Timeline of Biblical History
* The Masoretic text which lacks the 650 years of the Septuagint is the text used by most modern Bibles. There is no consensus of which is right, however, without the additional 650 years in the Septuagint, according to Egyptologists the great Pyramids of Giza would pre-date the Flood (yet show no signs of water erosion) and provide no time for Tower of Babel event.
* AM – Anno Mundi (from Latin “in the year of the world”) abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras have seen notable use historically:
Since the Middle Ages, the Hebrew calendar has been based on rabbinic calculations of the year of creation from the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Bible. This calendar is used within Jewish communities for religious purposes and is one of two official calendars in Israel. In the Hebrew calendar, the day begins at sunset. The calendar’s epoch, corresponding to the calculated date of the world’s creation, is equivalent to sunset on the Julian proleptic calendar date 6 October 3761 BC. The new year begins at Rosh Hashanah, in Tishrei. Anno mundi 5784 (meaning the 5,784th year since the creation of the world) began at sunset on 15 September 2023 according to the Gregorian calendar.
The Byzantine calendar was used in the Eastern Roman Empire and many Christian Orthodox countries and Eastern Orthodox Churches and was based on the Septuagint text of the Bible. That calendar is similar to the Julian calendar except that its reference date is equivalent to 1 September 5509 BC on the Julian proleptic calendar.
The Pre-Christian Background
5509 BC: This year was the starting point for the apo ktiseos kosmou (AKK) or anno mundi (AM) chronological system commonly employed by East Roman (Byzantine) scholars from about the fifth century. In this system, then, 1 A.D. corresponds to the year of the world 5509/5510. 2001 A.D. is thus 7509/7510, 7509 through 31 August and 7510 thereafter, since the East Roman year began with 1 September. (A variant system, known as the Alexandrian era and attributed to the fifth century monk Panodorus, began on August 29, 5493 B.C.) anno mundi, the year dating from the year of creation in Jewish chronology, based on rabbinic calculations. Since the 9th century ad, various dates between 3762 and 3758 bc have been advanced by Jewish scholars as the time of creation, but the exact date of Oct. 7, 3761 bc, is now generally accepted in Judaism.
5199 BC: In the Anno Mundi chronological system attributed to Eusebius and common in the West before the adoption of the Anno Domini system, this year was the starting point.
4004 BC: The year of the creation according to Bishop Ussher (1581-1656), an Anglo-Irish (Protestant) priest.
3761 BC: Creation generally accepted by Judaism
BC: Adam was formed (Genesis 2:7)
BC: Enoch was born (Genesis 5:18)
BC: Noah was born (Genesis 5:28)
3000-2700 BC: 1st and 2nd dynasties of Egypt • Menes is the traditional founder of the 1st dynasty
2700-2600 BC: 3rd dynasty of Egypt • The pyramid age begins with the Step Pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser in 2650 BC
2600-2500 BC: 4th dynasty of Egypt. The Great Pyramid (Gen 12:14) becomes one of the seven wonders of the world.
2630 BC: Great Pyramids of Egypt constructed
2500-2350 BC: 5th dynasty of Egypt
2590 BC: The Flood, The fourth dynasty of Egypt
2587 BC: The Great Pyramid of Giza
2500 BC: Iron objects manufactured in the ancient Near East; Egyptians use papyrus and ink for writing.
2400 BC: Egyptians import gold from other parts of Africa
2350-2160 BC: 6th-8th dynasty of Egypt. Weni, an Egyptian official, records 5 military expeditions against the “Sand-dwellers” of southern Canaan.
2348 BC: Usshers date for the Flood of Noah
2331 BC: Sumerian king, Sargon, becomes first “world conqueror”
2300 BC: Horses domesticated in Egypt
2198 BC: The Covenant of Circumcision; Sodom and Gomorrah
2166 BC: (Early Exodus) Abram was born
2160 BC: Collapse of Old Kingdom in Egypt
2156 BC: (Early Exodus) Sarai is born
2137 BC: Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt
2100 BC: Ziggurats built in Mesopotamia (Ziggurat: massive structure built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid)
2091 BC: (Early Exodus) Abram moves to Canaan (Gen 12:4,5)
2080 BC: (Early Exodus) Ishmael is born.
2067 BC: (Early Exodus) Ishmael is circumcised (Gen 17:24, 25)
2066 BC: (Early Exodus) Issac is born (Gen 21:2-5)
2050-1650 BC: Middle Kingdom of Egypt
2046 BC: Joseph was born
2040-1786 BC: The Middle Kingdom in Egypt
2029 BC: (Early Exodus) Sarah dies in Hebron (Gen 23:1,2)
2026 BC: (Early Exodus) Issac marries Rebekah (Gen 25:20)
2009 BC: 7 years of famine (Genesis 41:54)
2006 BC: Jacob and Esau are born
2000 BC: Stonehenge erected in England (estimated)
2000-1500 BC: Middle Bronze Age
1995 BC: (Late Exodus) Abram is born.
1991 BC: (Early Exodus) Abraham dies and is buried in Hebron (Gen 25:7-10)
1985 BC: (Late Exodus) Sarai is born
1963-1786 BC: 12th dynasty of Egypt
1936 BC: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – a constituent of the apocryphal scriptures connected with the Bible. It is believed to be a pseudepigraphal work of the dying commands of the twelve sons of Jacob. It is part of the Oskan Armenian Orthodox Bible of 1666. Fragments of similar writings were found at Qumran, but opinions are divided as to whether these are the same texts. It is generally considered apocalyptic literature.
1929 BC: Jacob flees to Haran
1920 BC: (Late Exodus) Abram moves to Canaan (Gen 12:4, 5)
1915 BC: Joseph is born:
1909 BC: (Late Exodus) Ishmael is born (Gen 16:15, 16).
1900 BC: Spoked wheels invented (estimated)
1898 BC: Joseph sold into slavery
1896 BC: (Late Exodus) Ishmael is circumcised (Gen 17:24, 25).
1895 BC: (Late Exodus) Issac is born (Gen 21:2-5).
1885 BC: Joseph rules Egypt
1876 BC: Jacob moves to Egypt (based on early Exodus Gen 46:3)
1858 BC: (Late Exodus) Sarah dies in Hebron (Gen 23:1,2)
1805 BC: Joseph dies
1792-1750 BC: Hammurabi 6th King of the 1st dynasty of Babylon
1750 BC: Hammurabi of Babylon provides first written law code (estimated) (M449)
1657 – 1526 BC: Moses was born (Exodus 2:1)
1577 BC: The Ten Plagues and the Passover (Exodus 7:7)
1575 BC: 18th dynasty of Egypt
1526 BC: Moses is born
1500-1445 BC: Exodus, Moses leads his people out of slavery in Egypt; Mexican Sun Pyramid built
1445 BC: The first written Word of God: The Ten Commandments delivered to Moses. The second Passover.
1443 BC: Israel refuses to enter Canaan
1440 BC: Unknown, Book of Job, perhaps the oldest book of the bible is written; First metal-working in South America
1445-1405: Book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
1440 BC: First metal working in South Africa
1406 BC: Moses dies; Joshua leads Israel into Canaan
1405-1385 BC: Book of Joshua
1400 BC: water clock invented in Egypt
1380 BC: Palace of Knossos on Island of Crete destroyed by earthquake
1376 BC: Judges begin to rule in Israel
1358 BC: King Tutankhamen buried in Egypt, discovered in 1922
1353-1313 BC: Othniel, the first Judge
1250 BC: Silk fabrics manufactured in China
1213 BC: Israel Stele (Merneptah Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah), is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. The text is largely an account of Merneptah’s victory over the ancient Libyans and their allies, but the last three of the 28 lines deal with a separate campaign in Canaan, then part of Egypt’s imperial possessions. It is sometimes referred to as the “Israel Stele” because a majority of scholars translate a set of hieroglyphs in line 27 as “Israel”. Alternative translations have been advanced but are not widely accepted.
1209 BC: Deborah becomes Israel’s judge
1200 BC: First Chinese dictionary; Philistines land on coast of Canaan
1183 BC: Destruction of Troy during the Trojan War
1162 BC: Gideon becomes Israel’s judge
1105 BC: Samuel is born
1075 BC: The Ark of the Covenant captured by the Philistines (1 Samuel; 4:10); David slew Goliath and entered Saul’s service; Samuel becomes Israel’s final judge.
1050 BC: Saul becomes King
1043 BC: Book of Judges
1030-1010 BC: Book of Ruth (ESVSB: Anytime after 1010BC)
1025 BC: David becomes King
1020 BC: David defeats Goliath
1010 BC: David becomes king in Judah
1003 BC: David becomes king over all Israel
1000 BC: Mayans settle in the Yucatan peninsula; Native Americans in California build wood-reed houses
997 BC: David sins with Bathsheba
970-853: 1 Kings
970 BC: Solomon becomes King, begins building the first temple
971-965 BC: Books of Song of Songs
971–686 BC: Book of Proverbs
960 BC: The Temple is completed
950 BC: Gold vessels and jewelry popular in Northern Europe
940-931 BC: Book of Ecclesiastes
931-722 BC: Books of 1& 2 Samuel
930 BC: Israel divides into two nations
922 BC: Rehoboam King of Judah
915 BC: Abijam King of Judah
910 BC: Asa begins to rule in Judah
900 BC: Celts invade Britain
885 BC: Omri begins to rule in Israel
875 BC: Elijah begins his ministry
853 BC: Ahab dies in battle
850 BC: Evidence of highly developed metal and stone sculptures in Africa
848 BC: Elisha’s ministry begins
835 BC: Joash begins to rule in Judah
814 BC: Founding of Carthage
850 BC: Evidence of highly developed metal and stone sculptures in Africa
850-840 BC: Book of Obadiah
835-796 BC: Book of Joel
814 BC: Founding of Carthage
793 BC: Jonah begins his ministry
776 BC: First known Olympics
775 BC: Book of Jonah
760 BC: Amos begins his ministry
753 BC: Legendary date for founding of Rome, Used in the A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae) system. 754 A.U.C. = 1 A.D. The Roman year began with the Kalends of March (1 March).
750 BC: Book of Amos; earliest musical notation in Greece
750-710 BC: Book of Hosea
740 BC: Isaiah begins his ministry
735-710 BC: Book of Micah
722 BC: Assyria destroys Samaria • The fall of Israel to Shalmanesser V and Sargon II of Assyria.
710 BC: First known lock and key in the palace in Assyria
700-681 BC: Book of Isaiah; false teeth invented in Italy; Sennacherib taunts Hezekiah
660 BC: Japan founded as a nation
650 BC: Soldering of Iron invented
650 BC: Book of Nahum
648 BC: Horse racing first held at 33rd Olympics
635 BC: Book of Zephaniah
627 BC: Jeremiah begins his ministry
622 BC: Law scroll found in the Temple
615-605 BC: Book of Habakkuk
612 BC: Nineveh destroyed
609 BC: Neco kills Josiah in battle
605 BC: First captivity; Daniel taken to Babylon
600 BC: The Temple of Artemis is constructed in Ephesus
597 BC: Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquers Judah; Second captivity; Ezekiel taken to Babylon
590-570 BC: Book of Ezekiel
586 BC: Book of Lamentations; • Jerusalem destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces after a two-year siege.
586-570 BC: Book of Jeremiah; Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem
585 BC: Greek astronomer Thales predicts an eclipse
582 BC: Pythagoras Greek philosopher and mathematician, is born
573 BC: Ezekiel’s vision of a restored Temple
563 BC: Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism is born in India
562 BC: King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon dies
561-538 BC: Books of 1 & 2 Kings
560 BC: Aesop writes his fables
553 BC: Daniel’s first vision
551 BC: Confucius born
550 BC: Cyrus the Great conquers the Medes, founding the Persian Empire
540 BC: Horseback postal service in the Persian Empire
539 BC: Fall of Babylon – Cyrus of Persia (559-530) captured Babylon in October. Soon thereafter, proclaimed temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. • About 50,000 Jews returned.; • Daniel thrown to the lions.
538 BC: Daniel prays for his people; Cyrus allows exiles to return to Jerusalem; Zerubbabel leads 50,000 people back to Jerusalem
~537 BC: Return of Jewish exiles under Sheshbazzar, with Zerubabbel (grandson of Jehoiachin, the last of David’s ancestors to enjoy political power) and Jeshua (Ezra 2.2).
536 BC: Book of Daniel • Rebuilding of the temple begun (Ezra 3.8).
525 BC: Polo played as a sport in Persia
522 BC: Darius I (522-486) king of Persia.
520 BC: Book of Haggai; Public libraries open in Athens, Greece; Haggai and Zechariah serve as prophets. • Rebuilding of the temple reinitiated during Darius’ second year (Ezra 4.24). • Haggai and Zechariah began preaching around this year.
515-516 BC: Second Temple completed in Jerusalem, completed in Darius’ sixth year (Ezra 6.15).
509 BC: Rome becomes a republic
500 BC: Earliest copies of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”
490 BC: Greeks repel Persia in the Battle of Marathon
486 BC: Reign of Xerxes (486-465), king of Persia.
483 BC: Book of Esther
480-470 BC: Book of Zechariah
479 BC: Esther becomes queen of Persia
473 BC: Festival of Purim originates
469 BC: Socrates famous philosopher, is born
465 BC: Reign of Artaxerxes (465-424), king of Persia.
460 BC: Hippocrates the father of modern medicine, is born
458 BC: Ezra leads another group of returning exiles • Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem. He called an assembly – the people separated themselves from their foreign wives (Ezra 10).
457-444 BC: Book of Ezra; The Golden Age begins in Athens, Greece
450-430 BC: Books of 1 & 2 Chronicles
450-331 BC: Book of Esther
448 BC: The Parthenon is built in Athens, Greece
445 BC: Nehemiah travels to Jerusalem as governor and oversees the reconstruction of the city’s wall (Nehemiah 6.15). Ezra read the Law aloud to the people near the Water Gate (Neh. 8.3).
433-424 BC: Book of Malachi, Malachi likely written when Nehemiah briefly returned to Persia during this year and the people again disregarded the Law.
429 BC: Plato born, writes “The Republic” in 370 BC
424-400 BC: Book of Nehemiah
400-200 BC: Book of Tobit (Apocrypha)
400-100 BC: Book of Jeremiah (Apocrypha)
399 BC: Socrates condemned to death
384 BC: Aristotle born
370 BC: Plato writes “The Republic”
332 BC: Alexander the Great conquered Palestine.
330 BC: Alexander the Great defeats the Persian Empire
312 BC: Romans build first paved road, the Appian Way”
300-100 BC: Greek Esther (Apocrypha)
255-250 BC: Hebrew Old Testament begins to be translated into Greek (The Septuagint) The Septuagint translation of the Torah accomplished in Alexandria, Egypt, about this time under Ptolemy Philadelphus.
241 BC: Romans conquer Sicily
215 BC: Great Wall of China
200 BC: Completion of The Septuagint Greek Manuscripts which contain the 39 Old Testament Books AND 14 Apocrypha Books. Septuagint (LXX) – Greek translation of the Hebrew. 72 Jewish scholars translated in 72 days in Alexandria. Reminiscent of the 72 elders with Moses in the presence of the lord (Exodus 24:9-11. The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible was made into Greek, probably as early as the third century BC. This, the so-called Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, is traditionally dated to the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 BC).
190 BC: Sirach (Apocrypha)
175 BC: Rule of Palestine transferred from the Ptolemies (Egypt) to the Seleucids (Syria). Antioches Epiphanes (175-164) came to power as Seleucid ruler of Palestine. He attempted to Hellenize the Jews.
169 BC: Antiochus IV plunders Jerusalem Temple
165 BC: Judas Maccabeus begins a revolt against Antiochus IV
166-164 BC: The Maccabean Revolt and Hasmonean Kingdom, The Maccabean revolt (166-142), led by Mattathias. Judea became independent of the Seleucids. The Hasmonean dynasty (Mattathias’ descendants).
139 BC: Jews and astrologers banished from Rome
130-100 BC: The 1st Book of Maccabees (Apocrypha)
102 BC: First Chinese ships reach east coast of India
100 BC: Julius Ceasar born, becomes dictator 46 BC. ; Book of Baruch (Apocrypha); Book of Judith (Apocrypha)
100-80 BC: Book of 1 Enoch (Apocrypha); 2nd Book of Maccabees (Apocrypha)
63 BC: Pompey conquered Jerusalem for Rome.
55 BC: Romans conquer England
51 BC: Cleopatra becomes last independent Egyptian ruler
50-40 BC: The 3rd Book of Maccabees (Apocrypha)
50-40 BC: Book of Wisdom of Solomon (Apocrypha)
46 BC: Julius Caesar becomes dictator for life, assassinated 2 years later
43 BC: Octavian (Caesar’s nephew, later known as Augustus), Mark Antony, and Leupidus ruled Rome as a triumvirate.
44 BC: Caesar assassinated, 15 March. The Ides of March, a turning point in history
42 BC: The Senate recognized Julius Caesar as a god.
37 BC: Herod the Great (ruled 37-4? BC) became king of Judea, appointed by the senate of Rome.
30 BC: In August, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide in Alexandria after their defeat by Octavian’s forces. In spite of the fact that Herod had backed Antony, Octavian confirmed him as king of Judea.
23 BC: Sumo wrestling in Japan
20 BC: Herod the Great begins remodeling Temple in Jerusalem; • Mary, Jesus’ mother is born
6 BC: Judea becomes a Roman province; • Jesus is born
4 BC: Herod the Great dies
First Century
1st Century: Completion of All Original Greek Manuscripts which make up the 27 Books of the New Testament. C. 51-125 AD ● Prayer of Manasseh – a short, penitential prayer attributed to king Manasseh of Judah. The majority of scholars believe that the Prayer of Manasseh was written in Greek (while a minority argues for a Semitic original) in the second or first century BC. It is recognized that it could also have been written in the first half of the 1st century AD, but in any case, before the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. Another work by the same title, written in Hebrew, was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q381:17). ● Assumption of Moses – also known as the Testament of Moses, is a 1st-century Jewish apocryphal work. It purports to contain secret prophecies Moses revealed to Joshua before passing leadership of the Israelites to him. It is characterized as a “testament”, meaning the final speech of a dying person, Moses. ● The Life of Adam and Eve, also known in its Greek version as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish apocryphal group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including Eve’s version of the story. Satan explains that he rebelled when God commanded him to bow down to Adam. After Adam dies, he and all his descendants are promised a resurrection.
1: Saddles first used in Europe
5: Paul is born
6: Jesus visits the Temple as a boy
7: Zealots in Judea rebel against Rome
14: Tiberius succeeds Caesar Augustus as Roman emperor. Augustus died on August 19. On September 17, the Senate in Rome decreed that Augustus Caesar was one of the gods, and it named Tiberius emperor. (If Luke 3.1 dates “the reign of Tiberius Caesar” from this year, his fifteenth year was 28/29 A.D.)
20-54: 4th Maccabees (Apocrypha)
20-54: 2nd Enoch (Apocrypha)
26: John the Baptist begins his ministry
27: Jesus begins his ministry
29: John the Baptist is beheaded
30-33: Jesus is crucified; The Holy Spirit descends on Pentecost
35: Saul’s conversion on the Damascus Rd.
37: Caligula becomes the Roman emperor
39/40: Philo of Alexandria (15/10 BC – 45/50) led an embassy of Jews from Alexandria to the emperor Caligula (37-41) in Rome. The Jews of Alexandria were then the subject of a Roman pogrom, which Philo and his companions hoped to end. Caligula, however, cut Philo off as he spoke. Philo later told his fellow ambassadors that God would punish Caligula, who was soon assassinated.
40: Herod Agrippa appointed king of Judea; the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10)
41: Claudius becomes the Roman emperor • Jerusalem expanded. New city walls were built, bringing the site of Jesus’ crucifixion within the city.
42: James, the brother of John, was beheaded (Acts 12.2).
43: The emperor Claudius (41-54) conquered Britain. Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch (Acts 11.25-26).
44: Death of Herod Agrippa I, King of Judea and Samaria (Acts 12.23).
45: The church in Antioch sent famine relief to the Christians of Judea by the hands of Saul and Barnabas (Acts 11.29).
46: Paul and Barnabas begin his first missionary journey (Acts 13-14)
44-49: Book of James; The Jerusalem Council (AD 49) • According to the Roman historian Suetonius (70-122) in his The Twelve Caesars, Claudius “expelled the Jews from Rome since they rioted constantly at the instigation of Chrestus.”
49/50: The council of Jerusalem was held (Acts 15). As a result, Gentiles were not required to be circumcised. Death of Helena, queen mother of the kingdom of Adiabene, a Jewish state in northern Mesopotamia. Adiabene was frequently allied with Persia in wars against Rome. The emperor Claudius promoted the cult of the Great Mother (Magna Mater) of the Gods and her consort Attis. The two had been introduced into the Roman pantheon around 200 B.C.
50: Romans begin using soap • The council of Jerusalem was held (Acts 15). As a result, Gentiles were not required to be circumcised. Death of Helena, queen mother of the kingdom of Adiabene, a Jewish state in northern Mesopotamia. Adiabene was frequently allied with Persia in wars against Rome. • The emperor Claudius promoted the cult of the Great Mother (Magna Mater) of the Gods and her consort Attis. The two had been introduced into the Roman pantheon around 200 B.C. • Paul’s second missionary journey began, with Silas (Acts 15.40). Paul and Silas visited Philippi (Acts 16.11-40), meeting Lydia, the seller of purple, and being rescued from prison, with the consequent conversion of the Philippian jailor (Acts 16.33); Thessalonica, where there was a riot on their behalf (Acts 17.5); Boroea, where the Jews willingly examined the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah (Acts 17.11); Athens, where Paul preached in the Areopagus (Acts 17.22-31); Corinth, where he met Aquila and Priscilla, refugees because of Claudius’ expulsion of the Jews from Rome (Acts 18.2); and Ephesus, Caesarea, and Jerusalem before returning to Antioch (Acts 18.22).
53: Book of Galatians, Paul’s epistle to the Galatians written from Antioch (?). • Beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey. Paul in Ephesus, 53-55/56. (Acts 19)
54: Emperor Claudius poisoned by order of his wife; Nero becomes the Roman emperor
57: Paul in prison in Caesarea
59: Paul’s voyage to Rome
50-60: Book of Mark, written in Rome – John Mark wrote in the mid to late 50’s (ESVSB)
49-51: Book of 1st Thessalonians, Paul wrote 1st Thessalonians early in his 18-month stay in Corinth. (Acts 18:1-18) • 2nd Thessalonians probably penned from Corinth shortly after 1st Thessalonians.
55: Book of 1st Corinthians, Paul wrote Corinthians, from Ephesus, in the Roman province of Asia (16:8, 19) sometime before Pentecost (16:8; cf. Lev 23:11, 15). 53, 54 or 55 near the end of his three-year ministry in Ephesus (1Cor 16:5-9 cf. Acts 19:21-22)
55-56: Book of 2nd Corinthians. Paul departed Ephesus (Acts 20.1), visiting Macedonia and Corinth. 2nd Corinthians written from Macedonia.
57-59: Book of Romans, Paul wrote Romans from Corinth. Departed Greece (Acts 20.3), and after passing through Troas (Acts 20.7-12), and preaching to the presbyters of the church in Ephesus (Acts 20.18-35), came to Jerusalem (Acts 21.17), ending the third missionary journey. • Paul imprisoned in Caesarea (Acts 23.33-26.32), under Felix and Festus.
58-60: Paul arrived at Rome (Acts 28.16). Paul released from prison. There is no record of Paul being released from prison in Caesarea. Instead, he was transferred to Rome for trial, where he was eventually placed under house arrest (Acts 28:16-31). It is possible that Paul’s Roman trial was delayed or prolonged, leading to his extended imprisonment in Caesarea.
58-62 ?: Book of Matthew. Some scholars argue for a date later that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Jesus alludes to this in 24:1-28. Iranaeus asserted that Matthew was composed while Peter and Paul were still alive. Traditionally dated late 50’s to early 60’s.
60-62: Paul wrote the Books of Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon, Colossians
62: According to tradition, James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, was killed in the temple by an angry mob, apparently struck in the head with a sledgehammer. Tradition has it Bartholomew was martyred in Kalyana, a city state on the west coast of India, near modern-day Bombay. Bartholomew was skinned alive and crucified. Paul tried and acquitted in Rome.
60-61: Book of Luke, written after the events that Luke recorded in Acts 28 (C. AD 62)
61-64: Book of Acts; Fire burns Rome, Nero blames Christians (AD 64)
64: 1st Persecution of Christians, under Nero. When Rome burned for six days, Nero (54-68) blamed the Christians. In 62, Nero had married Poppea Sabina, a proselyte to Judaism. Of Nero’s persecution, Tacitus wrote, “First Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned. …Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animal’s skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight.” Suetonius was more succinct: “Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief.”• A third century legend has it that Simon Magus (Acts 8.9-24) and St. Peter had confrontations in Rome. Simon, wishing to gain an advantage over Peter and to impress Claudius with his ability to fly, fell to his death from the top of the Roman Forum. • The church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, the disciple of Peter. • Herod’s temple in Jerusalem completed.
63-66: Paul traveled to Macedonia, Asia Minor, Crete, and possibly Spain. 1 Timothy and Titus written.
64-65: Book of 1 Peter
64-68: Paul martyred, According to historical traditions and accounts, Paul the Apostle was martyred in Rome during the Neronian Persecution, which occurred around 64-68 CE. Paul martyred on the road from Rome to Ostia. Beheaded by the sword. (2 Tim 4:6-8) About this same time St. Peter also martyred, crucified upside down. The exact date of his martyrdom is not certain, but it is believed to have taken place:
1) During the reign of Emperor Nero (54-68 CE), possibly around 64 CE, following the Great Fire of Rome.
2) Under the prefects of the city, Nero being absent at the time, as described by some early Christian writers.
3)At Aquae Salviae, a location about three miles from Rome, on February 22, according to some traditions.
66: 1st Jewish / Roman war • Jewish rebellion began and war between the Romans and Jews ensued. Jerusalem was taken in 70 and destroyed, as was Herod’s temple. Later, in the second century, Justin Martyr would teach that this destruction was the judgment of God upon a nation that had rejected its Messiah and failed to discern that, under the new dispensation, the temple sacrifices were repealed.
66-67: Book of 2 Timothy; Painting on canvas AD 66) • Some date the book of Revelation to this year. Most place it toward the end of Diocletian’s reign (81-96). Paul’s second trial in Rome. 2 Timothy written. • First known public reference to Mithraism in Rome. King Tiridates of Armenia visited Nero in Rome.
67-68: Book of 2nd Peter; Romans destroy a religious commune at Qumran (AD 68)
67-69: Book of Hebrews • AD 69 According to tradition, St. Andrew was crucified in Patrae, on the Peloponnesus peninsula. • Ignatius became bishop of Antioch in Syria.
68-70: Book of Jude • Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was born. He died in around 157. • Near this date, R. Jochanan ben Zaccai founded a rabbinical school in Jamnia (Palestine).
72: Tradition has it Thomas was stabbed to death by Brahman priests in Mylapore, India.
73: Jews commit mass suicide at Masada while under Roman attack
74: China opens silk trade with the West
75: Rome begins construction on the Colosseum
79: Mount Vesuvius erupts • According to tradition, Jude and Simon were torn apart by a Persian mob after this date. Simon had joined forces with Jude after a trip to Britain. Jude had been in Armenia.
80: The Coliseum at Rome opened.
81: Domitian becomes the Roman emperor
81-96: Book of Revelation
80-90: Book of John
90: The Jewish Synod of Jamnia established the Hebrew canon, the modern Protestant Old Testament. Esther, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and Ezekiel were nearly left out of the canon, while Sirach was a strong but unsuccessful contender for inclusion. Rabbis at Jamnia also articulated the theory that every letter in the Hebrew has a meaning. It is thought by many that, as a natural consequence of this view of scripture, a standard text was chosen around this time and non-standard readings were suppressed. • According to tradition, Philip was crucified upside down (like Peter) in Hierapolis, Asia Minor. (Some say that Philip the apostle and Philip the evangelist were two distinct individuals, and it was Philip the evangelist who was buried at Hierapolis.) • According to Hippolytus, Matthew died a natural death, in Hierees, Persia.
92: Clement elected bishop of Rome. Served through 100. He wrote a letter to the Corinthian congregation which had deposed its old clergy and replaced them with new men. He asked that they retain the former clergy on the grounds that these stood in due succession from the apostles. “The Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions would arise about the office of the Episcopate; and for this reason, being endued with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those already mentioned, and handed down a succession, so that when they should depart, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.” (~97.) In 2 Clement, which may be a second century document, it is written, “Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God … for if we think meanly of him, we shall hope only to receive some small things from him.”
93: 2nd Persecution of Christians, under Domitian (81-96). The apostle John banished to Patmos. • Flavius Josephus (37/38-100) published his Antiquities of the Jews. Book 18 refers to Jesus Christ. Scholars believe the statement was tampered with by Christians at a later date, because it refers to Christ as divine. Josephus had been a leader of troops against the Romans in Galilee during the war (66-70). When captured, he predicted that Vespasian would become emperor, a move that saved his life. Josephus wrote a history of the war, and, because of the favoritism he received from the Roman emperors, was detested by his fellow Jews as a traitor.
90-95: Books of 1st, 2nd, 3rd John
Second Century
2nd Century: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – a constituent of the apocryphal scriptures connected with the Bible. It is believed to be a pseudepigraphal work of the dying commands of the twelve sons of Jacob. It is part of the Oskan Armenian Orthodox Bible of 1666. Fragments of similar writings were found at Qumran, but opinions are divided as to whether these are the same texts. It is generally considered apocalyptic literature.
100: Around this time St. John died at Patmos. (Eusebius, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria agree that John lived into the reign of Trajan, which began in 98.) The Didache, written in this era, indicates worship was on Sunday: “Assemble on the Lord’s Day, and break bread and offer the eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one.” Note also the implication that communion was regarded as a sacrifice. • Around this time the heretic Cerinthus flourished.
105: Justin Martyr born. Died 165.
107: 3rd Persecution of Christians, under Trajan (98-117). Ignatius of Antioch martyred in Rome. According to Severus, after Trajan discovered that Christians were guilty of no great crimes, he forbade any additional cruelty against them.
110: Marcion, leader of a heretical sect, born. Died 165. Marcion rejected the Old Testament God, the creator of this miserable world, and hence he rejected the Old Testament also. He believed it impossible that Jesus, the redeemer of mankind, had been born of a woman. • Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, lived in this era. He is the source of the tradition that Mark’s gospel was based on Peter’s testimony. Papias was a chiliast. Eusebius of Caesarea was of the opinion that Papias learned his millennialism from a certain John the presbyter. According to this view, others (including Irenaeus – see 177 below) understood Papias – incorrectly – to have gotten his view from the apostle John, and so were convinced there would be a literal millennium.
112: Pliny the Younger (61/62 – 113), governor of Bithynia, wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan. He stated that the Christians “are accustomed on a stated day to meet before daylight, to sing antiphonally a hymn to Christ as to God, and to bind themselves by a sacrament not to commit any wickedness.”
115: Trajan narrowly survived an earthquake that devastated Antioch. • Revolt of the Jews of Cyrene.
116: Hadrian expelled the Jews from Cyprus after suppressing their revolt, in which many (traditionally 240,000) Greek inhabitants of the island were massacred.
118: 4th Persecution of Christians, under the emperor Hadrian (117-138). According to Severus, Hadrian set up “images of demons” on the temple mount and Golgotha. Hadrian also set guards to prevent Jews from approaching Jerusalem.
122-127: Building of Hadrian’s wall. It took around six years to complete, with Roman soldiers from the Second, Sixth, and Twentieth Legions working on the project. The wall was constructed in two phases: the eastern section, from Newcastle to the River Irthing, was built using stone, while the western section, from the River Irthing to Bowness-on-Solway, was built using turf blocks.
125: Papyrus 52 was written around this time. It is the oldest extant New Testament fragment, containing parts of John 18:31-33 and 37-38.
127-142: Ptolemy, an astronomer, geographer, and mathematician flourished in Alexandria. His earth-centered model of the universe held the field until 1542, when Copernicus supplied a solar-centered model. Ptology’s estimate of the earth’s circumference was 30 percent below the actual value.
130-132: The emperor Hadrian (117-138) rebuilt Jerusalem, calling it Aelia Capitolina (after himself – Aelius Hadrian). He erected a temple to Jupiter there. A special tax was levied on the Jews to pay for the upkeep of the temple Jupiter Capitolinus. • A certain Aquila produced a new, very literal Greek translation of the Old Testament. Aquila was a disciple of the Rabbi Akiba and a proselyte to Judaism. The purpose of his translation was to supplant the Septuagint. (Incidentally, Rabbi Akiba supported Bar-Cocheba, believing that he fulfilled Messianic prophecies.) • The Epistle of Barnabas was written sometime between the fall of Jerusalem (70) and this date. Known only in a Latin version for most of history, the complete Greek text was brought to light in 1859 with the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus. The epistle explains Old Testament events and practices in an allegorical manner, applying them to Christ and the Church. Barnabas identifies the one who became incarnate for our salvation with him to whom God said, “Let us make man in our image.”
135: Another Jewish rebellion began, this one led by Bar-Cocheba. According to Justin, “In the recent Jewish war, Bar-Cocheba … ordered that only the Christians should be subjected to dreadful torments, unless they renounced and blasphemed Jesus Christ.”
140: Marcion, a businessman in Rome, taught that there were two Gods: Yahweh, the cruel God of the Old Testament, and Abba, the kind father of the New Testament. Marcion eliminated the Old Testament as scriptures and, since he was anti-Semitic, kept from the New Testament only 10 letters of Paul and 2/3 of Luke’s gospel (he deleted references to Jesus’ Jewishness). Marcion’s “New Testament”, the first to be compiled, forced the mainstream Church to decide on a core canon: the four Gospels and Letters of Paul. • Justin Martyr wrote his Apology to the emperor Antonius Pius (138-61). • Aristo of Pella wrote his Disputation of Papiscus and Jason, a dialogue between a Jew and a Christian regarding the truth of the Christian faith. This work is now known only through second-hand references.
144: Marcion excommunicated by the presbyters in Rome. Marcion, a wealthy shipper, had donated 22,000 sesterces to the church in Rome. It was returned to him as he left.
155: Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome and found the Romans did not celebrate Easter as it was done in the East (see year 190). This was when Anicetus was bishop of Rome.
157: Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, died. Polycarp was burned at the stake in Smyrna. A year later, the anniversary of Polycarp’s martyrdom was celebrated. The first “saint’s day” thus began.
160: Grave of Peter was marked by a shrine. The annual celebration of Easter may have began in Rome around this year. It had been celebrated in Asia Minor much earlier. • Tertullian was born. He died in roughly 230.
165: Death of Justin Martyr.
165-180: The Plague of Antoninus. Smallpox was introduced into the western part of the Roman empire, possibly by Roman soldiers. According to Galen, one-fourth to one-third of the population of Italy died of smallpox during this period.
167: According to the Venerable Bede, the bishop of Rome, Eleutherus, received a request for baptism from a British king in this year.
168: Theophilus (died 181 or 188) became bishop of Antioch. Though reportedly the author of commentaries on the gospels and the book of Proverbs, his sole surviving work is apologetic in character, addressed to his pagan friend Autolycus. (Theophilus also seems to have written a chronology of the world, based on Biblical dates. The historian John Malalas (d. 538) cited a Theophilus, whose identity is otherwise uncertain, as a source in his historical writings.)
170: Melito of Sardis (died 177, under Aurelius’ persecution) traveled to Palestine where he obtained a list of books in the Hebrew Old Testament. His list omits Esther. • Hegesippus flourished around this time. He was an early chronicler of Church history.
~ 175: In the latter half of the second century, the Epistula Apostolorum was written. The work depicts Jesus commanding his followers to observe the Pascha “until I return from the Father with my wounds.” The Pascha in view appears to have been observed on 14/15 Nisan.
177: 5th Persecution of the church, under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180). About this time also Gnostic heretics disturbed the churches of the Rhone valley. These churches were largely Greek, having close connections with the churches of Asia Minor. Gnostics provoked much of the work of Irenaeus of Lyons. • Irenaeus, a pupil of Polycarp, was elected bishop of Lyons, then called Lugdunum, in Gaul. Born in 130. Died 200.
179: Conversion of Bardesanes (154-222) to Christianity. Unfortunately, he was influenced by Gnostic thought, denying the immediate creation by God of the universe and Satan, introducing a series of intermediate beings instead. Bardesanes thus became a leading figure in Syrian Gnosticism. • Mandaeanism originated sometime during the first three centuries in the Middle East.
180: Before this time, Christianity was established in North Africa, as witnessed by the Latin Acts of the Martyrs of Scillium, written around 180. • Rhodon, about whom little is known, wrote works against the Cataphrygians and the Marcionites. • Theophilus, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, attested that the churches in Palestine and Alexandria observed Easter on a Sunday – which contrasts with the practice of thee churches in Asia Minor.
185: Tertullian (160-230), a native of Carthage, converted to Christianity. According to Jerome, he was a priest. Yet it is clear that he was married. • Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem (185-196). He wrote a work on the origin of evil.
185-254: Origen Hexapla (Sixfold) – This book is one of the earliest examples of textual criticism and scholarly apologetics, as well as a true interlinear Bible. The Hexapla is formatted in six columns: one column of Hebrew text in parallel with five columns of various Greek translations. Origen’s purpose in compiling this was to counter Gnostic and Jewish attacks on early Christianity. This work also provided Christians with a comprehensive guide to the Old Testament. The original is estimated to have been more than 6,500 pages long and took more than 28 years to complete. Lost between the 4th and 7th centuries. Only fragments exist today. • Codex invented – The basic form of the codex was invented in Pergamon in the third century B.C.E. Rivalry between the Pergamene and Alexandrian libraries had resulted in the suspension of papyrus exports from Egypt.
189: Victor became bishop of Rome. Died 199. Victor was the first Latin bishop of Rome. During Victor’s tenure, the Monarchian controversy arose as a revolt against the Logos theology of Justin Martyr.
190: Victor demanded conformity from the churches of the East in the date of Easter. He claimed his method for setting the date for Easter was established by Peter and Paul. The churches of Asia Minor regarded this as autocratic and took offense. • Polycrates (130-196), bishop of Ephesus, wrote to Victor, supporting his Paschal practice by citing the example of the evangelist Philip, the apostle John, the martyred bishop Polycarp, and others. • About this time, of Clement of Alexandria became head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, and served there through 203. Born about 150. Died about 215. Clement was a lay theologian.
192: In a work from around this year, Tertullian mentioned the observance of the Easter vigil.
198: A council meeting in Caesarea of Palestine, led by Theophilos of Caesarea and Narcissos of Jerusalem, with Kassis of Akkar and Karos of Akka present, discussed the issue of the Pascha (Easter). They were determined to celebrate Pascha on a Sunday and wrote to other churches to inform them of their decision. • Zephyrinus became bishop of Rome. Died 217. • The Monarchian controversy continued. • Hippolytus opposed Sabellius with the doctrine that the Father and Son are two distinct persons. Callistus, an emancipated slave and archdeacon of the church, had been exiled to the mines of Sardinia sometime between 188 and 193. • The emperor Commodus (d. 193), at the urging of his Christian concubine Marcia, ordered a general release for all Christians exiled to Sardinia. So Callistus was allowed to return. • Hippolytus is said to be the last Roman theologian to write in Greek. The transformation of the West from Greek to Latin was complete by the time of Constantine. (But see below, year 366.)
200: The periphery of the canon is not yet determined. According to one list, compiled at Rome c. AD 200 (the Muratorian Canon), the NT consists of the 4 gospels; Acts; 13 letters of Paul (Hebrews is not included); 3 of the 7 General Epistles (1-2 John and Jude); and also, the Apocalypse of Peter. Each “city-church” (region) has its own Canon, which is a list of books approved for reading at Mass (Liturgy) • The Jewish Mishnah the Oral Torah is first recorded • The Muratorian Canon, a Latin list of the books of the New Testament, was drawn up in this period. The beginning of the manuscript is missing, and the first book listed as canonical is Luke, followed by John, Acts, Corinthians (two books), Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (two books), Philemon, Titus, and Timothy (two books), Jude, two epistles of John, Wisdom of Solomon, Revelation, and the Apocalypse of Peter. Hebrews and the two epistles of Peter are absent. The Shepherd of Hermas is mentioned as being appropriate for private reading. • Serapion (died ~211), eighth bishop of Antioch, wrote that the Gospel of Peter should be rejected on the grounds that it had not been “handed down to us.” • the population of Rome may have been as much as 1,000,000. Alexandria and Antioch may have had populations of 300,000. The population of Rome fell dramatically in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. (See 552.)
Third Century
Persecution under Septimius Severus, Decius, and Valerian;
Origen,
Callistus,
Hippolytus,
Cyprian,
Stephen of Rome,
Paul of Samosata,
Diocletian,
the Apostolic Constitutions
201: A flood destroyed the Christian church in Edessa.
202: 6th Persecution of the Church, under Septimius Severus (198-211). • Leonides, the father of Origen (see 211 below) was martyred and his property confiscated. • Alban, a Roman soldier, killed in Verulamium during this persecution, in 209. First British martyr. Executed for sheltering a Christian priest.
203: Perpetua, her slave girl Felicitas and four male slaves martyred at Carthage, killed by wild beasts. All but one had been catechumens when arrested and were baptized in prison. Felicitas gave birth there. Perpetua and one male slave, Saturus, experienced visions while imprisoned.
210: Minucius Felix, a North African, wrote his Octavius. An apology for the Christian faith, the Octavius is noted for its excellent Latin.
211: Origen “Adamantius” became head of the catechetical school in Alexandria. He left the school in 232 or 233. Born in Alexandria around 185, Origen had been taught by Ammonius Saccas, the same person who later taught Plotinus (see 244 below). Many speculate that Ammonius was the originator of Neoplatonism. Later, Origen had been instructed by Clement of Alexandria. Origen died in Tyre in 253 or 254. His death was largely due to the harsh treatment he received in prison in Tyre during the Decian persecutions (from about 249). • Apollonius, an opponent of Montanism, flourished.
212: Full citizenship extended to all free inhabitants of the empire.
216: The emperor Caracalla (211-217) took vengeance on the city of Alexandria. His wrath was fiercest against the literary community there, because of certain sarcastic verses that had been written about him for murdering his brother Geta.
217: Callistus (217-222) became bishop of Rome, to Hippolytus’s horror. At some time and in some fashion that is now obscure to us, Hippolytus was also ordained bishop of Rome – speaking in an anachronistic manner, he was an “anti-pope.” Yet he was, soon after his martyrdom, considered a saint of the Church.
220: Around this date, Hippolytus established the date of Christ’s birth as Dec. 25 (see 198). In the East, January 6 was the date assigned for this event. The East adopted the Western view during the fourth century.• The emperor Elagabalus (218-222) introduced the cult of the Syrian sun god Sol to Rome in around this year.
222: Hippolytus introduced a method for computing the date of Pascha (Easter) that involved a 112-year cycle. • Julius Africanus went on an embassy to the emperor Severus to gain his support for the building of Nicopolis in Palestine (formerly Emmaus). Africanus is best known for his chronology, in which he states that the time from Adam to the sixteenth year of Tiberius (29/30 A.D.) is 5531 years. It would thus seem that 1 A.D. is year of the world 5501 in Julius’ chronology. Nevertheless, the chronographer George Synkellos (see 808-10) stated that Africanus dated the creation of the world to 1 A.M. (anno mundi, year of the world — 5501 B.C.), the Flood to 2262 A.M. (3240 B.C.), the Exodus to 3707 A.M. (1795 B.C.), the Incarnation to 5500 A.M. (2 B.C.), and the crucifixion to 5531 A.M. (30 A.D.). • Africanus was also architect for the library Severus built in the Pantheon in Rome, completed in around 227, and he corresponded with Origen, arguing that the book of Susanna (included in the Septuagint text of Daniel) was spurious.
230: From about this year, the bishops of Rome were interred in the Catacomb of San Callisto (“the crypt of the popes”) on the Appian Way.
231: A private house in the city of Dura-Europas on the Euphrates was adapted for Christian worship. This is the earliest known example of a church with religious pictures on the walls. The art appears to have been influenced by similar work in a synagogue in the same city. Depicted on frescoes are Adam and Eve, the Good Shepherd and his flock, the Samaritan woman at the well, Christ walking on the water, the raising of Lazarus, the resurrection of Christ, the healing of the paralytic and David’s victory over Goliath.
232: Dionysius, later to become bishop of Alexandria, succeeded Heraclus as head of the catechetical school in Alexandria.
235: Persecution under the emperor Maximin (235-238). At this time, the bishop of Rome, Pontian, and Hippolytus were exiled to Sardinia. Pontian died soon thereafter, and Hippolytus in about 238.
240: The Pythian games had been introduced into many cities of the Roman Empire by this year. These were athletic contests held every four years in honor of Apollo, and were originally associated with the oracle at Delphi.
241: End of the records of the Fratres Arvales. This was a pagan priesthood or college in Rome which offered annual sacrifices for the fertility of farmlands.
244: Plotinus, a pagan from Egypt, opened a school in Rome. Plotinus’ philosophy emphasized the transcendence of God, and His incomprehensibility (due to His simplicity). Nous emanated from God and contains ideas of both classes and individuals. The two Souls (corresponding to Plato’s World Soul) proceed from the Nous.
247: The 1000th year of Rome celebrated. • Dionysius, a former pupil of Origen, became bishop of Alexandria (247-64).
248 ?: Late in this year or early in 249, pagans in Alexandria initiated a persecution of Christians in Alexandria. Some historians theorize that this spontaneous persecution may have been caused by the emperor Philip’s (244-49) unpopular tax reform, and his [possible] association with Christians: Philip purportedly attended Holy Week services at Antioch, where bishop Babylas had him stand among the penitents. • Cyprian, a lawyer who converted to Christianity in 246, became bishop of Carthage. His rapid elevation to the episcopate aroused opposition, led by Novatus, a presbyter. Novatus arranged to have Felicissimus, a deacon, ordained as bishop of Carthage. Felicissimus tended to be more lenient than Cyprian toward those who lapsed during persecution.
249: In around this year, a council in Smyrna determined that heretics must be rebaptized before they could enter the Church.
249-251: 7th Persecution of the Church, under the emperor Decius (249-251). The bishops of Rome (Fabian (236-50)), Antioch (Babylas), and Jerusalem were martyred.
250: In about this year, Babylas, bishop of the church in Antioch, was martyred. • In a letter to Paul of Samasota, Dionysius of Alexandria frequently referred to “the Theotokos Mary (h qeotokoV Maria ).” • Diophantos of Alexandria flourished around this year. He was the first to introduce symbolism into algebra. • Gothic raids into Asia minor.
251: A plague, most likely measles, arrived in the western Roman empire. It continued for about 15 years, though the worst was over by 260. At one point 5000 people died of measles a day in Rome. • Two rival candidates vied for the vacant see of Rome. Novatian, a priest who had been prominent in the church since Fabian’s death, held that the church cannot forgive or accept those guilty of murder, adultery or apostasy. Cornelius, (251-53, reportedly a less capable man) held that the bishop could remit even grave sin. Novatian’s view was foreshadowed by that of Hippolytus and Tertullian against Callistus (see 217). Cornelius had precedence in Paul’s treatment of the incestuous Corinthian and in Irenaeus’ view that an adulterous Christian woman could be restored by repentance. • Cornelius won the election (and this was, apparently, an election by the congregation), and the followers of Novation formed their own communities, which eventually withered away. Cyprian of Carthage, after initial hesitation, ended in communion with Cornelius. • In May, Cyprian of Carthage presided over a council of African bishops held in Carthage. The council dealt with the question of how to deal with Christians who had sacrificed to idols or who had procured certificates (libelli) proving they had done so. The council determined that those who had sacrificed were to do extended penance, and to be readmitted to communion on their deathbeds. Those who procured libelli were also to do penance for varying periods. (Cyprian had gone into hiding during the Decian persecution. In his absence, some of those who had stood firm in the church (the “confessors”) reconciled those who had apostatized on relatively easy terms.) The council also condemned Felicissimus, the rival bishop of Carthage.
252: A plague struck North Africa. The Christians feared that this would be interpreted by the pagans that “the gods” were angered and would lead to a renewal of Decius’ persecution. • In May, Cyprian presided over a council of 66 bishops in Carthage. One question before the council is obscure, but the council determined that the mercy and the grace of God is not to be refused to anyone born of man. Later, Cyprian responded to a query from Fidus, a rural bishop, who asked whether infant baptism should be delayed until the eighth day. Cyprian replied that there should be no delay. He saw no reason to run the risk of the child’s eternal damnation. Fidus seems to have been motivated to delay baptism because of the impure appearance of newborn infants! (Epistle LVIII.)
254-256: Stephen bishop of Rome. Stephen was a member of the Julian family. He decided that Spanish congregations in Merida and Leon should receive as their bishop one who had lapsed during Decius’ persecution. The congregations appealed from Stephen to Cyprian of Carthage (bishop 248-58). Cyprian called a council which decided in favor of the Spanish. • When the Novatianist bishop of Arles refused to give the sacraments to the lapsed who had later repented, Stephen failed to act against him. The bishop of Lyons wrote to Cyprian about the matter, and Cyprian asked Stephen to excommunicate the bishop of Arles. Stephen resented Cyprian’s interference.
255: A compilation on the bishops of Rome, known as the Liberian Catalogue, had been written by this time.
255 ?: Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, met with the presbyters and teachers of the Church in the district of Arsinoe for three consecutive days to discuss chiliasm. A certain Coracion, under the influence of a bishop Nepos of Egypt, had been the chief local proponent of a “millennium of bodily luxury upon this earth” [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 7.24]. After the discussion, Coracion confessed himself to have been in error and completely convinced by the arguments presented against chiliasm.
256: Cyprian held a council of 86 bishops in September of this year which held that baptism performed by the Novatianists was ineffective. (This was the third council on this topic, the first having been held in the autumn of 255.) Stephen of Rome argued against Cyprian in favor of the validity of baptism administered by wicked persons. To bolster his authority, Stephen invoked the “Thou art Peter…” text to affirm his position as Peter’s successor (the first time this was done — but see Callistus above and Siricius, 384/5 below). (The attribution of such a statement to Stephen was clearly made by Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in a letter to Cyprian (Epistle 74).) Cyprian held a different opinion: “In the person of one man he gave the keys to all, that he might denote the unity of all; the rest, therefore, were the same that Peter was, being admitted to an equal participation in honor and power, but a beginning is made from unity that the church of Christ may be shown to be one.” (Firmilian compared Stephen, bishop of Rome, to Judas, complained of his “audacity and pride,” and ridiculed his claim to be the “successor of Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid.”). • The Franks crossed the Rhine. • The Persians under Shapur I sacked Antioch in Syria.
257: 8th Persecution of the Church, under Valerian (253-259). Edicts were published demanding outward conformity with paganism and Christians were forbidden to hold worship services, under penalty of death. In 258, Valerian began to put the clergy to death – St. Cyprian was martyred in that year. He also attacked prominent laymen but remitted the death penalty in exchange for a denial of Christ. The persecution continued through 260. Given the troubles of the day, Valerian had sought to foretell the future via human sacrifice and other rites. When his efforts failed, blame fell on the Christians within the imperial family. Thus, his desire to restore the efficacy of pagan religious efforts motivated Valerian’s persecution. • On August 30, the proconsul Aspasius Paterus sent Cyprian into exile at Curubis (Kurba) on the Gulf of Hammamet.
258: On June 29 of this year, the remains of Sts. Peter and Paul were transferred to the ad Catacumbos on the Appian way. The feast of Saints Peter and Paul in the Roman calendar dates from this year and commemorates this event. • Cyprian was brought back from exile, tried, and executed. • Xystus II (Sixtus II), bishop of Rome (257-58), was arrested while saying mass in the catacombs. He was executed, along with his deacons. As he was being arrested, Xystus charged St. Lawrence with care of the poor. Lawrence was subsequently arrested himself. In prison, he converted a baptised a blind man, pouring water from a vessel three times over the man’s body. The blind man was healed. Lawrence, refusing to sacrifice to idols, was burned with hot irons, beaten, and laid on a hot iron sheet, where he died. • The Alemanni pushed through the Alps into the Po River valley. As a result, Verona, Como and Aquileia were fortified with stone from tombs. • From this year, a feast of Peter and Paul was celebrated in Rome on June 29. •Bishop Anatolius of Laodicea published the first known Paschal (Easter) table used in the East to be based on the 19-year Metonic cycle.
History 02
Third Century (Con’t)
259: Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, became involved in a dispute in Libya between adherents of the Logos theology (see above, year 189) and some modalistic Monarchians. Dionysius argued that the Son and the Father are as different as a boat and a boatman and denied they are of the same substance. The Libyans appealed to Dionysius of Rome (260-68), who assembled a synod to consider the issue. He rebuked the Sabellians and those who separate the Godhead into three gods or consider the Son a creature or work. In his Defense of the Nicene Definition, Athanasius quotes Dionysius of Alexandria to say, “And I have written in another letter a refutation of that false charge they bring against me, that I deny that Christ was one in essence with God.” Dionysius did repent of using the expressions “the Son was made,” and that “He is not eternal.”
260: The emperor Valerian taken prisoner by the Persian emperor Shapur I. The prince of Palmyra (who had gained independence after Valerian’s defeat) seized control of the Eastern provinces of the empire until 272, when they were regained by the emperor Aurelian. • Paul of Samosata became bishop of Antioch in Syria. He disdained the Logos theology, and spoke of Jesus as a mere man who was uniquely inspired at his baptism (Adoptionism). In his view, the Word and the Spirit were manifestations of the Father. According to Simeon of Beit Arsam, Paul had said, “I too, if I wish, shall be Christ since I and Christ are of one and the same nature.” Theodore of Mopsuestia quoted Paul as follows: “I do not envy Christ because he has been made God. For what he was made, I was made, since it is in my nature.” It was reported that at Antioch psalms were sung in praise of Paul rather than of God. Paul was condemned by a synod in Antioch in 268 (264?) presided over by Helenus, bishop of Tarsus. Dionysius of Alexandria and Firmilius of Caesarea were invited to attend the synod. Paul held onto his power because he was favored by the Palmyra government. When Aurelian (270-75) regained control of the Eastern provinces, he declared the church building to be the legal property of whomever the bishops of Italy and Rome should decide. It appears that Aurelian’s concern was loyalty on the part of the Antiochian bishop, and he chose to employ the bishop of Rome to guarantee that loyalty. Paul has been viewed as the ancestor of Arianism. • Gregory Thaumaturgus (213-270) was present at the council which condemned Paul of Samosata. Though a student of Origen, Gregory’s view of the Trinity was orthodox. His Exposition of Faith is considered a forerunner of the Nicene Creed.
261: The emperor Gallenius proclaimed toleration for Christians by edict. This, in response to petitions from Christian bishops, also restored confiscated churches and cemeteries. Before this time, churches could not own property, since Christianity was illegal. Churches now began to receive money and property bequeathed in wills.
262: The temple of Artemis in Ephesus destroyed by Gothic invaders.
262-263: Porphyry became a disciple of Plotinus in Rome about this year. He arranged Plotinus’ writings into six books of nine chapters each, the Enneads. Porphyry placed great stress on Plotinus’ doctrine of salvation as an ascetic process involving turning one’s attention from the lower to the higher, ending in the knowledge of God. Porphyry stressed the need for asceticism – abstinence from meat, celibacy, avoidance of frivolous entertainment, etc. Porphyry also wrote fifteen books against Christianity, answered by Methodius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and others, and burned in 448. Socrates, the fifth century church historian, states that Porphyry was an apostate from Christianity.
268: The Juthurigi and the Alemanni advanced to within 70 miles of Rome in this year, and again in 270. In consequence, a high wall was built around Rome.
269: The Goths invaded the Balkans. Romans defeated them at Naissus.
270: Goths were permitted to settle in Dacia (that is, the territory north of the Danube). The emperor Aurelian withdrew Roman rule from Dacia.
274: Born in southern Babylonia, Mani (216-274) died after being imprisoned by the Persian emperor, Bahram I, at the instigation of Zoroastrian priests. Mani was the founder of Manichaeanism, a religion which was to rival Christianity for adherents, reaching Rome early in the fourth century. A gnostic religion, Manichaeanism held that matter is intrinsically evil, the prison of the soul. Salvation was through gnosis, an inner illumination in which the soul gained knowledge of God. The righteous went to paradise at death, but the wicked (those who procreate, own possessions, drink wine, etc.) are reborn. Good and evil were independent principles, and both were held to continue indefinitely.
274-275: The Emperor Aurelian (270-75) promoted Sun worship as the official cult of the empire.
275 ?: Papyrus 47: 3rd Chester Beatty, ~Sinaiticus, Rv9:10-11:3,5-16:15,17- 17:2
283: A fifteen-year-old girl named Pelagia, living in Antioch, threw herself off a rooftop to preserve her virginity.
284: Diocletian became emperor. Ruled through 305, when he abdicated.
286: St. Anthony (251-356) began the first monastic community, in Egypt. • On February 6, Julian of Homs (Emessa) was martyred. A Christian physician, Julian slipped into prison to attend to Bishop Silouan and two disciples, who had been imprisoned and tortured for forty days. Julian’s activity was reported to his father, as a staunch pagan, who turned him over to the governor. Julian was tortured for eleven months, during which time his father sent many to entice him away from the faith. But Julian persevered in the truth, converting those who had came to convert him. Finally, his father hired a blacksmith to drive nails into his feet and head. Julian died in a cave outside the city where he had gone to pray. His relics were removed to Emessa, where they were rediscovered in the 1970s. • Diocletian divided the empire into East and West. He appointed Maximian Augustus in the West. The capital in the East was Nicomedia; in the West, Milan. A subordinate, called a Caesar, was appointed for each Augustus. Their cities were Trier in the West and Salonica in the East. • During Diocletian’s reign, the civil diocese of Italy was divided in two. Milan was made capital of the northern diocese. The church accommodated itself to this civil change, and the bishop of Milan assumed jurisdiction over northern Italy (Italy annonaria). Rome’s jurisdiction was limited to the southern diocese. • The Forum in Rome burned. It was restored under the Diocletian.
300: Early in the fourth century the celebration of 25 December, the Sun god’s birthday at mid-winter, as Christ’s birthday began somewhere in the West (see 336 below). Also, St. Peter’s basilica was built on the site of Peter’s grave (see 330).
300 ?: The Apostolic Constitutions were written around this time. Ecclesiastical canon 35 gave an indication of the role of the bishop within the Church: “The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things which concern his own parish and the country places which belong to it. But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all. For so there will be oneness of mind and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.”Ecclesiastical canon 85 gave the following list of the canon of Scripture: “Let the following books be esteemed venerable and holy by you, both of the clergy and laity. Of the Old Covenant: the five books of Moses-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; one of Joshua the son of Nun, one of the Judges, one of Ruth, four of the Kings, two of the Chronicles, two of Ezra, one of Esther, one of Judith, three of the Maccabees, one of Job, one hundred and fifty psalms; three books of Solomon-Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; sixteen prophets. And besides these, take care that your young persons learn the Wisdom of the very learned Sirach. But our sacred books, that is, those of the New Covenant, are these: the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the fourteen Epistles of Paul; two Epistles of Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude; two Epistles of Clement; and the Constitutions dedicated to you the bishops by me Clement, in eight books; which it is not fit to publish before all, because of the mysteries contained in them; and the Acts of us the Apostles.” [Note that Revelation is absent from the New Testament canon.]
The 27th ecclesiastical canon of the Constitutions prohibits most clergy from marrying after ordination: “Of those who come into the clergy unmarried, we permit only the readers and singers, if they have a mind, to marry afterwards.”
The 50th ecclesiastical canon required triple immersion for baptism: “If any bishop or presbyter does not perform the three immersions of the one admission, but one immersion, which is given into the death of Christ, let him be deprived.”
Book 6, section 15 of The Apostolic Constitutions urges infant baptism: “Do ye also baptize your infants, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The Apostolic Constitutions also contain clear evidence that infant communion was practiced in the church.
Before about 300, most books were in the form of scrolls. Scrolls had severe limitations. For instance, a book the size of Matthew’s gospel would fit on a scroll. A codex, formed by folding works. Codices also eased the task of locating a given passage. Around 600, the words in books were separated by a space — a development associated with the Irish. In around 800, the Carolingians introduced punctuation marks.
Fourth Century (Part I)
301: During this century, the Eastern Church began singing the Gloria in excelsis in the Daily Offices. The hymn was originally written in Greek. It was adopted for use in the West, often during Matins. The Gloria was first introduced to Rome by Symmachus (498-514). When the Roman liturgy spread throughout the Western Church during the eighth century, the Gloria came to be used exclusively in the mass. • Early in this century, an 84-year paschal (Easter) cycle emerged in the West. This method was employed by many in the West, though Rome itself generally followed the calculations made in Alexandria until 457, when it adopted the paschal tables of Victor of Aquitaine.• Diocletian set the stage for the Middle Ages with an edict which forced tradesmen to remain in their trades and their descendants to follow in their footsteps. Tenants were compelled to remain on their land for life.
303: 9th Persecution of the Church, under Diocletian. When augurs could no longer find the usual signs on the livers of sacrificed animals, Diocletian consulted the oracle of Apollo at Miletus. The god blamed the Christians. On 23 Feb 303, the Christian cathedral in Nicomedia was torn down. The next day, an edict declared all churches were to be destroyed, all Bibles and liturgical books surrendered, sacred vessels confiscated, and all meetings for (Christian) worship forbidden. A few months later, an edict limited to the East required the arrest of all clergy who refused to sacrifice to the gods. • Two Roman army officers serving on the Syrian frontier, Sts. Sergios and Bacchus, both Christians, refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Maximian demoted them, then shamed them by marching them through the streets dressed as women. Next, they were scourged in Risafe, Syria, where Bacchus died from his wounds. Boards were nailed to Sergios’ feet, and he was forced to walk on them. Afterwards, he was beheaded. (See 431 below.) • The council of Elvira (Illiberis, near Granada). Nineteen bishops and 24 priests met at this first council of the Church in Spain. The council adopted 81 canons, 34 of them dealing with marriage and sexual misconduct. No reconciliation with the Church was permitted for those who committed the sins of idolatry, divorce, incest, or repeated adultery. Punishment for lesser sins was exclusion from the eucharist, for periods as long as 10 years. “[B]ishops, priests, deacons and all members of the clergy connected with the liturgy must abstain from their wives and must not beget sons” (see Siricius, 385-6). Canon 43 emphasizes the importance of celebrating the day of Pentecost, and it seems to be directed against those who would close Pentecost on the fortieth day after Pascha. At any rate, this canon is the first Christain use of ‘Pentecost’ as referring to a specific day and not to the full fifty-day period. The exact date of the council is not known. The range 300-303 and the year 309 have scholarly support.
304: All citizens of the empire required to sacrifice to the gods under pain of death. In practice, this was limited to the East. • Marcellinus, bishop of Rome (296-304), fell away into apostasy during this persecution. He gave up copies of the Scriptures and offered a sacrifice to the pagan gods. • Martyred this year was St. George. A native of Cappadocia and child of Christian parents, George became a tribune in Roman army regiment. Diocletian honored him with the rank of “trophy-bearer” for his bravery. When the persecution began, George voluntarily confessed his Christian faith to the emperor. Diolcetian commanded him to sacrifice to the gods. When George refused, he was stretched out supine with a heavy stone on his chest. The next day, George again refused to sacrifice, and Diocletian had him attached to a great wheel which tore at his flesh with an assortment of barbs. When George again refused to abjure Christ, Diocletian had him beheaded. • Another martyr during this persecution was Pelagia of Tarsus. One of Diocletian’s sons fell in love with her, but she had dedicated herself to God instead. Diocletian’s son killed himself when he realized he couldn’t have her. Diocletian then had Pelagia burned.
305: St. Panteleimon, a physician of Nicomedia, martyred. Panteleimon had given his services freely. His relics were later moved to Constantinople and a church was built there and dedicated to him. This church was rebuilt by Justinian in 532. • On May 1, Diocletian, and his co-emperor Maximian, abdicated.
305-310: Lucian of Antioch’s Greek New Testament text becomes the basis for the Textus Receptus.
306: Flavius Constantius, Caesar in the West, died at York (Eburacum, in Britain). (Constantius had been Maximian’s subordinate caesar in the West, becoming caesar augustus in the West upon Maximian’s abdcation.) The army proclaimed his son Constantine Emperor. • A dispute arose between Peter, bishop of Alexandria, and Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis. Peter had Meletius deposed for fomenting discord: Meletius was critical of the light penances Peter imposed on those who lapsed during Diocletian’s persecution. Persecution began again in 308, and Meletius was exiled to the mines in Palestine. He returned in 311, and led a schism after being excommunicated by Peter. The Meletians were to become allies of the Arians against Athanasius.
311: The Emperor Galerius issued an edict allowing Christianity the right to exist and Christians to form assemblies. • Death of Methodius, once bishop of Olympus and Patara in Lycia. A theologian in the Asiatic tradition of Irenaeus, he attacked Origen’s doctrines of the preexistence of souls, matter as a prison for the spirit, and the non-physical nature of the resurrected body. Methodius became bishop of Tyre before his martyrdom at Chalcis in Syria (southwest of Aleppo). (Some, however, think he died at Chalcis in Greece.) • Caecelian elected bishop of Carthage. Because one of the bishops who consecrated him had turned over copies of the Scriptures during Diocletian’s persecution (those who did so were known as traditors), Caecelian was immediately opposed. By tradition, the primates of Numidia had the right to consecrate the bishop of Carthage. Secundus of Tigisi, primate of Numidia, came to Carthage with 70 other bishops, declared the bishopric of Carthage vacant, and elected the lector Majorinus in Caecelian’s place.
312: Codex Vaticanus – designated by siglum B or 03, δ 1, is a Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Possibly among the original 50 copies of the Bible ordered by Emperor Constantine. It is eventually kept in the Vatican Library in Rome. • An exegetical school founded at Antioch by Lucian. Lucian was also martyred in 312. His edition of the New Testament is thought by some to be the ancestor of the Majority Text. Lucian was born at Samosata, and was under suspicion for a period of sharing Paul of Samosata’s heretical views.
Lucian opposed the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, popular at Alexandria, with a literal methodology. Lucian’s Christology is suspect: he apparently held that the Word was a creature through whom all other creatures were formed. Many major leaders of the Arian movement – Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris and Theognis – were trained by Lucian. • Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian bridge outside Rome. The legend is, on the way to this battle, he saw a cross in the sky one afternoon with the words Hoc vince (by this conquer), and he adopted the cross as his standard. He was emperor in the West. The following year, Licinius consolidated power in the East. The Lateran palace was turned over to the bishop of Rome, Miltiades, as an episcopal residence. • This was the initial year for a 15-year cycle of property taxes, known as the indiction. The Indiction of Constantinople was used as a dating system in the East. The year between 1 Sep 312 and 31 Aug 313 was the first year of the indiction, as was the year from 1 Sep 327 to 31 Aug 328. The Imperial, Caesarean, or Western Indiction is similar, but begins each year with 24 September. Apparently this is due to an error made by the Venerable Bede (see 731), who mistook 24 Sep for the autumnal equinox.
313: Constantine issued the Edict of Milan: Christianity was given a legal status equal to paganism. • Constantine ordered the bishop of Rome, Miltiades, to investigate the controversy in Carthage. On October 2, a group of Italian and Gaulic bishops under Miltiades found Caecelian innocent of all charges and excommunicated Donatus (who had succeeded Majorinus). Constantine had been prompted to act by a letter from the Donatist bishops of Africa, who had asked him to appoint bishops from Gaul to determine the rightful bishop of Carthage. • Alexander became bishop of Alexandria. Served through 328. Opponent of Arius, one of his presbyters. From this time, the bishop of Alexandria was “the Pope,” emphatically beyond all others, and he retains that title to this day. The bishops of Rome began to use the title around the year 400 – see Siricius below, year 384.
314: On 1 August, Constantine, Emperor of the West, called the Council of Arles (Arelate), a general council of the Western church, presided over by the bishops of Arles and Syracuse. Caecilian, the compromising bishop of Carthage, had been challenged by the election of a rival bishop, Majorinus, who held to the Cyprianic theology. Majorinus was succeeded by Donatus. Donatus’s followers appealed to Constantine for a decision in their favor, and Constantine responded by calling this council. The council decided the quarrel in favor of Caecilian. Since these latter only remain in communion with the churches outside Africa, they were henceforth known as Catholics. Donatus’ followers were termed Donatists, and this sect persevered until the Arab invasion. Donatism was proscribed in 412 (see below). Three British bishops are reported to have attended the Council of Arles. Showing deference to Sylvester, bishop of Rome (314-35), the council asked him to circulate its decisions. • An Egyptian named Pachomius left the Roman Army this year and joined the hermit Palemon near Tabennisi on the east bank of the Nile, near Thebes. He built the first monastic enclosure and formulated a rule for daily work and prayer. By the time of his death in 346, St. Pachomius had founded 11 monasteries with more than 7000 monks and nuns. Pachomius is said to have destroyed a book by Origen, whom he considered a heretic, by throwing it into the Nile. He would have burned the book had it not contained the name of the Lord. • St. Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III (298-330) of Armenia to the Christian faith. Armenia thus became a Christian nation. During the following century, the liturgy was translated into and conducted in Armenian.
315: The forty holy martyrs of Sebastea. The emperor Licinius (307-324) ordered all Christians in the army to sacrifice to idols. Forty soldiers serving in Sebastea, Armenia, refused. During winter, they were made to stand in the extremely cold Lake Sebastea with their hands tied behind their backs. After some time, one of the forty left the lake, but fell dead when he was placed in a warm bath. One of the guards then had a vision of forty crowns descending over the lake. He understood the vision to mean that he was to become the fortieth martyr, and he rushed into the lake with the remaining thirty-nine. (Sebastea, now known as Sivas, is in central Turkey.) • Constantine called upon Lactantius (260-330) to educate his son Crispus. Lactantius is the author of the Divine Institutes, a comprehensive apology for Christianity and exposition of the faith. •Constantine’s coins began to carry the Chi Rho symbol (a Greek monogram for Christ).
315: Athenasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, identifies the 27 books of the New Testament which are today recognized as the canon of scripture.
321: Sunday worship recognized
325: 1st Council of Nicea (1st Ecumenical Council) – the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). It was called by the emperor Constantine I, an unbaptized catechumen, who presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions. He hoped a general council of the church would solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria that affirmed that Christ is not divine but a created being. Pope Sylvester did not attend the council but was represented by legates.
326: The first St. Peter’s Basilica was begun in Rome. It was finished roughly 30 years later. The church was demolished early in the sixteenth century and a new church was erected (see 1506).
327: Eusebius of Caesarea, in response to a letter from the emperor’s sister Constantia asking for a picture of Christ, took it for granted that only pagan artists would make such a representation. However, in his Ecclesiastical History (Book 7, Ch 18), he reported the existence of a miracle-working statue, thought to be of Christ, in Caesarea Philippi. That was the home city of the woman healed of an issue of blood (Matt 9.20 and following). The statue depicted this woman (known to tradition as St. Berenice) stretching out her hand to Jesus. Eusebius also stated, without condemnation, that the painted likenesses of Peter, Paul, and Christ had also been made, “according to the habit of the Gentiles.”
328: Athanasius succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria. He served initially through 335, when he was dislodged by the maneuverings of Eusebius of Nicomedia on behalf of Arius. • Eusebius of Nicomedia presented a confession of faith and was allowed to return from exile.
329: Birth of St. Basil the Great.
330: Founding of the city of Constantinople. The University of Constantinople was founded at about the same time and educated students until 1453. • Also about this year, Arius returned from exile, after Eusebius of Nicomedia interceded for him with the emperor. Eusebius then wrote to Athanasius asking him to restore Arius to communion, but Athanasius refused. • Old Saint Peter’s Basilica was dedicated by Constantine. It was located over the traditional burial site of Saint Peter the Apostle in Rome on Vatican Hill. • Death of Iamblichus (250-330) founder of the Syrian school of Neoplatonism. Iamblichus’ modified Ploninus’ philosophy in the direction of a syncretic religion, which may have provided the framework for Justinian’s religious views.
332: The Tervingi, a Gothic tribe, were defeated in battle and became clients to the Romans.
335: A mosaic image of Christ, depicted without a beard, was set in a floor in Hinton St. Mary in Dorset, England. • The Despositio Martyrum, a calendar of Roman martyrs, had been written by this year. • According to Eusebius of Caesarea in his biography of Constantine, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was dedicated in this year. On the way to the dedication, about 150 bishops met in council in Tyre. Eusebius of Caesarea presided. Among the charges against Athanasius was that he had had Arsenius, the Meletian bishop of Hypsele, murdered, then procured one of his hands for magical purposes. Athanasius produced Arsenius at the council and refuted this charge, Arsenius being alive with two hands intact. The party of Eusebius of Nicomedia prevailed, however, and Athanasius fled to Constantinople. The council passed a resolution deposing Athanasius. • A Palestinian named Epiphanios (see 375) founded a monastery at Eleutheropolis in Judea.
336: The first notice of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ (Christmas) occurred in a Roman almanac (the Chronographer of 354, or Philocalian Calendar), which indicates that the festival was observed by the church in Rome by the year 336. In one of his letters, John Chrysostom mentioned that Julius I (337-52), bishop of Rome, had the Imperial records of the Roman census examined and confirmed the observance of Christ’s birthday on December 25. See Hippolytus, year 198. (It is interesting that in the East Jesus’ birth, the adoration of the Magi, and baptism were all observed on January 6. It is possible that Julius’ records review was conducted to bring the East into conformity with Rome.) Some historians suggest that Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation, was introduced (and gained popularity) as a liturgical strike at Arianism.
Death of Arius. He died suddenly on the day before he was to be received back into communion with the church. The aged bishop Alexander of Constantinople had prayed that God would take either him or Arius away before such an outrage to the faith could be perpetrated. He died attending to a call of nature, apparently of heart failure. There is the possibility that he was poisoned.
During this year, Eusebius of Caesarea wrote two works accusing Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, of Sabellianism.
337: Constantine was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, and died, May 22. Constantine delayed baptism until the point of death as was common in the fourth century, but considered himself a Christian from 313. Upon Constantine’s death, he was succeeded by his three sons: Constantine II in the West, Constans in Italy, Illyricum, and North Africa, and Constantius in the East. In 340, Constantine II was killed during a war against Constans. Constantius tended to be guided by Eusebius of Nicomedia in religious matters, while Constans supported the Western bishops, who were largely orthodox.
On June 17, 337, Constantine II sent a letter to the people and clergy of Alexandria, announcing that Athanasius was being restored as their bishop. He stated that this had been Constantine’s intention, and that Athanasius had been removed to Treveri for his protection.
Constantius became emperor in the East. Served through 361. Athananius returned from exile in November, and stayed for 1 year and 4 to 5 months. Eusebius of Nicomedia was translated to Constantinople at about this time. Alexander, the orthodox bishop of Constantinople, had died (336?), and he was succeeded by his secretary Paul, a native of Thessalonica. According to Sozomen (3.4), “The adherents of Arius desired the ordination of Macedonius, while those who maintained that the Son is consubstantial with the Father wished to have Paul as their bishop. This latter party prevailed. After the ordination of Paul, the emperor, who chanced to be away from home, returned to Constantinople, and manifested much displeasure at what had taken place as though the bishopric had been conferred upon an unworthy man. Through the machinations of the enemies of Paul, a synod was convened, and he was expelled from the church. It handed over the church of Constantinople to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia.”
Eusebius of Constantinople presented the case to Constantius that Athanasius and other orthodox bishops, (and Marcellus of Ancyra) had been restored to their sees uncanonically. Eusebius’ position was not unpopular with Eastern conservatives who had begun to see a danger in state determination of ecclesiastical affairs.
Soon after Constantine’s death, the Persians under Shapur II (325-79) crossed the Tigrus and attacked the Roman Empire in an attempt to regain Mesopotamia and Armenia. From this year until about 350, Rome and Persia were at war. Viewing Christians as a fifth column, Shapur began persecuting them. This persecution continued for about 50 years. In about 342, St. Aphraat (290-370) fled the Persians to Edessa. Aphraat later preached the Orthodox faith to the Arian emperor Valens.
338: In order to test the Western reaction, Eusebius of Constantinople sent two deacons to Julius, bishop of Rome, to lay charges against the deposed bishops (Athanasius, Marcellus, etc.). They also argued that Pistus, whom the Eusebians had sent to Alexandria, should be recognized as bishop there.
338/339: Athanasius composed a letter dealing with the charges against him and sent it with two presbyters to Rome. The Eusebian deacons then asked Julius to call a council to settle the issue. Julius agreed to this. He in turn sent two presbyters to Antioch to invite the Eusebians to a council.
339: In January, the Eusebians met in council in Antioch, where Constantius, the eastern emperor, was spending the winter. They repeated their deposition of Athanasius and appointed Gregory the Cappadocian, not Pistus, to succeed him. The Roman presbyters arrived after this council, and were detained until 340.
In March, Athanasius fled Alexandria, the Eusebian party having again succeeded in having his deposed. Athanasius visited Rome, accompanied by Egyptian monks. Thus monasticism began in the West.
340: Death of Constantine II. He had laid claim to Constans’ territories of Italy and North Africa, and had invaded Italy. He was killed by Constans’ forces near Aquileia.
Julius, bishop of Rome (337-352) welcomed Athanasius and Marcellus to communion: The presbyters whom Julius had sent to Antioch returned in the spring with an acrimonious note from the Eusebians. Julius convoked a council of Italian bishops. The council pronounced Athanasius innocent of all charges. All other exiles were restored by this synod, including Marcellus, who was simply required to affirm the Roman baptismal creed. Julius then sent a letter to the Eusebians in the name of the synod. Julius pointed out that, without his consent, no decision could be considered universal. He based his claim to be consulted on matters dealing with the see of Alexandria on the precedent of Dionysius (see 259).
As the exiles had been excommunicated by Greek synods, the East was miffed. Death of Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius was succeeded by Acacius, who was to become the leader of the Arians in the East. In fact, the Arians were sometimes called Acacians. Birth of St. Ambrose.
341: Eusebius of Constantinople, an Arian (see year 318, above) consecrated Ulfila as bishop to the Goths. Ulfila held to the Nicene creed until the council of Rimini (Arminum) in 359.
In the summer, Eastern bishops met in synod at the occasion of a cathedral (Constantine’s Golden Church) dedication in Antioch. Julius’ letter from the recent council at Rome was considered. The Eastern bishops denied that Rome had a right to judge decisions reached in the East.
The assembled Eastern bishops drew up three creeds. The first had a preface denying that they were followers of Arius. This creed does not seem to have been widely favored.
The second creed is referred to as the “Creed of the Dedication” or the “Lucianic” creed, alleged to have been written by Lucian the Martyr (see 312). The Lucianic creed omitted the homoousion, but maintained the exact likeness of the Son to the Father’s essence. Its anathemas permitted an Arian interpretation. Against Marcellus, it insisted on the generation of the Son before time. The Lucianic creed (as given by Athanasius in his de Synodis):
342: The Eastern bishops from the dedication council of Antioch were refused an audience with Constans, emperor in the West. Apparently, Constans had already decided that the way to deal with the situation was with a council, to meet in Sardica.
A council at Gangra in Asia Minor disapproved of monks who abandoned church attendance.
Eusebius of Constantinople died. The Eusebian party was temporarily leaderless. Two rivals, Paul and Macedonius (see 337 on Eusebius’s translation to Constantinople), vied for his see. With Eusebius’s death, Paul was re-introduced to the city as its rightful bishop. However, a group of Arians (Theognis, bishop of Nicaea, Maris of Chalcedon, Theodore of Heraclea in Thrace, Ursacius of Singidunum, and Valens of Mursa) ordained Macedonius. A riot ensued in which the general Hermogenes was killed. Constantius banished Paul, and allowed Macedonius to continue as bishop.
342/343: The council of Sardica. The Easterners were outnumbered by the Westerners. A dispute arose immediately over the admission of the deposed bishops. The Eastern bishops withdrew to Philippopolis, then condemned Hosius, Julius, Athanasius, etc., and re-issued the fourth creed from Antioch (341) with additional anathemas against Marcellus.
The Western bishops asserted the right of Julius of Rome to hear appeals from bishops under censure in their own provinces. They also published (to Athanasius’ regret) a naive theological tract to cover their admission of Marcellus. All charges against the exiles were dismissed, and they also denounced Valens of Mursa and Ursacius of Singidunum (among others), who were attending the Eastern synod, and who had been companions to Arius during his exile.
In the wake of Sardica, Constantius (emperor in the East) harshly persecuted the Nicene bishops in the East.
343: Photinus, bishop of Sirmium in Pannonia, began teaching his heresy. He denied the existence of the Son prior to the incarnation, claiming that the Son and the Logos are distinct. He viewed Christ’s divinity as something he attained through moral growth, similar to the view of Paul of Samosata.
344: Constans, emperor in the West, sent two bishops from the Sardican majority to Constantius to urge him to restore the deposed bishops. Stephen, bishop of Antioch, attempted to discredit the envoys, but his deception was found out. (He had a naked prostitute introduced into one of the envoys’ rooms, but she, seeing a bishop asleep, refused to attempt to seduce him, and accused Stephen.) A council was summoned, which deposed Stephen.
345: Delegates from the last council of Antioch attended a council held in Milan. The Milanese synod agreed to condemn Photinus, but not Marcellus. On being asked to condemn Arianism outright, the Eastern delegates retired in anger. Valens and Ursacius, in danger of having their Sardican depositions enforced, submitted. They admitted that the charges against Athanasius had been invented.
346: Under strong pressure from Constans, Constantius readmitted Athanasius to his see in Alexandria, while the West dropped the cause of Marcellus. (According to Sozomen, Marcellus was also restored to the bishopric in Ancyra, and Basil was deposed.)
Paul, bishop of Constantinople, was allowed to return from exile (see 337, 342). He remained in the city until 351. According to Sozomen (3.24), “Immediately after the return of Paul to Constantinople, Macedonius retired, and held church in private.”
Socrates (2.22) gives the text of Constans’ letter to his brother Constantius: “Athanasius and Paul are here with me; and I am quite satisfied after investigation that they are persecuted for the sake of piety. If, therefore, you will pledge yourself to reinstate them in their sees, and to punish those who have so unjustly injured them, I will send them to you; but should you refuse to do this, be assured, that I will myself come thither, and restore them to their won sees, in spite of your opposition.”
347: Birth of St. John Chrysostom.
Two monks living in Antioch, Flavian and Diodore, promoted the practice of singing the Psalms with short responsory choruses: the first Christian litanies. Diodore later became bishop of Tarsus (378), while Flavian became bishop of Antioch (381).
In August, the Western emperor Constans exiled Donatus and other Donatist leaders to Gaul. Donatus died there in 355. The emperor Julian allowed the Donatists to return to Africa in 361.
347/348: Ulfila, the translator of the Bible into Gothic (this was the first time Christians translated the Scriptures for a people living outside the Roman empire), left the Gothic lands when the ruler of the Tervingi, a Gothic tribe, began a persecution of Christians. Ulfila brought a large body of Christians into the empire with him, settling near Nicopolis (Moesia/Bulgaria) on land donated by the emperor Constantius.
350: Frumentius became bishop of Axum in Ethiopia. He was ordained by Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Frumentius was the author of the Life of St. Anthony. Christianity also spread eastward, as is attested by the fact that Theophilus of Soccotra in the Gulf of Adem became bishop to the Christians of southern Arabia in about this year.
At around this time Codex Sinaiticus (S, or Aleph) was written. It consists of the Septuagint (without 2-3 Maccabees, the Psalms of Solomon, or Psalm 151) plus the 27 New Testament books, plus Barnabas and Hermas (though it is missing Hermas 31:7 to the end of the book). Sinaiticus is of the Alexandrian family, but is regarded as transmitting a Western text.
Codex Vaticanus (B) also dates from this era. It includes the LXX without 1-4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, or the Psalms of Solomon. Gen 1-46:28 and Psalm 105:27-137:6 are missing. It also includes the 27 New Testament books, except for 1 Timothy through Philemon, and Hebrews 9:14 through the end. As with Sinaiticus, it is an Alexandrian document.
Before 300, most books were in the form of scrolls. Scrolls had severe limitations. For instance, a book the size of Matthew’s gospel would fit on a scroll. A codex, formed by folding sheets of papyrus or vellumin the middle and sewing them together at the spine, could contain much larger works. Codices also eased the task of locating a given passage.
The earliest extant Old Latin manuscript – designated as “a” – dates from this period also.
Fourth Century (Part II)
351: Battle of Mursa (the see of Valens), September 28. Constantius defeated Magnentius.
First Council of Sirmium. Sirmium was an important border town in Illyria, near the Danube. As such, the emperor Constantius was often in residence there to conduct border wars. This council ousted Photinus, bishop of Sirmium. In opposition to Photinus’ doctrine that the Son of God did not exist before the Son of the Virgin, the council asserted that the Old Testament theophanies were appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ. Gen 19.24 was mentioned in particular – the Lord (the Son) rained down fire from the Lord (the Father). The council also issued a version of the fourth creed from Antioch (341).
With Constans’ death, the emperor Constantius had a free hand to act against the Nicene bishops. He deposed Marcellus of Ancyra and reinstated Basil. Simularly, he replaced Paul (337, 342, 346) with Macedonius, sending Paul into exile to Cucusus in Cappadocia, where he was murdered. According to Athansius (History of the Arians, 1.7), Paul was strangled by Philip, the prefect of Cucusus.
352: Liberius (bishop from 352-366) became bishop of Rome.
353: Hilary became bishop of Poitiers. He violently denounced people who held that Mary had not remained a virgin after Jesus’ birth and maintained that Jesus’ brothers were Joseph’s children by an earlier marriage.
The emperor Constantius felt that the way to oust the Nicene bishops, Athanasius in particular, was to have the Western bishops, historically Athanasius’ supporters, condemn him. At Constantius’ wish, a council was held at Arles to consider the old charges against Athanasius. The council was run by the Arian bishop of Arles, Saturninus. Athanasius was found guilty by nearly all present. However, Constantius was too busy with a war on the frontiers of Gaul to proceed further against Athanasius at that time.
354: St. Augustine was born in Thagaste, Numidia (now Algeria).
354/355: The emperor Constantius had a council meet at Milan to condemn Athanasius. Three bishops who disagreed with Constantius’ desired verdict of guilty were sent into exile.
In this year, Hilary of Poitiers began to induce bishops of Gaul to withdraw from communion with Saturninus of Arles, and with Ursacius and Valens, the disciples of Arius who were now influential with Constantius. Hilary also wrote a letter to Constantius protesting that Athanasius had been found innocent by councils long before, and the Arians guilty – so it was egregious for the condemned to be allowed to intrigue against the innocent.
356: Hilary of Poitiers exiled to Asia after being found guilty of some unspecified misconduct by a council at Beziers, presided over by Saturninus. Many Western bishops who refused to condemn Athanasius were sent East during this period.
Athanasius was again removed from his see in Alexandria. George, a radical Arian, became bishop of Alexandria, entering the city on February 24, 357.
The emperor Constantius sent a letter to the rulers of Axum (Ethiopia) requesting they replace bishop Frumentius with an Arian. Natives of Tyre, Frumentius and his brother Aedesius had been shipwrecked off the Ethiopian coast. When rescued, they became slaves of the king of Axum, and used their respective positions as treasurer and cup-bearer to spread the gospel. When the king died, the brothers were freed. Aedesius returned to Tyre and became a priest. Frumentius traveled to Egypt, seeking a bishop for the Ethiopians; the patriarch there, Athanasius, appointed Frumentius himself their bishop. Frumentius returned to Ethiopia and labored for Christ among that people. He died around 370.
