Appeal of Christianity

The Appeal of Christianity

From humble beginnings in Palestine, Christianity spread to the eastern cities of the Roman Empire and then throughout the entire Roman word. Scholars have suggested many reasons for the widespread appeal of Christianity.

The simple, direct message of Christianity appealed to many people. The poor and oppressed found hope in the God who loved people regardless of their place in society. Equality, human dignity, and, above all, the promise of eternal life were comforting teachings. Many educated people who had rejected the Roman gods and the mystery religions turned to Christianity. To them, the Christian emphasis on a life of moderation and discipline echoed Greek and Roman philosophies.

The work of dedicated missionaries such as Paul was made easier by the unity of the Roman Empire and the ease of travel between cities. In the eastern Mediterranean, the use of a common language, Greek, and the concentration of people in cities contributed to the early success of Christianity. Furthermore, many early Christians were women who brought other members of their families ino the faith/ In some Christian communities, women conducted worship services and enjoyed equality with men.

During the troubles of the later Roman Empire, the old mystery religions lost vitality. As Christianity gained in strength, more people adopted the religion. Eventually, Christians developed an efficient, dynamic church organization. The Christian Church maintained unity among its members and ensured the survival of the new faith.

The blood of the martyrs”, wrote one Roman “is the seed of the Church. Photo of  the St.Thomas Church, Huron Street, Toronto by Elena.

Church Organization

  

The Christian Church developed gradually during the first few centuries A.D. At first, bishops ranked as the highest officials. Each bishop administrated the churches in a territory called a sea. Below the bishops were priests, who conducted worship services and taught Christian beliefs. As the Church expanded, archbishops were appointed to oversee the bishops. An Archbishop's territory was called a province. The type of organization in which officials are arranged according to rank is called a hierarchy.

As the Church hierarchy emerged, women lost their influence in Church government. They were not allowed to become priests or conduct the Mass, the Christian worship service. But women continued to play a prominent role in spreading Christian teachings across the Roman world.

In time, the bishop of Rome acquired a dominant position in the Church by claiming that Peter, the chief Apostle, had made Rome the center of the Christian Church. The bishop of Rome eventually took the title pope, or father of the Church. Bishops in the eastern Mediterranean cities such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch opposed the pope's claim to be supreme ruler of the church.

Together, the clergy, which included archbishops, bishops, and priests, helped keep Christianity alive in the early years of persecution. The clergy also maintained order and discipline in the Church. For example, bishops and archbishops met in councils to decide which ideas or practices the Church would accept. In 325 A.D. Church officials met in Nicaea in Asia Minor, where they drew up the Nicene Creed, a statement of basic Christian beliefs. 

Persecution and Toleration

Unlike other religions within the Roman Empire, Christianity aroused official persecution because Christians refused to worship the emperor. Roman authorities had excused Jews from emperor worship out of respect for their ancient traditions. Bu Roman authorities saw Christians as dangerous troublemakers because they were winning converts throughout the empire.

Official policy alternated between brutal persecution and toleration. Emperors tended to use Christians as scapegoats, especially when political or economic conditions were bad. Both Peter and Paul perished in Rome under the persecution of the emperor Nero.

Persecution strengthened rather than weakened the new religion. During periods of intense persecution, some Christians renounced their faith. But many others became martyrs, people who suffer or die for their beliefs. Christians believed that  martyrs received God's special favor. “The blood of the martyrs”, wrote one Roman “is the seed of the Church.” Many people were impressed by a faith that inspired such devotion in its followers, and they converted in great numbers.

The emperor Constantine officially recognized Christianity. In 313 A.D., he introduced a policy of official toleration by the Edict of Milan. Christianity achieved its greatest triumph in 395 A.D., when it was proclaimed the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Each bishop administrated the churches in a territory called a sea. Picture by Elena.

Vox-Chapter 25

Vox by Christina Dalcher (excerpt, chapter Twenty Five)

My office is something between a cave and a monk's cell, but less luxurious given the pair of desks and chairs crammed inside. Also, it lacks a window, unless you count the glass pane in the door that gives the work space all the privacy of a fishbowl. A scarf and purse, both on the tattered side of wear, site on one one of the desks. I recognize both as Lin's.

