When a single mother and her six-year-old daughter move to rural France and open a chocolate shop - with Sunday hours - across the street from the local church, they are met with some skepticism. But as soon as they coax the townspeople into enjoying their delicious products, they are warmly welcomed.
Although religious unrest had been brewing in Western Europe long before Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, historians view this event as the tipping point that shattered the unity of Medieval Catholic civilization. Disillusioned by Church bureaucracy and a papal schism, and encouraged by the formation of early nation states and the rise of Renaissance Humanism, Western Europe was primed for an alternative to the old order.
The Knights of Christ
The ancient warrior code which persisted in medieval Christian Europe dictated that a man's greatest virtues were physical strength, skill at arms, bravery, daring, loyalty to the chieftain and solidarity within the tribe. The primitive Church had been diametrically opposed to such ideals, however by the early 8th century the Church had grown wealthy, and the Saracen invasions of Spain and France posed a threat to that wealth. The Roman Church began to support war in defence of the faith, and by channelling the martial spirit into the service of God, the brutal warrior of the past was transformed into a guardian of society.
After the New Testament:
The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture + a coursebook) Taught by Bart D. Ehrman
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
mirror links added M.Div., Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary
The writings that make up the New Testament stand at the very foundation of Christianity. In these 27 books that represent the earliest surviving literary works of the young church, we have what eventually came to be regarded as sacred scripture, the canon of what was to become the most powerful and influential religion in the history of Western civilization.
But while Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the other books of the New Testament are known to almost everyone, the writings that Christians produced in the decades that followed these earliest compositions remain shrouded in virtual anonymity—even though they are crucial to understanding the development of a religion that was shaped largely outside the pages of the New Testament itself.
As Professor Bart D. Ehrman points out, numerous doctrines that are familiar to Christians today, such as that of the Trinity, are not explicitly found in the New Testament. Neither are the church structures around which various Christian faiths, from Roman Catholic to Southern Baptist, are organized. And the ethical positions that form such a central part of Christian life today, such as those involving premarital sex or abortion, are likewise lacking in specific scriptural reference.
Who exactly were the Apostolic Fathers? Why were they given that name? What windows into the shaping of Christianity's canon, church hierarchy, and creed are opened for us with an understanding of works that include the letters of 1 Clement or Ignatius, the Didache of the Apostles, or the Letter to Diognetus?
Dr. Ehrman shows how the allegorical mode of interpretation used in the sermon enabled the preacher of the sermon to make the words of the original text applicable to the present-day situation affecting his own congregation, even though the subject matter was dramatically different. This kind of "presentist" interpretation was not unusual then and persists to this day in the interpretations of so-called "prophecy experts." This practice of allegorical reading eventually came under fire, as church leaders came to realize that if the meaningof a text can be taken in non-literal ways, such readings can be used to support "false" teachings as well as true ones. An understanding of how those teachings evolved—and how Christians put them into practice—is one of the great benefits these lectures provide.
After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers is an extremely useful addition to the shelves of anyone interested in the history of ancient Christianity and its evolution into the dominant religion it became.
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The Knights of Christ
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