Between this year and 362, Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, wrote his Life of St. Anthony (see 285). This work includes two visions of the afterlife. The first tells of how Anthony, while a thirteen-day journey from Nitria, where the monk Amun had lived, saw Amun’s soul ascend into heaven. It was later verified that the vision coincided with the moment of Amun‘s death. In the second, Anthony was caught up in the spirit: “He stood and saw himself, as it were, from outside himself, and that he was led in the air by certain ones. Next certain bitter and terrible beings stood in the air and wished to hinder him from passing through. But when his conductors opposed them, they demanded whether he was not accountable to them. And when they wished to sum up the account from his birth, Antony‘s conductors stopped them, saying, ‘The Lord hath wiped out the sins from his birth, but from the time he became a monk, and devoted himself to God, it is permitted you to make a reckoning.’ Then when they accused him and could not convict him, his way was free and unhindered. And immediately he saw himself, as it were, coming and standing by himself, and again he was Antony as before.” The picture of angels leading the souls upward, and demons accusing it of sins, occurs again in Diodachos (see 486).
357: Liberius, bishop of Rome, was also exiled at about this time (the dates are somewhat uncertain – 355 is another possibility). In a conference with Constantius, Liberius refused to condemn Athanasius, and was exiled to Thrace. Liberius returned to Rome in 358 when Basil of Ancyra gained Constantius’ confidence, temporarily ousting Valens. Liberius subscribed to a statement condemning Athanasius, but under duress. Athanasius wrote of Liberius’ fall with sympathy and compassion (History of the Arians, Part V).
After Constantius banished Liberius, an archdeacon became Felix II, bishop of Rome. Upon Liberius’ return, Felix was forced to remove to Porto. At one time, Felix was listed as a Roman Catholic saint. His feast day fell on July 29.
Under the influence of Valens, the Second Council of Sirmium was held, at which Hosius and Potamius composed their blasphemy. This creed insisted upon the unique Godhead of the Father and deplored both the homoousion (Athanasius and the West) and homoiousion (Basil of Ancyra and most of the East), along with all discussion of essence, as unscriptural. The “blasphemy,” from Athanasius’ de Synodis:
The Blasphemy of Hosius: “Whereas it seemed good that there should be some discussion concerning faith, all points were carefully investigated and discussed at Sirmium in the presence of Valens, and Ursacius, and Germinius, and the rest. It is held for certain that there is one God, the Father Almighty, as also is preached in all the world.
Eudoxius became bishop of Antioch.
The controversy over the place of the Holy Spirit in the Godhead reached center stage. Macedonius of Constantinople led a group opposed to the divinity of the Spirit. These became known as Pneumatomachi, or Spirit Fighters (also known as Macedonians). Athanasius wrote Letters to Serapion, in which he argues for the Spirit’s divinity.
358: The Sirmium blasphemy was hailed by the Homoeans, assembled at Antioch. Under the pretext that Western bishops had denounced the homoousion and the homoiousion at Syrmium, Eudoxius advocated the anomoios (dissimilar) theology of the layman Aetius: Jesus was not divine at all. Those who advocated this view are referred to as Anomoeans.
Constantius brought Liberius of Rome from exile in Thrace to Sirmium. Liberius subscribed to one of the dedication creeds of 341 and was allowed to return to Rome.
On report of the strong influence of Aetius in Antioch, Basil of Ancyra held a council with local bishops during Lent and drafted a synodical letter which asserted the essential likeness (homoion kat’ ousion) of the Son to the Father. He proceeded to the court of Sirmium, gained the Constantius’ support, and the approval of the formula at a council.
359: Constantius called an ecumenical council to meet in two locations: the West in Italy at Rimini (Ariminum), and the East at Seleucia in Asia Minor (Isauria). At Seleucia, 160 bishops attended. It is estimated that ¾ of them were Conservatives or Semiarians (Basil’s party), while the remaining quarter were either uncompromising Arians or loyal to the Nicene creed. The Lucianic creed of the Council of Dedication (341) was adopted. The Arians were excommunicated, and a successor was named for the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch.
The council at Rimini endorsed the Nicene formula. Each council sent a deputation to Constantius.
The Persians under Shapur II attacked Amida on the upper Tigris, beginning the war that ended with the death of Julian the Apostate in 363.
360: A council in Constantinople, called to celebrate the dedication of the church of Sancta Sophia, promulgated a creed (a version of the Nike creed of 359) that stated the Son is like the Father, without further qualification. (Aetius, who could not agree to say that the Son is like the Father in any way, was exiled.) Soon thereafter, Basil and Macedonius of Constantinople (see 337, 342, 346) were deposed on charges of misconduct. Though Macedonius was deposed, the Pneumatomachi were clearly marked off as a party.
Eudoxius of Antioch became bishop of Constantinople (see year 357).
Athanasius, head of the homoousios party, realized that he and the homoiousios (“like in substance”) party (led by Basil of Ancyra) were really allies. He wrote, “Those who accept the Nicene creed but have doubts about the term homoousios must not be treated as enemies…” He pointed out that though properties may be alike, essences cannot be but are either the same or different. When the homoiousians realized this, he believed, they would come over to his side.
Meletius, formerly bishop of Sebastea, was elected bishop of Antioch when Eudoxius was translated to Constantinople. Within a few weeks, Meletius, who expressed too much sympathy for the Nicene position, was banished by Constantius, and replaced by Euzoios, an Arian.
By this year, the church in Edessa observed a festival of All Martyrs on May 13th.
Codex Sinaiticus – The Sinai Bible, the world’s oldest Bible, discovered in 1844 by Constantine Tischendorf in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai.
361: Constantius died, November 3, 361. Julian “the Apostate” became emperor. He died in 363 during a campaign against the Persians. Julian proclaimed his paganism and, in hopes of further disrupting the church, published an edict recalling all bishops exiled by Constantius. Julian also gave permission and provided funds for the Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This project was terminated by an earthquake.
Ambrose mentions (Letter 40) that the Jews burned two basilicas in Damascus, others in Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus and Alexandria during Julian’s reign.
First mention of Epiphany in the West. Its observance in Gaul was noted by Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan. Curiously, there is no record of December 25 observance in transalpine Gaul during the fourth century.
362: On Feb 9, Julian published an edict that recalled the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius.
Athanasius restored to his see. End of his third and last exile prolonged exile. Athanasius was to be forced to depart from Alexandria for short periods in 362/3 and 365 also.
Beginning of the schism in Antioch. A famous ascetic named Paulinus was elected bishop of Antioch. He was ordained by Lucifer of Caralis (Cagliari, Sardinia), a strict adherent to the Nicene formula. The party supporting Paulinus were known as Eustathians after the pro-Nicene bishop Eustathius, whom the Arians had deposed in 328. Meletius was already bishop of Antioch. He had been banished (see 360) by Constantius, then returned soon after Julian’s edict of February 9.
A new group, known as the Tropici, appeared in the Nile delta. They denied the deity of the Holy Spirit, terming him simply a ministering spirit, and were condemned at the council in Alexandria.
Athanasius called a council in Alexandria to deal with (1) terms under which to accept the Arians back into communion and (2) to sort out the succession at Antioch (see below). It was decided to accept the Arians on the grounds of their subscription to the Nicene formula and their repudiation of Arianism, including the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is a creature. This council was of key importance. Jerome said that by its judicious conciliation it “snatched the world from the jaws of Satan.” Exiles returned across the empire (see year 356) and the example of this council was followed, reunion being accomplished on Nicaean, not Homoean, grounds.
There were three rival bishops in Antioch, two of whom are anti-Arian, Meletius and Paulinus. In the course of the council, Athanasius began to act on the principle that orthodoxy is a matter of intentions, not of formulas. One logomachy dealt with the use of the term hypostases. The anti-Sabellian tradition following Origen had spoken of three hypostases, meaning three entities existing in their own right, as a safeguard against the notion that the Father, Son and Spirit are just descriptions of different divine attributes. But, to some, “three hypostases” seemed like tritheism. Meletius spoke of three hypostases, but Paulinus of one. Based on loyalties, Rome and Athanasius recognize Paulinus as rightful bishop of Antioch, but they considered Meletius orthodox.
The colossal statue of Apollo in Antioch of Syria, made of gold with jewels for eyes, was destroyed by fire.
363: On 26 June, the emperor Julian died during a battle with the Persians.
The council of Laodicea (in the Lycus valley, Phrygia) enumerated the canon of scripture in Canon 60, which is of doubtful authenticity. The New Testament canonical books were those we now receive, with the exception of Revelation, which Laodicea did not accept.
The Old Testament agreed with the modern Protestant Old Testament, with the addition of Baruch and the Epistle. (Unlike Athanasius, Laodicea included Esther.)
Theologians of the Alexandrian school generally agreed with Athanasius: Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Epiphanius, for example. The Antiochene school (e.g., John Chrysostom and Theodoret) was more favorable towards the “Apocrypha.” Though the East was generally hesitant about the Apocrypha, the West was favorable.
The synod’s fifty-nine other canons affirmed the lawfulness of receiving the remarried and contrite to communion; determined that Montanists who converted were to be baptized; and forbade Christians from praying in the graveyards of heretics, honoring heretical martyrs instead of faithful ones, receiving the blessings of heretics, praying with heretics or schismatics, marrying their children to heretics, holding “love feasts” in the church, judaizing by resting on Saturday, receiving portions from the feasts of heretics or Jews, or clubbing “together for drinking entertainments.” The council also passed various canons regarding propriety in the worship service and the Lenten season. It addressed the travel of bishops for synods and forbade the travel of priests and other clergy without the bishop’s permission. It forbade the clergy from being magicians, from manufacturing magic amulets, and from seeing plays at weddings and banquets.
The exact date of this synod is not known. It has been placed as early as 343 and as late as 381.
A council met in Antioch in this year. By this time, the Arians were split into three groups: the Acacians who, following Acacius, said that the Son was like the Father , without making further clarification; the Semiarians, or homoiousions; and the Aetians, who held that the Son was unlike the Father. Later, the Aetians would by termed Eunomians. This council of Antioch has been termed an Acacian synod.
364: Valentinian I (364-75) became Emperor. He restored the division of the empire, taking the West and entrusting the East to his brother Valens (364-78). Valens’ wife swayed him in favor of Eudoxius, the Arian bishop of Constantinople, and then in favor of his Arian successor, Demophilus.
Basil, later bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, ordained to the priesthood. About this time he wrote his books against Eunomius. Eunomius was a follower of Aetius, who formed an ecclesiastical sect centered in Constantinople. Eunomius was condemned at the second ecumenical council in Constantinople in 381 and died ~394.
According to Sozomen (vi, 26), Eunomius was accused of being the first to baptize with single immersion. Theodoret adds that he also abandoned the invocation of the Trinity at baptism.
At a council in Lampsacus, the Semiarians opposed the councils of Arminium (359) and Constantinople (360), reissuing instead the Lucianic creed of Antioch (341). They also deposed Acacius of Caesarea in Palestine.
365: On May 5, the emperor Valens sent the bishops whom Julian had permitted to return to their sees (see 362) back into exile. Meletius, one of three rival bishops in Antioch, remained in that city.
366: Semiarian deputies sent to Liberius in Rome from the council of Lampsacus. They subscribed to the Nicene creed, thus demonstrating their orthodoxy.
Liberius, bishop of Rome, died. He had subscribed to an Arian creed (see year 358), but continued to govern the church in Rome. Damasus and Ursinus battled for the bishopric of Rome. At the end of one day, 137 corpses were counted in the Liberian basilica. Damasus won and ruled through 384. In Damasus’ time, Latin was used in the Roman liturgy for the first time.
Damasus wrote that Rome was the “first see of the apostle Peter” and the “apostolic see.” He began the habit of using the “plural of majesty” in his writings, and he addressed his fellow bishops for the first time as “sons,” instead of the traditional “brothers.” Damasus claimed to be the “exclusive inheritor of all, and more than all, that the New Testament tells us of the prerogative of St. Peter.” He also claimed that the authority of the council of Nicaea was based on its acceptance by Sylvester, his predecessor. Much of this verbiage may have been induced by the pretensions of Constantinople (see 381).
That the bishop of Rome enjoyed temporal power in this time is illustrated by the pagan official Praetextus’ words to Damasus: “Make me bishop of Rome and I will turn Christian.”
367: The earliest extant list of the books of the NT, in exactly the number and order in which we presently have them, is written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Festal letter #39 of (Arianism starts introducing spurious books)
The council of Tyana accepted the restitution of the Semiarian bishops. (Was this an ecclesiastical validation of Julian’s edict of 362?)
In his annual “festal letter,” Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, listed the canon of scripture. His canon was very close to the modern Protestant Bible, listing the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther (!), Judith, and Tobit specifically as outside the canon. It is probable, however, that he meant to include the Greek additions to the Hebrew books in the canon. He does not mention the books of Maccabees. (Athanasius’ listing is identical to that of Laodicea, 363, except for his inclusion of the book of Revelation.) This was the first listing of the 27 books of the modern New Testament as being canonical, without also including certain books not considered canonical in our time.
Epiphanios (Epiphanius) became bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. Served through 403. Found a curtain in a church porch in Palestine decorated with a picture of Christ or some saint. He tore it down and lodged a vehement protest with the bishop of Jerusalem. [This may be an apocryphal account, invented by iconoclasts.]
Epiphanios stated that Mary, not Eve, is the mother of all living. He neither affirmed nor denied her death. Most Eastern theologians believed that Mary was sinful, in need of redemption.
Britain raided by a combined force of Irish, Scots and Saxons.
The West Roman emperor Valentinian I (364-75) gave the bishop of Rome the right to judge cases against other bishops.
367: The West Roman emperor Valentinian I (364-75) gave the bishop of Rome the right to judge cases against other bishops.
367-369: Christians in Gaul persecuted during the Eastern emperor Valens’ Gothic war.
368: Probable year of John Chrysostom’s baptism. Meletius, bishop of Antioch, probably presided. John served as Meletius’s aide during the period 368-371.
370: The “Cappadocian Fathers” came to the forefront of the post-Nicene debate. Basil became metropolitan of Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia. He replaced Eusebius and served through 379. Basil set about to build a solid Nicene party in Cappadocia by appointing orthodox candidates to vacant sees. Associated with Basil were his younger brother Gregory, who became bishop of Nyssa (372-75, 375-395), and his friend Gregory whose father [Gregory] (see year 381) was bishop of Nazianzus before him.
Gregory of Nazianzus is also known as Gregory the Theologian. Basil supported the cause of Meletius at Antioch – they agreed on the “three hypostases” formula. (His father had been persuaded to accept Christianity through the efforts of his wife (Gregory’s mother) Nonna, and soon afterwards became bishop of Nazianzus. Gregory was born after his father’s conversion and ordination.) In his writings, Gregory mentioned the story of a virgin who implored Mary to help her in her time of peril. He related it as if there is nothing strange about it, indicating this may have been a common practice by this time.
By imperial decree, clerics were forbidden to visit the houses of rich widows or heiresses.
371: St. Martin became bishop of Tours. A child of pagan parents, Martin had become a Christian when he was 10 years old. He was forced into the Roman army, but petitioned the Emperor Julian the Apostate, and was eventually discharged. He then became an evangelist, working in Pannonia and Illyricum. In 360, he joined Hilary of Poitiers in that city, then founded the first monastery in Gaul, at Liguge (near Poitiers). As bishop, Martin continued to act as an evangelist, especially in Touraine and the countryside where the faith was little known.
When the emperor Valens set up headquarters in Antioch, Meletius was forced into exile. He returned to his home in the region of Armenia (perhaps near Sebastea, along the river Halys). Meletius remained in exile until Gratian’s edict of toleration, after the battle of Adrianople in 378.
372: The Eastern emperor Valens reduced Basil of Caesarea’s power by dividing Cappadocia in two. He directed that Tyana be considered the chief town in the new province. A canon of Nicaea had tied ecclesiastical provinces to civil provinces, so the division diminished Basil’s jurisdiction as metropolitan of Cappadocia.
Basil made Gregory Nazianzus bishop of the tiny village of Sasima. For Basil, this was a tactical move to assist him against the rival bishop of Tyana. Antithimus, bishop of Tyana, argued that he should have privileges equal to Basil’s.
373: Athanasius died. Apollinarius of Laodicea in Syria, his friend, asserted a Christology in which the Logos replaced the human mind of the Son. This implied that Christ was not fully human, which has unwanted implications for soteriology. Christologies of the “Word-Flesh” type (like that of Apollinarius) were common coming from Alexandria, while Antioch championed a “Word-Man” theology. The former type had the potential to do disservice to Christ’s humanity, while the latter had difficulty with the fusion of the two natures, human and divine, into one person.
373 (374?): Upon the death of Auxentius, an Arian, Ambrose became bishop of Milan. Served through 397. Ambrose believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity, though, at first, he was reluctant to do so. Ambrose wrote that St. Peter had “a primacy of confession, not of office; a primacy of faith, not of rank.” During Ambrose’s time, the capital in the West was at Milan, and Ambrose had considerable influence over the emperor. The bishop of Rome was forced to surrender control of the church in northern Italy to the bishop of Milan. (Milan had originally become the capital of the West in 286 when Diocletian divided the empire. But the imperial court had resided for some time at Trier before returning to Milan in 383.)
374: St. Epiphanios, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, published his Ancoratus. It contained two creeds, the first of which is nearly identical to that of Constantinople (381). It included the phrase, “the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.”
When Auxentius, the Arian bishop of Milan, died, Ambrose was elected bishop in his stead – though only a catechumen at the time. St. Ambrose sent a deputation to St. Basil to collect the body of St. Dionysius, the late Catholic bishop of Milan.
For his opposition to Arianism, St. Macarius (d. 390) the Egyptian was banished to an island in the Nile by bishop Lucius of Alexandria. Macarius had become a hermit in the desert of Scete in around 330, and lived there for much of the following 60 years. Macarius had gifts of healing and prophecy. He was the author of 50 Spiritual Homilies, which describes the ascent of the spirit, through work, discipline, and meditation, toward the vision of light.
375: Basil of Casarea published his On the Holy Spirit. His argument in favor of the Spirit’s divinity was based largely on tradition in baptism and doxology.
Epiphanios (see 335), bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (367-403), launched an attack on the orthodoxy of Origen. He wanted to bring Origen (or, rather, his corpse) to trial, and he was troubled by the influence of Origen’s writings on certain Egyptian monks, namely, Ammonius and three brothers, known collectively as the Tall Brothers. Evagrius moved to Egypt and put himself under Ammonius’ direction, where he became the Tall Brothers’ literary spokesman.
Epiphanios was a scholar. According to Jerome, he knew Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, and some Latin. He was also an energetic defender of the Orthodox faith. His chief written works are the Panarion, written by about 377, which describes 80 heresies, and the Ancoratus, a compendium of church teachings dating to 374. In his works, Epiphanios denounced a sect called the Collyridians, which worshipped Mary. He also described a group of Quartodecimans in Asia Minor who taught that Jesus was crucified on March 25 and who celebrated Easter invariably on that date.
In the Panarion, also known as the Refutation of all the Heresies, Epiphanios wrote, “The Savior was born in the 42nd year of Augustus, emperor of the Romans … on 8 before the Ides of January” (January 6). He asserted that the wedding in Cana occurred on the same date, but held that Christ’s baptism was on November 8. Palestine excepted (and Epiphanios was from there), the East held 6 January as the date of the Lord’s baptism also.
The western emperor Valentinian I (364-75) died of a stroke. His sixteen-year-old son Gratian, then at Trier, was proclaimed emperor. The legions on the Danube proclaimed Gratian’s four-year-old half-brother Valentinian II co-emperor.
376: Upon the death of the Arian bishop of Antioch, Euzozios, he was succeeded by Dorotheos, another Arian.
377: The Eastern emperor Valens allowed Visigoths to cross the Danube into the empire. As part of the deal worked out by Valens and the Gothic leader Fritigern (according to the historian Sozomen), Fritigern agreed to adopt the emperor’s Arian faith and to persuade his followers to do likewise. Other tribes – Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Sueves, and Vanddals – also adopted Arianism after entering imperial territory. The Huns were a driving force behind the migration of the Ostrogoths, who pressured the Visigoths across the Danube.
Jerome visited Evagrius in Antioch. Evagrius won him over to the party of bishop Paulinus (who was opposed by the supporters of Meletius, including Basil of Caesarea) in the contention over the see of Antioch. The overwhelming majority of Christians in Antioch supported Meletius. (See 362).
Damasus realized the implications of Apollinarius’ Christology and held a council that condemned his teachings. Its sentence was confirmed by synods in Alexandria in 378 and Antioch in 379.
378: Paulinus ordained Jerome a priest in Antioch. Jerome became a disciple of Gregory of Nazianzus.
Gratian (375-83), emperor in the West, supported the bishop of Rome’s claim to authority over other bishops in the West. At Gratian’s request, Ambrose wrote the first two books of De Fide.
On 9 August, the Eastern emperor Valens died in the battle of Adrianople against Fritigern and his Goths. More than 2/3 of Valens’ army was slain. Valens’ nephew Gratian, a supporter of Nicaea, promptly published an edict recalling exiled bishops. Meletius of Antioch returned to his see after a seven-year exile (371-78).
As Valens left Constantinople to battle the Goths, he was confronted by Isaac, a monk from Syria, who prophesied that the emperor would not return unless he restored the churches to the Orthodox. (The majority in Constantinople were Arians at that time.) Isaac was jailed, but released by by the emperor Theodosius I (see 379). Isaac later became a bitter enemy of John Chrysostom (see 398), whose authority he rejected.
Diodore became bishop of Tarsus. Served through 390. Teacher of John Chrysostom. Diodore (from the Word-Man school) came into conflict with Apollinarius over the nature of Christ. Apollinarius suspected Diodore of believing that Jesus was simply a uniquely inspired man. Diodore refused to call Mary Theotokos unless it was balanced by saying Mary was the “mother of man” as well.
379: On January 1, St. Basil the Great died.
Theodosius (379-95) became Eastern Roman emperor. Ruled through 395. Christianity became an ingredient of good citizenship, and many pagan temples were closed. Pagans themselves were generally tolerated. Through Theodosius’s influence, an imperial edict (3 August 379) was issued which condemned heretics of all kinds.
Theodosius made it clear that he wanted conformity with the creed of Nicaea. Bishops not in communion with Pope Damasus and Athanasius’ successor at Alexandria, Peter, would not be recognized. He soon discovered, however, that Meletius of Antioch was capable of bringing the Greek world to unity. Paulinus refused to be co-bishop with Meletius, so he was abandoned. Meletius later presided at the council of Constantinople (381).
The small Orthodox community in Constantinople invited Gregory of Nazianzen (see 370) to lead the church until a bishop should be chosen. He converted a room in the house where he stayed there into the Anastasia (Resurrection) chapel, where he preached his Five Theological Orations. Jerome visited this chapel and heard Gregory preach. A certain Maximus the Cynic, supported by a group of Egyptian bishops, had himself consecrated bishop of Constantinople while Gregory was ill. When the congregation learned of this, they forced Maximus and his compatriots out of the city.
A shrine to St. Babylas was erected in Antioch. See 250.
380: In an edict promulgated on 28 February, Theodosius recognized the bishops of Rome (Damasus) and Alexandria (Peter) as the guardians of the true faith. He reserved the title “Catholic Christians” to those who espoused their doctrines (the Nicene theology). When Theodosius entered Constantinople in this year, the Arian bishop Demophilus was deposed, the Arians were refused use of the city’s churches, and Gregory of Nazianzen and his congregation moved to the Great Church (likely the former church on the site of Hagia Sophia).
The canons of the synod of Saragossa (Caesaraugusta), Spain, made the first mention of Advent as a season of preparation for Epiphany. The council also condemned the teachings of Priscillian, later bishop of Avila, Spain. From about 375 Priscillian taught that bodies were created by the Satan, that souls were imprisoned in bodies as punishment for sins, and that angels and human souls were emanations from the Godhead. Eleven sermons ascribed to Priscillian were published in 1889. They teach that the Son differs from the Father in name only.
About this year, Christmas was celebrated on December 25 for the first time in Antioch. (Some historians conclude Christmas was first observed there in 386.)
381: Second Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople – practically, the end of the battle against Arianism. The emperor Theodosius made Meletius of Antioch president (note that Meletius was not in communion with the bishop of Rome, who had backed Paulinus for the contested episcopacy at Antioch). No representatives from Rome were present. The homoousios was reasserted. The council recognized the bishop of Constantinople as second in standing to Rome, because “Constantinople is the new Rome” (Canon 3).
The creed of the Council of Constantinople, popularly known as the Nicene creed, sometimes known as the Creed of the 150 Fathers, may not have been adopted at the council at all. That is, however, the tradition, and it was the understanding of the Council of Chalcedon. The creed.
First Council of Constantinople (2nd Ecumenical Council) – was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, except for the Western Church, confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and dealt with sundry other matters. It met from May to July 381 in the Church of Hagia Irene and was affirmed as ecumenical in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon.
History 3
Fourth Century (Part II) (Con’t)
382 – 405 AD: Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Manuscripts Produced which contain All 80 Books (39 Old Test. + 14 Apocrypha + 27 New Test). Pope Damasus, assigned Jerome to translate from Hebrew and Greek to standard Latin. Vulgate = vulgata or Common.
382: The emperor Theodosius settled the Tervingi, a Gothic tribe that had been allowed into the empire in 376 (377?), in Moesia. These Goths had defeated Valens at Adrianople in 378. The head of the embassy requesting this settlement was Ulfila, Arian bishop of the Goths. • Jerome (340-420) became an adviser to Damasus in Rome. Jerome initially rejected Mary’s virginity in childbirth, which he later came to accept, along with her perpetual virginity thereafter. Jerome was responsible for the theory that Jesus’ brothers were actually cousins, and that Joseph as well as Mary was a virgin. He attacked the view that virginity and marriage are to be valued equally.
Gratian ordered the removal of the image of Victory from the forum in Rome.
A council meeting at Rome stated that Roman primacy is not founded on synodical decisions (referring to Constantinople, 381), but on the promise of Christ to Peter. It asserted a hierarchy: the prime see is at Rome, the second at Alexandria, and the third at Antioch. Rome did recognize Constantinople as second in rank in 869, at the synod held to condemn Photios (Photius).
Council of Rome (whereby Pope Damasus started the ball rolling for the defining of a universal canon for all city-churches). Listed the New Testament books in their present number and order.
382/383: In around this time, Isaac of Syria (see 378) and a certain Dalmatios began the first orthodox monastery in Constantinople.
383: In June, the emperor Theodosius I called a meeting of the various sects of Christianity to promote “universal agreement.” Arians, Eunomians, and Macedonians (Pneumatomachians) were represented. On the advice of the Novatians (the Novatian bishop Angelios, but principally his reader Sisinnios), Nectarios, bishop of Constantinople, confronted the sectaries with writings of the fathers, “who flourished before schism distracted the church,” Socrates (5.10) wrote that the emperor Theodosius perceived “by their confusion that their sole confidence was in subtle arguments, and that they feared to appeal to the expositions of the fathers” on the question of the Son’s deity. Theodosius approved only the homoousion view of the Trinity. The Novatians were rewarded, as the emperor gave them privileges equal to the Orthodox. [The Novatians had broken away from the church in 251 over the question of whether those whose lapsed under persecution could be restored to the faith. They answered in the negative. They agreed with the Orthodox in all other points, and plainly regarded the Arian view as a novelty.]
On August 25, the western emperor Gratian was murdered at Lyon (France).
384: Siricius (384-99) became bishop of Rome. He was the first Roman bishop to use the title “pope.” Siricius claimed for his rescripts and decretals the same binding force as synodal decrees, since “the care of all the churches” was “committed to him.” He threatened sanctions against those who disobeyed him.
A synod meeting in Bourdeaux (Burdigala, Aquitania), attended by Martin of Tours, condemned Priscillianism (see 380, Saragossa). Though Martin opposed the killing of heretics, the Emperor Magnus Maximus (383-88) had Priscillian executed.
385: After Damasus’ death, and under fire for his criticism of the Roman clergy, lax monks, and hypocritical virgins, and for his correction of the gospel texts, Jerome left Rome for the Holy Land, and settled in Bethlehem.
The Pilgrimage of Sylvia, written about this time, described the journey to Palestine by a devout lady (Sylvia, or Etheria) from Gaul. Silvia stated that on Ascension Day (40 days after Easter) there was a solemn procession to the Mount of Olives. The procession ended at the church of the Ascension built on the mount by the Empress Helena. The Pilgrimage also mentions the Feast of Purification (or Hypapante, now celebrated on February 2) as being then observed in Jerusalem on 14 February, forty days after Epiphany, the date on which Christ’s birth was celebrated. Hypapante came to be called Candlemas because of the words of Simeon (Luke 2.32). See 542. • Also this year, a new basilica was consecrated in Milan.
385-386: The bishop of Rome, Siricius (384-99), wrote a letter to Himerius of Tarragona (Tarraco, Spain) criticizing the practice of performing baptisms at times such as Christmas, Epiphany, and the festivals of saints and martyrs. By this time, in Rome, baptism was performed on Pascha and Pentecost only. In the letter, Siricius also commanded celibacy for priests. This was the first decree on the subject. In support of his position, Siricius quoted Romans 8.8: “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The letter to Himerius contains a reference to Matthew 16.18-19 as supporting papal rights. This is the earliest such interpretation of that passage extant.
385: St. Theophilus (385-412) became bishop of Alexandria. The Roman practice of Easter baptism was unknown in Alexandria at this time.
According to a letter written by St. Ambrose, the Metonic cycle (used in calculating the date of Easter, named after an Athenian astronomer named Meton who died circa 433) was in use at this time.
386?: Flavian, bishop of Antioch, ordained John Chrysostom to the priesthood. At about this time, John gave a sermon in which he asserted that contact with (or even proximity to) saints’ shrines can result in miracles.
387: A riot broke out in Antioch over new taxes. Flavian, the bishop of Antioch, traveled to Constantinople and interceded with the emperor. • A certain John succeeded Cyril as bishop of Jerusalem. • St. Ambrose baptized St. Augustine in Milan.
388: Ambrose, bishop of Milan, rebuked the emperor Theodosius for punishing rioters who had destroyed a Jewish synagogue. • Death of Paulinus of Antioch. On his deathbed, he ordained Evagrius as his successor. The schism in Antioch thus continued. (Evagrius was the same person who had associated with Jerome in 377.) As they had recognized Paulinus before him, Rome and Alexandria acknowledged Evagrius as bishop of Antioch, in spite of his irregular ordination.
389: St. Gregory of Nyssa composed his Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles. In this commentary, in his Life of Moses, and in other works, Gregory enunciated his mystical theology. Against the pagan notion that change is imperfection – which had led, in Origen, to the notion that men might fall into sin again, even in the future life – Gregory described the perfection of man as an eternal ascent into ever-increasing holiness. No changeless state is achievable, because God is wrapped in an impenetrable divine darkness – no created being can ever know him completely.
390 (391?): Theodosius had thousands of Thessalonicans massacred for killing a barbarian army commander. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, brought the emperor to public penance.
390: Symeon the Stylite born. Died 459. Lived on top of a column at the monastery in Telanissos in Syria. He became so prestigious that his assent was required to the verdicts of the councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451. His imitator, Daniel (409-493), lived for 37 years atop a column near Constantinople.
Death of St. Gregory Nazianzus. Death of St. Ephraim the Syrian (303-390). Many of Ephraim’s theological works are in the form of hymns.
At the Synod of Side in Pamphylia, the Messalian heresy was condemned (they were then called Adelphians). The Messalians believed that Satan was Christ’s elder brother. On account of his pride, he had rebelled against the Father and created the material world, which they considered wicked. Each person’s soul was held to be inhabited by a demon, which the Messalians sought to eject in the form of mucous or saliva through prayer. The only prayer they said, however, was the Our Father. Those who succeeded in expelling the demon could be unified with the Holy Spirit and behold God. When they had reached this state, sin was impossible for them: Messalians had a reputation for licentious behavior. They refused to reverence the cross or the Virgin Mary, since the cross was the instrument of Jesus’s death, and Mary was simply the mother of a human, Jesus, whom the Holy Spirit later inhabited. Effectively, Jesus was reduced to a teacher or example. Epiphanios (Ephanius) reported that if a Messalian were asked, “Are you a Patriach? Prophet? Angel? Jesus Christ?” he would always respond with “Yes.” Messalians were also known as Euchetes (praying people) or Enthusiasts.
391: In two edicts issued this year and in 392, Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire. Paganism was proscribed. • Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, had the temple of Serapis (the Serapeum) dismantled. In doing so, he was enforcing recent imperial legislation suppressing pagan temples. The Serapeum was the world’s largest temple to Serapis, a god of the sun, healing, and fertility. Gnostics sometimes identified Serapis with the godhead.
392: Theodore (392-429) became bishop of Mopsuestia in the Cilician plain. Served through 428. Theodore developed Diodore’s Christology. His concern was to protect Christ’s human nature, which he considered necessary to human redemption. He taught Christ as one person (prosopon) in two natures. Diodore and Theodore are representative of the “Word-Man” Christology.
Theodore became spiritual head of the exegetical school at Antioch. Instead of the allegorical interpretive method employed at Alexandria, Theodore stressed the literal sense. He argued that those who interpret Scripture allegorically “turn everything backwards, since they make no distinction in divine Scripture between what the text says and dreams….”
Though influenced by Origen, Theodore’s exegesis of Mt 16.17-18 did not identify the Rock with Christ, but with Peter’s confession of faith. According to Theodore, the church is built on Peter’s confession of faith (Rom 10.9). So also Chrysostom (see 398 below). Theodore and John Chrysostom had been fellow pupils in Libanios’s school of rhetoric in Antioch.
393: The Council of Hippo, which began “arguing it out.” Canon proposed by Bishop Athanasius.
A council at Hippo set the canon along the lines approved by Augustine – including the Deuterocanonical books. Augustine’s Old Testament list: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings (Samuel and Kings), the two books of Chronicles, Job, Tobias, Esther, Judith, two books of the Maccabees, two books of Esdras (Ezra and Nehemiah), Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the twelve minor prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel. Augustine’s New Testament agreed with the modern listing.
Jerome and Epiphanius of Salamis attacked John of Jerusalem for adhering to the views of Origen. Epiphanius incited the monks of Palestine to anti-Origenism. John refused to baptize their converts or bury their dead.
A council meeting in Caesarea (Palestine) supported Flavian’s claim to the see of Antioch. Siricius, bishop of Rome, had advised the council not to support Evagrius, due to his irregular consecration. But Siricius took no positive action to end the schism.
393/394: Death of Evagrius, head of the Eustathian party in Antioch. (See 362.) Evagrius had succeeded Paulinus in 388. According to Socrates, “No other was constituted in his [Evagrius’s] place, Flavian having brought this about.” However, the schism in Antioch was not healed, as those who disliked Flavian “held their assemblies apart.”
394: The emperor Theodosius defeated a usurper named Eugenius at the battle of the Frigidus River in northeastern Italy (near Aquileia). Also, it was probably in this year that Theodosius appointed Flavius Stilicho (whose father had been a Vandal) as regent for his younger son Honorius, Augustus in the West. • Olympic games abolished.
395: Death of the emperor Theodosius. Arcadius became emperor in the East (395-408), Honorius in the West, and Stilicho assumed the role of guardian for both.
Augustine bishop of Hippo (in North Africa). Died 430. Author of the Confessions, the City of God, etc. Apart from being the most influential Western theologian of the early church, Augustine was a strong exponent of Mary’s permanent virginity. He held that Mary was sinless, though not through her own will (as the Pelagians would have it) but by virtue of a special grace. Mary had, however, been born subject to original sin like all other humans. But she had been delivered from its effects by the grace of rebirth.
The Huns crossed the Caucasus Mountains and raided Mesopotamia and Syria. Jerome wrote (Letter 60.16, written in 396), “For twenty years and more the blood of Romans has been shed daily between Constantinople and the Julian Alps … The Roman world is falling … In the year just gone by the wolves … were let loose upon us from the remotest fastnesses of Caucasus and in a short time overran these great provinces. What a number of monasteries they captured! What many rivers they caused to run with blood! They laid siege to Antioch and invested other cities on the Halys, the Cydnus, the Orontes, and the Euphrates. They carried off troops of captives. Arabia, Phoenicia, Palestine and Egypt, in their terror fancied themselves already enslaved.”
Disgruntled at not having been given a high military command after assisting Theodosius win the battle of the Frigidus (394), Alaric led the Visigoths on a raid into Macedonia and Thessaly. Stilicho, at the head of forces from both the western and eastern sections of the empire, moved into position to crush him in Thessaly. The eastern emperor Arcadius, however, suspected Stilicho intended to annex the Balkans to the western empire, ordered Stilicho to send his eastern forces on to Constantinople and return west with the remainder. Alaric was allowed to escape.
396: Jerome published a scathing attack on John of Jerusalem. The occasion was the visit of Epiphanius to Jerusalem. Epiphanius preached against Origenism, while John vocalized against Anthropomorphism – the opposite extreme. A breach resulted between the two, and Jerome took Epiphanius’ side. In the period from roughly 393-403, the condemnation of Origenism was widespread. The quarrel between Jerome and John was short-lived. [These events may have occurred in 393 – see note above.]
397: Roman Catholic canon approved at the Council of Hippo. The Council of Carthage, which refined the canon for the Western Church, sending it back to Pope Innocent for ratification. In the East, the canonical process was hampered by a number of schisms (esp. within the Church of Antioch).
Ninian established a monastery on Whithorn Island in Scotland with a whitewashed stone church – the Candida Casa (White House) – said to be the only church in Britain built from stone. From that base, he labored for the conversion of the Picts and Celts. Ninian’s school on Whithorn was the only educational institution in the north of Britain. Born in Scotland in about 360, Ninian had traveled to Rome in around 380, where he eventually met bishop Siricius and Jerome. Siricius commissioned him to evangelize Scotland, and provided him priests as companions, along with vestments, relics, books and sacred vessels. Along the road back to Scotland, Ninian met Martin of Tours.
Jerome and John of Jerusalem were reconciled through the mediation of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria. John became neutral on the Origen issue, while argument continued between Jerome and his former colleague, Tyrannius Rufinus. Theophilus himself now opposed Origenism.
By this time, Alaric and his Visigoths had taken Megara, Corinth, Argos, and Sparta in Greece. Stilicho crossed the Adriatic and confronted Alaric at Elis in northwestern Peloponnese. Alarac escaped into Epirus, and the eastern emperor Arcadius ordered Stilicho to return to the West.
398: Death of Didymus the Blind (~313-398). Blind from birth, Didymus was appointed by St. Athanasius to head the catechetical school in Alexandria. He was an opponent of Arianism, but certain of his teachings may have been condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in its tenth anathema directed against Origen (see 553). The ancient epitome of the Quinisext council’s (see 691) first canon mentions Didymus together with Origen and Evagrios (see 399) as denying the resurrection of the flesh, teaching that hell will be temporary, “and other innumerable insane blasphemies.” Didymus may also have been the author of certain works formerly attributed to Basil the Great (pseudo-Basil).
On 26 February, John Chrysostom, a priest under bishop Flavian of Antioch, became bishop of Constantinople. He served through 404.
399: On 27 August a law was published in Constantinople that banned spectacles, horse racing, and threatrical shows on Sundays. The law may have been due to John Chrysostom’s recent criticism of spectacles competing with Sunday church attendance.
After initially supporting the Tall Brothers’ criticism of the Anthropomorphites, Theophilus of Alexandria expelled the Origenists. They moved to Constantinople and made their case to John Chrysostom. (Recall that Alexandria was jealous of Constantinople’s elevation by the council of Constantinople in 381.) In 400, a council convened at Theophilus’ behest condemned Origen.
Death of Evagrios of Pontus (known as “the Solitary”). Evagrios, born around 345, had been ordained reader by St. Basil the Great and deacon by St. Gregory of Nazianzen. After attending the council at Constantinople in 381, he went to Egypt in 383 to become a monk. Evagrios, like St. Gregory of Nyssa, believed in the eventual salvation of all – a position later condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553. He also wrote on practical matters, such as the spiritual discipline of the Desert Fathers. John Cassian was a disciple of Evagrios’ – though Cassian rejected his universalist error.
When Yezdegerd I ascended the throne of Persia in this year, he halted the persecution of Christians in his realm. Yezdegerd was influenced to do so by Maruta, bishop of Martyropolis (Mayferqat) in Mesopotamia, whom the emperor Arcadius sent as an ambassador. Yezdegerd gave Maruta permission to build churches wherever he wished.
400: Codex Bezae – The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum Dea or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 5 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the New Testament written in an uncial hand on parchment. It contains most of the four Gospels and Acts, with a small fragment of 3 John.
The first consolidated edition of canon law published about this time (in the East). Comprised the canons of many fourth century councils. (See 545 below.)
The Peshitta, a translation of the Bible into Aramaic, was completed around this time. (This statement is disputed by George Lamsa, who claims that it is far more ancient.) The Old Testament contains the so-called “Apocryphal” books. The New Testament lacks 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.
~400: Chrysostom referred to a feast of All Martyrs being celebrated in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost.
5th Century: Codex Alexandrinus – designated by the siglum A or 02, δ 4, is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. Using the study of comparative writing styles, it has been dated to the fifth century. It contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. British Library.
401: By this date, the population of Constantinople may have been 500,000.
Augustine wrote On the Work of Monks against the notion that monks needed to do no work, and could live on alms.
Augustine stated (Letter 61) that, although the Donatists had been baptized, their baptisms did not avail them because they were “beyond the pale of the church.” Instead, the baptism they possessed was “for their destruction.” In like manner, baptism, ordination, asceticism, and faith in the Trinity did not profit the Donatist clergy, but served to condemn them. They were like branches cut off from the root (the Catholic Church), doomed to be cast into the fire unless God should graft them in again. Yet their errors were “dissent from the unity and truth of the Catholic Church,” “not remaining in peace with the people of God, which is spread abroad throughout the world,” and “refusing to recognize the baptism of Christ in those who have received it.”
Alaric, now military commander of Illyricum and chieftain of the Visigoths, invaded Italy and surrounded Milan.
Innocent I (401-17) became bishop of Rome. He wrote to the African churches that “it has been decreed by a divine, not a human authority, that whatever action is taken in any of the provinces, however distant or remote, it should not be brought to a conclusion before it comes to the knowledge of this see, so that every decision may be affirmed by our authority.” Innocent may have been the son of Anastasius I, his predecessor.
402: The capital in the West was moved from Milan to Ravenna. Ravenna, situated among marshes and canals, was more easily defended. Milan had been the capital in the West since 286.
Epiphanios of Salamis traveled to Constantinople to campaign against John Chrysostom, who was sheltering four Origenist monks (three of them being the Tall Brothers; see 375, 399. He became convinced of Chrysostom’s orthodoxy, set sail for Salamis, but died en route.
On Easter (April 6), Stilicho defeated the Visigoths under Alaric at Pollentia in northwest Italy. Alaric and most of his soldiers escaped. The Visigoths moved back into Illyricum. Stilicho had withdrawn troops from the Rhine and Britain to defeat Alaric, and it appears he never permitted them to return. Hence the Rhine border defenses were weakened in 406/7 when the Germanic tribes invaded the empire.
403: Synod of the Oak. John Chrysostom made a tactical error in alienating the empress Eudoxia by calling her a Jezebel. Theophilus of Alexandria took occasion of the issue over the Tall Brothers to have a council meeting at the palace of the Oak near Chalcedon depose John. The emperor ratified the decision. An earth tremor the following day caused the emperor to recall him. John was reluctant to do so, since canon 4 of the Dedication Council (designed as a weapon against Athanasius) forbade a bishop who had been deposed by a council to resume his office unless a subsequent council cleared him. But the emperor insisted. John, however, soon thereafter compared Eudoxia to Herodias, and Theophilus denounced John as Satan. Chrysostom was finally deposed. However, a large portion of the congregation in Constantinople (and in other cities where John’s supporters were subsequently deposed) would not enter the church and accept John’s successor, Atticus.
Alaric’s Visigoths again invaded Italy, attacking Verona. Stilicho chased them off, but failed to win a decisive victory.
404: In the spring, John Chrysostom wrote to the patriarch of Rome, Innocent I, and to Venerius of Milan and Chromatius of Aquilei, detailing the events of the quarrel with Theophilus of Alexandria.
On June 20, John Chrysostom left Constantinople, going into exile in Cucusus, southeast of Caesarea in the Cilician Taurus mountains (western Anatolia).
On 6 October, the empress Eudoxia died after suffering a miscarriage.
405: In a letter to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, Innocent I, patriarch of Rome, listed the canon of scripture. His canon included the ‘Apocrypha.’
St. Moses the Ethiopian, at the age of 75, died a martyr for Christ during a barbarian invasion. He had been leader of a band of robbers in the Nile valley before being converted to Christianity through an encounter with St. Isidore.
By this time, the acts of the Synod of the Oak were available in the west, and they convinced Pope Innocent I that the charges against John Chrysostom were trivial and that the synod had been packed with John’s enemies. The pope assembled a synod of Italian bishops, which refused to admit the charges against John Chrysostom delivered at the Synod of the Oak. The Italians requested the two emperors to convene a council to meet in Thessalonica and settle the questions surrounding John. The western emperor Honorius wrote a letter to his brother Arcadius to request him to arrange such a council. The pope sent a delegation of five western bishops and four eastern bishops who supported John to carry Honorius’s letter to Constantinople.
In a letter to Jerome regarding the controversy between Paul and Peter (Galatians 2), Augustine wrote (Letter 82): “I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to the truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.”
405-406: A largely Ostrogothic group under Radagaisus crossed the Danube and ravaged the Po valley and Tuscany. Stilicho massacred the Visigoths at Fiesole (August 406).
406: The papal delegation carrying Honorius’s letter (see 405) reached Constantinople. They were detained outside the city, and Arcadius refused to meet with them. They were offered a bribe of 3000 gold pieces each to drop John’s case. When they refused, the western bishops were sent home, the eastern bishops into exile.
406-407: On December 31, 406, Vandals, Alans and Suevi crossed the frozen Rhine and invaded Gaul. (The emperor Julian had settled a group of Franks in Taxandria, just south of the Rhine estuary. The Salian Franks emerged here after the 406/7 invasion. See 480-81 below. The term ‘Ryperian Franks’ refers to a group that settled near Cologne.)
407: On September 14, John Chrysostom died in Bizeri (modern Turkey), while being transported from Cucusus to Pityus on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.
408: The Vandals invaded Spain.
With the death of the emperor Arcadius, Theodosius II (408-50) became emperor in the East. Stilicho, regent in the West, was executed in the same year upon the rumor that he planned to have his own son proclaimed emperor in the East.
An imperial decree issued in May of this year forbade Jews from burning crosses during the festival of Purim.
409: The Roman legions departed Britain, leaving the island undefended. At that time, Britain and Gaul were under the control of a usurper named Constantine, rather than the western emperor Honorius.
The Vandals, Suebi, and Alans, who had invaded Gaul in 406/7, crossed the Pyrennes into Spain.
410: The Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome (24 August). They had been settled by Valens (see year 377) in Moesia and Illyria (the Ostrogoths were still beyond the Danube).
St. Honoratus founded a monastery on the island of Lerins (on the Mediterranean coast of France, near Antibes). The monastery became the training ground for bishops in southern Gaul. By 434, eight bishoprics in southern Gaul were ruled by men from Lerins. In Gaul and Spain in this era many bishops came from the Roman provincial aristocracy. Used to exercising power, their background suited them to representing the cities before the Visigoths (see 412), managing charitable activities, and ransoming serfs. Most bishops in the East, Italy, or North Africa were from the middle strata of society and chosen from among the clergy. In Gaul, bishops tended not to rise through the clerical ranks, but came directly from the aristocracy.
411: Pelagius visited Rome on his way to the Holy Land. Pelagius denied that man’s will has any intrinsic bias against doing good. He also denied any inward action on the part of God on the soul. He believed that a man can observe God’s commandments without sinning, if he wills it. Augustine entered into vehement conflict with Pelagianism. Augustine held that, as a result of original sin, we are enslaved to ignorance, concupiscence, and death. We have lost the liberty Adam had to avoid evil and do good. So, to do good, God’s grace must be at work within us – purely external aids will not do. Thus, it is for God to determine who will receive grace, and who will not. Augustine’s doctrine had little influence in the East.
The council of Carthage. Catholics and Donatists met with an imperial arbitrator (the imperial tribune Marcellinus). The Catholics were victorious. In 412, the emperor Honorius proscribed Donatism by edict, imposing fines and confiscating property. The Donatist movement lingered into the seventh century.
According to a calendar from this year, Christians in the eastern part of Syria observed a feast of All Saints on the Friday of Easter week.
412: Alexander patriarch of Antioch (412-416). He ended the schism over Eustathius (see 362, 393/4). He also won over the Johnites, those who still defended the reputation of St. John Chrystom, deposed patriarch of Constantinople. Alexander did so by including John’s name in the diptychs. By making peace with the Eustathians (whom Rome had long supported) and the Johnites, Alexander pleased the bishop of Rome, who re-established communion with Antioch in 414.
After sacking Rome (410) the Visigoths moved south, intending to invade Africa and cut Rome off from her supply of grain. A storm destroyed the Goths’ fleet, and Alaric died soon thereafter. The Visigoths (now led by Ataulf) then traveled north and moved into Gaul, arriving early this year.
Augustine wrote his treatise “On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and On the Baptism of Infants,” a polemic work against the Pelagians. In that work, he argued that each person is guilty of Adam’s sin. Because of original sin, he stated, infants who are not baptized cannot be saved. He mentioned that the Christians of Carthage called baptism “salvation” and the Lord’s Supper, “life.” He added, “Whence, however, was that derived, but from the primitive, and I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by which the Churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle that without baptism and partaking of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life? … neither salvation nor eternal life can be hoped for by any man without baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” The implication is that infant communion was practiced by the African churches of this era. See 395 above.
Cyril became patriarch of Alexandria. Served through 444. Cyril was Theophilus’ nephew. His Christology (sometimes called “Word-Flesh”) was opposed to that of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Word-Man), fearing Theodore’s Christology (two natures after the incarnation) implied that Christ was just an inspired man. Cyril shared his uncle’s animosity toward John Chrysostom, and considered the proceedings at the Oak (403) to have been legitimate.
412/413: The emperor Theodosius II (408-450) began building a new wall west of Constantinople. It was completed in 447.
414: Innocent I, bishop of Rome, acknowledged Alexander as bishop of Antioch, thus ending the Meletian schism. (See 362 and multiple entries following.)
415: At about this time St. John Cassian, a Scythian, settled at a monastery in Marseilles, and organized monastic communities of men and women after the Eastern model. In Marseilles, he wrote two works – the Conferences (426), and the Institutes of the Monastic Life (420) – that were to have immense influence on Benedict (see year 529 below) and medieval monasticism in the West. Cassian was looked upon an authority because of his intimate familiarity with monasticism in Egypt. He also wrote a work against Nestorius – On the Incarnation (about the year 430) at the request of bishop Leo I of Rome. Although Cassian did not enter into direct controversy with Augustine (410-430) over the doctrine of arbitrary predestination, he is regarded by some as the leader of those in southern Gaul who considered the doctrine antithetical to exhortations and punishment. Against Augustine, they held that predestination is in the light of God’s foreknowledge, for those who perish do so against God’s will. Man’s will is not dead, only sick. Cassian thus emphasized the need for human effort along with God’s grace.
Early in the year the Visigoths moved from southern Gaul to Spain (near Barcelona).
John of Jerusalem received Pelagius. Jerome and an emissary from Augustine of Hippo denounced Pelagius as heretical at a synod in Jerusalem in July. John devised a compromise formula and, at the metropolitan Council of Diospolis in December, Pelagius was declared free of doctrinal error. Soon thereafter, John tacitly permitted the Pelagians to sack the anti-Pelagian monastery at Bethlehem.
Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, was brutally murdered in Alexandria. A mob dragged her from her chariot, stripped her, and carried her to a church where she was murdered by Peter the Reader. Her flesh was stripped from her bones with oyster shells. Christians in Constantinople, at least, were horrified.
The bones of St. Stephen were discovered in Palestine in this year.
416-418: The western emperor Honorius employed the Visigoths in Spain to war upon the Vandals, Suebi, and Alans. Apart from a minority who joined the Suebi, the Vandals and Alans were crushed. The Suebi were settled as federates in northwestern Spain. In return, the Visigoths were allowed (418) to settle in Aquitaine.
416: Two African synods met (one in Carthage, one in Mileve). They condemned Pelagius and Coelestius (one of his disciples). Each synod sent a letter to Innocent I of Rome, asking that he support their actions.
417: Pelagius excommunicated by Innocent I, bishop of Rome, on 27 January.
Zosimus (417-18), bishop of Rome, “approved an heretical confession, denying original sin.” [From the Patriarchical Encyclical of 1895.] Zosimus at first wrote a letter to the bishops of Africa, requiring them to appear before him within two months to state their charges against Pelagius, or else drop them. Later (in September) he declared Pelagius and Coelestius (one of his followers) to be orthodox, and criticized the Africans for their actions.
417-439: The liturgy in Jerusalem in this period is preserved in the Old Armenian Lectionary.
417/418: A council of African bishops, meeting in Carthage, replied to Zosimus of Rome. The council maintained that Pelagius and Coelestius should be condemned until the two unequivocally affirmed the necessity of God’s grace.
418: Zosimus of Rome replied to the Africans, stating that he was still willing to hear their case, but that he had declared Coelestius orthodox after “mature consideration of the matters involved.” 418 On 30 April, an imperial edict was sent from Ravenna. It banished Pelagius, Coelestius, and all who held their opinions, from Rome.
On May 1, another council of Carthage (consisting of more than 200 bishops) condemned Pelagianism, though it did not thoroughly endorse Augustine’s doctrine (see above, year 411). It held that (a) death was not a necessity attached to human nature, but a penalty due to Adam’s sin; (b) original sin inherited from Adam is present in every man and even newly born children need baptism to be cleansed from this taint of sin; and (c) grace is absolutely necessary, for “Without me you can do nothing.”
To avoid banishment in accordance with the imperial decree of 30 April, or else because he became convinced of their errors from reading Pelagius’s commentary on Romans, Zosimus condemned and excommunicated Pelagius and Coelestius and concurred with the African synod’s conclusions regarding death, original sin, and the necessity of grace.
Upset by the bishop of Constantinople’s attempt to interfere in Illyria, the bishop of Rome, Boniface I (418-22), wrote that the Roman church stood to “the churches of the world as the head to its members.” He admitted that all bishops hold “one and the same episcopal office” but advised that all should “recognize those to whom for the sake of ecclesiastical discipline they ought to be subject.”
418 (416?) The western emperor Honorius allowed the Gothic Tervingi, who had begun to refer to themselves as Visigoths by this time, under their king, Wallia, to settle as allies and dependents of the empire in western Gaul (Aquitane). From there they spread across the Pyrenees into Spain, ostensibly to re-establish Roman authority there. The Vandals fled to Mauretania (see 429 below).
By about this year, Cyril of Alexandria had complied with the condition originally laid down by Pope Innocent I, that to re-establish communion with Rome John Chrysostom be mentioned in the diptychs.
419: In May, a synod met at Carthage to establish a code of canon law for the church in North Africa. St. Augustine of Hippo was in attendance. Pope Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, presided. As the proceedings began, a certain Faustinus, legate of the Roman church, asked that the council acknowledge the right of deposed bishops to appeal to Rome. Faustinus claimed that this right had been granted by the council of Nicaea. Pope Aurelius sent to Constantinople for copies of the acts of the council of Nicaea, and found no such canon. Subsequently, he wrote a letter to Pope Celestine of Rome (“our most honorable brother”) explaining that the African church was not obliged to allow disputed cases to be referred to Rome. In addition, he warned Celestine against hearing such cases – “how shall we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the sea, since it will not be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses” – and against receiving those who had been excommunicated in Africa into communion in Rome.
420: Death of Jerome, in Bethlehem. Though he was initially buried near the Grotto of the Nativity, his remains were later transferred to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
In about this year, a Christian priest in Persia destroyed a Zoroastrian fire temple. Because of this and other, perhaps less violent, acts of proselytism, Yezdegerd allowed the Christians to be persecuted. Some fled into the Roman Empire. The Persians demanded their extradition; the Romans refused, and war ensued. In 422, after a Roman victory, a treaty was signed to ensure peace for 100 years and put a stop to the persecution of Christians.
421: Julian (380-455), bishop of Eclanum, banished from Italy. He had refused to agree to Zosimus’ condemnation of Pelagianism, demanding that an ecumenical council consider the question. Julian was condemned by the council of Ephesus in 431.
422: The Vandals and Alans who had gained refuge from the Visigoths among the Suebi moved south into Andalusia.
423: Theodoret (bishop 423-49, 51-58) (393?-458?, author of the Religious History) became bishop of Cyrrhus, near Antioch. Like Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret followed the historo-critical school of biblical interpretation. His Christology was of the Word-man type, but he agreed that Christ is properly called Theotokos, and he denied that his doctrine divided “the Son into two Sons.” According to some historians, there is likely a connection between the interpretive methods of the schools of Antioch and Alexandria and their respective Christologies. Alexandrians tended to read the gospels as allegories, and so interpret statements regarding Jesus’ suffering, temptation, etc., in a spiritual sense. The Antiochians, reading literally, emphasized Jesus as human, as well as divine.
Celestine (423-32), bishop of Rome, laid it down as a principle that “No bishop is to be appointed against the will of the people.” On the church’s canons, he wrote, “The rules rule us; we do not stand over the rules: Let us be subject to the canons.” Celestine also introduced the Introit psalm with antiphon into the mass.
427: Augustine’s City of God published. In chapter 26 of book 21 he speculated that sinful Christians may pass through a cleansing fire on Judgment Day. He refused to contradict the thought that such a cleansing could occur “in the interval of time between the death of the body and that last day of judgment” (as is said to occur in purgatory). In the same passage, Augustine identified this fire with tribulation, and refused to oppose the view that the death of the body is itself part of the cleansing tribulation. He also implied that persecutions in this life meet the description given in 1 Corinthians 3.12-15 of a purifying fire.
The Persians went to war against the Ephthalites or White Huns, a Turanian people who had conquered the land between the Caspian Sea and the Indus River. The Persians were distracted by numerous wars against the Ephthalites until 557, thus reducing their threat to the Roman Empire.
428: Nestorius (Nestorius), a monk of Antioch, became patriarch of Constantinople. Nestorius was a follower of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and raised the ire of Cyril of Alexandria by criticizing the use of Theotokos. Nestorius was concerned to maintain that the incarnation cannot have involved the divine Word in any change or suffering. Therefore, he could not agree with Cyril’s hypostatic union (see 553 for the triumph of this doctrine), under which the Word would suffer. Also, he thought that man’s redemption required that the second Adam had to be a real man, not a creature dominated by or fused with the divine. Christ must have had a genuine human life of growth, temptation and suffering.
According to some, Nestorius was misunderstood to teach that Christ was two persons, one human and one divine. In actuality, they say, he taught a prosopic union. In Greek, prosopon refers to the self-manifestation of an individual by means of other things – a painter includes his brush within his own prosopon. Nestorius taught that the Logos used manhood for his self-manifestation. Manhood was included in his prosopon.
Early in his episcopate, Nestorius alienated many potential supporters in Constantinople: monks and many of the city’s aristocrats. Military leaders disliked Nestorius’ closing of the last Arian chapel in Constantinople, since many German auxiliaries were Arian.
On 26 September, St. John Chrysostom was solemnly commemorated in the liturgy at Constantinople.
429: The Vandals invaded Northern Africa. • Celestine, bishop of Rome, sent Saints Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes to Britain, to combat Pelagianism.
430: Under the influence of Cyril of Alexandria, Celestine, patriarch of Rome, commissioned John Cassian to write a letter to Nestorius, demanding recantation. (Nestorius had unadvisedly entertained some Pelagians recently, which didn’t help his image in the West.) Cyril also wrote to Nestorius, sending him his Twelve Anathemas, which he had not coordinated with Rome, and which Nestorius believed exposed Cyril as an Apollinarian. Nestorius confidently awaited the council of Ephesus.
Cyril’s twelve anathemas (stated positively): (1) Mary is Theotokos; (2) the Word is united hypostatically to the flesh; (3) no separation of hypostases after the union or any attempt to link them merely by association based on dignity, honor or power – they are in a natural union; (4) statements about Christ should not be distinguished as though some referred to the Word and others to the man; (5) the description “God-inspired man” is repudiated; (6) the divine Word is not Christ’s God or Lord, because He is simultaneously God and man; (7) Jesus was not moved by the Word or clothed in His glory, because there is no distinction between Him and the Word; (8) “the man assumed” does not deserve to be worshipped along with the Word (as Nestorius liked to put it) because there is no separation; (9) the Spirit was not an alien power enabling Jesus to work miracles, because the Spirit was his very own; (10) our high priest is not a man distinct from the Word, but the very Word himself; (11) the Lord’s flesh is the very flesh of the Word, possessing thereby quickening power; and (12) the Word suffered, was crucified, and died in His flesh.
Theodoret of Cyrrhus composed twelve anti-anathemas and accused Cyril of Apollinarianism.
~430: Death of Neilos the Ascetic. An abbot of a monastery near Ankyra, Neilos is the first writer to make a plain reference to the Jesus Prayer. He was also author of the Ascetic Discources later published in the Philokalia.
431: Council of Ephesus (3rd Ecumenical Council) – was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom,[1] confirmed the original Nicene Creed,[2] and condemned the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who held that the Virgin Mary may be called the Christotokos, “Christ-bearer” but not the Theotokos, “God-bearer”. It met in June and July 431 at the Church of Mary in Ephesus in Anatolia.
Third Ecumenical Council, was held at Ephesus. Called by the emperor Theodosius II. Held in the first church building known to have been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Led by Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria (412-444), an extreme Antiochene (Word-Man) Christology, taught by Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, was condemned. Nestorius was understood to teach that the man Jesus is an independent person beside the divine Logos and that therefore Mary may not therefore properly be called theotokos (God bearer). Nestorius was excommunicated. Pelagianism was condemned. Cyprus was granted ecclesiastical independence, and Jerusalem was made a patriarchate (both at Antioch’s expense). The council also resolved that no additions should be made to the Nicene creed:
A certain Palladius was sent by Celestine, bishop of Rome, to Christians in Ireland.
The Vandals under Genseric took Hippo, the year after Blessed Augustine’s death.
The metropolitan of Hierapolis, Alexander, restored the church in Risafe that had been built over St. Sergios’s grave (see 303 above). Shortly afterward, Risafe was made a bishopric. Justinian later changed the name of Risafe to Sergiopolis. Risafe became the destination of pilgrimages. Sergios and Bacchus were considered protectors of the Roman army. Many Eastern churches were dedicated to them.
432: Christmas celebrated in Alexandria on 25 December for the first time about this year. Paul of Emessa preached in Cyril’s presence.
Sixtus III (432-40) became patriarch of Rome. He wrote to the patriarch of Antioch regarding Nestorius: “Therefore, because, as the Apostle says, the faith is one, – evidently the faith which has obtained hitherto, – let us believe the things that are to be said, and say the things that are to be held. …Let no license be allowed to novelty, because it is not fit that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled with any muddy admixture.”
St. Patrick began his mission to Ireland.
433: Cyril of Alexander and John of Antioch were reconciled. The instrument of reconciliation, the Symbol of Union, employed largely Antiochene terminology, but Cyril assented to it as containing, beneath this terminology, what he really fought for in his Christology:
434: Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (434-46). St. John of Damascus states that, while Proclus was patriarch, a calamity threatened the city. A boy was taken up from the people and taught by angels to say the Trisagion hymn: “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.” When he returned to earth and told what he had learned, the people sang the hymn and the calamity was averted.
St. Vincent of Lerins wrote his Commonitory as a guide for distinguishing the Catholic faith from heresy. Although he was a Westerner, he made no mention of the papacy as the center for faith. He refers to the bishop of Rome as the “Head,” but doesn’t employ this headship in his theory. From the Commonitory:
435: The church in Armenia was compiling in its own language a collection of patristic writings. The question of whether the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia should be included in the collection caused strife in the church in Syria. Acacius of Melitene and Rabulla of Edessa were firm in opposing Theodore of Mopsuestia’s inclusion, though Rabulla’s successor, Ibas, was equally stalwart in his support of Theodore. The Armenians carried the question to Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople. Proclus’ Tome to the Armenians contained a digest of objectionable Christological passages, gathered from Theodore of Mopsuestia, though the Tome avoided mentioning Theodore by name. The Tome argued in favor of theopaschite language in reference to Christ: Though Christ did not suffer in his divinity, he did do so according to the flesh.
A certain Romanus retired to Condat near the Jura mountains in eastern Gaul, intending to live as a hermit. Soon, many others followed him and formed several monastic communities. Among them was Eugendus, famous for exorcisms.
438: The laws of the Roman Empire since the time of Constantine were collected in chronological order into a single codex, called the Theodotian Code after the emperor Theodosius II (408-450).
On January 27, St. John Chrysostom’s body was returned to Constantinople. The emperor Theodosius II, son of Arkadius and Eudoxia, who had deposed John, received the reliquary and bowed low before it, praying that John forgive his parents.
439: The Vandals captured Carthage.
440: Leo I (440-461) became patriarch of Rome. Exhorted his congregation to observe the Ember fasts, and discouraged them from mixing Christianity with Sun worship. Rebuked his flock for paying reverence to the Sun god on the steps of St. Peter’s before entering the basilica. He unearthed an infiltration of Manichees into the congregation. In a letter to the emperor, he stated that “by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration the emperor needs no human instruction and is incapable of doctrinal error.” • Roman legions withdraw from Britain.
444: After Cyril died on 27 June, Dioscorus (444-451) became patriarch of Alexandria. Dioscorus was one of the extremist party that regretted Cyril’s compromise of 433. He schemed with the court eunuch Chrysaphius (influential with the emperor Theodosius II) to impose Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas as the standard of orthodoxy. Chrysaphius’ godfather Eutyches challenged the orthodoxy of those who say there are two natures after the union. When Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople, condemned Eutyches as an Apollinarian, Dioscorus accused Flavian of requiring a test for orthodoxy in addition to the Nicene Creed, which the council of Ephesus had declared incapable of being supplemented. To resolve these issues, Theodosius II called a council to meet in Ephesus in 449.
Eutyches taught that, after the incarnation, Christ had only one nature and was not therefore of the same substance as other men, since it had been deified and subsumed into the divine nature. This was the meaning of the Cyrillian formula “one nature after the union” for Eutyches.
445: Valentinian III (425-54), emperor in the West, stated that “whatsoever the authority of the apostolic see has sanctioned, or shall sanction, shall be law for all.” This apparently is quoted from Valentinian’s Novel 17, which gave the bishop of Rome authority over the provincial churches.
447: A synod of the Armenian church met at Shahapivan. It decreed punishments for those who fell into the Messalian heresy (see 390 and 431).
448: Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum (Asia Minor), proclaimed Eutyches’ Christology heretical. He was (later that year) deposed and excommunicated by a synod run by patriarch Flavian in Constantinople.
448-84: Sometime between these dates, the monastery of the Sleepless Monks was founded by Abbot Marcellus at Eirenaion, in the middle Bosporus, opposite Sosthenion. Their monastery contained a famous library, built mainly for polemic purposes. The Sleepless Monks emerged as strong supporters of the council of Chalcedon (451).
449: “Robber council” held at Ephesus. Leo, patriarch of Rome, was invited to the council, but sent his Tome instead, which was not read. The council was run by Dioscorus of Alexandria. Flavian was deposed, and one of Dioscorus’ presbyters was made bishop of Constantinople. The “two natures after the union” doctrine was condemned. The Symbol of Union was set aside as going beyond the decisions of Ephesus in 431. The major “dyophysite” leaders were deposed. Theodosius II was determined the council’s decisions would stand, in spite of opposition from Rome. Theodoret of Cyrrhus was declared a heretic and sent into exile.
450: About this year, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded England. • The Parthenon in Athens was converted to a church in about this year.
Near this date, Codex Alexandrinus (A) was written. It contains all the canonical and Deuterocanonical books of the Roman Catholic Old Testament, plus 3 & 4 Maccabees and Psalm 151. Affixed to the New Testament are I and II Clement. The text type appears mixed, with some portions termed “neutral” (Alexandrian) and others “Syrian” (Byzantine). This version of the Septuagint appears to have been corrected by the Hebrew. Codex Alexandrinus was the first of the ancient uncial codices to become known, being sent from Constantinople to Britain in 1627.
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus – (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) designated by the siglum C or 04 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 3 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It contains most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable portions missing.
Anglo-Saxon invasions and settlement of Britain displace the native Celts in the south.
451: Council of Chalcedon (4th Ecumenical Council) – was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey) from 8 October to 1 November 451. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils.
Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon, in the church of St. Euphemia the martyr. The legates from Rome presided. More than 600 bishops attended. Dioscorus was deposed, though not on doctrinal grounds. The dyophysite leaders were restored, but Nestorius himself was condemned as a heretic. (Theodoret of Cyrrhus was restored, on the condition that he repudiate his anti-anathemas against Cyril.) Leo’s Tome was received and pronounced to be orthodox. The council also accepted two of Cyril’s letters, but not his Twelve Anathemas. There was reluctance in the East to add a new creed, but one was drafted at Leo’s representatives’ insistence.
Theodoric I, commanding a combined Visigothic, Burgundian and Roman force, repulsed Attila at the battle of Chalons.
452: Mamertus, bishop of Vienne in France, instituted the Rogation Days after storms, pestilence, and barbarians laid waste to his diocese and city. The Rogation Days were Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Holy Thursday (Ascension Day), which is the 40th day after Easter. Rogation means ‘asking,’ and it is a time for asking God’s blessings on the crops, for a plentiful harvest.
453: Attila died.
454: Hilary, bishop of Arles, asserted that the church of Gaul was independent of Rome. The Western emperor Valentinian III told Aetius, the provincial governor, “if any bishop summoned to trial before the bishop of Rome shall neglect to come,” he was to force him.
The see at Alexandria was occupied by the Monophysite Timothy Aelurus (454-477).
455: The Vandals under Genseric (Gaiseric) sacked Rome. Leo I prevented wholesale destruction and massacre. Afterwards, Leo ordered silver ornaments in St. Peter’s cathedral melted down to make chalices for the city’s churches.
456: An army of Visigoths sacked Braga (northern Portugal).
457: Marcian, Eastern Roman emperor, died. Proterius, Dioscorus’s dyophysite successor at Alexandria, was torn to pieces by a violent mob. Leo I wrote to the new Eastern emperor (Leo I, 457-74) in favor of Chalcedon and his Tome, adding that “through the Spirit of God dwelling in you, you are sufficiently instructed, nor can any error delude your faith” (Letter CLXII). Nevertheless, Pope Leo felt it necessary to send representatives to insure that the emperor understood that those who rejected the decrees of Chalcedon were not Catholics.
The Roman emperor Leo I appears to have been the first emperor to accept his crown from the hands of the patriarch of Constantinople. Succeeding emperors also received the crown in this way. Thus the Roman coronation, previously a secular action, took on a religious character.
The Paschal tables of Victor of Aquitaine were published. These were widely used in the West, only replaced in Rome by the tables of Dionsios (Dionysius) Exiguus in Rome in about 630. Victor’s tables, based on the 19-year Metonic cycle used in Alexandria, replaced the 84-year cycle introduced by Augustalis in the early third century. But Victor did not fully understand the Alexandrian calculations, which caused him to list eastern and western dates for the first six years of the cycle. Victor’s dates for the Pascha also sometimes fell on the vernal equinox (which should never occur). Victor had undertaken his efforts at the behest of Leo I, bishop of Rome. Pope Leo was disturbed by the fact that, in 444 and 455, Alexandrian and Roman methods for computing the Pascha resulted in different answers. Though Leo had deferred to Alexandria, he hoped to avoid disagreement in the future.
458: Gennadius (458-71) patriarch of Constantinople. Gennadius had refuted Cyril’s anathemas. After Chalcedon, he interpreted the council’s terminology in an Antiochene fashion, avoiding the terms Theotokos and using prosopon instead of hypostasis for the union of natures.
459: Death of St. Symeon Stylites. For 30 years he lived on top of a column at the monastery in Telanissos in Syria, on the main road from Antioch to the Euphrates.
460: In this decade, Perpetuus, bishop of Tours, built a basilica over the tomb of St. Martin of Tours (see 371). The inscription read, “Here lies Martin the bishop, of holy memory, whose soul is in the hand of God; but he is fully here, present and made plain by miracles of every kind.”
~465: During the second half of the fifth century, the Roman calendar was adopted in Constantinople. The beginning of the liturgical year was moved from 23 September to 1 September.
465: A major fire that swept through Constantinople in this year had been predicted to the emperor by both Elisabeth of Thrace, abbess of the convent of St. George, and Daniel the Stylite (d. 493). Elisabeth was a noted healer and exorcist.
Severus born (d. 538). He became the Monophysite bishop of Antioch. Some have ascribed to him the works of the pseudo-Dionysius. See year 519 below.
466: Death of Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus. As was common in the period between the council of Chalcedon and Justinian’s reign among Chalcedonians, Theodoret failed to identify the subject of Christ’s suffering with the Word because that would imply, as he thought, that the divine nature suffered. Antiochene interpretations of Chalcedon such as Theodoret’s and that of Patriarch Gennadius of Constantinople, reinforced the suspicion among supporters of Cyril’s Christology – and the fact that Nestorius himself had approved of Leo’s Tome – that Chalcedon had been a defeat.
467: Hilary (461-67), bishop of Rome, died. He had set up a body of seven ecclesiastical singers whose job was to oversee the music for all services at which Hilary presided. This group was known as the Schola Cantorum.
468: The Vandals conquered Sicily.
476: The end of the Western Roman Empire. Flavius Odoacer, a Rugian, chose to be simply the Eastern emperor’s lieutenant in the West.
Peter the Fuller, Monophysite bishop of Antioch, is said to have first introduced the recitation of the creed into the liturgy during his tenure (476-488). ). He may have intended to thus slight the confession of the Council of Chalcedon. The first mention of the use of the creed as part of the mass in the West is in a canon of the Council of Toledo in 589.
Peter is also known for the heretical addition to the Trisagion prayer, “Who was crucified for us.” According to St. John of Damascus, the addition effectively added a fourth person to the Trinity.
478: The tomb of St. Barnabas was discovered at Salamis in Cyprus. According to tradition, Barnabas had been stoned to death. The feast of St. Barnabas (June 11) commemorates the discovery of his tomb.
479: War between the Ostrogoths and the Roman empire. The Goths were generally successful. War ended in 483.
481: Clovis became king of the Salian Franks. He later converted to Orthodox Christianity under the influence of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess, and Remigius, bishop of Rheims. See 508.
482: Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, (471-89) wrote a formula called the Henoticon, hoping it would end the Monophysite schism. It approved Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas, condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches (see 444), did not mention the number of natures (whether one or two), denounced “those who make either a division or a confusion or introduce a phantasm,” and condemned “any heresy whether advanced at Chalcedon or elsewhere.” It was promulgated on the authority of the emperor (Zeno the Isaurian, 474-91) alone without a council of bishops, but was signed by the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. The churches of the East were again in harmony.
484: Schism over the Henoticon (484-520). Simplicius, patriarch of Rome, excommunicated Acacius and the Roman emperor Zeno at a synod in Rome. Zeno was more concerned with keeping Egypt and Syria loyal, and Simplicius could rely on the support of the Gothic king Theodoric (an Arian) in Italy (see 488). The schism over the Henoticon was ended in 520.
485: Death of Proclus (410-485), the last great pagan Neo-Platonic philosopher, and head of Plato’s Academy in Athens.
Philoxenus of Mabbug (440-523), supported by Peter the Fuller, patriarch of Antioch (see 476), became bishop of Hierapolis (Mabbug). Philoxenus opposed the council of Chalcedon. He wrote, “There is no nature without person, just as there is no person without nature.” To allow Him two natures was, for Philoxenus, equivalent to asserting the existence of two persons in Christ.
486: Death of St. Diadochos, bishop of Photiki (in Epiros, Greece). Photiki had been born around 400, and supported the Chalcedonian Christological position. His On Spititual Knowledge and Discrimination: One Hundred Texts was later incorporated into the Philokalia (see 1782). He frequently directs his line of thought against the Messalians (see 390). In one passage, Diadochos speaks of the soul’s treatment after death. “If we are afraid then, we will not be able freely to pass by the rulers of the nether world. … But the soul which rejoices in the love of God, at the hour of its departure, is lifted with the angels of peace above the hosts of darkness.” Those who feel fear at the moment of death will be tried by the fire of judgement and will receive just treatment according to their works. Diadochos’s picture of the afterlife is similar to the seventh century visions of Fursa (see 630) and Barontus (see 679), which have been used as evidence that a novel view of death emerged in the West at that time. It also resembles St. Anthony’s visions (see 356).
488: To protect his back as he put down a revolt in Syria, Zeno sold out Odoacer and turned Italy over to the Ostrogoth Theodoric. (The Ostrogoths were descended from the Greuthingi.) The patriarch of Rome was relatively free of the Roman emperor until 536.
492: Gelasius I (492-6) patriarch of Rome. He broke with custom in that he did not inform the emperor Anastasius of his election to the papacy. In a letter to the emperor, he wrote, “And if the hearts of the faithful ought to be submitted to priests in general … how much more ought assent to be given to him who presides over that See which the most high God himself desired to be pre-eminent over all priests, and which the pious judgement of the whole Church has honored ever since?” Gelasius also claimed that “the see of Peter has the right to loose what has been bound by the decisions of any bishop whatever.”
He put an end to an “abuse” in the churches of Calabria where communion was being given in only one kind.
Gelasius continued the battle against the Henoticon. In order to keep the emperor out of church affairs, Gelasius enunciated a political theory in which the church had auctoritas (legislative) authority, while the authority of the secular rulers was potestas (executive power). In Roman law auctoritas was superior to potestas, so Gelasius implied that the church was superior to the state. In fact, he stated that the imperial potestas was derived from the papal auctoritas. Gelasius’ theory was a driving force behind church-state relations until the Aristotelian rediscovery in the twelfth century.
The Decretum Gelansianum, as the name implies, is often associated with Gelasius. But some manuscripts ascribe it to Damasus (366-84), and others to Hormisdas (514-23). Many modern scholars believe it to have been composed by a cleric living in the south of Gaul early in the sixth century. The Decretum contains a list of books approved to be read in the Church, along with a list of apocryphal works. Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the first two books of Maccabees are included in the list of approved works.
Gelasius also introduced a litany of intercession, the Deprecatio, into the beginning of the mass. He also introduced the Kyrie eleison, which had long been a response in litanies, into the mass as a processional preface. Gregory the Great later eliminated the Deprecatio litany itself on non-festal days, leaving only the responses – Kyrie eleison – reducing them to nine in number, and changing the center three to Christe eleison.
494: Gelasius changed the pagan festival of the Lupercalia into the feast of the Purification.
495: Macedonius (495-511) patriarch of Constantinople. During his time, Constantinople was largely isolated – in opposition to the Monophysite emperor Anastasios (491-518) and the Monophysites of Egypt and Syria, and disdained by Rome because Acacius was still commemorated in the liturgy in spite of Simplicius’ excommunication of him in 484. In alliance with the Acoematae (non-sleeping monks) Macedonius opposed the Monophysites’ interpolation of “who was crucified for us” into the Trisagion (see 476 above). [According to Fr. John Meyendorff, the interpolation does not constitute a problem if the Trisagion is viewed as a hymn to the incarnate Word. The Chalcedonian opposition to theopaschite formulae made it easy for the Monophysites to paint them as Nestorians. In fact, John II, bishop of Rome, called the Acoematea “Nestorians” in his correspondence with the emperor Justinian in 533-34.]
Macedonius condemned Philoxenus of Mabbug (see 485) as a heretic. Anastasios, however, supported Philoxenus in his effort to replace Chalcedonian bishops with Monophysites.
496: A decree from Gelasius, bishop of Rome, in this year included a list of recommended and banned books. This is an early step toward the Index of Forbidden Books (see 1559). The works of Faustus of Rhegium were on the list. Faustus had been champion of the semi-Pelagian monks of Southern Gaul, associated with John Cassian (see 410).
498: Symmachus and Laurentius (Lawrence) fought each other for the office of bishop of Rome. To limit the bloodshed in Rome, the two candidates allowed Theodoric, the Arian king of the Ostrogoths who ruled from Ravenna, to decide. Theodoric chose Symmachus, the candidate supported by the clergy. Symmachus also happened to be disposed against Theodoric’s enemy, the Roman emperor in Constantinople, and against the Henoticon. Laurentius was supported by the laity and wished to end the breach over the Henoticon (see 484). Laurentius withdrew his claim in 506. Meanwhile, he served as bishop of Nuceria.
Pope Symmachus (498-514) introduced the Gloria into the liturgy in Rome. See 301+ above. Its use was limited to liturgies celebrated by bishops on Sundays and the feast days of martyrs. Priests were eventually allowed to include it in celebrations of the mass: in the twelfth century, this freedom was extended to Sundays other than Easter.
500: The population of Constantinople in this year has been estimated at 500,000. The population of Rome may have fallen to 100,000 by this date (see 450, 552).
In about this year, the stirrup was invented, probably in the grasslands north of the Black or Caspian Seas. It was introduced into Western Europe by way of contacts between the Lombards and the Avars between the Danube and Friuli Rivers in the 700s.
At about this time, due to the barbarian invasions, the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome was effectively confined to central and southern Italy.
Scriptures have been Translated into Over 500 Languages. By now the Scriptures have been translated into multiple languages, not limited to but including an Egyptian version (Codex Alexandrinus), a Coptic version, an Ethiopic translation, a Gothic version (Codex Argenteus), and an Armenian version. Some consider the Armenian to be the most beautiful and accurate of all ancient translations.
501: During this century, inhumation replaced cremation in Northern France (as seen in evidence from the grave yard at Hordain).
In this century, the Penitentials developed in Ireland. The Penitentials were a detailed and wide-ranging list of sins and corresponding penances.
506: At the Armenian council of Dvin, that church rejected the ruling of Chalcedon on the nature of Christ. From that point on, the Armenian church was Monophysite in Christology.
There were Monophysite bodies in Egypt (the Copts), Ethiopia and Syria (later known as the Jacobites – see 542/43) also.
506/507 (508?): The first Monophysite Syriac Bible (known as the Philoxeniana) was commissioned by Bishop Philoxenus of Mabbug (Hierapolis – see 485, 495). Philoxenus collaborated with his auxiliary bishop Polycarp.
At a certain point in his career, Philoxenus wrote to denounce the opinion of a certain Stephen Bar Sudaili of Ephesus that the punishment of the wicked was not eternal. Stephen, who spent his closing years in a monastery near Jerusalem, is thought by some to have been the moving force behind the resurgence of Origenism in Palestine during the sixth century. He has also been proposed as the author of the works of Pseudo-Dionysios.
507: Clovis, king of the Salian Franks (481-511), sent messengers with gifts to the shrine of St. Martin of Tours, seeking a sign from heaven. As his men entered the church, the chanter sang, “For thou hast firded me with strength unto battle; thou has subdued under me those who rose up against me” (Psalm 18.39). In the summer, Clovis defeated Alaric II, king of the Visigoths, at Voille (near Poitiers). The Catholic nobles of southern Gaul had supported their Arian king (Alaric). The Visigoths managed to retain control over a strip of land from the Pyrenees to the Rhone, with their capital at Narbonne. They spread into Spain, and ruled there until their kingdom was destroyed by the Saracens in 711.
508: Caesarius, bishop of Arles (502-43) set up a convent built against the city wall for his sister Caesaria. Around 200 women , recruited from the aristocracy, lived in the Convent of St. John. The holiness of these nuns, kept in total seclusion, was believed to protect the city. (Caesarius had been trained in the monastery at Lerins (see 410).)
On Christmas Day, Remigius, bishop of Rheims, baptized Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, and his entire army (as many as 3000 men). The Franks thus accepted Orthodox, rather than Arian, Christianity.
508/509: The emperor Anastasios (491-518) wrote to Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, making him an honorary consul. This is indicative of the east Roman diplomatic efforts among the Germanic kingdoms during this era (in particular, against the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy). Clovis celebrated this honor by donning the purple costume of consul and tossing coins to a crowd in Tours as he enacted the “Adventus” ritual of the Roman emperors. The occasion for Anastasios’s congratulatory letter was Clovis’s victory over the Visigoths at Vouille. (The Salian Franks had become Orthodox, while the Visigoths were still Arians at this time.)
508-511: The monk Severus, later patriarch of Antioch, agitated against Chalcedon in Constantinople.
511: The Monophysite patriarch of Constantinople, Timothy, following the example set by Peter the Fuller (see 476 above) introduced the Nicene Creed into the liturgy in that city.
Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, presided over a church council at Orleans.
512: Philoxenus of Mabbug was involved in a theological dispute at a synod that met in Sidon.
A collection of forged letters to Peter the Fuller (see 476 above) was published in this year. The first letter of the collection, in a fashion that was typical of Chalcedonians of this era, stated that Christ’s sufferings could be attributed to his human nature alone. Chalcedonian denial of theopaschite formulae, in accordance with Antiochene Christology, continued to provide the Monophysites with ammunition.
History 04
6th Century: Masoretic Text, (from Hebrew masoreth, “tradition”), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Their intention was not to interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future generations the authentic Word of God. To this end they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them.
516: Sigismund (516-23) kind of the Burgundians. During his reign, the Burgundians renounced the Arian heresy and became Orthodox.
517: A synod at Epaone in Burgundy forbade the clergy to hunt.
518: Justin I (518-527) became Roman (Byzantine) emperor. Justin, under the influence of his nephew Justinian, pursued a reconciliation along Chalcedonian lines. The schism over the Henoticon ended (519).
Severus, Monophysite bishop of Antioch, was deposed. He removed to Alexandria where he became the leader of a Monophysite faction. Severus died there between 538 and 542, but not before a visit to Constantinople that ended in 536.
519: In order to appease Hormisdas, the bishop of Rome, the emperor Justin I had eastern prelates sign the following statement (drafted by Hormisdas) in the cathedral of Constantinople on Holy Thursday, 28 March.
523: The Jews of Yemen, under Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, massacred the Christian population of that country. They were revenged by Elesbaan, King of Abyssinia, who conducted a terrible slaughter of Jews in Yemen.
The Roman emperor Justin I issued an edict against Arianism.
524: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (~470-524) executed at the order of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric. Boethius may have been suspected of having conspired with the Justin I, the Orthodox Roman Emperor, perhaps to end the schism over the Henoticon. (Theodoric was an Arian, and it was to his advantage that the Orthodox Roman population of Italy (roughly 90% of the total) view the Empire to the east as heretical.) While in prison, Boethius wrote his most important work, The Consolation of Philosophy. It is said to be the most influential book in the western Church during the medieval period, after the Bible. The Consolation transmitted the main doctrines of Platonic philosophy to the Middle Ages. Boethius’ solution to the supposed conflict between God’s foreknowledge and human freedom, contained in Book Five of the Consolation, relies upon a distinction between conditional and simple necessity. It was considered authoritative for centuries. “[T]here are two kinds of necessity: one is simple, as the necessity by which all men are mortals; the other is conditional, as in the case when, if you know someone is walking, he must necessarily be walking. … God sees as present those future things which result from human free will. Therefore, from the standpoint of divine knowledge these things are necessary because of the condition of their being known by God; but, considered in themselves, they lose nothing of the absolute freedom of their own natures.” Boethius also translated Aristotle’s Organon and Porphyry’s Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle into Latin.
525: The Pascal Tables of Dionysios Exiguus (the Small) appeared about this year. They were an attempt to settle the question of the date of Easter for both East and West. His tables, predicting Pascha for the years 532-626, employed a 19-year cycle, and were grounded in St. Cyril of Alexandria’s tables. They eventually replaced those of Victor of Aquitaine (see 457) in the West. This occurred at Rome in the 630s. Dionysios, an eastern monk, Scythian by birth, had come to Rome at the behest of bishop Gelasius (492-96), and had been employed translating Greek documents for the papal archive. He also invented the Anno Domini system for counting the years. According to modern scholarship, his system is in error – the birth of Jesus being fixed variously from 2 to 8 B.C. (See year 731.)