Morgan shows me inside and leaves me to get settled. He says he'll come back in a few minutes to take me around the lab, get me set up with an ID tag, and show me where the copier room and the printer are are. I now know nothing I do here will be unseen by other eyes.

Oddly, I don't care. The idea of seeing Lin again, of talking to her working with her, has me as high as a schoolgirl at her first dance. 

“Or, my god,” a wisp of a voice says from the doorway.

Lin Kwan is a small woman. I often told Patrick she could fit in one of my pants legs – and I'm only five and a half feet and 120 soaking wet, thanks to the stress diet I've been on for the past several months. Everything about her is small: her voice, her almond eyes, the sleek bob that barely reaches below her ears. Lin's breasts and ass make me look like a Peter Paul Rubens model. But her brain – her brain is a leviathan of gray matter. It would have to be; MIT doesn't hand out dual PhDs for nothing.

Like me, Lin is a neurolinguist. Unlike me, she's a medical doctor, a surgeon, to be specific. She left her practice fixing brains fifteen years ago, when she was in her late forties, and moved to Boston.

Five years later, she left with a doctorate in each hand, one in cognitive science, one in linguistics. If anyone can make me feel like the class dunce, it's Lin.

An I love her for it. She sets the bar as high as Everest.

Lin steps in and glances down at my left writs. “You too, huh?” The she bear-hugs me,, which is interesting since she's shorter and narrower than I am. It's a little being bear-hugged by a Barbie doll.

“Me too,” I say, laughing and crying at the same time.

After what seems like an hour, she releases me from her clutch and steps back. “You're exactly the same. Maybe even younger-looking.”

“Well, it's amazing what a year off of working for you has done,” I say.

The humor doesn't work. She shakes her head and raises a hand, thumb and forefinger a fraction of an each apart. “I was this close to going to Malasiya to visit my family. This close.” Her fingers fly apart into a starfish as she blows our air. “Gone. Gone in a bloody day.”

“You sound like the queen,” I say. “Except for the bloody part.” 

No one writes a long novel alone (Stephen King). Illustration by Elena.

Golden Age of Athens

Golden Age of Athens

In 477 B.C., more than 160 delegates from Greek cities met on the island of Delos. They formed a defensive alliance to guard against possible future Persian attacks. The alliance was called the Delian League. Athens, the greatest commercial and naval power, dominated the alliance from the start. The larger cities-states supplied ships, and the smaller ones made annual payments. Athenians collected the tribute, commanded the league's fleet, and dictated policy. In 454 B.C., as evidence of its dominance, Athens moved the league treasury from Delos to Acropolis.

Through its control of the Delian League, Athens established an empire. Riches from trade and tribute poured into the city. In an atmosphere of prosperity, Athenians enjoyed their greatest political freedom ever, and Greek culture bloomed. The period following the Persian Wars has often been called the “Golden Age of Athens.”

The chief architect of Athenian policy during this period was Pericles. The son of a noble family, Pericles had received an excellent education and had won fame as a general, statesman, poet, and philosopher. Between 461 B.C. And 429 B.C., Pericles dominated Athenian political life.Because of his many achievements, he came to symbolize Athenian greatness.

Pericles undertook an ambitious building program to beautify Athens. In 480 B.C., the Persians had destroyed the city and its sacred shrines. For years, the ruined temples served as reminders of the Persian menace. But Pericles proposed to rebuild the temples as monuments to the greatness of Athens. Atop of Acropolis, Athenians built the dazzling, white marble Parthenon (Pahr thuh NAHN), a temple to Athena. Phideas (FIHD ee uhs), considered the greatest sculptor of his day, carved a huge statue of Athena that stood inside the temple. Outside, there was another statue of Athena so large that returning sailors could see it far out at sea.

In addition to building temples, Athenians strengthened the defensive walls that connected Athens to the busy port of Piraeus. These building programs employed thousands of workers and attracted stonemasons and artisans from all over Greece. At the same time, talented artists, philosophers, and poets converged on Athens, making it the center of Greek culture. Pericles called Athens the “school of Greece” for its artistic and intellectual achievements as well as for its political system.

The past. Photograph by Elena.

