Chapter 10 Flashcards
What Chinese woman, about twenty years of age around 1990, became distraught at discovering that her husband was having an affair and became a Christian?
Yao Hong
Where was Yao Hong from?
She was a migrant from a rural village to the huge city of Shanghai, where she found support and a sense of family in the Christian community.
What did Yao Hong observe in an interview in 2010 about the Christian community?
“Whether they know you or not, they treat you as a brother or sister. If you have troubles, they help out with money or material assistance or spiritual aid.”
How did Yao Hong feel about converting to Christianity?
She did not find the Christian faith alien to her Chinese culture, in fact, she felt conversion to Christianity as a patriotic act, even a way of becoming more fully modern. “God is rising here in China, If you look at the United States or England, their gospel is very advanced. Their churches are rich because God blesses them. So I pray for China.”
What other Asian countries also hosted substantial Christian communities along with China?
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, and parts of India.
What percentage of the world’s Christians lived in Asia, Africa, or Latin America?
60 percent
What flourishing communities did Christianity enjoy an Afro-Eurasian reach?
Anatolia, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, Ethiopia, Nubia, Syria, Armenia, Persia, India, and China, as well as Europe.
By 1300, almost all of the societies from Ireland and England in the west to Russia in the east had embraced what teaching?
embraced in some form the teachings of the Jewish artisan called Jesus
What was the eastern half of the Christian world known as?
Known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, which encompassed much of the eastern Mediterranean basin while continuing the traditions of the Greco-Roman world, on a smaller scale, until its conquest by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1453
Where was the Byzantine Empire centered on?
The magnificent city of Constantinople, Byzantium gradually evolved a particular form of Christianity known as Eastern Orthodoxy within a distinctive third-wave civilization
What particular form of Christianity did Byzantium gradually evolve into?
Known as Eastern Orthodoxy
What was the Western or Latin Christendom encompassing?
encompassing what we now know as Western Europe.
What features of Roman civilization weakened along with the Roman imperial order which vanished by 500 C.E.?
Roads fell into disrepair, cities decayed, and long-distance trade shriveled.
What replaced the old Roman order?
A highly localized society - fragmented, decentralized, and competitive - in sharp contrast to the unified state of Byzantium.
Like Byzantium, the Latin West ultimately became what?
thoroughly Christian, but it was a gradual process lasting centuries, and its Roman Catholic version of the faith, increasingly centered on the pope, had an independence from political authorities that the Eastern Orthodox Church did not.
The Western Church in particular and its society were far more what compared to the Byzantium?
Far more rural and certainly had nothing to compare to the splendor of Constantinople.
What happened after 1000 in Western Europe?
Western Europe emerged as an especially dynamic, expansive, and innovative third-wave civilization, combining elements of its Greco-Roman past with the culture of Germanic and Celtic peoples to produce a distinctive hybrid or blended civilization
Where was the decimation of earlier Christian communities most complete and fast?
In Arabia, the homeland of Islam, for within a century or so of Muhammad’s death in 632, only a few Christian groups remained.
In the 8th century, what did triumphant Muslims mark as a sign of the replacement of the old religion?
By using the pillars of a demolished Christian cathedral to construct the Grand Mosque of Sana’a in southern Arabia
What did Muslim forces do in 638, when they took control of Jerusalem?
They subsequently constructed the Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock, that precise location had long been regarded as sacred
Why was the area where the Muslim shrine is known as the Dome of the Rock, a sacred location to the Jews?
To Jews, it contained the stone on which Abraham prepared to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God, and it was the site of the first two Jewish temples
Why was the area where the Muslim shrine is known as the Dome of the Rock, a sacred location to the Christians?
To Christians, it was a place that Jesus had visited as a youngster to converse with learned teachers and later to drive out the money changers.
When the Umayyad caliph (successor to the Prophet) ____ _______ ordered a new construction on that site, he was appropriating for Islam both Jewish and Christian legacies. But he was also demonstrating the victorious arrival of a new faith and announcing to Christians and Jews that “the Islamic state was here to stay.”
Abd al-Malik
In 649, what did a Nestorian bishop write, only fifteen years after Damascus had been conquered by Arab forces?
“These Arabs fight not against our Christian religion; nay rather they defend our faith, they revere our priests and Saints, and they make gifts to our churches and monasteries.”
The Nestorian Christian communities of Syria, Iraq, and Persia, sometimes called the Church of the East, survived what?
Survived the assault of Islam, but they did so as shrinking communities of second-class subjects, regulated minorities forbidden from propagating their message to Muslims. They also abandoned religious paintings and sculptures, fearing to offend the Muslims, whose artistic representation was of the Divine
What Church was initiated in 635 by a Persian missionary monk?
a small and highly creative Nestorian Church, which had taken root in China with the approval of the country’s Tang dynasty rulers.