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, ordered John I (523-26), bishop of Rome, to travel to Constantinople as his ambassador, with orders to convince Justin to retract his 523 edict against Arianism. John was the first bishop of Rome to visit Constantinople. When he arrived on 19 April, the emperor Justin greeted the pope at the twelfth milestone and prostrated himself before him. Justin agreed to stop persecuting the Arians, and he returned their churches. But he would not allow the Arians whom he had converted by force to return to Arianism.
526: When John I came to Ravenna after his unsuccessful mission to Constantinople, Theodoric imprisoned him, where he died, probably of starvation.
Death of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths.
Ephrem of Amida (526-44) became patriarch of Antioch. Ephrem’s Christology was similar to that of Leontius of Jerusalem (see 532 below), and influenced both Justinian and the Fifth Ecumenical Council. He observed the fact that the Trisagion (“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us”) was viewed by the Monophysites as a hymn to the Lord Jesus Christ, while Chalcedonians saw it in reference to the Holy Trinity. Hence, Peter the Fuller’s addition (see 476 above) was logical to the Monophysites and problematic to Chalcedonians.
An earthquake struck Antioch in Syria causing widespread damage.
527: Justinian (527-565) Roman emperor. In one of his edicts, Justinian referred to the patriarch of Constantinople as “the head of all other churches.”
Apparently, the title “patriarch” began to be used of the bishops of the larger cities during Justinian’s reign – though these bishops had enjoyed a certain influence over broad areas surrounding their cities since before the council of Nicaea.
527-532: War between the Persian and Roman empires.
528: The emperor Justinian (527-65) commanded all pagans to receive baptism within 3 months.
Symeon the Younger (521-92) left Antioch at age 7 to live in the mountains near the city. It was popularly believed that Symeon’s sanctity restored paradise to earth, at least to the extent that he, like Adam, had mastery over the animal kingdom: Symeon was said to have played safely with mountain lions.
529: Benedict of Nursia founded the monastery at Monte Cassino in Central Italy. The Lombards destroyed it in 580.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) closed the university of Athens, replacing it with a Christian university. Since all knowledge was Christian, “persons diseased with the insanity of the unholy Helenes” [quoted from Justinian’s Code] could not teach it. Damascius, the last Scholarch, travelled to Persia with six other Neo-Platonic philosophers. They returned to Athens in 533. The closing of the university signals the end of pagan Neo-Platonic philosophy. (Justinian’s decree had forbidden city council funds to be used to hire pagans in education.)
Council of Orange (Auriculum). Taught that (a) as a result of Adam’s transgression both death and sin have passed to all his descendants; (b) man’s free will is so weakened that he cannot believe in or love God without the assistance of grace; (c) the Old Testament saints owed their merits to grace, not any natural good; (d) the grace of baptism enables all Christians to accomplish all that’s needed for salvation; (e) predestination to evil is to be anathematized; and (f) in every good action the first impulse comes from God, and it is this impulse that causes us to seek baptism and, with God’s help, fulfill our duties.
Note on the “Glory Be.” St. John Cassian had mentioned in his Institutes (Book II), on the subject of nocturnal prayers, that the custom in Gaul was to repeat the Glory Be at the end of each Psalm. In the East, it was sung once, at the end of all of the Psalms. The Greek form of this doxology translates as, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen.” In this year, the words “as it was in the beginning, is” were added just before “now” by the Council of Vaison, “after the example of the apostolic see.”
Five thousand people killed due to an earthquake at Antioch in Syria. The emperor Justinian (527-65) bankrolled the city’s reconstruction.
A revolt broke out in Samaria in the summer of this year, provoked by the destruction of some Samaritan synagogues as part of Justinian’s program of repression. The Samaritans, under a certain Julian, massacred Christians, then attempted (unsuccessfully) to convince the Persians to invade Palestine.
530: Seven thousand people killed due to an earthquake in Laodicea. Again the emperor provided funds for reconstruction from the treasury.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) conducted a persecution of pagans in Constantinople. The property of many of the accused was confiscated.
During his reign, Justinian also persecuted the Montanists (see 157), greatly reducing their numbers. Their final persecution occurred in 722.
531: St. Sabbas, the founder of the Laura of Mar-Sabbas, arrived in Constantinople in April and asked the emperor to intervene against the current abbot, Nonnus, and his followers, who were promoting Origenism. Justinian acted in 542 (see below – some authorities say this was in 543).
St. Sabbas died the following year (532). He had become a monk in Cappadocia, travelling on pilgrimage to Palestine in 457. In around 483, he began a monastic community in the Kidron gorge, northwest of the Dead sea. Altogether, he established 14 monasteries and four hospices in southern Palestine. St. Sabbas was also an opponent of Monophysite Christology.
Abbot Nonnus’ (see 531 immediately above) principal lieutenant, Leontius of Byzantium, traveled from the Mar-Sabbas monastery near Jerusalem, where he had lived since ~520, to Constantinople, to participate in a synod considering the Christological dispute. Leontius’ most famous work, Three Books Against the Nestorians and the Eutychians, was likely written between this year and 542, when Justinian condemned Origenism. For Leontius – as typical with Origenists – Christ was the intellect that had not fallen before the beginning of creation, the one who remained in an “essential union” with the Logos. In his view, the passion took place in the flesh of Christ after his soul had freely chosen to take on human nature in order to restore it. He used the term ousia to refer to simple existence, “not the what, not the how.” Thus “one according to ousia” meant unity of existence, which is how Leontius understood the union of the divine and human in Christ. Leontius identified the hypostasis with the individual – an individual separate from others of the same nature, but perhaps uniting distinct natures (such as the body and soul in a human) in a common being. Leontius’ key contribution to Christology is the concept of enhypostaton, a thing existing within a hypostasis. Both Nestorians and Eutychians had assumed that no nature could exist except in a hypostasis that shared that nature – one hypostasis meant one nature; two natures meant at least two hypostases. For Leontius, the subject of the union among the Logos, the unfallen soul, and the fallen human nature, was the single hypostasis, the incarnate Christ.
In the summer of this year, the empress Theodora convinced Justinian (527-65) to end the persecution of the Monophysites. Groups of monks were recalled from exile.
532: The Nika Revolt. The original Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) was burned down by the rioters, along with the Chalke (the bronze-doored building through which one entered the Imperial Palace), the Senate House, the Church of Holy Peace, the Church of Saint Theodore Sphoracius, the Church of Saint Aquilina, the hospitals of Eubulus and Sampson, and the Baths of Alexander. The revolt was suppressed when Goth and German soldiers under Belisarius and Mundus slaughtered 3500 to 4000 rioters in the Hippodrome.
Construction began on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The project took five years [532-537] to complete, and on December 27, 537, Patriarch Menas consecrated the magnificent church.
Leontius of Jerusalem, long misidentified with Leontius of Byzantium (see 531), wrote on Christology between this year and 536. He completed the thought of Chalcedon by stating that the same hypostasis, the Word, who unified the two natures in Christ also suffered – hypostatically, in his human nature. “The Logos is said to have suffered according to the hypostasis, for within his hypostasis he assumed a passible essence besides his own impassible essence, and what can be asserted of the essence can be asserted of the hypostasis.”
Collatio cum Severianis. Early in his reign (and again, later) Justinian violently persecuted the Monophysites. But in around 531, he adopted a policy of tolerance. The empress Theodora arranged a conference, over which Justinian presided, inviting six Chalcedonian and six Monophysite representatives. The Monophysites quoted many fathers and “Dionysius the Areopagite, all of whom assert that there is one nature of God the Logos after the union” in support of their position. This is the earliest known reference to the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Hypatius, bishop of Ephesus, pointed out that these works could not be genuine. Severus himself had been invited, but declined to attend. Between 531 and 536, many famous Monophysites visited Constantinople and were well-received by the royal family.
533: The emperor Justinian’s general Belisarius defeated the Vandals in North Africa at Tricameron. The Vandal kingdom was destroyed.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) issued an edict declaring that one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh. He sought confirmation of this view from John II, patriarch of Rome (533-35).
534: At Justinian’s request, John II, patriarch of Rome, condemned the Sleepless Monks (see 448-84) as Nestorians for their opposition to Justinian’s theopaschite formula of 533.
The exiled patriarch of Antioch, Severus (see 518), visited Constantinople at the invitation of the emperor and empress.
535: In June, the patriarch of Constantinople, Epiphanius, died. The empress Theodora, a staunch Monophysite, maneuvered to have Anthimus (Anthem of Trebizond) appointed patriarch. Anthimus, a closet Monophysite, was deposed at a council in 536.
On 14 November, at the insistence of the empress Theodora, an edict was issued that banished pimps and keepers of brothels from all major cities of the empire.
A large volcanic eruption caused temperatures to remain colder than normal through 550. 535-536 was one unceasing winter. The volcano responsible for this temporary change in climate may have been Krakatau.
A drought began in Mongolia. Defeated by the Turks, the Avars began their trek toward Europe in 552, arriving around 560. Their migration resulted in the movement of more people into what remained of the Empire. There is some speculation that the Avar humiliation at the hands of the Turks was due to the drought, brought on by the volcanic eruption 535: the Avar economy was based on horses, which have less efficient digestive systems and are more susceptible to changesin climate than cattle, raised by the Turks.
536: The Roman empire recaptured southern Italy and Sicily, including Rome. The exarchate of Ravenna was established in 568.
The church historian Evagrius born (536-600). In his Church History, he attested to the practice of communion among the very young: “when there remained a good quantity of the holy portions of the undefiled body of Christ our God, for uncorrupted boys from among those who attended the school of the undermaster to be sent for to consume them.”
On 19 February, the bishop of Rome, Agapetus I (535-36) visited Constantinople as an ambassador from Theodahad, the Gothic king of Italy, to avert an impending war between the Empire and the Goths over the murder of a lady named Amalasuntha. She had been the only daughter of Theodoric, and an ally of the emperor Justinian. (Theodahad also wanted Agapetus to convince Justinian to stop forcibly converting the Arians of North Africa to Orthodoxy, and to dissuade him from invading Italy.) Agapetus refused to recognize Anthimus as patriarch, given the latter’s support for Monophysitism. Justinian’s hands were tied, since he desired the support of the Roman populace in the upcoming war with the Goths. In March, Anthimus was deposed. On 21 April, Agapetus died as he prepared to return to Italy, and the Monophysites in the city celebrated openly.
537: Belisarius deposed Silverius, bishop of Rome. A document had been forged to prove that Silverius had conspired with the Goths. Silverius was given the opportunity to restore Anthimus as patriarch of Constantinople. When he refused, he was exiled to Patara in Lycia, and Vigilius became bishop of Rome (March 29, 537).
539: The Goths razed Milan, reportedly killing 300,000 adult males and giving the women to their Burgundian allies as slaves.
540: Belisarius conquered Ravenna.
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus (490-585) founded a monastery at Vivarium (in Calabria (southeastern Italy)). He had his monks copy manuscripts of both Christian and pagan authors. In 519, Cassiodorus had published his Chronicon, a history of the world from Adam to 519. His De Anima provides an overview of scripture and the Church fathers, then describes the seven liberal arts. This was widely read during the Middle Ages.
540-545: War between the Persian and Roman empires. Much of the emperor Justinian’s religious policy directed to reconciling the Monophysites of Syria, whose support was desired in the conflict with Persia. He generally ignored the Monophysites of Egypt.
540: The Kutrigurs (a Bulgar tribe) captured thirty-two Roman fortresses in Illyricum and raided as far as Constantinople.
542: A Monophysite Syrian monk named John (John of Ephesus), after gaining the favor of the empress Theodora, became bishop of Ephesus. John wrote an ecclesiastical history in three volumes (~585), a work on the lives of the Eastern saints, and was responsible for the baptism of over 70,000 pagans in Asia Minor. He and his followers built 98 churches and twelve monasteries in Asia, Caria, Lydia and Phrygia.
The patriarch of Antioch, Ephraim, held a synod that condemned Origen’s doctrines. The Origenists, in reply, convinced the patriarch of Jerusalem to strike Ephraim’s name from the diptychs. Menas, patriarch of Constantinople, and Pelagius, the papal representative, convinced Justinian to act, resulting in Justinian’s condemnation.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) published a condemnation of Origenism and the mystical speculations of Evagrius (see above, year 375). This to quell the controversy in Palestine surrounding the teachings of the Orgenist New Laura community (see 531 above, St. Sabbas), which had become a dispute between the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem.
In the summer, the plague appeared in Pelusium, a port on the Mediterranean that received Indian Ocean and African trade coming up the Red Sea.
542 (541?): The bubonic plague hit Constantinople. Several tens of thousands died. Apparently, cooler temperatures due to the volcanic eruption in 535 allowed the plague to become active in fleas in Africa. These were carried north with the ivory trade. It has been estimated that the population of Europe dropped by 50 to 60 percent from 542 to 700 due to successive waves of bubonic plague. Cities on the Mediterranean coast were hit more severely than the hinterland. This fact favored the Monophysites in Syria, whose strength there lay in the villages.
542: A trial was held in Gaza over the Psoes affair (see 536). The papal representative, Pelagius, presided. Paul, patriarch of Alexandria, was deposed, and the prefect Rhodon was beheaded, though he produced 13 letters from the emperor authorizing his actions.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) decreed that the festival of Hypapante (also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Presentation of the Lord, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and Candlemas) be moved from 14 February (40 days after Epiphany, on which feast Christ’s birthday had formerly been celebrated) to 2 February (40 days after 25 December). See 385, 687.
542/543: Jacob Baradaeus (~490-578) ordained bishop of Syria, with the support of the empress Theodora. After persecution of the Monophysites resumed in 536, she received from Sheik Harith ibn Jabala, king of a small buffer state , who informed her that the Christians in his realm, mostly Monophysites, were being destroyed by the imperial commissioners. They were in need of a bishop to ordain men who had died at the hands of their oppressors. Theodora chose Jacob because of his ability to disguise himself as a beggar – the name Baradaeus means “rags or “tatters.”
Baradaeus was instrumental in organizing those who repudiated the council of Chalcedon. Hence, they came to be termed “Jacobites.” These Monophysites had set up their own rival patriarch of Antioch. They called the Chalcedonian Orthodox “Melchites,” meaning “Emperor’s Men.” He is said to have wandered Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia on foot, ordaining 80,000 priests, 89 bishops, 27 metropolitans, and two patriarchs.
544: Prompted by a suggestion by Theodore Ascidas, the emperor Justinian (527-65) promulgated the Edict of Three Chapters. (The ‘Three Chapters’ later came to refer to the works condemned, not to this edict.) This edict condemned the Letter of lbas of Edessa to Maris, praising Theodore of Mopsuestia; the works of Theodore himself; and the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril. To make it plain that Chalcedon was inconsistent with Nestorianism, it also asserted that the Chalcedonian definition should be interpreted in this light. Theodoret and Ibas had been restored to their sees by the council of Chalcedon, so, unlike Theodore, they were not personally condemned. The theological effect was to emphasize the unity of Christ’s nature(s).
The emperor Justinian (527-65) sent Belisarius to Italy to fight the Ostrogoths under Totila. Totila had managed to conquer much of the land taken by Belisarius prior to 540. But Rome still resisted the Ostrogoths.
545: Slavic tribes raided Thrace, but were turned back by Narses.
The emperor Justinian (527-65) suppressed the Manichaeans. He attempted to convert those who had been arrested, but they remained firm in their beliefs. They were then tortured and killed; their bodies were buried at sea, and their property confiscated.
John Scholasticus (~503-77) compiled a collection of canon law (the “Collection of Canons”) for the Church in the east. His compilation is the earliest that has been preserved. John served as patriarchal legate from Antioch in Constantinople until 565, when he was named patriarch of Constantinople by Justin II.
In November, Pope Vigilius (537-55) was arrested during the St. Cecelia’s Day ceremonies. He was taken to Constantinople, where the emperor Justinian (527-65) pressured him to condemn the Three Chapters.
546: Totila sacked Rome after a siege of three months. Belisarius retook Rome after Totila left to do battle in Lucania.
547: After the death of Abbot Nonnus in this year, the Origenists were split into two camps: the Isochristoi of New Laura, who held that in the restoration man will be united with God as Christ is; and the Protoktistai or Tetradites of the Laura of Firminus, about whom little is known.
Cosmas Indicopleustes had finished his Christian Topography by this year. A merchant and wide traveler, Cosmas was likely a Nestorian. Taking the Old Testament temple as a model for the universe, Cosmas’ Topography presented a planar earth much larger than the sun, which circled a conical mountain to the north. This cosmology is said to be in agreement with and subordinate to Nestorian philosophy. A debate raged in Alexandria over Cosmas’ work, and he was refuted by John the Grammarian (see 514-18) and his views had very little influence.
548: Slavs again raided the Balkans, penetrating to Dyrrachium (on the Adriatic coast of Albania).
548: In April, Vigilius, patriarch of Rome (537-55), who had been brought to Constantinople the previous year, signed a condemnation (known as a Judicatum) of Theodore personally as a heretic and the Three Chapters – thus agreeing with Justinian’s edict of 546. In 551 Vigilius withdrew this condemnation. For his condemnation of Theodore and the Three Chapters, Vigilius himself was condemned by the bishops of Milan, Ravenna, and Aquileja.
Beginning of the Istrian Schism (548-698). The metropolitan of Aquileja in Istria took advantage of the schism with Rome to stretch his control over Grado. Istria remained out of communion with Rome until the council of Pavia in 698. The schism with Milan lasted 50 years. • Death of the empress Theodora.
549: Samaritans and Jews staged a bloody revolt at Caesarea. They murdered Stephanus, proconsul of Palestine. Their leaders were subsequently executed. The Samaritans, who had recently been reported to have adopted Christianity, openly resumed their traditional worship.
John of Ephesus (see 542) denounced a group of senators, grammarians, sophists, lawyers and physicians. They were accused of paganism, tortured, whipped, and imprisoned.
Seventy-one bishops met at Orleans. They reaffirmed the bishop of Rome’s earlier condemnation of Eutyches and Nestorios.
Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, again captured Rome. By the end of 550, Totila’s forces had captured all of Sicily and Italy, except Ravenna and a few towns along the coast.
550: An African council excommunicated Vigilius, bishop of Rome, for his pronouncement in 548 agreeing with Justinian’s Edict of Three Chapters (546). • Bodies were buried in the north of France with an east-west alignment from about this date. • Around this time, the tonsure came to be associated with monasticism.
551: Under pressure from the churches of the West, Vigilius, bishop of Rome (537-55). withdrew his condemnation of the Three Chapters. The emperor Justinian responded with a lengthy condemnation of those documents. Vigilius called a synod of the bishops present in Constantinople and excommunicated Patriarch Menas of Constantinople. Imperial troops sought to arrest Vigilius as he clung to the altar columns in the palace church of Sts. Peter and Paul, but a crowd prevented them from doing so. Vigilius fled by night across the Bosphorous to Chalcedon.
The Kutrigurs rampaged through the Balkans.
552: Silkworms introduced from China. The emperor Justinian (527-65) gave command of the Italian campaign to his chamberlain, the eunuch Narses. Narses’ army marched around the Adriatic into Italy. In the summer, he destroyed the Ostrogoth kingdom in the battle of Taginae (near Fabriano, in the Apennines). The Goths charged the Byzantine’s pikemen, while Byzantine archers attacked from the flanks. Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, was mortally wounded. The long battle for Italy left the countryside barren and depopulated. The population of Rome, estimated to have been 800,000 in 400, fell to 100,000 in 500, and only 30,000 when Totila sacked it in 549. (See 450, 500.)
With Narses’ victory over the Goths, Justinian had less concern over Western sensibilities and so was free to act more decisively to reconcile the Monophysites.
553: Fifth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople. Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, presided. 164 bishops attended, including 14 from Africa. The emperor Justinian (527-65), with Vigilius, bishop of Rome, still captive, succeeded in having the council condemn Origen and the Three Chapters. In his Constitution of 24 May, Vigilius withheld assent to the council’s decision regarding the Three Chapters; but on 23 February, he revoked his Constitution and gave his assent. His nuncio, Pelagius I (later Pope) deserted him. Vigilius died from gallstones on his way back to Rome. The Franks sent an embassy to Constantinople. This embassy included Angles in order to impress the emperor with the Frankish king’s influence over Britain. This from the Greek historian Procopios.
553: 2nd Council of Constantinople (5th Ecumenical Council) – the fifth ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting under the presidency of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople. Pope Vigilius of Rome, who had been summoned to Constantinople, opposed the council and took sanctuary in a church from May to December, but he at last yielded and formally ratified the verdicts of the council on February 23, 554.
554: Eighteen bishops of the Nestorian church in Persia under Patriarch Joseph reaffirmed Duophysitism against the Fifth Ecumenical Council’s denunciation of the Three Chapters. Thirty years later, the Nestorians condemned Justinian as a heretic. • A Roman (Byzantine) army landed in Spain and, after fighting a war against the Visigoths, occupied the southeast corner of the peninsula.
555?: Death of St. Romanos. He had been a deacon in the Church of the Resurrection in Berytus (Beirut). During the reign of the emperor Anastasius I (491-518), he moved to Constantinople. Romanos had a harsh and rasping voice. During a religious retreat on Christmas Eve, he was given a vision of the Virgin Mary, who held a scroll, which she told him to eat. Romanos did so, and was immediately blessed with a wonderful singing voice. He later composed hymns which were essentially sermons put to music. Romanos has been termed “the greatest ecclesiastical poet of all ages.”
556: Pelagius I became patriarch of Rome. He served through 561. Pelagius was strongly opposed to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, but Justinian appointed him patriarch anyway, judging, rightly, that he would change his mind. Pelagius supported the decisions of the Constantinople (553).
From the time of Pelagius until 741, the name of the person elected bishop of Rome was sent to the emperor in Constantinople or to his exarch in Ravenna for confirmation. The church in Rome accompanied this name with a large payment, effectively tribute.
557: The Alans relayed to Roman officials in Lazica (the east end of the Black Sea) an offer of alliance from the Avars, a Turkic/Mongolian tribe that had moved west into the region north of the Caucasus, fleeing Turkish enemies in Central Asia.
558-561: A second outbreak of plague in the Roman Empire.
559: Pagans in Constantinople were ridiculed – marched in a mock procession. Their books were burned.
The Kutrigurs crossed the frozen Danube and attacked Macedonia, Thessaly, Gallipoli and Constantinople. They were defeated by Belisarius’ forces and returned to their homeland, near the Don. The emperor Justinian (527-65) induced the Utigurs, a rival Bulgar tribe living east of the Don, to attack the Kutrigurs as they retreated. Both tribes were greatly weakened by the war that resulted.
560: The Suevis renounced Arianism and became Orthodox. The Suevis lived in the northwestern Iberian peninsula.
561: Julius, bishop of Rome (337-352), had founded a certain church in Rome. In this year, that church was dedicated to St. Philip and St. James. The dedication ceremony is the origin for the feast day for those saints – May 1. • The Avars (having absorbed the Kutrigurs and Utigurs) moved to a position north of the lower Danube. • Radegund (520-87), the estranged wife of King Chlothar of Neustria (northwestern Gaul), moved to Poitiers and founded a convent there. It was known as the convent of the Holy Cross because the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Justinian (527-65) sent her a relic of the True Cross. Radegund kept the relic in an chapel deep within the convent.
563: The Irish monk Columba (520-97) founded a monastery on Iona. Columba had been educated and ordained to the diaconate by St. Finnian of Clonard. Before traveling to Iona, Columba had founded monasteries at Derry, Durrow and, possibly, Kells. • A council meeting in Braga decreed against the Priscillianists (see 380) that Satan was not an uncreated being. It also attacked the notion that he is “the principle and substance” of evil. Instead, the council asserted, he “was originally a good angel created by God.”
565: Death of the emperor Justinian (527-65). • John Scholasticus named patriarch of Constantinople by the emperor Justin II (565-78). John first negotiated with the Monophysites, then acted in accordance with the emperor Justin II’s desire to repress them. • The emperor Justin II (565-78) refused to pay tribute to the Avars. • The emperor Justin II (565-78), at some point during his reign, decreed that the birth of the Savior should be celebrated on 25 December throughout the empire. It is thought that, at this time, the church in Jerusalem finally adopted 25 December as Christmas Day.
567: Allied with the Lombards (who were then living in Pannonia, west of the Tisza) the Avars defeated the Gepids and conquered their territory in eastern Pannonia and Dacia.
568: The Lombards took control of northern Italy. The Lombard movement into Italy was a result of the Avar migration of the 550s. Gregory I, bishop of Rome (590-604) would write of the Lombards that their “flag of truce is the sword” and their “good will gestures take the form of atrocities.”
The Avars invaded Dalmatia. The emperor Justin II (565-78) bought peace for 80,000 pieces of silver. • The exarchate of Ravenna established. It continued until the Lombard conquest of 751.
569: In September, the Lombards conquered Milan.
571: Mohammed
572: The Lombards conquered south-central Italy, creating the duchies of Spolento and Benevento. The Byzantines retained control of a corridor between Ravenna and Rome, splitting the northern Lombard kingdom from its southern duchies. • The Monophysite bishop John of Ephesus (507-586) was imprisoned by the emperor Justin II (565-78). See 542 above.
573: The Persians invaded the Roman Empire, seizing the city of Dara on the Tigris. Among the 292,000 captives taken were included 2000 beautiful Christian virgins the Persian emperor, Chosroes, intended to present to the Turkish Khan. (This is the first mention of the Turks in the history of the West.) At a river, the Christian virgins separated from their captors to bathe, then drowned themselves rather than enter the Khan’s harem. • Death of Emilian. He had been a hermit in the Spanish Rioja, then priest in Berceo. Emilian is said to have rid the home of the nobleman Honorius of an evil spirit who would soil dishes with the bones and dung of animals. Emilian also cured the nobleman Sicorius’ slave girl of blindness and he exorcised several others of evil spirits. Emilian’s hermitage later grew into a famous monastery – Saint Emilian of the cowl. • Gregory of Tours (Georgius Florentius) became bishop of Tours (573-94). Gregory authored a History of the Franks.
577: The West Saxon Ceawlin won a battle at Deorham, cutting the Britons in Wales off from the Britons to the South. There is speculation that the Britons were driven back in this century due to a significant population loss. The Celts of Britain remained in commercial contact with the Roman empire after the withdrawal of the legions in 409. Apparently, though these contacts, the plague spread (see 542 above) to Britain.
578: Death of Jacob Baradaeus, Monophysite bishop of Syria (see 542/3).
579: A revolt by the city of Baalbek (between Damascus and Tripoli) suppressed. Some who were tortured revealed that several high-ranking officials were involved in pagan cults. The governor of Edessa, Anatolios, was implicated. He was accused of having commissioned a portrait ostensibly of Christ, but actually of Apollo, so that he could surreptitiously worship the pagan god. The governor in turn accused the patriarch of Antioch, Gregory, and the patriarch of Alexandria’s representative, Eulogios, of human sacrifice. A recent earthquake at Daphne, near Antioch, was thought to have been caused by this crime. The patriarch Gregory traveled to Constantinople and lavished gifts on the emperor (Maurice (582-602)) and the court. He was permitted to return to his see. Anatolios, on the other hand, was condemned to death. • When the Lombards besieged Rome in this year, Pope Pelagius II (579-90) sent the deacon Gregory, who had been responsible for administering relief work in Rome’s seventh district, to Constantinople to request assistance. Gregory remained in Constantinople as papal nuncio (apocrisiary) until 584, when he was recalled to assist in ending the Istrian schism (see 548, 698). He became pope in 590.
580-82: The third outbreak of plague in the Roman Empire.
580: Maximos the Confessor (580-662) born. • The Lombards under Duke Zotto destroyed the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino (built in 529). The monks fled to Rome. • At the Council of Berny, Gregory of Tours successfully defended himself against the charge that he had spread malicious gossip: that the queen of the Franks had committed adultery with the bishop of Bordeaux.
580+: The exarch of Ravenna, Smaragdus, launched a raid on the schismatic Istrians (see 548 above). He captured many of the clergy and forced them to accept the decrees of the Fifth Ecumenical council.
581: The emperor Tiberius II Constantine (578-582) established an elite corp of 15,000 barbarians, which eventually developed into the Varangian Guards. • The Slavs invaded the Balkans.
582: The Avars captured Sirmium by trickery. An inscription from the ruins of Sirmium reads, “Lord Jesus, help the city and smite the Avars and watch over Romania and the writer. Amen.” • John “the Faster” (died 595) became patriarch of Constantinople. For his works of charity and his ascetic practice, he is regarded as a saint. • Athens was sacked by Slavic invaders. • Death of Felix, bishop of Nantes. He was responsible for the conversion to Christianity of the Saxons in the area north of the Loire. These Saxons traded with their counterparts in southeastern England.
584: The exarchate of Ravenna mentioned for the first time. Soon after that year, the exarch of Ravenna, Smaragdus, launched a raid on the schismatic Istrians (see 548 above). He captured many of the clergy and forced them to accept the decrees of the Fifth Ecumenical council. • Singidunum (modern Belgrade) captured by the Avars.
585: The Armenian bishop Kardutsat, with seven priests, went on a missionary trip to the steppes north of the Caucasians. He succeeded in baptizing many Huns and in translating books into their language. Though Kardutsat was very likely a Monophysite, the Roman emperor sent him supplies. Kardutsat’s successor, the bishop Maku, taught the Huns the rudiments of agriculture.
586: The Slavs laid siege to Thessalonica.
587: The Slavs moved into Epirus, Thessaly, Attica, Euboea and the Peloponnese. • The British archbishops of London and York fled to Wales.
587 (588?): A synod meeting in Constantinople ascribed the title “Ecumenical Patriarch” to John IV (John “the Faster”, 582-95) of Constantinople because it was the capital of the “ecumenical” empire.
587-589: The Visigoths renounced the Arian heresy and became Orthodox, as the Burgundians (see 516) and Suevis (see 560+) had already done, and as the Lombards were to do (see 619 and 636 below). The Visigoth king Leovigild had repented of Arianism on his deathbed in 586; his successor, King Recared, then received instruction in the Orthodox Christian faith. Their conversions were at least partially due to the efforts of Leander, bishop of Seville.
Some see a political motive in the decision of the Visigoth kings to convert. Under the emperor Justinian (527-65), the Roman (Byzantine) empire had conquered land along the coast of southern Spain (554). The presence of renewed Roman power in the vicinity may have stirred a longing for political unity within the (Orthodox) Christian empire among the subjected classes. Thus, the conversions may have been designed to associate Catholicism with the Visigothic kingdom, rather than the Roman Empire centered in Constantinople, in the minds of Catholic clergy and laymen. The bishop of Rome, regarded as a subject of the Roman empire, played no role in the conversions.
588-591: The fourth outbreak of plague in the Roman empire. The direction of movement this time was from Spain to France and Italy, the reverse of its normal course.
589: The third Council of Toledo added the filioque clause to the Creed of Constantinople (381). This addition gradually spread in the West, and was finally incorporated into the liturgy at Rome, probably in 1014 at the coronation of Henry II, with unhappy consequences. This is the first mention in the West of the creed as an element of the liturgy. See note on Peter the Fuller, 476.
This council also introduced the creed into the liturgy in the West, placing it before the Lord’s prayer, where it remains in the Mozarabic rite. The creed was not used in the mass at Rome until the eleventh century.
589?: John of Biclar, a Visigoth, founded a monastery at Biclar in Spain. John was one of the last Westerners to have an understanding of classical culture, having spent seven years in Constantinople in the 560s and 570s following the classical syllabus. John later became bishop of Gerona
589: The Tiber flooded this winter. Flooding was followed by widespread sickness in Rome. Pope Pelagius was among the victims.
~590: Columbanus (545-615) left the monastery in Bangor, Ireland, and established monasteries in Gaul: Annegray, Luxeil, and Les Fontaines, all near the Vosges mountains (in the northeast of France). He later relocated across the Alps in Italy, founding a monastery in Bobbio. Monasticism and missionary activity were connected in this era. Columbanus wrote of his “vow to make” his “way to the heathen to preach the gospel to them.”
590: Gregory the Great bishop of Rome (590-604). The population of Rome may have been 90,000 by this time, up from the estimated 30,000 at the height of the war between Justinian and Totila.
591: Pope Gregory I (590-604) criticized the bishops of Arles and Marseilles for allowing the forced baptism of Jews in Provence. • End of a war between the Roman Empire and Persia.
593: By edict, the emperor Maurice (582-602) forbade soldiers from entering the monastic life. In Rome, Gregory I (590-604) circulated the edict, but he wrote Maurice a critical letter of complaint. Gregory expressed concern for those “many persons who, unless they abandon all, cannot gain salvation in the sight of God.”
595: A Roman Benedictine monk named Augustine was chosen by Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) to be the apostle to the English (first archbishop of Canterbury). Augustine arrived in England in 597. The mission to Britain is significant, given the role British missionaries were to play in the conversion of Northern Europe to Christianity.
On diversity in the mass, Gregory wrote to Augustine: “But it pleases me, that if you have found anything, either in the Roman, or the Gallican, or any other church, which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same, and sedulously teach the church of the English, which as yet is new in the faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several churches.”
In this year, Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome (590-604), forbade deacons to act as chief singer at the mass. Gregory founded two new institutions (orphanotrophia) to train the required singers.
In a letter to the emperor Maurice (582-602), Pope Gregory I (590-604) wrote, “the care of the whole Church has been committed to the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles. Behold, he received the keys of the kingdom of heaven; to him was given the power of binding and loosing, to him the care and principiate of the whole Church was committed.”
596: The emperor Maurice (582-602) recaptured Singidunum from the Avars.
597: St. Columba of Iona died on June 9 of this year. • About 10,000 Englishmen were baptized at Christmas. This from a letter from Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome, to the pope of Alexandria. • Pope Gregory sends missionaries to Ethelbert of Kent, in the southeast of Britain.
598: Pope Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome (590-604), wrote to the bishop of Terracina expressing dismay over the report he had heard that people in that region were worshipping sacred trees.
599-600: The fifth outbreak of plague in the Roman empire.
599: After a synagogue in Caraglio, northern Italy, had been desecrated, Pope Gregory I (590-604) wrote to insist that the Jews be compensated for their loss.
~600: Cyrius, Catholicos of Georgia, rejected Armenian Christology and accepted Chalcedon (451).
600: By this year, there were more than 220 monasteries and convents in Gaul. There were at least 100 such institutions in Italy. • Sometime during the 6th century the scratch plough was replaced in northern Europe by a plough with a moldboard, allowing it to cut into thick soil. The new plough first appeared in western Europe in the Rhineland and the Siene basin. This eventually led to a population rise in northern Europe. In the early centuries of Christian history, the population was most dense along the eastern Mediterranean.
Because of Justinian’s conquests earlier in this century, the Roman Empire in the West still included Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, north Africa to Gibraltar, the coastal area near Genoa, a strip of land from north of Ravenna to south of Rome, small areas around Venice and Naples, the extreme south of Italy, and part of southeastern Spain. Thus Constantinople continued to exert considerable influence in the West.
From around this year until approximately 1200, there were few literate laymen in the West. In the East, by contrast, literate laymen continued to serve as administrators of the Roman Empire.
Seventh Century
600: The Roman Catholic Church declares Latin as the only language for Scripture.
601: Augustine became first Archbishop of Canterbury. • During this century, the use of breathing and accent marks in Greek manuscripts began to be general.
Frankish names were rare for bishops in Gaul before the end of the sixth century. During the seventh century, they became increasingly common as Frankish leaders exerted control over the episcopate.
602: Phokas (602-610) Roman emperor. • Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) wrote to the populace of Rome to prohibit the observance of Saturday as a sabbath, “following the perfidy of the Jews.”
603: Columbanus charged by a synod of Frankish bishops with the “error” of keeping Easter according to Celtic usage. Columbanus wrote to Pope Gregory I (590-604): “How then, with all your learning … do you favor a dark Easter? An Easter proved to be no Easter?” Columbanus ridiculed the Pascha tables of Victor of Aquitaine (see 457), which were used in Rome until about 630. The Celtic algorithm Columbanus followed appears to have used an 84-year cycle, as was common in much of the West from the early third century to 457. Columbanus cited Jerome as opposing Victor’s algorithm in advance.
604: Death of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604). There ensued a series of short-lived papacies: Between this year and 649, there were 10 papal elections. Sabinian (604-606) followed Gregory as pope. Gregory, the first monk to become pope, was given short shrift in an official papal chronicle known as the Liber Pontificalis. Sabinian received praise in that work for “filling the church with clergy” and not (it seems) with monks. It would be 70 years before another monk was elected pope.
During this era, those elected to the papacy could not be consecrated until their elections were confirmed by the Roman emperor in Constantinople. Sabinian waited 6 months before he could take office.
The bishops of Rome also acted as imperial bankers. They paid the Roman (Byzantine) troops and advanced funds to the imperial administration when it was short of cash.
604+: Due to Constantinople’s inability to defend Thessalonike, Slavs began settling nearby from about this year.
607: In an effort to improve relations with Rome, the emperor Phokas bestowed the title “Universal Bishop” upon Boniface III (607), bishop of Rome. Boniface III, incidentally, had to wait a full year for Constantinople to confirm his election.
608: Boniface IV (608-15), bishop of Rome, requested imperial permission to convert the Pantheon, a pagan temple in Rome, into a church, St. Maria Rotunda or ad Martyrs, dedicated in 609. The Pantheon had been built by the emperor Hadrian between 118 and 128 A.D.
Boniface had to wait 10 months for the emperor to confirm his appointment as pope.
609: Patriarch Anastasios II of Antioch was lynched by Jews from that city. The incident was due to Phokas’s (602-10) attempt to convert the Jews to Christianity and to Jewish support for the Persian invaders (see 611 below).
610: Herakleios (610-41) (Heraclius) became Roman (Byzantine) emperor. Until Herakleios’ time, Latin was used in government administration and in the army in the Roman (Byzantine) empire. Herakleios ended this anachronistic use of Latin, replacing it with Greek.
Sergios I was named patriarch of Constantinople (610-638). He assisted the emperor Herakleios’ campaigns of 622-28 with donations from the Church treasury, and by acting as regent while Herakleios was in the field. (See also 619 below.) • Columbanus (see 590), removed from his monastery in Luxovium (Luxeuil) by conspiring enemies in the court of the Frankish king Theodoric (Theuderic) II, travelled to Switzerland and preached to the pagan Alemanni. (Columbanus had refused to bless Theuderic’s sons by his concubines.) Even without Columbanus, the monastery at Luxeuil thrived, growing to 200 monks. In this era, monasteries grew so large they became local economic centers.
About this time, Columbanus criticized both Vigilius (537-55) and Boniface IV (608-15), the contemporary bishop of Rome, for supporting heretics by subscribing to the rulings of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. “Watch [vigila] that it does not turn out for you as it did for Vigilius, who was not vigilant enough.” If Boniface is not sufficiently vigilant, “the normal situation of the Church will be reversed. Your children will become the head, but you … will become the tail of the Church; therefore your judges will be those who have always preserved the Catholic faith, whoever they may be, even the youngest.”
610: In this year, the treasury of the church in Alexandria contained 8000 pounds of gold. The patriarchate supported 7500 poor persons and owned ships that sailed as far as Morocco and Cornwall.
611: On 20 April, Constantinople was struck by an earthquake.
611 (613?): The Persians captured Antioch.
612/614: Columbanus founded a monastery at Bobbio (northern Italy, southwest of Piacenza). Columbanus’s followers, along with Celtic monks, built monasteries and engaged in missionary activities in northern Europe during this era.
612: The emperor Herakleios’s wife, the empress Fabia-Eudokia, died of epilepsy. She left two children – her son became Constantine III, who ruled briefly in 641. Herakleios married his niece, Martina, over the protests of patriarch Sergios.
613: Aethelfrith of Northumbria won a battle at Chester, cutting Wales off from the Britons to the north. By this time, the invaders have conquered 2/3 to 3/4 of the island.
614: The Persians under King Chosroes II invested Jerusalem on April 15. On May 5, the Persians forced their way within the walls, with the help of Jews. With their churches and houses in flames around them, the Christians were indiscriminately massacred, some by the Persian soldiers but many more by Jews. Sixty thousand perished and thirty thousand more were sold into slavery. The Persians carried off the True Cross.
Of the churches in Palestine, only the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was spared. The apparent reason was the mosaic over the door, depicting the Wise Men from the East in Persian costume.
616 (619?): The Persians captured Egypt.
616: Thomas of Harkel translated the Bible into Syriac. His is the only complete New Testament in Syriac. Harkel employed critical signs in his text to indicate variant Greek readings. This translation is about one century later than the Philoxeniana (see 507/8 above), two centuries later than the Peshitta (see 400), and three later than Vetus Syra (see 300).
617: The Persians captured Chalcedon. The Persian campaigns in the period 614-19 contributed to the decline of self-governing cities and the emergence of a more rural economy in Asia Minor. • Donnan of Eigg murdered, along with his monks.
619: King Sisebut of Visigothic Spain wrote to Adaloald, king of the Lombards, encouraging the latter to abandon Arianism. Sisebut extolled the benefits that had accrued to the Visigothic kingdom since it had accepted Orthodoxy. • The provincial council of Seville was scandalized by the teaching of a certain bishop Gregory, a Syrian, and an advocate of the akephaloi – clerics with no acknowledged head. • During an Avar raid on the outskirts of Constantinople, Sergios had church plate melted. The resulting coin was used to buy peace from Chagan, the Avar chieftan. Possibly during this raid, Sergios had the relic of the Virgin’s robe temporarily transferred from Blachernai, outside the city walls, to Hagia Sophia. Later, it was returned with vigils and procession. After the fall of Egypt, the shortage of bread forced the Roman government to halt free bread distributions, and prices were fixed at three folleis per loaf. John “the Earthquake,” an official in charge of distribution, attempted to charge eight folleis per loaf. Sergios himself had the city prefect arrest John and resume distribution at the legal price.
620+: The Visigoths succeeded in conquering the Roman province in Spain.
622-681: The Monothelete controversy
622: The emperor Herakleios (610-41), while on a visit to Armenia, and in order to shore up support among the Monophysites in Syria and Egypt, suggested that the divine and human natures in Christ, while quite distinct in his person, had but one will (thelema) and one operation (energeia). Sergios, patriarch of Constantinople, was a strong supporter of this doctrine of one theandric energy of Christ.
623: A Frankish merchant named Samo assisted the Slavs of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia in their revolt against their Avar overlords. He led them to form a kingdom which stretched from the upper Elbe to the central Danube. This rebellion, likely instigated by Herakleios (610-41), weakened the Avars, who were about to move upon Constantinople.
625: Honorius I (625-38) became patriarch of Rome. He later accepted the doctrine of one theandric energy in Christ. As a result, Honorius was anathematized at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (681). • Honorius I (625-38) became patriarch of Rome. He later accepted the doctrine of one theandric energy in Christ. As a result, Honorius was anathematized at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (681).
626: Persians and Avars besieging Constantinople were completely repulsed by the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Herakleios (610-41). About this time, Maximos (Maximus) Confessor, (580-662) former protosecretary to Herakleios and later monk and abbot at Chrysopolis, departed Constantinople.
627: The emperor Herakleios (610-41) won a decisive victory over the Persians at Nineveh, shattering the last of their armies. The eastern provinces, now largely Monophysite, were reoccupied. • Paulinus converted Edwin, King of Northumbria, who was baptized on Christmas day. Paulinus became the first bishop of York.
628: After pausing in Crete, Maximos Confessor arrived in North Africa.
629: The emperor Herakleios (610-41) ceased using the title Imperator, employing Basileus instead. This reflects the shift from Latin to Greek (see 610 above).
629: Mohammed becomes ruler of Mecca in Arabia, publishes the Koran.
630: Fursa, an abbot in County Lough, Ireland, had a near death experience. In his vision, he was protected by angels from a pack of demons who accused him of various sins and intimidated him with the Irish warriors’ battle yell. Fursa later settled in France where his tale was spread among the faithful. See Diadochos, 486. • In around this year, the church in Rome adopted Dionysios Exiguus’s (see 525) Paschal (Easter) tables. Much of the West continued to follow Victor of Aquitaine (see 457) into the late eighth or early ninth century. From roughly 630 until the calendar change of 1582, Rome and the East were in agreement with respect to the calculation of Easter.
631: The emperor Herakleios (610-41) appointed Kyros, bishop of Phasis in Colchis, patriarch of Alexandria, with power to act as viceroy (dioiketes) of Egypt. Kyros began a ten-year persecution of the non-Chalcedonian Coptic Christians. The Coptic patriarch Benjamin I (622-661) escaped into hiding in the desert, and, in an attempt to discover Benjamin’s hiding place, Kyros had Benjamin’s brother Mina tortured, then drowned in the Nile, tied in a sack full of stones. The division among Christians no doubt aided the Islamic conquest of Egypt (639-641).
632: Death of Mohammed.
633: In about this year, Sergios (Sergius), patriarch of Constantinople 610-38, won Emperor Herakleios’s (610-41) approval for the doctrine that Christ has only one operation or energy. • On the basis of the doctrine of one theandric energy in Christ, supported by patriarch Kyros of Alexandria, a statement of union was signed between Constantinople and a moderate group of Monophysites, the Theodosians, in Alexandria, in June of this year. Sophronios, a monk of the monastery of St. Theodosius in Jerusalem, who had accompanied the Byzantine chronicler John Moschus in his travels, visited Alexandria and Constantinople to convince the patriarchs to renounce Monothelitism. Afterwards, patriarch Sergios became less enthusiastic in his monoenergism.
The Fourth Council of Toledo, meeting in the church of St. Leocadia, comprised of 62 bishops meeting at the request of King Sisenand (ruled the Visigoths from 631-36) asserted the statement of the Athanasian Creed that “Whoever wants to be saved, it is necessary above all that he hold the Catholic faith.” This is significant in the context of the Visigoths’ recent Arianism. Isidore (560-636), archbishop of Seville from roughly 600, presided over this council, which also insisted upon toleration for the Jews and took measures to increase uniformity in the mass in Spain. In addition, the council ordered, “Let the priest and the deacon communicate at the altar, the remaining clergy in the choir, and the laity outside the choir.” Evidence suggests that the altar was screened from public view in Spain during this period.
633/634: Sophronios (634-38) elected patriarch of Jerusalem. He sent a synodical letter to Honorius and the Eastern patriarchs explaining the orthodox belief in the two natures of Christ, as opposed to Monothelitism, which he viewed as a subtle form of Monophysitism. He also composed a Florilegium (anthology) of 600 texts from the Bible and the Greek church fathers in favor of the orthodox tenet of Dyotheletism (two wills) in Christ.
634: The Saracens swept up the coast of Palestine as far as Caesarea. Four thousand Christian, Jewish and Samaritan peasants were slaughtered. • Patriarch Sergios (610-38) of Constantinople published a short document, the Psephos (Decision), which forbade the mention of either one or two volitional principles of activity (energy) in Christ. Both Maximos the Confessor and patriarch Sophoronios accepted this.
635: King Oswald of Northumbria requested the Scots send him a bishop to convert his people. Aidan was sent, a monk of Hii or Iona, and established his episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne (Holy Isle) •Damascus fell to the Saracens. The Monophysites in Syria, persecuted for years by the Roman authorities, supported the invaders.
636: Reign of Rothari (636-52), king of the Lombards. He was the last Lombard king known to be an Arian. • Fall of Antioch to the Saracen invaders. The emperor Herakleios (610-41) withdrew his forces from Syria.
637: Jerusalem fell to the Arab invaders. Sophronios negotiated civil and religious liberty for Christians in exchange for tribute.
638: The emperor Herakleios (610-41) issued his Ekthesis espousing the Monothelete doctrine (that there is only one will in Christ) and setting it forth as the official doctrine of the Church. The four eastern patriarchs gave their assent. But the Ekthesis was vigorously opposed, notably by Maximos the Confessor. • Pyrrhos became patriarch of Constantinople (638-42, 53/4-?) upon Sergios’s death. Pyrrhos had been an advocate of Monothelitism and a close friend of the emperor Herakleios (610-41). • Severinus (640) was elected bishop of Rome in this year. But, because Severinus would not accept the Ekthesis, Herakleios (610-41) delayed confirmation of the election (see 604) for two years. Severinus was consecrated pope in 640.
633: Christian churches in Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem are seized by Mohammedans and turned into mosques.
638: Islamic conquest of Palestine
639: Thousands died in Palestine of famine and disease caused by the Saracen invasion, in which villages were destroyed and fields laid waste. • In December, the Saracen general Amr ibn al-Asi invaded Egypt with between 3500 to 4000 soldiers. • John Climacus (579-649) chosen abbot of the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mt. Sinai. He wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a work in 30 chapters which describes the spiritual ascent toward moral perfection.
640: The Saracens conquered the port of Caesarea in Palestine. The caliph Umar ordered a census of Palestine. All property (lands, livestock, trees, etc.) were counted in order to impose a poll tax. In Iraq, Umar was to increase the tax by a factor of 3 to 4 over what had been due the Persians.
641: The Arabs conquered Egypt, including Alexandria. In September, the Saracen forces of Amr ibn Al-Asi entered Alexandria, completing their conquest of Egypt. They burned the books of the library to heat the public baths. It was said that the supply of books ran out after one year. Nevertheless, the initial years of Muslim rule were favorable for the Coptic Christians, who were allowed to practice their religion freely, and could build and repair churches without interference. The early jizyah (poll tax) was no more onerous than the Imperial taxes had been..
The emperor Herakleios (610-41) died on 11 February, blaming the Ekthesis on patriarch Sergios. His eldest son, Constantine III, died on 25 May of the same year. There is speculation that he was killed by his stepmother, Martina. Constantine III’s son Herakleios became the emperor Constans II (641-68). (Constans II was termed Pogonatus, “the bearded,” due to his luxuriant beard – though all Roman emperors in this period wore beards.)
642: Theodore became patriarch of Rome (642-49). During his tenure, he excommunicated two patriarchs of Constantinople for accepting the Ekthesis. In return, the altar in the pope’s quarters in Constantinople was desecrated; the pope’s apocrisiary there was arrested, then exiled; and the emperor’s troops robbed the papal treasury in the Lateran palace. (Theodore was from the East, born in Jerusalem.) • Patriarch Pyrrhos of Constantinople – an ally of Martina – replaced by Paul, who opposed her, supporting Constans II (641-68) in the succession battle of 641. • King Chindaswinth of Spain (642-53) ordered the death penalty for Christians who worshipped as Jews.
643: The Saracens ransacked Tripoli. • Archbishop Sergios of Cyprus wrote to Theodore I (642-49), patriarch of Rome, asking for his support in opposing the Monotheletes of Constantinople. Sergios referred to the pope as the successor of St. Peter and the rock upon which the Church is founded. In a letter written about this time, Maximos Confessor wrote of “the very holy church of Rome, the apostolic see, which God the Word Himself and likewise all the holy synods, according to the holy canons and the sacred definitions, have received, and which owns the power in all things and for all, over all the saints who are there for the whole inhabited earth, and likewise the power to unite and to dissolve …”
645: At a debate in Carthage, arranged by the exarch Gregory, Maximos Confessor convinced Pyrrhos, former patriarch of Constantinople, to renounce the Monothelite heresy. Pyrrhos later changed his mind and was reinstalled as patriarch of Constantinople in 653 or 654.
646: A synod in Spain limited the retinue of a bishop to fifty. This eased the burden on those who were required to host the bishop and his party.
647: Gregory, exarch of Carthage, proclaimed independence from Constantinople. He was supported by the Chalcedonian populace. This rebellion ended when the Arabs raided Carthage from Libya and killed Gregory (649). Carthage finally fell to the Arabs in 705.
648: The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Constans II (641-68), to quiet the intense controversy caused by the Monothelete doctrine, issued an edict forbidding the subject to be discussed. This edict, distributed by the patriarch Paul in Constans’ name, is known as the Typos. A papal legate in Constantinople, Anastasius, was exiled to Trebizond for refusing to assent to the edict. • Pope Theodore I declared Pyrrhos, former patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicate.
649: Pope Theodore I declared patriarch Paul of Constantinople deposed. • Martin I (649-55), patriarch of Rome, was consecrated without awaiting imperial confirmation (see 604). In defiance of imperial policy, the Lateran council he called condemned the Monothelete doctrine at the Lateran council in Rome. The patriarchs Sergios, Pyrrhos, and Paul of Constantinople were anathematized, along with Kyros of Alexandria. A florlegium of 161 extracts from orthodox authors (only 28 of whom wrote in Latin) opposing Monothelitism was compiled. One hundred and five western prelates were present at the synod, representing Sicily, Africa, Sardinia, and Italy, though none were from north of the Alps or Spain. A large body of eastern monks attended as well (many of whom were refugees from Monothelite persecution in the East), in addition to representatives from eastern patriarchs. Martin had the council’s findings translated into Greek and sent to the emperor Constans II (641-68), requiring him to repudiate the monothelite heresy.
Maximos Confessor attended this synod. From Rome, Maximos wrote of the church there that “she has the keys of the faith and of the orthodox confession; whoever approaches her humbly, to him is opened the real and unique piety, but she closes her mouth to any heretic who speaks against the justice.”
649: King Recceswinth of Spain (649-54) forbade observance of the Passover, the Old Testament dietary restrictions, and Jewism marriages. Jews were forbidden to go to court against Christians or to give evidence against them in court. • The Saracens attacked Cyprus, killing or enslaving much of the populace.
653: Bishop Martin I of Rome and Maximos Confessor were arrested by order of the emperor Constans II (641-68). Martin was arrested by Theodore Calliopas, exarch of Ravenna. Both were banished for treason in 655, apparently because of their opposition to the Monothelites. Martin I was exiled to Crimea, where he died on 16 September 655.
653-658: A certain Wilfrid visited Rome as a pilgrim. After his return to England, he became abbot of the monastery in Rippon. Later, he became bishop of York (664). Wilfrid’s history demonstrates secular limitation of the bishop of Rome’s influence in the Church.
654-657: Eugenius, bishop of Rome. Eugenius refused the emperor’s request that he recognize Peter, patriarch of Constantinople, who was a monothelete. But it is said that Eugenius did so only after he was threatened by his congregation in Rome.
655: Naval battle between the Romans (Byzantines) and the Arabs off Phoenikos (modern Finike) in Lycia. The Roman fleet was shattered, and the emperor Constans II (641-68) barely escaped.
656: The Caliph Othman was assassinated in Medina while reading the Koran. The Arab world was in turmoil for the next five years, giving the Romans a brief respite.
657: When Vitalian (657-72) was elected bishop of Rome in this year, he avoided condemning the Typos of the emperor Constans II (641-68) (see 648). The emperor confirmed his appointment.
659: On her deathbed, Gertrude of Nivelles, daughter of Pepin I of France (the mayor of the palace who died ~ 640), requested burial in wearing a plain linen shroud. This ran contrary to the traditional (pagan) practice of a “furnished” grave. Her example was copied. By the 750s, the practice of furnishing graves against the needs of the dead in the afterlife had ceased in Francia.
661: The Frankish king Chlothar III and his queen Balthild founded a monastery at Corbie, giving it immunity from taxation and visits from local bishops in exchange for prayer, which the royal patrons trusted would protect and enrich their kingdom. • By this year, the Franks had replaced all Roman bishops in Gaul with Frankish bishops (see 601 above). St. Boniface described the Franks as: “voracious laymen, adulterous clergy and drunkards, who fight in the army fully armed and who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans.”
661/662: Maximos Confessor was recalled from exile in Thrace, tried, and sentenced to mutilation. His tongue and his right hand were cut off to prevent his further opposition to the Monothelites.
Maximos’ most significant theological contribution is perhaps his interpretation of the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius along Orthodox lines, emphasizing both Trinitarian theology and diophysite Christology. Maximos was a proponent of apophatic approach to the knowledge of God. His works take up more space in the Philokalia (see 1782 below) than do those of any other writer and are concerned with the process of deification.
At the Council of Florence (1439), the Orthodox quoted Maximos to indicate in what sense the filioque was understood in the West in the seventh century. Maximos wrote, “the Romans do not affirm that the Son is the cause of the Spirit, for they know that the cause of the Son and the Spirit is the Father, of one by birth, and of the other by procession; but only show that the Spirit is sent through the Son.” The Orthodox indicated that, if this were still the Roman position, “then no further discussions are necessary, and the former union of Churches can take place.” Unfortunately, the Western dogma had changed dramatically by that time.
662: On August 13, Maximos Confessor died in exile in Lazica on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. • The emperor Constans II (641-68) left Constantinople, initially intending to establish his court in Rome. • Around this year, during the reign of their king Grimoald (ruled 662-71), the Lombards in the Benevento region were worshipping the image of a snake; the cult had endured from antiquity. St. Baratus had the snake idol melted down into a paten and chalice.
663: Constans II (641-68) visited Rome, where he stayed for 12 days. He stripped the city’s churches of valuables – taking even roof tiles from St. Maria ad Martyres.
664: The synod held at Whitby. Churches in the north of England (who had been under the influence of Celtic evangelists) agreed to keep Easter on the date established by Rome, in agreement with churches in the south evangelized from Rome. The Celts claimed their practice came from St. John, while the southerners invoked Peter. King Oswy (of the Mercians) was convinced by the argument that Peter held the keys to the kingdom of heaven: “lest, when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open them, he being my adversary who is proved to have the keys.”
Curiously, it appeared the Celts celebrated Easter according to the agreement made at Nicaea in 325 (on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the month nearest the vernal equinox). They were unaware, however, that since Nicaea Alexandrian astronomers had found an error in the way the Jews calculated Passover. The method for computing Easter had been modified in 525 in the West so the date always fell between March 22 and April 24, as it does to this day — on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs upon or next after the vernal equinox (March 21). The appeals to apostolic authority on both sides were thus erroneous. • A plague fell upon Essex. The king, Sigehere, and the people apostatized. Bishop Jaruman of Mercia restored them to the faith.
History 5
666: The emperor Constans II (641-68) granted the request of Archbishop Maurus of Ravenna, allowing that city to consecrate its bishop without approval from Rome.
668: Pope Vitalian (657-72) consecrated Theodore of Tarsus as the seventh archbishop of Canterbury.
668/669: Hadrian, abbot of the Niridian monastery near Naples, accompanied Theodore of Tarsus across France. According to Bede, Ebrin, the mayor of the palace, “detained Hadrian, suspecting that he went on some message from the emperor to the kings of Britain, to the prejudice of his kingdom.” In this era, the popes were citizens of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor, and were thought capable of attempting to negotiate an alliance between the empire and the Saxon kings of Britain against the Franks.
669: Wilfrid appointed bishop of York. He had advocated the Roman position at Whitby in 664.
669: Theodore of Tarsus becomes archbishop of Canterbury, promotes episcopal hierarchy and Roman culture in the south of Britain.
670: The herdsman Caedmon in northern Britain composes poems based on Biblical narratives in Old English.
670: The authority of the Athanasian creed affirmed by a council in Toledo.
672: The Saracens attacked the islands of Cos and Rhodes, killing or enslaving much of the populace.
673-5: A synod at Saint-Jean-de-Losne condemned clerical hunting (see 517, 747).
674: Benedict Biscop (~628-689/90), considered the father of Benedictine monasticism in England, built the monastery of St. Peter in Wearmouth. Benedict traveled frequently to Rome, obtaining instructions in monastic practice and manuscripts, paintings, and relics for the monastery at Wearmouth and a sister monastery at Jarrow. Together, these establishments comprised a leading center for scholarship and art in Western Europe during this era. Biscop was succeeded as abbot of Wearmouth by Ceolfrith in 690.
674: The Saracens attacked Crete, killing or enslaving much of the populace.
678: Constantine IV (668-85) began to search about for a final resolution on the Monothelite question. He wrote suggesting a general council.
Around this year, Agatho, bishop of Rome (678-81), sent a certain John, first singer of the Schola Cantorum in Rome, to train students in church music at Wearmouth, England.
Because of a squabble between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, and King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, Wilfrid was expelled from his see at York. He traveled to Rome to appeal to that city’s bishop. On the road, Wilfrid was instrumental in the conversion of many Frisians (living in modern Holland) – aided by the coincidence of unusually good fishing.
679: Barontus, formerly a royal official, now a monk at the monastery of Logoretum (near Bourges, central France), became very sick. He had a vision in which he saw angels guiding him toward heaven, but demons, simultaneously, clawed at him. When Barontus came to the gates of heaven, the demons listed his sins at St. Peter’s request. See Diadochos, 486.
680: The Bulgars, who had crossed the Danube into Dobrudja (between the Danube and the Black Sea) during the previous decade, defeated the Roman forces sent out to expel them. From this point on, the Bulgars were permanent residents south of the Danube.
King Ervig of Spain (680-87) forbade Jews from observing the Sabbath.
By about this time, the Lombards have been converted to Orthodoxy.
In a letter prepared for the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Pope Agatho (678-81) interpreted Luke 22.31 as a reference to the doctrinal purity of the papacy and the unique pastoral duties of popes. The passage reads: “Peter, Peter, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” For Agatho, it was clear that the church in Rome “has never erred from the path of the apostolic tradition, nor has she been depraved by yielding to heretical innovations, but … remains undefiled unto the end, according to the divine promise” of Luke 22.31. This is the first known interpretation of that verse in support of papal claims. Earlier fathers, such as Chrysostom and Ambrose, had treated it as a prophecy of Peter’s denial and repentance. For them, it had no connection to a supposed permanent role for him (or his successors).
Wilfrid returned to York with a ruling from the bishop of Rome in his favor. However, King Ecfrith imprisoned Wilfrid instead of reinstating him as bishop. Wilfrid was released in 681 but exiled from Northumbria.
3rd Council of Constantinople (6th Ecumenical Council) • Caedmon, English poet and monk, renders Bible books and stories into Anglo Saxon poetry and song. The council anathematized Honorius, once patriarch of Rome (see 625), and deposed the patriarch of Antioch, Makarios, for embracing the Monothelite heresy.
681: Sixth Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople (the Third Council of Constantinople). The council anathematized Honorius, once patriarch of Rome (see 625), and deposed the patriarch of Antioch, Makarios, for embracing the Monothelite heresy.
684: The Maronites became an independent people when the armies of Justinian II were defeated by John Maron (later patriarch of Antioch from 685-707).
685: The caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705) established Arabic as the official language of the Umayyad empire. No other languages were permitted in government administration.
686: Wilfrid returned to his see at York under King Ecfrith’s successor Aldfrith.
The archbishop of Toledo, Julian, head of the church in Spain, composed a work to defend against Jewish efforts to prove that Jesus had not been the Messiah. It seems there was a flow of conversions to Judaism in Spain in spite of the penalties of law (see 642, 649, 680).
686-89: Sometime during this period, the Arab governor of Egypt, Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Marwan, imprisoned the Coptic pope, Isaac (686-689), for intervening in a dispute between the emperor of Ethiopia and the king of Nubia (both Christians). The governor stripped the churches of crosses, especially those made from gold or silver. He also fixed placards to the church gates, stating that Mohammed was the apostle of Allah, and denying that Jesus was the Son of God.
Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Marwan was succeeded by his son, al-Asbagh, who, guided by a Copt named Benjamin, discovered and seized Coptic treasures. Al-Asbagh extended the jizyah (poll tax) to monks, and added a 2000 dinars to the land tax paid by bishops. A wave of conversion to Islam occurred during this time of financial persecution. (Al-Asbagh is also reported to have spat on an icon of Mary carried in procession at Helwan.)
687: During his tenure as pope, Sergius I (687-701) introduced a new form of litany to Rome. The new litany style had been developed in Syria and involved invocation of the saints and devotions to the Lamb of God and the Cross. Sergius was himself from Syria. The Agnus Dei was one of the liturgies Sergius brought to Rome. Sergius ordered that the Agnus Dei be sung by the clergy and people during the mass, at the time of the breaking of the consecrated host. “Grant us thy peace” replaced the final “Have mercy on us” about four hundred years later. Sergius is also credited with introducing a procession on Candlemas.
Sergius was elected after a struggle between archdeacon Paschal and archpriest Theodore. The imperial exarch, John Platyn, chose Sergius instead. Sergius was supported by the higher clergy. Platyn, however, forced Sergius to pay an amount that Paschal had already promised in a bribe.
Era of Greek popes (687-752). Sergius is the first Greek-speaking pope during a period dominated by popes from the East. Thirteen popes were elected between 687 and 752, eleven of whom were from Greece, Syria, or Byzantine Sicily. Only two (Benedict II (684-5) and Gregory II (715-31)) were native Italians. Most of the old Roman aristocratic families, from whom the popes had been chosen, emigrated to the East, and many Eastern monks fled to the West, first to escape the persecutions of the Monotheletes — afterwards, to escape from the Iconoclasts.
689: Late evidence of delayed baptism: Pope Sergius I baptized King Cadwalla of Wessex just before the latter’s death at age 30 while traveling to Rome.
690: Willibrord, who had been a monk at Wilfrid’s monastery in Ripon, asked permission of Sergios I (687-701), bishop of Rome, to conduct a mission to the continent. The pope furnished him with relics as well. Accompanied by eleven companions, and protected by Pippin II and Charles Martel, Willibrord established a monastery at Echternach (about midway between Rheims and Mainz).
~ 690: A certain Rupert established the cathedral church in Salzburg. Salzburg and Passau had been Roman forts, and it is possible that Christianity had survived in those towns.
691/692: Abd al Malik imposed a poll tax on the Syrians. According to the chronicle of the Monophysite monk known as Pseudo-Dionysius, al Malik “issued a strict edict for every individual to go to his country of origin, his village, where he was to register his name, that of his father, his vines, his olive trees, his property, his children and everything he owned. This was the origin of the poll tax; this was the origin of all the evils spread out over the Christians.”
691: The Quinisext Synod A council of 327 (211?) bishops was held in the trullo or domed room of the emperor’s palace in Constantinople. Called by the emperor Justinian II (685-95, 705-11), it is referred to as the Quinisext council or the Council in Trullo and viewed (in the East) as an extension of the 5th and 6th ecumenical councils. No canons had been formulated for the entire Church since Chalcedon (451), so the Quinisext council set about to contemporary practices. The 102 canons acted to (a) fix bishops, priests, and monks to their respective locations of service; (b) support eastern Roman, rather than Armenian, Jewish, or Latin customs; and (c) to suppress paganism and superstition.
692: A council of 327 (211?) bishops was held in the trullo or domed room of the Emperor’s palace in Constantinople. Called by the emperor Justinian II (685-95, 705-11), it is referred to as the Quinisext council or the Council in Trullo, and viewed (in the East) as an extension of the 5th and 6th ecumenical councils. No canons had been formulated for the entire Church since Chalcedon (451), so the Quinisext council set about to contemporary practices. The 102 canons acted to (a) fix bishops, priests, and monks to their respective locations of service; (b) support eastern Roman, rather than Armenian, Jewish, or Latin customs; and (c) to suppress paganism and superstition.
Wilfrid, bishop of York, fell out with King Aldfrith, and was exiled again.
694: King Egica of Spain ordered the enslavement of all Jews and the confiscation of their property.
695: Willibrord appointed archbishop of Utrecht (north of the Rhine near the North Sea). He oversaw the construction of churches and monasteries among the Frisians. From the monastery at Echternach, Willibrord sent missionaries eastward, to Hesse, Thuringia, and Franconia.
698: Carthage fell to the Saracens.
698: End of the Istrian Schism (548-698). The synod of Pavia restored communion between Istria and Rome, broken during the Fifth Ecumencial Council (see 548 above).
700: In Rome from around this year, a large fragment of the True Cross was venerated in the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.
Eighth Century
700: Beowulf, Nordic epic poem, written about this time.
701+: The Roman liturgy was imposed on the Western church through this century. The process was nearly complete by the death of Charlemagne.
702: King Egica of Spain encouraged the free population to search for runaway slaves. See 694 above.
703: Wilfrid, bishop of York, again traveled to Rome seeking support for his cause (see 678 above). The bishop of Rome (John VI (701-05)) again ruled in his favor. Wilfrid and his comrades were unsettled by the fact that those closest to the bishop of Rome spoke among themselves in Greek.
705: The Roman emperor Justinian II (685-95, 705-11) rewarded the Bulgar Khagan Tervel with the title of Caesar for his assistance in regaining the imperial throne.
John VII (705-7) of Rome apparently approved the canons of the Quinisext council (see 692 above). The Liber pontificalis records that, “Being a timid and cowardly man, he sent them back [to the emperor Justinian II] without any change.”
Wilfrid, bishop of York, was received by King Aldfrith’s successor Osred. He was not – the bishop of Rome’s decision to the contrary notwithstanding – returned to his see. Wilfrid died in a monastery in Mercia in 709.
The Coptic Pope Alexander II (705-730) was arrested when he complained to the Omayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik about the financial persecution orchestrated by Egypt’s governor. The caliph set a ransom of 3000 dinars for Alexander’s release. In this period, the Muslim governor of Egypt routinely ransacked churches and monasteries, and enslaved monks. Those Copts who attempted to escape taxation were flogged and branded when captured, their arms or legs were cut off, and property seized.
707: The Saracens conquered North Africa.
709: King Cenred of Mercia became a monk in Rome.
710: At the emperor Justinian II’s (685-695, 705-711) invitation, Constantine I (707-15), bishop of Rome, traveled to Constantinople, where he approved a version of the decrees of the Quinisext council (see 692 above). This was the last papal visit to Constantinople until 1979.
711: Justinian II murdered. Constantine I, bishop of Rome, condemned the usurper Phillipicus Bardanes (711-13) as a Monothelete.
711: Spain fell to the Saracens. According to some, the victory of the Saracens in Spain was also victory for the Roman underclass, being freed thereby from their Gothic overlords. Nevertheless, some 30,000 Christians were sent to Damascus as slaves as booty for the caliph.
712: The Bulgars under Tervel invaded Thrace, continuing to the walls of Constantinople.
715-720: The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the British Library in London. The manuscript is one of the finest works in the unique style of Hiberno-Saxon or Insular art, combining Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic elements.
716: Abbot Ceolfrith (Geoffrey) had a retinue of eighty when he left England for Rome in this year. Ceolfrith, an associate of Saint Benedict Biscop, had succeeded him as abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow in 690. The reputation for learning at these monasteries, where Bede was educated (see 731 below), continued to flourish during Ceolfrith’s tenure. Unfortunately, Ceolfrith was unable to complete his pilgrimage to Rome. He died near the city of Langres (Lingonas) in the diocese of Lyon. His relics were returned to Wearmouth.
717: The Saracens besieged Constantinople. Leo III (717-741) became emperor. In an act which can only be termed ironic given subsequent events, Leo had the icon Hodogetria (She who shows the Way) carried in procession around the city walls. Subsequently, Leo defeated the Saracen fleet. In 718, Leo again defeated their fleet, even though it had been reinforced. A Bulgar army attacked the Saracens, killing 22,000, and the latter retreated to Cilicia.
719: In May, Winfrith, a monk of Nursling, obtained a commission from Gregory II, bishop of Rome from 715 to 731, to evangelize on the continent. He was given a new name as well – Boniface – after an early Roman martyr. Bonifaace labored among the Frisian and German tribes (see 722). Founded the abbey at Fulda in 743/4, and was archbishop of Mainz from 744/5-54. Murdered in 754/5(?). He was said to have cut down the sacred oak at Geismar in what is now Hesse, Germany. He used its wood to build a chapel.
At one point during his career in Germany, Boniface encountered an Irishman named Clement who taught that all, “believers and unbelievers, those who praise God and those who worship idols” had been freed from punishment by Christ’s harrowing of Hell.
719: John of Otzun, Catholicus of the Armenian church, held a synod at Dovin which condemned the Paulicians. The Paulicians were dualists, believing that the Heavenly Being and the Demiurge (the creator of the world) were both eternal. They did not believe that Christ took flesh of Mary; instead, he received his body in heaven and merely passed through Mary. They rejected the sacraments and did not revere the cross, though they had no scruples about dissimmulating and pretending to conform to normative Christianity. They rejected marriage, and it was reported that they engaged in licentious behavior. The Paulicians also rejected icons and relics.
720: The caliph Yazid II (720-24) established the value of a Muslim’s life at 12,000 dinars and that of a non-Muslim at 6,000.
721: Saracens invaded Aquitane but were routed by Duke Eudo at Toulouse.
722: Final persecution of the Montanists.
Gregory II commissioned Boniface to preach the gospel east of the Rhine. Under the protection of Charles Martel (mayor of the palace from 714-41), he concentrated his activities in Thuringia and Hesse.
723: Boniface cut down the sacred oak at Geismar in what is now Hesse, Germany. He used its wood to build a chapel. He wrote to England for copies of the Scriptures written gold. Boniface wished to use them to awe the pagans.
The caliph Yazid II, who had been very ill, was cured by a Jewish necromancer. At the necromancer’s suggestion, Yazid ordered all Christian pictures in churches, markets and private homes destroyed.
724: Permin, a native of Septimania, fleeing the Saracens, established the Richenau monastery on an island in Lake Constance. He later founded monasteries at Murbach, Pfaffers, Niederaltaich and Hornbach. Pirmin donated fifty books to the library at Richenau – which grew into one of the , largest libraries in Western Europe during this era.
724-743: Under the reign of the caliph Hisham, Christians in the Arab empire were oppressed with exorbitant taxation and tributes.
724 Territorial dispute between Boniface and the bishop of Mainz, who wanted to add the territories Boniface was evangelizing to his diocese.
725 The Saracens overran Septimania.
725 Excessive taxation of Christians led to an uprising of the Copts in lower Egypt. Many Copts were massacred. Others fled by sea.
726 Incipient Iconoclasm. The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Leo III (Leo the Isaurian (717-741)) ordered the icon of Christ in the Chalke – the a building which served as the gateway to the Imperial palace – destroyed. The icon was painted above the bronze doors at the entrance to the Chalke. When the demolition team arrived, their leader was attacked and murdered by a crowd of outraged women. Also as a result of the destruction of this icon, the exarchate of Ravenna rose in revolt (727), backed by Gregory II, bishop of Rome (715-31).
727 The Lombard king Liutprand took the exarchate of Ravenna. The exarchate had separated the northern and southern Lombard duchies. The exarch, a eunuch named Eutychius, fled to Venice.
727 The Saracens were defeated at Nicaea and driven beyond the Tarsus mountains.
727 The Emperor Leo III appointed Kosmas I patriarch of Alexandria. The Orthodox there had been without a patriarch for the past ~70 years. By this time, the Copts were a majority among Egyptian Christians. Working with Coptic Church leaders, Kosmas led a revolution against the Arabs, which failed. Afterwards, the Orthodox were left with only one church building in Alexandria. Christians were persecuted. Many emigrated or converted to Islam.
729 The Lombard king Liutprand attacked Rome. After Pope Gregory II confronted him, Liutprand left his armor and weapons at Peter’s tomb as an offering and lifted his siege.
729 The eunuch Eutychius retook Ravenna, then marched against Rome to bring Gregory II to heel. At this moment, Gregory and Liutprand, king of the Lombards, were allies against the exarch. Liutprand exercised little control over the Lombard dukes, but Gregory II brought the southern duchies in Italy into line, leaving the exarch isolated in Ravenna. Gregory II (715-31) was now politically independent of Constantinople. Note, however, that the tribute payments begun in the time of Pelagius II (579-90) continued through the papacy of Gregory III (731-41), until Zacharias (741-52) became bishop of Rome.
730 Evantius, archdeacon of Toledo, wrote against the practice of some Christians in Saragossa who avoided certain types of food out of fear they would be unclean if they consumed them.
730 – 842: Iconoclasm
730 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Leo III (Leo the Isaurian (717-741)), with the consent of a council of bishops and senators, promulgated an edict requiring the removal of all icons from churches. The patriarch of Constantinople (Germanus) joined the revolt in favor of icons, and the emperor deposed him in 730, appointing Anastatius patriarch. One motive for Leo’s actions may have been to limit the power of the monasteries, which made much of their income from the production of icons. Another may have been his perception that military setbacks were due to God’s disfavor of idolatry.
After the edict, Leo ordered the destruction of icons within the monasteries. Many monks fled to Greece and Italy – taking smaller icons with them, hidden inn their clothing – others fled to the caves of the Cappadocian desert.
Leo’s edict had little effect outside of Constantinople. The patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem openly declared themselves in favor of icons.
The prohibition of art applied to religious works only. For instance, scenes of the Councils painted in the Milion (a public building in Constantinople) were replaced by paintings of a horse race in the Hippodrome.
730 Gregory II (715-31), bishop of Rome, wrote a letter to Constantinople denying that the emperor had the right to interfere in doctrinal matters (in particular, the controversy over icons) and asserting that, if the emperor tried to use force against the bishop of Rome, the entire western world would come to his defense. Gregory anathematized the iconoclasts without naming the emperor explicitly. Gregory wrote, “The civil powers and the ecclesiastical powers are things distinct; the body is subject to the former, the soul to the latter; the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate; but a more formidable sword – that of excommunication – belongs to the clergy. O tyrant, you come in arms to attack us; we, all unprotected as we are, can but call upon Jesus Christ, the prince of the heavenly army, and beg him to send out a devil against you, who shall destroy your body and the salvation of your soul. The barbarians have bowed beneath the Gospel’s yoke, and you, alone, are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These godly barbarians are filled with rage; they burn to avenge the persecution suffered by the Church in the East. Give up your audacious and disastrous enterprise, reflect, tremble, and repent.”
730 St. John of Damascus, tax collector for a Muslim caliph, wrote his Discourses on Sacred Images against the emperor Leo III and the Iconoclasts. Soon thereafter, he became a monk at Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. He wrote his The Source of Knowledge, including An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.
John gave the following list of Old Testament books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Kings (1 and 2 Samuel), 3 and 4 Kings (1 and 2 Kings), 1 and 2 Paraleipomena (1 and 2 Chronicles), Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, the twelve minor prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, two books of Esdras (Ezra and Nehemiah), and Esther. The only book included in modern Hebrew Bibles not listed here is Lamentations – but John may have it joined to Jeremiah. John specifically excluded the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), which he termed virtuous and noble.
John’s New Testament was the modern volume plus Clement’s Canons of the holy apostles (see the Exact Exposition, Book 4, Chapter 17).
731 Bede completed his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. He was the author responsible for the popularity of the A.D. system of dates. (See year 541.) Bede was a disciple of Ceolfrith’s. At one point, due to a disease that wasted the community at Jarrow, Bede and Ceolfrith were the only two healthy enough to pray.
In his The Reckoning of Time, Bede revised Eusebius’ chronology (see 327 above) according to the dates in the Hebrew (rather than the Greek) Old Testament. By doing so he was able to postpone the day of judgment by several centuries, since the Hebrew and Greek dates disagree, most severely in the ages at birth of the antediluvian patriarchs. For instance, a literal reading of the genealogy in Genesis chapter 5 puts the flood in 2243 anno mundi following the LXX, but in 1657 according to the Hebrew. Largely (though not entirely) by capitalizing on this difference, Bede was able to establish that Tiberius’ fifteenth year (Luke 3.1) was 3981 years after Adam. Consequently, he placed Christ’s birth in the year 3953 anno mundi.
731 Gregory III (731-41) held a council in Rome. All iconoclasts were excommunicated, and iconoclasm was denounced. The archbishop of Ravenna (an imperial territory) attended the council.
732 Battle of Tours (Battle of Poitiers). Franks under Charles Martel turned back the Saracens. Eudes (Odo), duke of Aquitaine, had rebelled against Frankish rule and had called the Saracens to come to his aid. He then turned to Charles Martel for aid against the Saracens. [Thus, some consider the Arab invasion to have been in support of a Gallo-Roman revolution against their Frankish overlords. At the battle of Provence in 739, in this view, the revolution was finally crushed.]
732 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Leo III’s fleet, intended for an invasion of Italy, was destroyed by a storm. Leo had intended to crush Western (in particular, papal) opposition to iconoclasm.
732 Gregory III (731-41), patriarch of Rome, refused, like his predecessors, to agree with Leo III on the issue of images. Leo confiscated the papal estates in Sicily and southern Italy, from which most of Gregory’s income was derived. Leo also reorganized the church: He removed the Greek-speaking provinces of Illyria, Sicily and southern Italy — the archbishoprics of Thessalonica, Coriinth, Syracuse, Reggio, Nicopolis, Athens and Patras — from Gregory’s jurisdiction, and placed them under the patriarch of Constantinople. In effect, Leo threw the patriarch of Rome out of the empire. (The papacy regained control over southern Italy after the Norman conquest, around 1059.)
732 Pope Gregory III appointed Boniface archbishop of Germany.
733 Pope Gregory III successfully negotiated with the Lombards for the return of Ravenna to the empire – even though he and Constantinople were at odds over the emperor’s iconoclastic policy.
735: Bede, English historian and monk, translates the Gospels into Anglo Saxon.
737 A Saracen force defeated a Khazar army near the Volga. But as the Saracens were forced to retreat, the Khazars won a strategic victory, thought by many to be as significant as the Battle of Tours (732). By holding the Caucasus against Islamic aggression, the Khazars delayed their conquest of eastern Europe and thwarted the Saracen’s desire to attack Constantinople from the north.
The Khazars were a Turkic people who first appeared near the end of the sixth century, on the steppes north of the Caucasus. Their capital was at Itil’ in the Volga estuary, and they ruled the steppes between the Volga and the Dneiper. According to medieval Hebrew sources of uncertain reliability, the Khazar Bulan accepted some Jewish beliefs between 730 and 740. Some modern historians are of the opinion that the Khazar ruling class accepted Judaism between 850 and 900.
739 An Coptic uprising in Egypt bloodily suppressed by the Saracens.
739/40 Boniface reorganized the Bavarian episcopate. Bavaria later acted as a base for the Frankish mission to the Slavs.
739 Liutprand, king of the Lombards, took four cities from the duchy of Rome and sacked Ravenna. He also besieged Rome. His troops ransacked the basilica.
740 Leo III defeated the Saracens at Akroinon, effectively halting the Arab invasion at the Tarsus mountains in the East, as Charles Martel had limited them at the Pyrenees in the West at Poitiers in 733.
741 Constantine V (741-75) became Roman Emperor. Like his father, he was an iconoclast. It is reported that, when he was baptized, he fouled the baptismal waters. Thus, he is known as Constantine Copronymus (that is, Constantine “dung-name”). In 742, his throne was usurped by his brother-in-law, Artabasdus. In 743, however, Constantine regained his throne. Patriarch Anastatius (730-54), who had supported the usurper, was paraded naked around the arena, riding backward on a donkey, but then restored to office.
In addition to images, Constantine rejected the baptism of infants and the veneration of the saints, whom, he said, could not intercede for us.
743 In exchange for Bavarian assistance in defeating the Avars, Boruth, leader of the Carantians, accepted Bavarian overlordship, and delivered his son Cacatius and nephew Cheitmar as hostages, whom he asked to be raised as Christians. The Carantians lived near the upper Drava river (southern Austria). Cheitmar later became duke of the Carantians (~752) and invited priests and bishops from Salzburg into the Carantania.
744 Boniface founded a monastery at Fulda (in modern Germany), which housed about 360 monks by 779.
744-50 Reign of the caliph Marwan II. Of him, the Monophysite monk Pseudo-Dionysius wrote, “Marwan’s main concern was to amass gold, and his yoke bore heavily on the people of the country. His troops inflicted many evils on the men: blows, pillage, outrages on women in their husbands’ presence.”
744 When the Egyptian governor offered them relief from the jizyah (poll tax), 24,000 Coptic Christians converted to Islam. From about this time, and certainly by 832, the Copts were a minority in Egypt.
745 Boniface became bishop of Mainz.
745 The teachings of Clement (see 719 above) and those of a certain Aldeburt were condemned at a synod in Rome. Aldeburt, a native of Gaul, claimed to have received a letter from Jesus. He distributed his own hair and fingernails as holy relics, and doubted the spiritual benefit of pilgrimage to Rome. Aldeburt also set up rival churches or chapels, tempting the people away from the older churches.
745-7 Bubonic plague in Asia Minor killed ~1/3 of the population. The Peloponnese was hit by plague, in 746-7. Afterwards, the Peloponnese was inhabited almost entirely by Slavs.
746 Constantine V invaded Syria and captured Germania. He resettled the population in Thrace. Many of the new settlers were Paulicians, whom the iconoclast Constantine considered allies and needed to offset iconodule strength in Thrace.
747 The Roman ecclesiastical calendar was adopted in England by a synod meeting in Cloveshoe. In addition, observance of the feast days of Sts. Gregory the Great and Augustine (of Canterbury) was ordered. The English church made unilateral (without the permission of the bishop of Rome) changes to her calendar until 1161, when Edward the Confessor was canonized. The same synod prohibited monasteries from housing poets, harpists, musicians, and jesters.
747 A Saracen fleet from Alexandria was destroyed at sea by a Roman fleet using Greek fire.
747 A Frankish synod prohibited clergy from carrying weapons or wearing ostentatious clothing. A synod held in Germany under Boniface (perhaps the same?) forbade clergy from hunting (see 517, 673), going about with dogs, and keeping hawks.
747 A council in England adopted the Rogation Days (see Mamertus above, ~452).
749 The Lombard king Aistulf announced his intention to bring the Papacy to vassalage. He conquered the exarchate of Ravenna (July 751). Some modern historians believe that it is about this time that the Donation of Constantine was forged to secure the papacy by giving ti legal title to the exarchate of Ravenna, in effect allowing the bishop of Rome to take the exarch’s place.
749 The Omayyad Caliph Marwan II (744-750) brought an army to Egypt to suppress a Coptic insurrection centered on al-Bashmur in the marshlands of the Nile delta. He imprisoned the Coptic Pope Kha’il (744-767), and carried him to Rashid (Rosetta) in chains. His army was defeated by the Copts, who then destroyed Rashid. The Pope and other clergy were freed.
750-800 The onset of “the little optimum,” a period of relative warmth in Europe which lasted until the second half of the twelfth century (roughly 1150-1200). The mild weather may have been a cause for the population increase associated with this period.
750 The Battle of the Greater Zab River. Caliph Marwan II’s forces were crushed by those of Abu al-Abbas al-Suffah, ending the Omayyad dynasty of Damascus. The caliphate came under control of the Abbasids of Baghdad. Saracen military pressure on the Roman Empire fell, as the Abbasids were interested in lands to their east.
751 (754?) Pepin III (751-68), Mayor of the Palace in France, turned to Rome for legal assistance in deposing the Merovingian king. He asked, “Is it wise to have kings who have no power of control?” The pope responded, “It is better to have a king able to govern. By apostolic authority, I bid that you be crowned king of the Franks.” St. Boniface anointed Pepin with oil, and crowned him king of the Franks. At this time, Zacharias (741-52) was bishop of Rome.
751 By 7 July, the exarchate of Ravenna (568 or 584 to 751) had ended at the hands of Aistulf, king of the Lombards.
751 When the Saracens conquered Samarkand this year, they acquired the secret to manufacturing paper. The Chinese had just sent a team to set up a paper factory there. This Arab skill drifted into Europe. By 1280, there was a water-powered paper mill in Fabriano in Italy. The manufacture of paper is key to the development of inexpensive printing, and thus to the distribution of the printed Bible during the Reformation.
752 End of the Era of Greek Popes (687-752). Death of Zacharias, bishop of Rome from 741. After Zacharias, no other pope of eastern origin would be elected until an interval of ~ 700 years had elapsed.
753 Pope Stephen II (752-7) turned to Pepin the Frank for support against Aistulf. Stephen had appealed to Constantinople, but was ignored.
754-75 Persecution of Christians by the caliph al-Mansur. He doubled the tribute due from Christians. The tax was extorted by torture. Men fled the tax collectors, moving continually from place to place. In addition to the excessive taxes, the collectors demanded gifts for themselves. Even the very poor, widows and orphans, were despoiled.
754 When Boniface (see 716) was slain in Frisia in this year, 53 members of his household died with him.
754 (and again in 756) Pepin defeated Aistulf and turned the lands of the old exarchate of Ravenna over to Stephen (an action known as the Donation of Pepin). These became the States of the Church. The Franks, in following years, referred to these states as the Roman Empire, and the true Romans in the Empire ruled from Constantinople, they called Greeks.
