AD 381 : heretics, pagans and the Christian state / Charles Freeman.

By:

Freeman, Charles, 1947-

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London : Pimlico, 2009.Description: xx, 252 p. : 1 map ; 24 cmISBN:

9781845950071 (pbk.)
1845950070 (pbk.)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

270.2 22

Contents:

Disaster -- The divine emperor -- Free speech in the classical world -- The coming of the Christian state -- True God from true God? -- The swansong of free speech : the theological orations of Gregory of Nazianzus -- . Constantinople, 381 : the imposition of orthodoxy -- Ambrose and the politics of control -- The assault on paganism -- Epiphanius' witchhunt -- Enforcing the law -- Augustine sets the seal -- Collapse in the Christian West -- Faith, reason, and the Trinity -- Appendix. The creeds of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (391), and Athanasius (c. 430?).

Summary: In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of the Godhead; all other interpretations were now declared heretical. Moreover, for the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Yet surprisingly this political revolution, intended to bring inner cohesion to an empire under threat from the outside, has been airbrushed from the historical record. Instead, it has been claimed that the Christian Church had reached a consensus on the Trinity which was promulgated at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. In this groundbreaking new book, Freeman argues that Theodosius's edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, Freeman concludes, marked 'a turning point which time forgot'.

List(s) this item appears in: Novi naslovi_Veljača-Kolovoz 2020.

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Books	Biblijski institut - Amruševa	270.2FREad (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		616820

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Originally published: 2008.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Disaster --
The divine emperor --
Free speech in the classical world --
The coming of the Christian state --
True God from true God? --
The swansong of free speech : the theological orations of Gregory of Nazianzus --
. Constantinople, 381 : the imposition of orthodoxy --
Ambrose and the politics of control --
The assault on paganism --
Epiphanius' witchhunt --
Enforcing the law --
Augustine sets the seal --
Collapse in the Christian West --
Faith, reason, and the Trinity --
Appendix. The creeds of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (391), and Athanasius (c. 430?).

In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of the Godhead; all other interpretations were now declared heretical.

Moreover, for the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Yet surprisingly this political revolution, intended to bring inner cohesion to an empire under threat from the outside, has been airbrushed from the historical record. Instead, it has been claimed that the Christian Church had reached a consensus on the Trinity which was promulgated at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381.

In this groundbreaking new book, Freeman argues that Theodosius's edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, Freeman concludes, marked 'a turning point which time forgot'.

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