Survey of early, medieval and Reformation Christianity
up to 1648. Can also be taken for Theology credit.
Prerequisite: BIB 1013, 1023, SPF 2012
Course coverage revised September 27, 2002, with the approval of Redford College to cover to AD 1550.
Fall Semester 2002, 12:00-12:50 MWF. Room JMC 213. Bolivar
Campus
Instructor:
Harlie Kay Gallatin, Ph.D.
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What follows is the Fall 2002 hypertext Classroom Syllabus for this course.
Student's wishing a hard copy of the Syllabus and the Classroom Policies document may
If you have questions or comments about this material you may relay them by e-mail to Harlie Kay Gallatin.
Table of Contents
- Rationale: Why Study the History of Christianity?
- Specific Curriculum Objectives
- Required Resource Materials
- Basis for Course Grade.
- Class Policies (Attendance, Classroom management, Special needs, Grades)
- Individualized Research/Report Assignment Details.
- Unit Synopses
Understanding the Emergence and Development
of the Ancient Church:
Christianity's First Five Centuries.The Fractured Church in a Fractured World:
Christianity in the Middle Ages,
AD 500 to 1300.The European Churches in Renaissance and Reformation:
Western Christianity in Early Modern Times,
AD 1300 to 1648.
Christianity has many dimensions. From one point of view it is a unique and personal experience of relationship and communication with God. From another side it is a system of doctrinal affirmations or beliefs. From still another angle contemporary Christianity displays the characteristics of a corporate institution. Christianity is all this and more! It is a movement that has prevailed for nearly two thousand years. And its history is not one of mere survival like the dated items sealed in a time capsule. Rather, Christianity's history reveals a vital historical presence, as if it were an organism, if you please, characterized by dynamic growth, progressive elaboration and adaptive transformation.
In its fullest dimensions the History of Christianity is that part of world history since the resurrection of Christ that has been influenced by the ongoing proclamation and acceptance of the Gospel. Indeed, few developments in the Western world during the last nearly two thousand years have escaped the impact of the Gospel even if ever so slight. On the other hand, many parts of secular history have had unique counter-impacts on the Gospel and the lives of believers.
Whenever attempting to understand contemporary Christianity it is vital to remember that all the history of Christianity is important! That is not to say, of course, that all of Christianity's history is equally important. To be sure, the beginning period of Christian history, the period partially documented by the New Testament, is the most important and fundamental period in the total history of Christianity. The New Testament period was the starting point for Christianity, and it is the starting point for any student of Christianity! But, the study of Christianity that stops with the New Testament period can never adequately explain Christianity as it exists in the world today.
Anyone serious about being academically prepared to serve as a leader of Christians recognizes the value of instruction in a wide variety of Christian subjects over and above the history of the New Testament period. All such subjects attempt to bridge the distance between what the New Testament says and what Christians today should believe and do. Many of these subjects provide glimpses of the struggle Christians have had from time to time in adjusting to changing cultural realities. But it is the study of the history of Christianity that provides the richest panorama of such development. And it is, consequently, the only really adequate foundation for an understanding of all the variety of "things Christian" in the world today.
For most students in this class, Southern Baptist churches, organizations, institutions and missions are the most important parts of the "things Christian" in the world. It is important to recognize that "things Southern Baptist" seem important to us because we are directly involved with them and not because they are intrinsically of any more significance for Christian history than "things" labeled Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or whatever.
Moreover, the "things Southern Baptist" that are so familiar to us can only be fully understood within the total context of "things Christian". Southern Baptists as a denominational entity have recorded only 150-some years of history; but, of course, a variety of groups claiming the name Baptist can be traced back another three centuries. Prior to the sixteenth century AD, however, there had never been a group of Christians that set themselves apart from others by adopting the name "Baptist". So, in the twenty-centuries-long tapestry of Christian history the "Baptist" threads are labeled visibly only in approximately the last 500 years.
The "Southern Baptist" thread in the great tapestry of Christian history has some of the same kinds of fibers in it that are found in the threads of other modern denominations as well as in the threads used to weave the ancient and medieval parts of the fabric. In this analogy these common fibers found in every thread of the tapestry represent the fundamental characteristics of Christianity found in one degree or another throughout the whole of Christian history from the beginning to the present.
In addition to these "Christian" fibers in the threads of the tapestry, if we may continue the analogy, there is an inestimable number of other fibers so numerous as almost to hide the Christian ones at times. These fibers represent the changing conditions of human culture and society, the forces of secular history. The texture and the visible pattern of the weave in the tapestry more often than not reflect the predominance of these "secular" fibers. Consider how God used the Assyrian and Chaldean empires to bring judgment upon His people in the days of Ancient Israel. God also used a secular Roman government to enforce a peace and a degree of prosperity that facilitated the spread of the Gospel. Throughout Christian history God has continued to use historical forces and conditions to accomplish His will. These historical forces have left their marks on the Christian movement; indeed, some Christian institutions and doctrines of the present day still carry the disfiguring "scars" that resulted from a confrontation with historical forces or conditions five, ten or fifteen centuries ago.