The significance of this is that the bishop of Rome was transformed from a subject of the Eastern Roman emperor into an independent secular sovereign, not dependent on any other sovereign, with an independent territory and with possession of supreme state authority on this territory.
The “Donation of Constantine,” which was to play a large role in the growth of papal power in the Middle Ages, was forged in this era (see 749 above), either to help convince Pepin to provide land to the church, or to establish legal grounds for turning Roman (Byzantine) imperial territory over to the papacy. The document has Constantine writing, “And we ordain and decree that he [the Pope] shall have the supremacy as well over the four chief seats: Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, as also over all the churches of God in the whole world. And he who for the time being shall be pontiff of that holy Roman church shall be … chief over all the priests of the world; and according to his judgment, everything which is to be provided for the service of God or the stability of the faith of the Christians is to be administered.” In another section, Constantine is depicted as giving the pope “all the prerogatives of our supreme imperial position and the glory of our authority” and as giving “over to the oft-mentioned most blessed pontiff … the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts and cities of Italy or of the western regions.”
754 Constantine V called a synod, which met at the Palace of Hiera in Constantinople and condemned the use of images in worship. The synod, under the presidency of Bishop Theodosius of Ephesus, declared against icons on the grounds that Christ’s nature was perigraptos, uncircumscribed. They stated:
Whoever, then, makes an image of Christ, either depicts the Godhead which cannot be depicted and mingles it with the manhood (like the Monophysites), or he represents the body of Christ as not made divine and separate and as a person apart, like the Nestorians.
The synod excommunicated the iconodule church leaders. No bishops from the patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch or Jerusalem were present.
After the synod, Constantine V increased the persecution of the monasteries. Hundreds of monks and nuns were mutilated or put to death. The governor of the Theme of Thracesion (located in the central Ionian coast), Michael Lachanodrakon, assembled monks and nuns and commanded them to marry immediately. He also had monks’ beards soaked with flammable liquid and set on fire. Michael burned monastery libraries and had consecrated vessels melted down, sending the precious metal to Constantine. Many monks fled to the West. In Rome, Pope Paul I (757-67) gave them refuge.
Constantine referred to monks as ‘the unmentionables’ and accused them of all manner of corruption. He had one of the leaders of the iconodule resistance, Stephen, abbot of the monastery of St. Auxentius in Bithynia, stoned to death in the street.
756 Constantine V destroyed an invading force of Bulgars. Engagements against the Bulgars subsequently occurred frequently, and Constantine led nine campaigns against them.
757 Constantine V placed Syrian and Armenian colonists in fortresses in Thrace to strengthen the empire against Bulgar attack. It is thought that these colonists first spread the Paulician heresy (see 872) into the Balkans.
762 Pope Paul I (757-67) transferred the relics of Sylvester I, bishop of Rome (314-355), to the church of S. Silvestro in Capite.
763 In a day-long battle on June 30, Constantine V demolished the invading forces of King Teletz of the Bulgars.
764 During a battle between the monasteries of Durrow and Clonmacnois (Ireland), two hundred monks of Durrow were slain.
764 Bishop Felix of Cordoba criticized Christians who wished to observe Jewish fasts.
767 Now that the bishop of Rome had become a temporal lord, controversy and violence arose over his election. Riots broke out when a local lord (Toto, duke of the bishopric of Nepi) had his brother raised from layman to bishop of Rome in one day (July 5, 767). This unfortunate person (Constantine II) had his eyes gouged out by the troops of the Lombard king, Desiderius. The Lombards killed Toto. Another contender (Philip) was murdered. A third (Stephen III, 768-72) succeeded to the bishopric by appealing to the Lombards for military support. [Note: there seems to be some uncertainty about the fate of the pretenders. Britannica says only that Constantine II disappeared from view, and that Philip entered a monastery.]
767 The Council of Gentily. The Emperor Constantine V “Copronymus” sent ambassadors to Pepin, King of the Franks. Pope Paul I (757-67) also sent representatives. The acts of the council are lost, but it appears that the veneration of images was discussed, and the Franks were persuaded that the iconophiles were in the right. One late source states that the filioque was also discussed. From this time, Constantine V made no new attempts to gain support for iconoclasm in the West.
767 St. Stephen the Younger martyred as an iconophile.
767 Coptic rebels defeated a Muslim army sent to subdue them.
768: Charlemagne begins rule in France.
769 King Tassilo III of Bavaria established the monastery at Innichen “because of the unbelief of the Slav peoples, to lead them into the way of truth.” (Innichen was located near the headwaters of the Drava River, and so was suitable for missions downstream, to the east, among the Carantians and Croats.)
772 Hadrian I (or Adrian I, 772-95) became bishop of Rome. In a letter to Tenasius of Constantinople, he wrote, “All the holy six synods I receive with all their canons, which rightly and divinely were promulgated by them, among which is contained that in which reference is made to a Lamb being pointed to by the Precursor as being found in certain of the venerable images.” This is a reference to canon 82 of the Quinisext council, held in the year 692. Hadrian’s statement implies that he considered the Quinisext council part of the sixth ecumenical council.
773 Desiderius, king of the Lombards, besieged Rome.
774 The Lombard king Desiderius quarreled with Hadrian, bishop of Rome, over ownership of cities from the former exarchate of Ravenna. Charlemagne conquered the Lombard kingdom, captured its capital (Pavia), and proclaimed himself king of the Franks and Lombards. By making himself king of the Lombards, Charlemagne contravened the Donation of Constantine. But the pope got his cities.
Charlemagne spent Easter in Rome, where Pope Hadrian greeted him with the honors formerly bestowed on the exarch. Hadrian asked Charlemagne to confirm the Donation of Pepin, and Charlemagne complied, recognizing Hadrian as ruler of two thirds of the Italian peninsula. (Charlemagne’s act is sometimes referred to as the Donation of Charlemagne.)
In the view of some, one of Charlemagne’s chief political aims was to prevent revolution from the non-Frankish indigenous population, who still considered themselves Romans and felt a loyalty to the Roman empire, still in existence and ruled from Constantinople. To break this bond, he began a campaign to paint the Romans as “Greeks” and heretics. Hence, his church’s condemnation of the 7th Ecumenical Council’s ruling on images (Frankfurt, 794) and its insistence on the filioque (Aachen, 809).
Charlemagne wished to impose uniformity over the church in his territories. Hadrian gave him a collection of canons (the Dionysio-Hadriana) for church government, and Roman liturgical books to use as a model in worship.
775 Death of Constantine V (Copronymous), after a campaign against the Bulgars.
775: The Book of Kells, a richly decorated manuscript containing the Gospels and other writings, is completed by Celtic monks in Ireland.
777 King Tassilo III of Bavaria founded the Kremsmunster monastery (south of Linz, Austria) with a view to the conversion of the Slavs.
780 Irene became Roman (Byzantine) empress (780-790). She decided to restore icons in the Eastern churches. The veneration of icons was allowed within the empire between 787 and 815 (813?), when a second period of iconoclasm began.
780 In the decade, the bishop of Rome stopped the old practice of dating documents by the Byzantine emperor’s regnal year, using Charlemagne’s instead. In the 790’s the official announcement of his election was sent to Charlemagne, instead of to Constantinople, as had been customary.
784 Irene appointed Tarasius patriarch of Constantinople when his iconoclast predecessor retired.
785 The synod of Cealchythe or Calcuith. Only instance where papal legates were present at a synod in Anglo-Saxon England. The council was called by Offa, king of Mercia, in an attempt to take revenge on Jaenbert, archbishop of Canterbury (766-90). The archbishop had wished to become king of Kent when that throne became vacant, and, knowing that Offa had his eyes on that throne also, had appealed to Charlemagne for assistance. Offa, having added Kent to his domains, called the council to establish a new archbishopric at Lichfield in Mercia. As a result, the territory directly under the supervision of Canterbury was greatly reduced. The archbishop of Lichfield received the pallium from the bishop of Rome. In addition, the papal legates proposed a canon restricting the diet and apparel of monks and nuns.
785 After numerous Frankish incursions, including one in 782 where Charlemagne had 4500 prisoners massacred, King Widukind of the Saxons submitted and accepted baptism. The bishop of Rome, Adrian I (772-795), on hearing the news, held three days of litanies in thanksgiving. After the Saxon capitulation, Charlemagne used Boniface’s monastery at Fulda and other monastic houses as bases for missionary activity among the Saxons.
Forced conversion of the Saxons: Charlemagne backed up this missionary activity with legal action. The Saxon Capitulary, or the capitulary of Paderborn, set the punishment for refusal to accept baptism at death. The death penalty also applied for the crimes of eating meat during Lent, attacking churches, killing clergy, participating in pagan rituals, and conspiracy against the Frankish king. The capitulary also required that Sundays and holy days be regarded as days of rest, and church attendance on those days. Baptism of infants was to occur within one year of birth. Tithes were required to support the church. Burials were limited to church cemeteries. Cremations were forbidden, and marriages of near kin were proscribed.
785 Irene and her son, the fifteen year old Constantine VI, invited Pope Hadrian I (772-95) to send delegates to a council to overturn iconoclasm. Hadrian, in turn, replied in writing, in his synodica, a document read and approved at the council of 787, but later condemned by the Franks.
786 A council began to meet in Constantinople to re-instate the religious use of icons, but it was forced to disband by a group of soldiers from the imperial guard. The representatives from Rome departed by ship. The rebellious troops were sent into Asia, and the council delegates were reassembled.
786 A synod in England forbade use of a drinking horn in the eucharist as a chalice.
787 The first Viking (Danish) raid on the English coast.
787 Seventh Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea in the Church of Holy Wisdom, where the first council of Nicaea had met. It was under the leadership of two papal legates, who had left Constantinople and made it to Sicily before they were recalled, but Patriarch Tarasios (Tarasius) served as acting chairman. The council condemned the iconoclasts. It stated:
“We, therefore … define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God … to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honorable Angels, of the saints and of all pious people.”
These figures were to be honored, though not worshipped. The Septuagint and the New Testament both use the word proskunhseiV for honor shown, both to created things and to God, but they reserve the word latreuseiV (worship) for God alone. The council encouraged proskunhseiV of images:
“…and to these should be given due salutation and honorable reverence (proskunhsin), not indeed that true worship (latreian) of faith which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and the Book of the Gospels and to other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom. For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents …”
The council’s decrees were agreed unanimously by the 350 bishops assembled.
No Frankish representatives were invited to the council. Charlemagne felt he had been insulted and treated as a barbarian king.
787 England began to pay Peter’s pence, an offering of alms to Rome.
787: 2nd Council of Nicea (7th Ecumenical Council) which adopted the canon of Carthage. At this point, both the Latin West and the Greek / Byzantine East had the same canon. However, … The non-Greek, Monophysite and Nestorian Churches of the East (the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Syrians, the Armenians, the Syro-Malankars, the Chaldeans, and the Malabars) were still left out. But these Churches came together in agreement, in 1442A.D., in Florence.
788 Charlemagne annexed Bavaria after deposing Tassilo III, last king of the Agilolfing family.
789 Charlemagne issued an edict, drafted by Alcuin (735-804), an Englishman, chosen mentor of Frankish educational and ecclesiastical reform, which commanded: “In each bishopric and in each monastery let the psalms, the notes, the chant, calculation and grammar be taught and carefully corrected books be available.” Charlemagne took these steps to mitigate the decline in Christian learning. In addition, monasteries were adopting diverse rules for forming letters, leading toward a Balkanization of knowledge. Charlemagne appointed Alcuin head of a school of calligraphy in Tours to standardize letter formation. The modern Roman lower case letters are a result of Alcuin’s efforts.
790 By about this time, Charlemagne and his theologians had received a Latin translation of the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. A document opposing these acts was drafted, the Capitulare adversus synodum. The Capitulare was critical of Irene’s role in calling the council, since she was a woman; of Tarasios’s sudden rise from layman to patriarch; of the council’s use of past conciliar decrees that they considered irrelevant; and of the decision made in favor of the veneration of images, since nowhere in the Bible is the veneration commanded; and of the portions of Hadrian’s synodica of 785 read to the council in 787. The text of the Capitulare has been lost but has been surmised from Hadrian’s response. It is thought that Charlemagne’s opposition to the second council of Nicaea was an attempt to disrupt the rapprochement between the papacy and the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
~792 The Libri Carolini was sent to the bishop of Rome by the Franks. The Libri was a more elaborate consideration of the issues regarding the Seventh Ecumenical Council, motivated by Hadrian’s refutation of the Capitulare (see 790). It accused the “Greeks” of authorizing the worship or “superstitious adoration” of icons. In the view of the Libri, the proper use of images was limited to the instruction of the illiterate. The council of 787 was also criticized for failing to give sufficient respect to the bishop of Rome. Somewhat ironically, Pope Hadrian was criticized for relying upon the Acts of St. Sylvester for evidence in favor of icon veneration. Constantinople was characterized as a den of heresy.
792 A Frankish synod meeting in Regensberg condemned the teaching of Felix, bishop of Urgel, a town in the Spanish border region under Charlemagne’s overlordship. Felix was a proponent of adoptionism, the doctrine that Christ was a member of the Trinity only by virtue of his adoption by God. The doctrine had some strength in Spain, being supported by Archbishop Elipand of Toledo. Alcuin and Paulinus (a former teacher of grammar, ecclesiastical advisor to Charlemagne,and at some point archbishop of Aquileia) wrote monographs against adoptionism, which were approved by synods in Frankfurt (794) and Aquileia (796).
793 Viking raiders sacked Lindisfarne.
793 Muslim raiders from Spain burned down suburbs of Narbonne in France.
794 The Synod of Frankfort, called by Charlemagne, opposed the conclusions of Nicaea II, 787, and denied that it had been an ecumenical council. Support for Nicaea’s rulings from Hadrian (772-95), bishop of Rome, was also condemned. The worship of images, under the terms worship, adoration, and service of any kind, was forbidden. Destruction of images was also opposed, inasmuch as the synod did not condemn depictions as decorations or tools for instructing the illiterate, only the worship or adoration of depictions. The Franks also criticized Nicaea II because, they thought, the question of the veneration of icons was too trifling to merit consideration by an ecumenical council – a clear indication of theological naivete on the part of the Franks. (The English church agreed with the Gallican, against the pope.)
Patriarch Tarasios’s formula indicating the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father through the Son” was condemned as an error. In the Frankish view, it implied that the Holy Spirit was created, not properly a member of the Trinity. Paulinus of Aquileia’s libellus, which defended the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, was also read at Frankfort. (The filioque was embraced by Charlemagne who went so far as to accuse the East of deliberately omitting it from the ancient Nicene Creed.)
Adoptionism was also condemned, as works by both Alcuin and Paulinus against that heresy were read and approved. Alcuin, who was present at the synod of Frankfort, considered that Charlemagne, by directing the synod, had effectively served as “rector of the Christian people” in his empire.
795 Theodore, abbot of a monastery near Mount Olympus in Bithnia and later known as Theodore Studites or Theodore of Stoudion, criticized Constantine VI (780-97) for his second marriage, this to his mistress Theodote. Theodore was exiled to Thessalonica.
796 Frankish victory over the Avars resulted in the annexation of Pannonia (western Hungary). One of Charlemagne’s sons met with Arn of Salzburg and Paulinus, archbishop of Aquileia, and determined not to force baptism on the Avars (see 785 above for the Frankish treatment of the Saxons).
796 The synod of Aquileia. Paulinus of Aquileia argued that the filioque was simply a clarification of the original Nicene creed, as the creed of 381 had been. He encouraged the public recitation of the creed, with filioque, as a tool against heretical beliefs such as adoptionism (see 793 above) and Arianism.
797 Irene had the eyes of her son, the Emperor Constantine VI, put out. He died from his injuries. From this point until she was deposed in 802, Irene was empress.
Irene recalled Theodore Studites (see 795) from exile, and he and his followers moved to the monastery of Stoudion in Constantinople.
798 Bavaria obtained an archbishop, whose see was at Salzburg. The first incumbent, Arn, labored for the conversion of the Avars (see 796) and the Carantians. Arn is also partially responsible for an excellent library at Salzburg.
799 In April, the late Pope Hadrian’s nephew Paschalis led a crowd in an assault on Leo III, the new pope (795-816). They attempted to tear his tongue out and blind him, but he escaped. Leo fled to Charlemagne in Paderborn. Charlemagne sent a commission to Rome to investigate the complaints against Leo, then he himself came to Rome.
800 In the West around this time the bishop of Rome began to be termed “Pope” exclusively. The word means Father, and was used when referring to bishops (and even priests) from the earliest times.
800 Pope Leo III (795-816) crowned Charlemagne Roman emperor. By crowning the emperor, the bishop of Rome was asserting his claim to the West, as presented in the Donation of Constantine: if he gave the imperial title, he could also remove it.
800 Sometime during the eighth century, azymes (unleavened bread) was introduced into the eucharist in the West.
800 The town of Mikulcice in Moravia (between the Morava and Danube rivers) was established by this time.
800 Felix of Urgel renounced adoptionism.
800+ Christian writings, previously available in Latin, began to be widely disseminated in Irish.
Ninth Century
802 The Empress Irene was deposed by a group of state officials, arrested, and exiled to an island in the Marmara, then to Lesbos, where she died in 803.
801 An embassy Charlemagne had sent to Baghdad returned (only one of the three envoys survived the trip), bringing an elephant with them. The Caliph Harun al Rashid had given Charlemagne permission to establish a Carolingian monastery in Jerusalem. The eastern monks were shocked by the Frankish alteration to the creed (the filioque). The western monks appealed to Leo III, bishop of Rome from 795-816, to settle the controversy. See 809 & 810 below.
803 The archbishopric of Lichfield (see 785 above) was terminated by the synod of Cloveshoe. “We give this charge, and sign it with the sign of the cross, that the archepiscopal from this time forward never be in the monastery of Lichfield, nor in any other place but the city of Canterbury, where Christ’s Church is, and where the Catholic faith first shone forth in this island, and where holy baptism was first celebrated by St. Augustine … But if any dare to rend Christ’s garment and to divide the untiy of the holy Church of God, contrary to the apostolic precepts and all ours, let him know that he is eternally damned, unless he make due satisfaction for what he has wickedly done, contrary to the canons.”
804 Alcuin wrote to the people of Lyons cautioning them not to insert the filioque into the creed. The Spanish bishop Felix d’Urgel had been banished there and was advocating including the filioque. [Note: this event is problematic. By 804, Felix had renounced adoptionism, and Alcuin is known to have advocated the use of the filioque in public worship.]
805 A synod of Aachen in this year instructed bishops to develop schools of church music, based on the Roman model (see 595 above).
805 Charlemagne proscribed the weapons trade with the Slavs.
806 The Monastery of St. Columba on Iona destroyed by Viking raiders. All the monks were killed.
806 Theodore Studites opposed the emperor Nicephorus I (802-11) over the appointment of another Nichephorus (806-15) as patriarch of Constantinople. Theodore opposed this appointment because the future patriarch was soft on adulterous remarriages (see 795), took conciliatory positions on theological matters, and was nominated to the patriarchate while still a layman. Because of Nichephorus’ opposition to iconoclasm, he later gained Theodore’ approval.
808-10 The Roman (Byzantine) chronologist George Synkellos wrote his Chronography, based on the Alexandrian Era (see 5509 at the beginning of the timeline). He placed creation in 1 A.M. (anno mundi, year of the world – 5492 B.C.), the flood in 2242 A.M. (3251 B.C.), the Exodus in 3817 A.M. (1676 B.C.), the Incarnation in 5501 A.M. (9 A.D.), and the Crucifixion in 5533 A.M. (41 B.C.). Synkellos held that the Incarnation, Resurrection and the creation of the world occurred on March 25.
809 Theodore Studites exiled for the second time (809-811) after his condemnation by a synod.
809 At the Council of Aachen (or Aix-La-Chapelle), Charlemagne decreed that belief in the filioque was necessary for salvation. He also commissioned Theodulf of Orleans to collect patristic passages supporting the addition to the creed.
810 The council of Aix-la-Chapelle referred the question of the filioque to the Pope. According to the minutes of the conversation held in 810 between the three apocrisari of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, kept by the Frankish monk Smaragdus, Leo accepted the teaching of the Fathers, quoted by the Franks, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as taught by Augustine and Ambrose. However, he declared that the filioque must not be added to the Creed, as the Franks had done. Leo gave the Franks permission to sing the Creed, but not to add to the Creed. Leo emphasized that he could not put himself in a position higher than the Fathers of the Synods, who did not omit the filioque out of oversight or ignorance, but by divine inspiration.
Leo had the creed engraved, without filioque, on two tablets of silver and hung them in St. Peter’s Church above the inscription, “I, Leo, have put up these tablets for the love and preservation of the orthodox faith.” The Franks, it appears, simply ignored the pope’s instructions to omit the filioque when reciting the creed.
811 The Bulgar Khan Krum killed the Roman emperor Nicephorus I (802-11) in battle in a narrow gorge in the Balkans. Krum had Nicephorus’s skull fashioned into a goblet.
811 Charlemagne acted as judge in a dispute between the churches of Salzburg and Aquileia over missionary activity in the Carantanian region.
813 The Bulgars sacked Adrianople and burned the suburbs of Constantinople. Their Khagan Krum died the following year.
814 A treaty between the Romans (Byzantines) and the Franks guaranteed Venice’s political independence from the German empire. By 840/41, Venice was acting independently of Constantinople as well.
814 Charlemagne died at Aachen. His son Louis the Pious succeeded him.
815 (813?) With the ascension of the Emperor Leo the Armenian (Leo V, 813-20) to the throne in Constantinople, icons were again banned within the Roman Empire.
815 Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople was exiled to a monastic retreat near Chalcedon. While there, he wrote influential treatises against iconoclasm.
815 A Bulgar boyar emigrated to Constantinople and took the Christian name of Theodore. He was given the rank of patrician. Conversions like this appear to have been not uncommon in this era, as attested by a letter to the boyar from Theodore Studites.
816 Theodore Studites again exiled (816-20), this time for his opposition to iconoclasm.
816+ The archbishop of Lyons, Agobard (816-40), wrote pamphlets against Jewish proselytizers active in southern Gaul among both peasants and town dwellers, and against Jewish influence in the French court. When Agobard sent missions to the Jews in Lyons, they complained to King Louis the Pious (814-40), who sided with his Jewish subjects.
816 Pope Stephen IV (816-17) crowned Loius the Pious emperor in Rheims.
817 The deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Nicephorus, wrote Apologeticus major, a defense of the veneration of icons. His persuasiveness may have been a factor in Michael II’s relative toleration of the iconodules. Nicephorus is well known for his Breviarium Nicephori, a history of the Roman Empire from 602-769, and for his chronological tables, listing the major ecclesial and political leaders from Adam to 829. Much of Nicephorus’s work was translated into Latin by Anastasius the Librarian (seee 867-8 below).
817 Pope Paschal I (817-24) persuaded the Frankish emperor Louis to agree to the Pactum Ludovicianum, a document that confirmed the papacy’s ownership of the papal patrimonies and forbade the Frankish emperor from interfering in papal affairs, unless invited. It also stipulated that newly elected popes need not await imperial confirmation before they assumed office.
820 The emperor Michael II (820-29), an iconoclast, allowed Theodore Studites to return to Constantinople. Theodore was prevented from resuming his role as abbot.
822 Mojmir (prince of Moravia) baptized by bishop Reginhere of Passau, a Frank.
823 A delegation including Archbishop Ebo of Rheims and Willeric, bishop of Bremen, traveled to Denmark to convince its king, Harald Flak, to accept Christianity.
824 Pope Eugenius (824-27) accepted Frankish imperial sovereignty in the papal state. He also accepted the Frankish emperor’s requirement that an elected pope must swear fealty to the Frankish emperor before he being consecrated.
825 The monk Blathmac of Iona was murdered by Vikings for refusing to say where the monastery’s treasure was hidden. The story of his death spread rapidly, at least as far as Reichenau.
825: Vespasian Psalter gives interlinear Old English translation.
826 King Harald Flak of Denmark baptized a Christian at the German imperial court in Ingelheim (near Mainz).
827 The Aghlabid Amirs of Northern Africa invaded Sicily.
827/8 Muslims from Spain attacked Crete. They enslaved the populace of twenty-nine cities. Christian worship was permitted at only one site on the island. Afterwards, the Muslims raided the island of Aegina in the gulf of Corinth. All the inhabitants were killed or deported.
827 The emperor Michael the Stammerer (Michael II, 820-29) sent King Louis the Pious of France (814-840) a copy of the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius.
828 The relics of St. Mark the Evangelist moved from Egypt to Venice.
830+ Refounding of the University of Constantinople by the emperor Theophilus I (829-42). Its output of scholars fueled the empire’s prosperity through the next several centuries, as well as influencing the conversion of the Slavs (for example, see 862 below). The eastern renaissance was also assisted by government reform, the implementation of new administrative regions known as themes. Extant documentations shows themes established in Peloponnese (800), Macedonia (802), Cephalonia and the Ionian Islands (809), Dyrrachium (825) and Thessalonica (836). (A theme was a districts settled with soldiers who undertook a hereditary obligation of military service. Themes were governed by strategoi, who enjoyed both military and civilian command.)
831 Baptism of a large number of Moravians by bishop Reginhere of Passau.
831 Saracen forces under Khalif Mamun invaded Cappadocia (Asia Minor). The action forced Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Theophilos (829-42) to concentrate forces there, leaving Sicily weakened. The Saracens had been gnawing at Sicily since 827. They finally took the island in 859.
832 Anskar, educated at the monastery at Corbie, who had gone to Denmark in 826 and recently become bishop of Hamburg, traveled to Rome where he was given a sweeping commission to evangelize the North by Gregory IV (bishop of Rome, 827-844).
832 Devastated by excessive taxation and torture, the Copts of lower Egypt rebelled once again against their Saracen overlords (see 725 and 739). Their villages, vines, gardens, and churches were burned down. Many were killed or deported.
833 Mojmir (prince of Moravia) annexed the territory of Pribina, prince of the Slav territory Nitra. Moravian power had grown since Charlemagne’s defeat of the Avars in 795. Afterwards, Pribina visited King Louis the German (840-76), under whose protection Pribina built a fortress and church at Zalavar at the western end of Lake Balaton in Pannonia (now Hungary). Archbishop Liupram of Salzburg consecrated the church there and sixteen other churches in Pannonia.
834 During the tenure of the Armenian Catholicus John V (834-55) a certain Sembat who lived in the highlands north of Lake Van founded a heretical sect known as the Thonraki. In beliefs and practices, the Thonraki were similar to the Paulicians (see 719). The Thonraki lingered until the nineteenth century.
835 The Frankish king Louis the Pious, at the urging of Gregory IV (828-44), bishop of Rome, began to observe All Saints’ Day on November 1. That date had been celebrated as All Saints’ Day in England since late in the eighth century.
838 Muslims from Carmargue, Spain made a razzia (a raid to capture slaves) to Marseilles, France.
838 A certain Bodo from Alemannia, a deacon in the service of the Frankish King Louis the Pious, secretly converted to Judaism under the influence of prominent Jews at Louis’s court. Pretending to go on pilgrimage to Rome, Bodo traveled to Spain where he changed his name to Eleazar, married a Jewish girl, and forced his nephew to convert to Judaism as well. Eleazar entered into correspondence with Paul Avlar of Cordoba, the son of Jewish converts to Christianity, on the question of the relative merits of the two faiths. Eleazar predicted the future victory of the Jews and the appearance of the Messiah in 867. He accused Christians of tritheism and of worshipping a man.
A few years after removing to Spain, Eleazar attempted to convince the Amir Abd-ar-Rahman II, ruler of Spain, to coerce Christians into abandoning their faith.
~840 The monastery at Samos (northwestern Spain), originally founded by bishop Ermefredus of Lugo in about 660, re-established by an immigrant from the Islamic south of Spain about this year. More monks fled there from Cordoba in 857.
840 A certain lady named Dhouda, living in southern France, wrote a work on Christian devotion for her son.
840+ Miracle stories collected at Fulda by a monk named Rudolf refer to the sacrament of confession.
840+ Amolus, successor to Agobard as archbishop of Lyons, wrote a work entitled Liber contra Judeos, dedicated to the emperor of the western Franks, Charles the Bald. Amolus stated that some Christians in Lyons were visiting synagogues because rabbis were better preachers than Christian priests. He complained of the Toledoth Yeshu, an anti-Christian work that ridiculed the gospels. Amolus mentioned the practice of Jewish taxgatherers who offered to forgive taxes to peasants who agreed to convert to Judaism.
842 The Empress Theodora, after her husband’s death and in the name of her five-year old son, the Emperor Michael III, recalled the Orthodox bishops and priests who had been expelled from their positions by her iconoclastic husband, the Emperor Theophilus. A synod was convened to re-affirm the Orthodox faith against the iconoclasts.
842 Muslims from Carmagure, Spain made a razzia to Arles, France.
842 Saracen forces captured Messina in Sicily, thus gaining control over the Strait of Messina.
843 The Partition of Verdun. Charlemagne’s empire was distributed among Louis II the German (Germany), Charles the Bald (Neustria and Aquitaine – most of modern France), and Lothair (Italy and a trip from the Rhone basin to the Belgian coast).
843 On the first Sunday of Great Lent, March 11, the Synodicon of Orthodoxy was first proclaimed. In its current form, the Synodicon varies somewhat from location to location. It anathematizes:
In 843, religious events and persons were again depicted on coins of the Roman Empire. The iconoclasts had allowed secular images only to appear on coins.
844 In the papal election this year, the populace in Rome supported the archdeacon John. The nobility gave their approval to Sergius II. While John defended himself in the Lateran, Sergius was consecrated in St. Peter’s without imperial approval. Sergius then protected John from the nobles, who wished to murder him. Later, John was imprisoned in a monastery.
Pope Sergius II (844-47) agreed to the Frankish emperor’s demand that he have the right to confirm papal elections and have a representative present at the consecration. The Roman (Byzantine) emperors had pursued a similar practice (see 604).
844 The kingdoms of the Picts and Scots were joined when Kenneth mac Alpin (McAlpine), king of the Scots, inherited the Pictish throne.
845 St. Blaith, while attempting to re-establish the monastery on Iona, killed by Vikings.
845 Hamburg sacked by Danish pirates.
845 Bohemian lords presented themselves to King Louis the German (840-76) and asked to become Christian. Louis had them baptized.
History 6
846: Saracenssacked the suburbs of Rome, including the Vatican. They stripped the costly ornaments from the graves of Peter and Paul.
847: Upon the election of Pope Leo IV (847-55) in this year, Louis (son of Lothair), king of Lombardy and emperor-designate, reasserted the imperial right to confirm the papal election.
847-861: The reign of the caliph al-Muttawakkil was marked by persecution of non-Muslims, forced conversions, and the destruction of churches and synagogues throughout the Abbasid Empire (centered in Baghdad).
848: The Synod of Mainz condemned Gottschalk of Orbais (803-868) for heresy. Gottschalk’s theology emphasized the Augustinian doctrine of predestination. Gottschalk was placed under the jurisdiction of archbishop Hincmar of Rheims [Reims] (806-882), who imprisoned him at Hautvillers abbey.
In a response to Gottschalk’s emphasis on predestination, Hincmar wrote “On God’s Predestination and Free Will” in which he denied predestination to hell. Hincmar and Gottschalk were also involved in a theological dispute over certain ways of referring to the Trinity which could imply polytheism.
Hincmar is the first person known to have doubted the authenticity of the Forged Decretals. (He had reason to – see 861.) These decretals appeared near the middle of the ninth century, purportedly from the pen of Isidore of Seville (see 633). Charlemagne had reorganized the church in his territories by strengthening the power of archbishops, and so improving imperial control. The bishops and lower clergy resented archiepiscopal and imperial interference. The decretals exaggerate the power of the papacy in order to diminish that of the archbishops. Many of the decretals are supposed letters from early popes.
849: Pope Leo IV (847-55) arranged an alliance among several Greek cities in Italy. Their combined fleet destroyed a Saracen fleet off Ostia.
~850: An anonymous Christian monk in Palestine wrote the Summa Theologiae Arabica, an apologetic work, written in Arabic, that castigated Christians who, in the interests of personal comfort and profit, downplayed the differences between Christianity and Islam to make the faith more palatable to the Muslims. He wrote, “By ‘There is no god but God’ they mean a god other than the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
850+: When Christians who had converted to Islam in Cordoba reversed themselves, they were put to death. Islam grew in strength in Spain until roughly 1050.
851: In November, a young woman named Flora was put to death in Spain for apostasy from Islam. The child of a Muslim father and Christian mother, Flora was raised a Christian after her father’s death. When she entered a nunnery, her Muslim brother found her and denounced her to the authorities.
851-58: In the time of the Coptic pope Cosmas II (851-858), the persecution of Christians was broadened to include the destruction of crosses and bells and the demolition or desecration of churches. Copts were forbidden to ride horses and required to dress in black. Copts were also dismissed from government service, but many were returned when the government found itself unable to maintain solvency without their assistance. During this period, many Copts converted to Islam.
852: Death of Aurelius and Sabigotho. The orphaned child of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Aurelius was raised a Christian by his paternal aunt. When he was educated by Muslim relatives, he kept his faith a secret. He married a secretly Christian woman named Sabigotho, whose stepfather, a secret Christian, had converted the family. Aurelius and Sabigotho began to do works of mercy. When they visited a prison, they met Flora (see 881 above) who warned them that their end would be near when they met a foreign monk. Aurelius and Sabigotho sold their property and entered the monastery of Tabanos. There they met George, a Palestinian monk from the monastery of St. Saba. When they, with Aurelius’s relative Felix and his wife Liliosa, publicly denounced Islam, they and the monk George were executed. • The Leonine Wall. Under Pope Leo IV (847-55), the walls of Rome were extended to encircle Vatican hill. Leo wished to deter a repetition of the Saracen attack of 846. The wall was 40 feet high, 12 feet thick, and had 54 towers.
853: The Council of Quiercy stated that “God Almighty created him [man] righteous, without sin, and endowed with free will.” It also held that “God, the good and just, elected, on the basis of foreknowledge, those from the mass of perdition whom he by grace predestined to life.”
855: Louis II (855-75), son of Lothair, succeeded his father as emperor in Italy. Preoccupied with the Saracen threat in the Mediterranean, Louis lost his northern territories, which were taken by his brothers Lothair and Charles.
856: Danes begin large scale invasion of eastern Britain. Destruction of monasteries there. • Death of Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mainz. Maurus is generally thought to have authored the hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus.
856-862: Viking raids across northern France.
858: The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Michael III (842-67) led an army against the Paulicians (for their beliefs, see 719). The Paulicians had been fighting against the empire on behalf of the emirs of Melitene and Tarsus. Michael was attending Divine Liturgy at his encampment before Samosata when the Paulicians and Saracens attacked. The emperor and his minister Bardas escaped, but at least 100 important imperial officers were captured. • The Scottish king Kenneth mac Alpin buried at Iona. This would be the custom of Scottish kings for the next ~250 years. • The schism of Pope Nicholas (the Photian schism), 858-880. The patriarch Photios (Photius) of Constantinople began the redecoration of the churches. Photios had gone from layman to patriarch in a day (852), and this offended Pope Nicholas I (858-67). Photios’ promotion was motivated by the desire to replace Ignatios (Ignatius), then patriarch, who opposed the emperor’s removal of his mother to a convent. The emperor Michael III held a council (861) that confirmed Photios’ appointment, and the papal legates agreed to the decision. Nicholas, however, disagreed, held a rival council in Rome in 862, and excommunicated Photios.
859: The Saracens completed their conquest of Roman (Byzantine) Sicily with the fall of Enna in this year. The Roman (Byzantine) stronghold of Taormina held out until 1 August 902. • Death of Eulogius, author of Memoriale Sanctorum, a history of the Christian martyrs in Spain. Eulogius was executed by the Islamic authorities. His biography was written by Paul of Alvar, who had contested with Bodo (see 838 above).
860: The Rus, sailing in two hundred ships, mounted an attack upon Constantinople. They withdrew after the Virgin’s robe was processed around the walls of the city. • From their base in Melitene, the Paulicians under their leader Carbeas with their Saracen allies raided the Roman Empire, penetrating as far as the Black Sea coast.
860/861: The brothers Cyril and Methodius (see 862 below) sent on a mission to convert the Khazars. Unfortunately, the Khazars had already (during the 850s) converted to Judaism, becoming the “thirteenth tribe.” It is thought that the mission was also diplomatic in nature, designed to persuade the Khazars to attack the Rus. Already the Khazars had served a strategic purpose in blocking the advance of Islam through the Caucasus.
861: Muhammed al-Mudabbir became Abbasid minister of finance in Egypt. He tripled the jizya (protection money) due from Christians and Jews. Many were unable to pay; consequently, the prisons filled. Churches were looted and confiscated to raise funds for the diwan (the Islamic treasury). Monks were imprisoned. The Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, too impoverished to pay the taxes required of the church, went into hiding.
Responding to complaints over the behavior of John, archbishop of Ravenna, Pope Nicholas I summoned him to Rome. John argued that ancient precedents gave him immunity from this type of summons. Nicholas, in turn, excommunicated him. John acquiesced. As a result of the conflict, the archbishop’s authority was curtailed, and he swore allegiance to Rome.
Hincmar of Rheims deposed Rothad of Soissons. When Rothad appealed to the pope, Hincmar tried to stop him, citing Frankish law. Pope Nicholas decided the case in Rothad’s favor, arguing that no bishop could be deposed without papal permission. Hincmar attempted to thwart the pope, but Nicholas threatened to suspend him from celebrating the liturgy. Like John of Ravenna, Hincmar acquiesced. After Nicholas died, Hincmar again fought papal intrusions into local Frankish church affairs. (A letter supposedly by Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome (199-217), included in the Forged Decretals, contains the following: “For the trials of bishops and graver ecclesiastical cases, as the apostles and their holy successors have decreed, are to be finally decided … by the seat of the apostles, and by no other.”)
862: The Irishman John Scotus (called Erigena) translated the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin. John lived in the court of Charles the Bald, West Frankish king (840-77), and also translated works by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. Epiphanios. Scotus wrote De praedestinatione in response to the ongoing dispute over predestination (see 848, 853), but his work was condemned by church authorities. Scotus is best known for his De divisione naturae, an attempt to harmonize Christian doctrine with neo-Platonic philosophy. To many, De divisione naturae appeared to have pantheistic implications.
Boris, Khan of the Bulgars, met with King Louis the German (840-76) along the Danube near Vienna, proposing an alliance against the Romans (Byzantines). Boris agreed to accept Christianity from the Franks.
To counter the encircling alliance of Franks and Bulgars (see 862 above), Ratislav, prince of Great Moravia (centered near modern Slovakia), requested that the Roman Emperor Michael III send him missionaries. Photios and the emperor chose the brothers Methodius (a monk ordained to the priesthood) and Constantine (a philosophy instructor at the University of Constantinople, who later took the name Cyril when he became a monk) to head the mission. German missionaries using a Latin liturgy had entered Great Moravia – see 822 and 831above. Cyril and Methodius were chosen because they spoke Slavic. Cyril had crafted a Slavonic alphabet and translated liturgical texts and parts of the scriptures into Slavonic.
The Roman (Byzantine) missionaries were persecuted by their Frankish (German) counterparts. The Franks claimed that there were only three legitimate languages of worship: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew – the three languages employed in the inscription on Christ’s cross. For this reason, Cyril referred to the Germans as Pilatians, in reference to the trilingual words on the cross at Calvary.
862-864: Sometime during this period, the Rus sent an embassy to Constantinople. The Rus ambassadors accepted Christianity.
863: Pope Nicholas I declared Patriarch Photios of Constantinople deposed. Nicholas quoted the Forged Decretals as canon law. He also claimed a supremacy over the old patriarchates – which was not accepted since it was contrary to the traditional view of papal primacy as delineated by the ecumenical councils. Eventually, this novel view of the papacy as a sort of regent contributed to the schism of the West from the Apostolic Sees of the East, and from the primitive discipline. In the view of some historians, Nicholas practically established the papacy as the office is now understood. • Roman forces defeated the Saracens in Northern Anatolia.
864: In February, the Italian emperor Louis II (855-75) besieged Rome. His brother Lothair (king of Lorraine) had contracted a fruitless marriage with Theutberga, a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Lothair sought to divorce her (accusing her of incest), but she appealed to the pope, who ruled in her favor. Nicholas refused to back down to the emperor and his army, and Lothair acknowledged the legitimacy of his marriage to Theutberga. • The Franks invaded Moravia and compelled Ratislav to acknowledge their suzerainity. Since this strengthened the German missionaries’ hand, Cyril and Methodius travelled to Pannonia (866) and then to Rome (867-8) at the request of Pole Nicholas I. • In exchange for the lifting of a blockade, Boris, king of Bulgaria, agreed to accept Orthodoxy. Boris attempted to force baptism on his subjects, but they rebelled. To squelch this pagan rebellion, Boris had 52 boyars and their families executed.
865-876: Viking raids across eastern England.
865: Saints Cyril and Methodius begin translating the Bible into Old Church Slavonic.
866: Photios demanded that the Bulgarian church be subordinate to Constantinople. Boris refused and sent to Rome and Germany for assistance. Pope Nicholas I sent a Latin mission to Bulgaria in response, where they expelled Bishop Hermanrich of Passau and remained until 870. At one point Boris asked that the head of the Roman delegation, Formosus, bishop of Porto and later Pope Formosus (891-96) be appointed archbishop of Bulgaria. Since such an appointment would have violated canon law, Nicholas refused.
Side note: Bulgaria had been under Roman jurisdiction until the time of the Emperor Leo III (718-41), who placed it under the jurisdiction of Constantinople (see 732).
866(?): Nicholas I (858-867), bishop of Rome, stated that his sixth century predecessor, Vigilius, had confirmed all the decisions of the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
867: Patriarch Photios announced the conversion of the Rus. The extent of this conversion was likely overestimated.
While in Venice, Cyril and Methodius encountered a group of clerics who insisted the divine office could be celebrated in only three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. In the autumn, Cyril and Methodius arrived in Rome, at the invitation of the pope. They presented Pope Hadrian II (867-72) with the relics of St. Clement, which they had acquired during their embassy to the Khazars (860/1). Hadrian placed them in the church of St. Clemente. Cyril and Methodius asked Hadrian’s permission to use a Slavonic liturgy. The pope, in a special bull, approved this request. He also ordained the Moravian and Pannonian priests whom the brothers had trained. Hadrian also planned to appoint a bishop for the Slavs who would be independent of German (Salzburg and Passau) influence. It is likely that he initially had Cyril in view for this post.
A synod met at Constantinople. It anathematized the Western doctrine of the Procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son (filioque) and the practice of clerical celibacy, “from which usage we see in the West many children who do not know their fathers.” The synod excommunicated Nicholas I. Photios was deposed soon thereafter for offending the new emperor, Basil the Macedonian, but was soon restored (879) and recognized by Pope John VIII (872-82).
Photios sent an encyclical to the Patriarchs of the East in which he accused the Pope (1) of inserting the word “filioque” into the Creed; (2) of intervening in the newly founded Church of Bulgaria by repeating the chrismation of the Bulgarian Christians on the pretext that they had previously been baptized by married priests from Constantinople; (3) of dominating the churches of the West; and (4) of interfering in disputes outside his own jurisdiction.
Death of Nicholas I, bishop of Rome. The papacy entered a period of decline.
Vikings raided York.
867-68: An embassy arrived in Constantinople from the Frankish emperor Louis II. The expedition’s goal was to arrange an alliance by marriage between the Franks and the Romans emperor Basil I (867-86). The unsuccessful embassy was led by the papal librarian, Anastasius (~810-78), who had opposed Photios over the filioque. Anastasius remained in Constantinople and attended the council of 869-70. Anastasius the librarian translated the works of Patriarch Nicephorus into Latin (see 817 above), and wrote a commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius.
The Paulician leader John Chrysocheir, Carbeas’s nephew, led a raid into the empire as far as Smyrna. The emperor Basil I sent an embassy under Peter the Sicilian to Chrysocheir to ransom captives and to offer an alliance. Chrysocheir reported responded by saying, “Let the emperor, if he desires peace, abdicate the East and retire to rule in the West. If he refuses, the servants of the Lord will drive him from the throne.” Peter learned that the Paulicians in Melitene were in contact with their counterparts in Thrace (see 746).
867-74: The Serbs converted to Christianity.
868: Death of the West Frankish Benedictine monk Ratramnus. He had entered into controversy with his abbot, Paschasius Radbertus of Corbie, over the nature of the bread and wine in the eucharist. Ratramnus anticipated the Reformation in holding an interpretation of Christ’s presence as symbolic. His De corpore was ordered destroyed by the Council of Vercelli in 1050; and it was condemned at the Lateran Synod in 1059.
Ratramnus also argued against Hincmar in favor of predestination to salvation; but he was himself opposed to the doctrine of predestination to damnation. He also wrote “Against Greek Opposition” on the filioque controversy. In another controversy with Radbertus, Ratramnus argued that Christ’s birth was natural. The more common view was that Mary remained a virgin throughout the process of childbirth.
869: Death of Cyril. Pope Adrian II (867-72) appointed Methodius bishop of all Slavonic churches in Moravia and Pannonia with the title of archbishop of Sirmium.
Hincmar of Rheims crowned Charles the Bald Frankish emperor, over the objections of Pope Adrian II.
Emperor Basil I convened a synod (called the Eighth Ecumenical Council by the Latins), and by coercion brought the bishops to condemn Photios. Pope Adrian II’s delegates and Basil forcibly obtained their acknowledgment that the pope is the “supreme and absolute head of all the Churches, superior even to ecumenical synods.”
It was at this council that the Roman church finally accepted the decree from the council of 381 that Constantinople should have second rank, behind Rome (canon 21 of the so-called Eighth Ecumenical Council).
Muslims from Carmargue, Spain made a razzia (a raid to capture slaves) to Valence, France.
870-930: Iceland settled from Norway.
870: At a special session of the council that met on March 4, Bulgaria was placed under the jurisdiction of Conastantinople. Boris expelled the Latin clergy from his country. Although Ignatios was restored by the council of 869, he betrayed his Roman supporters by consecrating an archbishop for Bulgaria and sending Orthodox missionaries there. Bulgaria received an independent archbishopric.
In about this year Peter of Sicily, working for the patriarch of Constantinople, sent a letter to the archbishop of Bulgaria to warn him that the Paulicians (see 719) meant to send missionaries into his country.
Return of Methodius to the Slavic mission field. When he returned to Morravia, Methodius was arrested, tried at Regensburg, and imprisoned by the Franks for two and one-half years. Hermanrich, bishop of Passau, attempted to have at him with a horsewhip. Methodius was eventually released at the insistence of Pope John VIII (872-82) in May 873 and he returned to the Moravian mission field.
The Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (The Conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians) written in Salzburg about this year. It argued for German rights in the Slav mission field, against east Roman interlopers such as Cyril and Methodius.
The Saracens conquered Malta.
871: Alfred the Great, a warrior and scholar, became king of the West Saxons.
In February, working in league with a Roman (Byzantine) fleet, the Italian emperor Louis II (855-75) took Bari, the Saracens’ headquarters on mainland Italy.
In August, Adelchis, duke of Benevento, took the Italian emperor Louis II (855-75) prisoner. Adelchis was concerned that the emperor would deprive him of his independence, so he forced Louis to promise not to re-enter the southern portion of the peninsula. Pope Adrian II (867-72) dispensed Louis from his oath.
872: The Roman emperor Basil I sent an army into Asia Minor under his son-in-law Christopher to deal with the Paulicians. They were a heretical sect believing in two co-eternal principles (good and evil), rejecting the Old Testament, denying the Incarnation, and holding matter to have been created by the evil principle (see 719). Paulicians under their leader Chrysocheir had defeated Basil at Tephrice in 870. Christopher caught Chrysocheir’s forces at Bathyrrhyax at the foot of Mount Zogoloenus as they were returning from a raid on the center of Asia Minor, heavily loaded with booty. The Paulician forces were crushed, and Chrysocheir himself was slain by a Greek he had captured in 870.
In December, John VIII (872-882) succeeded Adrian II to the papacy. John was particularly concerned with uniting Italy against the Saracen threat.
The Italian emperor Louis II (855-75) defeated a Saracen force at Capua.
873: The duke of Benevento rebelled against the Italian emperor Louis II (855-75) and placed himself and his territories under the protection of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Basil I (867-86).
874: Pannonia annexed by the east Franks. German missionaries in Moravia and Pannonia opposed the use of Slavonic in the liturgy and accused Methodius of heresy.
Patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople sent a bishop to the Rus.
875: On the death of the Frankish emperor Louis II, Pope John VIII crowned Charles II the Bald of France emperor. From this year, Pope John VIII strengthened Rome’s fortifications against Saracen attack. He also stood up the papal navy.
876: The Roman Empire began the re-conquest of southern Italy from the Saracens.
Viking raiders forced the monks of St. Audoen in Rouen to abandon their monastery.
When Pope John VIII (872-82) appointed a papal legate for Germany and Gaul, Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, opposed him vigorously. Hincmar viewed the action as an intrusion on his rights as archbishop.
Pope John VIII deposed and excommunicated Formosus, the cardinal bishop of Porto. Formosus later became pope (see 891).
877: At some point after this year, the Vetus Synodicon, a collection of summaries of church councils, was prepared. The synodicon is the source of the legend that the First Council of Nicaea determined the canon of scripture. Those attending the council supposedly placed a collection of works near the church altar, prayed, and found the approved scripture atop the altar, with the rejected books beneath.
878: Prince Zdeslav of Croatia acknowledged the sovereignty of Constantinople. However, he was assassinated by a strong pro-papal party the following year, and Croatia fell under the influence of Rome thereafter. Branimir, Croatia’s new leader, swore to keep his nation loyal to the pope.
The Aghlabids (Saracens) captured Syracuse, defeating its Roman (Byzantine) defenders. Thousands of the inhabitants were killed during and after the nine-month seige. Few escaped alive. Syracuse was pillaged and destroyed.
King Alfred halts Danish invasion, divides Britain by treaty. The Danes inhabit the northeast half of Britain.
879-80: In 879, the emperor Basil restored Photios as patriarch of Constantinople. In November, a council met in Constantinople. It is sometimes recognized as the Eighth Ecumenical Council by Orthodox Christians. The council reaffirmed the creed of A.D. 381 and declared any and all additions to the creed invalid. It also placed Bulgaria formally under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. Rome and Constantinople, apparently, agreed not to interfere in the internal affairs of the other. This council’s teaching was affirmed by the patriarchs Constantinople (Photios), Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria and by Emperor Basil I. Three hundred and eighty-three bishops attended. Pope John VIII (872-882) recognized Photios as patriarch. John VIII is believed by some to have simultaneously accepted the council’s teaching that no one should add to the creed and maintained that the filioque, as a doctrine, is true. However, both Photios and a letter from John VIII to Photios indicate that the bishop of Rome believed the filioque to be false. Many believe that John VIII was unwilling to publicly denounce the filioque because he was fearful of Frankish military retaliation.
Pope John VIII (872-82) appointed a German priest named Wiching bishop of Nitra, over Methodius’ objections.
In a letter to Svatopluk, Ratislav’s nephew and successor as ruler of Moravia, Pope John VIII (872-82) stated, “It is certainly not against faith or doctrine to sing the mass in the Slavonic language, or to read the Holy Gospel or the divine lessons of the New and Old Testaments well translated and interpreted, or to chant the other offices of the hours, for He who made the three principal languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, also created all the others for His own praise and glory.” However, John imposed a temporary ban on the Slavonic liturgy.
881: Pope John VIII (872-82) crowned Charles III the Fat, king of the Franks, emperor.
882: Pope John VIII was brutally beaten to death by members of his own entourage.
883: Pope Marinus I (882-84) restored Formosus to the bishopric of Porto.
~884: The Coptic pope Kha’il II (880-907) was imprisoned by the Egyptian governor, Ahmad ibn Tulan (868-884), who suspected the pope was hiding riches. The governor finally freed the pope, but forced him to raise 10,000 dinars within one month, and a further 10,000 dinars within four months, as ransom. As Ahmad ibn Tulan was killed in battle, the second installment was not paid.
885: Death of Methodius. Bishop Wiching of Nitra convinced Svatopluk, lord of Moravia, to expel Methodius’ disciples from his territory. The German priests with their Latin liturgy thus prevailed in Moravia.
Basil I established the peninsula of Mount Athos as a place of hesychia in this year. The origins of the monasticism on Athos are unclear. There were hermits on the peninsula from the seventh century, having fled the Arab conquest of the Middle East, including Egypt. Some sources date monasticism on Mount Athos to the reign of Constantine the Great and his mother, Saint Helen. The first monastery was established on Athos in 962/63.
Before Basil I’s death in 886, the Narentani accepted Christianity. Pirates, they had been a threat to shipping in the Adriatic earlier in the ninth century. The Narentani, known as Pagani to the inhabitants of the Roman cities on the coast of Dalmatia, were the last tribe in the northwestern Balkans to convert to Christianity.
886: Due to continuing German persecution and Methodius’s death (see 885), most of the Slavic clergy in Moravia and Pannonia removed to Constantinople. At the invitation of King Boris of Bulgaria, Clement and Naum, of Ohrid in Macedonia, later established a Slavonic academy in Ohrid, which served as an engine for the conversion of the Slavic peoples. Clement reportedly had 3500 pupils, many of whom became priests. King Boris of Bulgaria assisted with the establishment of the academy at Ohrid, and with others at Preslav and Pliska.
Some of Cyril and Methodius’s disciples in Moravia were not so fortunate. An envoy of the Roman Emperor Basil I, on a visit to Venice, observed a group of them being sold as slaves by Jewish merchants. The Moravians had sold them into slavery as heretics. The envoy purchased their freedom and sent them to Constantinople.
Leo VI, known as Leo the Wise or Leo the Philosopher, Roman (Byzantine) Emperor (886-912). Leo had been educated by Patriarch Photios. He produced a code of laws that became the legal code for the empire, novels dealing with secular and ecclesiastical problems, liturgical poems, poetry and military treatises.
889: The Magyars invaded Bessarabia and Moldavia.
890: The first reference to the use of a cam with a waterwheel. It was being used at the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland to make beer for the monks. The cam was key to the wealth of monasteries in the Middle Ages, particularly for the Cistercians.
891: Upon the death of Pope Stephen V (885-91), Formosus I (891-96) was elected to the papacy.
893: After a pagan rebellion had been put down, a Bulgarian assembly moved the capital from Preslav (where the pagan influence was still strong) to Preslav. It also established Slavonic as the official language, replacing Greek.
894: Two Greek merchants were granted a monopoly over trade between the empire and Bulgaria. Their transfer of the market from Constantinople to Thessalonika led to the wars between the Bulgars and Romans of the early tenth century. The market’s relocation had an adverse effect on the towns along the route south to Constantinople.
895: The earliest extant copy of the Masoretic text – the Cairo Codex of the Prophets – dates from about this year.
Seeking assistance against Magyar raiders, two Bohemian lords sought German aid at Regensburg, acknowledging the German king as overlord.
The earliest extant copy of the Masoretic text – the Cairo Codex of the Prophets – dates from about this year.
896: To liberate Rome from the control of the Spoletan Holy Roman emperors Guy and Lambert, Pope Formosus allied himself with Arnulf, king of the East Franks. Arnulf subsequently invaded Italy but died before attacking Spoleto.
In March, the Synod horrenda (also known as the “Cadaver Synod”) sat in judgement on the corpse of Pope Formosus (891-96), who had died eight months earlier. The corpse was dressed in its robes of office and sat upon the papal throne. The accusation against Formosus was that he had transferred seats – become the bishop of Rome while bishop of another diocese, contrary to canon law – but his real crime was betraying one of Charlemagne’s descendants in favor of another. Soon after the trial, Rome was shaken by an earthquake, which was taken as an evil omen. Stephen VII (896-97) was strangled. Seven popes and anti-popes contended for the bishopric of Rome over the next few years. The chaos ended when Cardinal Sergius, an affiliate of Stephen, gained the papacy with the military backing of a feudal lord.
897: Pope Stephen VI (896-97) was murdered by strangulation.
898: In January, John IX (898-900) was consecrated pope in Rome. John held synods that overturned the Synod horrenda and rehabilitated Formosus. He also confirmed the Frankish emperor Lothair I’s Constitutio Romana which required the presence of an imperial representative at papal consecrations.
899: The Magyars sacked Pavia in northern Italy, massacring the inhabitants and torching 43 churches.
900-907: The Magyars raided Bavaria.
900: Benedict IV became pope (900-903). In June, he excommunicated the count of Flanders, Baldwin II, for his involvement in the assassination of Fulk, archbishop of Rheims.
Paris Psalter gives Old English version of the first fifty Psalms.
Tenth Century
901 The Magyars raided Carinthia (~the western part of modern Austria).
In around this year, the patriarch of Constantinople published a list of bishoprics. The list, known as the Taxis, showed 505 bishoprics, 405 of them in Asia. Fifty-four of the bishoprics were also metropolitanates, and 50 were autocephalous archbishoprics. The highest ranking metropolitanates were Caesarea-Mazacha, Ephesus, Heraclea in Thrace, and Ancyra. European metropolitanates were lower in rank, the highest, Thrace, being sixteenth.
In February, Pope Benedict IV crowned Louis III the Blind German emperor.
902: The Saracens conquered Taormina, the last stronghold on the island controlled by the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Most of the island had fallen to the Saracens by 859.
903: Pope Leo V (903) was murdered by Sergius III (904-11), shortly to succeed him to the papacy.
905: The Saracens destroyed the library of the monastery of Novalesa. More than six thousand, five hundred volumes were lost.
906: St. Boris-Michael of Bulgaria (820-906) died. Boris had been king of Bulgaria when he came to believe in Christ. He wrote to the emperor in Constantinople telling him that he wished to be baptized. The Patriarch Photius sent a bishop, and afterwards corresponded with Boris. Toward the end of his life, he retired to a monastery.
The work of translating Greek literature into Slavonic was undertaken in Bulgaria at about this time, largely through the efforts of the royal monastery of St. Panteleimon. In 907, a priest named Constantine translated Athanasius’s Discourse against the Arians into Slavonic. The works of St. John of Damascus were also translated, as was St. Basil the Great’s Hexaemeron. The Bulgarian king, Symeon (Boris’ third son) oversaw a translation of some of St. John Chrysostom’s works.
The Magyars conquered Moravia.
On Christmas day, the patriarch of Constantinople, Nicholas Mysticus, closed the gates of St. Sophia in the emperor Leo VI’s face. This act was to protest Leo’s fourth marriage.
907: The Russian prince Oleg sailed to Constantinople and obtained a treaty regulating the privileges of Russian merchants within the empire. The treat was ratified in 911.
909: William of Aquitaine founded a monastery at Cluny which was to play an important role in the reform of the church in the West and the revival of the monastic life.
911: First Norse settlement in what later became known as Normandy. The West Frankish King Charles the Simple (898-922) settled a group of Vikings under a certain Rollo in the vicinity of Rouen.
913: The Magyars raided Saxony, Thuringia, and Swabia.
Symeon of Bulgaria laid siege to Constantinople. Symeon lifted the siege when given the title Emperor of Bulgaria and promised that one of his daughters would (eventually) marry the emperor Constantine, then a minor. This agreement was reneged upon when Zoe, Constantine’s mother, took control of the government. War ensued, continuing sporadically through 924.
914: Theodora, the ruler of Rome, had John, bishop of Ravenna, transferred to become John X (914-28), bishop of Rome. He had been her lover, and, under her patronage, had progressed in rank from simple cleric to bishop. Theodora’s daughter Marozia reportedly bore a son, John, by Pope Sergius III (904-11). Marozia was presumably sired by Theodora’s husband Theophylact, an ally of Sergius. Marozia’s son John became bishop of Rome in 931 (John XI).
915: In August, the armies of Pope John X, Duke Alberic I of Spoleto, and the senator Theophylact defeated a Saracen force on the Garigliano River.
In December, Pope John X crowned King Berengar I (915-24) of Italy emperor.
916: The Italian emperor Berengar I (915-24), with the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, drove the Saracens from Campania.
917: East Anglia, a Viking kingdom, conquered by the king of Wessex.
The Magyars raided southern Germany and Alsace.
918: Rollo, lord of the Vikings near Rouen, invited the monks of St. Audoen to return to their monastery. See 876 above.
920+: A priest named Gabriel sent from the Roman (Byzantine) Empire as a missionary to the Magyars.
922: Ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler, described Rus sacrifices for successful trading missions. Clearly Christianity had yet to penetrate deeply into the Rus nation.
924: Ethelstan becomes King and pursues conciliation and fusion with the Danes. Oda (a full-blooded Dane) was appointed archbishop of Canterbury.
924: The Magyars attacked Pavia in northern Italy (south of Milan), sacking 44 churches. (See 899.) Magyars also defeated German forces near the Lech River (a tributary of the Danube).
924: In about this year, Symeon of Bulgaria laid waste to Serbia.
When Berengar was assassinated, Pope John X (914-28) made an alliance with King Hugh of Italy. This action enraged Marozia, who was a Roman senator. She later had John imprisoned (see 928).
925: At the request of the pope, a synod of the clergy of Dalmatia forbade the Slavonic liturgy, except where a shortage of Latin-speaking clergy made it necessary.
The Aleppo Codex – a portion of the Hebrew Old Testament – was copied in ~ this year. See note on the Leningrad Codex, 1008.
A young boy named Pelayo was martyred in Cordoba, Spain. He had been given as a hostage in exchange for the release of Bishop Hermogius of Tuy, his uncle.
926: Symeon’s Bulgar forces devastated by King Tomislav’s Croatians.
927: An independent Bulgarian patriarchate was formed after the death of Symeon. To mitigate the influence the Bulgarian government would exert over him, the patriarch’s see was placed at Silistria, on the Danube, far from the capital, Preslav.
928: Pope John X (914-28) was murdered by suffocation while imprisoned in the Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome (see 924).
929: On September 28, Wencelaus (Vaclav, born ~907), king of Bohemia, murdered by his brother Boleslav at the door of a church while on his way to mass. Wencelaus’s Christian grandmother had been murdered by his pagan mother Drahomira (Dragomir), who ruled until Wencelaus came of age in 924/5. Boleslav’s action was part of a conspiracy against Wencelaus motivated by the king’s submission to the German king Henry I the Fowler (919-936) in the face of a threatened German invasion in 929. Boleslav moved his brother’s remains to the Church of St. Vitus in Prague in 932 after miracles began to occur at Wencelaus’ tomb. He is regarded as the patron saint of Bohemia and is the subject of the nineteenth century Christmas carol, “Good King Wencelaus.” (Aside -the liturgy in Bohemia at the time was ccelebrated in Old Church Slavonic.)
931: In late February or early March, Marozia, leader of the Cresentii family, had her son John consecrated pope (John XI, 931-935). John may have been the son of Sergius III, who was reportedly Marozia’s lover.
932: Pope John XI sent legates to Constantinople to consecrate the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Romanus I’s sixteen-year-old son as patriarch of Constantinople. This action added to the contempt many in the Eastern church felt for the West.
933: A Magyar force was defeated at Gotha.
933: Sometime between this year and 956, Tsar Peter of Bulgaria received a letter from Theophylact Lecapenus, patriarch of Constantinople, providing advice on how to deal with the Bogomils. This heretical sect was similar in doctrine to the Paulicians, holding that the body is evil because created by the evil one, the god of the Old Testament. The Bogomils forbade marriage, condemning it as the devil’s law. They denied the Incarnation, because the good God could not have stained himself by contacting wicked matter. They took their name from the priest Bogomil (Theophilus), the sect’s founder. The Bogomils may have been influenced by the Paulicians, introduced into the Balkans in 757. (For a description of Bogomil behavior and attitudes, see 970.)
935: Marozia’s son Alberic II deposed and imprisoned her. He confined his half-brother Pope John XI to the Lateran, where the latter died this year. Alberic II’s father was Alberic I, duke of Spoleto.
936: Otto the Great (936-973) was crowned king of the Germans in Aachen by the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne. He was given Charlemagne’s sword, scepter, and Sacred Lance (said to be the spear that had been thrust into Christ’s side). Otto established close control over the church, particularly through what came to be called “lay investiture.” That is, Otto exercised the right to determine who would fill the higher church offices.
Death of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg-Bremen while on a mission trip to Birka in Sweden. Before entering Sweden, Unni had ordained priests for the church in Denmark.
939-57: During this period the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla conducted raids into Armenia, the region near Melitene, and Cappadocia, burning villages and the surrounding countryside and enslaving many prisoners.
940+: A group of Magyars led by a certain Bultsu was baptized in Constantinople. Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Constantine VII, 913-59) stood as godfather. Bultsu later apostatized (see 955, the battle of Lechfeld). A bit later, the Magyar chief Gyula was baptized in Constantinople. He brought a monk named Hierotheus home with him. Hierotheus converted many to the faith. The Roman (Byzantine) influence among the Magyars was concentrated east of the Tisza (Theiss) River.
942: Pope Stephen VIII (939-42) died from mutilation.
943: Magyars invaded Italy again.
945: A peace treaty between the Roman Empire and Prince Igor of Kiev indicates that there was a Christian community and church building in Kiev by this date.
946: Death of St. John of Rila, who had re-invigorated monasticism in Bulgaria.
949: A manuscript containing the work of the pharmacologist Dioscorides, who had flourished in the first century, was presented by the Romans as a gift at the court in Cordoba.
950: By the tenth or eleventh century, the horse collar was in use in northern Europe. This allowed oxen to be replaced by horses in the fields, increasing food production. The horse collar may have originated in Bactria in the 6th century as a camel harness.
In about this year the Bulgarian tsar Peter sent a letter to Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople (933-56), asking advice on how to deal with an anti-clerical religious movement that was making headway in his country. To Theophylact, the movement resembled Paulicianism (see 719), and he sent the tsar a catechism and a collection of arguments to use against the heretics.
Eleutherios of Paphlagonia died in about this year. In the monastery he founded in Lycaonia, each monk was allowed two wives. They were not to have sexual relations: the proximity of wives without sexual intercourse served to prove the monks’ victory over lust. There were, however, charges of scandal. Eleutherios also taught that baptism and communion were worthless, as were venerating the cross or the Theotokos. The patriarch of Constantinople Patriarch Polyeuktos (956-70) attempted to suppress the monastery, but it lingered until it was condemned during the patriarchate of Alexius the Studite (1025-43).
950: The Masoretic Text – The Masoretes were a group of Jewish scribes and scholars who worked from the 5th to 10th centuries CE. They were based in medieval Palestine, Iraq, and Tiberias and Jerusalem. They worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, adding vowel signs to “YHWH”. They also established a system to ensure that the text of the Hebrew Bible was transmitted accurately. ● Aldred (Bishop of Durham) writes Old English between the lines of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
951: The German king Otto I (Otto the Great) took control of northern Italy and made himself king of the Lombards.
953: An ambassador from Germany met with Bishop John of Cordoba. John reportedly attributed pagan (Islamic) rule to the sinfulness of the Christians. He said, “provided no harm is done to our religion, we obey them [the Muslim rulers] in all else, and do their commands in all that does not affect our faith.”
954: Death of Eric Bloodaxe, last Viking king of York. Eric, who had arrived in England in about 947, died a Christian.
955: The Magyars raided as far west as Burgundy. The German Emperor Otto I defeated them at the Battle of Lechfeld (near Augsburg), and the Magyars subsequently settled in Pannonia, modern Hungary. The Magyar leader Bultsu, who had converted to Christianity (see 940+), was hanged at Regensburg for apostasy.
Octavian, an eighteen-year-old, became bishop of Rome, John XII (955-963). He was the son of Alberic II, Duke of Spoleto, who ruled Rome. Alberic in turn was the second son of Marozia (see 914). Like his grandmother, John was a man of great sexual appetite, often rewarding his lovers with tracts of papal land. Alberic had ruled Rome well for twenty years since overthrowing his mother and, during his reign, the bishop of Rome had a purely spiritual office. But he insured that his son Octavian would be both temporal ruler and pope. The papal practice of having dual names began with John/Octavian.
Of the 25 popes who came to power between 955 and 1057, 13 were selected by the local Roman nobility and 12 by German emperors.
957: Prince Igor of Kiev’s widow, Olga, traveled to Constantinople and was baptized by the patriarch, taking the name Helen. When she returned to Kiev, she built a church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom.
958: Sometime between his ascent to the throne of Denmark in this year upon the death of his father, Gorm the Old, and 961, King Harald accepted Christianity. Harald was reportedly impressed by a priest named Poppo whose hand suffered no damage when pressed to hot iron. Poppo became bishop of Wurzburg in 961, possibly his reward for successful missionary work, bestowed by his sponsor, the German Emperor Otto I. (At this time, the king of the Danes controlled both Denmark and southern Sweden and Norway – and thus trade by water between the North and Baltic seas,)
959: Olga of Kiev sent an embassy to Otto the Great. He, in turn, sent Adalbert, a monk of Trier and later archbishop of Magdeburg, Germany, who remained in Kiev from 961-61, but without success.
960+: A certain Sigefrid ordained bishop of Norway.
961: The Roman (Byzantine) Empire recovered Crete.
962: To associate himself with Charlemagne, the German Emperor Otto, wearing Charlemagne’s mantle, was crowned emperor in Rome by John XII (on February 2). Thus began the Holy Roman Empire. John had sent for Otto to protect him from the Lombard duke Berengar. Soon after his coronation, Otto asserted that future bishops of Rome would be required to swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor: A treaty between the emperor and the papacy, known as the Privilegium Ottonianum, was concluded 11 days after Otto’s coronation. By this treaty, the pope was confirmed in his role as temporal lord over papal territories, but papal elections were to be ratified by the emperor. The alliance increased papal control in northern Italy (e.g., Milan and Ravenna), and, since Otto hoped to conquer the Roman (Byzantine) south, offered the promise of renewed papal jurisdiction there. (Sicily and southern Italy had been lost to the papacy in 732, at the hands of the iconoclastic emperor Leo III.)
Olga’s son Svyatoslav became prince of Kiev (see 959). Svyatoslav supported paganism, reportedly rejecting conversion to Christianity with the words, “My retainers will laugh at me.”
962/3: The Great Lavra monastery was established by Saint Athanasios (Athanasius) of Trebizond this year. This was the first monastery on the peninsula of Mount Athos. The emperor Nikephoros Phokas (963-69) supported Athanasios’s efforts. Prior to this time, Mount Athos was dominated by hermits, many of whom resented Athanasios’s innovations.
963: The German emperor Otto I called a council in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. Pope John XII had urged rebellion when the emperor issued the Priviligium Ottonianum, which required the pope to swear fealty to him. Otto’s council deposed John XII on 4 December on the grounds of rebellion and disreputable moral conduct. At Otto’s direction, Leo VIII, a layman, was elected pope (963-65).
964: When the German emperor Otto I was safely away from Rome, John XII, recently deposed from the papacy, called a synod which deposed Leo VIII. Leo fled to the emperor for protection.
In May, Pope John XII died from the effects of a beating he had taken at the hands of a man who found him in bed with his wife. At the time, Otto was on his way to Rome to depose John for conspiring with the Magyars and Constantinople and to reinstate Leo VIII as pope. John was dissatisfied with the moral ways Otto had attempted to force upon him.
Mieszko, ruler of Poland, married the daughter of Boleslas I of Bohemia. The bride was named Dobrava.
After John XII died, the Roman citizens elected Benedict V (964-66) pope. The German emperor Otto I was enraged, since his choice, Leo VIII, had already been consecrated pope.
In June, the German emperor Otto I called a synod reinstated Leo VIII as pope. Otto sent Benedict V away to Hamburg. [Leo VIII is identified as pope on the Vatican’s official list, printed in the Annuario Pontificio. Some Roman Catholic lists simply skip from John XII to John XIII.]
965: Tsar Peter of Bulgaria demanded the payment due him from the Roman empire according to the peace treaty of 927. The emperor Nicephorus Phocas engaged the Russians to attack Bulgaria.
The Eastern Roman Empire recovered Cyprus.
On 1 October, the German emperor Otto I chose John XIII (965-72) to be pope. The nobility in Rome opposed this choice and, in December, they kidnapped John. Otto rescued him the following year.
966: Mieszko of Poland baptized, having been converted through the efforts of this wife, Dobrava.
967: A Russian army under Svyatoslav, prince of Kiev, crossed the Danube at the behest of the Roman emperor Nicephorus Phocas and destroyed the Bulgarian army. Svyatoslav intended to place his new capital at Little Preslav, near the Danube delta. The Russians then planned a campaign against the Romans, their former allies.
On Christmas day, Pope John XIII crowned the twelve-year-old prince Otto II German emperor.
968: Magdeburg became an archbishopric, sanctioned by Pope John XIII (965-72). The German Emperor Otto, I intended it to be the metropolitan see for the Slavs on the east side of the Elbe and Saale Rivers, who were in the process of conversion to Christianity (but see 983 below, the Wends).
A bishop named John set up a mission station for evangelizing the Poles at Poznan (Pozen).
When Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, visited Constantinople in this year, he was unimpressed by the Greek bishops. Unlike Western bishops, they were not commonly wealthy or influential politically.
969: Beginning of the Fatimid rule over Egypt. Shi’ites, the Fatimids were relatively tolerant of Jews and Christians, and many were employed in government administrative offices. The Fatimid Caliph Al-Mu’izz (969-975) permitted the construction of new churches and the renovation of older ones. He also allowed Muslims who had originally been Copts to return to their former faith. Fatimid rule continued until 1171.
970: The Bulgarian priest Cosmas wrote an account of the doctrine of the Bogomils: “They say that everything exists by the will of the Devil: the sky, the sun, the stars, the air, man, churches, crosses; all that comes from God they ascribe to the Devil; in brief, they consider all that moves on earth, animate and inanimate, to be of the Devil.
“In appearance the heretics are lamb-like, gentle, modest and silent, and pale from hypocritical fasting. They do not talk idly, nor laugh loudly, nor give themselves airs. They keep away from the sight of men, and outwardly they do everything so as not to be distinguished from Orthodox Christians. … The people, on seeing their great humility, think that they are Orthodox and able to show them the path of salvation: they approach and ask them how to save their souls. Like a wolf that wants to seize a lamb, they first cast their eyes downwards, sigh and answer with humility. … Wherever they meet any simple or uneducated man, they sow the tares of their teaching, blaspheming the traditions and rules of holy Church.
“They teach their own people not to obey their lords, they revile the wealthy, hate the tsar, ridicule the elders, condemn the boyars, regard as vile in the sight of God those who serve the tsar, and forbid every servant to work for his master.”
Faerman (Priest in Yorkshire) makes the first Old English version of the Gospel of Matthew in the Rushworth Gospels, based upon Aldred’s gloss.
971: The Roman emperor John Tzimisces (John I, 969-76) crushed the Russian forces in the Balkans and restored the northern border of the empire to the Danube. Imperial control had not extended this far north for approximately 300 years.
Pilgrim became bishop of Passau (971-91). He is believed to have invented episodes in the history of the see of Passau to aggrandize his own bishopric relative to Salzburg. In a letter to Pope Benedict VII (974-83), Pilgrim indicated that he was too occupied with the conversion of the Hungarians (Magyars) to travel to Rome. He also stressed his adherence to the filioque clause – an important point since Roman (Byzantine) missionaries were also laboring in Hungary.
972 The Roman emperor John Tzimisces (John I, 969-76) conquered eastern Bulgaria.
972 Pope John XIII (974-83) crowned the Roman (Byzantine) princess Theophano empress, immediately before she married Otto II.
973 Wolfgang, formerly a monk of Reichenau, ordained bishop of Regensburg. At the behest of Udalric, bishop of Augsburg, Wolfgang had been a missionary to the Magyars. He continued to press for Magyar conversions until he died in 994.
973 Death of Otto I, emperor of Germany.
974 Cresentius I, patricius of Rome, led a revolt against Pope Benedict VI (973-74). He imprisoned Benedict in the Castel Sant’ Angelo and had him assassinated. The cardinal deacon who ordered Benedict’s murder became the Pope Boniface VII (974, 984-85) (considered an antipope by the Roman Catholic church). The German emperor’s local representative, Count Sicco, expelled Boniface, and Benedict VII (974-83) became pope. Boniface fled with the church treasury to Constantinople. (Cresentius was a member of a powerful Roman family known as the Cresentii, who owned extensive property in the Sabina. They remained a force in Rome through 1012.)
975 John Tzimisces transplanted Paulicians to Thrace near Philippopolis. The Paulicians had a warlike reputation, and John intended they would help defend the empire. For Paulician beliefs, see 719. For their warlike character, see 858, 860, 867/68, 872. Paulicians had previously been relocated to Thrace by Constantine V, circa 746.
976 Esato (Judith), a Jewish queen of Aksum (Axum), oppressed the Christian population of that kingdom. Aksum was located in what is now northern Ethiopia. Its kings had converted to Christianity in the fourth century. In the sixth century (532), Aksum’s influence spread temporarily to southern Arabia, Himyar (~Yemen) becoming a vassal state.
976 When the Roman emperor John Tzimisces died, there was conflict in the capital over the succession. Samuel, son of a provincial governor in Macedonia, took this opportunity to establish a kingdom which grew to occupy most of the former Bulgarian kingdom. War ensued between Samuel’s kingdom and the empire, ending in 1014 with Basil II’s victory in the pass of Kleidion.
978 Vikings raided Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain (the kingdom of Leon).
979 In around this year, a monastery for Georgians was founded at Mount Athos (see 963).
~980 Geza became the first Magyar (Hungarian) ruler to accept Christianity. It seems, however, that Geza simply added the Christian god to his pantheon. (With the settlement of the Magyars in Hungary after the battle of Lechfeld, 955, east-west trade through the region grew.)
980 The Norse ruler of Dublin, Olaf Cuaran, abdicated, then sailed to Iona as a penitent. Formerly king of York, Cuaran had been baptized in King Edmund of Wessex’s court between 941 and 944.
980 Symeon, later known as the “New Theologian,” became abbot at St. Mamas’s monastery near Constantinople. Symeon stressed the importance of striving for a vision of the Divine Light through prayer. His tenure as abbot ended in 1009 due to a dispute with the patriarch of Constantinople.
981 Zamora in the kingdom of Leon was destroyed by Muslim raiders. Four thousand prisoners were deported.
981 Pope Benedict VII (974-83) terminated the bishopric of Merseburg, a staging point for the conversion of the Slavs. Many consider this action to have slowed their conversion in central Europe.
981 Acting against simony, Pope Benedict VII (974-83) wrote an encyclical letter that condemned the taking of money in exchange for conferring holy orders.
982 Eric the Red discovered Greenland.
982 The German Emperor Otto II (973-83) lost a battle to the Saracens at Cap Colonne in Calabria. This led to the Wendish uprising of the following year.
983 Otto II appointed Peter, bishop of Pavia, to the papacy. He became John XIV (983-84). As a Lombard, he was the first non-Roman pope in recent times. The citizens of Rome were in a turmoil. The Cresentii, a noble Roman family (see 974), opposed his election.
983 The Wends revolted against the Germans. Germans had made incursions east of the Elbe, the Wends’ homeland, during this century. The pagan Wends – Slavic tribes: Wagrians, Abotrites, Polabrians, Rugians, etc., – pushed the Germans back as far as Hamburg. The bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelburg were destroyed. Nunneries at Kalbe and Hillersleben were raided. Magdeburg was protected by an army raised by the archbishop.
983 Aladbert (Vojtech), a Bohemian nobleman, became the first non-German bishop of Prague. His appointment was supported by the German Emperor Otto II but opposed by Duke Boleslas II of Bohemia. Friction increased when Adalbert attempted to reform Bohemian ethics. He criticized their polygamy, clerical marriages, and the sale of Christians into slavery.
983 Death of the German emperor Otto II, while on campaign against Venice. Upon Otto II’s death, his son Otto III (983-1002) was named king of Germany.
983 Upon learning of Otto II’s death, Pope Boniface VII returned to Rome from Constantinople. Supported by the Cresentii, Boniface imprisoned Pope John XIV (Peter of Pavia), then had arranged his murder.
985 Pope Boniface VII (974, 984-85) was murdered by a Roman mob.
985 John XV (985-96) became pope. His election was the work of the patricius John I (probably the son of Cresentius I (see 974) and a member of the powerful Cresentii family).
985 Barcelona was burned down by Muslim raiders. Its inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner.
988 Aladbert, bishop of Prague, deserted his see. He traveled to Italy and entered the monastery of San Alessio.
989 The conversion of Russia. Vladimir of Kiev (son of Svyatoslav and known as Vladimir Ravnoapostolny, “ranking with the apostles”) was baptized and married to the Roman (Byzantine) princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. Mass baptisms followed Vladimir’s. Vladimir later established bishoprics at Novgorod and Belgorod and a seminary at Kiev for the instruction of native clergy.
991 Gerbert of Aurillac, recently elected Archbishop of Reims, professed Manichean doctrines: rejection of the Old Testament and Dualism. Gerbert was later appointed Pope Sylvester II (999-1003).
992 Adalbert of Prague returned to his see at the command of the archbishop of Mainz. But he left for Rome in 994 after clashing with Duke Boleslas II again. In Rome, Adalbert became part of a group of intellectuals in the court of the German Emperor Otto III (983-1002).
993 Pope John XV (985-96) performed the first “solemn canonization” of a saint – Bishop St. Ulrich of Augsburg.
994 Olaf Tryggvason, later to be king of Norway, confirmed, in England.
995 Olaf Tryggvason traveled to Norway, intent upon becoming king. One of his companions was an English bishop. Olaf ruled from 995 to 999.
995 Death of King Eric the Victorious of Sweden. Eric had converted to Christianity, but apostatized before his death. Eric’s son Olof (995-1022) was reportedly converted to Christianity by an English bishop. Olof’s mother, incidentally, was a daughter of Duke Mieszko of Poland. Olof founded a bishopric at Skara, north of modern Stockholm, whose first incumbent was Thorgaut, sent from Hamburg-Bremen.
995 According to Agi Thorgilson’s Islendingabok (circa 1120), King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway sent a German bishop named Thangbrand to convert the Icelanders in this year. Tryggvason reportedly encouraged conversion by threatening to kill or disfigure several Icelandic hostages he held in Norway. In the year 1000, the Icelanders accepted Christianity.
995 King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway reportedly sailed to Orkney and forced Sigurd the Stout, a lord of northern Scotland, to accept Christianity.
995: Anglo-Saxon (Early Roots of English Language) Translations of The New Testament Produced. Aelfric, an English abbot, translates parts of Scripture into Old English.
996/7 Adalbert, the bishop of Prague in self-imposed exile in Rome, was chosen as missionary to the Poles. His selection was astute, since the Poles and Bohemians were at odds over lands in Silesia, and Adalbert was not a friend of the Bohemian ruler Boleslas II. Adalbert traveled to Gdansk, then east across the Vistula River, where the pagan Prussians killed him in April 997. His body was returned to Gniezo and buried.
996 Built by craftsmen from the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the Tithe Church was consecrated in Kiev in this year. The Old Church Slavonic liturgy was introduced by priests from Bulgaria.
996 Pope John XV asked Otto III for assistance against Cresentius II, leader of the powerful Cresentii family in Rome, who was leading a rebellion against him. Otto was declared king of the Lombards in Pavia.
996 Pope John XV died in March. The German emperor Otto III (983-1002), who arrived in Rome after John had died, appointed Gregory V (996-99), a twenty-three year old grandson of the German emperor Otto I, to the papacy. Gregory, the first German pope, was consecrated on May 3. On May 21, he crowned his cousin Otto emperor.
996 Pope Gregory V anathematized King Robert II the Pious of France. Robert had married his first cousin Bertha in defiance of canon law.
996 In the autumn, after Otto III returned to Germany, Cresentius II led a revolt in Rome. Pope Gregory V fled the city.
997 In Rome, Cresentius II convinced Johannes Philagathus, formerly abbot of the monastery of Nonantola, Italy, Otto III’s godfather, and ambassador to Constantinople for the German king, to accept the papacy. Against the wise advise of Abbot Nilus of Rossano, Johannes became Pope John XVI (997-98). From exile, Pope Gregory V excommunicated Cresentius.
997 Before Geza of Hungary’s death in this year, his son Waik married Gisela, Duke Henry of Bavaria’s sister. (Henry was to become the German Emperor Henry II in 1002.) The marriage indicates that Waik was already a Christian, since it would not have occurred otherwise. Waik adopted the Christian name Stephen. (See 1001 for further events in the conversion of Hungary.) Stephen’s marriage to Gisela was likely motivated to prevent Hungary’s being absorbed into the expanding Roman Empire.
997 Bishop Ramward of Minden carried a processional cross into battle against the Slavs.
998 Death of St. Nikon the Penitent, a missionary in the Mani peninsula. By this time, most of the Slavs of the Balkan region had been converted to Christianity through the efforts of Orthodox missionaries.
997 The Tome of Sisinnios, patriarch of Constantinople from 995-1000, established new standards for the degrees of consanguinity in marriage.
998 In February, the German emperor Otto III took Rome. He beheaded Cresentius (April 29); deposed, blinded, and disfigured John XV; and reinstated Gregory V. John XV was saved from execution through Abbot Nilus’s intercession, but his eyes, nose, lips, tongue, and hands were removed.
998 Odilo of Cluny instituted the observance of All Saints’ Day on November 2 (see 835 above). Given Cluny’s influence, this practice spread, though it was never officially sanctioned by the church in Rome.
999 Gerbert of Aurillac, an intellectual, elected Pope Sylvester II (999-1003). Gerbert had once been archbishop of Rheims. He had replaced a man who had been deposed without papal consent. As archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert had fought against papal interference in local church affairs. As Pope Sylvester II, Gerbert tried to strengthen papal influence.
Sylvester I had been pope during Constantine’s reign. Gerbert chose the name to symbolize the ideal of Christian Roman empire, with the German emperor Otto III at its head. Gerbert, a Frenchman, is said to have entertained Manichean doctrines (see 991).
999 According to legend, Eric the Red’s son Leif converted to Christianity during a trip to King Olaf Tryggvason’s Norway.
1000 The German Emperor Otto III visited Gniezno (Gnesen) in Poland to venerate the shrine of Adalbert. At the Congress of Gniezno, with the consent of Pope Sylvester II, Otto set up the archbishopic of Gniezno and the bishoprics of Cracow, Wroclaw, and Kolobrzeg. Adalbert became the national patron saint.
1000 Castile was burned by Muslims. The portion of the population that escaped slaughter was enslaved and deported.
1000 By this time, the horseshoe was in use in northern Europe. It allowed horses to be used in all weather and on rougher terrain, further increasing productivity. With the introduction of the three-field crop rotation system, the center of wealth in Europe began to move northward, and the population began to rise.
By this year, the papal chancery consistently dated documents using the Anno Domini system.
Eleventh Century
1000: England overwhelmed by new invasion of Danes. King Ethelred flees to the allies in Normandy. Aelfric (Abbot in Oxfordshire) translates abridged Pentateuch and several other portions of Scripture into Old English. Wessex Gospels give first Old English version of all four gospels.
1001 The title “king” bestowed on Stephen (Waik) of Hungary. King Stephen adopted St. Peter as patron saint of the Hungarian people. Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) agreed to the establishment of a Hungarian archbishopric, which eventually was placed in Esztergom (Gran). See also 1038.
Treating him as Roman emperor, Sylvester coordinated decisions on ecclesiastical matters with Otto III, even those concerning lands outside the bounds of Otto III’s territory. Because of his role in the establishment of independent archbishoprics in Poland and Hungary, the German church, which had been anxious to extend its authority in those regions, revolted against the emperor. In this era, the German church was a critical source of imperial funds and manpower.
1002 After the German emperor Otto III died this year, John Cresentius III (son of Cresentius II) became patricius of Rome and ruled the city until his death in 1012.
1003 After Pope Sylvester II’s death in this year, his great learning acquired a legendary character. Some attributed it to magic, supposedly learned in Spain; some to the devil; others to an artificial head that answered questions.
