Chapter Six Inquizitive
By the mid-400s, Rome had been sacked, a Visigothic kingdom occupied modern Spain, the Vandals controlled North Africa, and the Franks and the Burgundians lived in modern France.
(1) Central Asia Huns migrated into the Black Sea region, forcing the Goths to enter the Roman Empire as refugees. (2) The Roman army was defeated by the Goths at Adrianople when they tried to quell a Gothic rebellion. (3) In order to get Alaric-now a Roman military commander-to stop looting Greece, the eastern Roman Emperor encouraged him to move his people to Italy. (4) Alaric and Goths invaded and sacked Rome, but Alaric didn't shift from conqueror of Rome to rule of Rome. Instead, he and his people went to Spain.
What kinds of changes occurred in the Christian Church after the Edict of Milan?
It became a more centralized, bureaucratically governed organization. The Church struggled to resolve doctrinal disputes by developing unified positions on theological questions.
Why did women lose prominence in the Christian Church as the Church gained prominence within Rome?
Old Church structures, which allowed women to hold office, changed to mirror Roman government, which excluded women. Ascetic and monastic practices rejected food and sex, activities that were strongly associated w/ women.
Which elements of Roman rule were exemplified in the empire's response to Jesus?
Noncitizens had fewer legal rights than citizens living under Roman rule. Rome ma
The Roman government made the shift from non-Christian hostility to embracing Christianity fairly quickly.
(1) Diocletian instituted the Greek Persecution, stripping Christians and Manicheans of their citizenship rights and government jobs. (2) Starting during this time in Gaul and Britannia, Constatine associated himself w/ the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus. (3) When he marched on Rome to assert his title as Augustus, Constantine added Christian symbols to his banners and shields. (4) Constantine funded the building of Christian churches and issued the Edict of Milan, guranateeing freedom of worship to all citizens.
How did Institutes, by Cassiodorus, help to keep Roman classical scholarship alive? Place the following statements in order to explain this chain of events.
(1) Like Augustine, other Christian scholars believed monks needed to study the Bible to fully engage in a life of worship. (2) In order to fully understand the Bible, monks had to study Greek and Roman classical literature. (3) To make sure monks had access to Greek and Roman classical literature, monasteries became sites where classical works were stored and copied. (4) Many of the classical Greek and Roman texts studied by modern scholars were copied and preserved in monasteries.
The succession crises of the second and third centuries yielded significant policy changes within the Roman Empire.
(1) Marcus Aurelius died. (2) Severus, who came to power through civil war, raised soliders' pay and allowed them to marry while in service. (3) Caracalla, who took power by assassinating his own brother, extended Roman citizenship to all free people in the empire. (4) Heliogabalus was assassinated after he tried to replace the Roman god, Jupiter, w/ the eastern god, Sol Invictus. (5)
Place these events in the establishment of Christianity in chronological order.
(1) Paul of tarsus spread Christianity throughout the eastern half of the Roman empire. (2) Reversing earlier policy, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, protecting Roman citizen's religious freedom. The Council of Nicaea asserted that Arianism was heresy and defined an official Christian creed. (4) Thinkers like Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict developed Christian theology and monastic practice.
When did Constantinople, the wealthy eastern capital of the Roman Empire, finally fall to foreign conquest?
1453
What did Augustine argue in The City of God?
All humanity is divided into two communities: those who live for material rewards and those seek spiritual salvation.
How did Christianity challenge the Roman government and Roman mos maiorum?
Christian churches allowed women and slaves to wield power. Christians wouldn't venture the Roman emperor. Youth sometimes defied their father's wishes by converting.
Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into quarters, with each quarter divided into smaller administrative units. What were these smaller units called?
Dioceses
Why was the impact of barbarian invasions greater in the western Roman Empire than in the eastern Roman Empire?
Eastern Rome used its wealth to buy off barbarian attackers and direct them toward the West. Roman legions were pulled away from the West to defend the East.
Christian scholars fervently rejected all Greek and Roman philosophies because the philosophies were pagan.
False
The barbarian invasions brought a rapid shift of culture and identity to western Europe.
False
The biggest threat to Rome in the fourth century was the growing power and defiance of Christians.`
False
After his conversion, what important concept did Paul champion, in opposition to other Jewish Christians, like Peter and James?
