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109 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Where is Smyrna?
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On the aegean sea in modern day turkey midway up the coast, north of Ephesus
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Where is Sinope?
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In The North central coast of Asia minor in the Black sea
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Where is Ephesus?
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On the coast of asia minor facing the aegean sea. It is slightly further south than the middle, south of Smyrna
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What is the Isthmus of Corinth?
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The land bridge that connects mainland Greece with the Peloponnese
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Where does the Greek word Isthmus mean?
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It comes from the greek for 'neck' owing to the skinny land bridge in Corinth
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Where is Corinth?
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Next to the Isthmus of Corinth which separates mainland greece with the Peloponnese
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Where was Bithynia?
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It was an area in the north west part of Asia minor. It included Nicaea.
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Where is Thrace?
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It is an area of land in the South Eastern part of europe where it adjoins with turkey. It includes parts of modern day bulgaria, eastern greece, and western turkey.
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What was the original name of Byzantium?
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Byzantion
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How did early Christians see other religions?
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They saw all other religions as demonic and false, except for maybe Judaism though relations began to sour
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What did Greek-speaking Christians, like their Jewish Predecessors call all non Christian Greeks?
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Hellenes - a word to which a sneer was attached
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What was the latin term coined for the What the Greek Christians called Hellenes?
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Pagani - or pagans. Which had an equally contemptuous ring to it.
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What does the word Pagani mean?
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It means country folk
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What is the usual explanation for the origin of the word Pagan, and the more likely one?
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The usual is that the urban Christians looked down upon these hicks who stuck to the traditional cults. The more likely is that the word was army slang for 'non-combatants'. Thus these people were seen as those who were not enrolled in the army of Christ as they had through baptism.
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In what ways did the Christian vocabulary parallel that which was used for the emperor cult?
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A greek inscription in Ephesus called Julius Caesar 'god made manifest', the emperor Augustus' birthday was called 'good news' and his arrival in a city was known as 'parousia' - the same word used for the expected return of Christ
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How would the Romans have felt about some of the terminology used by Christians such as parousia, and euangelion?
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These were words that were involved with the emperor cult and to hear Christians use the language exclusively for their religion would sound like aggressive plagiarism
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What was one feature of Christianity that was particularly alarming for Roman authorities in the Christians ability to serve the empire?
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They frequently had negative attitudes towards military service.
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Why did many Christians in the first three centuries CE have problems joining the Roman military?
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Because being involved in the military required that you routinely attend at official sacrifices, just as today salutes to the flag and parades are common
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What are Hippolytus' dates
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170-236
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Where was Hippolytus from?
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Rome
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What guide to the Christian life is probably the work of Hippolytus of Rome?
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Apostolic Tradition - written around 200 CE
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What are Hippolytus' stipulations for allowing a Christian to go into the military, found in his Apostolic Tradition
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That the Christian not kill anyone or take the military oath
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What was Hippolytus known for in terms of his ideas about the Christian life?
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He was a crotchety moralist who inclined to extremes
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How were Hippolytus' demands in his Apostolic Tradition concerning military service altered in later texts?
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The demands were lessened
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Do we have much evidence of Christians serving in the military in the time before the fourth century?
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Yes there is a funerary inscription of a man from Phrygia called Aurelius Mannos, who was both a soldier and a Christian. His monument commemorated his death in the 290s
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Was the austere Christian lifestyle completely foreign to the pagan Romans?
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Well the idea is that Christians lived this austere lifestyle that was totally contrary to the Roman way of life. But in fact this is a caricature which ignores much of the austere and world denying character of Greek thought in the early empire.
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If it wasn't the austere Christian lifestyle that offended the Romans, what did they find offensive about the Christians?
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Their secretiveness and obstinate separation from the world.
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In what ways was ordinary Roman life and religious life connected?
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ordinary life was saturated with religious observances and to be a part of public life especially public office was a grave pollution for Christians as this post was connected with many religious activities.
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What common social and physical activity in the Roman world did early Christianity generally shun? And Why?
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The public bathhouses. These places are the centre of social life, politics and gossip, and were seen as a pollution by Christians
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Who was Cerinthus?
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Was an early heretic who was in some ways half ebionite and half gnostic.
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When was Cerinthus active?
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around 100 AD, he was a contemporary of John the evangelist
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What is the story concerning a early Christian theologian and a bathhouse?
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The story is told by polycarp of Smyrna and it is recorded by Irenaeus that John the Evangelists was going into a bathhouse and heard that Cerinthus was inside and fled screaming, terrified that God in his anger might cause the bath roof to fall in.
