Church History
Class Five
FIFTH, SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES
What We Will See
 In this class, we will see the Church eventually
triumph over many heresies such as Nestorianism
and Pelagianism.
 The incredible careers of Augustine, Ambrose,
Gregory and Benedict.
 The founding of the religion of Islam and its spread
throughout the known world.
 The beginning of the conversion of Barbarian Europe
with great missionaries such as Patrick.
St. Ambrose of Milan
Ambrose was born into a prominent Roman Military family.
He became a trusted official in Milanese government.
When the Arian bishop of Milan died, a riot broke out.
Ambrose went to restore order and was acclaimed bishop by
the populace.
 At first refusing, he later accepted but had to be baptized,
confirmed, and then ordained deacon, priest and bishop all in
two days!!
 He dedicated himself to the Catholic faith, opposed Arianism,
demanded penance from the Emperor, and became the chief
spokesman in the Church for orthodoxy.
 His preaching was so eloquent that he converted a wayward
young man named Augustine.
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St. Augustine
354-430
 Born Thagaste North Africa
 Mother Monica, eldest child.
 Baptism delayed.
 Became a master of rhetoric and of the Roman classics
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(hated Greek).
Moved to Carthage and experimented with Manicheaism.
Discovered the moralist philosophers; attempted some
regulation of his sexual passions.
Moved to Rome, taught rhetoric; mother followed.
Moved to Milan, discovered Ambrose.
After great struggle, converted to Catholicism.
Augustine Continued
 Became a priest in North Africa, then bishop of Hippo.
 Wrote Confessions.
 Battled heresy constantly: Donatism, Manichaeism,
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Pelagianism and anything else which threatened the
faith.
Wrote City of God after sack of Rome in 410.
Wrote a vast body of other works, all excellent.
His mistakes.
Defense of Augustine.
Vandals invade Spain, conquer Africa, persecute Church.
Council of Ephesus
431
 Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, began to
teach that Jesus was basically two persons, human
and divine, but mysteriously connected.
 He insisted that Mary was “Mother of Jesus not
Mother of God.”
 The council of Ephesus reaffirmed that Mary was
Theotokos (Mother of God).
 Nestorius exiled to Syria, where he continued to
spread his heresy.
Saint Patrick Arrives
432
 Ireland before Patrick:
 An ancient land little changed from the Indo-European roots of its Celtic people.
 Had both nature worship and a pantheon of gods; groves and springs served as
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temples.
Lived in huts scattered over the countryside (no towns) but did have Duns, the
fortresses of the Aristocratic Elite.
Had a Gaelic (Celtic) ruling class and a slave indigenous underclass (the Fir Bolg).
Dread of public humiliation the most dominant trait.
Divided into four subkingdoms, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht.
Tara, the home of the High King, had only nominal rule.
Constant war (often cattle-raids); this endless violence impeded cultural progress.
Single combat a popular way to fight wars and settle disputes (e.g. Hero Cuchulain).
The Fenian Warrior Society had recently been established before Patrick’s arrival by
the legendary Finn MacCuvhail, probably to fend off an expected Roman Invasion.
A rich oral tradition but little writing and little architecture.
Druids were the priestly class and the intelligentsia.
St. Patrick
Patrick was raised in a Roman-British home.
Irreligious but forced to memorize the psalms.
Kidnapped as a youth by Irish pirates.
Enslaved and forced to herd sheep; became a devout Christian.
Escaped back to Britain, migrated to France to become a Monk.
Ordained a bishop and sent to Ireland to replace his failed predecessor.
Received permission to preach by High King; set up headquarters at Armagh.
Druids put up little effective resistance after the “fire” incident.
Possibly the Druids converted as speedily as the rest of the population.
Admittedly, it took centuries for the conversion to “sink” in.
Irish continued violent ways only slightly tempered by Christianity.
But the Irish monasteries became immensely successful as centers of learning and
as bases of missionary activity.
 Large parts of Britain, Germany, France and Scandanavia were converted by Irish
missionaries.
