THE RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

Themes

Jesus: dualities
- sources: Gospels
- Jewish background:
  - rabbi, prophet, Messiah, YHWH, Passover lamb
  - shepherd [Alt shepherd]
- birth 4 B.C.E.: Christmas
- ministry c. C.E. 27-30 or 29-33 C.E.:
  - baptism and temptation
  - disciples:
  - teaching and miracles:
- death c. 30-33 C.E.:
  - Passover, Easter
  - Last Supper, eucharist
- historical verification?
Paul:
- the first church: Book of Acts, Holy Spirit, Peter
- conversion of Paul, c. 33-35 C.E.: road to Damascus
- ministry of Paul, c. 47-63 C.E.:
- Gentiles
Christian message and worldview (Pauline)
- "gospel":
  - nature of man:
  - nature of God:
  - salvation:
  - parousia:
- practices and rituals
  - baptism (Hippolytus)
  - eucharist
  - "the body of Christ"
  - body and soul: catacombs and tombs [Alt catacomb]
- world-rejecting: martyrdom and parousia
  - Greeks:
  - Romans:
  - persecution c. 100-312
  - symbols
  - martrydom: Perpetua
  - asceticism: hermits Antony and Syncletica

Graeco-Roman world
- + Greek philosophy = theology
- +Roman administration = church hierarchy
- hegemony of Christianity and creation of orthodoxy:
- Rome and Constantinople
- Augustine, Two Cities
southward into Africa:
- Egypt: Coptic Church; desert monasticism; Coptic art
- Ethiopia: Axumite Kingdom 3rd-8th centuries; royal stele 4th cen. C.E. [Alt stele]
- Nubia, mid-6th century-mid 15th centuries: Justinian and Theodora's race (mid-6th cen)
- South Arabia (Yemen), early 6th century: the martyrs of Najran (517)
eastward:
- Nestorians and others in Syria: Ephraem the Syrian (c. 306-373); religious art
- Nestorians in Tang China, 8th century: stele circa 781
westward:
- Celtic Christianity in Ireland 3rd-6th centuries
  - missionaries: St. Patrick and St. Brigid
  - monasticism: Rule of St. Columba; St. Columban's Boat Song
  - Book of Kells [Alt Kells]
- Germanic migrations into Europe 4th-7th centuries
  - ethnogenesis: settlement and conversion
    - Franks: Clovis and Clotilde (Gregory of Tours)
    - Anglo-Saxons: Edwin and Ethelberga (Bede)
  - converting the pagan:
    - Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), Letters
  - syncretism: Anglo-Saxon charms, Franks Casket *; *
  - monasticism: Life of St. Benedict; Rule of St. Benedict; Mont St. Michel
  - saints and pilgrimage relics, Conques

What does conversion to Christianity mean?
dualities: divine and human, temporal and eternal, body and soul, world-rejecting versus world-accepting
towards a world religion: adaptability and conversion
compare with other religions and philosophies

kjolly@hawaii.edu 05/31/00