HIS/THE 4413

ROMAN IMPERIAL CIVILIZATION
AND THE EARLY CHURCH

A detailed study of the period from c. 50 BC to c. AD 450. Emphasis is placed on the political, social, economic, religious and intellectual characteristics of the Hellenistic civilization of that period. Special attention is given to the Jewish sub-culture and the emerging Christian movement in that context. Can also be taken for theology credit.
Prerequisite: BIB 1013, and/or HIS 1113 or consent of the instructor.

Fall Semester 2005, 11:00-12:15 TTH, TAY 218, Bolivar Campus

Instructor: Harlie Kay Gallatin, Ph.D.

Go to the Table of Contents.

This XHTML document is the Fall 2005 Classroom Syllabus for Roman Imperial Civilization and the Early Church with live links to the Classroom Policies document, the four study guides, and various assignments for this course.

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GENERAL OBJECTIVES

Since history is, by broad definition, the art of identifying, comprehending and describing the various relationships among the innumerable existing evidences of past events, a student does not prove his competence in history merely by recognizing or reciting "facts." To be sure, without the facts, history is impossible; but we must remember that most so-called "facts" are only assumptions based on a reasonably clear convergence of existing evidence. Furthermore, the certainty of such "facts" is often beclouded not only by conflicting evidence but by the doubts of many thoughtful scholars. Given the best facts we have, history is never anything more than an imaginative reconstruction, a provisional mental image of process and change that makes some sense of the surviving evidences of previous human activity.

The two basic aims of all university level history courses are:

1. That the student shall improve the application of his mental capacities to the study, understanding, and communicating of historical knowledge.
2. That the student shall gain historical knowledge of a particular limited period in history, and thus learn, indirectly, something of himself and of mankind in general.

Therefore, this course will provide the student with an opportunity to develop competence in history by learning the following intellectual skills with which to analyze and understand historical data.

1. Utilize in the art of analyzing and describing historical time frames as many of the major categories of historical abstraction--e.g., political, social, economic, cultural, institutional, intellectual, etc.--as can logically be synthesized by the student's historical imagination.
2. View individual historical "facts" not as isolated phenomena that have a single dogmatic meaning, but as the results of the convergence of many different lines of causal development. Just as there are many causes for a single fact, there are, correspondingly, a number of quite diverse results deriving from it; a single "fact" is a common link in many different chains of cause and effect. Hence, the historical "fact" may have as many meanings as there are chains of causal continuity converging in it.
3. Identify and/or categorize the significant types of causes leading to an event or development as an aid to the interpretation and understanding of the event.
4. Utilize in the art of analyzing and describing historical processes as many of the major lines of causal continuity--i.e., a series of events in a given category related both logically and chronologically in an interactive process involving cause and effect--as can be chronologically and logically interwoven by the student's historical imagination.
5. Identify and utilize the author's bias or point-of-view in analyzing and evaluating both source materials and scholarly authorities.

Even though the historical narrative must, by definition, lack the scientific accuracy which the twenty-first century appreciates in so many aspects of knowledge, this does not detract in the least from the value of history as a dimension of the total knowledge essential to sound judgment and civilized behavior. To be content with ignorance about the earlier phases of our civilization and other civilizations on this planet is as absurd as it would be to assume that the adults living today had never experienced infancy, childhood and adolescence, or that mankind somehow "knows" all that is needed without undergoing any "learning" and "maturational" experiences. Indeed, it is widely recognized that the effective citizen in today's world needs to be informed both with current events and with a "healthy historical perspective." With a broadened understanding of the past, an individual's ability to comprehend the deeper significance of the present is therby enhanced. The following comparisons, among others, provide the basis for such insight.

1. Identify and analyze the relationship between contemporary ideas and institutions and their Roman counterparts;
2. Identify and evaluate the challenges and obstacles which men in the Roman Imperial period faced and the means by which they sought to overcome them in their progress toward achievements in the realm of civilization;
3. Identify and evaluate the several diverse expressions of man's religious thought and action exemplified by developments in Roman and Oriental paganism as well as the Jewish and Christian developments;
4. Analyze and compare the various ways in which Roman Imperial period men organized themselves to attain economic, social, political, and military goals;
5. Analyze and trace, logically and chronologically, the major stages in the development of the regional civilizations of the period, noting the characteristic components of the periods of assimilation and expansion, solidification and synthesis, and retrenchment and transformation;
6. Identify and analyze the relationships between the various regional cultures within the Roman Imperial sphere in terms of conflict and cross-fertilization of cultural components;
7. Identify and know the historical significance of the leading figures--i.e., what he or she was instrumental in causing to occur-- introduced by the study of this period; and
8. Identify by author and title some of the major narrative sources (in translation) for Roman Imperial History, and a few of the most important and helpful scholarly authorities and reference books.