Typically, university-level survey courses skip along touching only the most significant events and developments. Textbook authors are forced to be highly selective, sometimes arbitrary, about what is considered significant. Moreover, circumstances force them to indulge in sweeping generalizations that distort reality and leave the door open for misunderstanding. Admittedly, survey textbooks are deliberately written for students who would never take the time to study the entire account in detail. More often than not they were written by authors who themselves have not studied the original sources nor the most complete analyses of more than a small fraction of the developments they summarize. Nevertheless, the textbook provides a structured, coherent account reflecting the viewpoint and understanding of its author. Wise students will remember to compare the viewpoints of several authors, especially authors who have specialized in the particular aspect of Christian history in question.
ToCThis course, THE 3463/HIS 3463, is an introductory course designed to assist the student in learning the sequence and context of significant developments in the history of Christianity from its origin down to about 1650 AD. Major themes include: geographic expansion, institutional and organizational development, doctrinal formulation, liturgical and vocational variation, and the points of tension in the ever-shifting interface between Christian ideas and cultural forces.
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The syllabus contains all the rules, regulations, directions, assignments
and scheduled due-dates for this course. It is the student's responsibility
to access the online syllabus as often as necessary to be informed of course
activities. Each student is responsible for the work assigned and the specific
instructions provided by the syllabus even when the instructor does not discuss
the details during class time. Changes in schedule involving the whole class
will be announced in class and posted on the Blackboard web site as well as
reflected in appropriate changes made in this on-line document. Individuals with
scheduling problems should discuss the specifics with the instructor as far
in advance as possible.
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The textbooks listed below are required for this course. The reading assignments for each unit are summarized in the Unit Synopses and broken down into recommended daily readings in the Unit Study Guides.
A History of the Christian Church
. Fourth Edition. Copyrighted 1918...1985 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Distributed by Macmillan (ISBN 0-02-423870-8).Documents of the Christian Church
. Third Edition (New Edition). Oxford University Press, 1963, 1999. (ISBN 0-19-288071-3)A Student's Handbook for the History of Christianity: From the Ancient World of Rome to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century
. First Online Edition. Made available on the World Wide Web by the author, 2001-2002, Courtesy of Southwest Baptist University.Knowledge of history is dependent on written documents that preserve an incomplete record and verbal interpretation of past time. Such documents cannot always be taken at face value. It is necessary to authenticate and validate them through research and analysis. Moreover, documents pertaining to the History of Christianity cannot be properly understood apart from other contemporary documents. Hence, the most accessible and reliable form in which historical knowledge is transmitted is in the literary works of those scholars who analyze and interpret historically all the available documentation for a particular time and place.
Documents and scholarly studies survive in most of the literary languages of the world. This course in the History of Christianity draws ultimately on written material in dozens of languages other than English, and advanced study in the subject would certainly require competence in additional languages. There is today, of course, a vast amount of material available in English; quite a sufficient amount for a course such as this. The Harriett K. Hutchens Library has acquired through the years a good collection of recent books dealing
with the various facets of the history surveyed in this course. The instructor also has a small personal collection pertinent to the course. Bibliographies of available titles are provided to students.
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Aside from the daily housekeeping routines of taking attendance, etc., generally the approach of the instructor will be to discuss the general topic covered by the reading assigned, sometimes summarizing, sometimes supplementing sometimes proposing a correction or at least a different slant or emphasis. Students will be well advised to keep up with the reading in order to profit most from the class time.
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Lectures and the Practice of History
Together with the textbook and the library materials, the lectures in this course constitute a third equally important resource for learning. Lecturing, like publishing, is a vital part of the practice of history. Both are valid ways of communicating historical knowledge to an audience of learners. Communicating historical knowledge is, in one sense, a performing art. Every performing artist has his own unique style, his strengths and weaknesses as well as his tastes and preferences. No one expects two artists to give identical renditions of the same piece of music. And the artist knows that every time he plays the same piece it is different! So the publication or the lecture of the 'performing artist-historian' is also unique and highly subjective; that is, he communicates from the point of view of his personal historical understanding of the facts.
