any ofGreco- Roman and Christianity
- jesus was a Jew and belonged to a Semitic Culture

-Greeks and Romans belong to the Indo-European Culture.

The Indo-Europeans

- nations and cultures that use Indo-European languages

- Where ever they went they assimilated with the local culture, although Indo-European religions and languages came to play a dominant role

- Indo- European culture was influenced by their belief in many Gods (polytheism)

- Vikings believed in Gods called Aser, find this word recurring all over the Indo- European area

- In Viking times, people also believed in a special group of fertility Gods. Vener, Venus (goddess of fertility, Vani= desire

- There is clear affinity to be observed in some of the Indo-European myths.

- See clear similarities in modes of thought across the Indo- European cultures

- Have often tried to "predict" how the battles of good and evil will turn out.

- Sought "insight" into the history of the World

- Can trace a particular word for "insight" or "knowledge" from one culture to another all over the Indo- European world

- Sight was the most important sense

- Literature was characterized by great cosmic visions

- LATIN WORD VIDEO

- Cyclic view of history (history goes in circles )

- Hinduism and buddhism are info-european in origin ( imbued in philosophical reflection)

- The transmigration of the soul, or rebirth , is a fundamental belief in many indo- european cultures

- Purpose of life has been to release from the cycle of rebirth

- Plato also believed in the transmigration of the soul

The Semites

- originated in the Arabian Peninsula, but they also migrated to different parts of the world

- Semitic history and religion reached furthest away from their roots by way of Christendom, although Semitic also became widely spread via Islam

-Judaism, Christianity, and islam share a semitic background

- Koran and Old Testament both written in the semitic family of languages

- Christianity has a Semitic background, the new testament was written in greek and when the christian theology or creed was formulated, it was influenced by Greek and Latin.

- Believed in One God ( monotheism)

- Linear view of history ( History is an ongoing line)

- God intervenes in the course of history

- historical roots constitute the very core of their holy scriptures

- Jerusalem significant religious center for all three

- Hearing was the most important sense

- The religious ceremonies of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all characterized by reading aloud or "reciting".

- All in the different holy writings about Hearing

- emphasize that there is a distance between God and his creation.

- Be redeemed by sin and blame

- Religious life is characterized by prayer, sermons and the study of the scriptures than by self- communication and meditation.

Difference between Indo- European and Semites

- Indo= many Gods, Semites= one God

- Indo= cyclic view of history, Semites= linear view of history

- Indo= sight, Semites= hearing

- Indo= pictorial representation or sculptures of their Gods, Semites= Against the law, Old testament commands that the people should not make any image of God.

- Indo= self-communication and meditation, Semites= prayer, sermons, and study of scripture

Israel

- God came made the world, Man rebelled, Death was born

- three great kings of Israel, Saul, David, and Solomon.

-were united in kingdom. and under king David, especially, they experienced a period of political, military, and cultural Glory

- Kings were looked upon as the go between God and his people. ( king called "son of God" and then country called "kingdom of God"

- Before the birth of Christ the Jews continued to live under foreign domination

- Various prophets began to come forward preaching God's wrath over israel for not keeping his commandments. One day God would hold a day of judgement over Israel for her disobedience. (Doomsday Prophecies)

- The children of Israel lived happily under King David. But later on when their situation deteriorated, their prophets began to proclaim that there would one day come a new king of the House of David. This "Messiah" or "Son of God", would "redeem" the people, restore Israel to greatness, and found a "Kingdom of God".

Jesus

- " Messiah", "Son of God, "Kingdom of God"

- At first taken politically, This "Savior" was a national deliverer who would put an end to the suffering of the Jews under Roman domination

- Some believed the Messiah would save the world from death. The longing for "salvation" in the sense of redemption was widespread all over the Hellenistic world.

- Jesus arrives and uses like words as the old prophets.

- Jesus not the man that came forward as the messiah

- Jesus distinguished himself from other Messiahs by stating clearly that he was not a military of political rebel. His mission was much greater. He preached salvation and God's forgiveness for everyone . To the people he met on his way he said "your sins are forgiven you for His Name's sake"

-Referred to God as Father(Abba)= protest against him among the scribes

- Jesus said that the "Kingdom of God" is loving thy neighbor, compassion for the weak and the poor, and forgiveness of those who have erred. This was a dramatic shift in the meaning of an old-age expression with war-like undertones.

- Jesus said that such sinners were More righteous in God's eyes and More deserving of God's forgiveness than the spotless Pharisees who went about flaunting their virtues.

- Jesus pointed out that nobody can earn God's mercy.

