A Short History of Medieval Christianity

G.R. Evans

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781784532826
• eBook ISBN: 9781786722232
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

What did people really believe in the Middle Ages? Much of our sense of the medieval period has come down to us from the writings of the learned: the abbots, priors, magnates, scholastic theologians and others who between them, and across Christendom, controlled the machinery of church and state. For G R Evans too much emphasis has been placed on a governing elite and too little on those - the great mass of the semi-literate and illiterate, and the emergent middle classes - who stood outside the innermost circles of ecclesiastical power, privilege and education. Her book finally gives proper weight to the neglected literature of demotic religion: the lives of saints; writings by those - including lay women - who had mystical experiences; and lively texts containing stories for popular edification. Ranging widely, from the fall of Rome to the ideas of the Reformation, the author addresses vital topics like the appeal of monasticism, the lure of the Crusades, the rise of the friars and the acute crisis of heresy. As Evans reveals, medieval Christianity was shaped above all by its promise of salvation or eternal perdition.

1

LAUNCHING THE FIRST THOUSAND YEARS OF CHRISTENDOM

WANDERERS IN A RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE AS A WORLD POWER COLLAPSES

When Christianity began, Rome’s influence reached almost to the edges of the known world, which then consisted of Europe, Asia and the coastal strip of North Africa. For centuries before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, Rome had been building a gigantic power-base, progressively conquering Europe, North Africa and much of the modern Middle East. A vast administrative structure had grown up, in which a well-born citizen might expect to take his turn in office, perhaps even serving as a provincial governor for a period.

Rome had begun as a republic, the ‘Senate and People of Rome’ (SPQR or Senatus populusque Romanus). A generation before Jesus was born, in 27 BC, it became an empire. After a power-struggle commemorated by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, Caesar’s adopted son Augustus became the first Roman emperor (27 BC–AD 14). Imperial Rome soon set off down a path towards its ultimate decline and fall as its emperors became corrupt and tyrannical, but it still spread a notable Greco-Roman civilisation across its extensive territories. Infant Christianity, at first a simple religion of the common people, with its emphasis on following the teaching of Jesus, soon began to attract educated followers. They brought Christianity into contact with classical ideals of the good life and the whole span of ancient philosophy, Greek and Roman. Much absorption, debate and controversy followed as Christianity spelt out its theology in detail.

Rome was a society in which the concept of citizenship reached a high level of sophistication. A person could be proud to say ‘I am a Roman citizen (civis Romanus sum) not least because citizenship carried privileges. Citizenship could be bought, but Paul of Tarsus was, he insisted, born a Roman citizen (Acts 22.28), and Roman officialdom accordingly protected him when he was attacked by a mob and found himself standing trial on charges brought by Jews who were hostile to his Christian mission (Acts 21–6). When he faced an unfair trial, Paul exercised his citizen’s right to appeal to Caesar (Acts 25.9–12). The notion of a privileged ‘citizenship of heaven’ was borrowed and much developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430) when he wrote his City of God, with its theory that God knows who are his own and will enjoy eternity in the ‘heavenly city’.

This idea of a ‘citizenship’ of belonging and privilege had its darker side for the non-citizens. Rome ran on slavery, as did much of the ancient world. Many among the peoples Rome conquered were enslaved, and Christianity seems to have taken root first among the underprivileged and the slaves. There was no early Christian resistance to this social system. Christians who were slaves were told to serve their masters faithfully (Ephesians 6.5–8). Subjection in this world did not matter. In heaven, Christians were to be all one in Christ, in whom there were no Jews or ‘Greeks’, slaves nor free, males nor females (Galatians 3.28).

The Roman conquerors were generally very broad minded about religion. Roman ‘syncretism’ simply added the local gods of conquered peoples to the Roman pantheon, equating god with god where possible. For example, the Greek Zeus, king of the gods, could simply be regarded as the Roman Jupiter by another name. In polytheism, one god or goddess more or less presented no special theological challenge. In this system local loyalties could remain strong. The religious devotion of ordinary people concentrated on keeping small spiritual powers, household and other local deities, content with gifts and sacrifices. When the emperor of the day was declared a god, and the people required to worship him, he could be added to the existing deities without disturbing the religious mix. That began early, the deification of the emperor being accepted only gradually in Italy, but serving a useful purpose in ensuring the loyalty of the armies serving in the provinces.

