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Explore the transformation of Europe through the invasion of barbarian hordes, leading to the conversion of kingdoms and the establishment of Christianity.
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A. The Barbarians • The conversion of Europe, & the Xianizing of the whole western world, may owe its accomplishment to what appeared at first as a disaster to both Xianity & the empire: the invasion of vast hordes of barbarians. • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • Already we have seen Alaric & the Visigoths sack Rome in 410. • While Augustine was dying in 430, the Vandals were besieging Hippo. • Barbarian invasions were to last for 600 yrs.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • Already we have seen Odoacer of the Ostrogoths dethrone the last of the western emperors in 476. • In rapid succession of a number of barbaric kingdoms were set up: • Visigoths (415-711) in Spain & southern Gaul • Ostrogoths (493-554) in Italy • Burgundians (443-543) in southeastern Gaul • Vandals (429-533) in North Africa • Franks under the Merovingians (486-752)
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • In rapid succession of a number of barbaric kingdoms were set up: • Lombards (586-774) in northern Italy • Angles, the Saxons, & the Jutes left Denmark & n. Germany & settled in south Britain (443-485) • Slavic tribes also moved into the eastern empire. • Culturally, the invaders were not savages; neither were they nomads. • They were agricultural people who sought new lands because of overcrowding.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • In the arts they were not primitive. • The Germanic people brought precise principles of law which later furnished the basis for the ecclesiastical practice of penance & indulgences. • Salvian (5th c. Xtian) claimed the barbarians were morally more chaste than the nobility of the empire, & he especially commended Gaiseric, the Vandal, for closing the brothels of Carthage.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • Religiously, the barbarians were of 2 backgrounds. • There were pagans; but many barbarians already claimed to be Xtians of the Arian variety. • Most of the Goths had come to embrace Arian Xtianity under Ulphilas, the apostle of the Goths, who had given them an alphabet & translated the Bible into their tongue. • All of the Teutonic tribes were eventually converted to Xtianity.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • From the Visigoths Xtianity came to the Ostrogoths, the Vandals & the Lombards. • One of the most notable conversions of the period was that of Clovis, King of the Franks (Gaul). • At the repeated insistence of his wife, Queen Clotilde, a Catholic Burgundian princess, C. finally embraced Xtianity, was baptized, & compelled his entire army to be baptized.
Baptism of Clovis Clovis I was king of the Franks from 481 to 511. In 496 he con- verted to Christianity, which gain- ed him the support of the Roman Catholic Church for his conquests of other tribes in western and Central Europe. During his rule Clovis enlarged the Frankish territory to include most of modern France and Germany.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • Using his new religion as a political weapon, C. overthrew the Arian king of the Visigoths, Alaric II, & consolidated his dominions with the aid of Catholic bishops & Roman officials. • His codification of the Salic law & his efforts to fuse the Romans & the Teutons laid the foundations of the modern French nation. • The e.g. of C. was repeated throughout all of Europe. • Naturally there was little evidence of individual conversion in these mass conversions.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • Thus the people brought their old beliefs & mores into the ch. • For Clovis, Jesus was a tribal war god; the people saw X as the heavenly ruler rather than the suffering redeemer. • The archangel Michael of the flaming sword became a spiritual champion & his name was given to the citadel of Mont St. Michel. • Chs & monasteries were built in great numbers, but people & rulers fell far short of NT standards.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • After defeat by Clovis, the Arian Visigoths settled in Spain & continued in Arianism until Recared, King of Spain was converted to orthodox Xtianity in 587. • The Burgundians were the 1st barbarians to give up Arianism for orthodoxy; they provided the pagan Clovis with his Xtian queen. • The Arian Ostrogoths in Italy capitulated to orthodoxy after defeats at the hands of Justinian in 553.
A. The Barbarians • 1. From Invasion To Conversion • The barbarian states were established because they had the military might to subdue the Roman Empire, but they did not have the education or experience to govern it. • Everywhere they were a minority, with the majority being Roman & Catholic. • Besides the Anglo-Saxons in England, the only barbarian kingdoms which survived at the close of the 6th c. were the Franks in Gaul & the Visigoths in Spain, & they were both solidly Catholic.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • The barbarian invasion provided the setting for the ascendancy of one of Catholicism’s most famous leaders—Gregory I (546-604). • He was the 4th & last of the traditional Latin “Doctors of the Church” (with Ambrose, Augustine & Jerome). • He was pope from 590 to his death (604) & became father of the medieval papacy. • Of the 180 bishops of Rome between Constantine & the Reformation, none was more influential than Gregory.
Dove (Holy Spirit) dictating to Gregory the Homilies on Ezekiel.
