What were the teachings of Roman and midevil christianity

Factual Questions
1

If you had to describe modern western/american christianity you would probably focus on several things. The fact that virtually all sects believe in accepting Jesus as your savior for oen. But you’d also see the fact that there is alot of overlap between conservative politics and christianity. There are also alot of christians who try to make the world a better place via charity work and whatnot as a part of their religion.

So in Roman (1st-4th century) christianity and European midevil christianity what was the emphasis put on? Was there alot of emphasis on being a good person and doing good deeds? Was Christianity more political than it is now, was it more formal? Were they conservative or radical politically? Was the church in midevil Europe just a dogmatic tool used by politicians, or was it a force encouraging people to do good, or was it just something people gave lip service to?

2

aren’t these relative terms?

3

Yes.

Okay, seriously, it was all of those things. It was more political, as the church held temporal power as well as spiritual power. The Pope ruled the Papal States, literally. He held a great deal of direct influence (much more so than he does today) over the kings and princes of Europe. Bishops were often political appointees, rewarded their sees by both the Pope and European kings. Often, the priesthood was a haven for the younger sons of the nobility, as they usually didn’t stand to inherit land or power from their father, and in turn the clergy tended to act like the princelings they were. Kings used the church, the church used the kings.

This was the nobility, of course. A different tack was usually applied to the peasantry. This was where the “be a good person” thing came in, much more than in relation to the nobles. Peasants were taught that their liege lords were chosen by God and therefore needed to be obeyed. A good Christian knew his place and kept to it under threat of Hell.

The Church was far from radical. It was actually a major part of the Establishment. The Church tended to condemn not only spiritual heresy, but political heresy as well. It had a vested interest in both.

This is all Roman Catholic we’re talking about, as apart from minor heretical sects, that’s all there was in Europe until the Reformation.

4

Well, yes and no. The Franciscans were certainly radical, as were some of the other religious orders. On the other hand, like you said, the church was part of the establishment and acted like it.

And the church both supported the state and challenged the state. It said that the state and government was supported by God, but at the same time, that the state was subordinate to the church, and that an evil ruler had to be resisteed.

5

And, like you said, that was Western Christianity. Orthodox Christianity in the east was an entirely other story.

6

Well, yes, but they were also viewed with suspicion and distaste for a long time by the rest of the Church because of their emphasis on the original teachings of Jesus. I’d say the few radical orders were very much abberations.

7

Conservative vs. radical is a concept that can’t be applied to anything prior to the 19th century, at best. Prior to that, rule was by nobility and/or the church hierarchy. Rebels almost invariably came to bad ends, unless they repented/recanted.

Your question is basically unanswerable as asked, with reference to either the Early Church or the Middle Ages.

Excluding the city-states, which began to develop a middle class somewhere around the 11th century, there was no political power that did not arise from land-holding aristocrats or bishops/cardinals/the pope. In the Eastern church, substitute metropolitan for cardinals and pope, and that covers Byzantium as well (about which I know considerably less, but those were the power centers; no others).

Even in Islam, power came out of relationships, as it wasn’t very long after Muhammad’s death before (what became) the Shia rebelled because they had fewer entitlements. Why did they have fewer entitlements? Because their mothers weren’t pedigreed Arab tribal women.

As I said, you gotta have a middle class before you can have politics that is anything other than the king’s men vs. the pope’s men.

If you want to know about Christian religion in those times, I can recommend some books for Medieval times, and websites for the Early Church. Unless someone (say, tomndeb) beats me to it. :slight_smile: I think we need a better definition of what you’re really looking for, okay?

8

My distinction between the nobility and the peasantry isn’t meant to imply that there was a virtual wall between the messages given to each by the Church. More than a few nobles were very sincerely devout (Louis IX of France is probably the exemplar of this) and more than a few peasants were sufficiently cynical as to give only lip service to the Church.

9

Websites on the early churches would be appreciated, yes.

What I’m wondering is what teachings were emphasised in the early and Medieval churches, what personality traits would a devout churchgoer possess that a non churchgoer would not? Was there empasis on rituals, emphasis on good deeds, empasis on obedience to political authority (I’d assume in the early roman church there was emphasis on rebellion)? Was lip service given to good deeds or was it an integral part of Christianity at the time? What about taking a vow of poverty (which probably didn’t mean anything since everyone was poor)?