Historical Imagination and the Study of History
Communicating historical knowledge is more than merely reciting memorized facts lifted verbatim from some source. Knowledge must involve understanding, or if you prefer, analytic explanation. To achieve historical understanding one typically employs the imagination based upon, guided and limited by the existing recorded facts. The imaginary scenario supplies the necessary background information to explain and interrelate as many of the known facts as possible. By seeking to construct with the imagination the most reasonable, consistent, authentic and life-like context for a set of known facts, the historian is attempting, albeit rather awkwardly, to put himself back in time to the scene of the events. This is as close as any historian can come to experiencing the past for himself. Just as ten eye-witnesses to a traffic accident will all tell slightly different accounts of what happened, so ten historians could not be expected to agree to any greater extent after having studied identical data.
Student Involvement and Learning
So students learn about the facts and understandings of history from
text books, lectures, documents, pictures, and dramatic productions, but
they begin to learn what it is to be an historian as they give
expression to their own personally synthesized understanding of the
historical events and developments which they have drawn from such sources.
This art of understanding and narrating and/or explaining one's personal
experiences is commonly developed beginning in early childhood. In the
study of history this common ability is extended, amplified and focused
on events in historical time.
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The final course grade will be based on the accumulated total score earned by completing 100% of the examinations and assignments except as provided in this paragraph. A course grade of F will automatically be given to the student who does not complete examinations and assignments totaling at least 60% of the total possible points. The student who completes examinations and assignments totaling more than 60% but less than 100% will have his accumulated score calculated with 0 score(s) for each assignment or examination that was not completed.
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Unit First Examinations
The "First Examination" for each unit is a take-home synthesis essay which the student is to prepare in order to turn it in to the instructor on a day scheduled in the Unit Synopses. See the appropriate Unit Study Guide for the synthesis essay topics and the criterion the student should use to select his/her topic.
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Scheduled Unit Examinations
Unit examinations are exercises intended to give the student an opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge and understanding of the historical developments from a limited segment of the course coverage. A variety of multiple choice questions as well as complex essay types of questions will be employed. The multiple choice segment will be 1/2 of the point value of the examination.
One-half the point value of a scheduled unit examination is based on questions where answers are to be written in essay form. An essay, called a Synthesis Exercise, is required as part of the Scheduled Examination for each Unit. These Synthesis Exercises for each unit are listed in the appropriate Unit Study Guides linked from the Unit Synopses. At unit examination time the student should be prepared to write a well organized and well balanced answer treating all pertinent aspects of each of the topics. One essay question will be assigned randomly by the instructor at the time the exams are handed out. A twenty-five percent (25%) penalty on the student's essay score will be imposed if the student writes on a non-assigned topic.
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Unscheduled Quizzes
Brief 'pop' quizzes over assigned textbook readings and/or the previous lecture may be used under certain circumstances.
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Scheduled Final Examination
The final examination is given at the end of the course at a time scheduled by the office of the Provost. The scope of the final examination is the entire course, but the questions do not call for nearly as much detail and analysis as do the Synthesis Exercises. The structure of the final requires the student to respond in essay form to a certain number of short answer questions selected by the student from a list of such questions. These questions are not published in advance of the examination.
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Each student's assignments will consist of the names of historical figures that played more or less prominent roles at three different periods in the history of the Church between c. AD 100 and AD 1650.
One primary purpose of these assignments is to help the student become familiar with standard works of general reference (handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.) relative to Christian history while at the same time identifying some more detailed biographical information of significance for this course.
Each student will compete three (3) individualized assignments. These consist of three small research projects assigned randomly to each class member by the instructor early in the semester (See Unit One Synopsis, below). In each of the three assignments the student will prepare a two-part, formal, written report following the instructions given below.
The scheduled dates when each of the three two-part assignments is to be submitted to the instructor are listed in the Synopses for each unit.
In developing each of your Biographical Sketches the student should utilize at least four (4) published general reference works per historical individual. Only two (2) of the four required general reference works may be taken from the World Wide Web. Survey type textbooks may be used to supplement the four required general reference sources. The list below should prove helpful.
The student should seek to answer the standard historical inquiries such as: What job or post did this person fill? Where did he or she live and/or serve geographically, culturally? When and under what circumstances was the person born and raised? What unusual circumstances surrounded this person's service, death? Who were his or her important contemporaries? For what memorable action/achievement is the person often remembered? What contribution did the person make to the Christian movement?
The finished report should consist of a front or title page, a 2 to 3 page body of double-spaced text (between 500 and 1000 words) in addition to a section for references and the bibliography listing specific sources used alphabetically by author.