- Sermon on the Mount= severe ethical demands, teach what the will of God meant, no man is righteous in God' s eyes. God's mercy is boundless, but we have to turn to God and pray for his forgiveness

- With Socrates, we saw how dangerous it was to appeal to people's reason.

- With Jesus we see how dangerous it can be to demand unconditional brotherly love and unconditional forgiveness.

- In Plato, most righteous man in Athens had to forfeit his life. Jesus was the only righteous person who ever lived. He was condemned to death. Jesus was the "suffering servant" who bore the sins of humanity in order that we could be "atoned" and saved from God's wrath.

Paul

- When Jesus was crucified and rose from the grave this proved that he was no ordinary man. He truly was the son of God.

- It is by God's miracle that we are saved from death and "damnation" It is neither through our own merit not through any natural or innate ability.

- a few years after the death of jesus the pharisee Paul converted to Christianity

- missionary journeys across the whole Greco-Roman world he made christianity a worldwide religion

- Paul goes to Athens ( once a Jew) he gets athenians to listen to him. Because of this visit to Athens we sense a collision between Greek Philosophy and the doctrine of Christian redemption.

- Paul in Athens was the start of Christianity penetrating Greco- Roman world .

- He emphasizes that the search of God is natural to all men.

- He is no longer= "philosophic God", "image of Gold, Silver, or stone".

- He is a personal God that intervenes with history and dies on the cross for the sake of mankind

- after Paul's speech some mocked him and some listened, some started following him (Damaris, a women, women were amongst the most fervent converts to Christianity.)

- Christian congregations established in important Greek and Roman cities decades AD

The Creed

- Paul had a great influence within the Christian Congregations

- Christianity addressed itself to everybody in a universal message of salvation.

- The "old covenant" between God and Israel had been replaced by the "new covenant" which Jesus had established between God and mankind.

- Because Christianity not being the only religion at the time, they had to distance itself from other religions and to prevent schisms within the Christian Church.

- The first creed was created, summing up the central Christian "dogmas" ot tenets.

- Central tenet was that Jesus was both God and man, he lived on earth and and shared misfortune of mankind and actually suffered on the Cross.

- God became man. He was not demigod (half man, half god)

- God was perfect God and perfect man

Postscript

- as christianity makes its entry into the Greco- Roman world we are witnessing a dramatic meeting of two cultures.

- About to step out of antiquity

- Goethe= History is important

- historical roots= the only way to become a human being, the only way to become a naked ape, only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.

Middle Ages

- High Gothic= when the great cathedrals of Europe were built.

- AD 313 Christianity was accepted religion in the Roman Empire. In the reign of Emperor Constantine. He got baptized on his deathbed many years later.

-AD 330 Constantine the great moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople, the city he had founded at the approach to the Black Sea. ("second Rome")

- AD 395__ Roman Empire divided in two_-- Western Empire with Rome as it's center, and an Eastern Empire with the new city of Constantinople as its capital.

- 410__ Rome Plundered by barbarians

- 476__ Western Empire destroyed

- 1453__ Eastern Empire got conquered by the Turks

- Istanbul__ Name that Constantinople got changed to after Turks conquered

- 529__ the church closed Plato's Academy in in Athens__ Benedictine order, the great monasteries orders were founded. Became a symbol of the way the Christian Church put the lid on Greek philosophy.

- Middle ages (dark ages)= the period between 2 other epochs__ the thousand year long night that settled over Europe between Antiquity and the Renaissance. Many historians believed it was a time of germination and growth. School system developed.

- 1200__ first universities founded.

- Various nation-states established themselves

- Snorri lived in the Middle-Ages. Saint Olaf and Charlemagne.

- eleventh century Christianity came to Norway.

- Christianity gradually became the predominant philosophy of life, Middle Ages is the unifying force of Christian Culture.

- first centuries after the year 400 were a cultural decline. Entire culture crumbled and its trade and economy as well. The economy was now characterized by feudalism (few powerful nobles owned the land, which the serfs had to toil on in order to live.) Population also declined.

- Roman period was already over by the end of the fourth century.

- Bishop of Rome became the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church. (pope)

- Western Europe__ Latinized Christian culture with Rome as the capital.

- Eastern Europe__ Greek Christian Culture with Constantinople as its capital. (greek name= Byzantium)

- North Africa and the Middle East part of the Roman Empire. Arab- speaking Muslim culture

- 632__ Muhammad died, Middle East and North Africa won over to Islam

- Spain__ Islamic Culture

- Islam adopted Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Bagdad as holy cities.

- Arabs took over Alexandria

- Arabs were predominant in the sciences .

-Greco-Roman Culture split in three___1.) Roman Catholic in the west, 2.) the Byzantine in the east, 3.) Arabic in the south.