1003 In June, a certain Sicco or Secco was appointed John XVII, bishop of Rome, by direction of John Cresentius III. Pope John XVII died on 6 November.
1004 In January, a certain Fasano was consecrated John XVIII (1004-9), bishop of Rome. His election was decided by John Cresentius III.
1004 The Fatimid Caliph Hakim began a 10-year persecution of Christians in southern Syria and Palestine.
1008 The Leningrad Codex dates to this year. It is the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Old Testament and is the source document for most modern English Old Testament translations.
1009 Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. By 1014, Hakim had burned or pillaged 30,000 churches.
1009 Bruno of Querfurt, a German nobleman, killed by the Prussians. Bruno had been ordained a missionary bishop to the Slavs in 1004 and worked the area between Ukraine and Sweden. He also authored a biography of Adalbert, bishop of Prague (see 996/7).
1009 Pope John XVIII abdicated. He lived thereafter at the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Rome).
1012 Benedict VIII (1012-24), bishop of Rome. Benedict was the first pope from the powerful Tusculani family that replaced the Cresentii as leaders in Rome.
1013 The Caliph Hakim allowed Christians to emigrate into Roman (Byzantine) territory, as a concession to the Emperor.
1014 The Nicene Creed is believed to have been used in the liturgy at Rome for the first time, at the coronation of the German (Holy Roman) Emperor Henry II (1002-24). The version of the creed used included the filioque. Pope Benedict VIII encouraged Henry to attack the Roman (Byzantine) South. He hoped to restore papal jurisdition there (which had ended in 732).
1014 The Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Basil II (963-1025) conquered western Bulgaria.
1015 Tuy in northwestern Spain raided by Norsemen. The episcopal see there was vacant until 1070.
1015 King Olaf Haraldsson took Norway out from under Danish control. Olaf ruled until 1028, when he escaped Canute (see 1015/16) and fled to Russia. During his reign, Olaf brought clergy from England to Norway. Olaf died in 1030 in an attempt to retake the throne. When exhumed in 1031, his body was discovered incorrupt, and Olaf was deemed a saint and martyr.
1015 Gerard, bishop of Limoges, persecuted Manichean heretics.
1015/16 King Canute conquered England. In 1019, he took Denmark, and Norway in 1028. Canute’s empire fell apart at his death in 1035.
History 7
1016/17 Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) turned back a Saracen attack on northern Italy. Benedict encouraged the Normans to attack forces of the Roman (Byzantine) empire in the South.
1016 Hakim’s friend Darazi announced that Hakim was God. By 1017, Hakim restored religious liberty to the Christians and returned their confiscated property. Hakim substituted his name for that of Allah in mosque services. Hakim disappeared in 1021, but Darazi’s followers, the Druze, believe he will come again.
1017 Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) set up a new bishopric in Besalu. Each new bishop of Besalu was required to pay the papacy one pound of gold “in token of true obedience.”
1018 A resurgent Roman (Byzantine) Empire conquered and annexed Macedonia and Bulgaria.
1020 In Toulouse in about this year, a certain chaplain named Hugh was given the task of striking “a Jew, as is always the custom there each Easter.” Hugh struck the man so hard that he died. This “custom” was perhaps indicative of an increasingly un-Christian attitude (see 1040 & 1096).
1022 During the reign of Anund (1022-39), son of Olof, the Christian faith became widespread in Sweden.
1022 Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) called the synod of Pavia. Attended by the German emperor Henry II, the synod promulgated decrees against clergy who were not celibate and against simony..
1022 King Robert II of France (Robert the Pious, 996-1031) burned some Canons of St. Croix in Orleans at the stake for holding that the material world is inherently evil. One of the heretics was a certain Stephen, who had been confessor to the queen, Constance of Aquitane.
1022 Several Manichean heretics were put to death in Toulouse.
1024 When Pope Benedict VIII died in the spring, he was succeeded by his brother, John XIX (1024-32). John (real name Romanus) had been the ruler of Rome. He rose from layman to pope in a day.
1024 Pope John XIX agreed that the church of Constantinople was to be recognized as “universal in her sphere.”
1025 During his tenure as patriarch of Constantinople, Alexius the Studite (1025-43) restricted monks and clergy seeking justice to the church courts and standardized the payments due from lower clergy to their bishops. Alexius also began anew the persecution of Jacobites, at this time centered near Melitene. In an attempt to check lay patronage of monasteries (known as kharistike), he began a registry of monastic property and patronage rights, the chartophylakeion.
1025 A certain Gundulf led a band of Manichean missionaries from Italy into the diocese of Arras. Reginald, bishop of Arras, and Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, converted the missionaries back to the Catholic faith.
1027 Canute, king of England, journeyed to Rome as a pilgrim, “Because I heard from wise men that St Peter the Apostle has received from the Lord a great power of binding and loosing, and bears te keys of the kingdom of heaven; and therefore I deemed it useful in no ordinary degree to seek his patronage before God.”
1027 Pope John XIX crowned Conrad II German emperor. Canute of England witnessed this coronation.
1028 Sihtic, son of Olaf Cuaran of Dublin (see 980), went on pilgrimage to Rome and likely negotiated a bishopric for Dublin.
1028 William V, duke of Aquitane, called a council of the bishops of Charroux to plan for the suppression of Manichean heretics. The heresy had supposedly been introduced from Italy.
1030 A Russian trading center was founded in Yuryev (Tartu), Estonia, surrounding an Orthodox cathedral of St. George.
1030 A community of Cathar (see 1143) heretics existed in Monteforte by this year.
1032 The fourteen year old Theophylact(grandson of Count Gregory of Tusculum, himself son or grandson of Alberic, son of Marozia) was elected Pope Benedict IX (1032-44, 1045, 47-48). Nephew of the brothers Benedict VIII (1012-24) and John XIX (1024-32), Bendict was the last pope from the Tusculani family. Some sources indicate that Theophylact (Teofilatto) was in his twenties when he was elected to the papacy. His father, Count Alberic III, won him the papacy through bribery.
1034 In around this year a certain Euthymios produced an account of a heretical group known as the Phoundagiagitai. In around the year 1000, the supposed founder of the group, John Tzourillas, was charged with rape. John had preached near Smyrna with considerable success. The Phoundagiagitai were fond of breaking up church services on the grounds that prayer should be private (Matthew 6.6). Initiation into the group involved a ceremony in which the Apocalypse of St. Peter was recited over the intiate’s head. They held that the devil had been expelled from heaven for stealing the sun and the soul. Euthymios added: “They teach not to expect the resurrection of the dead, nor the second coming, nor the Last Judgment, but that all power over earthly things with hell and paradise belongs to the lord of this world, that is to say, the devil, and that he puts his friends in paradise and his enemies in hell, and that he has nothing in common with God, but that God reigns in the heavens and the lord of the world on earth.”
1036 Luke ordained bishop of Novgorod. He was the first native Russian to hold episcopal office.
1038 Death of King Stephen of Hungary. Stephen’s Edict, a collection of ecclesiastical legislation, required attendance at church, observation of Sunday as a sabbath, and fasting during Lent. He had implemented a plan to insure at least one church for every ten settlements. The contemporary historian Rudolfus Glaber wrote, “The Hungarians, previously accustomed to prey on their neighbors, now freely give of their own for Christ’s sake. They who formerly pillaged the Christians … now welcome them like brothers and children.” (In this period east-west trade and pilgrimages to the Holy Land caused an increase in traffic through Hungary.)
1039 At some point in his reigh, Emund, king of Sweden, half-brother to his predecessor, Anund, replaced the bishop Adalward of Skara with a certain Osmund, possibly an Englishman. Adalward had been sent from Hamburg-Bremen.
1040 About this year Rodulfus Glaber (Ralph the Bald) blamed the Jews of Orleans for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (see 1009). Ralph stated that the Jews wrote to “the prince of Cairo” encouraging him to destroy the church – “that if he did not quickly destroy the venerable church of the Christians, then they would soon occupy his whole realm, depriving him of all his power.”
1042 A Christian Wend named Gottschalk rose to power among the Wagrians and Abotrites, the westernmost Wendish tribes. Gottschalk had been educated in a Saxon monastery in Luneburg. When a Saxon killed his father, Gottschalk had returned home to wage a war of vengeance, but he had been captured by Duke Bernhard of Saxony. Bernhard had released Gottschalk, who had entered the service of King Canute of Denmark, Sweden, and England. After returning to his native land in this year, Gottschalk married a daughter of the Danish King Sweyn, built churches, established monasteries, and invited German priests into the land. Bishoprics were established at Oldenburg and Mecklenburg.
1042 The Patriarch Alexius the Studite endorsed the popular revolt against the Emperor Michael V (1041-42). Michael, known as the Caulker, was deposed.
1042: King Edward, brought up in Normandy, attempts to Normanize the English Court, appoints a Norman archbishop. Godwin (Earl of Wessex) opposes him and causes the deposition of the archbishop.
1045 Benedict IX’s profligacy elicited a rebellion among the Roman populace. Benedict fled Rome and John of Sabina was elected Pope Silvester III (1045). Benedict’s brothers then drove Silvester out of town, and Benedict was restored..
1045 Giovanni Gratiano became Pope Gregory VI (1045-46). He purchased the papacy from Benedict IX for 1500 pounds of gold. Benedict had led a profligate life as pope, but fell in love with Gratiano’s niece. He wanted to marry her, but did not want to abdicate the papacy to do so without profit. Benedict later changed his mind and returned to Rome as pope. There were thus three claimants to the papacy.
1045 Michael Psellus (1018-1078) was chosen by the emperor Constantine IX (1042-54) to head the philosophy department of the recently founded imperial university. After the schism began, Psellus was strongly opposed to reunion with Rome. Due to Psellus’ influence as Consul of the Philosophers, the emphasis of philosophy returned to its Platonic roots, the idealism of the Cappadocians, and away from the Aristotelian thrust which had been promoted by Photius.
1046 The Emperor Constantine IX (1042-54) began rebuilding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A German Saxon, Suidger of Bamburg, was appointed pope (Clement II) by the German (Holy Roman) Emperor Henry III. Benedict was canonically deposed.
1046 In December 1046, the papal situation in Rome was resolved by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III (1039-56) at a synod in Sutri. The synod deposed the three rival claimants, and Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a German, became Clement II (1046-47). Clement then crowned Henry emperor. When Clement died in 1047, Benedict reentered Rome, was driven from Rome again, and Poppo of Brixen (another German) replaced him as Damascus II (1048).
1049 Founding of the monastery of the Theotokos Euergetis in Constantinople by a certain former civil servant named Paul. This monastery became very influential, in part because of the support it received from the imperial family. Paul composed a florilegium, known as the Euergetinos, which included a many saints’ lives and became popular, adding to the monastery’s influence.
1049 The German emperor Henry III appointed the Alsatian count Bruno, bishop of Toul, to the papacy. Bruno refused the appointment unless it was approved by the clergy and people of Rome. He then entered Rome on foot, as a pilgrim, and was consecrated Pope Leo IX (1049-54).
1049 The synod at Rheims. Pope Leo IX traveled to Rheims to consecrate the church of St. Remigius (the patron saint of France). Since the king of France forebade his bishops to attend, only twenty were present. The pope demanded to know which of them had paid for their office. The bishops who confessed received pardon. Others were excommunicated and deposed.
1050 The investiture controversy. Some see the period from 1050 to 1130 as one of a major world revolution. In this view, the revolutionaries are the Gregorian reformers who complain about the interference of laymen in church affairs, simony in particular. Their ideal society has complete freedom of the church from control by the state, the negation of the sacramental character of kingship, and the domination of the papacy over secular rulers. The radical revolutionary leaders are Humbert and Hildebrand, while Peter Damiani is seen as a moderate.
The reform movement may have been motivated by a desire to maintain a distinction between the clergy and laity, which was in danger of being obscured by the rising level sanctity among the common people. Kings such as Henry III (1039-56) of Germany and Edward the Confessor (1042-66) of England were extremely pious, as were many nobles. If the clergy (and the monasteries) were perceived as no more holy than the common people, how could their rights and privileges continue to be maintained?
1050 Berengar of Tours, canon of the cathedral and head of the school of Saint-Martin, began teaching a theory of the eucharist in which the Lord was present in a spiritual sense only. Berengar wrote to Lanfranc, then a teacher in Normandy but later archbishop of Canterbury (1070-89) against the latter’s condemnation of Ratramnus. Lanfranc was absent when the letter arrived, however, and it was passed by others along to Pope Leo IX (1049-54), who excommunicated Berengar and ordered him to appear at the Council of Vercelli. Berengar traveled to Paris to obtain permission from King Henry I to attend the council, and Henry had him imprisoned. The De corpore of Ratramnus (see 868 above) was ordered destroyed by the Council of Vercelli, and Berengar was condemned in absentia.
1050 Between about this year and 1250, most of Spain reconquered from the Muslims. Only Granada and a small amount of nearby territory held out – until 1492.
1051 Founding of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev.
1052 The relics of Symeon the New Theologian were translated to Constantinople.
1052 The Normans had been forcing the Greeks in Roman (Byzantine) Italy to conform to Latin usages; the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius (1043-59), in return demanded that the Latin churches at Constantinople should adopt Greek practices, and in 1052, when they refused, he closed them. (Angold places the church closings in 1049.)
1052 By this year, around 700 monks lived at Mount Athos (see 963).
1053 Pope Leo IX (1049-54), in a letter to Bishop Thomas of Carthage, mentioned that there were only five bishops left in North Africa. In Augustine’s time (circa 400), there had been over 600.
1053 The battle of Civitate. In June, the Normans took Leo IX prisoner. Leo was released nine months later. He had been on campaign against them in the south of Italy, but the papal army was defeated on June 18. In his war against the Normans, Leo was in league with the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Constantine Monomachos (1042-55), who promised to transfer jurisdiction over southern Italy from the the patriachate of Constantinople to the papacy. Constantine’s forces, under Argyrus, the Roman (Byzantine) governor in southern Italy, had been defeated in February.
1054 The East-West Schism (The Schism of 1054). Leo, the archbishop of Ochrida, wrote a letter to Bishop John of Trania in Italy enumerating the innovations of the Roman Church. Leo asked John to give the letter a wide hearing (all Frankish bishops and priests and peoples and the most reverend pope himself”) in order that the truth might prevail. This letter was closely followed by a letter from Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople (1043-59). Pope Leo IX (1049-54) sent a sharp reply, severely rebuking Cerularius. He wrote, “No one can deny that, just as the whole door is directed by its handle, so the order and structure of the whole church is defined by Peter and his successors. And just as the handle pushes and pulls the door while itself remaining stationary, so Peter and his successors have the right to pronounce judgment on any local church. No one should resist them in any way or try to usurp their place, for the supreme seat is not to be judged by anyone.” Leo cited the Donation of Constantine (see 754) in evidence of his rights, and accused the “Greeks” of having deleted the filioque from the Nicene Creed.
The emperor of Constantinople, Constantine Monomachos (1042-55, also termed Monomathus), facing a threat of his political interest in Italy, had need of the pope’s help. Monomachos sent a conciliatory reply asking Leo IX to send delegates to restore friendly relations. The pope sent Cardinal Humbert and Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine (later Pope Stephen IX (1057-58)), and Bishop Peter of Amalfi, who arrived in April and met with the emperor. Monomachos forced Nicetas of Stethanos, a follower of St. Simeon the New Theologian and an open critic of Rome, to publicly burn and disavow his writings against Roman practices.
Cerularius received the papal letter from the delegation, but thereafter refused to meet with them. Frustrated, Humbert left a bull on the altar of St. Sophia (July 16). The bull stigmatized the Eastern Church as “the repository of all the heresies of the past.” It also anathematized Michael Cerularius, the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the marriage of priests, and the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Humbert departed on July 18. Constantine called Humbert back to discuss the bull at a synod, then sent him away again when he discovered that he himself would be prevented from attending, and that the people firmly supported the patriarch. Cerularius in turn, at the head of a council of two archbishops, twelve metropolitans, and seven bishops, drew up a sentence of excommunication against the authors of the bull and “all who had helped in drawing it up, whether by their advice or even by their prayers” (July 20).
1054 The monastery at Cluny (see 909) was freed from episcopal control and placed directly under the papacy.
1054: The Great Schism, Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox. Latin west would dominate. ● The Mass becomes the main source of scripture. Publishing the bible was expensive, difficult and took a long time.
1056 Death of Jaroslav the Wise, son of Vladimir and prince of Kiev. During his reign, Jaroslav rebuilt the Church of Holy Wisdom in Kiev and founded the monastery of St. George. His daughters married the kings of Norway and Hungary. Jaroslav’s wife, Ingigard, who had come from Sweden, founded the monastery of St. Irene.
1057 Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople, arranged the downfall of the Emperor Michael VI Stratiotikos and had Isaac Comnenus, a general, made emperor. In return, Comnenus allowed the patriarch to name the chief patriarchal administrators.
1057/58 According to a thirteenth century source, Michael Cerularius called a council which removed the patriarch of Rome’s name from the diptychs.
1058 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Isaac Comnenus accused Michael Cerularius of usurping imperial authority. Cerularius was never brought to trial, as he died in 1059. Some historians speculate that Michael’s attitude had been influenced by reading the Donation of Constantine, which Cardinal Humbert had carried to the emperor and patriarch in 1054. Since the second and fourth ecumenical councils had given the patriarch the same privileges as the pope, Michael may have argued on that basis for additional authority. This explanation is present in the works of Theodore Balsamon, a twelfth century canon lawyer.
Michael Psellus acted as a prosecutor for the emperor. The conflict between Psellus and Cerularius dated back at least to Humbert’s visit in 1053/54, when Psellus had acted on behalf of the emperor. While Cerularius obtained canonization for Symeon the New Theologian, Psellus had less use for mystics. He allowed that mystic, apophatic knowledge was possible, but refused to see it as the sole ground for Christianity, since it was inherently selfish and contributed little if anything to society. Reason, on the other hand, he saw as a more sure method of approach to God, and it promoted a fruitful life within the larger Christian community.
1058 Using large bribes, the Roman aristocracy had John Mincius, a member of the powerful Tusculani family, elected Pope Benedict X (1058-59). Peter Damian, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, would not consecrate Benedict. In December, a group of cardinals met in Siena and elected Gerard of Lorraine, the bishop of Florence, a Frenchman, as Pope Nicholas II (1058-61). Supported by imperial forces and the Roman populace (whom he lavished with gifts), Nicholas forced Benedict from Rome.
1059 Cardinal Humbert was responsible for the publication of two works reforming the western church. One limited involvement in the election of the pope to the college of cardinals. Prior to this time, the German emperor, Henry III (1039-56), had regularly elected popes on his own. His son, Henry IV (1056-1106), was a minor at this time, and his family were involved in a struggle with the German nobility. The second work was The Three Books Against the Simoniacs. It redefined simony from “the buying and selling of church offices” to “any interference by laymen in church affairs,” thus accusing most of the rulers of Europe of grave sin. In this work Humbert also called on the faithful to refuse to take the sacraments from any priest whose personal conduct they considered unworthy, effectively reviving the Donatist heresy. This advise was later condemned by the papacy.
1059 At a Lateran council held in April of this year, Pope Nicholas II (1059-61) established new procedures for the election of popes, giving a controlling voice to the cardinals. Earlier, the bishop of Rome had frequently been chosen by the Roman nobility or the German emperor. In fact, when Stephen IX died in 1058, the Roman nobility and a minority of the cardinals had chosen Benedict X as pope, while the majority of the cardinals had supported Nicholas, then Gerhard, bishop of Florence. Nicholas’ election had been secured through Cardinal Hildebrand’s influence over the German emperor. In 1061 the German bishops declared Nicholas’s procedures for papal elections void.
1059 The De corpore of Ratramnus (see 868 and 1050 above) was condemned at the Lateran Synod held this year.
1059 The papacy, at first alarmed by the Norman conquest of Sicily and southern Italy, began to forge an alliance with the Normans against the German emperor (at that time, Henry IV, 1056-1106). In what is known as the Investiture of Melphi, Pope Nicholas II (1059-61) presented Capua to Richard of Aversa and Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily to Robert Guiscard. In return, the Normans swore allegiance to the papacy. These lands had all belonged to the Roman (Byzantine) empire before the Norman attacks, which had begun at Melfi in 1041. Guiscard took Calabria in 1060, but Apulia held out until 1071 when Bari fell.
Pope Nicholas used the Donation of Constantine to justify the robbery of Roman (Byzantine) imperial lands at sword point.
1059: Papal Election Decree, A judgment issued by the Roman Synod in April 1059, under the presidency of Pope Nicholas ii, to regularize the procedure of papal elections.
1060 A synod of Spalatum (Croatia) forbade the ordination of Slavs unless they were literate in Latin. This appears to have been directed against the Slavonic liturgy.
1061 Anselm of Baggio elected as Pope Alexander II (1061-73). The imperial regent, the Empress Agnes, sided with the Roman nobility against Alexander and recognized Peter Caladus of Parma as Pope Honorius II (1061-64). As bishop of Parma, Honorius had opposed Hildebrand’s reform movement.
1061 Sometime during his papacy, Pope Alexander II (1061-73) wrote to the bishops of Spain to protect the Jews from warriors fighting the Saracens.
1061 Richeldis, the lady of the manor at Little Walsingham, Norfolk, England, had three visions of the Virgin Mary in which Mary showed her the house where she had lived in Nazareth. Mary instructed Richeldis to build a copy of the house. It is said that Richeldis’ workmen began a structrure in the style then current. The following day, they found it 70 yards from where they had left it, and completed by unknown hands.
1062 In April, Honorius II came to Rome. Duke Godfrey of Tuscany convinced Alexander and Honorius to await an imperial decision. A group of nobles kidnapped the German empress Agnes, and Anno, archbishop of Cologne, became regent. At Anno’s direction, the matter of the papal succession was investigated, and the choice fell to Alexander.
1063 Honorius II again set himself up in Rome. He left in 1064 when the Council of Mantua, Tuscany, decided in favor of Alexander.
1063 Pope Alexander II (1061-73) sent the papal banner to Normans fighting Saracens in Spain and Sicily. The banner was a sign of papal approval and blessing.
1064 A group of several thousand pilgrims traveled from Germany to the Holy Land. They were led by four bishops.
1066 Gottschalk (a leader of the Wends — see 1042) slain during an uprising. As a result of the violence, the bishoprics at Mecklenburg and Oldenburg were vacated, and remained so until 1149. Bishop John of Mecklenburg, an Irishman under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, was tortured, then beheaded. His head was offered on the tip of a spear to the Slavic god Redigast. Monks in Ratzeburg were stoned to death.
1066 The Norman Conquest of England. William’s invasion was supported by the papacy, which had quarreled with Harold Godwinson. Harold had refused to carry out the papal decision that the incumbent archbishop of Canturbery, whom he felt had not be canonically elected, should be deposed. The pope sent William the banner of St. Peter. However, having become king of England, William decreed that no clergy could go to Rome, receive a papal legate, or appeal to the papal curia without his permission. Gregory VII (1073-85) later claimed that the Donation of Constantine required that William be his vassal, but William refused.
William’s newly conquered kingdom contained 35 monasteries. Among them they controlled one-sixth of the kingdom’s revenues.
1066 Andrew, the archbishop of Bari, a city in southern Italy, visited Constantinople. While there, he renounced Christianity, declaring himself a Jew. He then removed to Egypt.
1066: The Norman Conquest, middle English (used by Poet – Geoffrey Chaucer). Norman conquest of Britain, sponsored by Pope Alexander II, destroys Old English literature, makes Norman French the language of the nobility.
1068 The king of Aragon made his kingdom a fiefdom of the papacy.
1069 At some point during his tenure as patriarch of Constantinople (1057-69), Luke Chrysoberges suppressed the carnival-like festivities that had come to accompany the feast of the Holy Notaries (Marcian and Martyrius), held on 25 November.
1071 A Turkish army defeated the Romans (Byzantines) at Manzikert, opening Asia Minor to invasion. The Roman emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118) appealed to the papacy for military assistance. The investiture controversy prevented Gregory from providing the requested support.
1071 The Normans in southern Italy took Bari, the capital of Roman (Byzantine) Apulia. (See 1059)
1071 The king of Aragon banned the Mozarabic rite. Use of the Latin rite was compulsory.
1071 When the bishop of Milan died, the German emperor Henry IV (1056-1106) appointed a man opposed to the reform movement as bishop. Pope Alexander II (1061-73) recognized a different man as bishop of Milan. The Patarini (literally, “rag-pickers”), a populist movement in Milan opposed to clerical marriage and simony, opposed the emperor’s candidate and supported the pope’s.
1072-76 Adam of Bremen wrote his Deeds of the Bishops of the Church of Hamburg.
1073 Pope Alexander II (1061-73) excommunicated the advisors of German emperor Henry IV who had urged Henry to appoint the new bishop of Milan (see 1071).
1073 Gregory VII (1073-1085), “Hildebrand,” believing the Forged Decretals to be authentic, enforced them. Also, in A.D. 1073, at a synod held in Rome, he pronounced the title of ‘pope’ the sole and peculiar dignity of the Bishops of Rome. In his Dictatus Papae (1075), he stated that the pope had the right to depose emperors, that the pope’s authority is the authority of Christ, that the papal office alone was universal in its authority, that the pope alone (without a synod) could depose bishops without giving the accused a hearing, that no one could condemn an appellant to the apostolic see, that no council was canonical without papal approval, and that no book or decree was canonical without papal assent. In addition, he claimed that the Roman church had never erred, not would it ever, “to all eternity.” The notion that the papacy alone is universal and plenary, while all other powers in the world are particular and dependent, is called the “plenitude of power.” In authoring the Dicataus Papea, Gregory employed the forged decretals of Pseudo-Isidore.
It is important to realize that for about 200 years before this, the power of the bishop of Rome had been very limited. The great bishoprics and abbeys of western Europe had flourished with little or no assistance from Rome, and with no effective papal jurisdiction over their affairs.
Gregory also insisted that the church become uniform in both liturgy and organization.
1074 A paper mill was set up in eastern Spain in this year, the first paper mill in Europe.
1075 The cathedral in Milan was burned as a result of conflict between local authorities and the Patarini (see 1071). At the request of the city fathers, the German emperor Henry IV deposed both rival bishops of Milan and installed another. Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) threatened the emperor with excommunication and deposition.
1075 Soon after this year, a certain Kekavmenos, governor of the theme of Hellas, composed a book of advice for his sons, known as the Advice and Counsels. Kekavmenos encouraged regular church attendance, the recitation of a psalm during the quiet of midnight (for concentration), and private study of the scriptures.
1076 In January, the German emperor Henry IV (1056-1106) called a council, which met in Worms. The council deposed Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) and referred to him as a “false monk.” The bishops of Lombardy later confirmed the council’s decision. The pope replied by excommunicating the bishops who opposed him and declaring Henry deposed. Gregory released Henry’s subjects from their oaths of allegiance to him. Gregory used the fact that Pope Zacharias had given permission to Pepin to depose the last of the Merovingian kings (Childeric III) precedence for the notion that popes can depose sovereigns.
1077 The German emperor Henry IV, having lost his power base within the German church due to Gregory’s threat to excommunicate his supporters, petitioned the pope for absolution at Canossa in northern Italy. The pope was on his way to a council of German nobles meeting to replace Henry. Through the intervention of Abbot Hugh of Cluny, Gregory agreed to absolve Henry and let him remain on the throne. The German princes, however, made Rudolf of Swabia king of Germany.
1080 In March, Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) again declared Henry IV deposed. Stating that Henry would soon die, the pope named Rudolf king of Germany.
1080 The German emperor Henry IV called a council at Mainz, which deposed Pope Gregory VII and made Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, Pope Clement III (1080-1100). At a battle on the banks of the Saale in Saxony, the forces of Henry IV and Rudolf of Swabia battled. Although Henry’s army was defeated, Rudolf was killed (October). As the German nobility discussed the question of Rudolf’s successor, Henry entered Italy and besieged Rome. He was not able to take the city until 1084.
For most of the period from 1080 through 1111, there were two rival popes.
1080+ First Benedictine monasteries founded in Denmark.
1080+ When King Inge of Sweden attempted to end pagan worship at Upsalla, he was deposed. His brother-in-law Sweyn assumed the throne, but Inge retook the crown by force and imposed the Christian faith. Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) congratulated Inge on his victory.
1081 Alexius Comnenus, who had recently become Roman (Byzantine) emperor (1081-1118), confiscated church property to finance a war against the Normans who, led by Robert Guiscard (see 1059), sought to capture Dyrrachium in preparation for an assault on Constantinople. The Normans took Dyrrachium in October 1081. In 1082, the imperial army had some success against the Normans, now led by Robert’s son Bohemund. The Normans began to withdraw, and the Venetians, Alexius’s allies, retook Dyrrachium for the emperor. In 1082, Alexius promised never again to appropriate church property.
The patriarch Cosmas I (1075-81) had imposed penance on Alexius and his family for the riot instigated by Alexius’ supporters. Alexius did the prescribed penance, then deposed Cosmas, replacing him with Eustratios Garidas (1081-84).
During Alexius’s reign, the patriarchal synod condemned Neilos of Calabria. Neilos taught that Christ was divinized only after his resurrection, and that as a reward for living a virtuous life. Neilos concluded that each virtuous Christian could expect divinization after death. In addition, he refused to refer to Mary as the Theotokos.
1081 On campaign against the Normans in Epiros (Epirus), about 2500 Paulician soldiers from the region around Philippopolis deserted the emperor Alexius’s army. (The Paulicians were dualistic heretics — see 719.) After defeating the Normans, Alexius set out to convert them to Orthodoxy. He personally debated the Paulician leaders Culeon, Cusinus, and Pholus. Alexius’s efforts were largely, but not entirely, successful.
1082 John Italos (Italus) was condemned by an Orthodox council in this year. The following anathemas, directed against his doctrines, were incorporated into the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see year 842 above).
(11) those who seek to discover exactly how the Word was joined to his human substance, and how the latter was deified;
(12) those who introduce Greek doctrines of the soul, heaven, earth, and creation into the Church;
(13) those who teach metemphychosis or the destruction of the soul after death;
(14) those who say that ideas or matter are co-eternal with God, and those who say that creation is eternal or immutable;
(15) those who honor, or who believe that God will honor, Greek philosophers or heresiarchs who taught error above the Fathers of the councils who held to the truth, though these latter may have sinned through passion or ignorance;
(16) those who do not accept the miracles of Christ, the Theotokos, and all his saints;
(17) those who think Greek philosophy to be true and try to convert the faithful to their opinions;
(18) those who teach that creation is the necessary result of the participation of matter in the ideas, and not the result of God’s free will;
(19) those who say that it is impossible that we will rise to judgment in these same bodies;
(20) those who believe in the pre-existence of souls; those who deny that all of creation is ex nihilo; those who say that hell is temporary or that all of creation will be restored (including the most wicked); and those who understand the Kingdom of Heaven to be temporary.
(21) all of John Italos’s doctrines introduced in opposition to the Orthodox faith.
Italos had succeeded Michael Psellus as Consul of the Philosophers. He had been employed by the emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071-78) in the latter’s efforts to make peace with the Normans. After his condemnation, Italos was confined in a monastery.
1082 In return for its assistance against the Norman invaders, the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118) granted Venice the right of unrestricted trade without customs dues throughout the empire.
1084 Nicholas III Grammatikos (1084-1118) patriarch of Constantinople. At some point during his tenure, Grammatikos suppressed the Christmas and Candlemas revels that had been introduced into St. Sophia, supposedly during the time of patriarch Theophylact (933-56). Grammatikos characterized those who took part in such masquerades as “devotees of Dionysios.” Nicholas also created an order of preachers to combat heretics, many of whom masqueraded as monks (see the account of Basil the Bogomil, 1104).
During Nicholas’s early years as patriarch, a controversy arose over whether Christ’s human nature was deified by nature or by hypostatic union. Nilus the Calabrian (Neilos of Calabria) argued that it was by nature. This view was seen as a renewal of the Monophysite heresy. The emperor himself argued with Nilus on this point, without success. After Nilus’s condemnation, a line condemning him was added to the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see 843). Condemnation #11 of the synodicon appears to have Nilus in mind as well.
Also during Alexius’s reign as emperor, a certain Blachernites led a group of “Enthusiasts” in Constantinople. They appear to have been Messalian in doctrine and practice (see 390). A few years earlier, Psellus had indicated that Messalians kept a low profile in the capital. He accused them of using magic.
1084 After some elements in the German church returned to his side, the German emperor Henry IV was able to continue the conflict with the papacy. In March, Henry drove Pope Gregory VII from Rome (see 1180). A synod which met in the Lateran palace deposed Gregory and re-affirmed Clement III as pope. On 31 March, Clement crowned Henry German emperor. Gregory found refuge at Castello Sant’ Angelo.
1084/5 Robert Guiscard, having returned from his campaign against the Romans (Byzantines) (see 1081), raised an army of 36,000 men and marched on Rome. The German emperor Henry IV withdrew into Germany. Guiscard’s Normans sacked Rome. The populace, appaled with Pope Gregory for his ally’s behavior, refused to have him back. Clement III re-entered Rome as pope, and Pope Gregory VII died in Salerno on May 25, 1085.
1085 Alfonso VI of Castile reconquered Toledo. Though he promised the Muslims continued use of the city’s main mosque, the archbishop turned it into his cathedral the next year. Toledo became an important center for the introduction of ancient Greek and more recent Arabic learning into the West.
1087 Nicetas, metropolitan of Ancyra, had brought an issue to the emperor Alexius’s attention in 1084 relating to one of Nicetas’s suffragan bishops who had been raised to metropolitan status by the emperor Constantine X Doukas (1059-67). Nicetas argued that, according to canon 12 of the council of Chalcedon, a metropolitan retained authority over a suffragan who had been promoted. Alexius referred the issue to the patriarch, but the patriach’s synod was unable to reach a decision, at least partially due to pressure from the patriarchal clergy, which preferred that the power to appoint metropolitans reside with the patriarchate. Alexius then decided the case himself, against Nicetas.
1087 Death of Constantine the African (1020-1087). Constantine had collected books from Egypt, Persia, Chaldea and India, translated them into Latin, and placed them in Monte Cassino.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) sent an army to Tunis. It defeated a Saracen force there and forced them to pay tribute to Rome.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) held a synod at Benevento. It excommunicated Pope Clement III (1080-1100) and condemned lay investiture.
1087 Italian merchants stole the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra (southwest Asia Minor), taking them to Bari (Italy). Nicholas was bishop of Myra during the fourth century. According to legend, Nicholas attended the council of Nicaea in 325.
1088 Christodoulos (died 1093) founded the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos. Turkish raids were common in that era, and the island had been abandoned by its inhabitants. The monastery had to be evacuated in 1092 in the face of these raids, but the monks soon returned as the Roman (Byzantine) fleet gained the upper hand in the Aegean. By 1200, the monastery’s library held 330 volumes.
1088 Odo of Chatillon-sur-Marne was elected Pope Urban II (1088-99) by the reform party in Terracina (south of Rome) on March 12.
1089 Pope Urban II lifted the excommunication Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) had pronounced against the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118).
1091 The Normans completed the conquest of Sicily, begun in 1061. During the ensuing century, the Normans used Sicilian contacts with the Roman (Byzantine) Empire to collect a number of ancient works in Greek, among them many writings of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Euclid.
1091/92 A synod meeting at the Blachernae Palace in Constantinople corrected the views of Leo, metropolitan of Chalcedon. Leo had opposed the melting down of icon frames on the grounds that this attacked the icon’s holiness. The synod read out the declarations of the second council of Nicaea, and pointed out that the relative veneration due to icons does not extend to the material of the icons themselves. Leo may have supported his views with an erroneous Christology, since his name is appended to two anathemas included in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy, also directed against the views of Eustratios of Nicaea. See 1117. Leo accepted the synod’s ruling and was re-instated.
1093 Anselm (1033/4 – 1109) became Archbishop of Canterbury. He is most famous for his proof of the existence of God. The proof, in short, was that since we have an idea of an absolutely perfect being, that idea constitutes proof of his existence, since he would be imperfect if he did not exist. Anselm also developed a satisfaction theory of the atonement in his Cur Deus homo? (Why did God become man?) Based on the feudal system, in which satisfaction for a crime depended on dignity of the person offended, Anselm argued that offense against God required an infinite satisfaction. Thus, in Anselm’s theory, the death of the God-man whose infinite merits brought man back into a right relationship with God.
During Anselm’s tenure, Pope Urban II (1088-99) sanctioned the English church-state system, in exchange that he, and not Pope Clement III (1080-1100), be recognized as pope. Urban cut a similar deal with the Normans of Sicily, effectively giving them control over the church in their domains.
1093 The Saxons and Danes set up Henry, son of Gottschalk (see 1066), as king of the Wends. Henry ruled from Old Lubeck, an isolated island of Christianity in a pagan sea.
1095 At the council of Clermont (France), Pope Urban II announced the First Crusade. No German prince loyal to the Henry IV took part in this crusade.
1096 Approximately 800 Jews of the town of Worms were slaughtered by the Crusaders. Some were given refuge by the local bishop, whose protection was to no avail. The only survivors were those who underwent forcible baptism.
1096: 1st Crusades to reclaim the Holy Land and restore Christian control over Jerusalem.
1098 The Crusaders captured Antioch on 3 June with the assistance of an Armenian Moslem named Firouz, who betrayed the city. The Turks were massacred. Bohemund, a Norman, made himself prince of Antioch. In so doing, he reneged on the agreement made with Alexius Comnenus to return Antioch to the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
1098 In reaction to the decadence of their order, Robert of Molesme led a group of Benedictine monks in the founding of the Cistercian order. Their first monastery was in a poor, marshy part of the Burgundian forest known as Cisteaux. The Cistercians specialized in the development of marginal land, and soon became very wealthy.
1098 At a council held in Bari, Pope Urban II (1088-99) permitted the Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily, now under Norman rule, to retain their own rituals and usages.
1099 The Crusaders took Jerusalem on 14 June, slaughtering the Moslem inhabitants, and burning the Jews alive inside their synagogue. Godfrey of Lorraine was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though he refused the title “king.” He was succeeded by his brother Baldwin.
1099 Paschal II (1099-1118) became pope. During his time, paedocommunion was still practiced in the West. This is clear from the letter Pope Paschal II wrote to Pontius, the abbot of Cluny: “As Christ communicated bread and wine, each by itself, and it ever had been so observed in the church, it ever should be so done in the future, save in the case of infants and of the sick, who as a general thing, could not eat bread.”
1100 On making the sign of the cross, from the Catholic Encyclopedia: “At this period the manner of making it in the West seems to have been identical with that followed at present in the East, i.e. only three fingers were used, and the hand traveled from the right shoulder to the left. … Moreover it is at least clear from many pictures and sculptures that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Greek practice of extending only three fingers was adhered to by many Latin Christians. … However there can be little doubt that long before the close of the Middle Ages the large sign of the cross was more commonly made in the West with the open hand and that the bar of the cross was traced from left to right.”
1100 A Russian bishopric established at Polotsk on the Dvina River.
1100 Between this year and 1152, the Cistercians began over three hundred new monasteries.
Twelfth Century
1102 Union of Croatia and Hungary.
1103 With new kings and popes in place, the investiture controversy in England flared up again. King Henry I of England (1100-35) and Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) were the key players. The Concordat of London in 1107 made peace. By this agreement, Henry abandoned lay investiture, but maintained authority over bishops and abbots in his realm. The Concordat of London was a model for the Concordat of Worms (1122). Paschal was motivated to peace by a desire to launch a crusade against his fellow Christians in Constantinople.
1104 The Danish town of Lund became an archbishopric.
1104 In around this year, Basil the Bogomil was burned on a pyre in the Hippodrome in Constantinople. It is not clear to what extent, if any, Basil and his followers were indebted to the Bulgarian Bogomils (see 970). Basil had twelve principal lieutenants, known as Apostles, and a large following of disciples. Although the emperor Alexius himself repeatedly visited Basil in prison and attempted to persuade him of his errors, he refused to recant. His followers were permitted to choose the stake at which they would die. One stake had a cross attached, and the other was bare. Those who selected the cross were set free, but the rest were burned.
Basil claimed that all non-Bogomils were under the power of demons, and he attributed the miraculous works of saints to the machinations of demons. He held that the cross was a symbol favored by demons, because it was the instrument of Christ’s death. Communion and the venation of icons (involving material objects) were acts of reverence to demons. Basil’s Bogomils rejected marriage on the grounds of Matthew 22.30, dressed as monks, and identified the Cappadocian Fathers and St. John Chrysostom with the false prophets the New Testament warned against. They had few services or ceremonies, citing Matthew 6.6. The only prayer they used was the Lord’s Prayer, which they recited seven times in the day and five times at night. They eschewed converts from among the educated. The twelve Apostles were supposed never to die, but to be translated into the kingdom of heaven while they slept, their bodies meanwhile drying into dust and ashes. In the actual course of events, however, they did die.
Basil had a novel interpretation of the fall and Christ’s work. Satan was originally God’s eldest son, but he had been turned out of heaven for leading the angels in rebellion. On earth, he created Adam, but had to turn to God to provide the man’s soul. Thus Satan and God shared authority over mankind. God had pity on men, and sent the archangel Michael to become incarnate, entering the Virgin Mary through her right ear. Christ (Michael) did not actually die on the cross; he only appeared to do so. But he did descend into hell and confine the devil there. He then ascended into heaven and took the devil’s former place at God’s right hand.
1106 A bishopric established in Holar in Iceland. A school was founded where a woman named Ingunn taught Latin and depicted the lives of the saints in embroidery.
1106/7 Abbot Daniel of Tchernigov, a Russian on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, observed Latins and Greeks worshipping together. He pointed out happily, however, that at the ceremony of the Holy Fire the Greek lamps were lit miraculously while the Latin ones were lit from the Greeks’.
1108 Likely date of the Magdeburg Appeal, a letter to the clergy of Saxony, the Rhineland, and Flanders asking for military support in a proposed thrust against the pagan Wends. The effort of crushing the Wends is “an occasion for you to save your souls and … to acquire the best land on which to live.” The Wends lived in the region between the Elbe and Pomerania (Mecklenburg).
1111 Paschal II (1099-1118) concluded a concordat with the German emperor Henry V (1106-25) to end the investiture controversy. In return for Henry V’s agreement not to interfere in church affairs, Paschal would surrender all church lands and secular offices. Paschal crowned Henry German emperor. Opinion in the church was so strong against him, that Paschal was forced to withdraw from the agreement.
1112 At a debate with Latin theologians in this year, the Orthodox began to understand what the Westerners meant by papal primacy. The insistence that Rome was the source of all authority within the church began to be seen as a challenge to traditional ecclesiology.
1114 The Premonstratensian order formed by a German aristocrat named Norbert. The order emphasized evangelism.
1116 A hermit named Henry and his followers took control of Le Mans (France). Henry soon disappeared, but one of his followers, Pons, came to Perigueux, with some followers. They called themselves Apostolics and owned no money, ate no meat, drank no alcohol, eschewed private property and disapproved of almsgiving. Although they genuflected 100 times per day, the Apostolics rejected the mass and the cross. Many converted to their beliefs, including some clergy. It was thought that the Apostolics worked magic, and that Satan assisted them by freeing them from prison.
1117 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118) presided over a synod seated to hear the case of heresy against Eustratios (Eustratius), metropolitan of Nicaea, who had been accused of Nestorianism. The emperor Alexius had employed Eustratius in an attempt to win the Armenians back to Orthodoxy. Eustratius slipped into error, and his approach was not acceptable to Orthodox or Armenians. At the synod, the prosecution was led by Nicetas, metropolitan of Heracleia. The emperor lobbied for Eustratios, but the synod deadlocked, eleven to eleven. It reconvened in Alexius’s absence, under the leadership of John Agapetos, patriarch of Constantinople (1111-34), and Eustratios was condemned. Eustratios had been a disciple of John Italos. It appears that the synod was opposed not only to Eustratius’s doctrinal innovation, but also his methodology: Eustratius employed dialectic in reaching his conclusions.
The following anathemas concerning Eustratios were added to the Synodicon of Orthodoxy:
(26) those who say that Christ’s human nature will always be in servitude to his Divine nature;
(27) those who improperly use the distinction between the two natures of Christ and say that the human nature is lower in dignity and obligated to worship the Divine nature; and those say our High Priest is that human nature, and not the one person of Christ;
Although the emperor urged clemency, Eustratius was suspended for life. Interestingly, Eustratios was a leading member of the anti-Latin party within the church.
1118 John II Comnenus Roman (Byzantine) emperor (1118-43). John’s wife Eirene inspired the founding of the Pantokrator monastery in Constantinople, to which a hospital was attached. St. Eirene was known for her works of charity, particularly on the behalf of orphans and widows. Before her death, she entered a nunnery, becoming the nun Xene.
1118 The German emperor Henry V appointed Maurice de Bourdin Pope Gregory VIII (1118-21). Maurice had been one of Pope Paschal II’s ambassadors to the emperor, but he had gone over to Henry’s side in the investiture controversy.
1119 Four hundred and twenty-seven bishops attended a council in Rheims. It excommunicated the German emperor Henry V (1106-25) and Pope Gregory VIII (1118-21).
1119 In June, Pope Calixtus II (1119-24) held a council in Toulouse to condemn a group of heretics who denied the hierarchy of the church, the priesthood, marriage, baptism, and the eucharist.
1120 A new pagan temple constructed at Gutzkow. The region east of the Elbe was enjoying a period of prosperity, attested by strong urban growth.
1120+ The Templars originated in Palestine as a group of knights who took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, whose purpose was to protect pilgrims as they traveled in the Holy Land between the coast and Jerusalem. Their name came from the location of their residence in Jerusalem, thought to be on the site of Solomon’s temple.
1121 Peter Abelard’s Theologia condemned at a council held in Soissons for presenting an erroneous view of the Trinity.
1121 Hosios Nicholas Kataskepenos, a disciple of St. Cyril Philiotes, who had been dead for 11 years, opened the saint’s tomb. He found the head uncorrupt, exuding a pleasant odor. Kataskepenos later wrote a Life of Cyril Philiotes. From Philea in Thrace where he lived in a cell near a church his brother had converted into a monastery, Cyril, for a period in his life, walked into Constantinople every Friday evening to view the miraculous unveiling of the icon of the Virgin Mary in the church of the Blachernai. The emperor Alexius I Comnenus visited Cyril on two occasions. On the first, the emperor was concerned that the duties of his office left him little time for prayer, but Cyril assured him that God would not forget his care for the poor, as shown in the support he had shown to the Orphanage of St. Paul, his concern for churches and monasteries, and his efforts to convert barbarians to Christ. On his second visit, Alexius sought counsel on the appropriate time to initiate a campaign against the Turks. Cyril advised him to delay, and the emperor did so.
1122 The Concordat of Worms between Henry V (1106-1125) and Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124) ended the investiture controversy. In this compromise, Henry abandoned lay investiture and the doctrine of theocratic kingship. But the pope granted the king the right to veto the appointments of bishops and abbots. As it turned out, the German monarch had been so weakened by the civil wars that he was no longer able to control appointments outside of his own territory. The monarch was severely weakened.
1123 First Lateran Council. The council condemned simony, forbade laypersons from disposing of church property, and prohibited the marriage of clerics in major orders.
1124-5 Duke Boleslas III of Poland had captured Pomerania (the northern part of modern Poland) by this year. Afterwards, Vratislav (Warcislaw), a Pomeranian warlord who, as a youth, had been baptized while held prisoner in Germany, encouraged the spread of Christianity into the land. He established a bishopric on Usedom Island, near the mouth of the Oder, and he protected Otto, bishop of Bamburg, during the latter’s missionary journey in 1124/25. At one point, Duke Boleslas threatened military action against the citizens of Szczecin if they refused to convert – they acceded to his demand. Otto is reported to have baptized 22,165 persons in Pomerania. His technique involved offering presents to encourage conversion – food and clothing for the poor; rings, sword belts, sandals, and cloth of gold to the wealthy. After Otto departed from Pomerania, however, apostasy was widespread.
1125 A priest named Arnold appointed bishop for Greenland. In 1126 he established his see at Gardar.
1125 Clementius, a peasant from Bucy near Soissons, France, formed a heretical group teaching that human reproduction was evil. His followers engaged in exclusively homosexual relationships, except for rare orgies. Babies which resulted from orgies were said to have been burned at birth and their ashes made into communion bread. Clementius’s followers did not believe in the bodily incarnation of Christ, but they held instead that he was but a phantasm. They also taught that the altar was “the mouth of hell” and the sacraments were of no value. Clementius was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
1125-1200 During this period a large number of Greek and Arabic works were translated into Latin and became available to Western scholars.
1126 The heretic Peter de Bruys burned at St. Gilles (France). Peter had commited his beliefs to writing, and they were later adumbrated by an ex-monk named Henry. Peter’s followers, known as Petrobrusians, forbade infant baptism and taught that the cross should be hated (not venerated) since Christ died upon it. They also saw no value in the mass, criticized prayers for the dead, and argued that churches should be torn down, since God, being omnipresent, has no need for them.
1127-28 Otto of Bamburg’s second missionary journey to the Pomeranians (see 1124-5). He met with great success.
1127 Vizelin (Vicelinus), a native of Hamelin, set up a base in Faldera (now Neumeister in Schleswig-Holstein) to evangelize the Wends. The German Emperor Lothar (1125-37) and Count Adolf of Holstein supported other missionary communities of Segeburg and Lubeck. Adolf also encouraged Germans to immigrate to Holstein and Wagria.
1130 When Nyklot succeeded Henry (see 1093) as leader of the Wends, he stood as champion of the pagan cause.
1130 When Pope Honorius II died, a majority elected Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni as Anacletus II (1130-38) as pope, while a minority elected Grigorio Papareshi as Innocent II (1130-43). Anacletus was supported by Roger of Sicily, while, with the aid of Archbishop Norbert of Magdeburg and Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Innocent gained the support of King Henry I of England and the German Emperor Lothair.
1134 King Eric II of Denmark raided Rugen (near Germany’s Baltic coast) and conquered the fortress of Arkana, center of the cult of the god Svantovit. Eric forced baptism on the Arkanians. They promptly apostatized when Eric returned to Denmark.
1136 Anselm, Roman Catholic bishop of Havelburg, visited Constantinople on a diplomatic mission. While there, he entered into public debate with Nicetas, metropolitan of Nicomedia. Nicetas made a speech summarizing the East’s view of papal claims: “We do not deny to the Roman Church the primacy amongst the five sister patriarchates; and we recognize her right to the most honorable seat at an ecumenical council. But she has separated herself from us by her own deeds, when through pride she assumed a monarchy which does not belong to her office. . . . How shall we accept decrees from her that have been issued without consulting us and even without our knowledge? If the Roman Pontiff, seated on the lofty throne of his glory, wishes to thunder at us and, so to speak, hurl his mandates at us from on high, and if he wishes to judge us and even to rule us and our churches, not by taking counsel with us but at his own arbitrary pleasure, what kind of brotherhood, or even what kind of parenthood can this be? We should be the slaves, not the sons, of such a church, and the Roman see would not be the pious mother of sons but a hard and imperious mistress of slaves.”
1137 Arnold, prior of the monastery at Brescia (Venice), took part in a popular revolt against Bishop Manfred, the local lord. Arnold of Brescia proposed that the clergy strip themselves of temporal power. He was condemned by Pope Innocent II (1130-43) at the Second Lateran Council (1139).
1139 Second Lateran Council. The council condemned the followers of Arnold of Brescia as heretics and terminated ended the schism caused by the election of Anacletus II as a rival pope to Innocent II (see 1130 – Anacletus had died in 1138). This council also declared marriages involving monks and those in major orders invalid. In addition, the council echoed Innocent’s support (from 1136) of King Stephen over Empress Matilda as the rightful sovereign of England.
1139: Second Lateran Council – the 10th ecumenical council, convoked by Pope Innocent II. The council was convened to condemn as schismatics the followers of Arnold of Brescia, a vigorous reformer and opponent of the temporal power of the pope, and to end the schism created by the election of Anacletus II, a rival pope. Supported by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and later by Emperor Lothar II, Innocent was eventually acknowledged as the legitimate pope. Besides reaffirming previous conciliar decrees, the Second Lateran Council declared invalid all marriages of those in major orders and of professed monks, canons, lay brothers, and nuns. The council repudiated the heresies of the 12th century concerning holy orders, matrimony, infant baptism, and the Eucharist. The Orthodox churches do not accept any of the five Lateran councils as truly ecumenical.
1140 Gratian produced an unofficial collection of canon law known as the Decretum. It was a favorite source book in the West for about 100 years.
1140 In a letter to the canons of Lyons, Bernard of Clairvaux condemned the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary – long commemorated in the East on December 9 – claiming that her Conception was not holy, though her Nativity was.
1140 The patriarchal synod in Constantinople posthumously condemned Constantine Chrysomallos, formerly a resident (though not a monk) at the monastery of Kyr Nicholas. Chrysomallos had denied the efficacy of baptism, repentance, and confession, and had insisted that to be saved, one must have attained spiritual illumination. Chrysomallos had followers among men of high rank.
1141 Peter Abelard condemned at the Council of Sens. Though sometimes portrayed as a skeptic, Abelard’s stated goal in his Sic et Non was to demonstrate that the apparent contradictions of scripture, discovered through the use of logic, could be reconciled once the true intent of the texts was understood. Arnold of Brescia (see 1137) had traveled to France and become one of Peter Abelard’s supporters. The Council of Sens condemned Arnold as well. Bernard of Clairvaux was influential in the council’s decisions.
1143 The citizens of Rome rebelled against ecclesiastical rule and established a Republican form of government, known as the Commune. Rome was temporarily unsafe for the popes.
1143 A synod that met in Constantinople condemned the following propositions of the Bogomils. These anathemas were added to the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see 843),
(23) those who deny that the three members of the Trinity have one nature; those who say the Son was created accidentally, and is merely an angel; and those who say that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son and the Father;
(23) those who say that Satan is the creator and ruler of the universe and the creator of mankind;
(24) those who deny that the Logos and Son was begotten before time, and became incarnate of the Virgin Mary for our salvation; and those who believe the eucharist to be only bread and wine and not truly the flesh and blood of the Savior;
(25) those who do not worship the cross through which our God Jesus Christ destroyed the devices of the enemy.
1143 Between this year 1157, six different men became patriarch of Constantinople: Michael the Oxite Kourkouas (1143-46), Cosmas Atticus (1146-47), Nicholas Mouzalon (1147-51), Theodotos (1151-53), Constantine Khliarenos (1154-57), and Luke Chrysoberges (1157-69). Theodotos’s right hand darkened during his terminal illness. After his death, Soterichos Panteugenos accused Theodotos of having harbored Bogomil sympathies: Soterichos’s research had shown that Bogomil corpses always had blackened hands. When George Tornikes came to the late patriarch’s defense, Soterichos accused him of Bogomil leanings as well. See 1157.
1143 The prior of Steinfeld in the Rhineland wrote for advice to Bernard of Clairvaux regarding heretics who had come to Cologne, a bishop and one other who claimed to represent a secret tradition preserved in Greece. They termed themselves Apostles. The heretics had great success in gaining converts near Toulouse. The Western Bogomils came to be called Cathars or Cathari. See 1213.
1144 On 22 February, a patriarchal synod under Michael Kourkouas condemned Niphon, a monk of the Peribleptos monastery in Constantinople, as a Bogomil. The next patriarch, Cosmas Atticus, was Niphon’s friend. An imperial tribunal, meeting on 26 February 1147, used this as an excuse to depose Atticus.
1144 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143-80) declared priests exempt from taxation and the performance of duties for the state.
1144 At the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, the Second Crusade was launched. The crusade was motivated by the news that the Saracens had conquered the Christian principality of Edessa. Bernard was successful in persuading knights from France and the south of Germany to join the crusade, but Spain and northern Germany found his message less than convincing. Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) allowed Alfonso VII of Castille to attack the Muslims in Spain instead of those in the Middle East. The crusading force that did head east was obliterated in Asia Minor.
1145 Pope Lucius II (1144-45) died in battle against the forces of the Commune on the Capitol in Rome.
1146 On 13 March, Bernard of Clairvaux attended a Reichstag in Frankfurt where Saxon nobles asked for authorization to attack the pagan Slavs to the east. Bernard passed this information along to Pope Eugenius, who authorized the crusade against the Wends.
1146 Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) was forced from Rome by the forces of Arnold of Brescia. Arnold had reconciled with the papacy in 1145, and, for Arnold’s act of penance, Pope Eugenius sent him to Rome on a pilgrimmage. While there, Arnold allied himself with the Commune (1143) and preached against pope and cardinals.
1147 Pope Eugenius III (1145-53), preaching the Second Crusade in the south of France, was alarmed at the number of heretics he found there. He sent Bernard of Clairvaux to deal with them. Bernard found the heretics concentrated near Albi, and their most prominent members were weavers. They were called Arriani after a village near Toulouse where they were especially strong in numbers.
1147 The Wendish Crusade. On 13 April, in the bull Divina dispensatione, Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) gave the Saxons spiritual privileges typical for crusaders as incentive for warring upon the pagan Wends. The crusade was made necessary by Count Adolf of Holstein’s annexation of Wendish territory, which he provided to immigrants from the west of Germany. In support of the crusade, Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux wrote, “We expressly forbid that for any reason whatsoever they should make a truce with these people [the Wends] … until such time as … either their religion or their nation be destroyed.” Nyklot’s forces (see 1130) were opposed by a Danish navy and a Saxon army, the latter under the command of Bishop Anselm of Havelburg. Nyklot was defeated and some Wends were baptized.
1147 Germans moving eastward on the Second Crusade plundered the suburbs of Philippopolis. The metropolitan, Michael Italikos, convinced the German emperor Conrad II to keep his troops in line. Then the locals murdered some of the crusaders. Italikos was able to persuade Conrad to spare the city.
1148 A council meeting in Reims condemned Eudes de l’Etoile for heresy. He was imprisoned, where he died. Eudes (also known as Eon) taught his heresy near Saint-Malo and met secretly with his followers in the forest of Broceliande. He proclaimed himself the Christ, and said he had come to judge the quick and the dead. Eon’s more important followers were given the names of the Manichean eons (Knowledge, Wisdom, etc.). Eon lived in high style on the contributions of his followers, and his prosperity led to the accusation that he worked magic.
1148 In July, Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) excommunicated Arnold of Brescia.
1148-51 Peter Lombard wrote his Four Books of Sentences, a systematic treatment of the teachings of the Bible and the fathers on Christian doctrine. It remained a standard theological textbook until the 1500s.
1149 The emperor Manuel Comnenus took Corfu back from the Normans.
1149 The bishoprics of Oldenburg and Meckleburg re-established. Vizelin (see 1127) was ordained bishop of Oldenburg.
1150: Old English yields to Middle English as the common language of Britain.
1153 Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) concluded a treaty with the German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90) (the Treaty of Constance) setting conditions for Frederick’s coronation. Eugenius died before Frederick could come to Italy to be crowned.
1154 Philip of Mahdia was burned to death in Palermo. Philip, raised a Muslim, had converted to Christianity and served King Roger of Sicily. He was executed for apostasy when he relapsed to Islam.
1154 Nicholas Breakspear elected Pope Adrian IV (1154-59). Nicholas was the only Englishman to be elected pope. He had reorganized the church in Scandinavia for Eugenius III.
1155 Pope Adrian IV (1154-59) placed Rome under interdict. Resistance in the Commune’s Senate collapsed, and papal government was restored. Arnold of Brescia fled, but was captured by the German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa’s troops. Arnold was tried for heresy and condemned. He was hanged, and his body was burned. The ashes were cast into the Tiber.
1155 Pope Adrian IV crowned Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90) Holy Roman Emperor.
1156 When Bishop Gerold of Oldenburg held Epiphany service there, no Slavs attended the service. Gerold cut down a grove of trees sacred to the Prove, a Slavic god, as he traveled to Lubeck.
1156 William of Sicily forced Pope Adrian (Hadrian) IV (1154-59) to sign the Concordat of Benevento. The Normans were given land as far north as Naples. The German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90) understood this concordat to be in violation of the Treaty of Constance, which he had made with Pope Eugenius III in 1153.
1156 Pope Adrian IV, in the bull Laudabiliter, granted King Henry II of England the right to take Ireland as a possession.
1157 The Synod of Blachernae, held on May 12. In part, this synod condemned the errors of Basilakes and Soterichos (Soterichus). The following anathemas from that synod are included in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see 842 above).
(28) those who say that Christ offered his sacrifice to God the Father alone, and not to himself and to the Holy Spirit;
(30) those who deny that the daily sacrifice of the priests of the Church is to the Holy Trinity;
(31) those who say that the sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy is only figuratively the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood; those who deny that the sacrifice in the Lirtugy is one and the same as that of Christ on the cross;
(33) those who deny that Christ reconciled us to Himself though the entire mystery of the economy, and so reconciled us to all of the Holy Trinity, but say instead that we were reconciled to the Son through the incarnation and to the Father through the passion;
(34) those who misunderstand and twist the teachings of the Church;
(35) those who think the deification of Christ’s humanity destroyed his human nature; and those who deny that his deified human nature is worthy of worship; and those who say that, since the human nature of Christ was swallowed up into Divinity, his passion was an illusion;
(36) those who reject the doctrines of Athanasius, Cyril, Ambrose, Amphilochius, and Leo of Old Rome, and who do not accept the teachings of the Ecumenical councils, in particular, the fourth and sixth councils;
(37) those who say that characteristics of Christ’s human nature – such as creaturehood, circumscription, mortality, and blameless passions – exist only hypothetically, when one considers Christ’s human nature in abstraction, and not really and truly;
The emperor Manuel Comnenus called the council to settle a dispute over the words in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, “Thou art he who offers and is offered and receives.” Basil, the deacon who held the chair of the gospels, interpreted this to mean that the Son is both the victim and the recipient of the sacrifice. Soterichos Panteugenos attacked Basil’s position in a Platonic dialogue, but George Tornikes, metropolitan of Ephesus, came to Basil’s defense. A synod (26 Jan 1156) had settled the matter in Basil’s favor, but Soterichos Panteugenos and Nichephorus Basilakes had not been present and refused to accept the synod’s decision.
After the synod of Blachernae, Nichephorus Basilakes and Soterichos (Soterichus), deacons of the Great Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, recanted. George Tornikes wrote a tract against the methods of Basilakes and Soterichos, accusing them of playing intellectual games with the doctrines of the church.
1157 The archbishop of Reims, Samson, noted that Manicheanism was being popularized in his diocese by itinerant weavers. These Manicheans reportedly criticized marriage and promoted licentious behavior. Samson referred to the heretics as Poblicani.
1159 The cardinals electing Adrian IV’s successor to the papacy were split into two camps. The majority supported Alexander III (1159-81), while a minority elected Victor IV (1159-64). William of Sicily supported Alexander III, while Victor IV was aligned with the German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90). During the period 1159-80, there were two rival popes. Victor IV was succeeded by Paschal III (1164-68), Callistus III (1168-78), and Innocent III (1179-80).
1160 The German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90) convened a council in Pavia to gain support for Victor IV as pope. Victor gained little support, however, as other nations had little desire to see a return to imperial control of the papacy. Alexander III excommunicated Frederick for calling the council.
1160 Bern, bishop of Mecklenburg, converted Pribislav, the son of Nyklot and ruler of the Wends. Prabislav cut a deal with Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony, agreeing to accept Henry’s overlordship in exchange for a principality of Mecklenburg. However, no plans were made to form and instruct a native Wendish clergy.
1160 Gerold, Vizelin’s successor as bishop of Oldenburg (see 1149, 1156), moved his see to Lubeck. The cathedral chapter at Lubeck adopted the Augustinian rule at this time.
1160 A certain Gerard came to England from Germany at the head of a sect numbering 30. Gerard opposed marriage, baptism and the eucharist. At the order of a council held at Oxford, these “Publicani” were branded on the forehead.
1161 Thomas Becket, a companion of King Henry II (1154-89) of England, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Gervase of Canterbury attributes the celebration of Trinity Sunday (the Sunday one week after Pentecost (Whitsunday)) to Thomas, although there is evidence that it actually began in the Low Countries in the tenth century. The Roman Church added Trinity Sunday to their calendar during the pontificate of John XXII in the fourteenth century. The Eastern Church has no Trinity Sunday, referring to the day instead as All Holy Martyrs.
1161 Edward the Confessor was canonized. At this time, permission from the bishop of Rome began to be required before changes to the English church’s calendar were authorized (see 747).
1161 When the Seljuq sultan Kilidj Arslan visited Constantinople in this year, his planned trip to St. Sophia was blocked by the patriarch Luke Chrysoberges (1157-69/70), who would not permit an infidel to set foot within the Great Church.
At some point during Luke Chrysoberges’ patriarchate, the question was raised whether Muslims who had been baptized by Orthodox priests at their parents’ request needed do anything further to convert to Orthodoxy. A synod decided that such baptism was insufficient, even when the Muslim’s mother had been Orthodox. Instead, the prospective convert was required to curse Mohammed and his god, as had been customary. One of the Seljuq sultan’s viziers, Iktiyar ad-Din Hasan ibn Gabras, a convert to Islam and member of the Byzantine Gabras family, urged the emperor to remove the curse as a requirement, since it had prevented his conversion back to Christianity. In the hope that others in the sultan’s court might convert, Manuel urged that the requirement to anathematize Mohammed and his god be dropped. The issue was discussed in a synod, and as a compromise, the anathema was modified to apply only to Mohammed and his teachings.
1162 Henry, archbishop of Reims, observed that a large number of heretics had penetrated into Flanders. He called them “Manicheans who are known as Populicani.”
History 8
1163 Burning of Cathars at Cologne at the urging of Eckbert, Abbot of Schonau.
1163 Pope Alexander III (1159-81) held a council in Tours. King Louis VII (1137-80) asked the pope to condemn all who provided support to the heretics in Gascony and the region near Toulouse (see 1147).
1164 Death of St. Hilarion, bishop of Moglena (in Macedonia). Hilarion is the only 12th century Orthodox bishop considered a saint. He is noted for his opposition to the Paulicians and Bogomils of Macedonia. On one occasion the Bogomils stoned him, but he convinced the residents of Moglena to take no vengeance. Hilarion built a church dedicated to the Holy Apostles on the spot where Bogomil prayer meetings had been held.
1164 Pole Alexander III (1159-81) made Uppsala a bishopric.
1165 By this year, the Cathars of Languedoc were so numerous that they openly defied the regional prelates as they met at Lombers (Lombez). A heretical leader named Oliver proclaimed his doctrines publicly.
1165 At the command of the German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90), Pope Paschal III (1164-68) canonized Charlemagne.
1166 A council met under the presidency of the emperor Manuel Comnenus to address the interpretation of John 14.28: “My father is greater than I.” Demetrius of Lampe, a Roman (Byzantine) diplomat recently returned from the West, raised the issue to the emperor’s attention. Demetrius ridiculed the way the verse was interpreted there: Christ was inferior to his father in his humanity, but equal in his divinity. The emperor thought the Western interpretation made good sense. Eventually, he called a council to settle the matter. The council met on March 2. The following anathemas were directed against Constantine the Bulgarian, formerly Metropolitan of Corfu, and John Irenicus, by a synod in 1166. They are included in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see year 842).
(38) Constantine the Bulgarian, who says that “My father is greater than I” refers only to Christ’s human nature, taken in abstraction; whereas the Fathers use such an abstraction only to explain statements implying servitude or ignorance, and explain the statement “My father is greater than I” in various ways, one of which is that the statement refers to the fact that Christ’s human nature retained its properties in the hypostatic union;
(39) those who agree with Constantine of Bulgaria;
(40) John Irenicus, who held the same view.
At the emperor’s insistence, the council agreed that, “By Christ was to be understood his created and concrete nature, according to which he suffered, as others.” In the form of an edict (an Ekthesis) he proclaimed severe punishment for those who refused to accept this formula: bishops and officials would lose their posts, while lower orders of the clergy could expect exile. The Ekthesis was carved in stone and erected in the narthex of St. Sophia. Metropolitans were required to have their suffragans sign a copy of the Ekthesis. It is said that most of the church in Constantinople was opposed to the Ekthesis, perhaps due to anti-Latin feelings in the capital.
1167 A group of Poplicani (also called Deonarii) was tried in Vezelay in Burgundy. Seven were burned, but one was scourged and set free. They had refused to admit the value of the sacraments.
1167 In around this year, a Bogomil known as Papa Niquinta or Nicetas, presided over an assembly of the leading Cathars of Languedoc at Saint-Felix-de-Caraman (near Toulouse). Nicetas claimed to be head of the church of Drugunthia (which has yet to be located). As to church organization, he advised the Cathars to follow the example of the Bogomil churches in the East (Romania, Drugunthia, Melenguia, Bulgaria, and Dalmatia), each of which was independent, but which all strove for peace with one another. Nicetas taught an absolute dualism, in which there are two uncreated gods, one good and one evil, which he contrasted with the teachings of the Bulgarian Bogomils, who taught that Satan was a created being. Nicetas also visited the Cathars of Lombardy, whose leader, Mark, had learned his faith from Bulgarian Bogomils. Mark accepted correction from Nicetas, but at some later point a representative of the Bulgarian Bogomils cast doubts on the validity of Nicetas’s consecration, claiming that Nicetas’s predecessor as bishop of Drugunthia had been found with a woman in his room.
1168 King Valdemar I of Denmark conquered Rugen (see 1134). The temple of Svantovit was destroyed. Svantovit himself (or his image) was used as firewood. The inhabitants of Rugen again accepted Christiantiy. Twelve churches existed on the island by 1172.
1168 Giovanni de Struma became Pope Calixtus III (1168-78) with the support of the German emperor Frederick I Barbarosa (1152-90).
1169 Norman adventurers (encouraged by Pope Adrian IV’s bull Laudabiliter (1156)) invaded eastern Ireland. King Henry II of England took possession in October, 1171.
1169 In this year, a monastery for Russians was founded at Mount Athos (see 963).
1169-1187 A period of persecution for Coptic Christians. Fearing they might support the Frankish crusaders, the Ayyubid rulers forbade Copts from holding office or riding horses, banned bells, crosses, and religious processions, and had church walls painted black. These restrictions were generally relaxed after the defeat of the crusaders.
1170 At some point during his tenure as patriarch of Constantinople (1170-78), Michael Ankhialos suppressed certain celebrations that occurred on the evening of June 23. The celebrations involved dressing a young, eldest daughter as a bride and having her handle small, personal objects to predict the owners’ fates. The celebrants also jumped over bonfires for luck, put garlands on their houses, then splashed the houses with seawater. Ankhialos was also commended by Eustathius of Thessalonica for his suppression of heretics.
1171 Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights.
1171 Pope Alexander III issued the bull Non parum animus noster, equating war against the Estonians and the Finns with pilgrimage to the Holy Land: “We therefore grant to those who fight with might and courage against the aforesaid pagans one year’s remission for the sins they confess and receive penance for, trusting in God’s mercy and the merits of the apostles Peter and Paul, just as we usually grant to those who visit the sepulcher of the Lord; and if those who perish in the fight are doing their penance, to them we grant remission of all their sins.”
1171 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143-80) had all Venetians in the empire arrested and confiscated their goods. He had established trade arrangements with the Genoese in 1169 and with the Pisans in 1170.
1173 Death of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, patron saint of Belarus. Euphrosyne was the daughter of Prince Vseslav of Polotsk. She entered a convent rather than accept marriage. Noted for her generosity (she used most of her income for almsgiving), Euphrosyne copied books for income. Toward the end of her life, she traveled to Constantinople and the Holy Land.
1176 The Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143-80) defeated by the Turks at Myriocephalon in Anatolia.
1176 The Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, Leontius, was imprisoned by the Franks when he slipped into Jerusalem to visit his see.
1177 Joachim of Fiore (1130/35-1201/02) became abbot of the Cistercian Monastery in Corazzo, Sicily, shortly before developing a Trinitarian philosophy of history. The Old Testament era corresponded to the time of the Father, and the period since the incarnation was the era of the Son. The third era, that of the Spirit, was to have been won through the efforts of the Church, especially of hermits and monastics, and to have begun in 1260. The Franciscan and Dominican orders were later seen as fulfilling this need for spiritual workers. Joachim was a mystic, having experienced three moments of intense spiritual illumination.
1178 At the request of Louis VII of France (1137-80), Pope Alexander III (1159-81) sent a mission to Toulouse to deal with the Cathars. Apart from Count Raymond V of Toulouse, the nobles favored the Cathars and offered the mission no support. The Cistercian Cardinal Peter of St. Chrysogonus was booed in the streets of Toulouse.
1179 Lando di Sezze elected Pope Innocent III (1179-80). Innocent was the fourth in a series of so-called “antipopes” going back to Victor IV in 1159. Alexander III had Innocent confined at the monastery of La Cava in the south of Italy.
1179 Third Lateran Council. This council condemned the Cathari and settled on a two-thirds majority among cardinals as the requirement for papal election.
1180 An Augustinian canon, Meinhard, set up a mission station at Uxkull (Ikskile), inland on the Dvina (Daugava) River (modern Latvia). His fort there was built of stone for protection against Lithuanian slavers.
1182 Many Latin-speaking residents of Constantinople were massacred by the Roman (Byzantine) populace during a riot. Many of these were Venetians.
1184 Pope Lucius III (1181-85) issued the bull Ad Abolendam, which condemned the teachings of Peter Valdes (Peter Waldo). Valdes was an uneducated lay preacher in Lyon who used a non-Latin Bible. His followers, the Waldensees, spread though much of Western Europe. They refused to take oaths before courts, said no prayers for the dead, and criticized the adoration of the cross. Instead, the Waldensees stressed moral purity, confession, fasting, poverty, and yearly communion. Lucius set up an inquisition to deal with the Waldensees and the Cathars.
1184 The synod of Verona condemned the Arnoldists, followers of Arnold of Brescia (see 1137, 1155). The Arnoldists decried the Church’s temporal power and saw a contradiction between material possessions and spiritual health.
1185 In August, the Normans laid siege to and sacked Thessalonica. A description of the Norman atrocities survives, written by Eustathius, metropolitan of the city. Eustathius also complained that the Norman conquerors were contemptuous of Greek church services, and that the local Jews and Armenians profited from the sacking of the city (demanding high prices for bread) and rejoiced that a disaster had fallen upon the Greeks.
1186 Death of St. John of Novgorod. He had been archbishop of Novgorod during a siege. As he prayed one day, John had a vision of the Theotokos, who told him to go to the Church of Christ the Savior and take her icon from there, then carry it along the walls of the city. She promised him he would then see the city rescued. As John carried the icon in procession to the city walls, tears began to stream from the Virgin Mary’s eyes, and the enemy fell into complete confusion and fled.
1186 Founding of the Second Bulgarian Empire. John (Ivan) Asen I was tsar from 1186 to 1196.
1187 Death of Gerard of Cremona, who had translated over 70 ancient Greek works into Latin from the Arabic.
1187 The Fatamid (Turkish) vizier Yusuf Ibn Eyub, known by his title of Sala ed-Din, or Saladin, swept into Palestine, defeating the crusader King Guy at the battle of Tiberias in June, and conquering Jerusalem in October. In addition to dealing the death blow to the Latin kingdom in Palestine, Saladin conquered Egypt, thereby insuring that Islam in the west was Sunni – though in Persia it remains Shiah to this day.
1188 Pope Clement III (1187-91) recognized Rome’s communal government (see 1143).
1189 The Third Crusade set off under the leadership of Richard the Lionhearted of England (1189-1199), Philip Augustus of France (1180-1223), and Frederick Barbarosa of Germany (1152-1190). There was strong popular support in Constantinople for the patriarch Dositheus’s (1090-91) efforts to block the crusaders’ passage. The crusaders succeeded in capturing Cyprus and Acre in 1191. On his return home, Richard was captured by Leopold of Austria and held captive by Henry VI.
~1190 The Teutonic Order of Jerusalem (the Teutonic Knights) formed largely from German knights of the third crusade. Their goal was to defend the Christian presence in the Holy Land.
1091 On his return journed from the Third Crusade, Philip Augustus stopped on the island of Patmos. He gave the Monastery of St. John the Theologian thirty bezants and requested a relic of St. Christodoulos, the monastery’s founder (see 1088). The monks refused, but one of Philip’s followers bit off the tip of one of Christodoulos’s fingers and took it with him. A storm later forced Philip’s party back to the island, and the fingertip was restored to the monastery.
1194 The Norman kingdom in southern Italy became part of the German empire.
1195 Some time after this year, Theodore Balsamon, patriarch of Antioch (1185-95?), died. Balsamon attended his flock with difficulty, given the presence of crusader forces and a Latin patriarch in that city. He was a noted canonist, promoting the harmony of ecclesial and imperial law/jurisdiction, and a champion of the rights and authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
In around this year, the patriarch of Alexandria asked Balsamon’s advice on whether to provide communion for Latin prisoners of war. Balsamon responded by rejecting papal primacy and by using 28th canon of the the council of Chalcedon to argue that the patriarch of Constantinople had all the privileges supposedly granted to the papacy by the Donation of Constantine. Since Rome had fallen into heresy, Latin prisoners of war should be required to renounce their errors before receiving communion.
1197 In this year, a monastery for Serbians was founded at Mount Athos (see 963).
1197 The monk Boso became abbot of the monastery in Alet (southern France). The monks had preferred a different candidate, but Bertrand of Saissac, the regent of Foix, forced them to elect Boso in a council over which the corpse of their previous abbot presided.
1198 The Livonian Crusade. When Meinhard’s (see 1180) successor Berthold found the mission along the Dvina in danger of failure, Pole Celestine III (1191-98) encouraged a crusade. A Saxon army invaded Livonia (~modern Latvia and Estonia) and defeated the Livonians in battle. Berthold was slain. When the Saxons returned home, the priests at the Livonian mission fled under death threats from the Livonians. (The unreliability of occasional crusaders to protect missionaries later led to the formation of military/spiritual brotherhoods – see 1202.)
1198 During Innocent III’s pontificate (1198-1216), the papacy exercised increased direct control over the church, both through written instructions and the presence of legates. Elements of the modern Western system of liturgical colors can be found in a treatise by Innocent III, written before he became pope in this year. Since the time of Pope Gregory VII (1075-83), the popes had been dissatisfied with identifying themselves as the vicar of St. Peter. Innocent reflected the change in perspective when he wrote, “We are the successor of the prince of the Apostles, but we are not his vicar, nor the vicar of any man or Apostle, but the vicar of Jesus Christ himself.”
1199 Innocent III sent a Cistercian mission to Languedoc to deal with the Cathar heretics who were numerous in that province.
1199 Bosnia became an openly Bogomil state when Kulin, the Ban of Bosnia, and ten thousand subjects publicly proclaimed the Bogomil faith. The Bogomils of Bosnia were known as Patarenes. The strength of the Patarenes in Bosnia ended only with the Turkish conquest in 1463.
1200 Death of Stephan Nemanya, former Grand Zhupan of Serbia, who had followed his son Sava (see 1219) into the monastic life, adopting the name Symeon. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Nemanya called a council of the Serbian church to condemn the doctrines of the Bogomils. Some of the Bogomil missionaries had entered Bosnia, where they were instrumental in the conversion of Kulin.
1200 In the late twelfth century, the monk Athanasius of Jerusalem wrote to a certain Pank, who had been reading Bogomil writings, “If you have read the homily of the priest Jeremiah, the one on the Holy Wood and the Holy Trinity, of which you used to talk, then you have read lying fables.” This quote indicates the existence of a corpus of Bogomil works. The 1608 edition of the Russian index “Of True and False Books” identified the priest Jeremiah with Bogomil himself.
1200 Albert of Buxtehunde led a crusading army into Livonia. In 1201, he abandoned the mission station at Uxkull (see 1180) and established his base at the mouth of the Dvina River. The city of Riga grew from this beginning.
1200 When John “the Fat” Comnenus broke into St. Sophia in Constantinope and had himself proclaimed emperor, the patriarch John Kamateros (1199-1206) hid in a broom closet. The emperor Alexius III Angelus (1195-1203) squelched John Comnenus’s coup.
It was common in this era in Constantinople to find scholars in discussion in the forecourt of the Church of the Holy Apostles on such topics as conception, the nature of sight, number theory, and the workings of sensation.
1200 A synod met in Constantinople to discuss the eucharist as a result of a controversy between which began in 1197 between John Kamateros and the historian Nicetas Choniates. The resulting synod condemned the teachings of Myron Sikidites (aka Michael Glykas). Glykas had argued that, since the communion bread was broken by the priest, it could not be corruptible. He also concluded that, since Christ’s body had been transformed after his sacrifice on the cross, so also the communion elements were miraculously transformed only after they had been sacrificed, that is, after they were consumed. However, as the synod’s decision was being read to the emperor for confirmation, John Kastamonites, bishop of Chalcedon and an enthusiastic supporter of Sikidites’ views, entered uninvited and argued persuasively against it. Sikidites was not censured.
1200 The beginning of the ‘Little Ice Age’ in Western Europe, which lasted for approximately 200 years. The colder, damper conditions led to poor harvests, and, after 1250, little new land was available for cultivation. Western Europe experienced multiple famines in the early fourteenth century.
1200: Orm composes poetical paraphrase of Gospels and Acts in Middle English.
1201 By the time this century began, the number of Orthodox Christians in Egypt had been reduced to approximately 100,000.
1201 During the thirteenth century, the population of Rome never rose higher than 30,000.
1202 Crusaders sacked Zara on the Dalmatian coast (see 1204).
1202 Bishop Albert of Riga (in modern Latvia) formed a military/religious order, the Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ of Livonia, to provide a permanent military presence, in contrast to the seasonal or occasional crusading knights. They were commonly known as the Sword Brothers. Unlike the Templars who reported directly to the pope, the Sword Brothers were subject to Albert. He meant to use them to subject the Livonians by force, in order to bring them to Christ.
1203 Toulouse (Languedoc, France) agreed to persecute the Cathars.
1203 Under marshal threat from King Emmerich of Hungary, Kulin of Bosnia renounced the Bogomil (Patarene) faith and accepted papal supremacy in the presence of the papal legate, John de Casamaris. Altars and crosses were restored to the churches, and the Roman calendar was adopted.
1204 The Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople on April 13. Although not originally directed at Constantinople, the Venetians insisted on this new target. The city was pillaged, churches were desecrated, nuns were raped. The city remained under Western control until 1261. (Though originally aimed toward Egypt and Palestine, the Venetians directed the crusade initially against Zara, a city of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast. When it was taken, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) excommunicated the crusaders, both Venetians and Franks, but the excommunication of the Franks was lifted after they appealed for absolution. While they were at Zara, the crusaders formed a pact with Alexius Angelus, son of the deposed emperor Isaac, to attack Constantinople and restore Isaac (1185-95) to the throne. On his part, Alexius agreed to pay the crusaders a large sum of money and to subordinate the Orthodox Church to Rome. Innocent III issued an instruction that no further attacks (beyond those already perpetrated at Zara) were to be allowed against Christians unless they hindered the crusade. The failure on Innocent III’s part to act more firmly and forcefully to prevent the sack of Constantinople was seen in the East as evidence of complicity. The Novgorod Chronicle states that the pope favored the plan to attack Constantinople, and the Chronica Regia Coloniensis indicates that he lifted the Franks’ excommunication for sacking Zara only after their intent to attack Constantinople became clear. (See Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades, Vol. 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, Cambridge, 1979, especially pages 116-117.))
The conquerors deposed Greek-speaking bishops and abbots, replacing them with Latins. The church in Bulgaria was apparently under at least nominal control from Rome from 1204 to 1230.
The crusaders took the body of John Chrysostom, which had been returned to Constantinople in 438, and took it to Rome. It was placed in St. Peter’s basilica.
1205 Innocent III (1198-1216), bishop of Rome, appointed Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury. King John (1199-1216) refused to allow him to enter England. Langton divided the Bible books into chapters.
1205: Stephen Langton, theology professor and later Archbishop of Canterbury, creates the first chapter divisions in the books of the Bible. The modern chapter divisions were created around AD 1227. Langton developed these divisions for the Latin Vulgate, and the tradition is that they were later transferred to the Hebrew Bible. The Wycliffe English Bible of 1382 was the first Bible to use Langton’s chapter pattern.
1206 The Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, John Kamateros, died in exile. The Orthodox of Constantinople asked Innocent III’s permission to elect a new patriarch. Innocent refused, since there was already a Latin patriarch in place. The pope thus lost the chance to gain the loyalty of the church in Constantinople, which turned to the Theodore I Lascaris, emperor at Nicaea (1205-21).
1206 Innocent III reprimanded the clergy of the cathedral of Barcelona for their withholding of baptism from slaves who wished to convert to Christianity.
1206 A native Livonian priest, John, martyred at his mission station between Rigan and Uxkull (modern Latvia).
1207 Pope Innocent III encouraged the nobles of the north of France to enter into a crusade against those of the south who gave support to the Cathars. He offered the same indulgences as were given to crusaders going to the Holy Land. The northerners also wished to enrich themselves with the southern nobles’ lands.
1207 The Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ of Livonia against the Prussians formed by Bishop Christian, a Cistercian. They made their base at Dobrin (Dobrzyn), inland along the Vistula (modern Poland), and were known as the Knights of Dobrin.
1208 In March, at the request of the citizens of Constantinople, the Nicaean emperor Theodore Lascaris authorized the election of a new patriarch. Michael IV Autoreianos (1208-12) was selected.
1208 Innocent III placed England under interdict over the Langton affair.
1208 Albigensian crusade (directed against the Cathars of the south of France) began, led by Simon de Montfort and the papal legate, Arnald of Citeaux . (The crusade takes its name from the town of Albi, but the heretics were centered southwest of there, near Toulouse.)
1208 Francis of Assisi heard the gospel reading for the feast of St. Matthias (Feb 24), Matthew 10.9-11. Thereafter, though a layman, he began to preach and attract disciples.
1209 Twelve Franciscan friars traveled to Rome. Pope Innocent III gave oral approval to their rule.
1209 Pope Innocent III approved the establishment of a bishopric for southern Finland. It was eventually located at Turku (Abo).
1211 The Bulgarian council of Tirnovo (the Bulgarian capital) condemned the Bogomils and other heretics. The council stipulated that all such heretics be arrested. A penalty of imprisonment was established for those who were willing to repent, while the rest were to be exiled.
1211 Genghis Khan invaded China.
1212 The Childrens’ Crusade.
1212 King John resigned his kingship and received it back as a holding from the Roman legate. The interdict against England was consequently ended.
1213 The ruler of Epiros (Epirus), Michael Angelus (1204-15) called a synod to fill the vacant sees of Dyrrakhion and Larissa, both of which had escaped conquest by the crusaders and were under Michael’s control. John Apokaukos, metropolitan of Naupaktos, presided.
1213 Albigensian Crusade — Catholic crusaders defeated the Cathari at Muret. The Cathari, numerous in the Languedoc region of France, were dualists, believing that Yahweh (the ruler of spirit) and Lucifer (of matter) were co-equal. In their view, the incarnation was an illusion, since matter is evil. The Cathars had two levels of perfection: for the perfecti, eating of flesh (or eggs) was forbidden, as was sexual intercourse. For the credentes, sexual immorality was permitted (or so their Catholic opponents claimed).
1213 Constantine Stilbes, metropolitan of Cyzicus in exile, wrote a tract against the Latin church. He was especially critical of the Western church’s love of war, citing the widespread belief among the crusaders that those who died in combat would be accounted as martyrs, the fact that a bishop carrying a cross had led the attack on Constantinople, and incidents where knights on war horses had ridden into churches and slaughtered the Orthodox who sought shelter there. Stilbes is also the first Byzantine on record to take notice of and denounce the granting of indulgences. He also characterized the Latins as untrustworthy, since the pope claimed the power to release them from oaths they might swear in the future.
1214 The Nicaean emperor Theodore Lascaris sent Nicholas Mesarites to Constantinople. Cardinal Pelagius, the papal legate since 1213, was persecuting the monasteries there, and the monks had appealed to the emperor for help. Pelagius told Mesarites that his persecution would have been more severe, but he had been lenient in the hope that Lascaris would submit to Rome.