 Became one of the repositories for Greco-Roman literature.
 Irish monks changed confession (for the better) forever.
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Council of Chalcedon
451
 Heresy of Monophysitism: Christ’s divine nature
annihilates his human nature.
 Pope Leo, unable to attend, wrote his opinion in the
Tome of Leo, in which he asserted that Jesus was
both fully human and fully divine.
 All assembled stood and shouted “Peter has spoken
through Leo!!”
 The Council adopted his opinions as their verdict
The Hunnic Menace
434-453
 In the East, the Hun tribes are united under Attila.
 He pushes westward, either driving out the local German
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and Slavic peoples, or forcing them into vassalage.
This caused a domino-effect in central Europe with one
people displacing another.
Eventually Attilla sought to conquer all of Europe.
The Great battle of Chalon-sur-Marne.
Leo saves Rome.
Attila dies, hunnic tribes melt back into Eastern Europe.
Many peoples in eastern Europe claim descent from the
Huns.
Clovis Converts
496
 The Germanic tribe of the Franks had conquered
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Gaul.
Clovis, though pagan, married a Christian wife.
During a terrible battle, he prayed to God for victory,
which he was granted.
Clovis converts, along with all of his people.
Though their morals took time to catch up, this was
the beginning of Catholic France.
Clovis set himself as the promoter and defender of
the Church.
England Forming
450-550
 After the withdrawal of Rome, Roman Britain forced to
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fend for itself.
Vortigern became a sort-of High King in Britain.
Stupidly invited Saxons from Germany to assist in
defeating enemies.
Saxons decide to stay; begin to enter in ever greater
numbers.
Soon a flood of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes begin to
establish themselves in southern Britain.
Possible that they were temporarily checked by the
Legendary King Arthur at the battle of Badon.
But by the late 500’s had completely displaced the British
inhabitants, who were pushed to Wales and Scotland.
Benedict Founds A Monastery
529
 Benedict was a young man from Nursia Italy.
 Moved to Rome but was scandalized by the sinful
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atmosphere.
Decided to retreat to Monte Cassino to pray and fast.
A monastery asked him to be their abbot; temporarily
accepted; until they tried to kill him.
He set up his own monastery; almost failed.
Sister Scholastica set up her own convent in imitation.
“Ora et Labora”
Wrote his ever famous rule.
Early Benedictine Life
 Life in a monastery revolved around prayer.
 All 150 psalms were prayed/sung every day in Latin, divided
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into nine periods to allow for work.
Benedict insisted on some leisure time for reading of Scripture
and a “hinoff” of wine per day.
Benedict insisted on hard work (mostly agricultural).
Abbot was obeyed as Christ (though local Bishop could
intervene).
Monasteries spread all over Europe.
By accident, became the first universities and preservers of
Greco-Roman wisdom.
For many Christians for the next 700 years, Monks would be
the only priests they would ever know or meet.
The Cathedral
 Alongside the Monastery, grew the Cathedral.
 The seat of the Bishop, it also had great influence on
society.
 The nine or six offices were also sung.
 They also began to form into schools to teach the
young, train new priests, and preserve ancient
literature.
 The diocesan priesthood, as we know it, began to
form around these Cathedrals.
Theodosius and Justinian reform the Law
438-534
 The Christian emperors Theodosius and Justinian
noticed that Roman Law didn’t exactly square with
Christian Morality.
 Commissioned two great reforms to align Law with
Christianity.
 Crucifixion, infanticide, in manu, and other horrible
left-overs were abolished.
 These two codes had considerable influence on the
West and on Church Canon Law.
Pope Gregory the Great
590-604
 Became a monk at the Monastery of St. Andrew’s.
 Ordained a deacon by the Pope and sent to
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Constantinople as ambassador.
Returned to Rome where he worked as a popular official.
Elected Pope in 590.
Sent missionaries to England under Augustine of
Canterbury.
Wrote a great deal of pastoral and theological works.
Enforced discipline and celibacy of the clergy.
