really spiritual well people then look at this next order of monks and they’re like these guys are really spiritual let’s give them a bunch of money and then the same thing plays out again so you have all these reforming movements all these new orders of monks being made as we go through the medieval period but monasticism it’s going to be around and it’s going to increase Christianity is going to spread I already mentioned this but the British Isles even the Scandinavian countries were not christianized and large parts of Germany were not christianized in the Classical period but they will be by the end of the medieval period so and monks are going to have a big part to play in that schisms systems are going to be another big part of the medieval period the most famous Schism is the Schism between the western church and the Eastern Church and we’ll examine the circumstances around that but that is not the only Schism about the of the medieval period in fact we’ve already seen some schisms in The Classical period remember the nestorian Schism where the Syrian and Eastern churches basically drift away from the rest of Christianity because nestorius was condemned actually by the time the Muslim Invaders take over Alexandria and Antioch in the 600s those Christians have largely drifted away from the rest of their brethren in the Empire because they say they don’t believe exactly the same things that we do there’s kind of like an alexandrian schism and there’s going to be other schisms besides that so unfortunate but we’re going to see a fair amount of schisms in the medieval Church we’re also going to see religious wars what’s one of the most famous things about the middle age period when it comes to Christianity the Crusades and we’ll talk about how that came about how the popes Justified that and what were the results of those Wars ultimately ultimately we will see apostasy in the Roman Catholic church and later the Greek Orthodox church but then in the latter parts of the medieval period we’re going to see pre-reformed movements we’re going to see the waldensians we’re going to see the law alerts Mark actually talked about them in his lesson not too long ago and the hussites right at the very end of the medieval period so we’ll be talking about all these in a later course when’s that course coming probably not till next year but that’ll be church history 102. haha see we’re not only doing one-on-one courses here that’ll be church history 102.
okay there’s no time for questions what do you know but I do want to end with one more quotation and this is from Augustine again in the city of God book 1 chapter 29 is responding specifically to what Servants of Christ should say and reply to the unbelievers who cast in their teeth that Christ did not rescue them from the fear of their enemies remember city of God is written after the sack of Roman 4 10. so people are saying hey why did God let this happen I thought God was supposed to protect us what do you Christians say listen to his response because I think this is good for thinking about whatever circumstances we run into especially when they’re not the most prosperous listen Augustine’s reply the whole family of God most high and most true has therefore a consolation of its own a consolation which cannot deceive and which has in it a sure hope than the tottering and falling Affairs of Earth can afford they will not refuse the discipline of this temporal life in which they are schooled for life eternal nor will they lament their experience of it for the good things of Earth they use as pilgrims who are not detained by them and its ills either prove or improve them as for those who insults over them in their trials and when ills befall them say where is thy God we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods or mention they ought to be worshiped for the family of Christ is furnished with its reply our God is everywhere present wholly everywhere not confined to any place it can be present unperceived and be absent without moving when he exposed to us exposes us to adversities it is either to prove our Perfections or correct our imperfections and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time he reserves for us an everlasting reward but who are you that we should deign to speak with you even about your own Gods much less about our God who is to be feared above all gods for all the gods of the nations are Idols but the Lord made the heavens thank you for being part of this course let’s close in prayer Lord our brother Augustine was right we have a confidence and Hope in every circumstance even if this nation were to fall apart we do not need to be falling apart ourselves because our God is with us Lord we look forward to your kingdom which unlike every Kingdom of the earth will last it will be a kingdom of righteousness it will be a kingdom of prosperity it will be a kingdom of joy but Lord we want to be found faithful until we come to your kingdom like our Brethren were before us they weren’t perfect we want to learn from their mistakes but Lord they were faithful we want to be found faithful as well they have received the crown of righteousness we want to receive it too we want to come into your presence and enjoy fellowship with them even these ancient brothers and sisters forever around you and around your throne thank you for this study I pray Lord that you have blessed the rest of this service today in Jesus name amen thanks guys