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In terms of the Christian scriptures, what sets them apart from Jewish and pagan writings of the time in terms of display?
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The Christians used Codices when both the Jews and the Romans used scrolls to house this type of literature.
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Why was it that Christians were early adopters of codices?
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This is subject of much debate. One theory states that since the codex was used (before christians made it popular) only as a sort of notepad to jot down short scribblings that its possible that some of the material from one of the first gospels was written down in this form and thus the codex was given a special place in the liturgy. Others say it was because Christians always had to move from the tanakh to the NT and thus it was easier than scrolls.
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What is nomina sacra?
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It is a set of consistent abbreviations used in early christian literature for names like 'Jesus' and 'God'.
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What are the set of abbreviations called in early Christian literature for names like 'Jesus' and 'God' etc?
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nomina sacra (latin) which are sacred terms.
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What was the purpose of nomina sacra?
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either it was just shorthand, or it had a special purpose such as giving a clue to a chanter to sing this in a special way during the liturgy.
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What is one of the peculiarities of the N.T. concerning the Eucharist?
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That it hardly speaks at all about it. This is understandable since the Eucharist was a highly secretive meal for early Christians.
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What were two of the accusations that the Romans made towards the Christians and their celebration of the Eucharist?
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since they heard the language of 'love feast' they thought they committed incest and immorality, and they also heard about eating and drinking blood, so they thought of cannibalism.
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As Christianity attracted converts, and false ideas spread about the Eucharist, what was one of the accusations that the pagans made about the methods of conversion of Christians?
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Many outsiders accused them of using erotic magic, which would lure wives away from their non-Christian husbands.
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Who was Apuleius?
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He was an second century African comic novelist (he was a Berber)
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How as Apuleius portray Christianity?
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He detests it, and thus he portrays a story of an adulterous Christian wife as turning into an old witch to regain the love of her wronged and furious husband - however her scheme goes wrong and a murderous ghost goads the poor man into suicide.
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What is one of the first mentions of a Christian presence in Rome?
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It is by a second century historian known as Suetonius who tells how the emperor Claudius (reigned 41-54 CE) expelled the Roman Jews for rioting 'at the instigation of Chrestus' which is probably a garbled reference to Christian preaching within synagogue communities.
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When did the Emperor Claudius reign?
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41-54 CE
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When did Augustus reign?
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27 BC -14 AD
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When did Tiberius reign?
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14 -37 AD
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When did Caligula reign?
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37 - 41 AD
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When did Nero reign?
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54 - 68 AD
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When did Galba reign?
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68 - 69 AD (first of four emperors)
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When did Otho reign?
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69 AD (second of four emperors)
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When did Vitellius reign?
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69 AD (third of four emperors)
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When did Vespasian reign?
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69 - 79 AD (fourth of four emperors)
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When did Titus reign?
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79 - 81 AD
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When did Domitian reign?
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81 - 96 AD
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When did Nerva reign?
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96 - 98 AD
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When did Trajan reign?
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98 - 117 AD
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When did Hadrian reign?
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117 - 138
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When did Antoninus Pius reign?
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138 - 161 AD
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When did Lucius Verus reign?
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161 - 169 AD
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When did Marcus Aurelius reign?
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161 - 180 AD
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When did Commodus reign?
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177 - 192
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When did Pertinax reign?
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193 AD (first of 5)
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When did Didius Julianus reign?
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193 AD (second of 5)
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When did Septimius Severus reign?
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193 - 211 AD (fifth of 5)
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When did Caracalla reign?
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198 - 217 AD
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When did Geta reign?
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209 - 211 AD
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When did Macrinus and Diadumenian reign?
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217 - 218 AD
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When did Elagabalus reign?
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218 - 222 AD
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When did Alexander Severus reign?
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222 - 235 AD
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Early Christianity was a thriving religion, not least in part to their concern to take care of its members physically. In what two ways was this done?
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They took care of their poor. (this in fact was the job of one of the three orders of ministry - the deacons). Plus they provided their members with a decent burial.
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What would have been the normal interaction between a Christian official and a Roman official in the time before the legalization of PX (not including the episodic persecution)
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It would have involved the bureaucracy surrounding cemeteries
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When did the Church in Rome begin to acquire rights to excavate tunnels for burial in the soft tufa stone of the region?
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towards the end of the second century
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What was the purposes of catacombs?
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Not to avoid persecution as pious Counter-Reformation Catholics assumed, but rather just places for decent and eternal rest.
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Where are the Roman Christian catacombs located?
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Next to the Appian Way in a sunken valley.