Homilies on Ezekiel
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • The last of the Germanic tribes to enter the Roman Empire, the Arian Lombards, invaded Italy in 568 & the ineffective imperial governor was unable to combat them. • This actually had a positive effect on the position of the ch at Rome; the R. bishop became the leader & protector of the people. • Gregory was the son of a Roman nobleman & at 1st sought a career in civil administration. • He entered monasticism in 574, selling his family estates, founding 7 monasteries, & giving the rest to the poor.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • The pope made him an envoy to the court at Constantinople. • He returned to R. in 585 to become abbot of his monastery. • When the pope (Pelagius II) died (one of the 1st victims of the bubonic plague), the people of R. unanimously chose Gregory. • He was the 1st pope to have been a monk & from this time Benedictine monasticism was closely allied with the papacy; these 2 institutions gave medieval Catholicism its distinctive character.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • a. Peace with the Lombards. • G. found Italy in an alarming state, devastated by famine, pestilence & Lombard invasion. • According to legend, the bubonic plague was miraculously ended. • G. set the civil affairs of R. in order, collected taxes, provided for welfare, repaired buildings & streets & raised & trained an army to repel the Lombards.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • a. Peace with the Lombards. • Although he was technically under the emperor, he acted independently, garrisoned his army, sent orders to generals in the field, & negotiated with the Lombards. • No bishop or pope before G. had dared to do half as much. • He appointed governors over certain areas & increased his papal authority until the papacy was the largest, wealthiest, & most powerful institution in Italy.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • b. Conversion of Britain. • As a monk, G. had been deeply moved by the sight of some attractive young children in the slave market. • When he found they were “Angli” from England & pagans, he determined to be a missionary to that land. • After he became pope, he commissioned Augustine, prior of his monastery in R., to accomplish this mission for him.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • b. Conversion of Britain. • Ethelbert, king of the Jutes in Kent, was one of A’s first & most notable converts; he & 10,000 subjects were baptized on Xmas Day, 597. • Ethelbert was also overlord of the neighboring kingdoms of Essex and East Anglia & so Catholic Xtianity came to 3 or 12 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • b. Conversion of Britain. • G. appointed A. archbishop & King E. gave the new archbishop his own palace in Canterbury, which became the 1st episcopal center in England. • A. met opposition from the Celtic ch, which refused to adopt the Roman tradition of baptism or the Roman dating of Easter. • Later, after A’s death, at the Synod of Whitby, 664, England severed her connection with the old Iro-Celtic ch in favor of Rome.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • G. left an indelible imprint on ecclesiastical & theological issues. • As a theologian, he was not original, building mainly on the works of Augustine of Hippo. • He did, however, initiate several enduring practices. • He est. the mass as a repetition of the sacrifice of X that would benefit the living or the dead.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • He formulated the doctrine of purgatory, which played so large a part in the religion of the Middle Ages. • He was interest in liturgy & popularized the Gregorian chants. • His contributions to the medieval papacy were even more noteworthy. • He repudiated the Patriarch of Constantinople when he used the title “Ecumenical Patriarch” (universal bishop).
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • G. called this a flagrant violation of the primacy of R., & referred to himself as “the Servant of the Servants of God.” • While Leo I is often recognized as “the first pope,” G. is the 1st to exercise universal authority & openly declare himself to be pope. • In deed as well as name, he was patriarch of the West.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • He ordered the African bishops to oppose the Donatists & punished those who had fallen into Manichaeism—setting the precedent for the subsequent inquisitions. • He brought Spain from Arianism into orthodoxy, directed the mission campaign in Britain & took the Emperor Maurice to task over his restrictions on soldiers entering sacred orders.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • Anywhere & everywhere he did whatever he deemed necessary to govern the entire ch. • G’s period as pope, by its extension of the pope’s authority, marks the transition from the ancient world of imperial R. to medieval Xtendom united by the Roman Catholic Ch. • The Medieval Period (Middle Ages) is so called because of its chronological position between ancient & modern times.
