We are going to start this off in a way that we've never started off an Extra History before; with a disclaimer. These next few episodes are designed to help
modern students get a handle on one of the most confusing and yet most important
parts of Roman history. The topics discussed in these episodes are vital
to understanding the Roman mind; to understanding why Rome fell and how the Western world made the transition from the Classical Era to the Medieval one. We're going to try and make this as engaging as we can, but it is going to involve a lot of nitty-gritty detail about doctrinal disputes. To a modern mind, these disputes
may seem inconsequential, but they tore empires apart, and turned father against son
back in the waning days of Rome. Even in our episodes about Justinian, we found
that the lack of ability to easily reference things like the Monophysite Schism or the difference between Arían Christianity and Orthodox Christianity, impacted how thoroughly we could tell the story. So, hopefully, we could rectify that today. So let's dive in to the Docetic Schism,
Judaizing Christianity, and Gnosticism. Before we can discuss
the struggles that changed empires, we have to discuss the struggles that determined
what form of Christianity the Empire of Rome would come to accept. And, for that, our story begins
on the baked plains of Asia Minor. It's difficult sometimes for us in the present day to think of Christianity as something not yet solidified. It's hard to imagine it without the New Testament. It's harder still to think of it, not as a religion of its own, but rather an offshoot of Judaism. And yet, out here on the plains of Asia Minor, in the 1st and 2nd century CE, that's the issue that many early Christians wrestled with. I mean, were they still Jewish? Could only Jews be Christians? Did Christ overthrow the Mosaic Law or was he simply a continuation of it? And on the answer to this question hangs everything. Why? Circumcision. I know, it's funny, but the fate of Western society really did hang on circumcision because, you see, the Judaizing Christians, the Christians who wanted
to follow the Mosaic Law strictly, wanted everybody to be circumcised. And, in an age before anesthetic, when you're asking grown men to have their foreskin
cut off as the entry fee for joining your religion, you're just not gonna get as many takers. And this is why Paul rails against circumcision
in the Book of Galatians. He, like many of those we now consider Church Fathers, knew that, for the religion to really grow,
for it to really be a force, they would have to convert the Gentiles;
the people of the Roman Empire. And the only way to do that was to abandon
some of the Jewish practices those people would find the hardest to accept. And as this viewpoint won over more practitioners, the Judaizing forces began to be squeezed out
of what we consider mainstream Christianity, eventually leading to further attempts
to distance the two religions like declaring Sunday as a holy day instead of Saturday. But, for us, the important part is that, without the fateful decision to break
from Jewish tradition — a decision which split the Church and whose consequences in terms of fracturing
the early Christian community are written into the Bible itself — without that decision, Rome probably would never have become a Christian state, changing history forever. But even as the Judaizing forces were waning, there was another question that tore
early Christian society in two. This question was on the nature of Christ. Was he a man? Was he a spirit? What was his relationship to God? And this would turn into one of those
knock-down, drag-out questions with bishops calling other Christians "Antichrists"
and "worse than pagans" because of their views on it. In fact, this question is gonna come up over,
and over, and over again in this series because this question, which eventually morphs
into questions about the Trinity, sits at the root of so many conflicts in the Church. But let's start here, in the early 2nd century, still in the plains of Asia Minor. A bishop called Ignatius is arrested. He's going to be taken to Rome; sentenced to die in the Colosseum for his faith. But along the road to Rome, he writes to his followers, time and again, with a warning. Not a warning against the Romans; he seems almost eager to meet his fate. No, a warning against other Christians — Christians who do not see Christ the way he does, Christians that inhabit his very city: Antioch — Docetists. Docetists believed that Christ was a being of pure spirit; that he didn't actually exist in human form;
that he only seemed to us to exist. For, after all, didn't it denigrate the Christ to claim
that he'd ever been part of our sinful race? But that sat very, very poorly with some other Christians. If you've ever wondered why John, in the Epistles, continuosly talks about the importance of believing in Christ, quote, "in the flesh;" if you've wondered why that phrase comes up
over and over again, it's actually a dig at these guys. When he says, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of antichrist." Reading that today, it might seem like he's aiming that condemnation at pagans or non-Christians, but he's actually taking a shot at the Docetists. Why? Because what happens when you make Christ
a being of pure spirit? What becomes of his sacrifice? A spirit can't suffer. Without that, where's the pathos?