The Height of Athenian Democracy

Democracy, which had been developing in Athens over many years, reached its peak under the leadership of Pericles. He opened all political offices to any citizen. He also arranged payment for jurors so that poor citizens as well as the wealthy could serve/ Furthermore, citizens employed in the building projects no longer depended on noble families for a living and felt freer to voice opinions in the Assembly.

Athens had a direct democracy – that is, all citizens had the right to attend the Assembly and cast a vote. Only a minority of Athenians were citizens. Therefore, the entire citizen body could meet in open discussion, and citizens did not elect people to represent the, Pericles believed that Athenian democracy owed its success to shared values, loyalty to the city, and a willingness to do public service.

But Athenian democracy was far from complete. Citizens had time for public service largely because they owned slaves who worked their land and ran their businesses. Most residents of Athens were not citizens and had no say in government. Furthermore, the many Greeks who flocked to Athens from other cities were considered foreigners and were usually denied citizenship. Women, too, had no political rights. Although Athenian democracy was limited, it served as the model for other Greek city-states.

The Peloponnesian Wars

Otheer Greek city-states resented Athenian success and power/ Some of them formed an alliance called the Peloponnesian League. This alliance was headed by Sparta. In 431 B.C., a dispute between Athens and Corinth, a member of the Peloponnesian League, flared into a major conflict. War engulfed all of Greece as Athens and its allies battled the Peloponnesian League. At the outset, the Athenian navy triumphed on the seas. But a Spartan army marched north into Attica and surrounded Athens, forcing Pericles to move the people inside the city walls. The overcrowed conditions that resulted caused an outbreak of plague. Over a third of the Athenian population, including Pericles, died.

Fighting dragged on for 27 years. Until the Athenian navy was destroyed and both sides were exhausted. Finally, with help from from the Persian navy, Sparta blockaded Athens while Spartan armies again surrounded the city. Facing starvation, Athens surrendered in 404 B.C. Sparta's allies in the Peloponnesian League called for the destruction of Athens. However, Sparta spared the city out of respect for Athens role in the Persian Wars.

The Peloponnesian Wars cost Athens its navy, its empire, and for a time its democratic form of government. Although Athens remained the cultural center of Greece, it never regained the power it had enjoyed during its golden age.

After the Peloponnesian Wars, the Greek city-states continued to fight among themselves, and Persia continued to encourage disunity. For all 100 years, the Greek city-states were at war, first against Persia and then among themselves. The struggles took a devastating themselves. The struggles took a devastating toll in lives and sapped the resources of the cities. Yet as you will read, this period was marked by great achievement in the arts and philosophy.

Remembering the past and the present. Photograph by Elena.

Achaean Civilization

Achaean Civilization

About 2000 B.C., the Achaeans, an Indo-European people like the Hitites and Aryans, invaded the Greek peninsula from the north. The Achaeans settles in one region for a few generations. They they pushed further south. As they conquered new territory, the intermarried with the people already living in the Greek peninsula. Eventually, the Achaeans extended their contests over the Peloponnesus, the southern half of Greece.

The Achaeans expanded their empire through warfare and trade. By about 1400 B.C., they controlled the Aegean and probably occupied Knossos. They built strong fortress cities on the mainland. Each city was ruled by a warrior king. Riches from trade and war loot allowed Achaean rulers to fill their palaces and tombs with gold treasures. Outside of each walled city, traders, merchants, artisans, and farmers lived in small villages that paid tribute to the king.

The Achaeans built on the achievements of Minoan civilization. Artisans at Mycenae reproduced Minoan designs on their jewelry, pottery, and tools. The Achaeans also learned writing from the Minoans. Achaean writing, called Linear B, consists of signs adapted from Minoan Linear A.

Ancient Civilization. Photo by Elena.

The Trojan War

Around 1250 B.C., the Achaeans banded together under the leadership of the king of Mycenae to attack Troy, a rival commercial power. Troy controlled trade routes between the Aegean and Black seas. After a long and devastating war, the Achaeans emerged the victors.

Scholars first learned  about the Trojan War from the Iliad the Odyssey, two of the best-known epic poems in the world. The poems were probably composed by Homer, a blind Greek poet, about 750 B.C., long after the fall of Troy. Homer based his poems on stories that had been passed on by earlier generations. Some scholars question whether Homer actually existed. Others have suggested that the Iliad and Odyssey actually existed. Others have suggested that the Iliad and Odyssey were the work of several poets. The ancient Greeks, however, believed that Homer was a real person.