10

Well, there was never an emphasis on rebellion in the early church. Rather, the church made a point of trying to not be too rebellious.

As to the rest, it was probably not that much different than today. The church has always emphasized temperance, chastity, and similar virtues. The church has always emphasized taking care of the poor. (Even when “everyone” is poor, there are still people who lack shelter or food who are more poor.) The day-to-day emphasis would have been on following the rules, praying, and worship–not too different than religion, today.

An emphasis on ritual was probably not among the earliest of church features, but rituals are the physical expressions of shared belief, so it is probable that rituals arose within the first hundred years, or so, and have held a central place in the ensuing years. (Even the opposition to ritual that was expressed by some of the Protestant Reformers resulted in a sort of “anti-ritual” celebration; no group sustains itself with no rituals.)

Politically, Christians would have shared whatever common political beliefs were current in their towns. (None of the great persecutions were based on political strife so much as wanting to ensure that everyone got along, religiously–whether that was by everyone worshipping the emperor or everyone worshipping the same way each Sunday.)

About the only difference between early Christianity and today would have been the emphasis on proselytizing. It goes on, today, but it was a significant part of the church’s existence until they had actually made everyone in Europe nominally Christian. (After the 15th century, it rose up, again, as missionaries went out to convert Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific, but the disunity of Christendom put a bit of a restraint on those efforts and the rise of self-determination against Christian colonizers has dampened that effort after the first half of the 20th century.)

Books or websites? I’m not sure. Most of my information has been gathered from individual works addressing individual situations, not surveys and long period histories. I’ll see whether i can recall any general surveys.

11

For the most part, a non churchgoer wouldn’t exist.

All of the above. Plus obedience to the church. There wasn’t much of a distinction between secular and religious life. Religion was pretty much part of the order of the world. There was a church and a god like there was a lord in the manor and a moon in the sky.

The assumption wouldn’t be correct. For the really early church maybe civil disobedience, but as soon as it became mainstream under the roman empire, the church would rather preach obedience to the powers that be. To his master for a slave, to his ruler for a free man.

It was taken very seriously. People don’t change much, and they were exactly as greedy then than they’re greedy now. So, there certainly was a lot of lip service. Some churchmen could live in opulence while others would feed the poors. However, most would want to die in good standing and giving land or money to the poors or to the church on one’s deathbed was very common.

Not everyone was, and actually monks normally came from wealthy families, able to pay a dowry to the monastery (poorer people could become lay brothers, though). They would generally at least be fed better than most (I must have a book specifically about food in monasteries somewhere. It was sometimes impressive. In particular the amount of wine they would drink). Mendicant orders like the franciscans appeared late in the middle-ages, and in good part in reaction to some heresies emphatizing poverty as a virtue. Other monks would make a vow of poverty too, of course, but it was personnal poverty. The monastery itself could be very wealthy. And the monks would benefit from this to some extent. At least, once again, by being correctly fed.

Priests, as already mentionned, were often from noble families. At least the ones who held valuable positions, like chaplains or members of a chapter. The local priest in a village could be of humbler origin, and generally was very poorly educated, including regarding church matters. Some were barely able to say a mass and many would never have read the bible. There were taxes to provide for them, and the local church could hold some land. Priesthood would sometimes be passed to a son (at least as long as the church allowed priests to marry) or to relatives.
My comments are rather random, but honestly, your question is way too broad…

12

One interesting aspect of religious practice in Medieval Europe was that the Catholic Church had several dozen saints days that were holy days of obligation. As with other holy days of obligation on the calendar, they required attendance at church. But they also meant a day off work. Those holy days, with Sundays, meant a de facto five-day work week existed in the Middle Ages. This disappeared in the Industrial Revolution, and did not reappear until the 20th century.

13

P.S. Per the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the medieval catechism concentrated on the meaning of faith, hope, and charity.

14

The place to start with respect to medieval Christianity is doubtlessly RW Southern’s Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages. This is an accessible and utterly magisterial treatment of the subject.