Gregorian chant came into form under him and so is
given his name (did he do it himself???).
Augustine of CanterburyEngland Converts
 Augustine arrives in England and establishes his See
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at Canterbury.
Attempts contact with Welsh Christians who rebuff
him.
Under Gregory’s advice, converts pagan temples into
Churches.
Kings convert, followed by the people (England not
unified at this time).
Comparatively speaking, England converted with
astonishing speed and with lasting results.
The Great Byzantine-Persian War
602-628
 Byzantine and Persian Sassanid Empires lived side by side in a state of either war or
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cold war.
Byzantine was passionately Christian and Persia was passionately Zoroastrian.
They constantly battled over Mesopotamia (Iraq), Armenia, Syria and Palestine.
The Persians took advantage of a coup in Constantinople to launch their war.
They succeeded amazingly and conquered most Armenia, Syria, Palestine and
Egypt.
When they captured Jerusalem they took the relic of the True Cross captive.
After conquering Egypt, Kosrau sent a taunting letter to Heraclius, in which he
blasphemed Christ.
The letter so infuriated the Byzantines that they launched a massive counteroffensive which ended in complete victory for the Byzantines.
Even though the Byzantines won, both sides had lost unspeakable amounts of
human lives and material wealth.
As such, only four years later, both Persia and Byzantine were defeated in the face of
a new force, Islam.
Mohammed and the Rise of Islam
 Arabia had always been isolated from the larger developments
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of the outer world; never fully conquered by Rome.
The Arabs lived a nomadic existence but cities such as
Makkah and Yathrib played important roles.
There was no political unity with warring tribes dominating
the peninsula; their religion was polytheistic though Allah was
recognized as a Supreme Deity.
Christians and Jews both lived in Arabia but these often
followed unorthodox versions of these religions.
Makkah was the religious center of Arabia with the Kabah (a
large meteoric stone building) serving as a shrine to various
deities; it was an object of Arabic pilgrimage.
The Quraysh tribe dominated Makkah.
Muhammad’s Early Life
 Muhammad was born in 570 but was quickly orphaned;
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adopted by his uncle.
As a young man he became renowned for his honesty.
He entered the service of his elder cousin Kahdijah, a
merchant for whom he served well.
They married and had one daughter Fatimah.
In his travels, Muhammad encountered many religions and
seems to have been fascinated by them.
Scholars suspect that he was heavily influenced by Arian and
Nestorian Christians exiled in Syria.
He never learned to read but had large portions of the Old and
New Testament read to him.
He began to suspect that the Arabs had departed from
authentic worship of Allah and right conduct.
Revelations
 Beginning in 610, Muhammad began to have some sort of religious
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experiences in a cave near Makkah where he liked to pray.
He interpreted these as visitations from the angel Gabriel.
Later, Muhammad would recite the messages to scribes who wrote
them down into suras (passages); these were formed into the
Qu’ran.
Muhammad suspected that these were false messages and consulted
his wife and her friends (who were Christians).
Muhammad became convinced that the messages were genuine.
For Muhammad, the message was that the Arabs were offending
God by worship of idols and mistreatment of the poor.
Muhammad began to preach publicly against idol worship and
moral failings.
Controversy
613-622
 Muhammad began to attract a small gathering of disciples
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who slowly grew.
The Quraysh tribe (Muhammad’s own) profited greatly from
pilgrimage to the Kabbah so his message was not taken well.
The Quraysh persecuted Muhammad’s community through
violence and embargo.
As the persecution became more desperate, his followers
began to flee to Yathrib.
After his wife’s and uncle’s death, Muhammad followed.
The people of Yathrib desired a mediator to settle disputes so
they invited Muhammad.
Muhammad became civil head of Yathrib and turned it into
his base for spreading Islam.
Chief Tenents of Islam
 Muhammad taught that there was only one God, Allah, and that he
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was his chief and final prophet.
The old testament prophets and Jesus were greatly revered but
Jesus was not considered divine.
