Christianity and the Decline of Rome

    Today in class we read from the textbooks while some students took their tests. I read about the start of Christianity and the decline of Rome. Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem and began his public ministry at age 30. His teachings are found in the four Gospels. Christianity began to spread throughout the empire. Jew's rebelled against Rome, but many were killed after the rebellion was shot down. The Christians were persecuted because they did not worship the Roman gods, but one God (monotheism). Christianity still became a powerful force despite the persecution of the Christians. In AD 312, the Roman emperor Constantine accepted Christianity and ended persecutions. The Christian faith developed a hierarchy including a bishop and pope. Peter became the rock of the church. When Marcus Aurelius ruled (AD 161-180), it marked the end of the Pax Romana. The Rome economy was weakened, taxes were raised, and the empire was suffering from inflation. Also, the soil was no longer fertile. The military was also declining. Soldiers were only in it for a battle of power as a commander. They had to recruit mercenaries. Also, loyalty to Rome declined.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Constantine and Christianity

    Today in class we continued to talk about Christianity and we touched on Constantine. Some of my notes are below: Conversion of Constantine (AD 312) Roman emperor Constantine has a vision before the Battle at Milivian Bridge he sees an image in the sky of a cross and the words Ev ToUTw Nika ("In this sign, conquer") Orders troops to put a cross on shields they win Edict of Milan in AD 313 Christianity becomes a religion which is recognized/approved by the emperor it continues to gain strength By 380, it becomes the empire's official religion Chi-Rho: first two letters of "Christ" in Greek  Decline of the Roman Empire While Christianity strengthened, Rome weakened  Military: too week to defend huge area Economy: taxes too high; widening gap between rich and poor; trade disrupted Social: Who cares about public affairs?; disloyalty; population decreases Political: division of the empire (Constantine moved the capital to Byzantium)
Read more

Questions

    Today in class we worked on questions from the textbook. The questions include:  What is the significance of the following terms Renaissance: period from 1300 to 1600 when art, creativity, and writing were "rebirthed' Humanism: focused on human potential (arete) secular: Renaissance power was worldy patron: financially supported artist, wealthy became important perspective: art became more popular b/c the use of perspective drawing which shows 3D vernacular: a native language, started trends in writing that modern writers follow to this day   Qualities of a Renaissance man include mastering every area of studying including writing and art. Also, he should be charming, witty, well- educated, dancer, singer, musician poetry writer, skilled writer, wrestler and swordsmen Qualities of a Renaissance woman include knowing the classics, being charming, inspiring art, and some were skilled in politics.  How did Italy's cities help to make it a birthplace o
Read more

Non-Test Day

    Today in class we were supposed to take our Renaissance and Reformation test. Our class, however, voted to not take it. A lot of kids did not want to take a chance in hurting their grade, including me, It has taken me a very long time to get my grade up, so anything I can do to keep it where it is or get it higher I will do. I was a little uncomfortable with being tested on the i formations since we only took 2 days to talk about it and we crammed so much of the reformation in to one day. We "took" the test, but it didn't count. I didn't know a lot of the answers on the test because we never talked about them. I don't know when we would have, so if the test counted, I would have gotten those answers wrong and gotten a bad grade. The test was all on the reformation too, which I thought was weird because then we would have wasted time on the Renaissance when we could have learned about the Reformation in a larger amount of time and then we could have taken the t
Read more