TTC Video - Kenneth W. Harl - Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity m4v guide [course 3466] L24
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Course Lecture Titles

24 Lectures
30 minutes / lecture

1. Religious Conflict in the Roman World
2. Gods and Their Cities in the Roman Empire
3. The Roman Imperial Cult
4. The Mystery Cults
5. Platonism and Stoicism
6. Jews in the Roman Empire
7. Christian Challenge—First
8. Pagan Response—First Persecutions
9. Christian Bishops and Apostolic Churches
10. Pagan Critics and Christian Apologists
11. First Christian Theologians
12. Imperial Crisis and Spiritual Crisis
13. The Great Persecutions
14. The Spirit of Late Paganism
15. Imperial Recovery under the Tetrarchs
16. The Conversion of Constantine
17. Constantine and the Bishops
18. Christianizing the Roman World
19. The Birth of Christian Aesthetics and Letters
20. The Emperor Julian and the Pagan Reaction
21. Struggle over Faith and Culture
22. New Christian Warriors—Ascetics and Monks
23. Turning Point—Theodosius I
24. Justinian and the Demise of Paganism

Course description

Why did pagan Rome, which had a history of tolerating other faiths, clash with early Christians? What was it like, under Roman law, to be a Jew or a Christian? What led to the great persecutions of Christians? Above all else, how did Christianity ultimately achieve dominance in the Roman Empire, eclipsing paganism in one of the most influential turning points in the history of Western civilization?

Answers to these and similar questions are important for the sheer fact that much of today's world is still governed by principles drawn from the Judeo-Christian heritage that gained primacy as a result of Christianity's triumph over the paganism of ancient Rome. Two thousand years after this earth-shattering change, many of these principles still determine how most of today's Western world—both Christian and non-Christian alike—thinks about ethics, sin, redemption, forgiveness, progress, and so much more.

Discover the true story behind this ethical and religious legacy with The Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity, a historically focused discussion of the dramatic interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and paganism from the 1st to the 6th centuries. Presented by Professor Kenneth W. Harl of Tulane University—an award-winning teacher, classical scholar, and one of the most esteemed historians on The Great Courses faculty—these 24 lectures allow you to explore in great depth the historical reasons that Christianity was able to emerge and endure and, in turn, spark a critical transition for religion, culture, and politics.

An All-Encompassing Picture of a Critical Era

While the Judeo-Christian values that have shaped society's ideas are ones we might today take for granted, their emergence from an ancient era dominated by loyalties to a vast array of gods would once have seemed the most unlikely of narratives. Even after the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in A.D. 312, it would not be until the 6th-century reign of Justinian that medieval Christianity would emerge and this new historical pathway would finally be confirmed.

Professor Harl's magnificent course enables you to grasp the full historical sweep of this monumental transition by creating an all-encompassing picture of this critically important era. While some philosophical and theological content is included to clarify important points of transition, the focus of The Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity is—above all else—on its most important and fascinating episodes, among which are these:

Emperor Nero's rescript in A.D. 64, which not only ordered the persecution of Christians in the city of Rome but also made the faith illegal throughout the empire. As the first religion ever banned in the Roman world, Christianity would be forced to develop new institutions and new ways of spreading its message.
The Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312, where Emperor Constantine won a victory described in the only two literary accounts—both written by Christian authors—as having been deliberately fought under the Christian symbol of the Chi Ro. Professor Harl offers a probing analysis of what he believes Emperor Constantine's real motives were for fighting in this battle.
The reign of Theodosius I (A.D. 379 to 395), under which laws were passed banning public sacrifice throughout the Roman Empire and making Christianity the only legitimate religion. This crucial reign, according to Professor Harl, signified not only the death knell of Roman paganism but the first steps in the creation of the persecuting society of medieval Europe.