1215 King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta.
1215 The Fourth Lateran Council was held in Rome, under Innocent III. Transubstantiation was defined and the later doctrine of Unum Sanctum was foreshadowed.
1216 St. Dominic secured Pope Honorius III’s (1216-27) approval for a new religious order. By 1221 Dominicans had entered England.
1217 The ruler of Serbia received his crown from Rome, indicating some Latin influence over the historically Orthodox country.
1217 Demetrius Chomatianus patriarch in Ochrida (1217-34).
1218 John (Ivan) Asen II overthrew Boril and became tsar of Bulgaria (1218-41). John countered the policy enacted at Tirnovo in 1211 and tolerated heretics.
1218 The Fifth Crusade. The crusaders took Damietta on the Nile delta. The sultan of Egypt offered the crusaders Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta, but his offer was refused. In the end, the crusaders were forced to surrender the city.
1219 St. Sava (d. 1235) consecrated Archbishop of Serbia by Manuel I Sarantenos (1215-22), giving the Serbian church a measure of independence.
1219 Franciscans went as missionaries to Morocco in this year and again in 1227. They died as martyrs.
1219 King Valdemar II of Denmark and Archbishop Andrew of Lund led a crusade into Estonia. They founded a town, Tallinn, with a bishopric, then imported German settlers and Dominican friars.
1220 An Englishman named Thomas became bishop of Turku (see 1209). From there he actively evangelized the Finns.
1220 By this year Franciscans had entered Constantinople. They were soon followed by Dominicans.
1220 The Nicaean patriarch, Manuel I Sarantenos (1215-22), intended to hold a council at Easter to plan for possible discussions with the Latins on reunion of the churches. John Apokaukos, metropolitan of Naupaktos in Epiros, thought that such a step would be taken as a sign of weakness and would tempt the Latins to “close our churches, where they rule, and to commit a thousand and one mischiefs against the Christians subject to them.” Concessions, he implied, could lead to schism within the Orthodox Church.
1220 On November 22, Pope Honorius III (1216-27) crowned Frederick II Hohenstaufen, king of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor (1220-50). Frederick was a grandson of Frederick Barbarosa. Honorius acceded to Frederick’s wish to unite Sicily with the empire.
1220+ As activity in the Holy Land dwindled, the Teutonic Knights (see 1190) became increasingly involved in Hungary and the Baltic region. They subdued the region between the Vistula and Niemen Rivers (western Poland, southern Lithuania). Bishoprics were established along the Vistula at Chelmno (Kulm) in 1232 and Marienwerder in 1243; and farther east at Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) in 1255.
1221 Acontius, chaplain to pope Honorius III, reported from Bosnia that the Patarene heretics were still thriving.
1222 John Apokaukos, metropolitan of Naupaktos in Epiros, responded to criticism he had received from the patriarch of Constantinople in exile. Apokaukos had been involved in the ordination of bishops in Epiros who had been promoted without the patriarch’s permission (see 1213). While acknowledging the patriarch’s authority, Apokaukos argued that the church in Epiros should be autonomous, and that the patriarch should welcome Theodore Angelus’s efforts to preserve the Orthodox Church in the West.
1222 St. Germanicus the New (1222-1240), Ecumenical Patriarch (in exile, in Nicaea), reportedly wrote the Synodicon of the Holy Spirit. This synodicon was patterned on the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see 843 above) and traditionally was read on the Second Day of Pentecost, the Monday of the Holy Spirit
A condemnation of the teachings of the Uniate patriarch John Becchus (1275-82) [Becus, Beccus] was later appended. The condemnation addresses Beccus’ arguments in favor of the filioque.
1222 An English deacon was burned at the stake for apostatizing to Judaism.
1223 When Neophytos, the Greek archbishop of Cyprus, fled into exile and the Latins appointed an alternate patriarch, the Greeks on the island sent a bishop to Nicaea to seek advice. Should they submit to the Latins, or resist? After hearing from the Greeks of Constantinople, who had stood firm in the Orthodox faith under Latin persecution, patriarch Germanos II encouraged resistance. However, since the church in Cyprus was autocephalous, Neophytos was upset with Germanos’s interference.
1224 First Order Franciscans reached England.
1224 In the autumn, Theodore Angelus, ruler of Epiros (Epirus), captured Thessalonica from the Latins. Theodore now claimed to be emperor (in rivalry to the emperor John III Ducas Vetatzes (1222-54) in exile in Nicaea), and was coronated in Thessalonica by Demetrius Chomatianos, archbishop of Ohrid, in 1226/27. Germanos II was not pleased, since this act was a usurpation of patriarchal power.
1225 Ugolin, archbishop of Kolosz, agreed to fund a crusade against the Patarenes of Bosnia if he were permitted to add the territory to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The pope agreed, and Ugolin hired John Angelus, son of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Isaac Angelus and nephew to King Andrew of Hungaria, to lead the crusade. But John disappeared with the advance payment of 200 silver marks, and no crusade occurred.
1225 The bishops of Epiros warned patriarch Germanos II that if he failed to respect the autonomy of the church in Epiros, Theodore Angelus might reconcile with Rome.
1225 Cathars burned Catholic churches in Brescia, Lombardy.
1225 Antony of Padua converted the Cathar arch-heretic Bonivillus in Rimini. Bonivillus had been active in the Cathar cause for 30 years.
1226 The German emperor Frederick II (1220-50) gave Hermann von Salza’s Teutonic Knights territorial rights over Prussia.
1226 Albigensian Crusade — King Louis VIII (1223-26) of France led an army of crusaders into the south of France to crush the southern nobles. He captured Avignon. The southern nobles submitted, signed the treaty of Meaux (April, 1227), and agreed to persecute the Cathars. The Inquisition was established in Toulouse, Narbonne, and Albi, and many heretics were burned.
1227 The Sword Brothers (see 1202) conquered Osel Island at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga. The natives were baptized. See 1260.
1227 Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) excommunicated the German emperor Frederick II (1220-50) for failing to fulfill his vow to go on crusade. This was a political move, to prevent Frederick from subduing opposition in Lombardy. As Frederick was also king of Sicily, consolidation of his power in northern Italy also would have endangered the papacy’s political independence.
1228 Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) canonized Francis of Assisi, who had been dead less than 2 years.
1229 Without actually engaging in combat, Frederick II succeeded in returning Jerusalem to Christian control. The Ayoubite sultan of Egypt, Al-Kamil, gave Frederick Jerusalem and a land corridor to Jaffa in exchange for peace. This allowed Al-Kamil to concentrate on the threat from An-Nasr, the sultan of Damascus, his nephew. Ten years later, Jerusalem again fell to the Saracens.
1229 Abu Sa’id, who had been governor of Valencia, converted to Christianity. Abu took the Christian name of Vincent. He financed the re-establishment of the see of Seville.
1229 In an address to the church in Cyprus, the patriarch of Constantinople in exile, Germanos II, urged continuing resistance, counseling lay people to separate from clergy who had submitted to Rome. He criticized the pope for setting himself above the other four patriarch, and for demeaning the ecumenical councils for adding the filioque to the creed. The monasteries on Cyprus were the center of resistance to the Western conquerors.
1229 A council meeting in Valencia, Spain decreed, “We prohibit also permitting the laity to have books of the Old and New Testament, unless anyone should wish, from a feeling of devotion, to have a psalter or breviary for divine service, or the hours of the blessed Mary. But we strictly forbid them to have the above-mentioned books in the vulgar tongue.”
1229: Council of Toulouse strictly forbids and prohibits lay people from owning a Bible.
1230 Theodore Angelus, emperor of Epiros, was defeated and captured by John Asen, tsar of Bulgaria.
1230 The Spanish Dominican Ramon de Penafort produced a collection of canon law. His work was sponsored by Pope Gregory IX (1227-41).
1231 The Latin authorities on Cyprus martyred 13 monks of the Kantariotissa monastery. The controversy that led to their deaths involved the question of azymes and was initiated by a Dominican. Germanos II thought that Neophytos, the archbishop of Cyprus who had determined to make peace with the Latins, was complicit in their deaths.
1231 Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) incorporated into canon law imperial legislation requiring that heretics be burned by the secular power.
1231 Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) instituted the Papal Inquisition for the apprehension and trial of heretics. The Cathari and Waldenses were in view. The pope put the friars, especially the Dominicans, in charge of the Inquisition. They were referred to as Domini canes, “hounds of the Lord [pope].”
1231/32 The first direct contact between the patriarch in exile in Nicaea and the Franciscans. A party of five friars had fallen into troubles as they crossed Anatolia and had come under the protection of the emperor John Vatatzes. Initially, patriarch Germanos was favorably impressed: these Latins were humble and anything but warlike.
1232 The Patarenes of Bosnia deposed Stephan, son of Kulin, who was a Catholic, in favor of Matthew Ninoslav. Ninoslav restored Patarenism as the state religion.
1232 The Lord of Perelle gave the Cathars of southern France Montsegur as a stronghold.
1232 The bishops of Epiros submitted to the authority of the patriarch Germanos II, thus assuring unity with the Orthodox in Nicaea. In 1238, the patriarch sent the metropolitan of Ancyra to Epiros to consecrate the bishops who had been ordained without patriarchal approval.
1233 A large number of Cathars burned at the stake in Pisa.
1233 Frederick II of Germany (reigned 1220-50) tranferred 20,000 Muslim inhabitants of Sicily to Italy in the wake of a Muslim revolt on the island.
1234 Two Franciscans and two Dominicans traveled from Rome to Nicaea to debate the Orthodox on the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. They quoted St. Cyril of Alexandria as condemning those who denied that the Spirit through which Christ performed his miracles was his own Spirit, and seemed convinced that the quotation was relevant. The Orthodox viewpoint was defended by Nicephorus Blemmydes. Futile discussions on the question of azymes followed in March at Nymphaion near Smyrna. As the fruitless discussions broke up, the papal envoys are said to have told the emperor, “Know this, that the Lord Pope and the Roman church will not abandon a single iota of their faith.”
1234 Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) published the Liber extra, the first complete collection of papal decretals authorized by the papacy.
1235 George Bardanes, metropolitan of Corfu, traveled to Italy on a diplomatic expedition. In his notes on a debate held with a Franciscan, Bardanes makes the first reference among Byzantine theologians to the Latin doctrine of purgatory. He found the notion very strange and somewhat disturbing, since it is similar to Origen’s notion that hell is finite in duration and purgative in nature.
1235 Cathars murdered the Catholic bishop of Mantua, Lombardy.
1236 The Sword Brothers (see 1202) were extinguished as a separate military order after their decisive defeat by the Lithuanians. Their remnants were absorbed by the Teutonic Knights (see 1190).
1237 Mongols devastated Kievan Russia. Kiev itself was sacked.
1239 Jerusalem again taken by the Saracens. (See 1229.)
1240 Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod (died 1267), defeated the Swedes in battle. Faced with Western aggressors on one front and the Tartars (Mongols) on another, Nevsky decided to pay tribute to the Tartars. He did this because thelatter did not interfere with the Orthodox Church, while the Westerners, particularly the Teutonic Knights, like the crusaders in Constantinople, were determined to destroy Orthodoxy. Nevsky is reported to have replied to messengers from the pope with the words: “Our doctrines are those preached by the Apostles … The tradition of the Holy Fathers of the seven ecumenical councils we scrupulously keep. As for your words, we do not listen to them and we do not want your doctrine.”
1240 Robert Grosseteste translated the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin and produced a commentary on them.
1240 Pope Gregory IX required the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury to provide for 300 Romans. No English clergyman could be given a parish until the Roman clergy were seen to. This practice was common in France as well. Absentee Italians profited from the benefices so gained, paying local priests to fulfill their duties. This arrangement was deeply resented by the native clergy.
1240 A large number of Cathars burned at the stake in Milan.
1240: French Cardinal Hugh of Saint Cher publishes the first Latin Bible with the chapter divisions that still exist today.
1241 The Mongols under Batu invaded Europe, penetrating as far as Silesia and Hungary. Russia and Poland were devastated. The Germans and Bohemians checked the Mongols at the battles of Leignitz and Olmutz respectively. Upon hearing of the death of Ogdai, the Great Khan, Batu withdrew, keeping southern Russia in subjugation.
1241/42 Frederick II of Germany (1220-50) and John III Ducas Vatatzes, the emperor of Nicaea (1122-54), formed an alliance against the papacy and sealed it when John married Frederick’s bastard daughter, Costanza Lancia.
1242 Cathars from Montsegur (France, see 1232) and Avignonet slaughtered a troop of Inquisitors who were on their way to the latter town.
1242 Nevsky defeated the Teutonic Knights.
1242 A Russian, Cyril (1242-81), was appointed metropolitan of Russia. It is possible that the fourteenth century practice of alternating Russians and Greeks as metropolitan began with Cyril’s appointment.
1243/44 The Inquisition in southern France burned a large number of Cathar heretics, including several noblemen and women. Many Cathari fled to the Pyrenees, Lombardy, or Bosnia. The leaders concentrated at Montsegur. In March 1244 Montsegur fell, and thereafter about 200 of the Cathari leaders, known as “Perfects,” perished in the inquisitorial flames without trial.
1244 A Mongol raiding party descended on Jerusalem and massacred Moslems and Christians alike. They also destroyed a force of crusaders in Gaza the following year.
1245 At a council in Lyons, Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) deposed the German emperor, Frederick II (1220-50). The council accused Frederick of perjury, breaking the peace, sacrilege, heresy, and murder. The council also dealt with clerical sin, the loss of Jerusalem in 1244, the Mongol invasion of Europe, and the woes of the Latin kingdom of Constantinople. English noblemen complained to the council about the practice of appointing French and Italian clergy to English benefices. (Seldom did the foreign clergy actually come to England. Rather, the foreign clergyman made income from the benefice, which he had purchased or another had purchased for him from the pope. Rather than pay their salaries, kings often sought benefices for their civil servants, who were most often clergymen.)
1246 Robert of Torote, bishop of Liege, ordered that a feast of Corpus Christi be celebrated. After a former archdeacon at Liege, Jacques Pantaleon, became Pope Urban IV (1261-64), it was celebrated throughout the West (1264).
1248 Louis IX of France launched a crusade. He attacked Egypt in the spring of 1249 and took Damietta that summer. His forces marched up the Nile, were cut off, and Louis himself was captured. His wife, Queen Margaret, rallied the defenses at Damietta, then ransomed Louis.
Louis sent an envoy, William of Rubroek, to a debate hosted by the Mongols at Karakorum. Nestorians, Buddhists, and Moslems were also represented. Louis remained in the East until 1254.
1248 Ferdinand III forced all Muslim inhabitants of Seville out of that city after his forces captured it.
1249 Toward the end of the year, a council met at Nymphaion to discuss possible reunion of the churches of East and West. The Nicaean emperor John Vatatzes offered to agree to acknowledge papal plenitudo potestatis in exchange for an agreement from the pope to cease supporting the Latins in Constantinople. Nicephorus Blemmydes contested the Latin view of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, a delegation traveled to Rome to continue the discussion. Innocent IV appeared willing to reconcile, even to recognize Manuel II (1243-54) as rightful patriarch of Constantinople, but he died before any real progress was made.
1250 When Ninoslav died in this year, the Bosnian church was still Patarene. Pope Innocent IV described it as “totally fallen into heresy.”
1250 Thomas Aquinas (1225-72), author of the Summa Theologica, flourished. In contrast to Aquinas’s integration of Aristotle within his theological system, Aquinas’s contemporary, Bonaventure (1221-74), reasserted the Platonic-Augustinian system against the Aristotelian. That is, in Bonaventure, universals are real, and it is they which individuate matter, and not the matter itself. Bonaventure placed will (and love) above intellect. Both notions are antithetical to Thomism. Bonaventure was a Franciscan, while Thomas was a Dominican.
1250 The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1220-50) died on 13 December. When he heard the news, Pope Innocent IV wrote to the Sicilians, “Let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be filled with gladness. For the fall of the tyrant has changed the thunderbolts and tempests that God Almighty held over your heads into gentle zephyrs and fecund dews.” See 1241/42. From Frederick II’s death until the election of Henry VII in 1311, there were no German emperors.
1250 In this year, the legend of Pope Joan appeared in interpolations in the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum (“The Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors”), written by Martin of Troppau, a Dominican. In its mature form, the legend held that Joan was pope from 855 to 858, when she died in childbirth. The legend of Pope Joan was widely believed in the later Middle Ages; the Council of Constance (1415) took it for granted. In 1647, David Blondel, a Calvinist, proved that there had never been a Pope Joan.
1251 Grand Duke Mindaugas (1219-63) of Lithuania accepted Christianity from Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) in this year. It was a strategic move to divide his enemies – the Teutonic Knights and the Russians of Galacia-Volynia. Mindaugas went so far as to build a cathedral in Vilnius. But he apostatized in 1261, razed the cathedral, and replaced it with a pagan temple.
1252 Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) authorized the use of torture to obtain confessions and the names of other heretics.
1253 Gerald of Borgo published his Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel. His analysis of the contemporary situation showed that the signs Joachim of Flore (see 1177) had predicted were then present, indicating that the new age would begin in 1260.
1254 Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) sought to deprive the German emperor Conrad of control over the Kingdom of Sicily. Conrad called the pope a heretic and a usurper, and the pope excommunicated the emperor. Conrad died in April, Innocent on 7 December. By 1255, Conrad’s half-brother Manfred was in control of southern Italy and Sicily. Conrad’s son, Conrad II (known as Conradin) was two at the time of his father’s death, and Manfred acted as his regent in southern Italy and Sicily. The papacy considered the king of Sicily a vassal, since the papacy had permitted the Normans to settle there in 1059.
1254 A few weeks before his death, Innocent IV (1243-54), bishop of Rome, sent a letter to Cardinal Eudes of Chateauroux, the legate to the Orthodox on Cyprus. In the letter, the pope asked the Orthodox to accept this definition of purgatory:
“Since the Truth asserts in the Gospel that, if anyone blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, this sin will not be forgiven either in this world or in the next: by which we are given to understand that certain faults are pardoned in the present time, and others in the other life; since the Apostle also declares that the work of each man, whatever it may be, shall be tried by fire and that if it burns the worker will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as by fire; since the Greeks themselves, it is said, believe and profess truly and without hesitation that the souls of those who die after receiving penance but without having had the time to complete it, or who die without mortal sin but guilty of venial (sins) or minor faults, are purged after death and may be helped by the suffrages of the Church; we, considering that the Greeks assert that they cannot find in the works of their doctors any certain and proper name to designate the place of this purgation, and that, moreover, according to the traditions and authority of the Holy Fathers, this name is purgatory, we wish that in the future this expression be also accepted by them. For, in this temporary fire, sins, not of course crimes or capital errors, which could not previously have been forgiven through penance, but slight or minor sins, are purged; if they have not been forgiven through existence, they weigh down the soul after death.”
1256 A papal envoy met with the Nicaean emperor Theodore II Lascaris (1254-58) and patriarch Arsenius Autoreianos (1254-60, 61-65) in Thessalonica. The papal envoy had very detailed instructions and could not compromise, so no progress was made. Before becoming emperor, Theodore Lascaris had been the leader of the anti-Latin party in the Nicaean court.
1258 The last Abbasid Caliph, al-Mustasim, died along with an estimated 500,000 of his subjects when the Mongols sacked Baghdad.
1258 On 18 December, Pope Alexander IV (1254-61) rescinded his grant of the Kingdom of Sicily to Prince Edmund of England (son of King Henry IV). The papacy had hoped to use England to unseat Manfred. As it turned out, the pope still gained 60,000 marks from the English from the broken deal.
1259 The Battle of Pelagonia (a plain between Thessalonica and Constantinople). Forces under Michael, despot of Epiros, Manfred of Sicily, and William of Achaea met a smaller force under John Paleologus (the Nicaean emperor Michael’s brother). The Epirotes fled in the night before the battle was joined, and the Nicaeans were victorious. The battle settled the contest for leadership between Epiros and Nicaea, two rival fragments of the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
1260 The advance of the Mongol empire toward Egypt was checked by the Mamelukes at the battle of Ain Gelat. Mameluke rule extended from Egypt through Syria.
1260 The Teutonic Knights suffered defeat in the battle of Durbe, where 150 knights were slain. The inhabitants of Osel apostatized (see 1227), then slaughtered the Christians in their territory.
1260 In a concordat dated to this year, the Metropolitan of Trebizond recognized the Patriarch of Constantinople as his superior. The concordat also excused the Metropolitan of Trebizond from attending patriarchal elections, mandatory for other metropolitans. Trebizond, along with Nicaea and Epiros, was a fragment of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, destroyed by the sack of Constantinople in 1204.
1261 The Romans (Byzantines) under Michael VIII Palaeologus conquered Constantinople, taking it back from the crusaders. Before the Latin conquest, patriarchs of Constantinople were invested in the Palace of Magnaura. But from this date, the ceremony occurred in the triclinium of the Palace of Blachernae.
1261 A certain John of Cocleria, posing as a resurrected emperor Frederick II, led a rebellion against Manfred in Sicily (see 1254).
1263 During the summer, Pope Urban IV (1261-64) concluded a treaty with Charles of Anjou. In exchange for rights to the Sicilian kingdon, then held by Manfred, Charles was to pay the pope 10,000 ounces of gold annually.
1263 Pope Urban IV (1261-64) sent Cardinal Guy Foulques as legate to England to assist King Henry III against his barons.
1265 During his tenure, Pope Clement IV (1265-68) reserved to himself the right to appoint to the benefices of any incumbents who died while in Rome.
1265 Arsenios Autoreianos, patriarch of Constantinople, deposed by the emperor Michael VIII and sent in exile to Prokonessos in Propontis. Arsenios had excommunicated Michael for having the legitimate heir, John IV Laskaris, blinded. Arsenios’s removal from office was the beginning of the Arsenite Schism, which did not end until 1310, sixteen years after his death.
1266 Alfonso X of Castile constructed a wall between the Christian and Muslim quarters of Murcia, a city in southeastern Spain.
1266 On 26 February, in a battle near Benevento, Charles of Anjou defeated Manfred. Manfred died. Sicily then fell to Charles, in accordance with papal wishes.
1266 Charles of Anjou gained control over Corfu (a base for attacks on the Albanian coast and, he hoped, Constantinople).
1268 The battle of Tagliacozzo. Conrad II (Conradin) had invaded Italy, in part to take Sicily from Charles of Anjou. Their forces battled on 23 August. Charles was victorious, and some time thereafter Conradin was captured. He was beheaded on 29 October.
1268 Charles of Anjou, with papal blessing, planned an expedition to capture Constantinople. This expedition was delayed in part due to the efforts of Pope Gregory X (1271-76) to reconcile with the Orthodox.
1270 The bishop of Paris condemned thirteen propositions found in or derived from the writings of Aristotle, among them: that God knows nothing of our world, and that the world itself is eternal. The condemnation was directed largely at philosophers in the University of Paris.
1270 The Tunisian crusade. King Louis of France died, but the expedition was victorious, largely due to assistance rendered by Charles of Anjou. Charles had opposed the crusade since it interfered with the assault on Constantinople he had planned for this year.
1271 The Roman populace tore the roof off the palace where a conclave was meeting to elect a new pope. The cardinals had been taking too long to make a decision. From this time, the cardinals’ food was decreased daily to hasten the papal election.
1274 In February, a minority of Eastern church officials signed a synodal letter to the pope agreeing to reunion. The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Michael VIII Paleologus (1259-82) had assured these leaders that they need agree to only three terms: papal primacy, appellate jurisdiction, and commemoration (in the liturgy). No other issues were in view.
1274 First attempt at reconciliation between East and West. The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, being hard-pressed militarily by Charles of Anjou, monarch of Sicily, needed the protection of the papacy. At the council of Lyons, the Orthodox representatives agreed to papal claims to supremacy and the addition of the filioque to the creed. The reunion was subsequently rejected by the overwhelming majority of Orthodox clergy and laity, and was repudiated by Michael’s successor. Of the agreement, Michael’s sister said, “Better my brother’s empire should perish than the purity of the Orthodox faith.”
The patriarch of Constantinople was invited to the council, but he did not attend. None of the other three Eastern patriarchs was represented. The senior Eastern church leader present was Theophanes, metropolitan of Nicea.
A letter on the subject of purgatory, written by Pope Clement IV (1265-68) in 1267, was incorporated, with slight changes, into the council’s decree Cum sacrosancta: “However, owing to various errors that have been introduced by the ignorance of some and the malice of others, (the Roman Church) states and proclaims that those who fall into sin after baptism must not be rebaptized, but that through a genuine penitence they obtain pardon for their sins. That if, truly penitent, they die in charity before having, by worthy fruits of penance, rendered satisfaction for what they have done by commission or omission, their souls, as brother John has explained to us, are purged after their death, by purgatorial or purificatory penalties, and that, for the alleviation of these penalties, they are served by the suffrages of the living faithful, to wit, the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, alms, and other works of piety that the faithful customarily offer on behalf of others of the faithful according to the institutions of the Church. The souls of those who, after receiving baptism, have contracted absolutely no taint of sin, as well as those who, after contracting the taint of sin, have been purified either while they remained in their bodies or after being stripped of their bodies are, as was stated above, immediately received into heaven.” This appears to have been the first dogmatic definition of purgatory by the Roman Catholic church.
At the council, Pope Gregory X (1271-76) called for a new crusade. However, Charles of Anjou and Philip III of France blocked it. Although Gregory invited the kings of France, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Bohemia, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Armenia, only James of Aragon attended.
The council also dealt with procedures for papal elections. Cardinals were to wait a maximum of ten days for absent colleagues to arrive before meeting in conclave (out of contact with the outside world). The cardinals would receive no pay until a new pope was elected.
Sixteen ambassadors from the Ilkhan of the Mongols of Persia attended the council of Lyons in hope of arranging an alliance against the Mameluks (see 1260). The Genoese, who had a monopoly on trade with the Mongols in the Black Sea region and northern Syria, supported the alliance. The Venetians (natural enemies of Genoa) were opposed, as were the Templars, who were profiting as bankers in the East and who favored an alliance with the Mameluks. Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, was allied with Venice and relied on the Templars, so he opposed the Mongol alliance also.
1274 The Emperor Michael Paleologus’s army captured the Berat fortress and Butrino, a port on the Albanian coast. The attack heightened Charles of Anjou’s desire to mount an expedition against Constantinople.
1275 The Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph was deposed. Joseph opposed the union with Rome. He wrote, “Why should the pope have authority over us? We do not take part in electing him and he should not interfere in our affairs” and “According to the Gospel we have only one master, and that is Christ.”
1275 The Emperor Michael Paleologus VIII appointed John Becchus (or Beccus), Ecumenical Patriarch 1275-82, to establish the union of the Council of Lyons. Becchus’s doctrines were anathematized in the Synodicon of the Holy Spirit (see 1222 above). Joseph’s followers (see 1275 above) considered the appointment of John Becchus as his successor irregular. Like the Arsenites, they opposed Michael VIII’s attempts to restore union with the papacy.
1275 A one-year truce between the Emperor Michael Paleologus and Charles of Anjou began. Pope Gregory X urged this arrangement, since the schism had ended (apparently).
1277 Pope John XXI (Sep 1276 – May 1277) ordered Etienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, to investigate the tension between philosophy and theology in the University of Paris. Tempier ended by condemning 219 propositions, including the 13 that had already been condemned in 1270. Other condemned propositions include: species (such as humans) had no beginning, but are eternal; nothing happens by chance; God cannot produce anything new; and God cannot make an accident exist without a subject (important for its implications for transubstantiation).
1277 Pope John XXI died after the new ceiling in his palace at Viterbo collapsed. It was common in this era for the popes to reside in Viterbo, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north-northwest of Rome.
1277 In response to the Union of Lyons, Duke John of Neopatras convened a synod fo the clergy of Greece. The synod excommunicated the pope, the patriarch, and the emperor.
1279 The Tartar Khan Mangu-Temir granted the Orthodox Church exemption from taxes and declared Church lands off limits to Tartars.
1279 Pope Nicholas III (1277-80) sent a delegation to Constantinople to demand that the Eastern Church include the filioque in the creed. The emperor Michael VIII and patriarch John Becchus were unable to force the majority of prelates to comply. Michael attempted to suppress opposition to the Union of Lyons by imprisoning or exiling the most prominent opponents, including members of the imperial family.
1279 Nicephoros, despot of Epiros, repudiated the Union of Lyons. Aided by widespread opposition to the Union, he wrested Butrinto from Emperor Michael.
1280 First reference to the spinning wheel in Europe, at Speyer on the Rhine.
A provincial council meeting in Cologne set the minimum age for confirmation to seven. In contrast, before this century, the church in the West had been concerned with setting the greatest allowable separation in time between baptism and confirmation.
1281 On 22 February, Simon of Brie, a Frank, was elected Pope Martin IV. Martin, a strong proponent of Frankish imperialism, broke off negotiations with Emperor Michael Paleologus over church union.
1281 On 3 July, Charles of Anjou, the titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople, and the Venetians agreed to a treaty “for the restoration of the Roman Empire usurped by Paleologus.” They planned to set out in April 1282. Martin IV issued a bull for the Emperor Michael Paleologus, demanding that hand the empire over to him by 1 May 1282, or he would be deposed by force.
1282 Sanctioned by Pope Martin IV (1281-85), Charles of Anjou assembled a force at Messina with the goal, “the restoration of the Roman empire usurped by Paleologus.” In essence, this was a crusade intended for the capture of Constantinople, claimed by Charles of Anjou as part of his inheritance. The Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Michael Paleologus maneuvered to upset Charles’s expedition by fomenting civil unrest in Sicily.
The Sicilian Vespers: the Sicilians rebelled against Charles, massacred a number of Frenchmen during Easter of this year, and offered the throne of Sicily to King Peter of Aragon. The Vespers thus upset Charles of Anjou’s plan to restore the Latin Empire of Constantinople.
1282 On 30 Aug, King Peter of Aragon and his army landed in Sicily, turning the Sicilian rebellion into a war between Peter and Charles of Anjou.
1282 On 12 November, Pope Martin IV (1281-85) excommunicated the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Michael VIII.
1283 Pope Martin IV (1281-85) blessed a crusade against Peter of Aragon, whom he blamed for siding with the Sicilians against Charles of Anjou.
1283 Gregory of Cyprus (1283-89), a professor, became patriarch of Constantinople. He disagreed with the union of the council of Lyons, though he was sympathetic to the idea of reunion. Gregory presided over the council of Blakhernae, where the Roman (Byzantine) “latinophrones” were condemned. Theologically, he spoke of the “eternal manifestation” of the Spirit by the Son.
1285 A Tome published by the Council of 1285 clarified the Orthodox doctrine of the procession of the Spirit in this way: “It is recognized that the very Paraklete shines and manifests Itself eternally by the intermediary of the Son, as light shines from the sun by the intermediary of rays …; but that does not mean that It comes into being through the Son or from the Son.” In an officially sanctioned commentary on the Tome, a monk named Mark gave a more general meaning to the term ekporeusis, which was used specifically to designate the mode of origin of the Spirit. It was felt that the terminological change would cause confusion in the doctrine of the Trinity. Since the commentary was written under the patriarch Gregory of Cyprus’s authority, he was criticized by other orthodox bishops. John Chilas of Ephesus, Daniel of Cyzicus and Theoleptus of Philadelphia ceased mentioning his name during the liturgy. Gregory subsequently distanced himself from Mark.
1285 On 7 January, Charles of Anjou died.
1286 Death of William of Moerbeke, a friend of Thomas Aquinas and a Flemish Dominican. Moerbeke translated most of the works of Aristotle and Archimedes directly from Greek into Latin.
1288 Nicholas IV (1288-92) became the first Franciscan to be elected pope.
1289 Athanasius I (1289-93, 1303-9) became patriarch of Constantinople. He was a moral reformer who intervened in secular politics in favor of Christian principles. Athanasius worked for increased discipline in the monasteries, and chastised bishops who drew large incomes from churches. Athanasius used funds confiscated from monasteries to feed the poor in the city during a famine. It is also thought that Athanasius approved of the sequestering of church property for the benefit of the state.
1290 The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle composed, a story of the war against the pagans in Latvia and Estonia.
1290 King Edward I forced the Jews out of England.
1290 An outbreak of plague in Kiev killed roughly 7000 people.
1291 On 18 May, the Crusaders lost control of Acre, their last foothold in Palestine.
1292 To improve discipline, the Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Andronicus II (1282-1328) placed Mount Athos (see 963) under the direction of the patriach Athanasius I. Prior to this time, the mountain had been under imperial control.
1293 In Egypt, a Copt on horseback was seen leading a Muslim debtor bound with a rope. A Muslim mob murdered the Copt, then proceeded to massacre Copts and loot their homes.
1293 The synod of Constantinople deposed the patriarch Athanasius I because of his severity. Athenasios was re-elected about 11 years later.
1294 Peter Murrone, an ancient and illiterate hermit, was elected Pope Celestine V. He abdicated after six months. His successor, Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303), sought him out, then kept him in prison until he died at age 90. Boniface’s family had long been in conflict with the Colonna family. As pope, Boniface offered the spiritual benefits typically offered to crusaders to anyone who joined in his struggle against the Colonna.
1294 The cost of the war between England and France caused the kings of both countries to tax the church. This action led eventually to the issuance of Unum Sanctum (see 1302).
1295 The Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Andronicus II abolished the kanonikon (kanonikon), a tax new priests paid their bishops at ordination. Though illegal, the tax was still commonly paid.
1296 Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) issued the bull Clericos Laicos, forbidding clergy from paying taxes to secular authorities. He later modified this position in his Ineffabilis Amor, which permitted clergy to pay taxes in a national emergency. His Etsi de Statu (1297) clarified that the king himself could decide when the situation constituted an emergency.
1299 Death of the Lithuanian prince Daumantas. He had become ruler of Pskov in Russia, converted to Orthodoxy, and became known as Saint Timofey.
1299 Andronicus II’s Ekthesis from this year lists 112 metropolitanates, most of which had less than two suffragans.
1300 Dante Aligheri (1265-1321), author of the Divine Comedy, flourished.
The Oxford Franciscan Duns Scotus (1266-1308) developed a nominalist philosophy, designed to insure that revelation was safeguarded as the sole source of knowledge of the divine being. His design was to protect the majesty of God and freedom of the will from Thomistic determinism.
1300 Approximately two million pilgrims came to Rome during this Jubilee year. Two priests stood before the altar in St. Peters, literally raking in the money.
Fourteenth Century
1300: Midland Psalter gives metrical version of the Psalms in Middle English.
1301 Bishop Bernard Saisset of Pamiers (France) was arrested on suspicion of treason and heresy (pro-Cathar leanings). Fearing a trial before the Inquisition, Bernard appealed to the pope. Boniface demanded Bernard be tried in a church court. The claim that a pope had the right to hear a case involving treason against a secular ruler demaned justification – hence the bull Unum Sanctum issued in December of the following year.
1301 The Muslim governor of Egypt ordered all churches to be closed.
1302 Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) issued the bull Unum Sanctum, which elaborated on the Pope’s powers relative to those of the state and defined that salvation is not possible for anyone not under the power of the Roman pontiff:
1303 The emperor Andronicus II (1282-1328) hired a group of mercenaries, known as the Catalan Company, to fight the Turks. The Catalans fought one successful battle against the Turks, then established themselves in the Gallipoli Peninsula and raided Thrace repeatedly. Worse, the Catalans invited the Turks into Europe to assist them.
1305 The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (1304-76). Clement V (1305-14), a Frenchman, was elected pope, and remained in France. This was the beginning of the Avignon papacy.
1306 Robert I Bruce became king of the Scots and led a Scottish revolt against England.
1307 King Philip IV of France had all Templars in France arrested and their property seized. The Templars were accused of vice and sacrilege.
1308 The Turks first crossed into Europe.
1308 Peter, Metropolitan of Russia (1308-26) decided to settle in the small town of Moscow.
1309 Pope Clement V (1305-14) settled in Avignon.
1309 Heavy rains in Europe led to widespread famine. Poor harvests and epidemics among the livestock were common through 1325.
1309 The Teutonic Knights (see 1220+) settled its headquarters at Marienburg (Malbork), Prussia. With the crusades in the Holy Land ended, they set their sights on military subjugation of the eastern Baltic coast.
1309 The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitallers) built a fortress on Rhodes after this year. Their fleet worked to keep the southern Mediterranean safe from the Turks. The Turks conquered the island in 1522.
1309: Pope Clement V moves the headquarters of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon under domination of the French King.
1311 The Catalans (see 1303) siezed Athens from the Franks, then set up the Catalan Duchy of Athens and Thebes.
1311/12 Council of Vienne. One hundred and twenty bishops attended this council intended to try Pope Boniface VIII posthumously and to suppress the Knights Templar. (No trial of the late pope was held.) Pope Clement V (1305-14) canonized Pope Celestine V, whom Boniface had imprisoned. Representatives to the council from Aragon stated that 30,000 Christians were enslaved in Granada.
1312 The Order of the Knights Templar was suppressed in France. At a council held in Vienne, Clement V (1305-14) dissolved the mercenary order. The Templars’ goods outside France were transferred to the Orders of the Hospital.
Clement also absolved Philip, king of France, of all blame in the matter of the attempted kidnapping of Boniface (see 1302) and the seizure of the Templars’ property (1307).
1312 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Andronicus II issued a bull designed to enforce tighter discipline at Mount Athos (see 963).
1314 Scotland won independence at Bannockburn.
1314? Birth of St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314-92). Perhaps the greatest national saint of Russia, Sergius was the major motivating force between the building of monasteries in the eastern wastelands, thus spreading Russian civilization into the wilderness. Sergius emphasized a life of prayer and humility. One visitor to the monastery, upon seeing Sergius at work in the garden, said, “I came to see a prophet, and you show me a beggar.”
1315-17 Famine in the Low Countries resulted in an estimated 10 to 15% mortality rate in the cities.
1317 In his bull Gloria Ecclesiam Pope John XXII (1316-34) condemned as heretics those who insisted on following the original rule of St. Francis of Assisi.
1320: Richard Rolle’s Middle English Psalter.
1321 Muslim authorities in Egypt had 60 churches destroyed, along with many monasteries.
1323 The grand duke of Lithuania, Gediminas (1315-41), appealed for skilled immigrants from Germany. He sent an open letter to Lubeck, Bremen, and Magdeburg, making it plain that immigrants could retain their Christian religion. He also sponsored an Orthodox metropolitanate under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch for the benefit of his Orthodox subjects. At this time, and until 1385, Lithuania was officially pagan. Gediminas considered adopting Roman Catholicism, but he was advised against it by a certain Dominican friar named Nicholas, who insisted that the faith not be accepted from the relatively uninfluential bishop of Riga.
History 9
1324 William of Occam (d. 1350), an English Franciscan friar, defended his philosophy at the bishop of Rome’s court in Avignon. Occam held that logic does not deal with being as such. In his view, propositions are purely forms of thought divested of ontological content, of any connection with ultimate reality. Ultimate truth cannot therefore be grasped intellectually.
William opposed Pope John XXII’s condemnation of the Franciscan teaching on poverty (1317). William argued that the case of Pope Joan proved that one could appear to be pope but be no pope at all. Other Franciscan theologian argued that earlier popes had taught that Christ was a pauper. Therefore, since John XXII contradicted these earlier popes, he was not pope at all.
1325 Andronicus III Paleologus became Roman (Byzantine) co-emperor (1325-41), reigning alongside his grandfather, Andronicus II. In 1328, he forced his grandfather to abdicate. Andronicus III attempted to improve the justice system in rural areas through the use of itinerant judges. He placed the local bishop in charge of the tribunal the roaming judge periodically visited.
1325: English hermit and poet, Richard Rolle de Hampole, and English poet William Shoreham translate the Psalms into metrical verse.
1327-39 The Coptic Pope Benjamin II held office. During this period, Copts in Egypt were protected from persecution through the Ethiopian emperor’s threat to use force on their behalf.
1328 The Provincial Synod of Canterbury ordered the observance of the Feast of the Conception (of Mary). It did so because her conception was a significant event leading up to the Incarnation, not because of a belief in her Immaculate Conception.
1328 Lewis of Bavaria had himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by a layman, a member of the powerful Colonna family. In the same year, Pietro Rainalducci, a Franciscan of the camp that renounced all property (the “Spirituals”) was elected Pope Nicholas V (1328-30), even though John XXII was still alive in Avignon.
1330: Birth of John Wyclif. Rabbi Solomon ben Ismael first places chapter divisions in the margins of the Hebrew Bible.
1333 St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), Metropolitan of Thessalonika, defended the Orthodox doctrine of hesychast prayer and the use of the Jesus Prayer. One of his controversies was with Barlaam the Calabrian (see 1341 and 1351 below). Gregory is commemorated on the Second Sunday of Great Lent.
1334 Benedict XII (1334-42) became pope. He was very frugal and cut church expenses by 75%. He also drank heavily. The expression, ‘Let us drink like a pope’ came into popularity during his tenure.
1339 The Hundred Years War between England and France began. The English gained victories at Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) (where the king of France, John, was taken prisoner) though use of the longbow.
1339 Bubonic plague struck a Nestorian settlement near Lake Issyk Kul, in central Asia’s Ten Shan region.
1340 Two Bohemian Franciscans executed in Lithuania for proselytizing.
1340 The Hagioritic Tome published.
1340 Stephen Kotromanich, Ban of Bosnia, converted to Catholicism. Although Pope John XXII encouraged him to persecute the Patarenes. Stephen, however, not wishing to alienate the powerful Patarenes, merely allowed Franciscans into the country to preach.
1340: Birth of Chaucer1353
1341 A synod met in St. Sophia in Constantinople and condemned the sacramental theology of Barlaam the Calabrian. Barlaam was a Western convert to Orthodoxy who taught Western notions. Some of his condemned doctines are listed below (1351).
1342 Clement VI (1342-52) became pope. He restored the largesse Benedict XII had restrained, passing favors through his lover, the Countess of Turenne. Clement was a patron to the poet Petrarch, who referred to him as an ‘ecclesiastical Dionysius … soiled with incestuous embraces.’ Petrarch referred to Avignon as ‘the Babylon of the West.’
1342 Louis the Great became king of Hungary (1342-82). Occupied with wars against Naples and Venice, Louis also found time to attempt to gain hegemony over the Slavic nations of the East. However, his militant Catholicism alienated these Orthodox peoples. Louis, in his turn, gave them little assistant against the advancing Turks.
1344 Pope Clement VI issued the bull Unigenitus, which described the economy of indulgences. In brief, the Church could allocate merit from the treasury of merit accumulated by Christ and the saints to shorten the time spent doing penance in purgatory.
1344 Prague became an archbishopric.
1345 The bubonic plague spread to Crimea.
1345 During his reign, Grand Duke Algirdas (1345-77) of Lithuania approached the pope three times and the Ecumenical Patriarch twice over the possibility of accepting a form of the Christian faith.
1346 The bubonic plague reached the region of the Caucasus mountains.
1346 An independent patriarchate was established in Serbia.
1346 The Teutonic Knights bought out Denmark’s claims to Estonia. The Knights concentrated their aggression on Lithuania, the only independent pagan state in Europe, because it separated their Prussian territory from their lands in Livonia and Estonia.
1346 Casimir the Great’s (1333-70) Statute of Wislica provided for freedom of religion and protection for the Jews in Poland. During the Black Death, many Jews immigrated to Poland from Germany.
1346-1353: “Black Death”, bubonic plague – as many as 50 million people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe’s 14th century population.
1347 John Catacuzensus became Roman (Byzantine) emperor.
1347 The bubonic plague reached Constantinople, Cyprus, Sicily, Venice, Florence, and Alexandria. By December, it had spread into Italy and France.
1348 The year of the Black Death. The plague reached Paris in the spring, and London in September. An estimated 35 to 40% of the people of the Mediterranean basin perished from the plague by 1350. Some historians believe the plague was even more severe in Central Asia – from about this time the flow of migration, which had formerly been from Central Asia westward into Europe, reversed. The argument is also made that the plague sufficiently depopulated the Ottoman Empire to prevent the Turks from colonizing the Balkans, thus leaving Europe comparatively free of Muslims.
1348 After being tortured on the rack in Neustadt, Germany, Balovignus, a Jewish physician, confessed to having poisoned wells. Pogroms against the Jews in Europe followed. The kings of Castille and Aragon, and the pope in Avignon, tooks steps to protect the Jews, who were blamed for the outbreak of plague.
1348 The Jews of Zurich expelled from Zurich.
1348: English replaces Latin as the medium of instruction in schools (except at Oxford and Cambridge).
1349 The town council of Strasburg burned 2000 Jews (accused of causing the plague). Jews were also massacred in Frankfurt-am-Main, Cologne, and Mainz. Following these atrocities, many Jews emigrated eastward (see Casimir, 1346).
1349 In a bull issued on October 20, Pope Clement VI condemned flagellism. The flagellants organized processions in which they scourged themselves with leather whips to which small iron spikes were affixed. The flagellants were most numerous in Germany, where they blamed Jews for the plague and persecuted them.
1349 In November, John of Rupecissa finished his Liber secretum eventum, which predicted Christ would return to defeat the Antichrist in 1370, inaugurating the millennium. He set Judgment Day in the year 2370.
1350/51 The bubonic plague finally reached Russia, having been spread there from western Europe.
1350 A Bulgarian council meeting at Tirnovo condemned two former monks of Mount Athos, Cyril the Barefooted and Lazarus, on charges of heresy. Bogomil doctrines had spread to Mount Athos by way of a certain Irene, who ran a hostel in Thessalonica where monks would sometimes stay. The two monks had been banished from Athos and moved to Tirnovo. Lazarus urged nudism and universal male castration. Cyril taught that married couples should live apart. A third preacher, Theodosius, also promoted nudism, but he also encouraged men to sin that grace may abound. His movement was noted for its sexual excess.
1351 In England, Parliament passed the Statute of Provisors. The Pope had been in the habit of appointing “provisors” to benefices (church offices that provided income without necessarily requiring work) in England. (Provisors were persons designated to come into a benefice when the the incumbent was still living.) The statute enacted that any person who accepted such a provision, thus disturbing the right of the patron (the person rightly empowered to grant the benefice), was to be imprisoned until he paid a fine and given assurances that he would not repeat the offence or appeal to a foreign court.
1351 Nicholas Cabasilas became bishop of Thessalonica. He is best known as the author of The Life in Christ, a work on the mysteries (sacraments).
1351 The following anathemas against Barlaam and Acindynus are included in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (see 842 above). Barlaam was condemned by the Council of St. Sophia in 1341, and Acindynus by the Council of Blachernae in 1351.
1353 The Statute of Praemunire enacted in England. This law required anyone who took a case to a foreign court to appear before the king’s justices to answer for the contempt this act showed to the king. Anyone who failed to do so would forfeit all lands and goods. Praemunire was intended to stop appeals to the Pope and his courts. (The name “praemunire” comes from the opening words of the statute, and means “to forewarn.”)
1353 Stephen Tvrtko I succeeded his uncle Stephen Kotromanich as Ban of Bosnia. He continued his uncle’s policy of tolerance for the Patarenes.
1355 A Bulgarian church council met in Tirnovo. It condemned the Bogomilstvo, as an earlier council had done in 1350.
1357 The Turks took Adrianople and established themselves on the Bulgarian frontier.
1358 Gregory of Rimini elected superior general of the Augustinians. Like Augustine, Rimini emphasized the inability of humans to please God without divine grace. Rimini also taught that children who died without baptism will be punished for ever. His teachings were influential in the late middle ages. Similar views were held among the Augustinian faculty at the University of Wittenburg early in the sixteenth century.
1360 Pope Innocent VI (1352-62) instructed the bishop of Bosnia to insist that the government suppress the Patarenes. In the same year, King Louis of Hungary forced Stephen Tvrtko I, Ban of Bosnia, to exile the Patarenes.
1360: Various gospel narratives translated into Middle English.
1361-62 Pestis Secunda (Pestis Puerorum). This plague outbreak killed an estimated 10 to 15% of Europe’s population. Victim were more commonly those born since 1348 and the landed aristocracy.
1362: English replaces French as the language of law in England. English used for the first time in Parliament.
1365 King Edward III (1327-1377) of England issued a proclamation against ‘whoring’ in the fields and against wasting time playing football or other games, dicing and dancing on Sunday. This is indicative both of the wealth of medieval society, which allowed so much free time, and Edward’s desire to promote archery. (See the entry for 1339.)
1365 Church property in Egypt was confiscated to finance a war in Cyprus.
1368 Pope Urban V (1362-70) insisted that anyone in Dalmatia who showed hospitality to a heretic (mostly Patarenes in that region) be excommunicated. Urban referred to Bosnia as the “cesspool of heresy of all parts of the world.”
1369 Pestis Tertia. A third severe outbreak of plague in Europe: 10 to 15% of Europeans died.
1371 Defeating the Serbs (allies of the Bulgarians) at Maritsa, the Turks gained control over Bulgaria.
1375 Pope Gregory XI (1370-78) established a Latin metropolitanate at Lvov (modern Ukraine). He ordered that all Orthodox bishops be removed from the new metropolitanate.
1376 The patriarch of Constantinople appointed Cyprian, a Bulgarian intellectual educated in Greece, metropolitan of Moscow. Cyprian served in that office until 1406. He replaced the Rule of Studion (a format for prayer and chanting) with the Rule of Jerusalem (or St. Savvas). He also updated the Russian liturgical books to comport with those being used in Constantinople.
1377 In January, Pope Gregory XI (1370-78) moved the papacy back to Rome. The move was required to keep the papal properties in Italy from revolt, and was urged by Petrarch and Saint Catherine of Siena.
1377: Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back to Rome.
1378: French Cardinals create schism in the Roman Catholic Church by electing a rival Pope and returning to Avignon. Rival popes excommunicate one another.
1378 The Great Schism (1378-1417). The Lateran Palace burned during the election of Urban VI (1378-89), an Italian, to the papacy. Fire was set by angry rioters. The mob made it clear to the assembled cardinals that they would have a Roman or Italian pope, not a French one. Later that year, after being insulted by Urban, the French cardinals met and elected Robert of Geneva, whose mercenaries had ravaged the town of Cesena, Pope Clement VII (1378-94). Thus began what is termed the ‘Great Schism.’ France, Flanders, Spain, and Scotland acknowledged Clement VII. The German Empire and England, with the northern and eastern nations and most of the Italian Republics, adhered to Urban VI.
1380 The Nikdo-Ugreshsky monastery founded near Moscow by Dimitry Donskoy (Dimitry of the Don) on the site where an icon of St. Nicholas appeared predicting victory in the battle of Kulikovo.
1380 The Russians, under the Grand Dukes of Moscow, defeated the Mongols at the battle of Kulikovo. This considerably weakened the Mongol hold over Russia. Before the battle, Prince Dimitry Donskoy, leader of the Russian forces, visited St. Sergius of Radonezh and obtained his blessing.
1380 Late in this century the strigol’niki appeared in Novgorod. Originally, they protested the practice, contrary to canon law, of bishops charging ordination fees. Later, the strigol’niki split into two groups. The more moderate rejoined the Orthodox Church in Russia in the fifteenth century. The extremists ended by rejecting Christ, the New Testament, and belief in the resurrection and the afterlife. They seem to have disappeared by the mid-fifteenth century.
1380: Oxford professor John Wyclif publicly rejects Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, begins translating Latin Vulgate into English.
1381: Peasants revolt in England. They seize London but are soon overcome.
1381 The Peasant’s Revolt in England in June and July of this year was triggered by the imposition of a tax of one shilling on everyone over 16 years of age. The peasants captured London and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury.
1381 John Wyclif, an Oxford theologian, published his “Confession,” in which he denied that the substance of the bread and wine are transubstantiated in the mass. Wyclif rejected indulgences, auricular confession, extreme unction and holy orders. He took the Bible alone, without tradition as the sole rule of faith, and taught that the church was composed of the predestined only. A council meeting in London condemned his teachings in 1382. Wyclif died in 1384.
1382 Nicholas Hereford delivered a series of sermons in Oxford, England, in May and June of this year, in which he criticized the church and the clergy for their obsession with money and litigation. He implied that if the church could not correct itself, and if the king did not act, the laity should.
1382 When Grand Duke Kestutis of Lithuania died in this year, he was cremated in Vilnius with his hounds, horses, and hawks, a magnificent pagan funeral.
1382 The Anno Domini system of dating adopted in Castille.
1382 Tatars sacked and burned Moscow.
1382. Wyclif was expelled from his teaching post at Oxford for heresy. Completes translation of Bible with help of his students. John Wycliffe and associates, in defiance of the organized Church, believing that people should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, begin to translate and produce the first handwritten manuscripts of the entire Bible in English. These include the 39 Old Testament books, 27 New Testament books, and 14 Apocrypha books. The Wycliffe English Bible of 1382 was the first Bible to use Langton’s chapter pattern.
Early 1300 to late 1400’s – Biblia Pauperum, wood cut prints with plant-based paper. “Poor Man’s Bible”. 34 to 48 scenes with an explanation.
1384: The Wycliffe Bible- John Wycliffe (1330-1384) is the First Person to Produce a (Hand-Written) manuscript Copy of the Complete Bible; All 80 Books. Made from the Latin Vulgate. Wycliffe could not read Greek or Hebrew. 250 copies survive today. Wycliffe translated Jacob in the NT (latin-lakobus, Hebrew-Ya’akov) as James, unless referring to the OT Jacob. John Wycliffe (c.1329–1384) was an Oxford professor and theologian who became concerned with the growing power, corruption, and wealth that he observed in the papacy and in the Roman Catholic Church. Wycliffe (also spelled Wyclif or Wiclif) began speaking and writing against the church’s errors, teaching that salvation was only available through the suffering of Christ, not the power of the church.
1384 A ten-year-old girl named Jadwiga (daughter of Louis the Great of Hungary) became ruler of Poland.
1384: Death of Wycliffe. His disciples continue to preach against the clergy, copy and sell manuscripts (mostly the Gospels).
1386 The grand duke of Lithuania, Jogaila, was baptized under the name Ladislas, then married Jadwiga of Poland, thus ending Lithuania’s status as Europe’s sole pagan state, and gaining the throne of Poland.
The combined Polish and Lithuanian crown in time ruled Ukraine as well, as the Poles expanded into the sparsely populated region. The Roman Catholic king of Poland and Lithuania thus appointed the Orthodox bishops of Ukraine.
1386 Geoffrey Chaucer began writing the Canterbury Tales.
1386 The Turks conquered Thessalonica.
1388: Wycliffe Bible revised by his student John Purvey.
1389 An army of Serbs, Romanians and Moldovians was defeated by the Turks at Kosovo, resulting in the subjection of those nations.
1389 Several Copts who had converted to Islam, then reverted, were publicly executed.
1390 The Turkish sultan Bayazid I destroyed every market town and village from Bithynia to Thrace. All the inhabitants were deported.
1390 The first German paper mill established – at Nuremburg. The first European mill had been established in Spain in 1074.
1391 In Spain, ant-Jewish preaching resulted in the massacre of roughly one-third of the Jews living there. Another third were forced to convert to Christianity.
1393 In England, the Great Statute was enacted. It punished by loss of lands and goods all persons who would introduce papal bulls into the kingdom on either of two subjects: (1) bulls to excommunicate bishops who enforced the King’s decisions with regard to the appointment of clergy to vacant benefices, and (2) bulls to move bishops from one see to another. Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404) had threatened to move bishops about to impair their usefulness in civil offices.
1394 By the king’s order, the Jews were expelled from France (see 1290).
1396 Crusading armies under John of Burgundy and King Sigismund of Hungary were annihilated at Nicopolis by a Turkish force under the Sultan Bajazeth. This left Hungary open to invasion. Hungary was given respite when the Turks turned to attack the Romans and were later themselves beset by the Mongols.
Fifteenth Century
1400: Death of Chaucer.
1401: English parliament decrees the burning of heretics. Statute is aimed against the followers of Wyclif, called Lollards
1401 A debate was held at Oxford on the question of whether English was a suitable language for the translation of the Bible. Though Richard Ullerston defended English with skill, the debate dismissed the language as unfit.
1402 Battle of Bayezid. Sultan Bajazeth’s Turkish forces defeated by Timur of Samarkand’s Mongols at Bayezid near Angora (Ankara). Mongol forces moved through Asia Minor, as far as Smyrna on the Aegean. Timur is also known as Timur the Tartar and as Timur Lenk, which means Timur the Lame (Tamburlaine). Timur’s victory weakened the Turkish sultan, so permitting the Roman (Byzantine) empire to continue for more than fifty years.
1402 The Roman (Byzantine) emperor Manuel II attempted to enforce stricter discipline on Mount Athos (see 963). The problem was due to the rise of the idiorrhythmic monasteries, loose associations of monks living in private cells and gathering for church services and dinners. The idiorrhythmic system encouraged the contemplative lifestyle but was also readily abused by lazy monks.
1407: by 1407 the Wycliffe translation was outlawed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Wycliffe was declared a heretic on May 4, 1415, at the Council of Constance, and his writings were ordered to be burned.
1407 Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, decreed: “We therefore legislate and ordain that nobody shall from this day forth translate any text of Holy Scripture on his own authority into the English, or any other, language, whether in the form of a book, pamphlet, or tract; and that any such book, pamphlet, or tract, whether composed recently or in the time of John Wycliffe, or in the future, shall not be read in part or in whole, in public or in private.”
1408: Arundelian Constitutions enacted by Convocation of bishops at Oxford forbids unauthorized translation, distribution, or public reading of the Scripture.
1408 A decree known as The Constitutions of Oxford made translation of the whole Bible or any part of it into English illegal.
1409 The two rival colleges of cardinals agreed that the schism should be ended and called a synod, which met in Pisa. It elected Alexander V pope, but neither the Roman nor the Avignon pope abdicated. There were thus now three rival claimants to the papacy and three colleges of cardinals. Alexander died shortly and was replaced by John XXIII.
The canonical standing of the council of Pisa was unclear. As summarized by Conrad of Gelnhausen: “It is impossible for a general council to be held or celebrated without the authority of the pope. But to convene such a council in the present case the pope cannot step in, because no person is universally recognized as pope.”
1410 King Sigismund of Hungary elected German (Holy Roman) Emperor.
1410-13 Musa, son of the Turkish sultan Bayazid I, raided Serbia, pillaging the countryside. The young men were enslaved, while the remainder of the population was slaughtered. In three small towns, everyone was killed.
1410 Polish and Lithuanian forces defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenburg).
1411: Bonfire of Wyclif’s writings at Oxford.
1414 Sir John Oldcastle led a Lollard rebellion, which failed to capture London. Lollard was a Dutch word for “babbler.” The Lollards read Wyclif’s English Bible.
1414 At the insistence of the German (Holy Roman) Emperor Sigismund, John XXIII (1410-1417) called the council of Constance. The first session was held on 1 November 1414. Gregory XII (1406-1415) was the pope in Rome at this time, while Benedict XIII (1394-1417) was pope in Avignon. Gregory XII abdicated after declaring the council genuine. The council deposed John XXIII (29 May 1415) and Benedict (26 July 1417), but Benedict ignored his deposition and continued to maintain his claim from the Castle of Pensacola. In late 1417, the council elected Martin V (1417-31) pope. Martin closed the council on 24 April 1418.
1415 The decree Sacrosancta, from the fifth session of the council of Constance, 4 April 1415: “This holy Synod of Constance, holding a general council in order to uproot the schism and to unite and reform God’s church in its head and members for the praise of almighty God and in the Holy Spirit, legitimately gathered together, and to achieve more securely and freely the union and reform of the Church of God, orders, decides, and declares as follows. It declares first that being legitimately convoked in the Holy Spirit, forming a general council and representing the universal Church, it has immediate power from Christ, which every state and dignity, even if it be the papal dignity, must obey in what concerns faith, the eradication of the mentioned schism, and the reformation of the said Church in head and members. Likewise it declares that whoever of whatever condition, state, dignity, even the papal one, refuses persistently to obey the mandates, statutes, and orders or prescripts, the ones above or what pertains to them, or those which are to be pronounced by this holy Synod, and any other legitimately assembled general council, will be penalized and duly punished with recourse also to other means of law if necessary.”
1415 On July 6, John Huss burned at the stake at the Council of Constance. John Huss was influenced by the doctrines of Wyclif, though he did continue to accept transubstantiation. The Hussites fought for the restoration of communion under both ‘species’ (bread and wine) and infant communion.
1415 The council of Constance transferred responsibility for the conversion of Lithuania (see 1386) from the Teutonic Knights to the Polish kingdom.
1415: John Hus, the radical Bohemian reformer and advocate of Wyclif’s anti-clerical teachings, is burned at the stake. 31 years after Wycliffe’s death, the Council of Constance charges him with more than 260 counts of heresy.
1417: Council of Constance elects Martin V as Pope and ends Roman Catholic schism.
1417 The council of Constance issued the decree Frequens (9 Oct 1417), which called for regular councils of the church, separated by no more than 10 years. On 11 November 1417, near its close, the council elected Martin V (1417-31) pope. Martin V promised to call another council in 10 years.
The English and Germans had wished to reform church government before electing a new pope, in face of opposition from the French and Spaniards. Once Martin V had been elected, the chance for meaningful reform was lost. (Incidentally, Martin V was a member of the Colonna family, Boniface VIII’s hereditary enemies.)
1418 In his 22 February bull Inter cunctas, Pope Martin V (1417-31) demanded that the Hussites recognize the council of Constance. The pope listed the following tests: “Whether he believes, holds, and asserts that any general council and also the one of Constance represents the universal church. In like manner whether he believes that what the sacred Council of Constance representing the universal Church has approved and approves in favor of faith and for the good of souls and that then must be accepted and be held by all Christian faithful. And what it has condemned and condemns has to be held, believed, and asserted as condemned. In like manner whether he believes that the condemnation of John Wyclif, John Hus, and Jerome of Prague pronounced over their persons, books, and writings by the sacred general Council of Constance is right and just and by any Catholic as such to be held and firmly maintained.” Some assert that, in this passage, the pope, after first requiring the Hussites to agree that the council of Constance represented the universal church, limited the extent of that council’s authority in the following line. That is, by requiring the Hussites to believe in what the council “approves in favor of faith and for the good of souls” it is asserted that Martin hinted that the decree Sacrosancta, as an example, was not favorable to faith or for the good of souls.
1420 The Anno Domini dating system adopted in Portugal.
1420 When Pope Martin V (1417-31) returned to Rome in this year, he found it so “dilapidated and deserted” that it bore little resemblance to a city.
1424 King Wladyslaw II (1399-1434) of Poland issued the Edict of Wielun to suppress Hussite tendencies among the Polish nobility.
1425 Pope Martin V (1417-31) restored the cathedral of St. John Lateran, using marble, mosaics, and porphyry from the many ruined churches in Rome.
1428: 44 years after Wycliffe’s death, church officials dig up his bones, burn them, and scatter the ashes on Swift River.
1429 The Solovetsky monastery established on the Solovki Islands in the White Sea. The Solovki archipelago consists of six large and many small islands. The monastery was established by saints Zosima, Savvaty, and German. In addition to its spiritual work, the monastery played a major role in the economic development of the region, particularly in salt production. (See 1922 for a related entry.)
1431 The next general council of the church in the West met at Basel. Very few of the participants were bishops. The pope, Eugenius IV (1431-47) attempted to suppress the council at the end of its first year, but was unsuccessful, then he changed his mind and declared the council ecumenical. When Eugenius refused to agree to the council’s decision that councils are superior to popes, the council elected Felix V (1439-49), the Duke of Savoy, pope. In 1449, the council of Basel yielded to Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) and dissolved itself. Thus ended the ‘conciliar epoch’ of reform in the West.
Bohemia had been in rebellion since the burning of John Huss at the council of Constance. Armies had invaded Bohemia to bring the rebels to submission, but they were repeatedly defeated. The council of Basel determined to negotiate with the Hussites, so their representatives were invited to the council – though first the streets were swept clean of prostitutes to avoid offending the heretics.
The Calixtines or Ultraquists – moderate Hussites – convinced the council to agree to four articles, known as the Compactata. These (1) allowed communion in both kinds, (2) the unimpeded preaching of the word of God, (3) the clergy to live in complete poverty, and (4) open sin to be suppressed. But the hard line Hussites – known as Taborites after their stronghold in Tabor – refused the Compactata. The Calixtines subsequently defeated the Taborites, in 1434. The papacy, however, refused to accept the Compactata, and Pius II declared them void in 1460. They remained in force in Bohemia, however, until 1567.
The council of Basel passed a decree in favor of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47) had sent Cardinal Giovanni de Turrecremata to the council, and Turrecremata wrote a detailed treatise against the doctrine. Turrecremata was unable to present his dissertation to the council, as he was recalled because of a dispute between the council and the pope. Pope Pius II (1458-64) later honored Turrecremata with the title “Defender and Protector of the Faith.”
1432 Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47) sent the Franciscan Jacob de Marchia to Bosnia as an Inquisitor. De Marchia had little success converting the Patarenes, but did succeed in antagorizing his subordinates.
1433 Tvrtko II, Ban of Bosnia, fled to the court of the German emperor Sigusmund while Patarene nobles ruled the country.
1433 Nicholas of Cusa wrote his “On Catholic Concordance” (De concordantia catholica). Dedicating this work to his colleagues at the council of Basel, Nicholas argued for the supremacy of general councils over popes. Nicholas later changed his mind and served both Pope Eugenius IV and Pope Nicholas V.
1437 A memorandum prepared by the Orthodox for the council of Basle listed 67 metropolitans under the patriarch of Constantinople. Thirty-six were in lands conquered by the Turks, 16 were in Wallachia, Moldavia, Russia, the Caucasus, and Trebizond (all Christian lands independent of the empire), 7 were in Greece, and 8 in the area near Constantinople.
1438 In France, a national assembly met in Bourges and issued a document called the Pragmatic Sanction. It recognized decrees made at Basel and Constance affirming the superiority of councils to popes; the rights of elections traditionally enjoyed by cathedral chapters, collegiate churches, and monasteries; abolished annates and other forms of papal taxation and meddling; and warned the pope against becoming involved in ecclesiastical trials before they ascended to him through the various levels of appeal courts. French independence of Rome came to be termed “Gallicanism.”
1438 The Concordat of Vienna. In this compromise between Pope Eugenius IV and the German Emperor Frederick III, the papacy retained the collection of annates, while cathedral chapters (not popes) were permitted to choose new bishops.
1438 On 8 January, a council met in Ferrara to discuss doctrinal differences between the Eastern and Western churches. The Roman (Byzantine) emperor John VIII Paleologus attended, along with the patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph II, 20 metropolitans, and almost 700 other “Greeks.” The filioque and the doctrine of purgatory were discussed. When the plague hit Ferrara later in the year, the council moved to Florence.
1439 On January 10, the council of Ferrara-Florence reconvened in Florence.
The Roman (Byzantine) Emperor John VIII (1425-48) attended this council. John’s military situation had become desperate, and he needed assistance from the West to defend his empire from the Turks. His delegation included the patriarch of Constantinople and St. Mark of Ephesus.
It was at the Council of Florence that the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory was defined (but see 1274 above). Purgatory, as the Latins understand it, is required not simply to refine the soul to the point it can enter heaven, but it is the occasion for paying off the temporal punishment due to sin. The Orthodox objected to several aspects of the Latin teaching on purgatory. Where the Latins taught an eternal fire (hell) and a temporal fire of purgatory, the Orthodox accepted only the existence of the eternal fire. For the Orthodox, the temporal punishment of sinful souls occurs in a place of darkness and sorrow. These souls are punished through deprivation of the Divine light and are purified – freed from the place of darkness – by means of prayers, the Holy Eucharist, works of charity, but not by fire. The Orthodox countered the Latin appeal to 1 Corinthians 3.10-15 by showing that the Day (verse 13) refers to the last judgment, the fire is the eternal fire, and the words “saved yet as by fire” mean preserved while undergoing punishment. They also remarked that, under the Latin view, the words “he will suffer loss” were false, since the one being purified by purgatorial fire was supposed to benefit greatly by the experience. The Orthodox interpretation comports with St. John Chrysostom’s commentary on the passage. The Orthodox added, “It is very right to suppose that the Greeks should understand Greek words better than foreigners.”
The issue of the filioque was discussed, with the West avowing that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son as from one principle – this to answer the Eastern concern that the Westerners were multiplying principles within the Godhead. St Mark of Ephesus elaborated the Orthodox objection: “The second Ecumenical Council, wishing to explain the words of the Nicene Creed: ‘and in the Holy Ghost,’ and to show more clearly against heretics how it is that the Holy Ghost is reckoned together with the Father and the Son, speaks thus in its symbol: ‘we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.’ Here attention must be paid to the objects the Fathers had in view when writing these words. The Council wished to represent the manner of the Holy Ghost’s union with the Father and the Son. See now how distinctly the Council marks the affinity of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son: the Fathers did not say that the Spirit is reckoned with the Father and the Son, but that He proceeds from the Father, and is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. That is, He is of equal honor and consubstantial with Them. If the Council had admitted the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son, why then did it not in speaking of the Father and the Son, say: ‘Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and together glorified?’ This is what should have been said if the Council had adhered to such a doctrine. But whereas, in the first case, the Fathers did not mention the Son when they were showing the cause of the procession, but did mention Him in the second place when showing His equality of honor and consubstantiality, then it is plain that they did not admit of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son also.”
In part, the confession the Orthodox signed read: “We decree that the Holy Apostolic Throne and Roman Pontiff possess a primacy over the whole earth, and that this Roman Pontiff is the Successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and is the true Vicar of Christ, the Head of the whole Church, Pastor and Teacher of all Christians; and that our Lord Jesus Christ in the person of St. Peter has given him full authority to shepherd, direct and rule the whole Church, as is likewise contained in the acts of the Ecumenical Councils and in the holy canons.” The document was signed on July 6, 1439, in a ceremony in which the Orthodox kissed the pope’s knee. St. Mark of Ephesus, however, did not sign, and Pope Eugenius is reported to have remarked on learning this, “And so we have accomplished nothing.” So convinced was Eugenius of the necessity of Mark’s support that he met with Mark privately in an attempt to convince him to sign the agreement, but Mark refused, saying that he would hold steadfast to the Orthodox faith.
The Council of Florence effected an apparent reunion between East and West, but, as the Eastern representatives pointed out, their personal opinions did not count for the Church as a whole, and could only be validated by an Eastern synod. The reunion, thus, never really came into force. Most of the delegates renounced their signatures when they reached home. The council’s decrees were never accepted by more than a small fraction of Orthodox people and clergy. The Grand Duke Lucas Notaras said, “I would rather see the Muslim turban in the midst of the city than the Latin mitre.”
1439 John Bessarion, a member of the Eastern delegation to the council of Ferrara-Florence and former metropolitan of Nicaea, remained in communion with Rome. Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47) made him a cardinal. Bessarion was instrumental in spreading the knowledge of Greek to the West. His most important work is a defense of Plato against Aristotelianism (as promoted by George of Trebizond).
1439 When Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47) broke contact with the Council of Basel, the prelates there elected Amadeus VIII, duke of Savoy, Pope Felix V (1439-49). Amadeus had retired to a monastery in 1434. Felix is generally considered an antipope.
1439 The French Parlement made the Pragmatic Sanction a statute for France.
1440 Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation of Constantine to be an eighth century forgery. Lorenzo was supported by King Alfonso I of Sicily, one of the pope’s enemies.
1441 From the Council of Florence, under Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47):
1442 Gemisthus Plethon (a well-known Platonist) and John Bessarion (his former student) founded the Accademia Platonica in Florence. The academy specialized in the study of Greek literature and Plato’s philosophy.
1442: At the Council of Florence, the entire Church recognized the 27 books. This council confirmed the Roman Catholic Canon of the Bible which Pope Damasus I had published a thousand years earlier. So, by 1439, all orthodox branches of the Church were legally bound to the same canon. This is 100 years before the Reformation.
1443 In September, the council of Ferrara-Florence (the Easterners having returned home) removed to Rome.
1443? Invention of the moveable type printing press.
1444 The first certain typhus outbreak, at Newgate Prison, London, killed 5 jailors and 64 prisoners.
1444 At Varna (Bulgaria), the Turks crushed a Western force sent to aid the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
1446 Stephen Thomas, the Catholic ruler of Bosnia, forbade, at the insistence of Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47), his Patarene subjects from building new churches or repairing old ones.
1447 Nicholas V elected pope (1447-55). By sending emissaries throughout Europe to collect rare manuscripts, Nicholas began the papal library.
1448 When the Metropolitan of Russia, Isidore, returned to Moscow in 1441, he strongly supported the reunion. The Grand Duke imprisoned him, then allowed him to escape to Italy. Since Constantinople officially supported Florence until 1453, the Russians could not appeal to her for a replacement. So, in 1448, a council of Russian bishops elected a new metropolitan by itself. The church of Moscow thus became autocephalous. The metropolitan of Kiev continued to be under the jurisdiction of Constantinople until 1646, when it passed under Moscow.
1450 At the urging of the papal nuncio, Stephen Thomas, ruler of Bosnia, forbade the Patarenes from holding worship services. Bosnia, split among Catholics, Patarenes, and Orthodox (who also opposed the Catholics), was in no position to offer serious opposition to the Turks (see 1463).
1450 In this Jubilee Year, plenary indulgences were offered to penitent pilgrims to Rome. On Whit Sunday, Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) canonized Bernardino of Siena, a Franciscan, who had been a popular preacher.
1450: Middle English yields to Early Modern English as the common language of Britain about now.
1451 Pope Nicholas V (1447) appointed Nicholas of Cusa (see 1433), Archbishop of Brixen, legate to Germany, with the task of reforming the church there. Nicholas named John of Capistrano, a friend of Bernardo of Siena and founder of the Franciscan Observants, as legate to Austria. John had some success converting the Hussites there.
1452-56 Gutenburg Bible printed.
1452 Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) crowned Frederick III German emperor in Rome. This was the last imperial coronation to occur there.
1453 On 29 May, Constantinople fell to the Turks.
1453 The English were expelled from France entirely, except for Calais (end of the Hundred Years War).
1453: Moslems take Constantinople. Great exodus of Greek scholars from there to Western Europe, bringing with them Greek manuscripts of the Bible.
1453: Fall of Constantinople – Greek scholars and manuscripts began to arrive in Europe
1455: Moveable Type Printing Press – Johannes Gutenberg Invents the Printing Press; Books May Now be mass-Produced Instead of Individually Hand-Written. The First Book Ever Printed is Gutenberg Bible in Latin.
1455 On 25 Feb, Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) ratified the Peace of Lodi, a peace treaty among Venice, Milan, Florence, and Naples. Nicholas had urged peace in order to effect a crusade against the Turks.
1455 Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) had planned and begun the restoration of Rome, including a piazza in front of St. Peter’s, with the obelisk from Nero’s Circus. On his deathbed, he told his cardinals, “If the authority of the Holy See were visibly displayed in majestic buildings, imperishable memorials, and witnesses seemingly planted by the hand of God himself, belief would grow and strengthen like a tradition from one generation to another, and all the world would accept and revere it.”
1456: First printed book: Gutenberg Bible, containing the Latin text.
1456 John of Capistrano (see 1451) raised and led an army which forced the Turks to lift their siege of Belgrade.
1457 Pope Calixtus (Callistus) III (1455-58) instituted the feast of the Transfiguration as a universal feast of the Latin Church. He appointed it to be observed on 6 August, to commemorate the day the Turks were defeated at Belgrade. The feast of the Transfiguration had been observed in the East since the fourth century. It spread to the West sometime after the ninth century.
1457 Lorenzo Valla suggested that the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius were not genuine. But he compared their anonymous author with Gregory the Great in terms of theological quality.
1458 The Turks captured Athens. The Parthenon, which had been a church since around 450, was converted into a mosque.
1459 Pope Pius II (1458-64) arranged for a conference to begin on 1 June to plan a crusade against the Turks. No one but the pope arrived on the scheduled date, and those who did arrive thereafter bickered among themselves.
1460 On 17 January, Pope Pius II (1458-64) issued his bull Execrabilis, denouncing appeals from a pope to a general council.
1460 Pope Pius II (1458-64) sent Cardinal John Bessarion (see 1439) to Germany to promote a crusade against the Turks. Bessarion had little success.
1460 Alum, a mineral used in dyes and previously available only from the Middle East, was discovered on papal lands at Tolfa, northwest of Rome. Alum became an important source of papal revenue.
1461 Stephen Tomashevich became ruler of Bosnia, having murdered his father, Stephen Thomas. Tomashevich refused to pay tribute to the Turkish sultan, who at that time was demanding 25,000 ducats per year.
1461 The Turks conquered the empire of Trebizond. Trebizond, like Epiros, had its beginning after the crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204.
1462 In a bull issued on 17 January in this year, Pope Pius II decreed that Africans who had received baptism should not be enslaved.
1463 The Turkish sultan Mohammed the Conqueror invaded and conquered Bosnia. His success was in part due to the hatred the Patarenes felt for the Catholics: a Patarene officer named Radak who had been forced to convert to Catholicism surrendered the Babovats fortress, motivated by hatred for his Catholic monarch. Faced with loss of their property or conversion to Islam, the Bosnian Patarene nobles generally converted. Some historians theorize that the strength of the Patarene faith was hatred of the Hungarians and the wealthy Dalmations, who were Catholics. With the Turkish conquest, the Patarene church, which had thrived since the days of Kulin (see 1199), disappeared.
1463 Pope Pius II (1458-64) proclaimed a crusade against the Turks, vowing to lead it himself. The crusade failed to materialize, and the pope himself died in August 1464.
1463 Pope Pius II (1458-64) named John Bessarion (see 1439) nominal patriarch of Constantinople.
1466 Mentelin of Strasbourg printed the Bible in German, fifty-six years before Luther’s German New Testament was published.
1466: Birth of Erasmus.
1470 Beginning of the Judaizer heresy in the Orthodox Church in Russia. It was initiated, apparently, by the Jewish physician to Prince Alexander Olel’kovich of Novgorod, a certain Zachariah (or Skharia), and two of his merchant companions: Moded Hanush and Joseph Shmoilo Skarabei. The Judaizers argued that Jesus’ words in support of the Old Testament (Matt 5.17-20) implied that the Old was superior to the New. They denied the Trinity and opposed icons, crosses, and monasteries.
1470 Around this year, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) completed a translation of the works of Plato into Latin. His work initiated the Florentine Platonic Renaissance (but see 1442). His translation was not published until 1484. Ficino believed that all religions have a share of the truth.
1472 Ivan III (the Great) married Sophia, niece of the last Byzantine emperor. The Grand Dukes of Moscow began to call themselves Tsar.
1472 The Orthodox were expelled from Yuryev (Tartu), Estonia, by Germans. The Orthodox priest Isidore and a number of believers were martyred.
1472 A papal fleet under Cardinal Oliviero Carafa joined in an attack on the Turks at Smyrna.
1474 In this year, and again in 1476, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) attempted to unite the Orthodox in Russia with the Catholic West and to convince Russia to fight the Turks.
1476 On 28 February, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) adopted the feast of the Immaculate Conception for the Latin Church.
1476 William Caxton, England’s first printer, set up a press at Westminster. His first printed work was an indulgence.
1476 The theologian Raimund Peraudi insisted that the economy of indulgences applied not only to the living, but to the dead. That is, he deemed effective indulgences obtained on behalf on someone who had passed on and was presumably in purgatory. Peraudi’s thesis was later endorsed in a papal bull.
1476: First English book printed by William Caxton (The Recital of the Histories of Troy, translated from French).
1478: Caxton prints Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. ● The Spanish Inquisition
1478 At the request of the Catholic monarchs of Aragon and Castille, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) authorized the Spanish Inquisition. Their goal was to combat Jews and Muslims who had converted to Catholicism then apostatized, as well as heretics. In 1483, the pope authorized the Spanish government to designate a grand inquisitor – the first one being the Dominican Tomas de Torquemada. Roughly 2000 persons were burned at the stake during his tenure.
1478 Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance.
1478-80 A severe outbreak of plague in Europe. Perhaps 15% of the population of England, France, and the Netherlands were killed.
1479 The Judaizer heresy gained political clout when Ivan III, impressed with their learning, appointed the Judaizer priests Abraham and Dennis rectors of the two large cathedrals in Moscow. Ivan himself eventually espoused their views.
St. Joseph of Volokolamsk (1439-1515) founded a monastery at Volokolamsk. He had been abbot of Borovsk in 1477, which Prince Ivan III Vasilyevich had used as a waypoint for advancing his sons into episcopal benefices. Prince Ivan had become disgruntled with Joseph’s ascetic reforms. The monastery at Volokolamsk became a center for monastic reform. Joseph’s followers, called Josephites, became active in a movement to insure uniformity in the Church, using the state as a weapon against dissenters and heretics. In their view, also, monks should be allowed to own property for good works, such as charity and education. Those who held this position became known as “Possessors.”
1482 Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) urged Venice to attack Ferrara. Milan, Florence, and Naples allied themselves against Venice and the Papal States.
1483 Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) placed Venice under interdict because she refused to halt the attack against Ferrara the pope had originally urged.
1483 Herzegovina fell to the Turks.
1483 Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) forbade condemnations of both proponents and opponents of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Anyone of either opinion who called someone of the opposite opinion a heretic was to be excommunicated.
1483 By this year there were nine different German translations of the Bible in print. (See 1466 above.)
1483: Birth of Martin Luther.
1484: Birth of William Tyndale.
1484 An Orthodox council meeting in Constantinople declared that Roman Catholic converts were to be received through chrismation.
1484 Pope Innocent VIII (1484-92) condemned witchcraft in the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus. The bull blamed witches for plague and storms, stated that apostate Christians had entered into sexual relations with witches, and claimed that witches’ spells had harmed men, women, children and beasts. Innocent sent inquisitors to Germany to conduct witch trials there.
1485: Henry Tudor becomes king Henry VII of England.
1486 Ivan the Great’s chief diplomat, Theodore Kuritsyn, returned from Hungary where he had adopted views very similar to the Judaizer heresy. The influential Kuritsyn propagated the heresy among Moscow’s social elite. The appeal of the heresy centered in its advocacy of alchemy and astrology.
1486 Pope Innocent VIII (1484-92) condemned the theses of Pico della Mirandola, a leader of Renaissance Platonism.
1487 The Malleus Maleficarum, a work on witchcraft, written by Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger, published. Kramer had been active in persecuting witches in the Tyrol in 1484.
1488: Birth of Miles Coverdale. • Hebrew Old Testament first printed by Jews at Soncino, Italy.
1489: Birth of Thomas Cranmer.
1489 In exchange for an annual payment and the Holy Lance, Pope Innocent VIII (1484-92) agreed to keep the Turkish prince Jem, Sultan Bayezid’s brother, in prison. Jem had traveled to Rhodes, where he asked the Knights of St. John to overthrow his brother. The Knights agreed with Bayezid to keep Jem in prison for a price, but they transfered Jem to the pope in 1486.
1490 Zosima, an advocate of the Judaizer heresy, elected metropolitan of Moscow.
In the same year, Archbishop Gennadi and Abbot Joseph of Novgorod had nine Judaizer clerics imprisoned.
Around this time, Gennadi organized the translation of the Bible into Slavonic. Though completed around the turn of the century, the complete Slavonic Bible (known as the Ostrozhsky or Ostrong Bible because it was published at the Ostrozhskii princes’ printing house) was not printed until 1580-82.
1490 Jews in Toledo were accused of murdering a Christian boy (apparently named Cristobal). Isabel of Castile used the accusation as an excuse for ordering the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1491.
1491: Greek first taught at Oxford University.
1492: Columbus reaches the New World
1492 Columbus discovered America.
1492 The Moslems were driven out of Spain.
1492 On March 30, Ferdinand and Isabella signed an edict that gave unbaptized Jews until July 31 to leave the country. Roughly 50,000 accepted baptism and remained. About 100,000 of these Sephardic (Spanish) Jews departed.
1492 Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503). To become pope, Rodrigo had purchased the votes of his fellow cardinals. As a cardinal, Rodrigo had sired four children by Vannoza de’ Catanei. In 1489, he began an affair with the 16 year-old Giulia Farnese.
1493 Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) divided the new world between Spain and Portugal.
1493 Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) made his teenaged son Cesare a cardinal.
1494 Influenced by Abbot Joseph of Novgorod, a council deposed the Judaizer metropolitan of Moscow, Zosima, for sodomy, debauchery, the denial of the resurrection of Christ and the afterlife. Joseph also published a book entitled The Enlightener against the Judaizers.
1494 King Charles VIII of France marched into Florence. Their coming had been predicted two years before by Girolama Savonarola, a Dominican who preached about the last days and claimed to have visions of and to speak with God. With the Medici driven out of Florence, Savonarola set up a democratic Republic there. Critical of the church in Rome and the Pope Alexander, Savonarola attempted to reform the church in Florence.
The French army brought a hitherto unknown disease with them, which was soon known as the French pox. It appears to have been like syphilis.
King Charles VIII had come to Italy to lay claim to the Kingdom of Naples. Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503), threatened by the French army, asked the Turkish Sultan Bayezid for 300,000 ducats to help him drive the French from Italy, and so prevent them from using the peninsula to launch a new crusade against the Turks.
1496: John Colet gives lectures on Romans at Oxford.
1497 Theodore Kuritsyn died, and Abbot Joseph was able to move against the Judaizers.
1497 King Manoel of Portugal ordered the conversion of the Jews in his kingdom. Many had fled there in 1492 to avoid forced conversion in Spain.
1498 The government of Florence hanged and burned Girolamo Savonarola (see 1494). Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) had excommunicated him in 1497. In 1495, the pope had tempted Savonarola to travel to Rome, but Girolamo smelled a trap. The pope viewed him as the principal impediment to Florence joining the Holy League (the papal territories, the German empire, Aragon, Venice, and Milan) against the king of France.
1499 Erasmus visited Britain. Among many other accomplishments, Erasmus divided the Bible into verses and discredited the Donation of Constantine.
1499: Erasmus at Oxford.
1500: Birth of John Rogers.
1500 Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) proclaimed 1500 a Jubilee year.
1500 Publication of the Mozarabic rite missal by Cardinal Ximenes of Toledo. He presented the breviary in 1502.
1500 A translation of the Bible into French had been printed by this year.
1500 Queen Isabel of Castile ordered the conversion of the Muslims in Granada. In 1502, she demanded the conversion of all Muslims remaining in Castile.
Sixteenth Century
1502 Publication of the Apocalypsis Nova, which predicted the coming of an angelic pope, who would be preceded by holy men.
1503 A Russian church council held in this year resulted in the division of the Russian Orthodox Church between the Possessors and the Non-Possessors. The Non-Possessors wanted to divest monasteries of their land. The monasteries held about a third of Russian land in this period. The Non-Possessor position was argued by Nils Sorsky (1433-1508).
The same council condemned the practice of charging ordination fees (see 1479 above).
1503 Julius II (1503-13) became pope. While a cardinal, Julius had sired three daughters.
1503 Erasmus published his Handbook of the Christian Soldier, in which he presented a vision of the church in which the laity would gain power at the expense of the wealth and influence of the clergy. It was translated into several European languages and had become very popular by 1515.
1503 Spanish forces conquered Naples and began to dominate central Italy. This would have consequences for Henry VIII, the papacy, and the English Reformation. (See 1527.)
1504 Death of St. Kassian, founder of the Assumption monastery near Uglich. Kassian had fled Crimea when the Muslims occupied that region near the end of the fifteenth century. In Crimea, he had lived on the Mangup Plateau (the last stronghold of Christianity in Crimea) where the Mangup capital was located.
1504: Birth of Matthew Parker.
1505: Birth of Richard Taverner. • Birth of John Knox. • Luther enters the Augustinian Order.
1506: New Cathedral of St. Peter begun in Rome (completed in 1590).
1506 On 18 April, Pope Julius II (1503-13) laid the foundation stone for the new St. Peter’s. The basilica was completed in 1615.