- At end of the Middle ages all above came together in Northern Italy__ the renaissance, the rebirth of antique culture.

- Used the ruins as building materials

Medieval Philosophers

- took for granted that Christianity was true, Centered around whether we must simply believe the Christian revelation or whether we can approach the Christian truths with the help of reason.

St. Augustine

- Medieval Philosopher

- Tagaste in North Africa___ Born

- age 16 went to Carthage to study

- Manichaean (religious sect that was extremely characteristic of late antiquity. doctrine half philosophy and half religion,the world consisted of a dualism of good and evil, light and darkness, and spirit and matter.

- "problem of evil"= the question of where evil comes from.

- Neoplatonism= all existence is divine in nature.

- Christian first, largely influenced by Platonic ideas.

- Much of Greek philosophy was carried over to the new age through Fathers of the Church. No distinct separation.

- believed himself to be 100% Christian, but saw no contradiction between Christianity and the philosophy of Plato. "Christianized Plato". saw similarities and thought Plato must have known the Old Testament

- limit on how far reason can get you in religious questions.

- found peace in his soul after became Christian

- God created the world out of the void.

- He located the Platonic ideas in God and in that was preserved the Platonic view of eternal ideas.

- the Church fathers bent over backwards to bring Greek and Jewish thought together.

- Inclined to neoplatonism in his view in evil.

- Evil is the absence of God.

- God's creation is the only good

- Evil comes from mankind's disobedience

- there is an insurmountable barrier between God and the world.

- man is a spiritual being

- The entire human race was lost after the Fall of Man. But he nevertheless decided that certain people should be saved from perdition

- Denied that man had any right to deny God

- No man deserves God's redemption. Whether man is saved is preordained and we are at God's mercy

- We must live in awareness of being among the chosen.

- His theology considerably removed from the humanism of Athens.

City of God (St. Augustine)

- "kingdom of God"

- all human history is a struggle between the "Kingdom of God" and the "Kingdom of the World"

- Kingdom of God present in the Church, Kingdom of the World present in the State

- NO salvation outside the church

- Not until the Reformation in the 16th century was there any protest against the idea that people could only obtain salvation through the Church.

- St. Augustine was first philosopher to draw history into his philosophy

- The struggle between good and evil was played out in history (NEW CONCEPT)

- Influenced by linear line of history in the Old Testament

St. Thomas Aquinas

- greatest and most significant Philosopher of this time.

- 1225-1274

- teacher at the University of Paris

- philosopher and theologian

- He christianized Aristotle in the same way that At. Augustine christianized Plato in early medieval times

- christianized= interoperated and explained in such a way that they were no longer considered a threat to Christian dogma.

- created the synthesis between faith and knowledge.

-Christendom and philosophy often say the same thing, we can frequently reason ourselves to the same truths that we can read in the bible.

- "Natural theological truths"= truths that could be reached BOTH through the Christian faith AND through our innate or natural reason

- two paths to God= 1.) Through Christian Revelation (surest) and faith, 2.) reason and senses.

- Aristotle only went part of the way because he did not know about the Christian Revelation, but going part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way.

- THERE IS ONLY ONE THRUTH

- we can arrive successfully at one aspect of the truth with the aid of reason and the evidence of our senses

- Another aspect of truth= revealed by God through the Bible

- presumed the existence of God__ Formal cause__sets all natural processes going.

- he could prove God's existence on the basis of Aristotle's philosophy

- our reason= everything around us has a formal cause.

- theology of faith and natural theology

- two paths to a moral life= 1.) we know that it is wrong to harm others 2.) the bible says not to. Follow the bible's commandments

- It is best if we can both see and hear

- We know there is a God just by walking around and seeing the natural world, and see how much he loves flowers and animals because he made them, but we dont know know about God, the person, until we read the bible.

- There was a progressive degree of existence from plants and animals to man, from man to angels and from angels to God.

- women are an incomplete man.

- children only inherent the father's traits.

- Eggs of man discovered in 1827, which makes since, because bible said that women were made out of Adam's rib

- the life of the church in the Middle Ages were dominated by men.

- had a teacher of philosophy called Alberto the Great.

Hildegard of Bingen

- nun in the Rhine Valley from 1098-1179

- preacher, author, physician, botanist, and naturalist.

- ancient Christian and Jewish belief that God was not only a man, female side, In Greek this side of God (mother nature) is called Sophia. meaning wisdom.

- Sophia appeared to Hildegard in a vision

	Created by dayna.gallo almost 9 years ago

	Copied by Chantal Sallade almost 9 years ago

College Philosophy 180 Note on sophie's world 147-184, created by Chantal Sallade on 29/09/2015.