SPECIFIC CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES

HIS 4413/THE 4413, Roman Imperial Civilization and the Early Church, is designed to provide a concentrated study of the historical achievements of the peoples of the Roman Empire, broadly defined, between the first century BC and the fifth century AD. Within this chronological and geographic framework the focal issue is the emergence of Christianity.

The following courses offered at SBU cover historical developments in those geographic areas whence the roots of Western Civilization have emerged in the time preceeding the period covered by the present course. HIS 4303, The Ancient Near East; HIS 4313, Ancient Egypt; and HIS 4323, Ancient Greece, together, trace the historical achievements of the eastern Mediterranean peoples from earliest times down to the middle of the first century BC. The varied achievements of the western Mediterranean and European peoples from earliest times down to the fourth century AD is surveyed by HIS 3323, History of Ancient Rome and the Empire.

While this present course, HIS 4413/THE 4413, Roman Imperial Civilization and the Early Church, focuses on the history of idealogical culture in Roman Imperial times in both the eastern and western Mediterranean regions, as a context for the earliest phases of the history of the Christian movement, HIS 3463/THE 3463, History of Christianity I, provides a sweaping survey of the institutional and theological development of Christianity from its beginnings through the mid seventh century. HIS 3423, Europe in the Middle Ages, traces the general historical achievements of the European peoples, broadly defined, between the fourth and the thirteenth centuries. HIS 3513/THE 3513, Europe in the Renaissance Period, and HIS 3523/THE 3523, Europe in the Reformation Period, both examine the achievements of western European peoples in the fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries.

RESOURCE MATERIALS AND ASSIGNMENTS

The Classroom Syllabus

The Syllabus contains all the rules, regulations, directions, assignments and scheduled due-dates for this undergraduate course. Each student is responsible for the work assigned in the syllabus even when the instructor does not say anything about it in class. Changes in schedule involving the whole class will be announced in class and on Blackboard. Individuals with scheduling problems should discuss these with the instructor as far in advance as possible.

Course Materials / Study-Guides

The instructor has prepared online study-guides for each unit in the course that are linked from the Unit Synopses in this Syllabus. Each study-guide will provide a detailed and organized enumeration of the topics and subjects comprising the content and coverage of the unit. Each listed topic or subject is a live link to an online text introducing and discussing the topic. These online documents are either recommended to the student as background information or assigned as required reading. Some of these come from the Instructor's copyrighted online Civilization I lectures, but the majority of the assignments come from the first one-third of the Instructor's copyrighted online book-length collection of lectures and/or essays available at http://www.sbuniv.edu/~hgallatin/histchrist.html entitled A Student's Handbook for The History of Christianity: From the Ancient World of Rome to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. The assigned full text online lecture/essays and appendices dealing with the Ancient Church and its political, social, cultural and ideological background lay out in narrative form the content of this course.

Required Textbooks

It is always appropriate to get more than one author's point of view. Although the Instructor is providing you with his own detailed articulation of this subject these two small but authoritative books by highly recognized scholars are certainly among the best available to delineate and confirm the dimensions of this key period in the history of the Christian movement.

Available Parallel Reading

Eusebius of Caesarea's The History of the Church, is the earliest surviving attempt at writing a survey history of the Christian movement from the time of Christ down to the early fourth century AD. It is a historical source of unparalleled importance for this course.