What were the written texts themselves of the Nestorian Church known as?
the Jesus Sutras, which refer to Christianity as the “Religion of Light from the West” or the “Luminous Religion.’
What did the Jesus Sutras describe God as?
as the “Cool Wind”
What did the Jesus Sutras describe sin and a good life as?
sin as “bad karma,” and a good life as one of “no desire” and no action.”
What did the Jesus Sutras declare?
“People can live only be dwelling in the living breath of God.”
Who did the Chinese state turn against in the mid-ninth century?
all religions of foreign origins, Islam and Buddhism as well as Christianity. Wholly dependent on the goodwill of Chinese authorities, this small outpost of Christianity withered.
What offered a brief opportunity for Christianity’s renewal?
The Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century offered Christianity’s renewal, as the religiously tolerant Mongols welcomed Nestorian Christians as well as people of various other faiths.
Who was one of the Mongols who became Christian?
one of the wives of Chinggis Khan
What did the Mongols consider Jesus as?
as a powerful shaman they appreciated that Christians, unlike the Buddhists, could eat meat and, unlike Muslims, could drink alcohol, even including it in their worship
When did Mongol rule end?
In 1368, and a small number of Chinese Christians ensured that the faith almost completely vanished with the advent of the vigorously Confucian Ming dynasty
Where had Christianity become the religion of the majority by the time of the Muslim conquest around 640?
Egypt and for the next 500 years or so, large numbers continued to speak Coptic and practice their religion as dhimmis
What are dhimmis?
Legally inferior but protected people paying a special tax, under relatively tolerant Muslim rulers.
What changed by the 13th century in Egypt?
Christian Crusaders from Europe and Mongol invaders from the east threatened Egypt
What happened in the mid-fourteenth century in Egypt?
It witnessed violent anti-Christian pogroms, destruction of churches, and the forced removal of Christians from the best land. Many felt like “exiles in their own country.”
As a result of the anti-Christian pogroms in the mid-fourteenth century in Egypt, what came as a result?
Most rural Egyptians converted to Islam and moved toward the use of Arabic rather than Coptic, which largely died out.
In the early 21st century, what percentage of Egyptian Christians whereof the population?
10%
Although Egyptian Christianity was fading, what new center of African Christianity was taking shape?
During the 5th and 6th centuries in the several kingdoms of Nubia to the south of Egypt, the faith had been introduced by Egyptian traders and missionaries
What languages were the Bible translated into?
Nubian language, while other writings appeared in Greek, Arabic, and the Ethiopian language of Ge’ez.
In which Nubian city was a great cathedral located?
in the Nubian city of Faras, and it was decorated with magnificent murals, and the earlier practice of burying servants to provide for rulers in the afterlife stopped abruptly
At times…
kings served as priests, and Christian bishops held state offices
The rulers of ____ had adopted Christianity in the fourth century, and it subsequently took root among the general population as well.
Axum
Over the centuries of Islamic expansion, Ethiopia became…
a Christian island in a Muslim sea, protected by its mountainous geography and its distance from major centers of Islamic power.
Where was The Church of St. George located?
Lalibela, Ethiopia, excavated from solid rock in the twelfth century, the churches of Lalibela were distinct
What were some distinct features that Ethiopian Christianity developed because of its isolated location?
A fascination with Judaism and Jerusalem reflected in the story of an Ethiopian Queen of Sheba to King Solomon
Since Solomon figures in the line of descent to Jesus, it meant that Ethiopia’s Christian rulers could…
legitimate their position b tracing their ancestry to Jesus himself
Ethiopian monks long maintained a presence in Jerusalem’s …
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, said to mark the site where Jesus was crucified and buried
In the 12th century, the rulers of a new Ethiopian dynasty constructed a remarkable series of …
twelve linked underground churches, attempting to create a New Jerusalem on Christian Ethiopian soil, as the original city lay under Muslum control
Byzantium starting point?
no clear starting point, its own leaders viewed it as simply a continuation of the Roman Empire
What do historians date the beginning of Byzantium?
to 330 C.E., when the Roman Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity, established a new capital, Constantinople, on the ancient Greek city called Byzantium
Roman empire divided?
Into eastern and western halves, thus launching a division of Christendom that has lasted into the 21st century
Eastern half housing what ancient civilizations?
Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Anataolia,
The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) was far more what?
wealthier, more urbanized, and more cosmopolitan than its western counterparts
Byzantium enjoyed access to what Sea?
the Black Sea and command of the eastern Mediterranean. with a stronger army, navy and merchant marine and clever diplomacy who were able to deflect the Germanic and Hun invaders who had overwhelmed the Western Roman Empire
What Roman things persisted in the east for many centuries?
Roads, taxation system, military structures, centralized administration, imperial court, laws, Christian Church
What was Constantinople to be?