A. The Barbarians • 2. Gregory The Great • c. Gregory’s Contributions. • It forms the transition from Greco-Roman civilization to the Romano-Germanic civilization which was to control the future of the western world. • Pope G. stood on the threshold between the old & the new order of things. • He was the last Church Father as well as the 1st medieval theologian. • He was the last Roman bishop & the 1st medieval pope.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • Xtians in the R. Empire immediately saw & met the challenge of converting the barbarians who had come to them. • But there were some with a wider vision who were awakened to the possibility of missions in the homelands of the invaders & beyond. • a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739) • Wilfrid began with a brief preaching tour in Frisia on a trip to Rome; on his return to Eng. he called for missionaries for Frisia & monks swarmed over north-western Europe.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • Xtians in the R. Empire immediately saw & met the challenge of converting the barbarians who had come to them. • But there were some with a wider vision who were awakened to the possibility of missions in the homelands of the invaders & beyond. • a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739) • Wilfrid began with a brief preaching tour in Frisia on a trip to Rome; on his return to Eng. he called for missionaries for Frisia & monks swarmed over north-western Europe.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • a. Willibrord in the Netherlands (658-739) • The most successful was Willibrord of Saxon Northumbria, the “Apostle to the Netherlands.” • W. went to Frisia in 690 & was made archbishop of Frisia in 695. • By his death he had established the archepiscopal see of Utrecht & had converted most of the people of the southern part of the Low Countries.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • b. Boniface in Germany (680-754). • Willibrord’s assistant for 3 yrs was Winifrid who became known as Boniface, “doer of good,” who became known as the “Apostle of Germany.” • He was so successful that Pope Gregory II made him missionary bishop to Germany in 722. • One of B’s major achievements was the consolidation of existing chs into one ecclesiastical body.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • b. Boniface in Germany (680-754). • Extremely popular, he single-handedly demolished their superstitions, nature divinations & ritual incantations. • Before he was 60 he had converted practically the whole territory east of the Rhine & north of the Danube.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • c. Scandinavian Missions. • Denmark & Sweden were first evangelized by Anskar (801-865), the “Apostle of the North.” • Norway was Christianized from Eng. thru the efforts of 2 Norwegian kings, Olaf Tlryggvason (995-1000) & Olaf Haraldson (1015-30). • The 1st Xtian king in Sweden was Olaf Lapking, baptized in 1007. • From the Scandinavian countries Xtianity spread to Iceland, Finland, & Greenland.
A. The Barbarians • 3. Missions On The Continent. • d. Slavic Missions. • “The Apostles of the Slavs” were 2 brothers from a Gk family in Thessalonica, Cyril & Methodius. • Emperor Michael III sent them as missionaries to what is now Moravia. • Cyril invented an alphabet for the people called Glagolithic (also Cyrillic) & became the founder of Slavonic literature. • A Xtian princess brought Xtianity to Bohemia, & from there it spread to Poland & Hungary.
B. The Moslems • While Xtianity was making great gains among the barbarian tribes of western Europe, a new storm was swirling down upon the empire from the deserts of Arabia. • Marching under the banner of a new theocracy called Islam, they posed the greatest external threat yet to both empire & Xtendom.
B. The Moslems • 1. Mohammed The Prophet • The religion of Islam was the product of the mind & spirit of a single individual, Mohammed, its prophet (570-632). • Orphaned at 6, M. was reared by an uncle in the Quraysh tribe, which had control of the Kaaba, the national religious shrine of the Arabs. • The Kaaba contained the sacred Black Stone & the well reputedly kicked up by the infant Ishmael when Hagar left him to search for water (Gen. 21:8-21).
B. The Moslems • 1. Mohammed The Prophet • M. became disillusioned by the idolatrous worship & degenerate behavior he observed in connection with Arabian religion, & when he began making caravan trips to Syria & Palestine, his religious feelings increased. • He became the business manager of a rich widow, Khadijah, whom he married. • His 2 sons by Khadijah died in childhood, & only 1 of 4 daughgters, Fatima, survived.
B. The Moslems • 1. Mohammed The Prophet • His wealth enabled him to have wider religious contacts & more leisure time for long periods of reflection on religion. • One night in the hills near Mecca, in a cave on Mt. Hira, he said that he had a vision of the angel Gabriel telling him to recite. • He went home & produced the entire 96th sura of the Koran. • In a 2nd appearance, Gabriel commissioned him a prophet of the Lord, & subsequent revelations that make up the Koran came frequently.
B. The Moslems • 1. Mohammed The Prophet • M. began proclaiming the Day of the Lord in the marketplace. • The day was to be one of resurrection, final judgment, & everlasting fire. • Though people were impressed with his poetic oratory, after 4 yrs he had only 40 converts. • Because of his attacks on the Kaaba, the Quraysh disturbed his meetings with violence, & he feared for his life.
B. The Moslems • 1. Mohammed The Prophet • 300 mi to the north, 6 men left the Medina to seek out Mohammed as the leader who might bring the tribes of Medina & Mecca together. • They arrived in Mecca just in time to help him escape assassination. • Thus, in 622, M. & his followers made their great Hegira flight to Medina, marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar. • In Medina he became the undisputed leaders of a religious theocracy, defended the city against Meccan attacks & boldly attacked & captured Mecca itself.
