• From North Africa, which was weird bc that was the edge of the Roman empire, yet he became bishop
• Sinful youth: story of stolen pears, which he used to explain that sin wants what it wants bc its sinful
• At 16 went to school, takes concubine for 20 yrs, has son with her. Here he joins the Manichees.
• Job in Rhetorics in Milan. Switches to Neo-Platonism. Then hears Ambrose allegorize OT, switches to Chrsitianity, sends concubine away
• Converts and is baptized a year later

• The way you judge a person's goodness is how well it matches up to the ideal, universal form.
• Problems with how angry and hands-on the OT God was--he is supposed to be perfect.

Manicheanism

(Describe it and Augustine's response to it)

• Cosmic dualism: tried to make sense of good and evil; light and peace=rule by God; darkness and chaos=ruled by Satan
• So, God is not omnipotent. And people do not corrupt things or make them evil, they are created evil.
• Augustine's response: shut up, creation is good, and the evil is on us, not God. Comes back with Free Will Theodicy: evil entered the world bc of the misuse of free will by Adam and Eve. (Theodicy=attempt to justify God)

Donatism

(Where, What, and Augustine's response)

• North African movement
• A reactionary group to a church that didn't always live up to its own moral standards; stressed the purity of the church.
• Said ministers/bishops had to be extremely pure to perform their duties (like baptism). Also, those who were not holy must be excluded from church.
• Augustine's response: Shut up, the personal holiness of the bishop is irrelevant. The sacraments are made effective by God, not the priest.

Pelagius (the person)

(What did he argue? 3 things.)

• We have unconditional free will--we may sin or not sin. God's Word and the conscience are enough to know how to do good.
• Adam and Eve did not pass down original sin, but set into motion a habit of disobedience. So infants are innocent.
• Predestination is foreknowledge; God foreseeswhat we will do, but he does not cause it to happen. He gives humans the ability to make good choices, and gives the example of Jesus.

• Orignal sin is like a hereditary disease; massa damnata, massa perditionis = humanity is a mass of damnation, mass of perdition
• Prevenient grace: leads one to desire God
• Cooperating grace: after one returns to god, it gives us the ability to get closer to God through sanctification
• God has absolute power. Monergism: salvation is initiated by God
• Trinity: father son and holy spirit work together toward the redemption of the elect
• Predestination: some are predestined for heaven; God chooses them to be saved
• Foreknowledge: God knows what each person will do, so he knows if they'll enter heaven or not

• loss of political unity
• loss of cultural unity (language--Latin in the West, Greek in the East)
• Different political leadership. West: emperor is also head of the church. East: not a cozy relationship btwn emperors and bishops

1. Growing role of the bishop in Rome
2. Difference in opinion about the use of icons in worship. They were OK'ed in the coucil of Nicea III
3. Original Nicene creed says the holy spirit proceeds form the Father. Western churches changed it to "who proceeds from the Father and the Son." East was pissed, seen as heretical. 

"lovers of icons," those who believed icons aided in worship. 

Defense of Icons, by John of Damascus. He made a distinction btwn veneratinon of images and of God.

"destroyers of icons"

said they distract from woth, the use to go in and literally destroy the icons in other churhcesl

• Goal was to regain holy lands from Muslims
• 1095: Pope Urban II urges men of all groups (not just Christians) to fight and defeat "turks and arabs" to gain glory and money.
• 1204: Crusades plunder Hagia Sophia, the most important church in the religion

• God as ineffable, transcendent
• Psuedo-Dionysus's work: The Divine Names: We who are physical creatures can talk about a transcendent God
• How to talk to God: (1) Cataphatic statements, what we can say positively about god; (2) Apophatic statements, or denials about what God is not

• Adam and Eve are disobedient bc they are spiritually immature. They chose evil not knowing it would lead to separation from God.
• It is human nature to be corrupt; it is not a kind of inherited disease like Augustine said.

• Jesus is both fully God and fully man

• Miraculous exchange: God became man in order that man might become like God
• Deification/theosis: although we are separated from God now, he wants us to return, so he sent Christ as an ethical model for us.

• Maximum Conessor
• Human is becoming a microcosm, or a little cosmos. If we are reunited with God, so is the entire cosmos.

• Rejected the papacy. Said the Roman pope was the first among equals, but did not hold authority over the rest.
• Priests can marry, but monks cannot.

• This was the major aspect of tradition, the source and expression of theology
• "Based on Christ's injunction in theGospel of Matthew to "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray",^[2] hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God

• 4th c: Constantine brough unity, which was a useful political tool. Christiendom: the state officially supported the church
• 800 AD: Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Gelasius I. Gelasius I the "Two Swords" was trying to determine how the church and state could work together without swallowing up the other. "Two swords" represents two gvnts that should cooperate together.
• 10th c: Emperors and kings being to say that he church serves the state.

