RELG 330 - History of Christianity
Course Notes
Chapter 14
Page 159 - Theodosius - See Pages 107-109 & 124-125. Theodosius I (ca. AD 346-395) was the son of a Christian general, and served in the army. His father was executed due to political intrigue by his enemies, and Theodosius retired to Spain. However, when the Eastern Emperor Valens died in 378 the Western Emperor Gratian called Theodosius to become Emperor of the East (379). Theodosius fought off the invading Goths, Vandals, and Huns, and then set about strengthening the position of the Christian Church in the Empire. He published an edict ordering people to become Christians, but he did not persecute non-Christians, Arians, or Manichaeans - he said he only wanted to frighten them into becoming Christians.
Gratian, the Western Emperor, was murdered in 383 and Maximus usurped the Western Empire. Theodosius told Maximus to let Gratian's brother Valentinian rule Italy, but in 387 Maximus drove Valentinian out. Theodosius brought Valentinian back, killed Maximus, and defeated his pagan army.
Theodosius put an end to paganism and fought heresy in the Empire. He became sole Emperor in 392. On his death in 395 the Empire was divided between his two sons, and it was never again a united Empire.
In AD 381 Theodosius called the Council of Constantinople with the aim of uniting the Western and the Eastern Empires under orthodox Nicaean Christianity. The Council confirmed Gregory Nazianzus as Patriarch of Constantinople and issued an updated version of the Nicene Creed (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) which affirmed the Trinity as three Persons of one Being, and clarified that the Holy Spirit is divine. This version of the Nicene Creed became the Creed used in Baptism - the declaration of faith made by all Christians. At the end of the Council, Theodosius passed an imperial decree restoring all churches to bishops who affirmed the Trinity, thereby driving Arianism out of the Eastern Church.
Page 159 - Gratian - see Pages 107-108
Page 160 - Jerome - see Pages 162-163
Pages 162-163 - Jerome (ca.347-420) was a scholar whom Pope Damasus appointed to produce an accurate translation of the Bible into Latin (there were some earlier translations, but they were not very good). Jerome already knew Greek, and he learned Hebrew, traveled to the Holy Land and lived in a cave in Bethlehem while he worked on the translation. His translation was intended for use throughout the Western church (which is why it was in Latin) and is called the Vulgate ("vulgar" = "common" - using the common language of the West). Jerome used the order of Books found in the Septuagint version. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced ca. 260 BC which contains the Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal Books in addition to those of the Hebrew canon. It is still in use, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church.
By the fifth century there were several different translations of the Bible in use in the Church. Pope Damasus became concerned about the differences between the various translations of the Scriptures then in use by the Church. He commissioned Jerome to make a good new translation of the Scriptures into Latin, for use throughout the Western Empire. Jerome started work in AD 382, and had completed the Gospels by AD 384. In order to work with the text of the Old Testament Jerome set out to learn Hebrew. He eventually moved to Bethlehem, where he lived in a cave near the Cave of the Nativity. The present Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is built over both of these caves.
Page 168 - Clovis, King of the Franks - see Page 189. Clovis, NM is named for Clovis, the first Christian King of the Franks
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