He supported the idea that non-Jews could become Christians.
Which of Diocletian's changes illustrated his adoption of the title dominus, in place of the more traditional princeps?
His clothing, palace, and public ceremonies began to resemble those of Persian royalty. He moved his capital to Nicomedia but left the Senate in Rome.
What was the Third-Century Crisis?
It was the period when the Roman government almost succeeded in uprooting Christianity. It was a time when Rome was ruled by women, like Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, and Julia Mamea.
How did Jesus' teachings differ from the common practice of Judaism in his lifetime?
Jesus emphasized ethical behavior and deemphasized ritual observances.
Various residents of Galilee felt differently about Roman rule. ____ participated in the Roman system and benefited from it, while ____ disliked it. Because of this preexisting tension, Jesus' conflict with the Temple priests was seen as a dual attack on _____.
Jewish elites, poor city-dwellers and rural people. the Jewish elite and the Roman government.
At the time of the Great Persecution of 303, what portion of the Roman population was Christian?
Less than 5% in the West and no more than 10% in the East.
In what ways were the so-called barbarians on the periphery of Rome connected to the empire?
Many of them lived w/ Roman territory. They fought for Rome as foederati. They had extensive trade relationships w/ Romans.
How did the economy of the western Roman Empire change in the century after the barbarian invasions and the establishment of barbarian kingdoms?
Population decreased. Overland trade decreased significantly.
Based on Pliny's letter to Trajan, how did social status affect the government's treatment of individuals suspected of being Christians?
Slaves were tortured to obtain information. Roman citizens had legal rights, even when they admitted to being Christians. Non-citizens could avoid execution if they publicly rejected Christianity.
In response to the plague of 251 C.E., Rome insisted that its citizens swear loyalty to the state and worship Rome's traditional gods. What can you infer from this about Roman beliefs?
Some Romans believed the plague was punishment for abandoning the traditional Roman gods.
Romans associated Jesus with Sol Invictus?
The figure in the mosaic seems to depict Jesus as Sol Invictus. Constantine, who supported Christianity, is depicted as a worshipper of Sol Invictus.
What does Diocletian's distribution of power suggest about the regions within the Roman Empire?
The eastern part of the empire was more valuable than the western part.
What was Arianism?
The sect of Christianity that was condemned as heresy after protracted struggles. A Christian belief that was strongly influenced by Neoplatonic ideas.
How did barbarian cultures on the periphery of the Roman Empire differ from Roman culture?
They had no tradition of urban culture. They spoke neither Latin nor Greek. They practiced Arian Christianity.
How did barbarian cultures on the periphery of the Roman Empire differ from Roman culture?
They spoke neither Latin nor Greek. They practiced Arian Christianity. They had no tradition of urban culture.
Which fact about the barbarian kingdoms most clearly signaled their independence from Roman imperial authority?
They stopped sending tax revenues to the imperial authorities.
What was Jerome's contribution to the culture of the Roman West?
Translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin.
After 476 C.E. the Roman emperor in Constantinople continued to exercise limited influence over the government of the western Roman Empire.
True
In the second and third centuries, Jewish and Christian worldviews, and views of each other, diverged. Which of these statements exemplify a Jewish worldview of Christianity during this time period?
Unlike them, our religious practice is protected by the Roman government.
How much time elapsed between Diocletian's Great Persecution (303 C.E.) and Emperor Theodosius's prohibition of all forms of pagan worship? In other words, how long did it take Christianity to go from being illegal in Rome to supplanting Rome's traditional religion?
about 90 years
Historians have access to narratives of Jesus' life, written by his followers and other early Christians. How long after his execution (c. 30 C.E.) was the earliest-known narrative written?
less than 40 years
What were the main challenges to Roman rule during the second century?
long, porous borders. Destabilizing succession crises. insufficient bureaucratic systems.
Creatively building on Plato's ideas, Neoplatonism taught that ____ created everything. According to its founder, Plotinus, each person is made up of physical matter and ____, which seeks to be reunited with the divine. This philosophy, which encouraged reflection and self-denial, was a gateway to ____ for educated Romans, as well as an influence on later religious practice.
our supreme being, a soul, Christianity.
Where did early Christianity originate?
the Hellenistic world