Egypt, Syria, Anatolia and Persia had their own religious systems and they could not all be mapped straightforwardly onto the Greco-Roman pantheon, god for god. Through Roman military conquest and trade, Eastern deities such as Mithras the sun god and Egyptian ones such as Isis and Osiris travelled into the West, remaining still very much themselves in terms of their attributes, rituals and special legends.¹ From Anatolia about the third century BC or possibly through Hannibal’s invading Carthaginian armies, arrived the Phrygian cult of the Mother of the gods, the goddess of nature, Cybele. Her cult found a place in Rome on the Palatine Hill and involved exciting rituals including wild dancing and drunken bacchanalia.

Some danger of confusion existed for Christianity from religions with beliefs and practices which could seem to resemble theirs. The goddess Cybele’s lover was Attis, the Phrygian vegetation god, who castrated himself, ending his fertility, and died each year only to be resurrected with the spring. The Emperor Claudius (41–54) approved an annual spring holiday for the last two weeks of March each year to celebrate his resurrection, culminating in Hilaria, the feast day when he rose again and banquets were held.² Adonis was another god who died and was resurrected in spring, with a cult which seems to have originated in Phoenicia, at Byblos. The Emperor Hadrian (117–38) had the Christian holy place of Jesus’ birth used for Adonis worship and a sacred grove put there. The pious Christian Helena, mother of Constantine (272–337), the first Christian emperor, restored it as a sanctuary for Christians and caused a basilica to be built.³

The cult of Mithras had its form of ‘baptism’. This involved sacrificing a bull over a pit in which the initiates stood and into which the bull’s blood flowed. The effect was believed to be that the initiate was made one with the god or somehow deified. Few details of the liturgy and rites have survived. Mithras’s devotees were very secretive. They met in caves and underground places for worship and used secret signs to recognise one another.⁴ But the early Christians too were considered ‘secretive’ and links were hinted at.

Peregrinus, the wandering religion-taster, was a creation of the satirist Lucian of Samosata, born about AD 120/125 in Syria,⁵ but he was not entirely an invention. Many educated young men of the time spent their youth trying out different philosophies and religions until they found one that suited them. The main questions to which they looked for answers were who, if anyone, was in charge of events and the future of the cosmos and how should one best lead the good life and be happy.

Fig. 1: Aphrodite and Adonis are depicted here on a Greek vase, exemplifying the fleshly amusements the pagan gods of the ancient Mediterranean world were thought to enjoy

In Lucian’s story, Peregrinus came across Christianity in his wanderings when he met Christian ‘priests and scribes’ in Palestine. He then sought fame by writing and commenting on Christian teaching until he was thrown into prison for it. The local Christians did all they could to rescue him. Widows and orphans could be seen waiting outside the prison from early morning and some Christian leaders bribed their way in to see him, bringing fancy meals and sacred books. That of course only increased his notoriety. People began to arrive from Asia to press for his release, their fares paid by the Christians. Lucian the satirist sneers:

The poor wretches have convinced themselves […] that they are going to be immortals and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody […] Furthermore [Christ] persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property.⁶

Peregrinus the Cynic is just a charlatan, who plans to use his Christian ‘membership’ for his own profit. Self-appointed Cynics were a common sight in the streets, preaching and begging.

But the experience of ‘finding Christianity’ on such a philosophical journey could be real enough. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr (100–65) explains that after much intellectual wandering he was converted by an old man he met on a seashore who kindled in him a love of Christ and made him understand what the prophets had been foretelling. Justin and Trypho sat down to a discussion before an audience of bystanders. Trypho had heard that Christians ate human flesh and slept promiscuously with one another. But he was a Jew and his real problem with the Christians was that they were not circumcised and did not observe the law. Justin, disposing of the rumours by telling Trypho about the Last Supper, and the nature of the love Christians have for one another, explained that the Old Law had been set aside and superseded. The New Testament contained God-given promises to replace it. There was now a new covenant.⁷

Persecution begins

The monotheistic Jews and Christians would not allow their God to be thrown into this melting pot, and consequently faced centuries of state persecution. Christianity was outlawed in the 80s of the first century by the Emperor Domitian who called it a ‘Jewish superstition’, but allowed the Jews themselves to keep their civil rights provided they paid the ‘Jewish tax’ (fiscus Judaicus). Domitian’s reign ended in his assassination but the political distinction of ‘real Jews’ from the Christians may have begun to matter. State-driven persecutions specifically of Christians were to run on sporadically for a couple of centuries.