1506 The publication of John Reuchlin’s Rudiments initiated the birth of the study of Hebrew among Western European scholars and theologians. Reuchlin was accosted by John Pfefferkorn, a convert from Judaism, who agitated for the destruction of Jewish books. The Dominicans supported Pferrerkorn and brought a case against Reuchlin to the Inquisitor for Heretical Pravity for the diocese of Cologne. The Inquisitor (Jakob von Hochstraten) ruled against Reuchlin. An appeal was made to the pope, who initially ruled in favor of Reuchlin, then ordered him to keep silent and pay the court costs. Reuchlin did neither. (When the controversy over Luther arose, many saw it at first as another act in the conflict between humanists and obscurantists.)
1508-12 Commissioned by Pope Julius II (1503-13), Michelangelo painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
1509 Four Dominicans were burned at the stake in Berne for fabricating miracles to discredit the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
1509 Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) married Henry VIII, king of England from 1509 to 1547.
1509: Henry VIII becomes king of England. • Birth of John Calvin. • Erasmus professor of Greek at Cambridge University.
1510: William Tyndale at Cambridge.
1510 140 persons were burned to death in Brescia for practicing witchcraft.
1511-15 The Hunne Affair. In 1511, when the infant son of a London tailor named Richard Hunne died, the church rector, Thomas Dryffeld, demanded the bearing sheet as a mortuary fee. The rector sued Hunne for the fee, and Hunne lost. Hunne in turned accused Dryffeld of violating the Praemunire Statute (see 1353 above). This raised the ire of the bishop of London, Richard Fitzjames. Fitzjames had Hunne arrested and his house searched. A Wycliffite Bible was found, along with some heretical books. Soon thereafter, Hunne was murdered while in prison by the bishop’s chancellor, Dr. Horsey and two others. The murderers were indicted, but never brought to trial. Fitzjames then presided over a court that convicted Hunne of heresy. Hunne’s body was burned and, since he had been a heretic, his property was forfeited to the crown and his family became paupers.
1511 A group of disaffected cardinals, supported by King Louis XII of France (1498-1515), held a council in opposition to Pope Julius II (1503-13) in Pisa. Since the council was considered a French political maneuver, it received little international support.
1512 In May, the Holy League of Spain, Venice, the German empire, England, and the Swiss drove the French from Milan.
1512 Jacques Lefevre, a professor at the University of Paris, published a Latin translation of Paul’s epistles. Anticipating Luther by several years, he appended a commentary in which he taught that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, not through works. He also denied transubstantiation.
1512-17 The Fifth Lateran Council opened in May, 1512. This council overturned the Council of Constance’s decree which had made councils superior to the pope. It also affirmed the immortality of the soul, and, in 1513, attempted to suppress preaching on the last days (see 1494 and 1502 above).
1513 Leo X (1513-21) elected pope. Leo, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence, had become a priest at age 7, and a cardinal when he was 13.
1514 300 persons were burned to death at Como for practicing witchcraft.
1514: First completed New Testament of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the first multilingual printed edition of the entire Bible. The printing was done between 1514 and 1517, but it was not until 1520-after receiving authorization from Rome-that the book was distributed. ● Coverdale ordained.
1515: Luther begins lectures on Romans at Wittenberg University. • Tyndale gets M.A. degree at Oxford.
1516: Erasmus’ first Greek New Testament (First printed Greek New Testament). ● Ottoman conquest of Jerusalem.
1516: Erasmus (Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus) was a Dutch Christian humanist, Roman Catholic Priest and theologian, educationalist, satirist and philosopher). Produced a Greek/Latin Parallel New Testament. Did not have complete book of Revelation. Produced 5 editions before Erasmus dies in 1535. The first 2 editions did not have the Comma Johanneum (1John 5:7), Erasmus attacked because it is based on the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus Greek NT was used by Tyndale.
History 10
1516 Erasmus’ Greek New Testament published – the first Greek New Testament to be printed. It included a fresh translation into Latin. (In a note on Acts 17.34, Erasmus repeated Lorenzo Valla’s criticisms of the claim that Dionysius himself authored the works of the Dionysian corpus.)
The first edition of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was based on only four Greek manuscripts, none earlier than the eleventh century. Even on the fourth edition, he had only one Greek manuscript for the book of Revelation. This lacked the final five verses, which Erasmus translated into Greek from Latin. He was (rightly) criticized for this procedure.
Erasmus was also taken to task for undermining the authority of the Vulgate. A certain scholar named Sutor argued, “if in one point the Vulgate were in error the entire authority of the Holy Scripture would collapse.” Controversies arose over Erasmus’ omissions of 1 John 5.7 (it was not in his manuscripts) and Matthew 6.13 (which was in his manuscripts, but which, he reasoned, could not have been in the Greek text Jerome had read). He was also criticized for not correcting Hebrews 2.7 according to the Hebrew, which has “a little lower than God” rather than “a little lower than the angels;” for translating the Greek word for “repent” with the Latin for “change your mind;” and the Greek word Logos with the Latin sermo.
1516 The Pragmatic Sanction (see 1438 & 39) abolished by the Concordat of Bologna, an agreement between the king of France and the pope. In return, Pope Leo X (1513-21) recognized the right of Francis I, king of France 1515-1547, to appoint bishops and abbots in his realm. The Gallican church thus in effect remained independent of the papacy. In return, the pope was to collect annates, appeals to Rome were permitted, and the superiority of popes to councils was admitted.
1517 When Pope Leo X (1513-21) discovered that some of his cardinals were plotting against him, he created 31 new cardinals in one day.
1517 The fourth volume of the Complutensian Polyglot was printed. The Old Testament of the Complutensian Bible has three columns: Hebrew, the Latin Vulgate, and the Septuagint with an interlinear Latin translation. The third column of the Complutensian Old Testament is the first printed edition of the Septuagint. It is thought to reflect the Lucianic recension. The Polyglot did not receive papal sanction to be published until 1520.
1517 Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.
1517 Egypt brought under Ottoman rule.
1517: Pope Leo X decrees preaching and sale of indulgences for the benefit of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. • Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31.
REFORMATION ERA BEGINS.
1517: Complutensian Polyglot Old Testament completed. ● Daniel Bomberg’s Rabbinic Bible contains the first printed Hebrew version (Masoretic text) with chapter divisions.
1518: Septuagint printed by Aldus in Italy. • Zwingli begins Reformation in Switzerland.
1518 Andreas Asolanus published the second printed Septuagint, this from the Aldine press, and known as the Aldine edition. The text is thought to reflect the Hesychian recension.
1518 A diet of the Holy Roman Empire summoned by the Emperor Maximiliam (1493-1519) met in Augsburg to consider whether Germany should pay a tax to Rome in support of a crusade against the Turks. The diet refused, noting that taxes for crusades had been used for other purposes, and that annates, confirmation fees, and the costs of litigation in church courts were exorbitant. It also criticized Rome for dealing out German benefices to Italian priests.
1519 Charles V, king of Spain, became Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1556).
1519: Erasmus’ 2nd Greek New Testament • Birth of Theodore Beza.
1520: Luther excommunicated. • Tyndale goes home to Gloucester, begins translating.
1520: Complutensian Polyglot published. Multiple languages, Hebrew, Latin Vulgate, Greek Septuagint.
1520 Erasmus’ Ratio (1520 edition) included these lines: “Some assert that the universal body of the Church has been contracted into a single Roman pontiff who cannot err on faith and morals, thus ascribing to the pope more than he claims for himself, though they do not hesitate to dispute his judgment if he interferes with their purses or their prospects. Is not this to open the door to tyranny in case such power were wielded by an impious and pestilent man?”
1520 Luther published The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In it, he argued that the papacy had held the church captive for 1000 years, corrupting it in faith, morals, and ritual. He urged communion in both kinds and presented the theory of consubstantiation, that Christ is present in the eucharist along with the bread and wine. Earlier that year, in his Open Letter, Luther opposed the distinction between clergy and laity, the right of popes to settle issues of scriptural interpretation, and the popes’ supposed exclusive right to call a general council. Later in the year, he published A Treatise on Christian Liberty, which stated his belief that man is saved by faith alone, apart from works.
1520 In June, Pope Leo X (1513-21) condemned Luther in the bull Exsurge Domine. Luther burned the pope’s bull of excommunication on 10 December. In his opinion, “This burning is only a trifle. It is necessary that the pope and the papal see should also be burned. He who does not resist the papacy with all his heart cannot obtain eternal salvation.”
1521 Belgrade (Serbia) fell to the Turks.
1521 It has been estimated that, by this year, there were over 150 offices for sale in the Vatican, worth approximately 3,000,000 ducats.
1521 Diet of Worms. Protected by Frederick, the elector of Saxony, Luther refused to recant. He declared that popes and councils were fallible, but that the Holy Scripture was infallible. The emperor Charles V determined to “proceed against him as a notorious heretic” and in so doing he won papal support for his coming war against France for control of Milan. Frederick concealed Luther in the castle of Wartburg.
1522 The emperor Charles V introduced the Inquisition into the Netherlands in order to wipe out Protestantism.
1522 Pope Adrian VI (1522-23) taught that popes were capable of erring in their official role as teachers of the Church. A Dutchman, Adrian was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II (1978).
1522 Luther’s German New Testament published.
1522 Erasmus’ Ratio (1522 edition) included these lines: “We do not impugn the majesty of the Roman pontiff. Would that he had the qualities attributed to him, that he were not able to err in matters of piety, that he were able to deliver souls from purgatory.”
1522 In November, Pope Adrian VI (1522-23) sent a legate to the Diet of Nuremburg (Germany). The legate stated that the church’s ills had spread from the papacy down and explained the pope’s intention of reforming the curia and hierarchy. As regards Luther, however, the pope had no sympathy: the “petty monk“ must acknowledge his errors, and his teachings must be suppressed.
1522 In December, the Turks conquered Rhodes. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitallers) had built a fortress there after 1309. Their fleet had worked to keep the southern Mediterranean safe from the Turks.
1522: First edition of Martin Luther’s German New Testament • Parker at Cambridge. • Complutensian Polyglot (including Septuagint, Vulgate, Hebrew Old Testament) published. • Erasmus’ 3rd Greek New Testament • Tyndale goes to London in search of financial help.
1523 Zurich accepted the Reformation after hearing a public debate. Huldrych Zwingli was instrumental in defending the Protestant cause.
1524 In Strassburg, a layman named Clement Ziegler began teaching that Christ’s body existed in heaven before his incarnation.
1524 In June, the Zurich city council banned religious images. Zurich was the home of the reformer Huldrych Zwingli. At some point and under Zwingli’s influence, Zurich banned music from worship services. This ban was in force until 1598.
1524 In Riga (Latvia) a group of evangelicals tore a statue of the Virgin Mary out of the cathedral and threw it into the Dvina river. When it floated, they denounced it as a witch and burned it.
1524: Tyndale leaves England for Germany. • Peasants revolt in Germany. • William Whittingham born. Bomberg prints a second edition Masoretic text prepared by Jacob ben Chayim.
1525: Tyndale’s English New Testament (first printed English text) published in Germany. • Rogers gets B.A. degree at Cambridge.
1525: Tyndale Bible New Testament – William Tyndale’s (1494-1536) Ne; The First New Testament printed in the English Language. 1525, 1526, 1534. The Father of the English Bible. Knew many languages. Believed the Vulgate was translated incorrectly. 1524 went to Cologne, Germany (Catholic City). Only a single copy of the Cologne Translation of the first 22 chapters of Matthew exists today. Escapes to Worms, Germany
1525 In January, a group in Zurich that rejected infant baptism baptized one another. They also broke bread and shared wine to demonstrate the priesthood of all believers. These radicals came to be termed Anabaptists. Four of them were drowned in the Limmat river in 1526 as Zurich acted to suppress the radicals.
1525 Zwingli wrote his On Baptism, in which he developed a thought Luther had earlier expressed, that infant baptism could be justified in analogy to the Old Testament practice of circumcision. In this year and the following, Zwingli proposed the notion that Christ is present in the Lord’s Supper in a merely symbolic manner. He emphasized that the purpose of the Eucharist is to remind the congregation of Christ’s deeds on man’s behalf.
1525 In April, the Zurich city council banned the mass.
1525 At Dorpat (Tartu, Estonia) Germans broke into an Orthodox church and destroyed the icons. Events such as this led the Orthodox to view Lutherans as iconoclasts (which they were not).
1525 William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament was partially printed in Cologne. Before printing could be completed, the Catholic authorities learned of the enterprise (through the loose lips of some printers who were drinking in a public tavern) and conducted a raid. The printing was completed in Worms in 1526. Following a convention popular among Lutherans, the 1525 printing lists Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation as being of doubtful authenticity. This distinction was dropped in the 1526 printing.
1525 Albrecht, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, arranged with King Sigismond I of Poland that the order’s territories in Royal Prussia would be a secular fief of Poland. He then made Royal Prussia the first evangelical (Lutheran) state in Europe.
1525/6 The Non-Possessors criticized Tsar Basil III for unjustly divorcing his wife, and they were suppressed.
1526 Geneva, a part of the duchy of Savoy, entered into an alliance with the Swiss city of Berne without Savoy’s permission.
1526 The Ottoman Turks, under Sultan Suleiman I (1520-1566) defeated the Hungarians at the battle of Mohacs, thus conquering Hungary and opening the way to Vienna. Much of Hungary was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1547.
1526: Worms Germany Tyndale NT Bible published. Only 3 complete copies survive. Tyndale responsible for such translations as: Passover, scapegoat, atonement and Jehovah (YHWH) – Adonai. Copies of Tyndale’s New Testament enter England, many burned.
1527: Erasmus 4th Greek “Novum Testamentum” completed.
1527 In May, Spanish troops and German mercenaries under Charles V sacked Rome. This attack was in reprisal for Pope Clement VIII’s (1523-34) entering into an alliance (the League of Cognac) with Milan, Venice and France to gain territory in Italy. Clement was taken prisoner.
1527 Henry VIII, king of England, appealed to Rome for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, aunt of the Emperor Charles V.
1528 As Zurich had done in 1523, Berne accepted Protestantism after hearing a public debate.
1528 On Feb 29, Patrick Hamilton was executed (burned alive) for heresy at St. Andrews in Scotland. Hamilton had traveled to the Continent, where he met Luther at Wittenburg and Tyndale at Marburg. After returning to Scotland, he distributed a catechism entitled Patrick’s Places, which advocated justification by faith.
1528 Evangelicals destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary on a street corner in Paris.
1528: Coverdale preaches against the mass, is compelled to leave England.
1529: Tyndale and Coverdale work together at Hamburg. • Luther’s Small Catechism. • Cranmer was commissioned by king Henry to write a treatise justifying his divorce from Catherine.
1529 Henry VIII declared himself the head of the English church.
1529 Seige of Vienna. Suleiman’s forces besieged Vienna. The Turks arrived at Vienna on September 27, and Suleiman boasted that he would be eating breakfast in the city by the Feast of St. Michael (29 Sep). But the Turks failed to take it, and eventually retreated (14 Oct), though they first massacred or burned alive their prisoners, except those young enough for the slave markets.
1529 The Colloquy of Marburg. Philip, landgrave of Hesse, arranged for prominent reformers to meet at his castle in Marburg. Luther, Zwingli, and Martin Bucer attended. They were unable to agree on the sense in which Christ is present in the Eucharist. Luther defended the real presence, writing “This is my body” on the table in chalk and covering the words with a velvet cloth.
1530 Pope Clement VII (1523-34) crowned Charles V Holy Roman emperor in Bologna. This was the last time a pope would crown an emperor.
1530 The Augsburg Confession, prepared by Philip Melanchthon as an explanation of the Lutheran faith. Seven evangelical princes and representatives of two free imperial cities presented the confession to the emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg. (Charles hoped to arrange a compromise between the evangelicals and the Catholics.) Melanchthon’s confession affirms Trinitarian theology; the doctrine that all those who are not regenerate are guilty of Adam’s sin; Christ’s deity, incarnation, crucifixion, descent into hell, resurrection, and continuing intersession; and justification by grace through faith, and not by works. Article X states, “It is taught among us that the true body and blood of Christ are really present in the Supper of the Lord under the form of bread and wine and are there distributed and received.” Article XXII insists that communion should be in both kinds (bread and wine). The confession also affirmed the necessity and efficacy of baptism and retained auricular confession. The Catholics replied with a work known as the Confutation, and hope for compromise slipped away.
1530 On December 8, a priest in Valencia, Spain, set off a riot when he denied the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary during a sermon.
1530 Between this year and 1640, an estimated 1,000,000 European Christians were enslaved by Islamic raiders from North Africa. This number is roughly equivalent to the number of African slaves transported westward across the Atlantic by European Christians during the same period.
1530-33 Melchior Hoffman preached in Strassburg and the Low Countries. He taught that Christ’s flesh had come directly from heaven (having come through Mary but not partaking of her), emphasized adult baptism, and predicted the coming of Christ in 1533, followed by the millennial reign of the saints. He was imprisoned in Strassburg in 1533 and died there.
1530: Augsburg Confession. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples completes the first French-language translation of the entire Bible.
1531: Tyndale’s Pentateuch is published. • Zwingli killed in battle – Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system.
1531 The Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to an Aztec named Juan Diego, about 5 miles north of Mexico City. As proof of her desire to have a chapel built at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, she caused an image of herself to appear on Diego’s cape and told him to call the image Santa Maria de Guadalupe.
1531 Zwingli died while acting as chaplain for Zurich’s forces as they fought against Catholics from the Swiss inner states (forest cantons). Heinrich Bullinger replaced Zwingli as leader of the church in Zurich. Bullinger went further than Zwingli in his doctrine of the Eucharist, agreeing with Zwingli that it is a memorial service, but adding that God does, in fact, work through the Eucharist. Bullinger is noted for centering his discussion of Christianity around the concept of God’s covenants with men, and he interpreted baptism and the Eucharist as covenant seals.
1531 Establishment of the Schmalkaldic League, a defensive alliance among Protestant states and cities within the German empire. Members included Hesse, Saxony, Brunswick, Anhalt, Mansfeld, Magdeburg, Bremen, Strassburg, and Ulm. The league was formed in the wake of Diet of Augsburg, where Catholics had shown themselves unwilling to work toward a compromise. The league was destroyed in 1547 by the emperor Charles V.
1533 In March, the Act of Appeals was passed in England. This act forbade appeals to the pope on spiritual matters (including marriage). Matters relating to the king were to be decided by the Upper House of Convocation. Thomas Cromwell, the author of this legislation which enabled Henry VIII to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, was shortly thereafter acknowledged as the king’s chief minister.
The Convocations of Canterbury and York declared: “[t]he bishop of Rome has not by Scripture any greater jurisdiction in this kingdom of England than any other foreign prelate.” In the same year, both Convocations claimed that the pope had erred in permitting Henry to marry Catherine, since she had consummated her marriage to his brother Arthur. In May, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared the marriage null.
1533: Cranmer made Archbishop of Canterbury, approves Henry’s divorce.
1534: Tyndale Bible again published. 83% of the 1611 KJV Bible relies on this text
1534: King Henry VIII breaks ties with the Roman Catholic Church and forms the Anglican Church
1534: Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch revised. • Henry VIII excommunicated by the Pope, severs English churches from Rome, becomes head of the Church of England without any intention of reforming it. • Cranmer petitions Henry for creation of an authorized English version. • Luther’s first complete German Bible. • Anabaptists establish short-lived socialist community at Münster. • Geneva becomes independent Protestant commonwealth.
1534 Parliament passed several more more significant pieces of legislation at Thomas Cromwell’s urging: (1) the Act in Restraint of Annates, which forbade annates (the first year’s revenue from a bishop’s benefice) to be sent to Rome and obligated cathedral chapters to elect the king’s choice to bishoprics; (2) the Dispensations Act, which entirely halted the flow of money from the church in England to Rome and entitled the Archbishop of Canterbury to grant dispensations (exceptions to canon law); (3) the Act for Submission of the Clergy, which forbade Convocation to legislate except as the king permitted and entitled the king to select a committee to oversee and veto all legislation Convocation should pass; (4) the Succession Act, which made slandering Henry’s marriage to Anne treason, made the offspring of Henry’s marriage to Anne his rightful heirs, and required all adult subjects to swear an oath to uphold the act; and (5) the Act of Supremacy, which permitted Henry to correct preachers, oversee the proper statement of doctrine, try heretics, and discipline the clergy.
1534 A Dutch Bible by Jacob van Liesveldt segregated the apocryphal books. This is the first vernacular Bible to do so. Luther’s German Bible of the same year also segregated these books, entitling them the “Apocrypha” for the first time.
1534/35 Affair of the Placards. In Paris, twenty-four Protestants were burned alive between Nov 10, 1534, and May 5, 1535, in reprisal for French Reformers’ placing posters in several French cities in October reviling the mass as idolatry and slandering the pope. Many French evangelical intellectuals (including John Calvin) left the country.
1535 First complete English Bible printed – Coverdale’s. His was also the first English Bible to segregate the apocryphal books, though he did place Baruch at the end of Jeremiah.
1535 Execution of Thomas More. More had refused to take the oath required by the Succession Act (see 1534).
1535 In June, Catholic and evangelical forces of Franz von Waldeck, bishop of Munster, entered that city after a year’s siege. Radical Anabaptists under Jan Matthijszoon and, after his death, Jan Beukels (John of Leiden), had taken control of Munster in February 1534. The Anabaptists preached that the millennium was imminent and that Munster was the New Jerusalem.
1535 During the siege of Munster, several members of Menno Simons’ congregation were killed. Simons was a Catholic parish priest, whose parish was in Witmarsum, but had been influenced by the writings of Luther and Zwingli. In 1536 or 1537, Simons was rebapized as an adult and became leader of an Anabaptist group which rejected the use of arms. These early Mennonites also believed that the Second Coming was imminent, and they taught that Christ’s flesh did not come from Mary, but had descended from heaven.
1535 The modern Sunday School began in Milan when the priest Abbate Castellino de Castello began enticing boys to catechesis by offering them apples. The work he started eventually resulted in the formation of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.
1535 Geneva declared itself independent of Savoy (see 1526) and accepted the Reformation, as its ally Berne had done in 1528.
1535: Coverdale Bible- Myles Coverdale (c.1488-1569); The First Complete Bible printed in the English Language (80 Books: OT, NT & Apocrypha). Coverdale was an assistant of Tyndale, former Augustinian Friar who eventually became the protestant Bishop of Exeter. Moved Apocrypha to back of the Bible. ● Tyndale’s last revised New Testament • Tyndale betrayed to Roman Catholic authorities, charged with heresy and imprisoned. He continues to translate the historical books of the Old Testament • Erasmus’ 5th edition of the Greek New Testament.
1536: In his translation of the Bible from Greek into German, Luther removed 4 N.T. books (Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation) and placed them in an appendix saying they were less than canonical. ● Tyndale burned at the stake – “Lord. Open the King of England’s Eye’s”
1536 The Pilgrimage of Grace. This uprising, led by Robert Aske, was in part a protest against Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. Aske and his followers took York and demanded papal rule over the church and the calling of a new Parliament. Thomas Howard, the third duke of Norfolk, by offering a pardon persuaded Aske to send his forces home. Aske and about 250 others were executed shortly thereafter.
1536 First edition of Calvin’s Institutes. In time, Calvin became the leader of the Reformed branch of Protestantism. Like the other major Reformers (Luther, Zwingli, and Bullinger) he continued to teach that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life.
On the Eucharist, Calvin wrote (Institutes, 4.17.5), “There are some who define the eating of the flesh of Christ, and the drinking of his blood, to be, in one word, nothing more than believing in Christ himself. … According to them, to eat is merely to believe; while I maintain that the flesh of Christ is eaten by believing, because it is made ours by faith, and that that eating is the effect and fruit of faith.”
1536 William Tyndale, who had been imprisoned near Brussels at Henry VIII’s insistence, executed by strangling. His corpse was burned at the stake.
1536 Jakob Hutter burned for heresy. During his lifetime, Hutterite communities had been established in Moravia. Hutterite children lived together in dormitories beginning at age 2. Adults lived in dormitories also, regardless of their marital state.
1536 The First Helvetic Confession, written in Basel. This Reformed confession was criticized for moving too far in Luther’s direction on the question of the Eucharist.
1536 Wittenberg Concord. Discussions between Philip Melanchthon (Lutheran) and Martin Bucer (Reformed) led to an agreed statement on the Eucharist. The statement failed to promote harmony, because Swiss Protestants thought it conceded too much to Luther’s position.
1536-40 The dissolution of English monasteries.
1537 A Reform Commission, appointed by Pope Paul III (1534-49) delivered its report, entitled Consilium de Emendenda Ecclesia. The report blamed the church’s woes, including the Protestant Reformation, on the papacy, the cardinals, and the hierarchy. The curia tried to suppress the report, but a copy made its way to Germany, where Luther published a German translation in 1538.
1537 Matthew’s Bible published. The work was edited by an associate of William Tyndale’s, John Rogers. Matthew’s Bible was influenced by Tyndales work, including Old Testament material translated by Tyndale but not previously published.
1537: Matthew Bible; The Second Complete Bible printed in English. Done by John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers (80 Books) in Germany, giving Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, Pentateuch, and historical books of the Old Testament. Tyndale’s New Testament reprinted in England. • Tyndale condemned. He commits his manuscript to his friend John Rogers and is burned at the stake. • Calvin publishes his Institutes of the Christian Religion. • John Calvin preaches in Geneva. • Matthew’s and Coverdale’s Bibles licensed for unhindered sale in England.
1538: Coverdale in Paris editing Great Bible. • English bishops instructed to display largest English Bible in parish churches.
1539: The “Great Bible” Printed; The First English Language Bible Authorized for Public Use (80 Books). Myles Coverdale, also known as Cranmer’s Bible. 15” x 9”. First Authorized English Bible by the King of England. Great Bible (dedicated to Henry VIII) published and authorized in England. ● Coverdale returns to England • English parliament adopts the Act of Six Articles, reaffirming various Roman Catholic teachings. “Lutherans” subjected to persecution. ● The Taverner Bible, A revision of Matthew’s Bible, in which the sharply Protestant notes are omitted or toned down.
1539 The Great Bible published, so called because of its size – each page measuring 13 ¼ by 7 1/2 inches.
1539 The Six Articles Act passed by the English Parliament at the king’s insistence. The act defended transubstantiation, communion in one kind, clerical celibacy, vows of chastity, private masses, and auricular confession.
1540 Thomas Cromwell put to death. His execution was due to his arrangement of the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne of Cleves, a German princess, in hope of establishing an alliance with German Lutherans. Henry was unhappy with the marriage and, as the Six Articles Act shows, not favorably disposed toward Lutheran theology.
1540 Pope Paul III (1534-49) established the Jesuit order.
1540: 2nd edition of Great Bible with preface of Cranmer, called Cranmer’s Bible. • Coverdale, under pressure as a “Lutheran,” leaves England again.
1541 John Calvin permanently established at Geneva.
1541 The Turkish army occupied Buda in Hungary.
1541 The Regensburg Colloquy. In January, Johann Gropper, a theologian in the service of Hermann von Wied, archbishop of Cologne, and Martin Bucer began discussions on the nature of justification. Gropper prepared a statement on justification that became known as the Regensberg Book, since it was prepared for the Imperial Diet that would meet in Regensberg (Ratisbon) in March. (Gropper agreed with the Protestants and Augustine that man could do nothing to justify himself, and stated that human merits and the sacraments would have to be augmented on judgment day with the “alien righteousness” of Christ.) There was hope that the Regensberg Book would form the basis for a reunion of Catholics and evangelicals. However, disagreements over transubstantiation and the necessity of auricular confession stood in the way. In addition, since an agreement would strengthen the Hapsburg emperor, there were political incentives to retaining the status quo.
1542 In August, Cardinal Gasparo Contarini died under house arrest. Contarini had been leader of the Catholics at the Regensburg Colloquy. His willingness to compromise there was not looked on favorably in Rome. Contarini was an associate of the Catholic humanist Juan de Valdes, who emphasized the need for God’s grace conveyed through the Holy Spirit. Those influenced by Valdes’s interest in reforming the Church from within became known as Spirituali. Among the Spirituali were Bernardino Ochino, of the Franciscan reformed order, and Piermartire Vermigli (known as Peter Martyr). As Contarini lay dying, Ochino fled northward to Calvin’s Geneva. Peter Martyr also left and joined Martin Bucer in Strassburg. Reginald Pole was also associated with the Spirituali.
1542 Before he fled to Strassburg, Peter Martyr had supported a movement in Tuscany that resembled incipient Protestantism – including evangelical preaching. Gian Pietro Carafa (the future Pope Paul IV) convinced Pope Paul III (1534-49) to established the Roman Inquisition to combat Protestantism. It was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Paul VI in 1965. Most of this Inquisition’s activities were in Italy.
1542 Clement Marot published his Trente Pseaulmes de David, the first metrical psalter. (A partial edition had appeared in 1539. When Calvin left Geneva in 1538, he ministered to the French congregation in Strassburg, who were already singing Marot’s version of the psalms.) Marot found later refuge in Calvin’s Geneva, where the practice of singing the psalms was adopted. Metrical psalters were also produced in German (1573) and Hungarian (1607), as well as English.
1543 Hermann von Weid, the archbishop of Cologne, published his Pia Consultatio, which condemned the mass, endorsed justification by faith alone, objected to prayer to saints, and adopted the Reformed numbering of the Ten Commandments (which emphasized the injunction against graven images). Archbishop von Weid eventually died a Protestant in 1552.
1543: English Parliament bans Tyndale’s version and all public reading of Bible by laymen.
1544 Johann Gropper, who had worked for Archbishop von Weid during the Regensberg Colloquy (1541), attacked the Pia Consultatio in his Antididagma.
1544 The German emperor Charles V made peace with France, allowing him to attack the Schmalkaldic League (see 1531).
1545 In December, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563) was convened. Only 31 bishops were present intially, and that number never rose above 270. Trent, in the Italian Alps, was within the Holy Roman empire, and so acceptable to the Germans.
1545 Francis I, king of France (1515-47), allowed the Inquisition to persecute the Waldensees, followers of Peter Waldo (see 1184). The Waldensees lived in roughly 30 villages in Provence. Three thousand Waldensees were killed and a further 700 of the men were made galley slaves.
1545: The Council of Trent convened. Scripture reading forbidden.
1546: Robert Estienne (Stephanus), printer – First Greek New Testament (last Bible without verses). John Calvin’s printer.
1546: Death of Luther. • Council of Trent decrees that the Latin Vulgate (with Apocryphal books) is authoritative version of Scripture. • Henry VIII bans Coverdale version. • Stephens publishes his first Greek New Testament.
1546: At the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church reaffirmed once and for all the full list of 27 books. The council also confirmed the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books which had been a part of the Bible canon since the early Church and was confirmed at the councils of 393 AD, 373, 787 and 1442 AD. At Trent Rome actually dogmatized the canon, making it more than a matter of canon law, which had been the case up to that point, closing it for good.
1546 On 1 March, George Wishart was burned at St. Andrews, Scotland. Wishart had been a schoolmaster at Montrose, where he had been charged with heresy for teaching the New Testament in Greek (1538). He had also translated the First Helvetic Confession of 1536 into Scots. Having gone to England and taught at Cambridge, Wishart returned to Scotland at the request of Henry VIII to arrange a marriage between Henry’s son Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Wishart was executed at the urging of Cardinal David Beaton for preaching the doctrines of the Reformation. Cardinal Beaton was subsequently murdered. John Knox became associated with the murderers, and preached to them at St. Andrews Castle. In 1548, Knox was captured by the French, and spent 19 months as a galley slave.
1546 Fourteen Lutherans were burned to death at Meaux, France. The tongues of eight of them had been torn out before the execution.
1546 The German emperor Charles V stepped up persecution of Protestants in the Low Countries. Many printers fled to England, where they were in a position to spread evangelicalism when Edward VI ascended to the throne in 1547.
1546 In the 4th session, the Council of Trent defined: “It has thought it proper, moreover, to insert in this decree a list of the sacred books, lest a doubt might arise in the mind of some one as to which are the books received by this council. They are the following: of the Old Testament, the five books of Moses, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first and second of Esdras, the latter of which is called Nehemias, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidic Psalter of 150 Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets, namely, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of Machabees, the first and second. Of the New Testament, the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen Epistles of Paul the Apostle, to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the Apostle, three of John the Apostle, one of James the Apostle, one of Jude the Apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the Apostle. If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be anathema.”
In addition, as regards the Vulgate, it added the following: “Moreover, the same holy council considering that not a little advantage will accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which of all the Latin editions of the sacred books now in circulation is to be regarded as authentic, ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and that no one dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it.” Yet, this authenticity did not prevent the Roman Catholic Church from declaring a new edition of the Vulgate as “typical” (see 1979).
The council was undecided about the propriety of translations of the Bible into the vernacular. It appointed an Index Commission to make a recommendation to the pope on this matter. See 1564.
1546 In about this year Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbuty, abandoned the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. He was influenced by Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London from 1550, who had read Ratramnus’ De Corpore et Sanguine Domini. (See 868, 1050, 1059.)
1546 Death of Martin Luther.
1547 In the fifth session, the Council of Trent stated, “Justification … is not merely remission of sins, but also sanctification and renewal of the inward man.”
Canon XI of the same session reads, “If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost and is inherent in them; or even that grace whereby we are justified is only the favor of God: let him be anathema.”
Canon XIII: “If anyone says that it is necessary for everyone, in order to obtain the remission of sins, that he believe for certain and without wavering … that his sins are forgiven him: let him be anathema.” Cardinal Reginald Pole found Trent’s discussion of justification so distressing that he had to leave the council.
1547 Edward VI (1547-53) king of England. He was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. As Edward was only nine years old, the government was overseen by guardians, first Somerset, then Northumberland.
1547 In November, the English Parliament decreed that the Eucharist be administered with both bread and wine (in both kinds).
1547 With the German emperor’s victories over the Schmalkaldic League, Strassburg was forced to allow some parishes to return to Catholicism. Peter Martyr left the city and moved to England, where he became a professor at Oxford.
1547: Death of Henry VIII. • Edward VI becomes king of England. • Parliament repeals the anti-Protestant Act of Six Articles and removes restrictions on printing and reading of English versions. Cranmer begins Protestant reformation of the Church of England. • Coverdale, Rogers return to England. • John Knox preaches Reformation in Scotland.
1548 In England, the Privy Council outlawed candles at Candlemas, ashes on Ash Wednesday, palms on Palm Sunday, repeatedly bowing before the cross on Good Friday, and the use of holy water. The Council also outlawed the presence of any images in churches.
1548 The Interim. With the Schmalkaldic League destroyed, the German emperor Charles V imposed a religious solution on the empire. Known as the interim, it endorsed Catholic theology and worship, but permitted married clergy and communion in both kinds.
1549 In February a bill was passed which legalized clerical marriage in England.
1549 The First English Book of Common Prayer introduced. It was opposed by the Reformers because it retained too much from the older forms. In fact, it was reportedly used at St. Paul’s in 1550 “as the very Mass.” The canon included a prayer for the dead and thanked God for “the wonderful grace and virtue declared … chiefly in the glorious and most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Thy Son Jesu Christ our Lord and God.” The 1549 canon also included an explicit invocation of the Holy Spirit (absent from the earlier usage) before the words of institution. Perhaps most significantly, in the the Book of Common Prayer the liturgy was now in English instead of Latin. The Catholic-minded conservatives would have preferred to retain the former services.
1549 Jews were officially recognized as a fifth estate in Poland. King Sigismund II Augustus (1548-72) encouraged Jewish immigration.
1549 Martin Bucer left Strassburg for England, where he became a professor at Cambridge.
1549 Consensus Tigurinus (Zurich Agreement). Calvin and Bullinger met in May of this year and agreed to this joint statement on baptism and the Eucharist. The Consensus was instrumental in the identification of Reformed Christians as a distinct and coherent group.
1549 Francis Xavier, one of the first seven Jesuits, arrived in Japan. By the time he left in 1551, there were approximately 2000 Christian converts in Japan.
1549: English Book of Common Prayer compiled by Cranmer. • Stephens’ 2nd Greek New Testament
1550: Stephanus 3rd Greek New Testament, designed by Garamond (from the font fame).
1550 In England, stone altars were replaced with wooden tables oriented east-west, the priest standing on the north side. The change was initiated by Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London, in June. In November, the Privy Council ordered all bishops to follow Ridley’s example.
1550 A radical group met for forty days in Venice and determined that Jesus is not God. Pietro Manelfi, one of the leaders, later turned himself over to the Roman Inquisition.
1550 Pope Paul III had died on November 10, 1549. Paul III had recommended Cardinal Pole be his successor, and Pole had the support of the German emperor Charles V. Pole came within one vote of being elected, but eventually lost to Julius III (1550-55).
1550 The English set up a special church for refugees from the continent, the “Stranger Church,” in London. Jan Laski, formerly chief pastor in Emden (until the Interim), and a benefactor of Erasmus, was appointed superintendent.
1550 The Polish Diet considered a proposal that the king, Sigismund II Augustus, lead a national church. The Diet demanded communion in both species, the end of mandatory celibacy for priests, and services in the vernacular. Sigismund forwarded these demands to the pope.
1551 In its thirteenth session, the Council of Trent decreed: “[B]y the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood; which conversion is suitably and properly called Transubstantiation by the holy Catholic Church.”
1551 The elector Moritz of Saxony formed an alliance with Henry II of France. The ensuing war against the Hapsburg emperor Charles V effectively freed German evangelicals from the Interim (see 1548).
1551 Death of Martin Bucer.
1551: edition of the Textus Receptus (which added verse numbering to the 1550 edition). Last edition of Matthew’s Bible. • Coverdale appointed bishop of Exeter. • Stephens’ 4th Greek New Testament
1552: John Knox refuses offer to become an English bishop.
1552 The Second English Book of Common Prayer published. Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer may have influenced Cranmer to make certain changes in the prayer book. In contrast to the first, this second prayer book suggested that the presence of Christ in communion was only in the hearts of the believers. The words said as communion was distributed were changed from “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life” to “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.” It also contained the Black Rubric, that explained of the command to kneel at the reception of communion, “that it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or to any real and essential presence there being of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.” The recitation of the Ten Commandments was first introduced in the 1552 book. A rubric concerning vestments forbade the use of albs, vestments, or copes, but indicated that a priest should wear a surplice, and a bishop a rochet.
The 1552 canon deleted the prayer invoking the Holy Spirit, first included in 1549. It moved the communion to a point immediately following the words of institution (“this is my body” & etc.), perhaps to minimize any lingering tendency to worship the host. This order is still followed in the English Book of Common Prayer.
1552 Joachim Westphal, a Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, published a pamphlet critical of the Consensus Tigurinus in which he referred to Calvin as a cow and Bullinger as a bull.
1552 Treaty of Passau, resulting in peace between Moritz of Saxony and the German (Holy Roman) empire. Passau formed the basis of the Peace of Augsburg, 1555.
1552 Juan Gil, a cathedral preacher in Seville, Spain, was arrested by the Inquisition. Gil had been reading Protestant writings and was accused of fomenting dissent. He was forced to recant.
1552 The Council of Trent suspended. See 1562.
1553 Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in Geneva. Servetus was a unitarian. John Calvin’s reputation as a leader among the Reformed owes much to this event.
1553 The 42 articles of religion were published in England.
1553: “Bloody” Mary Tudor becomes queen of England. • Last edition of Coverdale Bible.
1553: Queen Mary returns England to its former Roman Catholic loyalties. Burned John Rogers alive at the stake as the first martyr.
1554: Mary reverses the reforms of Edward and enforces Romanism in England. • Knox leaves England for Geneva.
1554 Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, queen of England 1553-58, married Philip of Spain and the persecution of Protestants began in England. Roughly three hundred heretics were burned between Feb 4, 1555 and Nov 10, 1558. The 1552 prayer book was replaced with the old Latin liturgical books.
1554 Many English Protestants fled to Emden in East Frisia, which became a center for the printing of Protestant material.
1555 The English Parliament restored papal authority.
1555 Upon Mary’s ascendancy to the throne, approximately 800 English Protestants fled to the continent. Initially they formed communities at Frankfurt, Emden, Wesel, Strassburg and Zurich, and later settled in Basel, Geneva and Aarau. Much Protestant propaganda made its way from Emden into England. The community in Geneva was founded after a conflict in Frankfurt over use of the 1552 Prayer Book. Moderate reformers under Richard Cox were opposed by a group that wished for further purification, led by John Knox. Knox and many of his followers were expelled from Frankfurt by the city authorities when the latter learned (from one of Cox’ associates) that Knox had vilified Mary Tudor and the emperor Charles V. Knox and several others then settled in Geneva, where a team headed by William Whittingham and Antony Gilby later produced the Geneva Bible (see 1560).
1555 Peace of Augsburg. After warring unsuccessfully against the German Protestants since 1546, Charles V agreed to allow each prince to determine the religion of his state. Protestants, however, were to conform to the 1530 Augsburg Confession, which afforded no freedom for the Reformed. In addition, the “Peace” stipulated that bishops and prelates who converted to Protestantism would lose their imperial lands and office.
1555 Gian Pietro Carafa, instigator of the Roman Inquisition, was elected Pope Paul IV (1555-59). Wishing to drive the Spanish out of Naples, Paul formed an alliance with France against Spain. Spanish victories in 1557 forced him to make peace. Paul denounced the Peace of Augsburg. Assuming the Jews were fomenting Protestantism, Paul established a ghetto for Jews in Rome and forced them to wear yellow hats as a distinctive Jewish badge.
1555 Michel de Notredame or Nostredame (Nostradamus), a French physician and astrologer, published his Centuries. The Centuries consists of prophecies in the form of rhymed quatrains collected into sets of 100.
1555/56 John Knox permitted to preach in Scotland.
1555: John Rogers burned at the stake. • Cranmer burned at the stake. • Coverdale and other leading Protestants flee England for Geneva. • Peace of Augsburg ends wars between Lutherans and Romanists in Germany, legitimizes Lutheranism.
1555: Stephanus Latin Vulgate with verse numbers. Also dropped the use of heavy dark font “Traditional Gothic Blackletter” in favor of Latin or “Roman Letters”.
1556: Beza’s Latin New Testament
1556 At a meeting of non-Lutheran Protestants at Secemin, Poland, in January, a certain Peter Gonesius promoted pacifism, denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and attacked infant baptism.
1556 The Hapsburg emperor Charles V went into retirement. Philip II became king of Spain and prince of the Netherlands. He reigned until 1598. Charles’s brother Ferdinand took control of the German (Holy Roman) Empire.
1556 In March, Thomas Cranmer, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake. He had signed six recantations of his Protestant views but, when given a pulpit at University Church in Oxford, withdrew his recantations. On the stake, he reportedly stretched his right hand, with which he had signed the recantations, into the flames.
1556 In Strassburg the English exile John Ponet, formerly bishop of Winchester, published a book entitled Short Treatise of Political Power in which he endorsed tyrranicide. This book would be reprinted in 1639 and again in 1642, seven years before Charles I was beheaded.
1557 In April, Pope Paul IV (1555-59) removed Cardinal Reginald Pole from his office as papal legate. In June, after England declared war on France (the pope’s ally in his war with Spain), Paul charged Pole with heresy and summoned him to Rome, but the queen refused to permit Pole to travel. Pole had been associated with the Spirituali (see 1542). (The war with France resulted in England’s loss of Calais.)
1557 The Spanish defeated the French at St. Quentin.
1557 In December, some Scottish nobles signed a “Covenant” to oppose Popery. This was the first of several such covenants (see 1638).
1557: William Whittingham’s English New Testament published in Geneva. English exiles there begin work on English Old Testament
1558: Elizabeth becomes queen of England.
1558 In November, Queen Mary Tudor and Cardinal Reginald Pole died on the same day, the queen of stomach cancer, and the cardinal of influenza.
1558 Elizabeth I (1558-1603) queen of England. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
1559 The English Parliament passed (1) an act of uniformity, which required the use of a modified form of the second Prayer Book (Cranmer’s book of 1552) and (2) an act of supremacy, making Elizabeth head of the church. Among other changes, the modified Prayer Book allowed priests and bishops their vestments and deleted the explanation concerning kneeling. It also combined the words of institution from 1549 with those of 1552.
1559 The Sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition (later known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued the first catalog of forbidden books – the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the IIndex of Forbidden Books. The last edition of the Index was published in 1948, and it was finally suppressed in 1966. (See also 496 above.) Under the title Biblia prohibita (prohibited Bibles), the Index forebade some Latin editions and the publication and possession of translations of the Bible into German, French, Spanish, Italian, English, or Dutch, without the permission of the Roman Inquisition. All the works of Erasmus were banned also. The Jesuits found this disconcerting, since they used Erasmus’s grammars in their schools.
1559 The Spanish Inquisition produced its own Index of Forbidden Books. Among the prohibited works was Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. All Spanish language books printed outside Spain were banned. The Inquisition also ordered the return of all Spanish students studying abroad, as well as all teachers.
1559 The Spanish Inquisition arrested Bartolome Carranza, archbishop of Toledo. Since Carranza had been battling Protestantism in England under Mary Tudor, where he wrote a catechism that formed the basis of the 1566 catechism of Trent, the Inquisition found Protestant writings in his possession. Carranza was also known to be a friend of Cardinal Reginald Pole (see 1557) and so associated with the humanism of the Spirituali. Carranza spent 17 years in prison.
1559 John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs first published, in Latin. The first English printing was in 1563.
1559 A peace treaty was signed at Cateau-Cambresis to end the war between France and Spain. In the celebratory jousting that followed, King Henry II of France sustained a mortal wound to the face. He died two weeks later. His wife, Catherine de Medici, assumed the regency for her son King Francois, the heir to the throne.
1559 Publication of the French (or Gallican) Confession, a statement of faith by French Huguenots. It was based on a draft prepared by John Calvin.
1559 The Palatine elector Frederich III rejected the Lutheran brand of Protestantism in favor of the Reformed.
1559: Elizabeth repudiates Romanism. The Act of Supremacy makes her head of Church of England. Romanist bishops expelled. Coverdale and other leading Protestants return to England. Matthew Parker was made Archbishop of Canterbury.
1560: The Geneva Bible with revised New Testament published by Whittingham in Geneva. The First English Language Bible to add Numbered Verses to Each Chapter (80 Books). Used Latin Letters. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. 1557 NT, 1560 whole bible. Verse divisions, chapter headings, maps, tables, marginal notes. Also known as the Breeches Bible – Rendering in Genesis where Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. • Whittingham returns to England. • Knox’s Scots Confession ratified by the Scottish parliament.
1560 Death of Philip Melanchthon.
1560 The Geneva Bible published. William Whittingham (1524?-79 – see 1555) is thought to have been the principal translator, assisted by Anthony Gilby and Thomas Sampson. This was the Bible of the Pilgrims, and remained the most popular English translation until about the middle of the next century. In this Bible, the text was divided into verses for the first time. In the 1560 edition, the books of the “Apocrypha” are included in a section between the two Testaments.
The Geneva Bible is dedicated to “the most noble and virtuous Queen Elizabeth” and the dedication provides advice on “the building of the Lord’s Temple, the house of God, the Church of Christ, whereof the Son of God is the head and perfection.” Just as when Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple, enemies opposed him, so it is now. The current enemies include “Papists,” “worldlings,” and “ambitious prelates.” But the authors urge the queen to follow the example of Josiah, who “destroyed, not only with utter confusion the idols with their appurtenances, but also burnt (in sign of detestation) the idolatrous priests’ bones upon their altars, and put to death the false prophets and sorcers, to perform the words of the Law of God: and therefore the Lord gave him good success and blessed him wonderfully, so long as he made God’s word his line and rule to follow, and enterprised nothing before he had inquired at the mouth of the Lord.” And how should the Queen so inquire? “And forasmuch as he hath established and left an order in his Church for the building up of his body, appointing some to be Apostles, some Prophets, others Evangelists, some pastors, and teachers, he signifieth that every one according as he is placed in this body which is the Church, ought to inquire of his ministers concerning the will of the Lord, which is revealed inhis word.”
The Geneva Bible appears to rely on a slightly different Greek source text from that used by the Authorized Version. For instance, in Revelation 16.5, the Geneva Bible reads, “And I heard the angel of the waters say, Lord, thou art just, which art, and which wast, and holy, because thou hast judged these things.” The Authorized version has, “And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.” Again, in Acts 8.13, the Geneva Bible reads, “Then Simon himself believed also, and was baptized, and continued with Philip, and wondered, when he saw the signs and great miracles which were done.” The Authorized Version reads, “Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.” In Luke 10.22, the Geneva Bible reads, “Then he turned to his disciples, and said, All things are given me of my Father; and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: neither who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” The Authorized Version reads, “All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him”; omitting “Then he turned to his disciples, and said.” The Geneva Bible omits Luke 17.36, which, in the Authorized Version, reads, “Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left”; placing the text in a marginal note.
Calvin had taught that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. Consistent with this position, the Geneva Bible, in a note on Matthew 12.46 (which speaks of Jesus’s brethren), states, “This worde [brethren] in the Scriptures signifieth ofttimes every kinsman.”
1560 On July 6, the Treaty of Leith or Edinburgh was signed. The Scottish Protestants had allied themselves with the English and forced French troops to exit Scotland. During the siege of Leith, the Queen Mother (mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was in France) had died. The Treaty of Leith set up a provisional government. In August, the Scottish Parliament adopted a confession of faith authored by John Knox and three others, abolished the authority of the pope, reduced the number of Sacraments to two, and authorized the death penalty for anyone convicted three times of celebrating the Mass.
1561-72 During this period in France, Protestants were massacred on 18 occasions, and Catholics five times.
1561 Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to Scotland from France. John Knox managed to meet with the queen several times, but their discussions were fruitless. Mary remained firmly Catholic.
1561 English Roman Catholics set up a college at Douai (moved to Reims in 1571) from which they sent missionaries into England.
1561 Jakob Heraklides, an apostate from Orthodoxy who had been a mercenary in Western Europe, became ruler of Moldavia. He introduced a Reformed Protestantism into the country. He seized crosses and the metal frames of icons from Orthodox churches. Heraklides had the precious metal melted into coins with his image stamped onto them. The Orthodox were reminded of the iconoclast emperors who had destroyed sacred images but put their own images on currency. When Heraklides married a Pole rather than a Moldavian and his army dissipated, he was murdered.
1561 Colloquy at Poissy. Catherine de Medici, regent of France, realizing that Protestantism in France had taken firm root, summoned Protestant leaders to attend a discussion at Poissy. Theodore de Beza came from Geneva and Peter Martyr from Zurich. Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, unsuccessfully sought to reach agreement on a “middle way” based on the Augsburg Confession.
1561 Publication of the Belgic Confession. Revised in 1566, and again at the Synod of Dort in 1619, the Belgic Confession became the creed of Reformed Dutch churches.
1562 The Massacre of Vassy. The first French religious war (1562-63) began when the Duke of Guise and his men were disturbed during mass in Vassy by the psalm singing of Huguenots in a barn nearby. Guise killed 23 of them. By this year, there were an estimated 2000 Huguenot (Calvinist) churches in France with two million members. Protestantism had gained ground in France rapidly through the 1550s. The Jesuits moved into France in force at about this time.
1562 Concerned that Catholic monarchs were seeking to reconcile with the Protestants (see Poissy, 1561), Pope Pius IV (1559-65) summoned the Council of Trent for its final meeting. It opened in January 1562 and closed in December 1563, with a ceremony at which the council’s decrees were signed. It became clear to Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, who had been instrumental in the Colloquy at Poissy, that reconciliation with Protestantism was impossible after the decrees of Trent had been ratified. He turned away from his former program of supporting communion in both kinds and vernacular worship and began urging that France implement the decrees of Trent.
The council forbade the sale of indulgences.
In its twenty-second session, the Council of Trent decreed: “[I]n this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross … [T]his sacrifice is truly propitiatory, and that by means thereof this is effected: that we obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid, if we draw nigh unto God, contrite and penitent …”
1562 Theodore de Beza published a metrical Psalter in French.
1563 Russian troops under Ivan the Terrible slaughtered the Jewish and Protestant inhabitants of Polotsk (Belarus). Both groups rejected the use of religious icons.
1563 Elizabeth I, queen of England, proclaimed the 39 articles of religion. These were the 42 articles of 1553 as edited by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.
1563 John of the Cross (1542-91) became a Carmelite monk at Medina del Campo in Spain. He wrote mystical poetry, describing the union of the soul with Christ. Among his works are The Dark Night of the Soul and Ascent of Mount Carmel.
1563 The Heidelburg Catechism, written the previous year as an attempt to reconcile Lutheran and Calvinist positions, was accepted at a synod of the church in the Palatinate (see 1559, Frederich III). Zacharias Ursinus led the group that developed the catechism.
1563 Johann Wyver, physician to the duke of Cleves-Jurich, published his De Praestigiis Daemonum, in which criticized the persecution of witches. As a consequence, Bremen ceased witch trials.
1563: Whittingham made Dean of Durham. • Archbishop Parker and eight of his bishops begin work on the “Bishops’ Bible.” • Thirty-nine Articles of Religion adopted as doctrinal standard for Church of England. • Heidelberg Catechism published. • Apostolic Constitutions (ancient book of church order and dogma, purporting to be from the apostles) published by the Jesuit Turrianus.
1564: Death of John Calvin. • Birth of Shakespeare.
1564 Maximilian II succeeded Ferdinand as Holy Roman emperor.
1564 The Creed of the Council of Trent approved. It confessed acceptance of tradition, and obligated the faithful to understand scripture “according to the meaning which has been held by holy Mother Church and which she now holds.” The seven sacraments are endorsed, and the mass is held to be a propitiatory sacrifice in which the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood, with “the whole and entire Christ … received under each species.” Belief in purgatory is mandated, as is veneration of the saints, their relics and images. The power of indulgences within the Church is affirmed, and obedience to “the Roman Pontiff” is sworn. Finally, a general affirmation of all the doctrines of the church is made, all heresies are rejected, and the “infallible teaching authority” of the “Roman Pontiff” is acknowledged.
1564 Pope Pius IV (1559-65) published rules developed by the Index Commission of the Council of Trent (see 1546 above) regarding the reading of Scripture in the vernacular. The fourth rule read, “Inasmuch as it is manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to everyone, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it, it is, on this point, referred to the judgment of the bishops or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented and not injured by it; and this permission must be had in writing. But if any shall have the presumption to read or possess it without such permission, he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary.” This freedom of bishops or inquisitors to give this permission was withdrawn by Pope Clement VIII in 1596.
1564 The Jesuits founded a Polish college at Braunsberg on the Baltic coast (between Danzig and Konigsberg).
1564 From about this year the term “Puritan” began to be used of those who wished to take the Reformation in England in the direction of the Reformed churches on the continent.
1565 Ferenc David, superintendent of the Reformed church in Transylvania, publicly expressed doubt about the doctrine of the Trinity.
1565: Theodore Beza Greek New Testament
1566: Last edition of Tyndale’s New Testament
1566 Second Helvetic Confession.
1566 Publication of the Catechism of the Council of Trent. This work was based on a catechism that Bartolome Carranza had prepared for Reginald Poe during Mary Tudor’s reign in England. See 1559. Since the Spanish Inquisition considered Carranza a heretic, it prohibited the Tridentine catechism from entering Spain.
1567 A professor at Louvain named Michael Baius accused the Jesuits of Pelagianism. Baius took an Augustinian, pessimistic view of human nature, as Jansen was to do later. Baius’s teachings were condemned by Pius V (1566-72).
1567/68 The second French religious war. Fearing Catholic aggression, the Huguenots attempted unsuccessfully to capture the king (Charles IX, 1560-74) and his mother. But the Huguenots did manage to seize the cities of Orleans and La Rochelle.
1567 Eighty Catholics massacred by Huguenots at Nimes, France.
1567 On 24 July, Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate, given the suspicious circumstances of her husband Darnley’s death and her sudden marriage to a man (Bothwell) suspected of his murder. Mary was replaced by her son James VI, who was coronated at Stirling on 29 July. John Knox preached the coronation sermon, signaling the success of Protestantism in Scotland.
1567 Publication in Heidelburg of Sanctae Inquisitionis hispanicae artes detectae ac palam traductae, an account of the Spanish Inquisition. The book helped generate the legend of the Spanish Inquisition’s sadistic cruelty.
1567: Mary Stuart abdicates throne of Scotland, is succeeded by her son James under Protestant regency.
1568: The Bishops Bible Printed; A revision of the Great Bible of 1539, (dedicated to Elizabeth) published by Archbishop Parker and authorized for church use. The Bible of which the King James was a Revision (80 Books). 1576 and 1599 expanded commentary and footnotes added.
1568 The Transylvanian Diet affirmed the legal status of Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, and even anti-Trinitarian religious groups (see 1565, Ferenc David). The Diet asserted that “ministers should everywhere preach and proclaim according to their understanding.”
1568 The Bishop’s Bible published in England. It was read publicly in the churches, though the Geneva Bible was more popular for private reading.
1568 Holland rose in revolt against Spain. This was the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648). Germany, England, and French Huguenots assisted the Dutch. The war was precipitated by Philip II’s introduction in 1559 of eleven new bishoprics. At Philip’s urging, the holders of these sees were determined to root out heresy, and they unleashed the Inquisition on the Low Countries. The persecution set up a backlash: in 1566 Protestant mobs wrecked churches in a number of cities, destroying statues, crucifixes, missals, and organs. In 1567, Philip’s regent, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, entered the territory with an army of ten thousand men (and two thousand prostitutes). He cracked down on the Protestants severely, forbidding emigration and arresting city officials who failed tolerated Protestants. Hundreds were imprisoned and executed. William of Orange seized the opportunity to wage a war of independence.
1568 A controversy arose at Heidelburg University over Thomas Erastus’s view that the secular authority, not the church, has the right to excommunicate sinners whenever the citizens of profess a single faith. Erastus’s view has given rise to the term “Erastianism,” which now refers to state domination of the church.
1568 Pope Pius V (1566-72) forbade bullfighting. He characterized it as sinful and prohibited anyone killed in a bullfight from Christian burial. Spain refused to promulgate the pope’s decree.
1568 Pope Pius V (1566-72) added several new condemnations to the bull Coena Domini (a yearly listing of crimes against the church). Anyone who appealed from the pope to a general council was to be condemned; as were rulers who banished cardinals, bishops, nuncios, or legates; and any secular court or private person who initiated legal proceedings against a cleric. Spain and Austria prohibited the bull from being promulgated. In Naples, the Viceroy collected and destroyed all copies of the bull. Venice prevented its publication on Venetian territory.
1568-70 The third French religious war. It ended when Charled IX signed a peace treaty with the Huguenots, who were advancing on Paris.
1569 Ivan the Terrible (1533-84) had St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, strangled to death in prison for opposing his cruel methods. (An alternate account states that Philip was burned alive.) Philip had refused to bless Ivan at a liturgy in Moscow in 1568. He was canonized in 1652.
1569 The Union of Lublin. Lithuania united to Poland.
1569 In a bull published this year, Pope Pius V (1566-72) gave the first official instructions regarding the Rosary (popular in northern Europe since the fifteenth century). The Jesuits had begun promoting the Rosary in the 1560s, and the Rosary had recently been introduced into the Roman Breviary.
1569 Arians (anti-Trinitarians) in Poland opened the Academy of Rakow, an institution of higher learning which also published Arian literature. See 1609.
1569: Last edition of Cranmer’s Great Bible. • Death of Coverdale.
1570s During this decade the Roman Inquisition triumphed over Protestantism in Italy, forcing it into hiding in remote valleys in the Alps.
1570 Beginning in about this year, pipe organs were removed from churches in England or allowed to fall into disrepair. Organs were no longer used in Scotland or in Zurich.
1570 The Turks invaded and conquered Cyprus. The bulk of the population were Orthodox peasants enslaved by a Frankish ruling class. The Turks restored the privileges and property of the Orthodox church, at the expense of the Latin Catholics. They also transported Moslem immigrants from Anatolia to work uninhabited land.
1570 Pope Pius V (1566-72) excommunicated Elizabeth I of England. His bull was entitled “The Damnation and Excommunication of Elizabeth.” It also deposed her and absolved her subjects from their oaths of allegiance to her.
1570 Thomas Cartwright, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, was dismissed for advocating a Presbyterian form of church government.
1571 At the naval battle of Lepanto, a Venetian and Spanish fleet defeated the Turks. This was largely revenge for the loss of Cyprus. The victory was celebrated throughout western Europe and signaled the end of the myth of Turkish invincibility. (Incidentally, Cervantes fought in this battle.)
1571 Tatars sacked and burned Moscow.
1571 In response to the papal deposition of its sovereign, England’s Parliament passed legislation against Catholic practice. All priests not ordained according to the prayer book were required to subscribe to the 39 Articles of Religion.
1571: Every bishop and cathedral in England ordered to have Bishops’ Bible.
1572: Bishops’ Bible revised and published with the old Great Bible Psalter. • Antwerp Polyglot published. • Death of John Knox.
1572 On January 12, a Scottish General Assembly re-introduced Episcopacy (Prelacy) into Scotland. The fight against Prelacy was led by Andrew Melville.
1572/3 Major cities in Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland and Orange came out openly in support of William of Orange. A group known as the Beggars of the Sea, in league with William, seized 18 ships and took command of the Netherlands coast. The brutality of Alva’s Spanish troops strengthened the resolve of the Dutch rebels. From this time the northern Low Countries were effectively independent of Philip II and Spain.
History 11
1572 Huguenots assembled in Paris were slaughtered – the of St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Charles IX was under the influence of Coligny, a leader of the Protestants, who urged him to support the Dutch war against Spain in hopes of acquiring Flanders for France. The queen mother, Catherine, convinced her son that the Protestants were about to kidnap him. Charles ordered the Huguenots killed. About 2000 were murdered in Paris, and a further 5000 in the provinces. Upon hearing of the massacre, Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) ordered a special medal to be produced to order the Ugonotorum strages, or defeat of the Protestants. He also commissioned a painting of the massacre with the title Pontifex Colignii necem probat, “The pope approves the killing of Coligny.”
1572 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) established the Gregorian University.
1573 A delegation of Lutheran scholars from Tubingen visited Constantinople. They provided Patriarch Jeremias II a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession. One of the Lutheran leaders, Martin Crusius, wrote, “If they wish to take thought for the eternal salvation of their souls, they must join us and embrace our teaching, or else perish eternally!” Jeremias provided an Orthodox critique of the Augsburg Confession in 1576.
1573 In Poland the Compact (or Confederation) of Warsaw provided for religious liberty. Nevertheless, the Polish king began discriminatory policies during the late 1580s during the reign of Sigismond III (see 1587).
1573 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) established a German college (the Germanicum) in Rome as part of a long-term strategy to train clergy who would become canons in German cathedrals and thus influence the selection of bishops.
1575 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) declared this a Jubilee Year. See 1300, 1450.
1575: Death of Taverner and Parker. Parker succeeded as Archbishop of Canterbury by the strongly Calvinistic Edmund Grindal, who actively promotes the Geneva Bible during the next eight years.
1576 Spanish mutineers in the war against the Dutch sacked Antwerp, killing 7000 citizens and setting a thousand buildings on fire.
1576 Rudolf II succeeded Maximilian II as Holy Roman emperor.
1576-80 During this period, a Dominican named Bartolome de Medina taught theology at the University of Salamanca. He formulated the casuistic theory of probabilism, according to which absolution was to be offered to those who had acted contrary to the opinion of most authorities if they had followed the opinion of at least one doctor of the Church. This theory was employed by the Jesuits and criticized for encouraging moral laxity. (Medina is also the inventor of the patio process for extracting silver from ore.)
1577 The College of St. Athanasius was opened in Rome to train missionaries to convert the Eastern Orthodox. Most of the students came from Catholic families living on islands ruled by Italians: Corfu, Crete, Cyprus, and Chios.
1577 The Formula of Concord written by Jakob Andrea and Martin Chemnitz. The Formula, an interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, was an attempt to reconcile the various branches of Lutheranism. Three years later, the Formula was included in the Book of Concord, a collection of Lutheran doctrinal standards.
1578 Faustus Socinus finished his De Jesu Christo servatore, in which he opposed he contradicted the view that Christ paid the penalty man owed God for sin. This work was not published until 1594. Already in 1562 Socinus had argued that the first chapter of John’s gospel means that Christ held a divine office, not that he was divine by nature. In 1578/79, Socinus visited Transylvania and attempted to convince Ferenc David (see 1565) that Christ could be worshipped even if he is not divine (David did not agree). Socinus’s anti-Trinitarianism came to be termed Socinianism.
1578 In a sermon given in Cambridge, Dr. Laurence Chaderton, a Puritan, described the Church of England as “a huge mass of old and stinking works , of conjuring, witchcraft, sorcery, charming, blaspheming the holy name of God, swearing and forswearing, profaning of the Lord’s Sabbath, disobedience to superiors, contempt of inferiors; murder, manslaughter, …”
1578: Martin begins Rheims version of the New Testament (authorized Roman Catholic version, translated from the Vulgate).
1579: Geneva Bible reprinted and authorized in Scotland. Every Scotch household of sufficient means is required by law to buy a copy. • Death of Whittingham.
1579 In France the anonymous work Vindiciae contro tyrannos (A Vindication against Tyrants) was published. It argued that a king, if he were a tyrant and failed to uphold the natural law, could be deposed by magistrates or by a body such as States-General.
1579 Alessandro Farnesse, Duke of Parma, sacked Maastricht. Four hundred people survived out of a population of 30,000.
1579 In Munich, Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and Archduke Karl of Inner Austria met with Wilhelm V, son of the Duke of Bavaria. They agreed to suppress Protestantism not through force of arms but by removing their legal and political privileges, and by favoring and promoting Catholics.
1579 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) transformed the English pilgrim hospice in Rome into a seminary for training missionaries to England.
1580-82 Though completed around the turn of the century, the complete Slavonic Bible (known as the Ostrozhsky or Ostrong Bible because it was published at the Ostrozhskii princes’ printing house) was printed. See 1490 above.
1580/81 General Assemblies in Scotland condemned the Scottish Episcopacy. James VI signed the Negative Confession, which abjured Popery.
1580: Lutheran Formula of Concord.
1581 Edmund Campion executed at Tyburn (now Marble Arch, Hyde Park). A Jesuit missionary, Campion authored Decem rationes, a pamphlet opposing the Anglican Church. In England, 78 Catholic priests and 25 laypersons were executed for their religion in the decade ending with 1590.
1582 Gregorian Calendar. On 24 February, Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) revised the calendar to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. Oct 5, 1582 became Oct 15. The beginning of the year was moved from 25 March to 1 January. The revised calendar was not adopted in England until 1752.
1582 In November, a synod meeting in Constantinople rejected the Gregorian calendar reform, particularly as it was introduced on papal authority alone. The pope had sent Livio Cellini to Constantinople in May to discuss the reform with Jeremias II Tranos, patriarch of Constantinople. Initially, the patriarch had been receptive. But when it became known that the reform had been instituted unilaterally the previous February, calendar reform was doomed in the East.
1582 The archbishop of Cologne, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, announced that he had become a Protestant, that he was married, and that he had no intention of stepping down as archbishop. Forces under Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria, augmented by troops from the Hapsburg Low Countries, removed the archbishop.
1582 Publication of the Rheims New Testament. The full Bible was complete in 1609. The preface to this Catholic New Testament stated that the purpose of the translation was to provide Catholic priests a weapon to use against Protestant arguments. The intention was not to supply laymen with the Scriptures.
1582: Rheims NT – Catholic English Bible (translated from the Latin) published by English Roman Catholics living in France. 1582 New Testament, Douay OT – 1609/10 Old Testament. Reaction to the Geneva Bible. • Beza’s 2nd Greek New Testament • Dropping its 1,000-year-old Latin-only policy, the Church of Rome produces the first English Catholic Bible, the Rheims New Testament, from the Latin Vulgate. • Julian to Gregorian Calendar – The Gregorian calendar is also known as the Western or Christian calendar. Its predecessor, the Julian calendar, was replaced because it did not correctly reflect the actual time it takes the Earth to circle once around the Sun, known as a tropical year. In the Julian calendar, a leap day was added every four years, which is too frequent. The switch took more than 300 years
1583: Grindal succeeded by John Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury.
1584 William of Orange assassinated.
1584 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) founded the Maronite College in Rome. It was during this century that the Maronites (see 684), who had been Monothelites in the centuries immediately following the sixth ecumenical council, entered into communion with Rome. [This last sentence is contradicted by the traditions of the Maronites themselves, who hold they have always been “orthodox Christians in union with the Roman see” – Britannica.]
1584 Death of Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan. Borromeo had been instrumental in the publication of the catechism of Trent in 1566. He also introduced and promoted the confessional (a wooden chamber with two compartments separated by a latticed screen).
1585 Publication of Dudley Fenner’s Sacra Theologia, a work on covenant theology.
1586 Publication of William Perkins’ Treatise Tending unto a Declaration whether a man be in the estate of Damnation or in the estate of Grace and if he be in the first, how he may in time come out of it; if in the second, how he may discern it, and persevere in the same to the end. A central problem for the Puritans was the determination of whether they might have only a temporary faith, only seeming to be among the elect, while actually being among the damned. This question led the Puritans to keep journals in which they recorded the examination of their own inner lives.
1587 On 8 Feb, Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded. Mary had escaped from Scotland to England in 1568, where she was held in confinement. She had been implicated in a plan for a Spanish invasion of England (the Throckmorton plot, 1582) and the Babington plot (1586) to murder Elizabeth.
1587 The third printed edition of the Septuagint was published under the sponsorship of Pope Sixtus V (1585-90). Known as the Sixtine Septuagint, the text relies heavily on Codex Vaticanus (B). Valpy’s edition of 1819 is based on the Sixtine; Brenton, in turn, based his text (1851) on Valpy’s.
1587 Sigismund III of Sweden became king of Poland. His overturned the policy of his predecessor, King Stephen Bathory, and prevented Orthodox and Lutheran bishops from taking seats in the Polish Senate, though Catholic bishops retained that privilege. He also set aside all public offices for Catholics.
1587: Death of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.
1588: Destruction of Spanish Armada.
1588 The Jesuit Ramon de la Higuera claimed to have discovered lead tablets proving that St. James the Apostle had come to Spain and attested to the truth of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The spurious nature of the supposed discoveries was proven by Dominican scholars. In 1639, Pope Urban VIII (1623-44) forbade Catholics from appealing to the tablets of Granada (Laminae Granatenses) as evidence.
1588 Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) set the maximum number of cardinals to 70. He divided them into 15 congregations. Six congregations were responsible for managing the Papal States. The remaining 9 attended to the Index for Forbidden Books, regulating bishops, the Inquisition, implementing the decrees of Trent, standardizing rituals, and so forth.
1588/89 Luis de Molina (1535-1600), a Jesuit philosopher and theologian, published his “The Harmony of Free Will with the Gifts of Grace,” an attempt to comport divine justice and mercy, predestination and damnation, and grace and human freedom. Molina held to a high view of human nature, emphasizing the importance of the assent of the one who receives divine grace. He spoke of predestination in terms of divine foreknowledge of works done under grace. Molina’s views incited a theological battle between the Dominicans and Jesuits, which lasted for over 300 years.
1588/89 The Marprelate Controversy. An unknown Puritan authored several tracts attacking the episcopacy in England. In response, in a sermon delivered at Paul’s Cross in London, Richard Bancroft argued that the office of the bishop is a divine institution.
1588 William Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh. Morgan’s translation contained an introduction that identified ancient Celtic Christianity with Protestantism. The Welsh Bible, along with the founding of Jesus College at Oxford, led to the decline of Catholicism in Wales. By 1603, only 1.6% of the roughly 212,000 churchgoers in Wales admitted to being Catholic..
1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Cardinal William Allen, founder of the college at Douai which sent Jesuit missionaries into England, had urged English Catholics to support the invading forces. He referred to Queen Elizabeth as “begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan” and as the “chief spectacle of sin and abomination in this age.”
1588 The Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople passed through Ukraine on his return from Moscow in this year. Upset with his popularity, King Sigismund III of Poland ordered the Jesuits to increase their efforts in Ukraine. They succeeded in converting Michael, metropolitan of Vilna, and Ignatius, bishop of Vladimir, who then assisted Sigismund in summoning the council of Brest-Litovsk.
1589 Russian Patriarchate. The head of the Russian church was raised in rank from a Metropolitan to a Patriarch, receiving the fifth place in honor, after Jerusalem.
1589 Henry of Navarre, heir to the throne of France and a Protestant, had overcome Catholic forces and was in a position to take Paris. In the face of Parisian opposition to having a Protestant king, Henry sent to the pope requesting instruction in the Catholic faith. He was advised by the Duke of Sully that “Paris is well worth a mass.”
1589: Beza’s 3rd Greek New Testament
1590 Meletios of Pegas became patriarch of Constantinople (1590-1601). He opposed the Union of Brest-Litovsk and wrote a treatise critical of the Western Church’s innovations in Trinitarian theology. He also drafted an apology for Christianity, intended for the Jews.
1590 Between this year and 1603, 53 Catholic priests and 35 laypersons were executed in England for their faith.
1590 In around this year Francisco Ribera, a Jesuit priest, published a commentary on the Apocalypse. He taught that most of the book of Revelation prophesies events that will occur at the end of time. His teaching contrasts with that of Protestant Reformers who applied much of the book to the entire period since Christ’s first coming.
1590-91 The Clementine edition of the Vulgate published.
1591: Cambridge Geneva Bible
1592: The Clementine Vulgate (authorized by Pope Clementine VIII), a revised version of the Latin Vulgate, becomes the authoritative Bible of the Catholic Church.
1594 The Turks burned the relics of St. Sava of Serbia.
1595 The secular clergy of the Sorbonne sent a petition to the Parlement of Paris requesting that the Jesuits be expelled from France. The Parlement agreed to their request. The Jesuits were agitating against the new king, Henry IV.
1595 Martin Del Rio, a Spanish Jesuit, published a book on witchcraft. According to Del Rio, witchcraft flourishes as the intial enthusiasm for heresy dies out. In his view, this phenomenon was then taking place in the Low Countries. Del Rio also popularized the notion that witches hold sabbats and engage in sexual intercourse with Satan.
1595 The Orthodox Church was declared illegal in Poland.
1595/96 The “Union” of Brest-Litovsk. A council met at Brest-Litovsk, attended by only a few Orthodox bishops. A slim majority of those present agreed to accept papal supremacy if they were permitted to retain their liturgy, communion under both species, married priests, and the use of the Julian calendar. On December 23, Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) formally accepted these terms. A second council was then scheduled to meet, again in Brest-Litovsk, to formally establish the union. Sigismund, the Polish king, prevented any dissenting clergy from attending the council. Among those who did attempt to attend were representatives of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria: Nicephorus Cantacuzenus and Cyril Lucaris. Cantacuzenus was executed by the Polish police in 1598, but Lucaris, temporarily protected by the prince of Ostrov, escaped to Constantinople.
1596 Political, economic, and military pressure was brought to bear on millions of Orthodox Christians living along the Western borders of Russia, Byelorussia, and Ukraine, in order to force them to accept a false union with the Roman Catholic Church. (Six of the eight Orthodox bishops of Ukraine had voted in favor of union with Rome.) Bishoprics were given only to Uniates, and Orthodox bishops were deprived of office. There was a powerful backlash among the laity. Over the next century or so, Brotherhoods (Bratstva), associations of laymen, were formed to combat Jesuit propaganda, obtaining printing presses and publishing books in defense of Orthodoxy.
1596 Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) withdrew the right of bishops or inquisitors to permit Bible reading in the vernacular (see 1564). From this point, permission was required from the pope himself. However, it would appear that the restriction on reading the Bible in the vernacular was not in effect in Northern Europe.
1597 The fifth book of Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity appeared in print. Against the Puritans, who insisted on Scripture alone as the authority, Hooker listed Scripture as primary, and always to be obeyed when it spoke clearly, but he added church tradition and reason in doubtful matters. He argued that Englishman must be loyal to their sovereign, and so must be Anglicans. He stressed the sacraments and liturgical prayer and de-emphasized preaching.
1597 King James VI of Scotland a book entitled Demonologie, in which he encouraged the persecution of witches.
1597 Anneke van den Hove, an Anabaptist servant girl in the Spanish Netherlands, was buried alive for heresy. Her execution was arranged by magistrates and Jesuits.
1598 The Edict of Nantes. The edict, issued by Henry IV, extended some freedom to French Protestants. Protestant pastors were to be paid by the state, and Protestants could maintain their strongholds for another eight years, also at the king’s expence. However, Protestant worship was forbidden from extending into Catholic areas. The edict was opposed by Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605).
1598: Theodore Beza – 4th Textus Receptus (Novum Testamentum. 4th folio edition) was published in Geneva in 1598.
1599: Geneva Bible updated
1599 The first printing of an English Old Testament without the “Apocrypha” – a Geneva Bible of 1599.
1599 Archduke Ferdinand of Inner Austria began to persecute Protestants through “reformation commissions.” These commissions consisted of a cleric with Hapsburg government officials and armed troops. They burned Protestant books and destroyed Protestant churches.
1600 By this year, 50 of the German (Holy Roman) Empire’s 65 free cities had accepted Protestant religion.
1600 The population of Rome may have been 100,000 by this year.
1600 Death of St. Basil of Mangazeya. Born of a poor family in 1587, Basil traveled to Mangazeya in Siberia to become a merchant’s apprentice. Unfortunately, the merchant pressured Basil to have homosexual relations with him. Basil refused. Enraged, the merchant accused him of theft, and he was arrested and tortured. The merchant himself struck Basil in the head with a set of heavy iron keys and Basil fell dead. In 1652, Basil began appearing in dreams to the local people, and he healed many. His coffin rose to the surface of the ground. It was opened, and his body was found incorrupt.
Seventeenth Century
1601 In England, 70 Catholic priests were executed between this year and 1680.
1602 An Anglican named John Smyth renounced the episcopacy while speaking at Lincoln Cathedral in England. He became pastor of a group of Separatists. The congregation moved to Holland in 1606. Smyth defined the church as a collection of baptized believers. He is thus the father of the modern baptist movement.
1602: Last edition of the Bishop’s Bible updated the 1602 edition was prescribed as the base text for the King James Version that was completed in 1611.
1603: James, I made king of England.
1603 Henry IV allowed the Jesuits to re-enter France (see 1595).
1604 The Hampton Court Conference (England) led to a revision of the Book of Common Prayer and, in time, to the publication of the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611). The conference, a meeting between the king (James I) and church leaders, was in response to the Puritans’ Millenary Petition, a demand for church reform. James refused the principal Puritan desire, the abolishment of the episcopacy.
1604 A change to English canon law in this year prevented ministers from conducting exorcisms without permission from their bishops. The Puritans in particular were upset by this change.
1604: English bishops and Puritan leaders meet with King James in the Hampton Court Conference. Revision of Bishops’ Bible proposed to become official bible of England. King James nominates a revision committee of 54 scholars. • First English dictionary published by Robert Cawdry.
1605: English Romanists attempt to blow up Parliament in the “Gunpowder plot,” arousing great and lasting public indignation against Rome. • Death of Theodore Beza.
1605 On November 4, Guy Fawkes was arrested in a cellar beneath the House of Lords’ meeting chamber. Fawkes and his fellow Catholic conspirators had placed thiry casks of gunpowder in the cellar, and planned to blow Parliament up the next day. The conspirators were motivated in part by King James’ 1604 renewal of the Elizabethan anti-Catholic laws, which forbade Catholic teaching and missionary activity and made attendance at Anglican services mandatory, with severe penalties for disobedience.
1605-6 The Poles occupied Moscow, supporting a false heir to the throne of Muscovy (the False Dmitry).
1606 As a result of the conspiracy to destroy Parliament, harsh anti-Catholic measures were passed in England. Catholics could not travel more than five miles from their homes. No Catholic was allowed to act as a doctor, lawyer, executor of an estate, or a guardian of minor children. Catholics were also required to take a loyalty oath which denied that the pope had the power to depose secular rulers. In this year, six Catholic priests were executed in England for refusing to take the oath and for saying Mass.
1606 Pope Paul V (1605-21) placed Venice under an interdict in a dispute over papal jurisdiction and church property. In response, the Venetians chose Paoli Sarpi, who was openly critical of Trent and the growth of centralized ecclesiastical power in Rome) as a theological consultant. Venice gave its clergy an ultimatum: Continue to adminster the sacraments, or leave the city forever. The Jesuits left and did not return for 50 years. Pope Paul lifted the interdict in 1607 when it had proven itself futile. During a meeting with the Venetian ambassador, Paul is reported to have remarked, “Do you not know that so much reading of Scripture ruins the Catholic religion?”
1607 Norway became Lutheran.
1607 Founding of the Virginia colony.
1607: Work on King James Bible begun.
1608: Pilgrim Fathers leave England for Holland.
1608 Formation of the Protestant Union (Union of Evangelical States) among Protestant principalities within the Holy Roman Empire.
1608-11 The Poles, with a second False Dmitry, occupied Moscow. They were driven out in May, 1611.
1609 Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria led the Catholic states within the Holy Roman Empire in forming the Catholic Union.
1609 The Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II signed a royal charter which guaranteed freedom for Protestant worship within Bohemia. In 1618, fear that this freedom would soon be lost led to the Thirty Years War.
1609 Death of Jacobus Arminius. For the last six years of his life, Arminius was a professor at the University of Leiden (Holland). He had debated a colleague, Franciscus Gomarus, over certain Calvinist doctrines. Arminius denied total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. The year after Arminius’ death, 45 Dutch ministers signed the Remonstrance, a document in keeping with Arminius’ soteriology.
1609 A 12-year truce began in the Eighty Years War between Holland and Spain. (See 1568.)
1609 The Douay-Rheims Bible published. The New Testament had appeared in 1582.
In this year, the first Baptist church on record was formed, by John Smyth in Amsterdam. Baptist baptism was initially by pouring.
1609 The Arian (anti-Trinitarian) Academy of Rakow in Poland published a catechism in Latin.
1609: Douay-Rheims- The Douay Old Testament is added to the Rheims New Testament (of 1582) Making the First Complete English Catholic Bible; Translated from the Latin Vulgate, published by English Roman Catholics (80 Books). Only authorized English Bible for Catholics until the 20th century.
1610 Francis de Sales, Roman Catholic bishop of Geneva, founded the Visitation of Holy Mary (the Visitation Nuns). De Sales was an active missionary in Chablais, winning the majority of people there from Calvinism back to Catholicism. In 1877, he was named a doctor of the Roman Catholic church, the first French writer to be so honored. He is reported to have said the following to Marie Angelique, abbess of the Cistercian convent at Port Royal: “It is the duty of ecumenical councils to reform the head and members: they are above the pope. … I know this, but prudence forbids my speaking of it, for I can hope for no results if I did speak. We must weep and pray in secret that God will put His hand to what man cannot, and we should humble ourselves to the ecclesiastical powers under whom He has placed us, and beseech Him that He would convert and humble them by the might of His Holy Spirit.”
1610 King James restored the episcopacy to the Scotland.
1611 The “King James” Version. The Authorized Version contained the books of the Apocrypha between the testaments.
In this year, a portion of the Amsterdam baptist congregation returned to England, led by Thomas Helwys, forming the first baptist congregation in England. This group and others like it became known as General Baptists because they believed the offer of salvation was open to all.
1611: The King James Bible Printed; Originally with All 80 Books. The Apocrypha was Officially Removed in 1885 Leaving Only 66 Books. Based on the Greek texts of Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza or the “Textus Receptus”. KJV translators relied more on Beza when differences appeared.
1612 The Russian Patriarch Hermogenes asked the priests of Kazan to send the Kazan Mother of God icon to Moscow. After a ceremony involving the icon, Prince Dmitry Pozharski’s warriors defeated the Poles who were assaulting the city. Subsequently, much of Russia was recovered from Polish control.
1613 In Russia, Michael Romanov became the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty.
1615 Archbishop George Abbot (Church of England) forbade the issuance of Bibles without the Apocrypha.
1615: Archbishop Abbot forbids printing of the Bible without Apocrypha.
1616: Birth of John Owen. • Death of Shakespeare.
1616 The Roman Catholic Church declared the Copernican theory, supported by Galileo, as “false and erroneous.” This was done in agreement with a recommendation by Robert Bellarmine, who had met with Galileo and counselled him to regard the heliocentric model of the solar system as a hypothesis only. Bellarmine (1542-1621), a Jesuit, was a driving force behind the doctrine of papal infallibility. He taught that the pope was infallible when teaching the whole Church on faith, morals, and things necessary to salvation.
1618 The Thirty Years War began in Bohemia over the right of the diet to elect a new king. King Matthias insisted that his nephew, the Ferdinand of Styria, become king, but the diet preferred a Protestant. Ferdinand, educated by Jesuits, had promised to suppress Protestantism within his domains. When Matthias died in 1619, Ferdinand became emperor, but Bohemia had elected Frederick of the Palatinate king of Bohemia.
1618/19 The Synod of Dort condemned the Remonstrants (Arminians – see 1609). This is not surprising, since all the delegates were Gomarists (followers of Franciscus Gomarus).
1618: Beginning of Thirty Years War on Continent. The Thirty Years’ War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, or disease, while parts of modern Germany reported population declines of over 50%.
1619: Synod of Dort condemns Arminianism as heresy, propounds five points of orthodox Calvinism.
1619 Philaret, Patriarch of Moscow (1619-33). During this period, the Russian church was reformed – service books were revised, moral standards were raised, preaching was encouraged.
1620 The founding of the Plymouth colony (Massachusetts) by English Separatists who had lived in exile in Leiden, Holland.
1620: Pilgrims land at Plymouth (First Settlers).
1621 Protestantism was eradicated in Bohemia.
1622 In the Thirty Years War, Catholic forces under Johan Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, sacked Heidelburg. The contents of the university were packed into wagons and sent to Pope Gregory XV (1621-23) as a gift. Heidelburg had been a center of the Reformed wing of Protestantism since 1563 at the latest.
1623 Ukraine. Josaphat Kuntsevich killed by Orthodox worshippers. Kuntsevich led a group to knock down the tents where the Orthodox were worshipping. One of his followers struck a deacon, and the Orthodox, attacking Kuntsevich with sticks and stones, beat him to death. He had ordered the disposal of dead Orthodox by having their corpses exhumed and thrown to dogs, and had closed and burned Orthodox churches. Kuntsevich was the Uniate bishop of Polotsky and the founder of the Uniate Basilian order. He has been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
1623 King James I of England forbade discussions on predestination. He did so because the more Reformed-minded clergy were attacking those who, like Lancelot Andrewes (see 1626), disliked the Calvinist view of predestination and preferred to emphasize the sacraments. The Reformed party began to call the sacramentalists “Arminians” (see 1609). Though James had long favored the Reformed party, and had sent English clergy to the Synod of Dort (1618-19), but he had decided to marry his son Charles to a Spanish princess and found the “Arminians” less refractory. Because the gag rule on discussions of predestination was so unpopular, James soon withdrew it.
1624 Cardinal Richelieu of France formed pacts with the Dutch, English, Swedes, Danes, and with Savoy and Venice to contest Hapsburg power in the Low Countries and Germany.
1624 Because of the words, “Textum … ab omnibus receptum” appearing in the preface, Elzevir’s Greek New Testament, published in this year, is called the Textus Receptus, or the Received Text.
1624: Elzevir’s Textus Receptus, Abraham and Bonaventure Elzevir. The Elzevir’s published three editions of the Greek New Testament. The dates being 1624, 1633 and 1641. The Elzevir text is practically a reprint of the text of Beza 1565 with about fifty minor differences in all. First to be called “The Received Text” in the advertisements for this edition. • Louis Cappel publishes his opinion that the vowel points of the Hebrew text were added by rabbis in the fifth century.
1625: Charles I (Romanist) made king of England.
1625 Charles I succeeded James I as king of England.
1626 Death of Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of Winchester, England, and dean of the chapels royal. Andrewes was a patristic scholar whose work emphasized the sacraments and had a strong dislike of the Reformed view of predestination. He was strongly critical of distinctive Roman Catholic doctrines. His role as dean of the chapels royal may have been instrumental in persuading King Charles to support the “Arminian” cause (see 1623).
1626 King Charles I of England repeated his father’s 1623 proclamation forbidding discussions of predestination.
1627 The Patriarch of Constantinople presented an uncial manuscript, known as Codex Alexandrinus (A) to King Charles I of England. Alexandrinus is considered to reflect the Byzantine text type in the gospels, but the Alexandrian text in the rest of the New Testament. It also contains the Septuagint.