According to the Iliad, the tragic struggle occurred because Paris, a Trojan prince, kidnapped Helen, wife of the king of Sparta. The Spartan king and his brother, King agamemnon of Mycenae, enlisted the  help of other rulers and eventually involved all of Greece in the effort to rescue Helen. After ten years of war, the Achaeans destroyed Troy and drove the Troyans into exile. In the Odyssey, Homer described the wandering and adventures of the Achaean warrior Odysseus after the fall of Troy.

Until the late 1800s, historians considered the Iliad and Odyssey to be fiction. The poems, which mixed stories of gods and goddesses with legends of human heroes, seemed to have no historical value. However, Heinrich Schliemann, an amateur archaeologist, believed otherwise. He thought Troy had really existed, and he set out to prove it.

Schliemann began to excavate a site in northwestern Asia Minor that matched Homer's description of Troy. Digging revealed the ruins of an ancient city, but Schliemann soon discovered that at least nine cities had been built at different times on the time spot. Finally, the charred wood and destruction found on one level suggested that this was the city actually destroyed by the Achaeans. Later, Schliemann excavated the site of Mycenae, which was also described by Homer.

In ancient times, as today, people often rebuilt a city that had been destroyed by war or natural disaster. The new city would be built on the ruins of the old city. Picture by Elena.

Gleam in My Eyes

Gleam in My Eyes (from Vox, by Christina Dalcher)

It's been so long since I've used my laptop, I'm worried it might not power up, that a year of nonuse will have sent it into the same dormant silence I fell into. But it's obedient, like an old friend waiting for a phone call, or a pet sitting patiently at the door until its owner comes home. I trace a ginger over its smooth keys, wipe a smudge from the screen, and collect myself.

A year is a long time. Hell, when the FIOS in our house went down for two hours, it seemed like the end of the world.

Eight thousand seven hundred ans sixty hours is a lifetime longer than two, which is why I need a moment before I walk out of this house, start the Honda, and follow Morgan to the lab where I'll be spending three days a week from now until I finish fixing the president's brother.

Also, I need a moment to sift through my files, the ones I copied and kept at home so I didn't have to lug the same shit back and forth to my campus office. There are reports I don't want Morgan to see, not until I can speak to Lin.

The bottom folder is the one I want, the folder with the red X on its front flap. Patrick has already gone to work, and Morgan is out in his Mercedes making phone calls, likely gloating to Reverend Carl about what a fantastic team he's put together, which leaves me here in the paneled room with its humming window air-conditioning unit and – I don't know – about five million pounds of books. They don't weigh that much, but the teetering piles of texts and journals are like academic mesas littering the rec room.

We havent't used the sleeper sofa in a year and a half, not since the last houseguest came to visit. No one really visits anymore. There's no point. We tried it once, a dinner party for some old friends I'd met when Steven was still in diapers, but after an hour of the men talking and the women staring into their plates of salmon, everyone decided to go home.

I pry up the corduroy-covered cushion next to me and slip my red-X folder in among a few cracker crumbs, a stray piece of popcorn, and some spare change.

This “it”, encased in a dull manila folder rubbed shiny by my own hands, is the work that will, when I'm ready, reverse Wernicke's aphasia. I've thought about finding a more permanent hiding place for it, but given the year's worth of crap I find beneath the sofa cushions, I don't see the need.

No one, not even Patrick, knows we had passed the brink from “close” to “finished”, although I believe  Lin and Lorenzo suspected.

The day before Thomas and his Taser-carrying men came for me the first time, I had even been winding down a lecture on linguistic processing in the posterior left hemisphere – the area of the brain where temporal and parietal lobes meet. Wernicke's area, and the language loss that accompanies damage to this complex cluster of gray matter, was the reason most of my students signed on for this seminar, and on that day the room was packed with colleagues of colleagues, the dean, and a few out-of-town researches intrigued by our group's latest breakthrough. Lin and Lorenzo sat in the back row as I talked.

They must have seen the gleam in my eyes... Illustration by Elena.