New Insights into the Sources of Western Beliefs

The Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity also introduces you to a wide variety of individuals whose actions helped shape the history of this turbulent time, including these:

Rulers like Augustus and Justinian, whose decisions would define—and redefine—the relationship between paganism, Judaism, and Christianity and how Jews and Christians would subsequently respond through words, deeds, and rituals
Proselytizers for the new faith, including James and Paul, and the different viewpoints they represented in the development of early Christianity
Religious thinkers such as Clement and Origen, who would go on to become the first theologians of the emerging Christian faith
Ascetics such as Saint Anthony and Barsauma, a warlike monk said to be so terrifying that he could inspire conversions in the villages of Syria and Phoenicia through the sheer fear raised by his arrival
Philosophical thinkers such as Galen, who was also a noted pagan critic of the new Christian faith and thus an active participant in the exchanges with Christian apologists that served to educate and hone the arguments put forth by both sides

You'll also witness Christianity's growing influence on not only the visual arts (including architecture and the redesignation of pagan temples for Christian uses) but on the world of letters, including, ironically, the preservation of the classical writings of ancient Greece so important to understanding the pagan world.

A Masterful Historian, an Exceptional Teacher

Professor Harl is the ideal choice for crafting such an all-encompassing picture of this critically important era. In addition to garnering honors for his skills as a lecturer—which include two-time recognition as the recipient of Tulane University's Sheldon Hackney Award for Excellence in Teaching, voted on by both students and faculty—he regularly leads students to Turkey on educational excursions or as assistants on excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites.

His own photographs of temples and other architectural features, cult statues, coins, and other telling artifacts bring the history and the events in this course to vivid life. Combined with a rich array of other visual aids, including maps, illustrations, and animations, these features help make The Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity a vibrant trek through the past—one that will lead you to a deeper understanding of the bedrock beliefs of Western culture.

About Your Professor

Dr. Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Honored many times over as a teacher at Tulane, Professor Harl has twice received the coveted Sheldon Hackney Award for Excellence in Teaching (voted on by both faculty and students), as well as the Student Body Award for Excellence in Teaching nine times. He also received Baylor University's nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers.

A recognized scholar of coins and classical Anatolia, Professor Harl takes Tulane students to Turkey on excursions and as assistants on excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites.

Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity

by Kenneth W. Harl (Biography)

The following materials are provided to enhance your learning experience. Click the links below for free information including a professor-authored course summary, recommended web links, and a condensed bibliography.

Course Summary - Professor's written description of the course.
Professor Recommended Links
Condensed Bibliography - Prepared by the professor for this course.

Course Summary

The conversion of the classical world to Christianity is one of the fundamental changes in Western civilization that has been matched only by the discovery of the New World and the industrial revolution. This course will explain the reasons for the clash between the pagans and the early Christians that ended in the Christianizing of the Roman world between the 4th and 6th centuries A.D.

The opening lectures define paganism and explain the piety and the appeal of the pagan cults of the Roman world. It is often assumed that these cults were inferior to Christianity in their cosmology, spiritual values, and moral precepts and therefore doomed to fail before the superior faith of Christianity. Scholars writing under the influence of Franz Cumont (1868&ndash1947) have long argued that many pagans discarded the empty communal cults of their ancestral gods either for the charismatic mystery cults, with their promises of moral rejuvenation and ecstatic rites or, for the intellectuals, the doctrines of Stoicism and Platonism. This vision of paganism has, in the past generation, been called into question in the light of ever-growing evidence from archaeology, inscriptions, documentary papyri, Roman legal texts, and coins, as well as a reexamination of classical texts.

A more modern view sees mystery cults as simply cults with initiation rites that were neither exclusive in membership nor distinct in their rituals and sanctuaries from the civic and family cults. Instead, the major change in pagan worship was the Hellenization or Romanization of cults. Provincials in the eastern provinces assimilated their native cults to those of Hellenic ones, whereas the provincials in the western provinces interpreted their gods in Roman guises. All communities across the Roman world also linked their ancestral gods to the veneration of the spirit (genius) of the emperor who, on his death, would be enrolled among the gods.

To the Romans, the Christians presented a unique threat by their proselytizing among pagans to deny worship of the ancestral gods. In contrast, Jews were perceived by Romans as practicing a legitimate religion that posed no such threat. In turn, Christians had to come to terms with both the Roman state and the pagan cults. Therefore, the next six lectures deal with how Romans and Christians clashed, why Roman authorities singled out Christians for persecution, and what institutions Christians evolved to ensure their survival in a hostile pagan world.

