Episode 5 The Medieval Spread of Religion

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

Christianity Becomes Rome’s State Religion and Splinters into Diverse Beliefs

In roughly 313 AD,* the emperor Constantine was the first to legalize the banned Christian religion in the Roman emperor. In 360 AD, the emperor Theodosius made it Rome’s official state religion. He also began calling period councils to decide what Christian’s should be required to believe. Around the same time, heresy (ie refusing to adhere to prescribed beliefs) became treason and  punishable by death. Heavy persecution of dissident Christians became a big factor in their conversion to Islam.

After the 451 Council of Chalcedon declared the virgin Mary gave birth to God, Nestorian monks who believed she gave birth to a child later became God broke away from the Catholic church (to found what came to be known as the Coptic Church) and set up monasteries to freely practice their beliefs in Egypt, Ethiopia and Aksum and to the Byzantine Empire and Asia. The Coptic church includes the Gospel of Thomas in their Bible.*

In the 8th century, the Byzantine patriarch in the eastern Roman empire ordered all destroyed all the images of Christ and the saints in Byzantine churches destroyed. Subsequent patriarchs compromised and allowed two dimensional images (known as icons). In 863 AD, two Byzantine monks undertook a mission to Russia to convert the Slavs and created an alphabet for them based on Greek.

In 1054, the Byzantine church official broke from, with the pope and the Byzantine patriarch excommunicating each other (only withdrawing these excommunication orders in 1955)

Hinduism

Hinduism is a 4,000 year old religion worshiping multiple gods, similar to Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions. It currently has a billion followers. It views time as cyclical rather than linear, based on reincarnation of individual souls. An individual Hindu’s ultimate goal is to escape reincarnation.

Buddhism

Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of the Buddhist religion was a Hindu prince who was troubled by all the poverty, suffering and death he saw around them. He preached four basic precepts:

1. All life is suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is carving and desire
3. Eliminating desire can eliminate suffering
4. Escaping attachments can end suffering.

After the Huns destroyed all the Buddhist temples in China in the 7th century, its adherents moved to China.

There are two major branches of Buddhism: Theravada Buddhism (a religion of monks who renounce society) and Mahayana Buddhism (practiced in China, Japan** and Korea), which believes some enlightened souls chose to return to earth to help others. With the Dalai Lama as the main representative of Mahayana Buddhism, it’s consistent with the ancestor worship central to Confucianism.

*The calendar measuring time from Christ’s birth wasn’t instituted until the 6th century.  The concept of BC or (before Christ) wasn’t adopted until the 8th century.

**The apostle Thomas traveled to India to build Christian churches following Christ’s resurrection.

***In Japan Mahayana Buddhism, which prescribes a way of life rather than a set of beliefs, is consistent with the primary religion Shintoism.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172797