Christianity

• Religion


  Has 2 dimensions: a set of beliefs and practices, and a way to bind people together
• Religion


  A way for people to deal with ultimate concerns about their lives, and fate after death
• Polytheistic


  Having multiple gods
• Monotheistic


  Having a single god
• Belief


  Mental conception of world order
• Dogma/doctrine


  The official version of a religious teaching
• Practices


  Rituals that mark everyday life
• Christianity


  A monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
• Main Christian beliefs


  • Jesus was the son of God, who's coming as the Messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament
  • He ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind
• Gospels


  The 4 canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, forming the most important part of the New Testament
• New Testament


  Contains the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and the Book of Revelation
• Christianity is now the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers
• Ecclesia


  The Greek word used to refer to the Christian community, as well as the place where Christians gather
• Church


  The English word with the same double meaning as Ecclesia - the Christian community as an institution and the place they worship
• Christianity began as a Judaic sect in the 1st century, but under Paul's influence it was decided that observance of Jewish commandments was not needed to be a Christian</b>
• Christianity quickly spread along the Eastern Mediterranean coasts and began to penetrate the other inlands of the Roman Empire, using Greek as the language
• Christianity began to use Latin in the 4th century within the Roman Empire
• Within the Roman Empire, Christianity was stirring up political discontent as Christians mocked the Roman way of life and refused to participate in the imperial cult
• Despite persecution, Christianity kept progressing as they were focused on the philosophy, thoughts and beliefs of the religion
• Under Constantine I's reign, the Edict of Milan (313) ended official persecutions of Christianity, extending toleration to all religions
• Constantine was instrumental in the convocation of the Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Nicene creed - the core beliefs that anyone claiming to be Christian must follow - was formulated
• Trinity


  The concept that God is the merging of 3 consubstantial persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• Heresy


  A belief going at variance with the established Christian beliefs and sometimes going against it
• By 400, Christian vocabulary, concepts, imagery and public practices were socially dominant, and it spread from the upper classes to the lower ones
• By the 5th century, Christianity had spread well within the urban population, and the senatorial aristocracy had almost entirely converted
• Christianisation deeply impacted the daily life and the representation of the world, changing the calendar from starting at the creation of Rome to starting at the birth of Jesus
• In the countryside, most of the people remained pagans, which is linked to the word 'paganus' meaning country dweller
• Pentarchies


  The 5 main divisions of the Christian church: Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome
• Archbishops


  The highest-ranking bishops who rule over dioceses
• Bishops


  Rulers of dioceses who give baptism, celebrate mass, and organize churches
• Priests


  Can be met in daily life
• Some barbarian peoples started converting to Christianity as early as the 4th century through contacts with the Roman world
• The Goths probably entered in contact with Christianity by taking Christian captives
• Ulfilas, Bishop of the Goths, was the one who brought Christianity to the Goths and translated the Bible into Gothic from Greek
• In a vast majority, Christian "Barbarians" were followers of Arianism, which was considered a heresy after 325 CE
• The difference between Arian and Nicene Christianity delayed the fusion of Roman and Barbarian elites, as interfaith marriage was forbidden
• Eventually, the Arian Germanic peoples all eventually converted to Nicene Christianity, which had become the dominant form within the Roman Empire
• Ascetic practices


  Basic needs practices attested within Christianity as early as the middle of the 3rd century
• Monks and Nuns


  Those living the monastic life
• Monachos


  The Greek word meaning "being alone", the origin of the word "monk"