The Unit Synopses list the assigned readings in the required textbooks for each unit .
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Library Materials

The value of library resources for this course can scarcely be overstressed. Although the Harriett K. Hutchens Library cannot claim anything unique about its collection of materials in support of this course, considerable information has been made available through selective acquisitions over several years. The student should understand, however, that our present knowledge of the Late Antique period depends both directly and indirectly on the scholarly labors of many generations who have endeavored with tenacious devotion to untangle, clarify, explain and communicate the secrets of the past. Serious study of this period of history has, in recent centuries, been carried out by scholars whose works appear in German, French, Italian, Russian and other modern languages in addition to English. It would be reasonable to assume that no more than a dozen libraries in the whole world have collections that are more than fragmentary. Students in this course will certainly not be expected to read the works of foreign scholars or of ancient authors who wrote in Greek or Latin except as they may be available in modern English translations.

In addition to the literary records from the past there are other sources of information which scholars have studied to gain a fuller understanding. Numismatics, the study of coins, is one such historical science. Other scholars reach beyond the frontiers of civilization into the pre-literate period of cultural development to study art forms and architecture. Still others study the common place artifacts that are produced by the processes of everyday life: tools, weapons, utensils, clothing, furniture, and such items. Other scholars study all aspects of human behavior through these aritfacts and the surviving clues preserved in the languages, legends and customs of later generations. The science of pre-historical and historical archaeology incorporates all these studies of the physical remains of the past and more. Monuments and inscriptions found through excavation often add literary evidence to the fund of knowledge archaeologists discover and record for future scholars.

The full bibliography for this course would include many types of writings: journal articles, reference books, textbooks, sources in translation, collections of sources, collections of articles, and monographs on a variety of specialized facets of the period being studied. The instructor's personal collection as well as the Harriett K. Hutchens Library collection is covered by the Select Bibliography which the Instructor will make available to class memebers.
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Historical Imagination and the Study of History

Communicating historical knowledge is more than merely reciting memorized facts lifted uncritically from some authoritative 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 authentic facts of that time and place, as well as the limitations and processes of human motivation and action. The scenario constructed by a disciplined and informed imagination is not fictional, it is a vehicle supplying the necessary background information to explain and interrelate coherently as many of the pertinent historical 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.

History as an Art Form

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 musicians to give identical renditions of the same piece of music. And the artist-musician knows that every time he plays the same piece it is in some degree different! So the publication or the lecture of the 'performing artist-historian' is also unique and highly subjective; that is, he always communicates from the point of view of his personal historical understanding of the facts at that moment.

Student Involvement and Learning

Students learn about the facts and understandings of history from textbooks, library materials, lectures, documents, pictures, good web pages, and dramatic productions (movies and TV), among other things. However, they begin to learn what it is to be an historian and think historically 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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BASIS FOR COURSE GRADE

The determination of final grade in this course 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.

Please access the Instructor's General Requirements and Procedures document for information on various classroom policies including special needs issues and the explanation of the conversion of cumulative scores into letter grades for all classes offered by this instructor.

Summary of Items Scored, Raw Score Base

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. The Synthesis Exercises for each unit are listed in the appropriate Unit Synopsis. Students should study these exercises and prepare answers for each one during the unit. By 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 Synthesis Exercise topics listed for the unit. Each student will be assigned only one Synthesis Exercise at random 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.

The Synthesis Exercises (essay topics) reflect some the major learning objectives each Unit. This means that the purpose of the unit of work is to make it possible for you to answer every one of these questions. Please do not assume that you will find the "answers" to these questions contained in a single sentence or paragraph somewhere in the assigned reading. Prevailing learning theory argues that the best learning occurs when the student synthesizes or constructs knowledge for him or herself. (Not when somebody gives you "the" answer or constructs it for you!) Each of these questions is a challenge for you to construct or synthesize your personal understanding of a complex topic based on what you knew before you took this class and what you have discovered in the materials put at your disposal by this class.

These questions deal with history, that is, the processes and results of cultural change over time. These questions are complex and will require complex answers several paragraphs in length. It is quite appropriate and usually helpful for you to discuss these topics with classmates or other interested parties including your instructor, particularly to be sure you have identified most of the key issues involved and that you understand how these issues play out within the chronological perimeters of the question.

As an expression of historical knowledge the student's essay will display the student's understanding of and perspective on the specific time period(s), the place(s) or geographic region(s), the designated group(s) of people and the particular historical development(s) (significant changes in existing circumstances over the time period) identified in the exercise.
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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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Individualized Assignments: Reading, Research and Writing

Because no single textbook can possibly reflect all the tremenduous richness of the variety and texture of Ancient Roman and Christian studies, each student will have the opportunity through two Individualized Reading Assignments to enjoy a taste of the scholarly literature addressing the many aspects of this period. Please see the Assignment Details: Reading, Research and Writing and the due dates listed in the Unit Synopses
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Individualized Assignments: Map Study

Map assignments are designed to assist the student in becoming familiar with the major geographic features of the region being studied along with special attention to the particular geographic features and locations that had the greatest significance in this time-frame for the developments being studied.