1627: William Ames’ Marrow of Theology spreads knowledge of Dutch Covenant Theology in England.
1628 French Catholic forces led by Richelieu took La Rochelle, the last Huguenot fortified city.
1629 Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, had endorsed a thoroughly Calvinistic theology. His Confession was published in Geneva in this year. Cyril had been present at the synod of Brest in 1596 and, perhaps as a consequence, had a thorough hostility to Rome. Cyril’s Confession was condemned by six councils between 1638 and 1691.
1629 The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II issued the Edict of Restitution, which required “all archbishoprics, bishoprics, prelacies, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical property confiscated since” 1552 be restored to the Catholic Church. The edict was promulgated at a point in the Thirty Years War when Catholic forces under Wallenstein dominated Germany.
1630 Harsnet, the “Arminian” archbishop bishop of York, banned the sale of the works of the puritan William Perkins (see 1586) and the reformed theologian Zacharias Ursinus (see 1563) within his archdiocese.
1630 Founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony.
1630s During this decade, Jesuit criticism of the Judaizing tendencies of Ethiopian Christianity (circumcision, Sabbath observance, dietary restrictions) came to a head. The Jesuits who escaped execution were expelled.
1631 Catholic forces razed Magdeburg, which was resisting the Edict of Restitution (1629). 17,000 of the city’s 36,000 inhabitants were killed.
1631 Brandenburg and Saxony allied themselves with Sweden. (Swedish forces under King Gustavus Adolphus had arrived in Pomerania in 1630.) The combined Protestant armies defeated Tilly near Leipzig in the first major Protestant victory of the Thirty Years War.
1632 Compromise of 1632. Many formerly Uniate churches and monasteries in Ukraine returned to Orthodoxy.
1632 The Roman Catholic colony was begun in Maryland.
1633 William Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury and began to persecute Puritans. The pope offered to make Laud a cardinal on two occasions, but Laud refused. Laud had debated Roman Catholics, and had played a key role in keeping the Duke of Buckingham from converting to Catholicism.
1633 Galileo Galilei tried in Rome on suspicion of heresy for supporting the Copernican (sun-centered) view of the solar system.
1633: Elzevir’s 2nd Greek New Testament • William Laud (Romanist) is made Archbishop of Canterbury, begins to persecute Puritans. Forbids importation of the Geneva Bible.
1634 Pope Urban VIII’s (1623-44) bull ended the ancient practice by which local bishops and synods introduced commemorations into the calendar. The authority to do so, and to canonize saints, was restricted to the papal curia.
1634 Michael, tsar of Russia, set the penalty for tobacco use at death.
1636 Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, known as M. de St. Cryan, abbot of St. Cyran in the diocese of Poitiers, became director of the nunnery at Port Royal. A friend of Cornelius Jansen (see 640), St. Cyran intended the nunnery to be a center for opposition to the Jesuit’s teachings on doctrine, devotion and morals.
1636 Harvard University founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the purpose of training clergymen.
1637 Rioting broke out in Scotland when a new liturgy was read in Edinburg. The new Scottish prayer book had been prepared by the Scottish bishops.
1638 A group of baptists holding a Calvinist theology which strictly limited salvation to the elect is known to have existed in London by this year. They became known as Particular Baptists.
1638 On 28 Feb the Scottish National Covenant was signed. King Charles I and Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud had ordered the exclusive use of a “Papistical” liturgy upon the Church of Scotland, known as Laud’s Liturgy (see 1637). The National Covenant repeated the Negative Confession of 1580/81 and listed many acts of parliament that the new liturgy was perceived to contradict. The Covenant’s subscribers swore to forbear “the practice of all novations … till they be tried and allowed in free Assemblies and Parliaments” while still supporting the king’s authority “in the defense and preservation of the foresaid true religion.”
1638 Janos Toroczkai, a Unitarian, said, “If Jesus would come to earth, I would send him to work in a vineyard.” The Transylvanian Reformed Church had him stoned to death.
1639/40 Charles I attempted to put down the Scottish rebellion, and conflict between England and Scotland in these years are known as the Bishops’ Wars. The Scottish success, their seizure of Northumberland and Durham, forced Charles to call the Long Parliament in 1640, which lead to the English Civil War.
1639 Roger Williams founded the first baptist congregation in America, in Rhode Island.
1639 Jean Morin (see 1645, Samaritan Penteteuch) was consulted by Urban VIII on relations with the Orthodox Church. Based on his patristic studies, Morin supported Roman Catholic recognition of the Orthodox priesthood.
1639 The Battle of the Downs. In an attempt to regain control over Dutch ports, a Spanish armada of 77 ships sailed into the English Channel. A Dutch force of 75 ships engaged them and disabled, captured or destroyed all but seven of the Spanish vessels.
1640 Cornelius Jansen’s Augustinus published posthumously. Jansen, the bishop of Ypres, had died of the plague in 1638. It is claimed that he had read Augustine through twenty times. The Augustinus was to become a source of conflict between the Jansenists and the Jesuits in seventeenth century France.
1641 Catholic rioters in Ulster killed an estimated 12,000 Protestants. At the time, the accepted figure was 154,000. These riots, along with the Scottish Bishops’ Wars, led to the English civil war.
1642 English civil war began. The first battle was fought at Edgefield.
1642 Pope Urban VIII launched the War of Castro against Duke Odoardo I Farnese of Parma. His goal was to dominate northern Italy, but the pope was defeated in March 1644.
1642 Council of Jassy (Iasi) in Romania. This council of the Eastern Orthodox church confirmed as “genuine parts of scripture” 1 Esdras (3 Esdras in the Vulgate), Tobit, Judith, three books of the Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira), Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah. The canonicity of these books had been previously taken for granted.
The council also revised and approved the Orthodox Confession of Peter of Moghila, Patriarch of Kiev from 1633-47. The original version had been based on Roman Catholic manuals and, consequently, contained doctrinal error. The revision was the work of Meletius Syrigos, a Greek, who corrected Moghila’s teachings, making it clear that the Church does not favor the doctrine of purgatory and or hold that the eucharistic bread and wine are changed at the ‘words of institution.’
1642: Parliament raises an army and makes war against the despotic king Charles and his Romanizing bishops. • Brian Walton (Romanist) deprived of office. • Parliament closes theaters of England.
1643: Puritan Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defense of Religion sworn throughout Scotland and England. ● Westminster Assembly convened.
1643 Antoine Arnauld published his De la frequente communion his Theologie morale des Jesuites, against the Jesuits’ practice of frequent communion and their perceived moral laxity. Arnauld had come across a letter from a Jesuit that read, in part, “The more one is destitute of grace, the more one ought boldly to approach Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.”
1643 Pope Urban VIII issued his bull In eminente, which condemned Jansenism.
1643 In the battle with the king, the English parliament enlisted the aid of the Scots. The resulting treaty, known as “The Solemn League and Covenant,” emphasized the preservation of the Reformed faith in England and Ireland and the elimination of Popery and Prelacy.
1644 The English Puritan parliament forbade the observance of all holy days and the keeping of Christmas day as a solemn fast. The law required everyone to go to work on that day, and a shopkeeper whose shop was closed on that day was liable to prosecution. The Puritans reasoned that Christmas was of pagan origin, and thus unworthy of celebration.
1645 On 10 January, Archbishop Laud was beheaded on a charge of treason.
1645 The Samaritan Pentateuch, recently recovered by a traveler to the East, was published in the “Paris Polyglot.” It had been lost to history since the eighth century. A Samarian version of the Law, the Samaritan Pentateuch frequently supports Septuagint readings against the Masoretic text. This indicates that the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint may have had a common origin prior to the fixing of the Masoretic text in the first or second centuries. Jean Morin, a Catholic priest, convert from Calvinism, and editor of the Samaritan Penteteuch which appeared in the Paris Polyglot, advocated the theory that the Septuagint was superior to the Hebrew Masoretic text.
1645 The Long Parliament proscribed use of the 1552 English Book of Common Prayer, replacing it with the Directory for the Public Worship of God in the Three Kingdoms.
1645: Archbishop Laud put to death.
1646 The Union of Uzhorod. On April 24, the self-governing Orthodox church of Mukachevo-Uzhorod, led by Bishop Parfenii Petrovych, broke communion with the rest of the Orthodox Church and submitted to Rome. In time, it came to be known as the Greek Catholic church.
1646 The three estates of Portugal bound themselves to defend, if need be with their lives, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
1647 Rhode Island allowed freedom of conscience in matters of religion.
1647 Publication of David Blondel’s “Familiar Enlightenment of the Question: Whether a Woman Had Been Seated on the Papal Throne in Rome.” Blondel, a Calvinist, proved that the story of Pope Joan (see 1250), widely believed by Catholics and used as ammunition against the papacy by Protestant polemicists, was fiction. The story of Pope Joan first appeared in the mid-1200s. In its mature form, it claimed that Joan had been pope from 855 until 858, when she died in childbirth.
1647: Westminster Confession published. ● Religious Society of Friends – Quakers
1648: Parliament adopts the Westminster Confession of Faith, establishing Calvinistic doctrine and Presbyterianism in England. • Buxtorf assails Cappel’s view of the Hebrew vowel points. • Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War on the continent, legitimizes Calvinism.
1648 The Westminster Confession approved by the English Parliament. It had been accepted by the Church of Scotland the previous year. The confession was Reformed in doctrine and Presbyterian in polity. In chapter 2, section 3, it affirms with the Roman Catholic Church the filioque (that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son). The confession also specifies that the Old Testament in Hebrew was “immediately inspired by God” and is “therefore authentical”; yet it does not explain why the New Testament authors (whose work is also termed “inspired” and “authentical”) chose in general to quote from a Greek translation that differs from the Hebrew.
1648 Publication of John Owen’s Eschol: or Rules of Direction for the Walking of the Saints in Fellowship. A Puritan and proponent of Congregationalism, Owen was for a time an aide to Oliver Cromwell, but later (1653) avoided involvement in Cromwell’s rise to the post of Lord Protector. Some consider Owen the greatest Puritan theologian.
1648 The Thirty Years War ended with the peace of Westphalia.
1649 In January, King Charles I of England beheaded. The Puritan army had removed the Presbyterian parliamentary leadership (1648, known as Pride’s Purge) in anticipation of the king’s execution. A book entitled Eikon Basilike was printed soon after Charles’s death. It purported to be a record of the late king’s prayers and meditations while in prison, and it turned public opinion in his favor.
1649 In response to the execution of Charles I of England, Tsar Alexis excluded Englishmen from the interior of Russia. The move gave an advantage in trade to German and Dutch merchants.
1649 A rioting crowd in Russia burned six carriages loaded with musical instruments. (Music in Orthodox churches is almost always a cappella.)
1649 The Maryland colony set the punishment at whipping and a fine for anyone who used the following terms of derision: “heretic, schismatic, idolator, Puritan, Independent, Presbyterian, Popish priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Roundhead, Separatist.” All religions professing a belief in Jesus Christ were to be tolerated.
1649: King Charles, I put to death. Cromwell rules as “Protector of the Commonwealth.” • John Owen (Puritan) preferred to offices. • George Fox disrupts church service in Nottingham, begins preaching Quakerism.
1650: Louis Cappel’s book advocating critical reconstruction of the Hebrew text is published in Paris by his son Jean, after turning Roman Catholic. Publication of the work had been prevented by Cappel’s opponents in Protestant lands.
1650 The Quaker movement began about this year in England’s Lake District. George Fox was one early leader.
1651 Publication of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. The work is a defense of monarchy, written when Presbyterians, Independents, and papists had challenged the sovereign’s rights.
1651: Thomas Hobbes’ The Leviathon.
1652 The Tsar Alexis forbade foreigners from dwelling within Moscow or holding church services there. But he did allow a new settlement to be built nearby, Nemetskaya Sloboda, or the German Suburb.
1652/3 Nikon (1605-81) became Patriarch of Russia. He attempted to bring Russian practice into line with the worship of the four ancient patriarchates. He wished to modify the service books and introduce the practice of making the sign of the cross with three fingers, instead of in the older manner with just two fingers. His reforms were widely opposed. Those who rejected his reforms were called Raskolniki (which means sectarians), or Old Believers. This division has continued until the present.
1653 Avvakum, former chaplain to the tsar, exiled to Tobolsk in Siberia. Avvakum had become the leader of the Old Believers. He was burned at the stake in 1682. During his imprisonment, he wrote (1673) his autobiography, the first such work in the Russian language.
1653 Pope Innocent X (1644-55), in the bull Cum occasione, condemned the Five Propositions. He stated that these had been held by Jansen, and he implied they were found in Jansen’s Augustinus. The Five Propositions are (1) some commandments of God are impossible even for righteous persons to keep, (2) in the fallen state internal grace is never resisted, (3) in order to merit or demerit in a state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity [the necessity imposed by God’s irresistible grace] is not required, only freedom from constraint, (4) the heresy of the Pelagians consisted in their assertion that grace could be either resisted or obeyed, and (5) it is a Semi-Pelagian error to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men absolutely.
1653 In April, Cromwell used his troops to dissolve Parliament.
1653 In December, Cromwell became Lord Protector of England. During his tenure as Lord Protector, Cromwell allowed Jews to immigrate to England. They had been expelled in 1290. Cromwell believed that Jesus could not return until the Jews had been converted. He thought this was more likely to occur in England, with its Reformed church, than in many other lands.
1655 Nikon, patriarch of Russia, held a synod at which Macarius, patriarch of Antioch, was present. Macarius endorsed the changes Nikon had instituted in Russian church practice.
1656 During the papacy of Alexander VII (1655-67), the Assembly of the French clergy drew up the Formulary, to be signed by all clergy and religious. The Formulary read, “I, the undersigned, do submit sincerely to the constitution of Pope Innocent IX, of May 31, 1653, according to its true meaning, which has been determined by the constitution of our Holy Father Pole Alexander VII, of October 16, 1656. I acknowledge myself bound in conscience to obey these constitutions, and I condemn with heart and mouth the doctrine of the Five Propositions of Cornelius Jansen, contained in his book entitled Augustinus, which has been condemned by two popes and by the bishops: the said doctrine being not that of St. Augustine, but a misinterpretation of it by Jansen, contrary to the meaning of that great doctor.”
1656-57 Blaise Pascal published his Provincial Letters, a defense of the Jansenists and satirical attack on the Jesuits in France.
1657: Brian Walton publishes the London Polyglot with revision of Hebrew vowel points, several ancient versions, and appendix of various readings of the Greek manuscripts.
1658: Death of Cromwell. • John Owen deprived of office.
1658 Death of the Protestant theologian Louis Cappelle. His arguments in favor of the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch against the Masoretic Text angered many. In reaction, the Swiss Reformed Church accepted the inspiration of not only the consonantal Hebrew text, but the vowel points as well! (See 1675.)
1658 When tension arose between the Russian patriarch and Tsar Alexis over the patriarch’s desire to exercise political power, Nikon retired to the New Jerusalem monastery.
1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England during the Commonwealth.
1659: Walton’s Polyglot assailed by John Owen.
1660: Monarchy restored with king Charles II. • Walton made a bishop.
1660 England recalled Charles II to England to become king: the Restoration.
1660 Savoy Conference. A conference was held at the Savoy Palace between Anglicans and Presbyterians to discuss ways in which the English Prayer Book, proscribed since 1645, could be made acceptable to the Presbyterians and other moderate Puritans.
1660 Tsar Alexis summoned a synod which determined that the patriarch Nikon had effectively abdicated by retiring to a monastery in 1658.
1661 King Louis XIV of France demanded that all French bishops subscribe to the Formulary of 1656. The nuns of Port Royal were required to sign also, but they refused and were excommunicated.
1662 In Britain ‘An Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayers’ which imposed a revised Prayer Book on the country.
1662 The Tsar Alexis brought Avvakum back from exile. However, when Avvakum argued that those who had accepted Nikon’s reforms should repent and be rebaptized, he was banished to Pustozersk, near the Arctic Ocean.
1662 The Tatar Khan sacked the Ukrainian town of Putivi and enslaved 20,000 of its inhabitants.
1662: New England churches begin to admit unconverted members under the “Half-Way Covenant.” Half-Way Covenant, religious-political solution adopted by 17th-century New England Congregationalists, also called Puritans, that allowed the children of baptized but unconverted church members to be baptized and thus become church members and have political rights.
1663: John Eliot’s Algonquin Bible is the first Bible printed in America, not in English, but in the native Algonquin Indian language.
1663 John Eliot published a Bible in Algonquin, the first Bible to be printed in America.
1664 The Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to Benoit Rencurel, a seventeen-year-old shepherdess near Grenoble in the French Alps. Mary told her to go to Le Laus, where she would frequently appear in a ruined chapel. She also predicted that the chapel would one day be encompassed by a great church.
1664 The English seized the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, renaming it New York.
1664 By the Conventicle Act passed in England this year, any person over 16 years of age who attended a service not conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer was subject to punishment.
1665 The Great Plague. An estimated 15 to 20% of the population of Western Europe died.
1665 In England, the Five Mile Act forbade any preacher who had been ejected ministry from living within five miles of his former church. The act was directed against Puritan preachers.
1665: Great Plague of London kills over 68,000.
1666: Great Fire of London.
1666 Eighty percent of London was destroyed by fire.
1666/7 A council was held in Moscow in December, presided over by the Patriarch Pasius of Alexandria and Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, at the behest of Tsar Alexis, “to review and confirm the case of the ex-patriarch Nikon, who had ill-administered the stewardship of the patriarchal power.” Thirteen metropolitans, nine archbishops, five bishops, and thirty-two archimandrites were present. (Nikon had attempted to control the state as well as the church.) The council deposed Nikon, but upheld his reforms. In his later years, Nikon gained a reputation as a healer, having been instrumental in 132 miraculous cures.
1667: Milton writes Paradise Lost.
1669 The Peace of the Church ratified by Pope Clement IX (1667-70). The Jansenist bishops of France were allowed to provide explanations for their signatures to the Formulary of 1656, though these could not be published. Persecution ceased. The excommunication of the nuns of Port Royal was lifted.
1669 Death of the Vatican librarian Leo Allatius. His three-volume work, De ecclesia occidentalis atque orientalis perpetua consensione argued that the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches were not genuinely separated, nor were the Orthodox in heresy.
1672 The Eastern Orthodox council of Jerusalem. This council ratified Dositheus’ Confession, an answer to Cyril Lukaris’ work of the same name. Like Peter Moghila’s work, Dositheus’ Confession has a Western tone. He adopted the term ‘transubstantiation,’ and he came very near to endorsing purgatory. The Confession explicitly lists Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, The History of the Dragon, Susanna, Maccabees, and Sirach as “genuine parts of Scripture.” Dositheus was Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1699-1707. The
1675 While imprisoned during this year, John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress. It was first published in 1678.
1675 The Helvetic Consensus Formula. This Swiss creed taught that “the Hebrew Original of the Old Testament … is, not only in its consonants, but in its vowels – either the vowel points themselves, or at least the power of the points – not only in its matter, but in its words, inspired of God … and to its standard, as to a Lydian stone, all extant versions, oriental and occidental, ought to be applied, and wherever they differ, be conformed.” (See 1658.) The New Testament authors generally quoted from the Septuagint, not bother ing to conform it to the Hebrew.
1675: John Fell’s Greek New Testament with critical annotations. • Helvetic Consensus Formula maintains verbal inerrancy of Scripture, extending to vowel points in the traditional Hebrew text (against Cappel and Walton).
1678: Bunyan writes Pilgrim’s Progress.
1679: Publication of the first volume of Francis Turretin’s Institutio Theologiae Elencticae.
1682 William Penn received a royal charter for the Pennsylvania colony. Penn’s vision was to establish a colony with freedom of religion.
1682 Peter the Great (1682-1725), Tsar of Russia.
1682 The Assembly of the French clergy issued the Four Gallican Articles: (1) popes, whose power is entirely spiritual, cannot release subjects from oaths of loyalty to kings and rulers; (2) the plenitude of power enjoyed by popes is limited by the decrees of the 4th and 5th sessions of the Council of Constance; (3) the pope must exercise his authority in accordance with “the canons enacted by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the reverence of the whole world,” so that the pope cannot alter the “ancient rules, customs, and institutions” of the French church; and (4) though the pope has the principal place in deciding issues of faith, his decisions are not irreversible until confirmed by the consent of the Church.
1682 In April Avvakum, leader of the Old Believers, was burned at the stake in Pustozersk, where he had been exiled. Avvakum had urged his followers to martyrdom. It has been estimated that 20,000 Old Believers were martyred between 1684 and 1690.
1683 The Turks besieged Vienna for the last time. They were chopped to bits by a relief force of Poles. The reputation of the Turks as a conquering nation was lost.
1683: Death of John Owen.
1685 The Puritan theologian Richard Baxter was imprisoned for an eighteen month period for pressing for toleration of moderate dissent within the Church of England.
1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (see 1598) and the subsequent emigration of an estimated 400,000 Huguenots. Pope Innocent XI (1676-89) is said to have disapproved of the revocation privately. In public, he ordered a Te Deum and public celebrations.
1686 Christian forces wrested the city of Buda from the Turks. Hungary was free of Turkish rule for the first time since 1526.
1686 The metropolitan of Kiev passed from the control of Constantinople to that of Moscow.
1687 Publication of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which introduced the three laws of motion and explained the elliptical orbits of planets in terms of an force acting instantaneously at a distance, decreasing in magnitude with the separating distance squared. Newton’s description of the universe in mechanistic terms was widely accepted by Deists. But Newton himself believed the Bible to be the word of God. He discussed the white horse of Revelation 6.2 and 19.11 with the philosopher John Locke, provided moral support to John Craig who sought to provide a mathematical demonstration of the date of Christ’s second coming, and wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation in which he supported the view that the Antichrist is the Roman pontiff. Newton has been described as an Arian, since he did not believe in the Son’s co-eternity with the Father. His theological works contain more words than his scientific ones.
1688 The Tatar Khan raided Ukraine and enslaved 60,000 inhabitants.
1685: Death of Charles II. He is succeeded by a Roman Catholic king, James II.
1688: James II deposed by Parliament, and replaced by William of Orange, with regulation for Protestant succession and greatly enlarged powers of Parliament. The threat of Romanism forever ended in England.
1689: Toleration Act of parliament grants freedom of worship to all Protestants except Unitarians. • Richard Simon (French Roman Catholic) publishes first treatise on textual criticism in Paris.
1689 Glorious Revolution. In the face of James II’s production of a Roman Catholic heir, William of Orange and Mary II were proclaimed king and queen of England and Scotland. Four hundred English and Scottish bishops refused to swear allegiance to William and Mary and continued to remain faithful to James II. These dissenting bishops came to be known as Nonjurors.
1689 In England, the Toleration Act of this year permitted dissenters to worship.
1689 The Episcopal Church disestablished in Scotland.
1689 The Patriarch Joachim convinced Tsar Peter to expel the few Jesuits who had entered Russia.
1689 Tsar Peter promulgated an edict of toleration for Protestantism. In reaction to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he invited Huguenots to immigrate to Russia.
1690 Prebyterianism reestablished in Scotland.
1690: John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding.
1692: Salem Witchcraft
1692 The Tatar Khan sacked Neimerov in Ukraine and enslaved 2000 inhabitants. Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem wrote to Tsar Peter, “The Crimean Tatars are but a handful, and yet they boast that they receive tribute from you. The Tatars are Turkish subjects, so it follows that you are Turkish subjects. Many times you have boasted that you will do such and such, but all finished with words only and nothing in fact is done.”
1692 Nineteen executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
1695 The English philospher John Locke, author of Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), published The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures. Locke’s view was that essential Christian doctrine consisted of belief in God and in Jesus as Messiah. He favored religious toleration for Presbyterians, Independents, Arminians, Quakers, and Anabaptists; but he opposed the toleration of atheists or of religious groups which owed allegiance to foreign powers.
1695: Abolition of censorship in England. • John Locke publishes The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered by the Scriptures.
1697: Blasphemy Act of Parliament bars Unitarians, Deists and atheists from public office.
1698 Tsar Peter of Russia occasionally attended Quaker worship services when visiting England.
1699 Upon returning from his embassy to western Europe, Tsar Peter changed the Russian New Years day from 1 September (the date used in the Roman (Byzantine) empire) to 1 January, the conventional date in the West. He also altered the method of counting years, adopting the Anno Domini system. Thus, 1 January 7208 (dated according to the “year of the world” – see 5509 B.C.) became 1 January 1700. The tsar did not, however, adopt the Gregorian calendar. He simply conformed Russia’s Julian calendar to the form of the Julian calendar then used in England.
1700 Patriarch Adrian died, and Tsar Peter did not allow a replacement. Instead, he appointed Stephen Yavorsky, the metropolitan of Ryazan, as temporary guardian of the church.
When Patriarch Joachim died in 1690, Peter had supported Metropolitan Marcellus of Pskov for patriarch. Marcellus was a scholar who spoke Latin, Italian and French. Peter later quipped that the Russians had turned Marcellus down for three reasons: “first, because he spoke barbaric language; second, because his beard was not big enough for a patriarch; and third, because his coachman sat upon the coach seat and not upon the horses as was usual.”
1700 By this year, J. J. Scalinger had refuted the notion that all other languages derive from Hebrew.
Eighteenth Century
1702: Publication in London of the first regular daily newspaper in English.
1702 Tsar Peter of Russia promised freedom of conscience to foreigners living in Russia.
1703: Daniel Whitby, A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament, containing the Gospels, the Acts, all the Epistles, with a discourse of the Millenium. 2 vols. London, 1703. The second volume of this paraphrase of the New Testament was first published as A Paraphrase and Commentary upon all the Epistles of the New Testament in 1700. Whitby was a learned Arminian controversialist, who after 1712 advocated Arian views. His most famous work was an anti-Calvinist treatise entitled A Discourse concerning the True Import of the Words Election and Reprobation, etc. (London: John Wyat, 1710)
1704: Publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Optics marks the point at which significant scholarly work begins to appear in English instead of Latin.
1705: Humphrey Hody’s De Bibliorum textis originalibus (“On the Original Text of the Bible”) thoroughly examines the text of the ancient versions and the ancient canon of Scripture.
1705 Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) issued the bull Vineam Domini Sabaoth, annuling the Peace of the Church (see 1669) in France by requiring subscription to the Formulary of 1656 without qualification.
1706 An Anglican congregation was established in Moscow. It moved to St. Petersburg in 1723.
1707 The first volume of Grabe’s Septuagint was published. The fourth and last volume appeared in 1720. Grabe’s Septuagint is based on Codex Alexandrinus (A). Contrast this with the Sixtine Edition of 1587, which depends on Vaticanus. Some believe that Codex A reflects Origen’s recension of the Septuagint, at least to an extent.
1707: John Mill’s annotated Greek New Testament displays 30,000 various readings of the Greek manuscripts. • England and Scotland are united under the name of United Kingdom of Great Britain.
1708 Pope Clement XI (1700-1721), to avoid commiting himself to the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, ordered a festival called for the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary immaculate.
1709 Having refused to submit to the bull Vineam Domini Sabaoth, the nuns of Port Royal were excommunicated, then dispersed to other convents. The convent was leveled, and corpses in the graveyard were dug up and thrown into a single pit in the cemetary of St. Lambert. This event signals the victory of the Jesuits over the Jansenist movement.
1711: William Whiston’s Primitive Christianity Revived.
1713 Pope Clement XI issued the bull Unigenitus, condemning Jansenism and the proposition that “The reading of Sacred Scripture is for all”; adding, “We strictly forbid them [the laity] to have the books of the Old and New Testament in the vulgar tongue.” It also condemned the error that “The Lord’s Day ought to be sanctified by Christians with readings of pious works and above all of the Holy Scriptures. It is harmful for a Christian to wish to withdraw from this reading.” The bull was very unpopular in France, where an edition of the gospels with Jansenist notes had been published. The Emperor of Austria forbade the distribution of Unigenitus. This bull was used in Sicilian seminaries as an example of the fallibility of Popes. In France, the Gallicans opposed the bull on the grounds that the pope had no right to impose a doctrine on the French church without the consent of the French bishops and without the agreement of a General Council.
1714: Death of Matthew Henry.
1716 Between this year and 1724 a dialogue was conducted between the English non-Jurors (who refused to swear allegiance to William of Orange) and the Orthodox, in hopes of establishing communion. The non-Jurors were troubled by the Orthodox doctrine of the real presence, veneration of Mary, the saints, and the Holy Icons, and the interchange was suspended.
1717 In this year and again in 1733 Poland passed laws persecuting non-Catholic minorities. Poland had enjoyed religious tolerance since the Compact of Warsaw in 1573.
1718 Tsar Peter tasked Feofan Propkovich, a monk of the academy in Kiev, with the task of formulating an Ecclesiastical Regulation by which the Church in Russia would be governed. The regulation was brought into effect in 1721.
1720: Richard Bentley publishes his Proposals for critical revision of the Greek New Testament
History 12
1721 In keeping with the new Ecclesiastical Regulation (see 1718), Tsar Peter the Great declared the Moscow Patriarchate to be abolished, and set up the Spiritual College or Holy Synod to replace it. Stephen Yavorsky was the first president of the Holy Synod. Peter’s Spiritual (Ecclesiastical) Regulation, which established the Holy Synod, viewed the church as an arm of the state, not as a spiritual institution. The Holy Synod was supervised by the Chief Procurator, an official of the Russian government.
The Ecclesiastical Regulation also encouraged training, and 46 new schools for priests opened within 4 years. Priests were to study theology, history, politics, geography, arithmetic, geometry, and physics. The laity were required to attend church, and a fine was assessed for absences.
1721 In Russia, mixed-faith marriages were legalized, but only if the Orthodox partner remained in his or her faith, and all children were raised Orthodox.
1722 At a synod held in Constantinople this year, the Orthodox made the following pronouncement regarding the state of the dead and the existence of purgatory: “[W]e the godly, following the truth and turning away from such innovations, confess and accept two places for the souls of the dead, paradise and hell, for the righteous and sinners, as the holy Scripture teaches us. We do not accept a third place, a purgatory, by any means, since neither Scripture nor the holy Fathers have taught us any such thing. However, we believe these two places have many abodes … None of the teachers of the Church have handed down or taught such a purgatory, but they all speak of one single place of punishment, hades, just as they teach about one luminous and bright place, paradise. But both the souls of the holy and the righteous go indisputably to paradise and those of the sinners go to hades, of whom the profane and those who have sinned unforgivably are punished forever and those who have offended forgivably and moderately hope to gain freedom through the unspeakable mercy of God. For on behalf of such souls, that is of the moderately and forgivably sinful, there are in the Church prayers, supplications, liturgies, as well as memorial services and almsgiving, that those souls may receive favor and comfort. Thus when the Church prays for the souls of those who are lying asleep, we hope there will be comfort for them from God, but not through fire and purgatory, but through divine love for mankind, whereby the infinite goodness of God is seen.” This from an encyclical to the church in Antioch.
1723 The four ancient Patriarchates recognized the termination of the Patriarchate of Moscow and the establishment of the Holy Synod.
1724 Creation of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church from the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Upon the death of Patriarch Athanasios III Debbas, two rival parties within the Church supported different candidates. The pro-Roman party, centered in Damascus, elected Cyril VI patriarch, while those opposed to union with Rome, whose power base was centered in Aleppo, supported a Cypriot monk, Sylvester, whom Athanasios had designated to be his successor. Constantinople and the Ottoman government recognized Sylvester. In 1728, Cyril’s election was recognized by Pope Benedict XIII. Roughly one-third of the Orthodox followed Cyril into schism.
1725: Johann Albrecht Bengel publishes his prospectus for a critical revision of the Greek New Testament
1726: Jeremiah Jones publishes first English translation of several “apocryphal New Testament” books in his New and Full Method of Settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament.
1727 Catherine I (1725-27) ordered all Jews to depart Russia and Ukraine. This edict was not enforced.
1729: American Presbyterians constitute first Synod in Philadelphia, requiring subscription of ministers to “essential and necessary” doctrines of the Westminster Standards. ● [Daniel Mace], The New Testament in Greek and English, Containing the Original Text Corrected from the Authority of the most Authentic Manuscripts: And a New Version Form’d agreeably to the Illustrations of the Most Learned Commentators and Critics: with Notes and Various Readings, and a Copious Alphabetical Index. 2 vols. London: for J. Roberts, 1729.
1730: Wettstein’s treatise on textual criticism.
1732 Geoge Berkeley (later Anglican bishop of Cloyne, Ireland) published Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher, a defense of Christianity against deists and freethinkers.
1734: Bengel’s revised Greek New Testament with notes. • Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.
1738 The Anglican priest John Wesley, and his brother Charles, both reported conversion experiences. Working with George Whitefield, the Wesleys began the Methodist Revival within the Church of England. The Methodists split from the Anglicans in 1795.
1738 In Russia, a Jew was convicted of converting a naval officer to Judaism. Both were burned to death on 15 July.
1739: John Wesley organizes the first Methodist Society, begins widespread preaching.
1740: Frederick the Great becomes king of Prussia. German culture flourishes under his patronage. • George Whitefield draws large crowds in revivalistic preaching tour of American colonies.
1740 Ludovica Antonio Muratori published a late second century list of New Testament scriptures, the Muratorian Canon. See year 200 above.
1741 Elizabeth (1741-62) ruled Russia. She confiscated most of the monastic lands.
1741: Jonathan Edwards preaches Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. • George Frideric Handel composes The Messiah.
1742: Bengel’s Greek textual commentary. • Height of “Great Awakening” revivalism in America.
1742 The Jews were evicted from Russia. The empress’s court physician, Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanchez, was prevented from returning to Russia to resume his post.
1743: First Bible printed in America at Germantown, Penn. (Luther Bible). • Revivalist James Davenport instigates public bonfire of Puritan books. End of “Great Awakening.”
1744 Publication of Rattay’s The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem. This work was influential in the 1764 revision of the Scottish Communion Service (based on Laud’s 1637 liturgy and the 1549 Book of Common Prayer). The 1764 Scottish Communion Service in turn formed the basis of the service used in the Episcopal Church in the US after the American War of Independence (see 1789).
1745: William Whiston, The Primitive New Testament. Stamford and London, 1745. In this revision of the KJV Whiston adopts the readings of the three earliest (“primitive”) manuscripts which were then known to scholars. The Gospels and Acts are revised according to the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, the Pauline epistles according to Codex Claromontanus, and the rest according to Codex Alexandrinus. Whiston’s source of information for the readings of these manuscripts was the apparatus of Mill 1707.
1746: John Taylor, A Paraphrase with Notes on the Epistle to the Romans: to which is Prefixed a Key to the Apostolic Writings, or an Essay to Explain the Gospel Scheme, and the Principal Words and Phrases the Apostles have Used in Describing it. Dublin: John Smith, 1746. Published on the internet by Google Books in 2008.
1748 Publication of David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. He concluded that rational inquiry could only make headway among ideas (e.g., as in Euclid’s geometry); it makes no progress in the world of facts (which could very well be other than they are). In this way he asserted that causality is not a rational principle, but a habit of the mind.
1750. Richard Challoner, The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate: diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions in divers’ languages, and first published by the English College at Doway, Anno 1609: newly revised, and corrected, according to the Clementin edition of the scriptures: with annotations for clearing up the principal difficulties of Holy Writ. [Dublin?], 1750. ● Jonathan Edwards forced from his pastoral office for withholding Communion from the unsaved. • Death of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1752 The Gregorian calendar was adopted in England. The calendar was adrift by 12 days (it had been only 10 days off in 1582). To accommodate the change, Christmas Day 1782 became Epiphany, 1783. (Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was followed by Thursday, September 14.) Common people complained that they had been robbed of 12 days of their lives. Epiphany (January 6) came to be called “Old Christmas.”
1755 Anti-Roman feelings had become quite strong in the Middle East. The Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem declared Roman Catholic baptism invalid, and ordered the rebaptism of converts.
1755. John Wesley, Explanatory notes upon the New Testament. London: William Boyer, 1755. Reprinted 1757, with further editions in 1760, 1790, and 1837. The 1790 reprint, in which the notes were eliminated, was published under the title, The New Testament, with an Analysis of the several Books and Chapters (London: at the New Chapel, 1790). John Wesley’s New Testament revises the KJV with use of Bengel’s Greek New Testament • Samuel Johnson publishes his comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language.
1756. Philip Doddridge, The Family Expositor; or a Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament; with Critical Notes; and a Practical Improvement of each Section. First published in 6 volumes from 1739 to 1756. Volume 1, “Containing the Former Part of The History of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded by the Four Evangelists, disposed in the Order of a Harmony,” was printed by John Wilson in London, 1739. Volume 2, continuing the Gospels, appeared in 1740. Volume 3, containing the Acts of the Apostles, was printed by J. Waugh, 1748. Doddridge died in 1751, but he had completed the whole work in manuscript, and the remaining volumes were published by J. Waugh under the care of Job Orton. Volume 4, containing the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, was published in 1753; volumes 5 (Galatians to Philemon) and 6 (Hebrews to Revelation) appeared in 1756. There were many subsequent reprint editions.
1757 Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58) permitted the reading of Bible translations “if such Bible-versions in the vernacular are approved by the apostolic see or are edited with annotations derived from the holy fathers of the Church or from learned and Catholic men.” This overturned the Roman Catholic Church’s long-standing prohibition on reading the Bible in the vernacular (see 1546, 1559, 1564, 1596, and 1606).
1762 Reign of Catherine II (1762-96) in Russia. On 4 December she invited non-Jewish foreigners to immigrate.
1763 St. Paissy Velichkovsky became abbot of the monastery of Niamets in Romania. He turned it into a great spiritual center, translating the works of the Greek fathers into Slavonic. From Niamets monastic (and hesychastic) revival spread into Russia. Also, a Slavonic translation of the Philokalia (see 1782) was made, and published in Moscow in 1793.
1764 On February 26, Church lands in Russia became the property of the state, and bishops and monasteries were salaried. The Church lands provided the state with roughly 1.4 million rubles per year, from which only about 460,000 rubles per year went to pay clerical salaries. Only 161 of 572 monasteries were left open.
1764 The empress Catherine ordered Prince Dashkov to protect Jews wishing to emigrate from Poland to Russia.
1764 St. Makarios (1731-1805) became Archbishop of Corinth. Due to Turkish rule, most children were not being given an education. Makarios built public schools in his diocese and published books. He also corrected church practices and theology.
1764. Anthony Purver, A New and Literal Translation of All the Books of the Old and New Testament; with Notes, Critical and Explanatory. 2 Vols. London: W. Richardson and S. Clark, 1764. ● John Newton, former slave trader converts and writes “Amazing Grace”
1768. Edward Harwood, A Liberal Translation of the New Testament; being An Attempt to translate the Sacred Writings with the same Freedom, Spirit, and Elegance, with which other English Translations from the Greek Classics have lately been executed … with select Notes, Critical and Explanatory. 2 Vols. London, 1768.
1769: “Oxford Standard Edition” of King James version published.
1769 Jews were permitted to settle in Ukraine.
1769 On 12 February, the empress Catherine published Regulations for the Catholic Community in Russia. These regulations dictated the number of Franciscan priests (6), forbade proselytizing, ordered the creation of a Catholic school, and exempted the church from town taxes. It did not, however, interfere in Catholic doctrine.
1770+ Twelve hundred Kiev-region Uniate churches returned to Orthodoxy.
1771: Francis Asbury arrives in America.
1772 First partition of Poland – lands were distributed to Austria, Prussia and Russia. The partition was precipitated by of Russian intervention on behalf of persecuted minorities who had lost their rights with the laws restricting religious freedom in Poland, passed in 1717 and 1733.
1772 On 14 December, the empress Catherine broke the dependency of Catholics in her newly acquired territories on bishops in Poland. She established a new Catholic bishopric in Mogilev, in charge of all Catholics within the Russian empire, including monastics.
1772 The publication of John Glen King’s Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia made Russian forms of worship more familiar to the English.
1773 On 21 July, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuit order through the bull Dominus ac Redemptor, giving in to pressure from the Spanish and French.
1773 In November, the empress Catherine determined not to promulgate the papal bull suppressing the Jesuits within Russian territory. (Since the partition of Poland, many Catholics were now within Russian territory.) Her action helped ensure the continuing survival of the order.
1774 The British Parliament protected the rights of Roman Catholics in Canada with the Quebec Act.
1774: Griesbach’s critically revised Greek Testament.
1775: J.S. Semler (the German “father of rationalism”) advocates re-examination of the Biblical canon in his Treatise on the Free Investigation of the Canon. • American Revolutionary War begins (through 1783).
1776: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. ● Declaration of Independence
1776 The king of Poland banned executions for witchcraft.
1777 The empress Catherine approved the establishment of a Jesuit novitiate in Polotsk.
1779 St. Kosmas the Aetolian (1714-79) executed by Turkish authorities. Under Turkish rule, cultural and religious life in Greece was dying. St. Kosmas preached the faith in Greece rather after a Wesleyan fashion, traveling throughout the country. Seeing the Orthodox faith and Greek language as inextricably connected, St. Kosmas also founded many Greek schools.
1779 John Murray founded the first Universalist Church, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
1781 Publication of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. At least partly in response to David Hume’s philosophy (see 1748), Kant speculated that the real world cannot be known, and that the world we know is determined by modes of understanding. In this way, he re-established the sway of rationality over phenomena, at the expense of knowledge of the real world.
1781 The Holy Roman emperor Joseph II signed the Edict of Toleration, which gave non-Catholic minorities in the empire toleration. As a result of the edict, some monasteries were dissolved, diocesan boundaries redrawn, and seminaries came under state control. The edict also urged the cessation of some festivals and superstitious practices that conflicted with Enlightenment sentiments.
1782 Pope Pius VI (1775-99) visited the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II in Vienna. He attempted to convince Joseph to weaken his 1781 Edict of Toleration, but Joseph was not moved.
1782 The Philokalia, an anthology of ascetic and mystical texts from the fourth to the fifteenth century, was published in Vienna. It was compiled by St. Macarius, Metropolitan of Corinth, and St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain.
1782 Without waiting for papal approval, the empress Catherine raised Mogilev to an archbishopric. The pope finally agreed to the move in 1783.
1782: Robert Aitken’s Bible; The First English Language Bible (KJV) Printed in America.
1783: American Revolutionary War ends. • First daily newspaper in America begins in Philadelphia.
1783 The Treaty of Versailles ended the American war of independence.
1784 Dr. Samuel Seabury consecrated bishop at Aberdeen, Scotland. He then returned to Connecticut to lead the Protestant Episcopal Church in that state and in Rhode Island.
1784 The empress Catherine placed Irakli Lisovsky, a Uniate bishop, in charge of all Uniate secular and regular clergy.
1784: Ethan Allen’s Reason the Only Oracle of Man rejects the authority of the Bible. • John Wesley organizes Methodists as a separate denomination in the American colonies, prepares his Twenty-Five Articles of Religion for their constitution. Francis Asbury appointed as general superintendent.
1785: New York’s first daily newspaper begins.
1786: Woide publishes facsimile of Codex Alexandrinus.
1786 Sir William James proposed the hypothesis that Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Germanic, and Celtic were all derived form a dead Indo-European original.
1786 On 7 May, the empress Catherine published an edict giving Jews civil equality in Russia. This was the first such statement in Europe.
1786 Scipione di’ Ricci, bishop of Pistoia-Prato, presided over a synod held to reform the Catholic Church in Tuscany. The synod of Pistoia approved a series of decrees that endorsed Jansenism and Gallicanism. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Peter Leopold (later the Holy Roman emperor Leopold II) enthusiastically supported the synod.
1787 On April 23, a national assembly of Tuscan bishops met in Florence. It rejected the decrees of the synod of Pistoia (1786).
1788 The “Protestation of the English Catholics” was signed by the vicars-general and practically all Catholic clergy and laity of note. It attested to Parliament that “we acknowledge no infallibility of the Pope.” This statement was instrumental in the passage of the Relief Act in 1790.
1788: Birch’s collation of Codex Vaticanus in the Gospels published.
1789: Federal Constitution ratified by American states. • French Revolution begins. ● George Campbell, The four Gospels, translated from the Greek. With preliminary dissertations and notes critical and explanatory. 2 vols. London: A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1789. After Campbell’s death (1796), a “second edition with the author’s last corrections” was published in Aberdeen by J. Chalmers & Co. in 4 volumes, 1803-04.
1789 The first official prayer book of the Episcopal Church in the US issued. The Communion Service was based on the 1764 Scottish service. (See 1744.)
1790 Under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the French Assembly nationalized Church lands. The Church became a department of the state and clergy, state officials.
1790. William Gilpin, An Exposition of the New Testament; intended as an introduction to the study of the Scriptures, by pointing out the leading sense and connection of the sacred writers. London: for R. Blamire, 1790. 2nd edition, 1793. A paraphrastic modern speech version. ● America has eight daily newspapers. Matthew Carey publishes a Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Version English Bible in America. William Young prints the first pocket-sized “school edition” King James Version Bible in America.
1791: Isaac Collins and Isaiah Thomas Respectively Produce the First Family Bible and First Illustrated Bible Printed in America. Both were King James Versions, with All 80 Books. Isaiah Thomas prints the first illustrated Bible (KJV) in America. ● Gilbert Wakefield, A Translation of the New Testament. 3 Vols. London: Philanthropic Press, 1791. 2nd edition, 1795. Reprinted 1820. Featured a paragraphed text with verse numbers in the margin. Wakefield was a prominent Unitarian minister. ● Death of John Wesley. The Isaac Collins Bible, the first family Bible (KJV), is printed in America.
1791 On March 10, Pope Pius VI (1775-99) denounced the French Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
1793 On January 21, Louis XVI, king of France, beheaded.
1793/5 Twenty-three hundred Uniate churches returned to Orthodoxy under Catherine the Great (1762-96). Almost all of Red and White Ruthenia had come under Russian control with the second and third partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795.
1793: Reign of Terror in France. • Eli Whitney invents the Cotton Gin.
1794 Publication of Richard Brothers’ A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times. Brothers announced that the world would be destroyed in 1795. He claimed to be the heir of king David and stated that the Jews would be restored to Palestine in 1798, with himself as their ruler. Brothers ended his days in confinement as a lunatic.
1794 Pope Pius VI (1775-99) condemned 85 propositions of the synod of Pistoia (1786). Bishop Ricci later recanted.
1794 The empress Catherine ordered that Jews pay twice the taxes Christians in the same social class were paying.
1794 Publication of Richard Brothers’ A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times. Brothers announced that the world would be destroyed in 1795. He claimed to be the heir of king David and stated that the Jews would be restored to Palestine in 1798, with himself as their ruler. Brothers ended his days in confinement as a lunatic.
1795: Thomas Haweis, A Translation of the New Testament from the original Greek. Humbly attempted with a view to assist the unlearned with clearer and more explicit views of the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures of Truth. London: printed for T. Chapman, 1795. An original version by one of the founders of the London Missionary Society. ● James MacKnight, A New Literal Translation from the Original Greek, of All the Apostolical Epistles: With a Commentary, and Notes Philological, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical. In Four Volumes. To which is Added a History of the Life of the Apostle Paul. Edinburgh and London, 1795. First published in four volumes from 1787-1795. A second edition, in six volumes, was published in London by Longmans & Co., 1806, and in Boston by W. Wells and T.B. Wait & Co. ● Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason bitterly attacks the Bible and Christianity.
1796: Griesbach’s 2nd Greek New Testament ● William Newcome, An Attempt toward revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures, or the New Covenant of Jesus Christ; and toward illustrating the sense by philological and explanatory notes. 2 Vols. London: for J. Johnson; Dublin: John Exshaw, 1796. A revision of the KJV by Archbishop Newcome, based on the text of Griesbach 1774. This was the first English version to represent Griesbach’s new critical text.
1796 The Uniate Metropolitanate of Kiev ceased to exist.
1797 As a result of Bonaparte’s invasion of Italy (1796), Pope Pius VI (1775-99) signed the treaty of Tolentino, by which he surrendered Bologna and Tolentino.
1797: First Sunday newspaper in America begins in Baltimore. ● Methodists separate from the Church of England
1798: Nathaniel Scarlett, ed., A Translation of the New Testament from the Original Greek, humbly attempted by Nathaniel Scarlett, assisted by men of piety and literature. London: Printed by T. Gillet; F. & C. Rivington, 1798. The collaborating “men of piety and literature” were all of Universalist convictions. They included James Creighton (Anglican), William Vidler (Universalist), and John Cue (Sandemanian). ● Birch publishes collation of Codex Vaticanus for entire New Testament • Napoleon wages war in Egypt and Palestine.
1798 Pope Pius VI (1775-99) was forced into exile from Rome by French troops. Premillenialists saw this as a fulfillment of prophecies of the 1260-day reign of “the Beast,” dating the rise of the papacy to 538.
1800 Orthodox influence in the Holy Land began a dramatic rise in this period. Latin monks were lamenting that the Church of the Nativity had been in Greek hands for forty or fifty years. A steady flow of financial aid and pilgrims streamed into the Holy Land from Russia.
1800: Birth of John Nelson Darby, first theologian of modern Dispensationalism.
Nineteenth Century
1801: “Plan of Union” adopted by American Presbyterians and Congregationalists for cooperative ministry in frontier districts. • Barton Stone directs giant camp meeting revival at Cane Ridge in Kentucky, sparking “Second Great Awakening” in America.
1802 Georg Friderich Grotefend deciphered the cuneiform writing of ancient Samaria.
1802: Marsh publishes English translation of Michaelis’ Introduction (basic source of text-critical information for English scholars).
1803: U.S. purchases Louisiana territory (Great Plains) from France, doubles in size.
1804: Napoleon declared Emperor in France.
1804 Alexis Khomiakov (1804-60) born. Khomiakov looked to Orthodox sources for theology, rather than employing Roman Catholic arguments against Protestants and vice versa.
1805: Griesbach’s last Greek New Testament • Unitarian control of Harvard College becomes evident with the appointment of Henry Ware to Chair of Divinity.
1807: Slave trade abolished in England.
1808: Charles Thomson, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Covenant, commonly called the Old and New Testament; Translated from the Greek, by Charles Thomson, Late Secretary to the Congress of the United States. 4 vols. Philadelphia: Jane Aitken, 1808. Thomson was secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774-1789. Volumes 1-3 present the first English translation of the Septuagint. The Old Testament was reprinted by S. F. Pells in 1904 (London: Skeffington) and revised by C. A. Muses in 1954 (Indian Hills, Colorado: Falcon’s Wing). ● Jane Aitken’s Bible (Daughter of Robert Aitken); The First Bible to be Printed by a Woman. ● [Thomas Belsham et al.,] The New Testament, in an Improved Version, upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: with a Corrected Text and Notes Critical and Explanatory. London: Richard Taylor & Co., 1808. An American edition was distributed by William Wells of Boston in 1809. A fourth London edition “with corrections and additions” was printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor in 1817. This Unitarian revision of Newcome’s version (1796) provoked much indignation when it appeared. ● “Improved” Version of the New Testament published by Unitarians in England. ● Jane Aitken (daughter of Robert Aitken) is the first woman to print a Bible.
1808 St. Nikita the Albanian martyred. In Serres, Nikita went to the Church of Divine Wisdom, which the Moslems had turned into a mosque. He met a cripple, and told him he would be healed if he believed in Jesus and was baptized. The cripple told the chief teacher of the mosque, who turned him over to the authorities. Nikita was tortured in prison, then hanged. His relics have performed many miracles.
1808 Joseph Bonaparte suppressed the Spanish Inquisition.
1809 Members of Thomas Campbell’s Christian Association of Washington, Pennsylvania, formed a church under the pastorship of Thomas’ son, Alexander. Working with Walter Scott, who developed a five-step plan of salvation, and with Barton Stone, who pushed a simple and non-creedal form of Christianity, Alexander Campbell began the “Restoration Movement.” Groups that derive from this origin include the Disciples of Christ, the Churches of Christ, and the Christian Churches.
1810: Reprints of the second edition in one large volume were later published in Philadelphia, 1835 and 1841. The most recent reprint (of the one-volume edition) was issued by Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, 1984. The text of MacKnight’s translation, minus the notes, was reprinted in The New Testament Translated from the Original Greek, by G. Campbell, P. Doddridge and J. MacKnight. London: John Lepard, 1818. This text was revised by Alexander Campbell for his edition of the New Testament published in 1826. A similar edition containing MacKnight’s translation, unrevised, was published in London by Wightman and Cramp in 1827.
1812: London has 18 Sunday newspapers.
1812 Napoleon’s French Grand Army invaded Russia. When Napoleon reached Moscow, the city was in flames. On October the 19th, the Grand Army began its retreat.
1813: English Parliament extends Toleration Act (cf. 1689) to cover Unitarians.
1814: Richard Laurence (English Archbishop) publishes defense of the traditional Greek text against Griesbach.
1814 Abdication of Napoleon and his exile to Elba. In 1815, he returned, but was defeated and sent as a prisoner to the island of St. Helena.
1814 Ferdinand VII restored the Spanish Inquisition.
1815 St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1833) turned from a life of seclusion and began to receive visitors, providing advice and healing the sick. Holy men such as this are called as startsy in Russia.
1815: Nolan publishes defense of traditional Greek text against Griesbach. • Napoleon defeated by British and German armies at Waterloo.
1816: Death of Francis Asbury. ● African Methodist Church (AME) founded by Richard Allen in Philadelphia.
1817 Publication of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline.
1819 A council at Constantinople endorsed the standpoint of the Kollyvades. This was a movement against the influence of the Western Enlightenment in Greece. The Kollyvades endorsed the study of the church fathers and Orthodox liturgical life, along with frequent communion.
After William Ellery Channing’s sermon “Unitarian Christianity” in this year, many New England congregationalist bodies became Unitarian.
1819: Political agitation leads to labor riots in Manchester, put down by troops. • Revivalist movement known as the Second Great Awakening underway in America. • William Channing publicly espouses Unitarianism in his “Baltimore Sermon.” • U.S. purchases Florida from Spain.
1820: William Hone publishes in popular and inexpensive form a collection of early Christian writings under the title Apocryphal New Testament. • America has forty-two daily newspapers.
1820 Joseph Smith had a vision in Palmyra, New York, which led to the founding of the Mormon religion. The first congregation of Mormons was formed in 1830. Smith himself was killed in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, his followers arrived in Utah in 1847.
1820 The Spanish Inquisition was again suppressed.
1821: Richard Lawrence publishes English translation of The Book of Enoch. • Death of Thomas Scott.
1822 The Vicar Apostolic in England, Bishop Baines, wrote that “Bellarmine and some other divines, chiefly Italians, have believed the Pope infallible, when proposing ex cathedra an article of faith. But in England or Ireland I do not believe that any Catholic maintains the infallibility of the Pope.”
1823 The Spanish Inquisition again restored.
1823. Abner Kneeland, H KAINH DIAQHKH. The New Testament, in Greek and English; the Greek According to Griesbach; the English upon the basis of the fourth London edition of the Improved Version, with an attempt to further improvement from the translations of Campbell, Wakefield, Scarlett, MacKnight, and Thomson. In Two Volumes. By Abner Kneeland, Minister of the First Independent Church of Christ, called Universalist, in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Abner Kneeland, 1823. This Greek-English diglot gave side-by-side the Greek text of Griesbach 1805 and a revision of Thomas Belsham’s English version (1808). Also, in 1823 Kneeland issued The New Testament: Being the English Only of the Greek and English Testament, etc., in one volume. Like Belsham, Kneeland was a Unitarian, and also a Universalist. He changed several verses of Belsham’s version according to his own opposition to the doctrine of eternal punishment. He later renounced Christianity altogether and became a deist. For a discussion of his version see Paul Gutjahr, An American Bible, pages 95-100.
1824: Premiere of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Vienna. • First steam-powered cylinder newspaper press in America.
1825: American Unitarian Association formed at Boston.
1826. Alexander Campbell, ed., The Sacred Writing of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ, Commonly Styled the New Testament. Translated from the Original Greek, by George Campbell, James MacKnight, and Philip Doddridge, Doctors of the Church of Scotland. With Prefaces to the Historical and Epistolary Books; and an Appendix, Containing Critical Notes and Various Translations of Difficult Passages. Buffaloe, Virginia: Alexander Campbell, 1826. • British and Foreign Bible Society stops printing Apocrypha.
1826 Thirty Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops in Ireland signed a declaration that “The Catholics of Ireland declare on oath their belief that it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither are they required to believe that the pope is infallible.” They presented testimony before a committee of the English Parliament that they and their congregations rejected both papal infallibility and the notion that the bishop of Rome could relieve subjects from their civil allegiance. As a result, the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 was enacted.
1827 The British and Foreign Bible Society resolved never to print or distribute Bibles containing the Apocrypha. Prior to this time, the Authorized Version had been printed without these books, but from this year copies with the Apocrypha became even more rare.
1827 An Anglican priest named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) concluded that the visible church was apostate. He began to meet with others, the group eventually becoming known as the Plymouth Brethren. Darby taught a radical distinction between Israel and the church, which laid the seed for dispensational premillenialism, popularized by the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible.
1827: Charles Finney emerges as leading American revivalist.
1828. John Gorham Palfrey, The New Testament in the common Version, conformed to Griesbach’s Standard Greek Text. Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1828. Third edition, 1830. Palfrey, a Unitarian, published this version anonymously. It is a revision of the King James version in accordance with Griesbach 1805. This is perhaps the earliest example of a scholar’s attempt to fully inform the public at large of the results of the new textual criticism pioneered by Griesbach. ● Noah Webster publishes his American Dictionary of the English Language. • Liberal English journalists called “a fourth estate of the realm” by essayist Thomas Macaulay. ● Alexander Greaves, The Gospel of God’s Anointed, the Glory of Israel, and the Light of Revelation for the Gentiles: or, the Glad Tidings of the Service, Sacrifice, and Triumph of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God; and of the gracious and mightily operative powers of the Holy Spirit, which were the first-fruits of that labor of divine love: being a recent version, in two parts, of the Christian Greek Scriptures (commonly called the New Testament) in which is plainly set forth the New Covenant promised by God through Moses and the Prophets. London: A. Macintosh, 1828.
1829: Catholic Emancipation Act removes legal disabilities of Romanists.
1829 St. John of Kronstadt (1829-1908) born. Like St. Seraphim or Sarov, he possessed the gifts of spiritual insight and healing.
1830 Greece liberated from Turkish rule.
1830 Mary McDonald, a 15-year-old Scottish girl living in Port Glasgow, had visions in which it was revealed that believers would be taken out of the world (a “secret rapture”) prior to the appearance of the anti-Christ. It is reported that John Darby (see 1827 above) was influenced by McDonald’s visions.
1830 A twenty-four year old nun named Catherine Laboure in a convent of the Sisters of Charity in Paris reportedly saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. Mary appeared to her standing on a half-globe with a globe topped with a cross in her hands. She commanded Catherine to have a medal struck after the model of the image she had seen. The medal, first produced in 1832, came to be known as the Miraculous Medal.
1830: Scholz’s Greek New Testament published. • Revivalist movement known as the Second Great Awakening reaches its high point in America. • John Nelson Darby leads the Plymouth Brethren movement in Dublin. • Alexander Campbell breaks with American Baptists to found the independent “Restoration Movement” in America. • Joseph Smith publishes The Book of Mormon in New York.
1831: Karl Lachmann publishes first thoroughly revised critical Greek New Testament
1832: English Parliament adopts Reform Bill, extending voting rights to the middle class.
1833: Webster’s Revision of the KJV – Noah Webster, The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, in the Common Version. With Amendments of the Language. New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1833. Reprinted Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987. A conservative revision of the KJV, in which obsolete words and constructions are replaced with modern equivalents. ● Rodolphus Dickinson, A New and Corrected Version of the New Testament; or, a minute revision, and professed translation of the original histories, memoirs, letters, prophecies, and other productions of the Evangelists and Apostles: to which are subjoined a few, generally brief, critical, explanatory and practical notes. Boston: Lilly, Wait, Colman and Holden, 1833. A foppish translation by an Episcopal rector, based on the text of Griesbach 1805. Luke 1:41 is translated thus: “And it happened, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the embryo was joyfully agitated”. ● Abolition of slavery in the British Empire. • Revivalist Charles Finney conducts abolitionist rallies in America • American Antislavery Society formed by Christian abolitionists. • First “penny” newspaper begins in New York.
1834 The Spanish Inquisition again suppressed.
1835 Publication of David Friedrich Strauss’s Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined). A Hegelian, Strauss viewed Christianity as the synthesis of conflicting forces. In particular, he denied the Gospels had historical value, since, in his view, they were second-century creations, historical myths embodying the hopes of early Christians.
1835: David Strauss, Leben Jesu (Atheistic critical treatment of the life of Jesus) published in Germany. • Charles Finney becomes professor of theology at newly formed Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin became the center of perfectionist teaching, feminism, and abolitionist movement.
1836: Granville Penn, The Book of the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being a critical revision of the text and translation of the English version of the New Testament, with the aid of most ancient manuscripts unknown to the age in which that version was last put forth by authority. London: James Moyes, for James Duncan, 1836. ● Union Theological Seminary founded by liberal-Arminian “New School” Presbyterians.
1836 Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46) in effect overturned Benedict XIV’s 1757 proclamation on reading the Scriptures in the vernacular. Benedict had allowed such translations if they were approved by the papacy or contained notes from the Fathers. Gregory noted that Pope Clement VIII’s requirement for papal approval for reading the Scriptures in the vernacular was still in effect.
1837: Calvinist majority in General Assembly of PCUSA abrogates 1801 Plan of Union; New School Presbyteries organize separate church. • Victoria made Queen of England.
1838: Romish “Oxford Movement” party in the Church of England is at its peak of influence about now. • Ralph Waldo Emerson espouses mystical transcendentalism in an address at Harvard Divinity School.
1839 The Marquis de Custine visited Russia. While there, he recorded his observations in a series of letters. These letters provide insight into one nineteenth century Westerner’s blindness toward the central message of Orthodox spirituality:
The Marquis de Custine depicts a Russian prince as attributing Russia’s backwardness to the fact that it successfully resisted conquest by the Teutonic Knights: “Think at each step you take in this land of Asiatic people that the influence of chivalry and Catholicism has been missed by the Russians.”
Later, he himself opines: “Separated from the Occident by its adhesion to the Greek schism, Russia has come back after many centuries, with the inconsistency of a disillusioned self-esteem, to ask from the nations formed by Catholicism the civilization that she has been deprived of by an entirely political religion. This Byzantine religion, issued from a palace to help maintain order in a camp, does not satisfy the most sublime needs of the human soul; it helps the police deceive the nation – that is all. It has made these people unworthy of the degree of culture to which they aspire.” The reader is left wondering if de Custine thought of religion solely as a tool for the improvement of civilization. He was plainly oblivious to Orthodox spirituality.
1839 The Uniate Church in Ukraine abolished. Clergy who refused to re-unite to Orthodoxy (593 of 1898) were exiled to Siberia or the Russian interior. Eventually, Uniates existed only in Austrian-controlled areas of Ukraine (Galicia).
Known as the Reunion of Polotsk, Greek Catholic dioceses in Lithuania and Belarus also re-entered the Orthodox Church in this year, led by Iosif Semashko, bishop of Lithuania.
1839 The first French diocese to drop its local breviary in favor of the Roman, Langres, did so in this year. Orleans was the last, in 1875.
1840 John Wilson’s Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin published. Wilson is regarded as the founder of the British-Israelite movement, which relies on the notion that the British are descended from one or more of the ten lost tribes of Israel. The influence of British Israelitism peaked around 1900 with perhaps 2,000,000 believers worldwide.
1840: Samuel Sharpe, The New Testament, translated from the Text of J.J. Griesbach. London: John Green, 1840. Second edition, 1844; third edition, 1856; fourth edition, 1859; fifth edition, 1862; seventh edition, 1881. A translation of Griesbach 1805, by a Unitarian. Sharpe also published a light revision of the KJV Old Testament in 1865. A one-volume edition of the complete Bible appeared in the year of his death, 1881. ● Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.
1841: John T. Conquest, ed., The Holy Bible, containing the Authorized Version … with twenty thousand emendations. London: Longman, Brown & Co.; Bungay: John Childs and Son, 1841. ● Tischendorf’s first Greek New Testament • Bagster’s English Hexapla. • Emerson’s Essays. ● English Hexapla New Testament; an Early Textual Comparison showing the Greek and 6 Famous English Translations in Parallel Columns.
1842: Lachmann’s 2nd Greek New Testament
1843: Greek text of Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus published by Tischendorf. • Phoebe Palmer’s The Way of Holiness.
1843 A baptist pastor from Vermont named William Miller calculated that Christ’s second coming would occur this year. He later revised the date to 1844. The Seventh Day Adventist church rose from these false predictions.
1844: Year of Christ’s return as predicted by William Miller, founder of the Adventist movement. • Methodists split over the slavery controversy in America.
1845: Baptists split over the slavery controversy in America. Southern Baptist Convention is formed. • Texas annexed by the U.S.
1845 Publication of Ferdinand Christian Baur’s Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ). Baur argued that only Galatians, the two Corinthian letters, and Romans were genuine. He held that the relative harmony between Jews and Gentiles portrayed in Acts indicated that it was composed after the apostolic period, when the details of such conflicts had been forgotten. A Hegelian, Baur saw Jewish Christianity (led by Peter) as thesis, Gentile (Pauline) Christianity as antithesis, and the catholic Christianity that emerged as synthesis. This notion of early Christian development is known as the Tubingen theory.
1846 Two children (Melanie Mathieu (14) and Maximin Giraud (11)) herding cattle near La Salette, France, reportedly saw a vision of a lady dressed in white who predicted crop failures and disease in the area if people failed to attend mass regularly and to cease using Jesus’ name as a curse. Subsequently, crops did fail, and cholera struck many children in the region.
1846-60 Keenan’s Catechism was popular in Britain during this period. Approved for use by four Roman Catholic bishops, to the question, “Must not all Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?” the response is, “This is a Protestant invention: it is no article of the Catholic faith; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body; that is, by the bishops of the Church.”
1846: Potato famine in Ireland leads to emigration of nearly a million Irish Catholics to American cities. • Strauss’ atheistic Life of Jesus translated into English. • U.S. claim to Oregon country recognized by Great Britain. ● The Illuminated Bible; The Most Lavishly Illustrated Bible printed in America. A King James Version, with All 80 Books.
1847 A professor of dogmatic theology in the Collegium Romanum, Giovanni Perrone, argued in a book published this year that dogmas could be defined even if they lacked direct evidence in both Scripture and written tradition. It was only requisite that the dogmas exist as a secret tradition in the consciousness of believers. Pope Pius IX set up a commission to examine Perrone’s theory. The commission concluded that Tradition alone was sufficient to establish a doctrine, and that “the existence of a Catholic tradition was proved when the general agreement of the Church at any period could be verified, or when a certain number of decisive pieces of evidence which presume it could be produced.” Thus the ground was prepared for the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, issued in 1854.
1848 Pius IX (1846-78) sent an encyclical to the Eastern Churches in an attempt to corrupt them from the Orthodox faith.
1848: Karl Marx publishes his Communist Manifesto in England. Revolutions break out in several nations of Europe. • Perfectionistic Oneida commune established by John Noyes. • Kate and Margaret Fox of New York cause public sensation with claims of ability to communicate with the dead: beginning of Spiritualist séance craze in America. • Southwestern territory ceded to the U.S. by Mexico.
1849: First edition of Novum Testamentum Graece ● Tischendorf’s 2nd Greek New Testament • Alford’s annotated Greek New Testament • Cholera epidemic kills 14,000 in London.
1850: Antoinette Brown becomes first woman to complete theological course at Oberlin. • Ellen White begins to publicize “visions” fundamental to Seventh Day Adventism. ● Spencer H. Cone and William H. Wyckoff, The Commonly Received Version of the New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with Several Hundred Emendations, edited by Spencer H. Cone and William H. Wyckoff. New York: Lewis Colby, 1850. Cone and Wyckoff were Baptists, and founders of the American Bible Union. Their limited revision of the King James Version substitutes “immerse” for “baptize.”
1850 Pius IX (1846-78) set up a rival episcopal hierarchy in England. He appointed Nicholas Wiseman, formerly a vicar apostolic, as archbishop of Westminster. Wiseman was responsible for the rising acceptance of the concept of papal infallibility among Catholics in England, in part through the quarterly, the Dublin Review, which he had founded in about 1835.
1851: James Murdock, The New Testament; or, the Book of the Holy Gospel of our Lord and our God, Jesus the Messiah. A literal translation from the Syriac Peshito version… New York: Stanford and Swords, 1851. ● Great Exhibition of science and industry held in London.
1852: Greek text of Codex Claromontanus published by Tischendorf. • Publication of Roget’s Thesaurus.
1852 For the crime of reading the Bible in an Italian translation and distributing this translation in Florence, Francesco Madiai and his wife were sentenced to four years of imprisonment by the government of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. They were released when Lord Palmerston threatened Tuscany with English warships.
1853 The Crimean War began. Lasted through 1856. The war was caused by a French demand that the Turks restore Latin rights in the Holy Land as described in a 1740 treaty. When the Turks complied, they dispossessed the Orthodox Christians of their accustomed rank. The Russian tsar, Nicholas I, reacted by demanding that the Orthodox privileges be restored and, in addition, he be guaranteed a protectorate over all Orthodox Christians (estimated at 12 million) in the Ottoman Empire. It was this demand for a protectorate over the laity, and not the clergy alone, which the Turks, backed by the British and the French, refused to admit, which led to the war.
The Roman Catholic church had a hand in moving the British and French against the Russians. The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Sibor, at the start of the Crimean War, said, “It is a sacred deed, a God-pleasing deed, to ward off the Photian heresy [Orthodoxy], subjugate it and destroy it with a new crusade. This is the clear goal of today’s crusade. Such was the goal of all the crusades, even if all their participants were not fully aware of it. The war which France is now preparing to wage against Russia is not a political war but a holy war. It is not a war between two governments or between two peoples, but is precisely a religious war, and other reasons presented are only pretexts.”
Dostoyevsky wrote: “Militant Roman Catholicism savagely takes the side of the Turks. At the moment, there are no more savage haters of Russia than these militant clerics. It was not some prelate but the Pope himself, who loudly and with joy, spoke of the ‘victories of the Turks’ and predicted a ‘fateful future’ for Russia at various Vatican meetings. This dying old man, the ‘head of Christianity’ was not ashamed to admit in public that every time he hears of a Russian defeat he experiences joy.”
1853: Antoinette Brown becomes first woman formally ordained as a minister in the U.S. (in an independent Congregational church in New York). ● Isaac Leeser, The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures: Carefully Translated According to the Masoretic Text, On the Basis of the English Version, After the Best Jewish Authorities; and Supplied with Short Explanatory Notes. By Isaac Leeser. Philadelphia, 1853.
1854: Tregelles’ Account of the Printed Text. • Dogma of Immaculate Conception promulgated by the Roman Pope. • Cholera epidemic kills 11,000 in London.
1854 On December 8, Pius IX issued Ineffabilis Deus defining the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception: “that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception, by a special gift of grace from Almighty God, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ the Savior of mankind, was preserved pure from all taint of original sin.”
1855: Charles Spurgeon preaches to thousands in public halls of London. • Abolition of Stamp Tax in England removes financial burden from newspaper publishers; cheap and vulgar daily newspapers begin to flourish. ● Tregelles’ Introduction to Textual Criticism. • Tischendorf’s 3rd Greek New Testament • Wordsworth’s Greek New Testament • Western Union Telegraph Co. formed • Slavery controversy rages in America. Southern scholar Albert Taylor Bledsoe’s Essay on Liberty and Slavery presents a Scriptural defense of slavery.
1857: [George Moberly, Henry Alford, William G. Humphry, Charles J. Ellicott, and John Barrow,] The Gospel According to St. John, after the Authorized Version. Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Five Clergymen. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1857. Followed by The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, after the Authorized Version Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Five Clergymen in 1858: The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, after the Authorized Version. Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Five Clergymen in 1858; and The Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, after the Authorized Version. Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Four Clergymen in 1861. Although this revision of the KJV New Testament was not carried through to completion, it has special significance because of the eminence of the “five clergymen” (minus Barrow for the fourth volume) who produced it. It was in some respects a preparation for the Revised Version of 1881, in which Moberly, Alford, Humphry, and Ellicott participated. ● Tregelles’ Greek text of Gospels.
1858: Leicester Ambrose Sawyer, The New Testament, Translated from the Original Greek, with Chronological Arrangement of the Sacred Books, and Improved Divisions of Chapters and Verses. Boston: J. P. Lewett, 1858. A modern version, based on the Greek text published by Tischendorf in 1849, retaining “thou” only in prayers; an innovative system of text divisions based on sense units. Revised by Sawyer in 1891. ● Brief “Prayer Meeting Revival” sweeps America. • Act for the admission of the Jews to the Parliament adopted in England.
1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year old French girl, claimed to have seen a white figure with a rosary who spoke to her in French, saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The figure showed Bernadette where to find a previously unknown spring of water. Thus began the pilgrimage destination of Lourdes.
1858 A Christian nurse in a Jewish family’s home in Bologna (at that time, within the Papal States), baptized their small son without their consent. The boy was taken from his parents and raised at Rome in a home for converted Jews. Indignation at this act was widespread in Europe, but ineffectual.
1859 Tischendorf discovered Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) at the Monastery of Saint Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai. Aleph is of the Alexandrian text type, with some Western readings. (See 350 for contents, 130 for a remark on the Epistle of Barnabas.)
1859 Charles Robert Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection published.
1859: Vercellone’s edition of Codex Vaticanus. • John Nelson Darby’s New Translation of New Testament with critical notes. • Darwin’s Origin of Species. • John Stuart Mill’s on Liberty. ● Charles Wellbeloved, George Vance Smith, and John Scott Porter, The Holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant, in a Revised Translation, by the late Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, the Rev. George Vance Smith, B.A., the Rev. John Scott Porter. 3 volumes. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859-1862. A limited revision of the KJV. Volume 1 (1859) contains the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. Vol. 2 (1861) contains the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job and Psalms. Vol. 3 (1862) contains Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets. Wellbeloved is the reviser of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Minor Prophets. Smith is the reviser of Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Lamentations. Porter is the reviser of Kings, Chronicles, Ezekiel and Daniel.
1860: Liberal scholars in the Church of England “come out of the closet” in Essays and Reviews.
1860 On July 9, a Muslim mob attacked the Christian quarter in Damascus. Over 2500 men were killed, apart from women and children. Many of the latter were sold into slavery. The patriarchal cathedral was burned, and those who had fled there for safety died. Turkish troops were involved in the slaughter.
1861 On February 19, Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs.
1861: Scrivener’s Plain Introduction to Textual Criticism. • American Civil War begins. • President Lincoln attends Spiritualist séances in Georgetown, receives advice from the famous medium Nettie Colburn Maynard in the White House.
1862: Greek text of Codex Sinaiticus published by Tischendorf. • Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible.
1863: Young’s Literal Translation – Robert Young, The Holy Bible … literally and idiomatically translated out of the original languages. Edinburgh: A. Fullarton and Co., 1863. Revised edition 1887. Third edition 1898. Reprinted frequently under the title, The Holy Bible, consisting of the Old and New Covenants, translated according to the Letter and Idioms of the Original Languages. Reproduces Hebrew and Greek idioms by an exceedingly literal translation (in the New Testament based on Estienne 1550). ● Herman Heinfetter [Pseudonym of Frederick Parker], A Literal Translation of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on definite rules of translation, from the text of the Vatican Manuscript. 6th ed. London: Evan Evans, 1863. Although this is called the “sixth edition,” in fact it is the first edition of Parker’s translation of the entire New Testament. The parts had been issued separately in preceding years. By the same author: A Collation of an English version of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, from the text of the Vatican Manuscript, with the Authorized English version (London: Evan Evans, 1864); and Corrections of the copies of the New Testament portion of the Vatican Manuscript (London: Evan Evans, 1866). Parker’s translation of Codex Vaticanus is based upon Cardinal Mai’s edition of the manuscript. ● President Lincoln proclaims Thanksgiving Day holiday. ● Seventh Day Adventist Church founded
1864: Benjamin F. Wilson, The Emphatic Diaglott. Geneva, IL: B. F. Wilson, 1864. Originally published by the author in parts, which were bound together in 1864, and reprinted in 1865 and 1866. Later editions were published by Samuel R. Wells (later Fowler & Wells) of New York in 1873, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, and in 1882. The 1873 and 1882 reprints are titled, The Emphatic Diaglott: containing the original Greek Text of what is commonly styled the New Testament, according to the Recension of Dr. J.J. Griesbach, with an interlineary word for word English Translation; a new Emphatic Version, based on the interlineary Translation, on the Renderings of eminent Critics, and on the various Readings of the Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209 in the Vatican Library, together with illustrative and explanatory Footnotes, and a copious Selection of References, to the whole of which is added a valuable alphabetical Appendix. This is the Greek text of Griesbach 1805, printed with a literal interlinear English version, and beside it in a parallel column there is a very peculiar English version, with certain words made “emphatic” by typography. Brief notes and references are given at the foot of the page. At the end is an “Alphabetical appendix of the geographical and proper names, weights, measures … etc.” This version is of interest chiefly because of its subsequent use by the “Jehovah’s Witness” organization, which also reprinted it for the use of its members. ● The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Common English Version, Corrected by the Final Committee of the American Bible Union. New York: American Bible Union, 1862-64. A revised edition appeared in 1865. ● John Nelson Darby visits America for the first time, promotes fully developed Dispensationalism among Presbyterians in lecture tour. • “In God We Trust” first put on U.S. coins.
1864 Pope Pius IX (1846-78) presented his syllabus of errors. One error is that it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others. The syllabus also disapproves of secular public education and the separation of church and state. Catholics are forbidden to consider that the pope’s conduct may have contributed to the schism between East and West. It is held to be an error that, “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
1865: American Civil War ends. • President Lincoln assassinated. • Slavery in America ends – The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery in the United States on December 6, 1865. The amendment states that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States”. ● Samuel Sharpe, The Hebrew Scriptures, translated by Samuel Sharpe, Being a Revision of the Authorized English Old Testament, in three volumes. London: J. Russell Smith, 1865. 2nd ed, 1871; 3rd ed., 1876; 4th ed. (in one volume with the New Testament) 1881. A light revision of the KJV Old Testament, by an English Unitarian. Genesis 1:2 is translated “and the breath of God moved upon the face of the waters,” eliminating the reference to the Spirit of God. Sharpe (1799-1881) had published his own version of the New Testament in 1840. A detailed account of Sharpe’s life and work is given in Peter W. Clayden, Samuel Sharpe: Egyptologist and Translator of the Bible (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1883).
1866: Henry T. Anderson, The New Testament Translated from the Original Greek, by H.T. Anderson. Louisville, Kentucky: John P. Morton & Co., 1866. ● Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable connects England and America. • Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution greatly increases Federal power.
1866 John Mason Neale (born 1818) died this year. Neale translated many ancient Latin and Greek hymns into English.
1867 Protestant attitudes toward other Christians were sometimes smugly triumphant in this era. The third volume of Philip Schaff’s History of the Church was published in this year. Of the Monophysite churches of the East, Schaff wrote, “They have long since fallen into stagnation, ignorance, and superstition, and are to Christendom as a praying corpse to a living man. They are isolated fragments of the ancient church history, and curious petrifactions from the Christological battle-fields of the fifth and sixth centuries …. But Providence has preserved them, like the Jews, and doubtless not without design …. Their very hatred of the orthodox Greek church makes them more accessible both to Protestant and Roman missions, and to the influences of Western Christianity and Western civilization.
“On the other hand, they are a door for Protestantism to the Arabs and the Turks; to the former through the Jacobites, to the later through the Armenians. There is more reason to hope for their conversion, because the Mohammedans despise the old Oriental churches, and must be won, if at all, by a purer type of Christianity.” Thus, it was thought necessary to convert fellow Christians, not simply in order to enlighten them with Protestant truth, but to exploit their conversion to bring the gospel to Islam.
1867: John Nelson Darby, The Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Book of Revelation: Commonly called the New Testament. A New Translation from a Revised Text of the Greek Original. London: G. Morrish, 1867. Second edition 1872. Third edition 1884. ● Joseph Smith, Jr., The Holy Scriptures, Translated and Corrected by the Spirit of Revelation, by Joseph Smith, Jr. the Seer … Plano, Illinois: Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Joseph Smith, I.L. Rogers, E. Robinson, Publishing Committee, 1867. ● Tischendorf’s edition of Codex Vaticanus. • Parliament adopts Second Reform Act, giving vote to the working class.
1868: Vercellone’s facsimile edition of Codex Vaticanus.
1869: Tischendorf’s 4th Greek New Testament • New and Old School American Presbyterians reunite. • American transcontinental railroad line completed • Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton organize the National Woman Suffrage Association. ● George R. Noyes, The New Testament: Translated from the Greek text of Tischendorf, by George R. Noyes, D.D., Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature, in Harvard University. Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1869. An English version of Tischendorf 1856, by a Unitarian. The manuscript was at the printer when Noyes died in 1868, and it was seen through the press with some editorial alterations by Ezra Abbott.
1870: English parliament asks bishops of the Church of England to form a committee for the revision of the King James version. Revision committee is formed, and work begins on the English Revised Version. • Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church sets forth dogma of Infallibility of the Pope. • German principalities unified under imperial crown of Prussia by Bismarck. • Manufacture of new wood-pulp paper greatly reduces cost of newspaper publishing. ● 1st Vatican council declares papal infallibility dogma.
1870 The first Vatican Council defined the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.
The statement on papal infallibility, Pastor Aeturnus: “We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith and morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by consent of the church, irreformable.”
Pastor Aeturnus claims to be “in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church” and to faithfully adhere “to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith.” There is thus no recourse here to Newman’s system of doctrinal development. It teaches also that the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome “is truly episcopal, is immediate; to which all, of whatever rite and dignity, both pastors and faithful, both individually and collectively, are bound.” Those who disagree are assured that “This is the teaching of Catholic truth, from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and salvation.”
The Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV subsequently disclosed, that in the aftermath of the then patriarch’s opposition to the definition of Papal infallibility at the first Vatican council, His Beatitude had been forced to the ground before the Papal throne while Pius IX (1846-78) placed his foot on his head.
The Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Guidi, made a speech at the council urging the Pope to exercise his infallibility only after taking counsel with the bishops of the Church. Pius IX scolded him afterwards. Guidi responded that he simply maintained that bishops are the witness of tradition. “Witnesses of tradition?” responded the Pope, “There is only one; that’s me.”
1870-74 Publication of Albrecht Ritschl’s Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung (The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation). Ritschl saw Christianity as an ellipse. One focus is the reconciliation of God and man through the life and death of Jesus (the religious focus). The other (the ethical focus) is the Kingdom of God. In Ritschl’s view, modern Christianity placed insufficient emphasis on doing God’s will as the means of advancing the Kingdom of God.
1871 At Portmain, France, the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to Eugene Barbadette, age 12, his brother Joseph, 10, and two girls: Francoise Richer, 11, and Jeanne-Marie Lebosse, 9. It was thought that the vision was related to the halt of the German army’s advance on Laval.
1871: J.N. Darby’s 2nd edition of the New Testament • Darwin’s Descent of Man.
1872: Rotherham Version. Joseph Bryant Rotherham, The New Testament: newly translated from the Greek text of Tregelles and critically emphasized, according to the logical idiom of the original; with an introduction and occasional notes. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1872. ● Last portion of Tregelles’ Greek New Testament published. • Alford’s New Testament for English Readers.
1873 Jerusalem Codex. Philotheos Byrennios, Head Master of the higher Greek school in Constantinople and later Metropolitan of Nicomedia, discovered a collection of manuscripts in the hand of a certain Leon, dated 1056, in the Jerusalem Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople. The collection included (1) a summary of the Bible by St. John Chrysostom, (2) The Epistle of Barnabas, (3) the two Epistles of Clement to the Corinthians, (4) The Didache of the Twelve Apostles, (5) The Epistle of Mary of Cassoboli to Ignatius, and (6) Twelve Epistles of Ignatius. The discovery provided the second copy of Barnabas (the first being in Sinaiticus). It completed the text of 2 Clement (the epistles of Clement are included in Alexandrinus, though 2 Clement in that uncial is only 3/5 the length of the same epistle in the Jerusalem Codex.) The Didache was previously unknown.
1875: Samuel Davidson, The New Testament. Translated from the Critical Text of Von Tischendorf, with an Introduction on the Criticism, Translation, and Interpretation of the Book. London: Henry S. King and Company, 1875. A translation of Tischendorf’s eighth edition of the Greek text. ● Premillennialist evangelist Dwight Moody begins sensational preaching tour of American cities. • Foundation of annual Niagara Bible Conference. • Mary Baker’s Science and Health publicizes principles of Christian Science. ● Jehovah’s Witness founded
1876: Julia E. Smith, The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1876. The first Bible translation by a woman. ● Charles Taze Russell begins publication of Zion’s Watchtower. ● Telephone
1876 St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-94) began issuing a translation of the Philokalia, in five volumes, in Russian.
1877 St. Arsenios of Paros (1800-1877) died. Forty days after his death, his remains were incorrupt and wonderously fragrant.
1878: Rotherham’s English translation of Tregelles’ text. • Julius Wellhausen, History of Israel. • William Blackstone’s Jesus is Coming. • Ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica makes critical arguments and essays on the Bible generally available in English. • First commercial telephone exchange set up in Boston. ● Salvation Army is founded by William Booth and his wife Catherine Munford, both Methodist preachers
1879: Robert Ingersoll attacks the Bible in popular lecture tours, publishes his Some Mistakes of Moses.
1879 At Knock, Ireland, several people reportedly saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and (possibly) St. John the Evangelist, all motionless. Some witnesses also saw a lamb, an altar, and a cross in the same scene.
1879 Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) promoted the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas. Before this time, Thomism had been in decline.
1881 Westcott and Hort published their New Testament. Their classification of textual witnesses into four categories – Neutral (Aleph and B), Alexandrian, Western (D, Old Syrian, Old Latin, and the Western Fathers), and Syrian (Ae and the majority of manuscripts) – along with their low regard for the Syrian type, has been criticized in the twentieth century with the discovery of older (papyrus) manuscripts containing Syrian readings. The Westcott and Hort text relies primarily on B (Vaticanus) and Aleph (Sinaiticus).
1881: The English Revised Version. C.J. Ellicott, ed., The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated out of the Greek: Being the Version Set Forth A.D. 1611, Compared with the Most Ancient Authorities and Revised, A.D. 1881. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1881. ● Brooke Westcott and Fenton Hort were 19th-century theologians and Bible scholars. Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek, one of the earliest examples of modern textual criticism.
1882: Death of John Nelson Darby. • Charles Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey with full Christian rites.
1883: Dean Burgon leads strong conservative attack on the English Revised Version and against all critical Greek texts. The new version is eventually refused by the British churches.
1883-84 The first three parts of Friedrich Nietsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) were published. (The complete work appeared in 1892.) The work begins with Zarathustra, descending from 10 years’ solitude in the mountains, meeting a saint in the forest. After they part, Zarathustra says to himself, “Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!”
1884 The Candid Narrations of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father first published, in Kazan. Now published as The Way of a Pilgrim, the books tells of the spiritual journey of a Russian peasant into the ways of Orthodox mysticism.
1884: Parliament adopts Third Reform Act, granting vote to agricultural laborers. • Telephone service between New York and Boston.
1885: RV (1881-1895)- The “English Revised Version” Bible; The First Major English Revision of the KJV (Oxford University Press), Apocrypha published 1895. ● The Englishman’s Bible, by Thomas Newberry, published in 1885 by Hodder & Stoughton. It contains both the old and new testaments with maps. Newberry began working on the book in 1863, after receiving a copy of Tischendorf’s transcription of the New Testament. Newberry made many handwritten notes in the transcription, and later began work on The Englishman’s Study Bible, also known as the Newberry Study Bible. Apocrypha removed from the KJV.
1885 Revised Version published. American Edition published in 1901 as the American Standard Version.