The Church vs. The World

(i.e., Everybody Else)

Consider the remark made by Tacitus
about why the Romans convicted and executed Christians?

The Background:

• Why did Christianity Succeed?

• Gibbon's Fall of the Roman Empire

The Enemies and How the Church dealt with them:

• Pagans: C. A. S. E. (Copy And Steal Everything) then Exterminate

Who Were the Pagans Anyway?

• Justin Martyr's "Discourse to the Greeks" (Ch. IV)
• Justin's "Hortatory Address to the Greeks"
• Tatian's "Address to the Greeks"
• Tertullian's "Against the Nations"
• Athanasius' "Against the Greeks" - 2 - 3
• Clement of Alexandria's "Exhortation to the Greeks"

Two Early Pagan Writers on Christianity

What Was Paganism Really?

Religion

• Mystery Religions
• Greco-Roman Religion
• Roman Religion
• Greek Religion
• The End of "Paganism"

Philosophy/Science

• Hypatia, 2, 3, Journal
• Julian the "Apostate"
• Plato's Academy - Who closed it down?
• Olympic Games - Who terminated them?
• The Library of Alexandria - Who burned it?
• The Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes

Medieval Legal History

Pagan Legal Persecution 

• Diocletian's Edicts Against the Christians
• Galerius and Constantine: Edicts of Toleration (311-313)

Christian Legal Persecution

• Codex Theodosianus on Religion
• Banning of Other Religions: Theodosian Code XVI.i.2
• Codex Justinianus (Latin text)

• Jews:  Impede their spread, Limit their activities,
              Persecute, but do not Exterminate

        Why?  Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus

• Tertullian's "Answer to the Jews"
• Chrysostom "Against the Jews"
• Constantine's "Letter to the Churches"
• Jews and the Later Roman Law 315-531 CE
• Legislation Affecting the Jews from 300 to 800 CE (Comprehensive)

Christian Legal Persecution of Jews

• Codex Theodosianus
• Codex Justinianus (Latin text)

Some Christian Comments on the Jews

Saint John Chrysostom:
    the Jews are always degenerate because of their odious assassination of Christ.
    For this, no expiation is possible, no indulgence, no pardon

Saint Augustine:
    they subsist for the salvation of the nation, but not for their own

Saint Thomas Aquinas:
    Jews, in consequence of their sins, are, or were, destined to perpetual slavery

Martin Luther: [in his last sermon, four days before he died]
    burn their synagogues, confiscate all books in Hebrew, prohibit Jewish prayers,
    force them to do manual labour, but, best of all, drive them out of Germany

Adolph Hitler: [Mein Kampf]
    I believe that I am today acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty
    Creator: by defending myself against the Jew I am fighting for the work of the
    Lord"

Adolf von Harnack: [from 1890-1930 trained generations of Protestant pastors and exegetes.] 
    to conserve the Old Testament constitutes a "religious paralysis" for the church;
    the Jews are the worst among the peoples, the most atheistic nation and of all the
    nations on earth the one farthest from God. They are the devil's own, the
    synagogue of Satan, a community of hypocrites

• Heretics: Exterminate

• Banning of Other Religions Theodosian Code XVI.i.2
• Hippolytus' "Refutation of All Heresies"
  (Natural and Moral Philosophers and Logicians; see especially Book 1)
• Irenaeus' "Adversus Haereses" (see especially Book III)
• Tertullian's De Praescriptione Haereticorum
  (especially Chapter 7 against the Philosophers)

Gnostics

• Gnostics and Other Heretics
• The Gnostic Society Library

• Church Fathers against the Gnostics

• Heresies and Sects of the Early Church

• Women - Tertullian
• Homosexuals - Chrysostom  

Monasticism:  The Ultimate Rejection of the World