“New Rome” and its people referred to themselves as “Romans”
What did the people of Constantinople fear, that is why they called themselves “Romans”?
contamination by “barbarian” customs, emperors forbade the residents of Constantinople from wearing boots, trousers, clothing made from animals skins, and long hairstyles, all of were associated with Germanic people and insisted on Roman-style robes and sandals
Which emperor had an impressive but short-lived attempt to reconquer the Mediterranean basin?
Emperor Justinian but rapid Arab/Islamic expansion in 7th century resulted in the loss of Syria/Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa
Until 1200 Byzantine Empire remained a major force in the eastern Mediterranean, controlling Greece, much of the ____ (southeastern Europe), and Anatolia
Balkans
What did the Byzantine emperor claim to govern?
all creation as God’s worldly representative, styling himself the “peer of the Apostles” and the “sole ruler of the world.”
Parades of silk-clad officials added splendor to the imperial court and included what?
mechanical lions that roared, birds that sang, and an immense throne that quickly elevated the emperor high above his presumably awestruck visitors.
Centralized state touched lightly on people and focused on what?
taxes, maintaining order, and suppressing revolts in the Byzantine State
After 1085, Byzantine territory shrank, owing to incursions by aggressive…
Western European powers, by Catholic Crusaders, and by Turkic Muslim invaders.
End of Byzantine Empire came when?
In 1453 when the Turkic Ottoman Empire, then known as the “sword of Islam,” finally took Constantinople.
The tie between state and Chruch was called what?
the relationship became known as caesaropapism
In Byzantium, the emperor assumed what?
the role of both “Caesar,” as head of state, and the pope, as head of the Church
Eastern Orthodox Christianity had the people being even more than what?
more than being ‘roman,” they were orthodox, or “right-thinking,”
What did religious paintings depict?
Jesus, Mary and numerous saints - that many believed conveyed Divine Presence to the faithful
Partisans of competing chariot-racing teams known as …
the Greens and the Blues, vigorously debated theological issues as well as the merits of their favorite drivers
When did the Byzantine territory shrink, because of incursions by aggressive Western European powers, by Catholic Crusaders, and by Turkic Muslim invaders?
1085
When was the end of the Byzantine Empire?
It came in 1453 when the Turkic Ottoman Empire finally took Constantinople?
What was the Turkic Ottoman Empire known as?
the “sword of Islam”
What did the emperor claim to govern?
all creation as God’s worldly representative, styling himself the “peer of the Apostles” and the “sole ruler of the world.”
Followers of what Egyptian priest, held that Jesus had been created by God the Father rather than living eternally with Him?
Arius
What was the fifth-century bishop of Constantinople, who argued that Mary had given birth only to the human Jesus, who then became the “temple” of God?
Nestorius
The deepest and most lasting division within the Christian world occurred as what?
Eastern Orthodoxy came to define itself against and emerging Latin Christianity centered on papal Rome
Although Latin remained the language of the Church and of elite communication in the West, it was abandoned where?
in the Byzantine Empire in favor of Greek, which remained the basis for Byzantine Education
From the Western viewpoint, Orthodox practices were what?
were “blasphemous, even heretical.”
What did one Western observer of the Second Crusade note about the Greeks?
“were judged not to be Christians and the Franks [French] considered killing them a matter of no importance.”
During the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Western forces seized and looted what?
Constantinople and ruled Byzantium for the next half century
What Byzantine military innovation a potent and flammable combination of oil, sulfur, and lime that was launched from bronze tubes- helded hold off the Arabs?
“Greek Fire”
What was the Byzantine military innovation known as “Greek Fire,” comprised of?
a potent and flammable combination of oil, sulfur, and lime and was launched from bronze tubes
What was the name of the Byzantium gold coin?
the bezant and was widely used currency in the Mediterranean basin for more than 500 years
What are the luxurious products of Byzantine craftspeople?
jewelry, gemstones, silver, and gold work, linen and woolen textiles, purple dyes - were much in demand
Byzantine religious culture also spread widely among Slavic-speaking peoples in where?
in the Balkans and Russia
By the early eleventh century, steady military pressure had brought many of what people under Byzantine control?
of the Balkan Slavic peoples and the Bulgars
What two Byzantine missionaries had developed an alphabet, based on Greek letters, with which Slavic languages could be written?
Cyril and Methodius
What did the Cyrillic script make possible?
To translate the Bible and other religious literature into these languages and greatly aided the process of conversion
Where did the most significant expansion of Orthodox Christianity occur?
among the Slavic peoples of what is now Ukraine and western Russia,
In the culturally diverse region, where expansion of Orthodox Christianity occurred, it included what peoples?
included Finnic and Baltic peoples as well as Viking traders
What modest state was named after the most prominent city, Kiev- which emerged in the ninth century?
Kievan Rus
The development of Rus was stimulated by trade, in this case along what river?
along the Dnieper River, linking Scandinavia and Byzantium
Rus was a society of what?
slaves and freemen, privileged peoples and commoners, dominant men and subordinate women.
Who was the god of thunder?
Perun
