Hey guys! So this episode... Hey guys! So this episode is part three in a little
mini series we're doing on early Christianity. If you haven't seen part
one and two, check those out. We left off in the fourth century with Roman Emperor
Constantine. Let's jump right back in.
After Constantine's controversial conversion to Christianity, he starts to
incentivize his pagan citizens to convert. Christians are getting
high-ranking government positions, the clergy is getting tax breaks, "I guess we know
who's the teacher's pet." "Scott!" And in 330 AD, he moves the capital
of the Roman Empire to the newly built Christian city Constantinople.
Constantinople was at the center of the economic world as an important trade
city, the doorway to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean and it was a key
military location as it was smack dab in the middle of the most logical land
route into the empire from the east. Constantine builds a fantastic series of
defenses that would protect the city for hundreds of years. You can go on Google
Earth right now and still see the ruins of the walls, but anyway, after
Constantine's death, a lot happens. His cousin, Emperor Julian, converts to
paganism and tries to crush Christianity. It doesn't work, he dies in 363 and he
earns himself the title "Julian the Apostate." "A rather unfortunate name." In 380
Julian rolls over in his grave after the Edict of Thessalonica is issued under
Emperor Theodosius, which made Nicene Christianity the official Roman religion
but despite that there was still a lot of turmoil within the church concerning
the Nicene Creed in Arianism, which we talked about in the last episode, so in
381, Theodosius calls together the first council of Constantinople which affirmed
and expanded upon the Nicene Creed. Non-Nicene Christian denominations were
anathematized and often under the advisement of
Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, Theodosius will continue to issue edicts
against paganism. Into the 390s, pagan temples were destroyed, sacrifices
were prohibited, the Olympic Games were abolished, Christians were chiseling
crosses on pagan statues, it was a rough time for pagans. Now it's important to
note that the fourth century was crucial to the development of the Bible canon. It
had been brought up in multiple councils and it was generally understood by the
end of the century which books were legit and which were not.
After the death of Theodosius, the Empire is split into eastern and western halves.
Again the eastern half prospered and the western half not so much. It was
constantly under attack from Germanic tribes. In the north, it was suffering
economically and the leadership was lacking. In 410, the Visigoths sack Rome.
In 455, the Vandals sack it again. Other parts of the Western Empire are being
conquered and finally in 476 AD, Rome is captured by Germanic tribes and the
Western Roman Empire is no more but in the midst of the fall of the West, we've
still got ecumenical councils going on in the East. "This is fine." Theodosius II
convened the first Council of Ephesus in 431 AD and later in 451 AD, Emperor
Marcion convened the Council of Chalcedon. Both councils dealt further
with questions about the nature of Jesus Christ as God and you can read more
about those councils in the description. As we glaze over this history of 50,000
miles per hour, we also need to keep track of the Bishop of Rome because in
the 5th century, the title Pope becomes increasingly reserved to him and
eventually he'll exercise authority over the entire Roman Catholic Church but
that didn't happen all at once. Now to be fair, there are many Catholics who would
disagree with that, which is fine, but there are also many Catholics who are
perfectly fine with the idea that papal supremacy was something that developed
over time but the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire marks a pivotal
point in this evolution. As civil authority in Rome weakens, the Pope
starts to fill in the gaps. For example, Pope Leo, the first to negotiate with
invaders on multiple occasions, Attila the Hun in 452 and the Vandals in 455 to
varying success, so Leo's got some civil power but he also really pushed for
religious papal supremacy. He recognized the importance of having a central
leading figure and taught like some before him that as the Bishop of Rome he
was the heir of and spoke for the Apostle Peter. Point being, civil and
religious authority were becoming more mixed than ever before.
Throughout the 6th century, we see this process continued as Rome trades hands
several times and the clergy is largely left to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, in
the 530s, Emperor Justinian the first builds the great Heya Sophia and in 553,
against the wishes of the Pope, he holds the second
council of Constantinople which we talked about very briefly in this
episode. Christianity continues to spread throughout the ancient world in this
century and tensions are rising between the church in the east and the church in
the West which we'll talk more about in the next episode. Check out the links and
notes in the description for more info on this. Feel free to fill in some of the
blanks in the comments and have a great day.