Muhammad taught that both Jews and Christians had made serious
errors in interpreting the message of God.
All creation and all humans were called to submit to God’s will
(Islam = submission).
Devout Muslims are called to follow the five pillars:
The shahadah: the declaration of faith.
The salat: prayer five times per day.
The Zakat: charitable giving.
The Ramadan Fast: abstaining from food, drink and sex during
Ramadan season.
The Hajj: the pilgrimage to Makkah if possible.
Chief Tenents of Islam
 Muhammad taught that one day God would bring
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the world to an end and judge each human being
according to his deeds.
The just would go to paradise and the wicked would
go to hell.
Muhammad forbade murder, adultery, homosexual
behavior and incest.
Permitted polygamy, permitted just war.
He often made divine pronouncements on the spot to
deal with immediate circumstances which has led to
controversy.
The Conquest of Arabia
625-628
 Muhammad considered opposition to himself as opposition to God.
 He began to raid Quraysh caravans.
 This led to war: Muslims won the battle of Badr; but lost battle of Ulud; and
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survived the siege of Medina (Yathrib).
A truce was signed with Makkah which ended the war (temporarily).
Meanwhile Muhammad was infuriated that the local Jews had not sided with him,
so he liquidated their tribe.
His daughter Fatimah married Ali, a close friend of Muhammad’s; they had two
sons, Hasan and Hussein.
War broke out again and the Quraysh were defeated; more and more Arab tribes
were joining Muhammad, though many viewed him as a successful Sheik rather
than as a prophet.
Muhammad marries Aisha, which must be properly understood.
In 630 Muhammad captured Makkah; Muhammad and Ali smash all of the idols in
the Kabbah, though the Kabbah remained because Abraham built it.
In 632 Muhammad died but without naming a successor or setting up a process for
succession, an omission which was to have lasting consequences to the present day.
Early Islam
632-637
 After Muhammad’s death, many of his followers act quickly to elect
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a successor: Abu Bakr is chosen as the first Caliph.
What scandalized many was that during the scramble for power, Ali
was faithfully washing his father’s body for burial.
Some thus thought that Ali should succeed Muhammad but they
temporarily accepted Abu Bakr.
First Abu Bakr had to reconquer various tribes which tried to secede
after Muhammad’s death.
Bakr moves northward into Syria and Persia; the Persian empire is
toppled; the Byzantine empire is defeated but remains.
Many locals assist the Muslims because of Byzantine persecution
and incompetence.
In 634 Abu Bakr dies and is succeeded by Omar who continues the
conquest of Persia and Palestine.
Early Islam
644-656
 Uthman succeeds as caliph in 644; conquers Egypt and much
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of North Africa.
Islamic conversion is complex: Muslims do not force
conversion (at this time in history).
Muhammad had commanded that Jews and Christians be
permitted if they pay a tax; pagans are to be killed or enslaved.
But huge economic advantages accrue to converts to Islam, so
conversion slowly but steadily picks up in conquered territory.
As well, many Christians tired over vicious fights over the
Trinity, embrace Islam where there is no Trinity.
In 656 Uthman is murdered and Ali becomes caliph at last.
The Bitter Caliphate
656-661
 What could have been a reconciliation between the two main
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factions of Islam (later Shi’ah and Sunni) instead is derailed because
of Uthman’s controversial death.
Civil war breaks out between those who recognize Ali as Caliph and
those who insist that he is illegitimate because Uthman was
murdered by friends of Ali.
In the end, Ali is murdered and the Ummayyid tribe takes control of
the Caliphate; the capitol is moved to Damascus.
The followers of Ali now insist, that Hussein and Hassan and their
children should be the new line Caliphs.
At the battle of Karbala (680) Muhammad’s grandson Hussein is
killed, thus ending Shi’ah hopes of Muhammad’s children becoming
the Caliphs.
This caused a split in Islam which lasts to this day between Shi’ah
and Sunni; both consider the other to be heretics.
Iran is the only Shi’ah dominant country in the world today.