These assignments are explained in the Assignment Details: Map Study

Each student will complete two map assignments and turn them in on the appropriate due dates shown in the Unit Synopses.

UNIT SYNOPSES

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS
INDIVIDUALIZED READING ASSIGNMENTS

During the first three and one-half weeks of the semester the student is to submit in writing a proposal for his/her first individualized reading assignment. The completed written report on the first individualized reading assignment is to be completed and handed in by the date given in Unit Synopsis for Unit Two. The first individualized reading assignment may deal with any topic pertinent to the historical period between 100 BC and 500 AD, EXCEPT that NO TOPICS dealing PRIMARILY OR EXCLUSIVELY with CHRISTIANITY will be approved. This assignment may cover anything in the context or background of the culture, peoples or events of those five centuries.

The written proposal for the second individualized reading assignment is to be submitted by the date listed in the Unit Synopsis for Unit Three. The completed written report on the second individualized reading assignment is to be completed and handed in by the date given in Unit Synopsis for Unit Four. The second individualized reading assignment may deal with any topic pertinent to the history of Christianity within the the historical period between c. 70 AD and 500 AD. That means NO TOPICS dealing primarily or exclusively with EVENTS RECORDED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT will be approved. This assignment may cover any aspect of the early church and the Christian development in any region of the ancient world falling within the first four hundred years after the events described in the New Testament.

The content of these assignments will vary according to the individual's background and interests. The assignments are basically reading and research (from 200 to 500 pages each); however, each student will be expected to prepare a written report in acceptable form--following the Writing Guidelines provided.

An assignment may take any one of several forms as discussed briefly below.

1. Monograph Analysis. The student reads an instructor approved book written by a single contemporary author dealing specifically with the topic approved for this assignment. Biographical information on the author is researched together with any published reviews of the book or the author's other works, if any. The report can be described as an analytical review. An analytical review presents a brief summary of the author's thesis together with an analysis of his sources, methods, basic assumptions, successes and failures. Biographical and published review data should be incorporated judiciously. Footnotes and bibliography are necessary. The final report must be accompanied by a completed Validation Form for every Internet source utilized.
2. Source Analysis. The more advanced student may read an instructor approved major work by an ancient or medieval author (in translation), do some additional research on the author and prepares an analytical review (see definition above in Monograph Analysis) of the work. Footnotes and bibliography are necessary. The final report must by accompanied by a completed Validation Form for every Internet source utilized.
3. Research and Synthesis. The student engages in directed investigation in search of information on a clearly defined (previously approved) topic. The research must utilize at least four (4) sources or authorities approved in advance by the instructor. Additional sources or authorities are not necessary but may be utilized The data is to be organized and synthesized in a written report complete with outline, footnotes and bibliography. The final report must be accompanied by a completed Validation Form for every Internet source utilized.
4. Problem Analysis. Such an assignment is organized around a problem of controversial historical interpretation approved by the instructor and will involve studying several historical viewpoints. In the report the viewpoints should be identified and the differences discussed. The student's tentative personal conclusion should be included. Footnotes and bibliography are necessary. The final report must by accompanied by a completed Validation Form for every Internet source utilized. (This is a very challenging type of report; and consequently, it is only rarely recommended to or appropriate for anyone but the very advanced student.)

The recommended maximum length of written report of any type or form of project is 10 pages of typewritten, doublespaced material not counting footnotes, bibliography and validation forms. The minimum length is 4 pages typewritten and doublespaced in addition to footnotes, bibliography and validation forms.