Christians claimed to be the third race, distinct from Jews and pagans. In the two centuries before the conversion of Constantine, Christians were restricted in their efforts of proselytizing. Christianity had been outlawed as a superstition in A.D. 64; then the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus in 112 &ndash 113, Pliny the Younger, created the sacrifice test and judicial proceedings to punish Christians. Persecutions were sporadic, local outbreaks; martyrs numbered at most in the dozens rather than the hundreds. Far more significant was the emergence of monarchical bishops in the apostolic churches, who also determined which texts were canonical and consistent with what would become mainline Christian doctrines.

Bishops held together their churches in times of persecution. The theologian Origen, in his On First Principles, expounded the Christian faith in Platonic terms so that henceforth Christianity was ever more accorded by intellectual pagans the status of a philosophy rather than superstition. These developments were far more significant than winning numbers of converts because bishops and theologians could explain to Constantine why he had converted and why he should promote the new faith.

Four lectures are devoted to the crucial turning point in the 3rd century, between 250 and 313, when emperors conducted empire-wide persecutions to compel Christians to sacrifice to the gods. While apologists claimed the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, pagan authors, such as Galen of Pergamum and Celsus, were unimpressed. Romans, long accustomed to the cult of blood in the arena, viewed Christian martyrs as criminals and outcasts who worshiped a weak god unable to protect them. For Christians, the persecutions defined their faith, and martyrs became examples to follow. At the same time, faith in the ancestral gods did not wane. The soldier3 emperor and reformer Diocletian, who ended a military crisis, sponsored a revival of the cults. Neoplatonic thinkers, commencing with Plotinus, devised henotheistic schemes of cosmology consistent with the ancestral cults and interpreted myths and rituals in moral terms in the system known as theurgy.

Paganism was spiritually and intellectually vibrant when on October 28, 312, Constantine converted to Christianity. The emperor's conversion offers the best insight into how many pagans could be brought to consider the Christian god legitimate and powerful. His conversion proved a decisive turning point. The final lectures, comprising the last third of the course, therefore concern the Christianizing of the Roman world between the reigns of Constantine (306&ndash337) and Justinian (527&ndash565). Constantine effected a religious revolution. He created the imperial Christian church, giving bishops the means to claim control of the empire's cities and its high culture for the new faith. He also relocated the Roman autocracy, with its powerful bureaucracy and army, at a new Christian capital, Constantinople. At the same time, in the deserts of Egypt arose the ascetics and monks who defined holiness in a Christian society and became the missionaries who converted villages and towns across the Roman world.

Although pagans were long in the majority, they failed to reverse Constantine's revolution during the reign of the pagan emperor Julian the Apostate (360&ndash363). With Julian's death and failure, Christian emperors ever more suppressed the pagan cults, promoted missionaries, and supported bishops in turning pagan cities into Christian ones. Later emperors, prelates, and monks not only completed the conversion of the Roman world, but created the new world of medieval Christendom.

Professor Recommended Links

Condensed Bibliography

These selected titles from the reading list are now available on Amazon.com. Click on a title for more information and/or to order the title.

Pagans and Christians. Fox, R

Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Brown, P

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. Wilken, R

The Formation of Christendom. Herrin, J

The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. Garnsey, P and Saller Garnsey, Peter, and Saller,

World of Late Antiquity: A.D. 150–750. Brown, P

In some cases the only available book from Amazon is a newer edition than the one used by the professor. The edition used by the professor may be available on the used market.

Kenneth W. Harl
Ph.D., Yale University
Tulane University

Dr. Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he teaches courses in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader history. He earned his B.A. from Trinity College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Recognized as an outstanding lecturer, Professor Harl has received numerous teaching awards at Tulane, including the coveted Sheldon H. Hackney Award two times. He has earned Tulane's annual Student Body Award for Excellence in Teaching nine times and is the recipient of Baylor University's nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers.

In 2007, he was the Lewis P. Jones Visiting Professor in History at Wofford College. An expert on classical Anatolia, he has taken students with him into the field on excursions and to assist in excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites in Turkey.

Professor Harl has also published a wide variety of articles and books, including his current work on coins unearthed in an excavation of Gordion, Turkey, and a new book on Rome and her Iranian foes. A fellow and trustee of the American Numismatic Society, Professor Harl is well known for his studies of ancient coinage. He is the author of Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180–275 and Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700.

More info: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?c



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