It is important to cite all the sources utilized by footnote or endnote where pertinent bibliographic information is given. If the utilized source is quoted verbatim it is necessary to use quotation marks or set off a block of quotation (at least 4 lines long) by single-spacing and indenting. Note, any general reference you consult profitably needs to be cited whether or not your have quoted verbatim from it in your paper. Parenthetical citations included in the text are not recommended in this assignment because of the length and complexity of the citations for general reference publications. The initial citation for each source should, as appropriate, include article author, article title, publication title, edition, editor or translator, publisher, copyright, volume, and pages consulted or quoted. Repeated references referring to the same work may use an abbreviated format including either the article author's last name or a shortened article title, shortened publication title, volume and pages. In either case always cite the exact page from which a quotation is drawn. When more than one source reports the same fact(s), then include both sources in the same note. Separate the two source citations in the note by a period and five spaces.
Documents found on the World Wide Web must be cited initially by giving wherever possible the same categories of information as given for print sources. In addition, and equally important for both initial and repeated citations, the author, title, copyright and Uniform Resource Indicator of the web-page should be given. When substantial parts of this information are not available it raises questions about the authenticity and validity of the web-based text.
The bibliography should list alphabetically by author (not editor or translator) all the general reference sources you cited in your paper essentially repeating all the information given in the initial citation.
Here are titles of some available Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Handbooks and General Survey Textbooks pertaining to Christian history: (** marks the "General References")
The second part of each assignment has the purpose of familiarizing you with other kinds of sources of infomation on the targeted individual. You do not have time to use book-length studies in writing the biographical sketch. Here is where you should include such titles, in the second part of the assignment provided they are available in the University Library. This second part of the assignment requires simply that you list in good bibliographic form (alphabetically by author, together with necessary bibliographic information) such books (both biographical, topical, or period studies), articles, and web-sites that you found dealing at considerable length with your historical person. You may find many more than can be listed on a single page, so just list the one's you judge to be the best or most promising.
Do not inlclude here single-volume, broad survey textbooks in Church or Christian History, or articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc. However, the bibliographic suggestions in the encyclopedia, dictionary and handbook articles may provide suggested titles for you to look for. Include only works that are accessible to you in some format (print or digitally). This List of Additional Sources for each historical figure is due at the same time as the Biographical Sketch.
If the historical figure is an author you may be interested in adding an addendum listing those titles that you have found available in translation. (This is not a requirement.)
On writing assignments the total possible points is divided into four equal amounts and used to evaluate four areas of competence, namely:
- Unit begins: Monday, August 19, 2002.
- Walker et al., pp. 5-157 (middle), 159-172, 183-209.
- Bettenson & Maunder, (see the Study Guide for pages).
- Please click Unit One Study Guide for access to:
- Suggested Daily Textbook Assignments, and
- Daily Assignment Links to A Student's Handbook for the History of Christianity.
- Unit Examination Questions and Detailed Instructions.
- Individualized Assignment Topics Distributed: Wednesday, August 21, 2002.
- Submit Individualized Research/Report Assignment # I, Monday, August 30, 2002.
- Submit First Examination Essay for Unit One, Wednesday, September 11, 2002.
- Unit I Examination: Wednesday, September 25, 2002.
Calendar as Revised 9/27/02
- Unit begins: Friday, September 27, 2002.
- Walker, et al., pp. 157(middle)-158, 173-183, 210-372.
- Bettenson & Maunder, (see the Study Guide for pages).
- Please click Unit Two Study Guide for access to:
- Suggested Daily Textbook Assignments, and
- Daily Assignment Links to A Student's Handbook for the History of Christianity.
- Unit Examination Questions and Detailed Instructions
- Submit Individualized Research/Report Assignment # II, Monday, October 7, 2002.
(Refer to the assignment list on Bb, Assignments page.)
- Submit First Examination Essay for Unit Two, Monday, October 21, 2002.
- Unit II Examination: Monday, November 4, 2002.
Calendar as Revised 9/27/02
- Unit begins: Wednesday, November 6, 2002.
- Walker, et al., pp. 348-365, 372-562.
- Bettenson & Maunder, (see the Study Guide for pages).
- Please click Unit Three Study Guide for access to:
- Suggested Daily Textbook Assignments, and
- Daily Assignment Links to A Student's Handbook for the History of Christianity.
- Unit Examination Questions and Detailed Instructions
- Submit Individualized Research/Report Assignment # III, Friday, November 15, 2002.
(Refer to the assignment list on Bb, Assignments page.)
- Thanksgiving Recess, Begins after classes on Friday, November 22 and ends Monday, December 2, 2002.
- Submit First Examination Essay for Unit Three, Monday, December 2, 2002.
- Last Class Period (all late work must be completed and submitted), Monday, December 9, 2002.
- Examination: Unit III and Final-- Friday, December 11, 2002, 8:00-10:00 AM.
Last modified 30 July 2003.
Links modified 15 December 2007.