Guidelines for the written PROPOSALS follow below.
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Evaluation of Written Assignments

On books reviews and research papers the total possible points is divided into four equal amounts and used to evaluate four areas of competence, namely:

1. Format & following directions--Directions provided in this Syllabus and in the Writing Guidelines: composition, style, spelling, neatness, proof-reading, etc...... 25%
2. Factual Content--thoroughness and completeness of treatment, accuracy in reporting and handling pertinent details, etc ...... 25%
3. Critical and analytic thought--demonstrated grasp of ideas and concepts, logical and reasonable analysis, clear argumentation, adequately supported conclusions, etc. ...... 25%
4. Mechanics of Scholarship--proper utilization of appropriate sources, concepts and quotations, proper form for quotations, notation, foot or end notes, and bibliography, etc...... 25%

Proposal Guidelines

The student is responsible for developing a proposed research/reading assignment and getting the instructor's approval for each of the two individualized reading assignments. During the regular semester scheule the student's proposal must be made in writing and handed to the instructor. See Assignment Details, above, for the due dates. Proposals can be submitted by e-mail.

If the student is uncertain or having difficulty identifying a project, a preliminary conference with the instructor is recommended before you submit your written proposal.

To prepare a proposal, include the following items:

1. Describe briefly what your propose to do and why.
2. Indicate whether you wish to do a "book review" (primarily report types 1 and 2) or a "research paper" (usually report type 3, rarely type 4).
   • If you are proposing a topical or problem-focused "research paper" you will need to formulate and include a tentative thesis statement together with a tentative outline of subtopics to be developed.
3. Identify some sources/authorities you propose to use in completing the assignment. Using the extensive bibliography that has been placed in your hands select and examine (hands on) several books that might serve your purposes. List in the proposal only the authors and titles of the ones that seem best to you. If you want the instructor to consider a book not listed in the bibliography please also provide the name of its publisher and the copyright date in your proposal. The instructor may ask to see the book. The instructor will approve or reject those that you have listed and perhaps add other books to your list that he knows about. If you will be using internet resources and you want to use them as approved sources you will need to submit a Validation Form for each website with your proposal. The final choice among the approved resources is up to you. The minimum number of different sources required for full credit on a research paper is four.

Your topic may not be approved the first time you submit it. The instructor will explain why he could not approve it and perhaps make some other suggestions for you to consider before resubmitting it. You may hand your proposal on paper directly to me if you wish, or you may submit it in the appropriate folder on the "Assignments" page in Blackboard, or use Novell Netmail or whatever e-mail client you regularly use to Harlie Kay Gallatin.

If you use the Blackboard Assignment folder and "save" your paper there, do not "submit" it until the instructor has provided you some feedback. As long as the final deadline has not passed and you have not "submitted" it you can still make changes. Be sure to finish it and "submit" it by the deadline date.

MAP STUDY ASSIGNMENTS

Procedures

Each of the following assignments is scheduled to be handed in on or before the date indicated in the Unit Synopses. Neatness, accuracy and clarity are required. While the student may draw the maps free hand, it is usually more convenient to utilize an appropriate Desk Outline Map (supplied by the instructor) and carefully fill in the details required. Incidently, according to Medieval legend there is an especially nasty place in Everlasting Torment for students who deface library books with their pens, and that surely includes those irresponsible individuals who mark up atlases!

Evaluating Map Study Assignments

On Map Study Assignments the total points is divided into four equal amounts each of which is an evaluation of a dimension of performace.

1. Completeness--All map features specifically assigned should be present, including the assignment title and key, etc........25%
   
2. Accuracy--Demarcations of cities (dots), boundaries (lines), and lableing of undemarcated regions should be as geographically accurate as map scale and detail permit, etc.........25%
   
3. Execution--name lables or locations and features should be neatly printed with a sharpened pencil or a fine-line pen. Pointer lines, if any, should be made with a straightedge. Highlighting or penciled colors should be applied neatly and according to assignment directions, etc........25%
   
4. Aesthetic Quality--General attractiveness and clarity of the finished map. Neatness, symmetry, functionality, readability, etc........25%

Map Study Assignment Number One:

THE ROMAN EMPIRE DURING THE PAX ROMANA

Map Study Assignment Number Two:

THE ROMAN WORLD OF THE FIFTH CENTURY A.D.

URL: http://www.sbuniv.edu/~hgallatin/hi4413.html
© 2003, 2004, 2005
All Rights Reserved,
by Harlie Kay Gallatin, Ph.D.

Southwest Baptist University
Department of History and Political Science,
& Department of Religious Studies.

Last modified 17 August 2005.
All Links checked 17 August 2005.