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What was the Appian Way?
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It was an early, really important Roman road that went south east from Rome
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What type of rock was it that the early Christians tunnelled into to create the Roman catacombs, and why was it so suitable?
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The type of Rock was was called tufo, and it was ideal because it was soft when first exposed to air, and then it hardened afterwards.
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Why are the catacombs extremely important for art history?
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Because they contain the great majority of sculptures and frescos from before 400 AD
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How large were the catacombs in Rome?
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They extended over sixty eight square miles and house an estimated 875,000 burials made between the second and ninth centuries.
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What is characteristic about the earliest burials in the catacombs?
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All were essential buried next to each other with out much distinction between bishop and lay person. The only thing a bishop might have would be a small marble plaque to record basic details such as the name of the deceased.
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When did the wealthy members of the Church begin to create more elaborate burial spots in the catacombs to set them apart from the others?
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mid-third century
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Who was the first Christian to be recorded as being burned alive?
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Polycarp of Smyrna who died in 155
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What are Polycarp's dates?
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69 - 155 AD
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Who were the first saints?
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The first people considered saints, in that they went straight to heaven, were the martyrs.
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What was one component of the early Christian church that the Gnostics found kind of gross?
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Their cult of death. Their glorification of martyrdom and the fact that they preoccupied themselves with this idea
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Where were the first Christian Shrines?
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They were next to the burial places of Martyrs and their bones.
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What was one really attractive feature about martyrdom?
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Well, not only the fact that you went straight to heaven, but also that it was open to all, slave, free, female, male, young or old.
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How was a martyr required to die, if their death was to be considered a martyrdom?
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to die bravely and with dignity, turning the agony and humiliation into shame and instruction for the spectators.
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When do we find evidence that people started to want to be buried next to the graves of martyrs?
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From the end of the third century onwards.
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When did Perpetua die?
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203
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Where was Perpetua from?
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North Africa
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What religion was Perpetua?
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She was Montanist?
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Who was a famous female montanist?
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Perpetua
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Who did Perpetua disobey?
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Her father, who wanted her to abandon her faith, but she would not.
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How did Perpetua help her brother?
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Her brother had died from cancer when he was young, and Perpetua saw him in a vision in a dark place, thirsty and hot, but without being able to reach water. She prayed for him, in her next dream, she saw her brother playing in the stream of nearby water happy, like children do and the cancerous growth on his face had melted away.
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What does the story of Perpetua and her brother mean?
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It means that through prayer, she had been granted the power to release the dead from suffering because of her faith in the "New Prophecy". Dinocrates needed no institutional Church or cleric to remedy his lack of sacramental grace.
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What was the most agonizing choice that Perpetua had to make?
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Whether to be a martyr or a good mother. She was forced to abandon her suckling baby when she affirmed her faith and was imprisoned and killed. This is redolent of the commitment we see that Abraham makes with Isaac
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Who was Pliny the Younger?
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He was a lawyer, an author and a magistrate.
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The church in Alexandria claimed to be founded by whom?
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the evangelist Mark
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Many of the later claims of their church being founded by an apostle may be false, but what can we learn from them?
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The fact that apostolic succession had worked its way into the mind of the church and created self confidence in various churches based on a shared identity
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By when had Christianity grown and began to offer a complete alternative to the culture and assumptions of the Roman establishment?
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late second century.
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What did Celsus claim that the Christians were trying to do?
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To create a new citizenship for their own purposes and to create an empire within an empire.
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What was Celsus religiously?
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He felt that certainty was unattainable in religious matters, but he loved the old gods of Rome because they were the pillars of the society which he loved
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In response to claims like those of Justin Martyr about the origins of PX, what did Celsus try to prove?
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Probably aware of Justin Martyr's claims for Christianity's antiquity, Celsus emphasized its novely among religions.
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Celsus thought PX was stupidity for believing in some carpenter from Palestine but why was he afraid of it?
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It was dangerous because of a worldwide coherence, it was a conspiracy, and one which Celsus saw as especially aimed at impressionable young people.
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When did the Roman empire reach its maximum extent?
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during the second century under Trajan (reigned 98 - 117 AD)
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When did other peoples start pushing back against the Roman empire after it had reached its greatest extent?
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Around mid second century there is increasing hostile activity against the Roman empire.
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Who was the last emperor in the late second century who reverted the office of emperor back into an office of chaos and insanity?
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Commodus
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How did Commodus die?
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He was murdered by his mistress Marcia to stop him from murdering her.
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How was the third century characterized for the Roman emperorship?
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Hardly a single Roman emperor died a natural death.
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