studyguide Flashcards
The Christian Bible for roughly the first 150 years consisted of:
The Jewish Scriptures, usually in the Septuagint Version.
Ebionites
Early Jewish Christians - emphasized poverty, dietary rules, and Mosaic law. Adoptionist Christology. Rejected Paul’s authority. James is their hero.
Didachē: modes of leadership
Prophets Bishops Deacons Apostles Teachers
Apologists
Defenses of Christianity addressed to its critics and persecutors.
Ways of protecting orthodoxy from Gnostic heresies.
Catholicity; The explicit traditions of the apostolic churches; The Rule of Faith; The integrity and mutual consistency of the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, which Tertullian called the “New Testament.”
Labarum
A military standard adopted by Constantine after his vision, featuring a vexillum (flag or drape) usually bearing three dots or circles and always surmounted by a Chi-Rho symbol.
Great Persecution in 303. Diocletian and Galerius.
Ended in 311. Augustus, issued an edict of toleration when he was mortally ill, asking Christians to pray for his recovery and for the welfare of the Republic.
Constantine’s model for a Christian church
Basilica
Sacrificati
Any persons who had obeyed the universal edict to sacrifice to the gods.
Libellus
An official, witnessed, and signed document certifying that the subject had sacrificed to the gods.
Lapsi
Christians who had obeyed the universal edict to sacrifice to the gods.
Confessores
Christians who had refused to sacrifice and were undergoing trial and would have persevered even unto martyrdom. Not set free when the persecution ended.
Libellatici
Christians who had fraudulently obtained a libellus without sacrificing to the gods.
Tertullian: Prescription of the Herectics
Jerusalem (the Judeo-Christian tradition)
Athens (i.e., philosophy)
Tertullian: Prescription of the Herectics
The Church
The Academy (Plato’s school in Athens, representing Platonism in general)
Tertullian: Prescription of the Herectics
Christians (i.e., orthodox Christians, not Gnostics!)
The Gnostics (‘heretics’)
Tertullian: Prescription of the Herectics
The Porch of Solomon
The “Painted Porch” (Stoa poikilê), i.e., the Stoics
Trinitarian in composition of the creed. Nicene Creed
Triple immersion in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Publicly Confessing the creed - final step in Easter baptism.
Meaning of Gnostics as “heresies”
In Greek the word hairesis meant “sect” or “faction,”. Sign of error and false prophets within the church. Highly diverse, esoteric nature of Gnosticism contrasting with Catholicity. Apostolic faith must be one - image of one God.
Marcion - emergence of the NT Cannon
Rejected the Jewish Scriptures as a testament to the Demiurgue. Constructed his own canon from parts of Luke and an edited version of Paul’s letters.
a) was among the first Christians
b) began to regard Jewish Scrip and apostolic literature.
Features of the Christian church and culture after Constantine’s conversion.
- Bishops and clergy - no persecuted/ Privileged elite. Pagan leaders at a disadvantage.
- Basilicas as places of worship.
- Christ: more emperor than shepherd.
- New religious symbolism/ royal, imperial emphasis.
- New sense of time: eschaton had already happened.
- New sense of place: holy places; pilgrimages.
Theology as a usual sense. Three Chief motives for applying reason to faith by Apologists.
- To defend the Christian faith against outside criticism;
- To build bridges to potential and actual converts;
- to advance understanding and self-understanding.
Circumstances for the three Chief motives for applying reason to faith by Apologists.
- Persecution;
- new process of catechesis;
- Opposition to Gnostic heresies;
- and the greater number of learned Christians, some educated in philosophy.
Christ’s bride on BB
Eschatological context. Church - Christ’s wife.
Bride of the Song of Songs: Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven, and Christ’s human nature.
Nicaea I - 325
Arianism
Constantinople I - 381
Arianism & Pneumatomachianism; Apollinarianism
Ephesus - 431
Nestorianism
Chalcedon - 451
Eutychianism
Monophysitism
Doctrines of those who rejected Chalcedonian “two nature” Christology.
Docetism
Jesus Christ only seemed (appeared) to be human as regards his nature, his life, or his suffering and death.
Pneumatomachianism
The Holy Spirit in not God but rather a created being.
Apollinarianism
The Logos took the place of Jesus Christ’s human mind.
Adoptionism
Jesus Christ was a human being whom God chose, inspired, and empowered (e.g., at the Descent of the Dove).
Nestorianism
Jesus Christ is two distinct persons, respectively divine and human.
Eutychianism
Jesus Christ is from two natures but has or is in only one nature, which is divine.
Arianism
The only-begotten Son of God, who became incarnate in Jesus Christ, is a created being.
Modalism
There are no distinctions in the Godhead. Instead, one and the same God operates and is revealed in creation according to three different aspects or modalities, conspicuous at different times: as Creator, he is the Father; as Savior, he is the Son; as inspirer, he is the Holy Spirit.
Gelasian doctrine
Galasius says about the respective powers of the two realms. “by which this world is principally ruled” One is the “sacred authority” of bishops and priests; the other is the “royal power”.
Distinction between authority and power. Royal power is constituted by God.
Kings should intervene in divine matters only when priests permit them to do so.
Dualistic model
Two separate powers: secular and spiritual. God establishes both (Rom 13).
• Spiritual is worthier. Responsible for spiritual, eternal well-being.
• Secular, royal power is tasked only with temporal, civic well-being.
Secular rulers must defend the spiritual power, by coercion and force of arms, and spiritual rulers should offer moral guidance and spiritual counsel to the secular rulers.
Each power respects and does not interfere with the competence of the other. Each is autonomous within its proper domain.
Hierocratic model
Power descends from God or Christ through the ecclesiastical rulers to the secular rulers.
• Secular power is delegated by the ecclesiastical rulers.
• Spiritual rulers have both spiritual and secular power by right.
Secular matters would distract them from their spiritual work and compromise the purity of their intentions, so they delegate that power to the secular rulers.
The hierocratic model will require some dualistic division of powers, since the very purpose of establishing the secular power is to relieve the spiritual rulers of their responsibility for dealing with temporal matters.
Anselm’s Theory of Atonement
Subjective. Legalistic account. The incarnation of Jesus Christ and Christ’s Passion was satisfied for human sin on behalf of human beings. It only remains for individual persons of faith to tap into that satisfaction, so that they can appropriate and benefit from it.
Abelard’s Theory of Atonement
Objective. Christ’s Passion saves through being a demonstration of God’s love, which moves individual persons of faith, with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit, to love God in return and to follow Christ’s example.
Scholasticism
The methods of teaching, inquiry, and writing that originated in and were characteristic of the supralocal urban schools during the central Middle Ages.
Four senses of Scripture
Red Sea
• Literal/ historical (historical event) - (e.g. Moses leader guided by God. Not slaves anymore)
• Allegorical (symbolic) - (e.g. Interpret as baptism, washing enemies)
• Tropological/ moral (meaning) -
(e.g. If one trusts in God, God can save on from all the difficulties of life.)
• Anagogical (eschatology/what God is doing) - (e.g. eschatological sense. God saves his people from tribulation.)
Creed of Nicaea (325) ended
We believe in the Holy Spirit.
Creed of Nicaea (325) filioque
and from the Son,
Creed of Nicaea (325) rule out the Arian heresy
eternally begotten of the Father… …one essence with the Father;
Council of Constantinople (381) rule out Pneumatomachianism
…who proceeds from the Father and from the Son,
who is co-worshiped and co-glorified with the Father and the Son.
