With the Roman Empire crumbling around them, those who called themselves Christian faced entirely new struggles to both survive and spread the faith in new and dangerous times. The church emerged as a stabilizing and unifying force in the West but, some might argue, at the cost of compromising the faith in order to appease the Barbarian hordes that threatened to detroy everything. Gone were the days of the Early Church, gone were the days of the Imperial Church, here were the dawning days of the Barbarian Church.
CH1A03-Christian History
1 November 2010
In the Valley of the Shadow of Death
The Fall of Rome, the Rise of the Papacy & Celtic Christianity
The Fall of Rome, the Rise of the Papacy & Celtic Christianity
I. The Great Recession
A. The invaders
B. is for Barbarians
C. Muslim Forces
D. In the east
E. In the west
F. Descent into Darkness
II. The Great Ascension
A. Victory over Arianism
B. Monasticism
C. The Papacy
i. Gregory the Great
ii. Donation of Constantine & Isidorian Decretals
III. How the Irish Saved Civilization A. peregrini
B. Patrick
C. is for Columba
D. The Conversion of the English
i. The English missionaries
IV. The 2, 4, 6
2 events
Synod of Orange (529): Working against the Semi-Pelagianism of its day, this council had much to say concerning the constitution and fallen nature of humanity, together with God’s remedy of redemption through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The synod drew its inspiration from Augustine who had died almost a century before.
Barbarian Invasions (A.D. 500-950): For the sake of argument, these are the dates given to discuss the series of crushing military blows that would come to shape Western Europe as well as Christianity in those regions. Dated from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West.
4 Terms
peregrini: From the Latin peregrinus meaning "from abroad" these “Intrepid Irish Adventurers for God” went into Western Europe and helped spread Christianity to numerous pagan tribes as well as be instrumental in the Christianizing of the British Isles. Their work helped the Church function throughout the 6th to the 10th centuries before Scandinavian raiders greatly damaged Ireland’s monastic communities.
Isidorian Decretals: Forgeries from the ninth century professing to have been written by one Isidore Mercator. The decretals depicted that the Popes of Rome were considered superior from the beginning, permitted all bishops to appeal directly to the Pope thus limiting archbishops and regarded Bishops and Popes as free from secular control.
servus servorum Dei Latin for ‘servant of the servants of God.’ It was a name given to Gregory the Great. It did not originate with him, but it did seem to suit his character.
Donation of Constantine: Most likely an Eighth-century forgery. It proclaimed to be written by Constantine describing his conversion, baptism and healing from leprosy by Pope Sylvester I. In it Constantine, out of gratefulness, hands over his Roman palace and the territories of Italy to the Pope and his successors.
6 names
Patrick (ca. A.D. 387-461): The patron saint of Ireland. Although much of his life is wrapped in hagiography and legend, it is fairly safe to say that he is largely responsible for the conversion of the Ireland to Christianity.
Columba (A.D. 521-597): Irish monk who began the monastery on the Isle of Iona (extant today). Iona was the launching point for many Irish missionaries that were destined to bring Christianity to numerous Barbarians, including the tribes on the neighbouring island of England.
Gregory ‘the Great’ (A.D. 540-604): Arguably one of the most influential popes ever. He worked tirelessly to both unite the greatly fractured Western European tribes as well as brought a new period of primacy to the papal office. He was instrumental in increasing the prestige of the Church throughout the West.
Augustine of Canterbury (d. 26 May 604): Appointed by Pope Gregory (the Great) to evangelize the English. He was remarkably successful and eventually established his archbishopric in Canterbury. He also established an important bishopric in York, both of these remain in existence in this very day. His work tied the English Church to Rome until the time of Henry VIII.
Julian I: Byzantine Emperor who did much throughout the 6th century to strengthen the Roman Empire and spread Christianity as well. A thoughtful scholar, statesman and faithful Christian who did much to spread and support Chalcedonian Theology.
Isidore of Seville (AD.. 560-636): His brief summary of Christian doctrine Book of Sentences was to be studied for centuries in the West as a textbook of theology. His name was used in the title of an 9th century forgery known as the Isidorian Decretals that argued, among other things, that the Bishops of Rome were superior from the beginning of the Catholic Church.
Quotes:
“Christianity continues to bear the imprint of its Jewish heritage and of the Greco-Roman world into which it first moved, but more than any of the other faiths of [humanity] it has proved its capacity to outlast cultures with which it has seemed to be identified and some of which it helped to create.”
~LaTourette, History, 1:271.
“Supreme egotism and utter seriousness are necessary for the greatest accomplishment, and these the Irish find hard to sustain; at some point, the instinct to see life in a comic light becomes irresistible, and ambition falls before it.”
~William V. Shannon
If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:126); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).
~Canon 1 from the Synod of Orange (A.D. 529)
The Emperor Constantine the fourth day after his baptism conferred this privilege on the Pontiff of the Roman church, that in the whole Roman world priests should regard him as their head, as judges do the king. In this privilege among other things is this: “We-together with all our satraps, and the whole senate and my nobles, and also all the people subject to the government of glorious Rome-considered it advisable, that as the Blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted vicar of the Son of God on the earth, so the Pontiffs who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the clemency of our earthly imperial serenity is seen to have conceded to it, choosing that same chief of the apostles and his vicars to be our constant intercessors with God.
~Chapter XIV from the Donation of Constantine
© James Robertson 2010
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