About 161, Melito, Bishop of Sardis in Anatolia (d. 181), sent an Apologia to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–80). He writes of widespread persecutions of Christians, this activity being treated as a licence to seize people’s goods. If this is indeed the emperor’s wish, ‘well and good’. One would regard a death under such an edict as an honour. Melito merely asks the emperor to look into what is happening and assure himself that those who claim to be acting as his agents are doing so as he would wish. If he finds they are not, Melito hopes he will ensure that the people are not left exposed to this despoiling of their property.

Framing a new institution

It was not long before ‘charismatic’ preachers claiming to be led by the Holy Spirit began to present a challenge to the very basics of Christian belief. Who was going to be authorised to lead the community and how? What teachings were to be allowed and who would decide? So in these first centuries the Christian ‘Church’ was not only identifying itself as different from the other religions with which the Roman Empire was awash – it was also busy designing its own institutional arrangements.

There was no Bible to refer to at first, just the Old Testament and a collection of writings, only some of which eventually found their way into the New Testament. Among these was the Acts of the Apostles, written by the same author as Luke’s Gospel, probably about AD 80–90. This account describes conflicts between the Christians and the Jews and divisions among the Christians as they tried to decide whether they were a sect of the Jews, keeping to the Old Law, or something quite new.

Acts also describes how the Christians designed a system of organisation for themselves. Leading members such as Paul and Barnabas were despatched from Antioch to Jerusalem seeking help to resolve a controversy as to whether the Law of the Old Testament was to apply to Christians. Should converts who were not Jews be circumcised? Christians met in a ‘council’ in Jerusalem (Acts 15), about AD 48–50, to discuss this increasingly pressing and divisive question. James, the brother of Jesus, was accepted as the natural leader of the Christians in Jerusalem. He persuaded the meeting (Acts 15.13ff.) that the Christians should reach out to the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas were entrusted with the task of explaining the decision of the meeting to those at Antioch. They were to be accompanied by Judas and Silas who were also respected as prophets and leaders (Acts 15.32).

This experimental and very personal emergence of leadership was the beginning of what was to evolve into a system of ‘ministry’ in the Christian Church. The thrust at the beginning was missionary. Jesus had taught his disciples to go out and preach the Gospel and to leave each place promptly and move on if their message was not welcomed, shaking the local dust from their feet (Matthew 10.14). But when they did listen, place by place each new community thus formed became a ‘church’. It was to such local ‘churches’ that Paul and others wrote the letters of guidance and sometimes reproach which can still be read in the New Testament.

The members of a small local church could meet for worship and to celebrate the Last Supper, though they did not at first have church buildings to meet in. But as Christianity spread, a structure had to be devised to serve bigger areas and ensure that the one faith was maintained. A system of dioceses emerged, each presided over by a bishop, with priests looking after local worshipping communities as his ‘vicars’. Then dioceses were linked within still larger areas, with the bishop of a major city or metropolis holding the position of ‘Metropolitan’. In time an even higher structural level emerged, in which the presiding bishop (‘arch’-bishop or patriarch) led a whole province. These patriarchal provinces were ‘autocephalous’, meaning that they had their own jurisdictions. In the Greek-speaking East there were four such provinces led by the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem. In the Latin-speaking West there was one patriarchal province, headed by the Bishop of Rome, who made the special claim of being successor to the Apostle Peter, Rome’s first bishop. We shall glimpse periods of heated dispute as to which of the five was Primate of all.

This structure was going to help to hold the Church together through synods or councils of bishops, held in provinces and occasionally as ‘ecumenical’ councils, or councils of the whole Church.⁸ These would not be like that first council in Jerusalem. Lay people would not be invited to participate in the voting.

CHRISTIANS, JEWS AND GENTILES: ESTABLISHING PARAMETERS

Distinguishing Christians from Jews

Latin-speaking Christians called non-Christians who kept to the old polytheism ‘Gentiles’ (gentiles), ‘natives’ (ethnici), ‘pagans’ (pagani), even (for ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Maps and Illustrations
• Preface
• Timeline
• Introduction: The Beautiful Vision
• Chapter 1: Launching the First Thousand Years of Christendom
• Chapter 2: New Faiths for Europe
• Chapter 3: Christianity after the Millennium
• Chapter 4: Christians, Jews and Muslims: A Multi-faith World
• Chapter 5: Some Hard Talking: Universities and Councils
• Chapter 6: From Dissent to Reformation
• Conclusion: Renaissance and Expansion
• Further Reading
• Notes