Early Christianity

$99.00

This course examines the rise and development of Christianity, both in its social and intellectual dimensions, from the close of the apostolic era to the fifth century. While a variety of topics are covered, a central part of the narrative focuses on the debates which dominated the era.

Attention will be paid not just to the theological implications of these debates but also to their political, social, and economic context and ramifications.

This course also encourages students to engage critically with the past as a means of understanding and offering a critique of the present. Christianity is not rediscovered every Lord’s Day; it is shaped by its past; only as we come to grapple with that past can we really see the present in proper context.

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This course examines the rise and development of Christianity, both in its social and intellectual dimensions, from the close of the apostolic era to the fifth century. While a variety of topics are covered, a central part of the narrative focuses on the debates which dominated the era.

Attention will be paid not just to the theological implications of these debates but also to their political, social, and economic context and ramifications.

This course also encourages students to engage critically with the past as a means of understanding and offering a critique of the present. Christianity is not rediscovered every Lord’s Day; it is shaped by its past; only as we come to grapple with that past can we really see the present in proper context.

This course examines the rise and development of Christianity, both in its social and intellectual dimensions, from the close of the apostolic era to the fifth century. While a variety of topics are covered, a central part of the narrative focuses on the debates which dominated the era.

Attention will be paid not just to the theological implications of these debates but also to their political, social, and economic context and ramifications.

This course also encourages students to engage critically with the past as a means of understanding and offering a critique of the present. Christianity is not rediscovered every Lord’s Day; it is shaped by its past; only as we come to grapple with that past can we really see the present in proper context.

Lectures

Microcourse | 11 hours

1. History, Faith, Context: Discerning the Truth
1.1 History, Faith, and Confessing the Lord Jesus Christ
1.2 Christianity and the Ancient World: Judaism(s) and Rome
1.3 Doxology and Theology in Relationship
1.4 Ignatian Catholicity: Christ and the Church

2. Persecution, Martyrdom, and Authority: Discerning the Christian
2.1 Persecution and Martyrdom
2.2 The Martyrdom of Polycarp and the Development of Martyrology
2.3 Nature of Authority
2.4 Examples of the Rule and Introduction to the Apologists

3. The Quest for Nicene Stability
3.1 From the Apologists to Irenaeus
3.2 Irenaeus to Tertullian
3.3 Origen and the Origenist Controversy
3.4 Arianism to Nicaea and Beyond
3.5 Final Movements toward Nicene Stability

4. Monasticism and the Life and Legacy of Ambrose
4.1 The Rise of Monasticism
4.2 Donatism and Introduction to Ambrose
4.3 Priscillianism, Ambrose, and the Rise of the Relics

5. Augustine
5.1 Regions, Part 1
5.2 Regions, Part 2
5.3 Controversies and Arguments
5.4 Legacies

6. Augustine, Pelagius, and Boethius
6.1 Augustine’s Story in Brief
6.2 Augustine and Pelagianism
6.3 Theological Issues
6.4 Boethius

7. Survey of Other Fathers
7.1 Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea
7.2 Ephrem the Syrian, John Chrysostom, and Jerome
7.3 Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Leo the Great