Where's the actual sacrifice of His death? And what becomes of the resurrection? A spirit can't die, so what does it mean for it to be "resurrected?" Can our sins even be forgiven without sacrifice? Can we be reborn if the Christ was not? And these were all important questions
in a time of persecution and death. When simply being known as a Christian
might mean execution, you needed something to hold on to, which brings us back to Ignatius,
and what's going on in Rome. As Ignatius was off to do his last dance with the lions, he was thinking a lot about martyrdom, and he wrote to his followers about how glad he was
to truly follow Christ, even in this. And martyrdom was a powerful symbol; it gave strength to the community
to endure persecution, and it impressed those not yet of the Faith. It helped to win over Romans and became an ingrained part of the understanding of Christianity. But to have the symbolic power of martyrdom and the very relatable, very sympathetic,
very human sacrifice of Christ, the Christian Church had to purge itself
of yet another group of people who called themselves "Christians" — the Docetists — and eventually reinforce these ideas with things like transubstantiation; the consumption of the body
and the blood of Christ in Communion. But with this culling of the Church, the stage is now set. With the inclusion of the gentiles, and the rejection
of a doctrine which sees Jesus as pure spirit, Christianity is set to grow. As Imperial order falls apart
during the third century crisis, and the state can no longer provide
food for the poor or care for the sick, the Church steps in. Converts from all walks of life,
but especially the impoverished, begin to join the Faith. These do seem like the "End Times"
of which the Christians preach; to many in the Empire, it seemed like a time
of divine reckoning for humanities sins. But then, as the 3rd century begins to close,
order is restored to the world. Aurelian puts the pieces of the Empire back together, and Diocletian and Maximian solidify those gains. And, with this restabilizing of the Empire, comes some of the harshest crackdowns on the Christian faith. But then, the miraculous — or highly calculated — happened. In 312 CE, a civil war rocks the Empire. At the deciding battle
— the Battle of the Milvian Bridge — one of the leaders, Constantine, had a vision. It told him to have his men paint the letters "chi-rho," the first two letters in Greek of the word "Christ,"
on their shields; and if this was done, he would conquer. It was done, and he won the day and became
master of the Roman Empire. Now, whether you buy the vision story whole-hog or accept some of it as a later bit of revisionism
that's come down to us is up to you. But what we do know for certain is that, after this battle, Constantine began to repeal the laws banning Christians and even began to support them. This was a sea-change. Even with its rapid growth
during the turbulent years of the 3rd century, Christians only comprised 10% of the Roman Empire. Within 40 years, they would make up over half of it But before that, there's a rocky road ahead. Join us next time as we finally get to the heresies
that shook the Empire. Oh, and, uh, for those of you who know the history here and are wondering about some of the things
I've not mentioned, expect James to talk more about Constantine's faith
in the "Lies" episode after we're done. See you next time!
I personally think that it's a good starting point for neophites. As most divulgation, it suffers of two problems - exclusion of many events and simplification of the events that are included.
So, for instance, while they do talk a lot of the Docetists, they were far from the only schismatic form of early Christianity. An example of other schismatics are Gnostics - people like Valentinus and his followers, or Marcion and his followers: and while there is a certain overlap with Docetists beliefs (such as the belief that Jesus wasn't corporeal, or had a human body, or so), they had their own religious affiliation. Heck, Marcionism itself split into different currents (see Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Book v. Chapter xiii.)
So reducing all the internal friction of Christianity before Constantine to "proto-Ortodoxy versus Docetism" leaves out many, many groups - groups that were probably more important than Docetists (at least as far as their literary output is concerned).
As for simplification, that's along similar lines. The question they ask is "was Jesus a man? Was he a spirit? What was his relationship to God?". This topic is known as Christology, and the early answers were much more abundant than just "both man and true God" and "only spirit", as presented in the video. Not to go on forever, but Sabellians had an answer, Adoptionists had an answer, Gnostics had an answer, Jewish Christians had an answer, and so on. The differences between these answers is sometimes extremely nuanced. And that's not to mention Trinitarianism and Aryanism, which they do discuss in the following videos.
Not that I'm blaming them. They do a very good job at explaining some of the divides in 8 minutes. But you could spend your lifetime studying a single aspect of this whole mess - a single movement, a single theological dispute, a single preacher.
All Episode Playlist here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ZZeCDGHJE&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5A2WfrnfPglTL_ZCPDN_rDT
Also includes the Lies Episode
I skipped to the third episode on Ephesus since that's what I've been studying. It seems largely right in its broad brush strokes, though it overlooks and fudges a lot of detail. But as a general popular overview it works pretty well. I could nitpick quite a bit, but I was quite impressed that such a quick overview got so much right. It certainly avoids the common hagiographical perspective that Cyril was a noble saint bravely opposing the villainous heretics, and shows a good (though greatly incomplete) understanding of Cyril's less savoury political machinations. I'd have liked to see a better understanding of the Robber Council and Chalcedon though, these were almost completely skipped over and the specific issues like Eutyches and his teachings were ignored. And it always annoys me when the women are ignored. there were so few of them that got to be a part of Church history, and Pulcheria was a fascinating Empress who was a fundamental influence behind all three Councils.
Extra History on a given topic is as good as any general survey you could find. They do a lot of research and really care about giving an accurate impression of the subject, but are transparent that these are incredibly complex events with much being simplified out of necessity of the format. Similarly, it's very informative to look at their "Extra History Lies" episode at the end of every run to get a look into their process - what they couldn't do for time or things they mixed up in their attempt to present (as well as notes on what they chose to leave in or not discuss).