• Early on, roman bishop referred to as the Vicar of Peter
• Eventually began to be called the vicar of Christ
• Why? Popes became political as well as spiritual leaders. The Roman empire was broken up into chunks and all over the place. Religion was the only stable institution in the West.

• introduced liturgical (religious practice) reforms, priestly Rules, and investiture
• He realizes there are corrupting influences in the church, so he addressed corrupt investiture: cleaned house, got rid of illegitimate priests

• Called the "desert father"
• Took Jesus' command to sell what he has--and he had great wealth--and give it to the poor. He moved out to the desert and estd and ascetic lifestyle.
• A community began to gather around him in the desert out of curiosity; this starts the Monasatic movement.
• He was martyred as result of opposing the Arians.

1. Vow of Chastity
2. Vow of Poverty
3. Vow of Obedience

• Part of the Monastic movement: wanted to renew obedience
• Said we naturally want too much and love the wrong things, so we need to reshape the way we think about the world.
• Restructured the life of a monk to revolve around prayer

• Part of the Monastic movement: focused on renewing love
• His theology: he focuses on intimate unions with God through intense prayer and an ascetic lifestyle. This intense focus on God brought about mystical visions.
• Described four different loves: (1) love of self--we want to do what preserves us (2) love of God for self's sake--loving God bc of what he does for you (3) love of God for God's sake--abandon your own cares and only love others (4) love of yourself for God's sake--care for yourself so God may use you--the highest form of love.
• His writings became popular at a time when the church was becoming very institutionalized and foreign to the people. He game them a sense of personal piety. 
• He also renewed the Cistercian order of monks.

• From a wealthy merchant family; renounces his wealth, relies on charity to survive (medicant orders)
• Has missions to Muslim-controlled Holy Lands
• Set up the first live Nativity scene
• Supposedly had stigmata, or the bodily wounds of Christ, something only extremely pious people had.
• On Creation: the world was created good but "groans" under the weight of sin; orignal sin had a creation-wide effect, therefore all creation awaits redemption.
• Story 1: preaching to birds in a tree, they all fly down and rest on him, entranced by his voice
• Story 2: a wolf s terrorizing a town, he preaches to it, and the wolf becomes the town pet
• Always seen with animals in his iconography bc of stories

• Rise of the middle class, which leads to an increase in education
• Renewed interest in Aristotole

• Salvation comes through the redemptive death of Jesus's crucifixion.
• If you want to know Jesus, you must do so through Christ's body, the church.
• In sum, the corporate life of the church becomes important as a place to go to be saved.

1. Infant Baptism--Christening
2. Confirmation
3. Eucahrist/Lord's Supper/Communion
4. Penance/Confession
5. Marriage
6. Ordination/Holy Orders
7. Extreme Unction/Last Rites

• Believed to cleans the original sin passed down by Adam.
• If you wish begin this life of faith, then you must begin it with the grace of God.

• Middle Ages: Christ is present through transubstantiation
• Aristotle's writings explain transubstantiation more thoroughly... Substance/accidents: for example, the substance of everyone is human (substance) but we have different charactetristics (accidents)
• For Thomas, bread is changed into Christ's body, and wine into His blood. Christ is the substance and the bread and wine are accidents.

• Must confess sins before communion in order to be pure
• Created as a way to punish sinnners as well as draw them back into the faith; usually accompanies restitution, such as can't have communion for 6 mo.
• Consists of confession, reconciling with neighbors, praying with a rosary, etc.

• Apostolic Succession demands a priest to lay hands on a new ordained priest.
• How the church continues on.

• Admit final sins, exit life the same way they entered: clean and pure
• Acknowledges that the presence of Christ is still with you at death.

• Remember Aristotle's writings were resurfacing
• Thomistic synthesis said that faith and reason were not at odds with each other. Thomas had a conviction that if God is the creator of all things, then reason cannot be evil.
• Theology was coming to encompass many other schools of thoughts, to cover the entire world that God had created.

• Born into noble olive oil business family in Aquino, Italy.
• Decided to be a Dominican priest; frowned upon by family bc priests were not prominent members of society and had to live in poverty
• Was a student of Albertus Magnus aka Albert the Great--the best teacher of the age. Called him "the dumb ox."

• Beomes the new standard textbook for upcoming universities; it captures the new theological way of thinking
• Method: (1) Objections (2) "On the contrary..." (3)I answer that..." (4) Reply to objections

• General/Natural revelation: truths about God taht are accessible by human reasoning
• Special revelation: truths about God that exceed the grasp of human reason (like the Trinity, OT/NT God)

1. Motion: we are surrounded by things that are in motion; they must be put in motion by something!
2. Efficient cause: things move from cause to effect in a specific way, but don't happen on their own; they must have a first cause, God.
3. Existence: all things must potentiall exist in order for them to actually exist... so there must be one who has always existed
4. Gradation: we can only know the degrees of perfection if there is a perfect standard to compare them to
5. Governance of the world/Teleological Argument: all things act toward an end or purpose; so there must be a rational designer