Jewish peoplehood (Hebrew: עמיות יהודית, Amiut Yehudit), also sometimes referred to as the whole of Israel (Hebrew: כלל ישראל, Klal Yisrael), is the sense of belonging to the Jewish people.
The concept of peoplehood has a double meaning. The first is
descriptive, as a concept factually describing the existence of the Jews as a people, i.e. an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. The second is normative, as a value that describes the feeling of belonging and commitment to the Jewish people.
Some believe that the concept of Jewish peoplehood is a paradigm
shift in Jewish life. Insisting that the mainstream of Jewish life is
focused on Jewish nationalism (Zionism), they argue that Jewish life should instead focus on Jewish peoplehood.
Others maintain that the concept of peoplehood has permeated
Jewish life for millennia, and to focus on it does not constitute a
shift from the focus on Jewish nationhood. Jews have been extremely
effective in sustaining a sense of joint responsibility towards their
people and its members for over 2,000 years, with persecutions such as the expulsion of Roman Jews from the vicinity of Jerusalem and the districts of Gophna, Herodion, and Aqraba resulting in more than 100,000 slaves taken as war captives in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt which contributed to a significant rise in the historical Jewish diaspora, subsequently since the late Roman period significant recovery through common religious practices, shared ancestry, continuous communication, and population transfers between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, during which time the former had a "Hebrew Golden Age", subsequently though with Zionist aliyah (immigration since the birth of Zionism to political entities in the region of Palestine and the State of Israel) resulting in Israeli scholar Eliezer Schweid warning against a Zionist "negation of the Diaspora".
At the same time, the concepts of Jews as a nation and as a
peoplehood are not necessarily at odds with one another. The very
concept of defining Judaism as a people or a "civilization" suggests a
wide variety of values within the context of Judaism.
The concept of a distinctive Jewish people has been part of Jewish
culture since the development of the Hebrew Bible. Throughout the Torah,
Prophets and Writings, Jews are variously referred to as a
congregation, a nation, children of Israel or even a kingdom, (Eda, Uma,
Am, B'nai Israel, Mamlakha respectively) all implying a connection
among people.
"There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed
among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws
are diverse from those of every people". Esther 3:8
History
Jewish people in the diaspora during the Middle Ages were united by a
common history, although this did not create a unified society. Jacob Katz
writes that medieval Jews in the diaspora maintained educational,
civil, and religious institutions based on a common tradition, although
they varied from place to place. Jewish communities were separate in
many cases from their environment, and had extensive mutual contacts
with each other, including mutual aid, responses to crises, and concern
for each others' fate, dependent on long-distance travel and
communication. Particularly in the 16th through 18th centuries, contacts
between diaspora Jewish communities were stronger than in any period
since the decline of the Roman Empire. Katz cites 1745 in Prague and Khmelnytsky pogroms as examples of crises that saw worldwide responses from Jewish communities.
Modern Jewish peoplehood
Some modern Jewish leaders in the diaspora, particularly American Jews,
found the traditional conception of Jews as a "nation among the
nations" problematic, posing a challenge to integration and inviting
antisemitic charges of dual loyalty. The first significant use of the "peoplehood" concept was by Mordecai Kaplan, co-founder of the Reconstructionist
School of Judaism, who was searching for a term that would enable him
to describe the complex nature of Jewish belonging. Once the State of
Israel was founded, he rejected the concept of nationhood, as it had
become too closely identified with statehood, and replaced it with the
peoplehood concept. In his work Judaism as a Civilization, Kaplan sought to define the Jewish people and religion in socio-cultural terms as well as religious ones.
Kaplan's definition of Judaism
as "an evolving religious civilization" illumines his understanding of
the centrality of Peoplehood in the Jewish religion. Describing Judaism
as a religious civilization emphasizes the idea that Jewish people have
sought "to make [their] collective experience yield meaning for the
enrichment of the life of the individual Jew and for the spiritual
greatness of the Jewish people." The definition as a civilization allows
Judaism to accept the principles of unity in diversity
and continuity in change. It is a reminder that Judaism consists of
much that cannot be put into the category of religion in modern times,
"paradoxical as it may sound, the spiritual regeneration of the Jewish
people demands that religion cease to be its sole preoccupation." In the sense that existence precedes essence and life takes precedence
over thought, Judaism exists for the sake of the Jewish people rather
than the Jewish people existing for the sake of Judaism.
Kaplan's purpose in developing the Jewish Peoplehood idea was to create a vision broad enough to include everyone who identified as a Jew regardless of individual approaches to that identity.
In modern Jewish life
Since 2000, major Jewish organizations have embraced the peoplehood
concept and intellectual interest in the topic has increased. Major
organizations such as the Jewish Federations of North America, the JFNA New York Federation, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Israel Ministry for Education, the Diaspora Museum, the Avi Chai Foundation, the American Jewish Committee
and many other smaller organizations are either introducing the
peoplehood concept as an organizing principle in their organizations or
initiating high-profile programming with an explicit focus on Jewish
Peoplehood.
Natan Sharansky, the Jewish Agency’s
chairman, declared that the agency’s traditional Zionist mission had
outlived its usefulness. In his new capacity, he has made Israel
education and promoting Jewish Peoplehood a priority, particularly among
the young.
Key characteristics
Alongside the use of the peoplehood concept by Jewish organizations,
there is a parallel growth of intellectual interest in the topic since
2000. The intellectual discussion asks: What is "Jewish Peoplehood"?
What are the key characteristics that distinguish Jewish Peoplehood from
other concepts or other ethnic or religious communities?
Areas of agreement
The areas of agreement among Jewish intellectuals writing about the concept of Jewish Peoplehood point to three principles:
The three unifying principles of the Jewish Peoplehood theory:
A multidimensional experience of Jewish belonging – The concept of Jewish Peoplehood assumes an understanding of Jewish belonging that is multidimensional.
Rejection of any dominant ideology, which over emphasizes one dimension of Jewishness
- Strong ideological frameworks that overemphasize one dimension of the
larger Jewish experience are not an acceptable starting point for
understanding how individuals connect to the Jewish People.
Focus on the nature of the connection between Jews and not on the Jewish Identity
- Those concerned with the Jewish Peoplehood concept do not focus on
the identity of individuals, but rather on the nature of connections
between Jews. The concern is with common elements and frameworks that
enable Jews to connect with one another both emotionally and socially.
In combination, these three principles imbue the Peoplehood concept
with coherence and offer an added value to organizations that wish to
create programs “that build Jewish Peoplehood” in a sustainable and
measurable way.
Different perspectives
There are several variants of the communitarian position among
intellectuals writing about Jewish Peoplehood. The common denominator is
the desire to find common ground upon which connections between Jews
are built.
The four distinct positions regarding Jewish Peoplehood:
Peoplehood as a common destiny.
Peoplehood as a shared mission with an emphasis on Tikkun Olam.
Peoplehood as a shared kinship and mutual responsibility.
Peoplehood as an obligation.
For some critics, Jewish Peoplehood is still an amorphous and
abstract concept that presents an optional ideological approach towards
the Jewish collective. Others wonder if it is too weak a foundation on
which to base Jewish collective identity, especially since the vision of
Peoplehood is not necessarily predicated on having any kind of
religious or spiritual identity.
The Anglo-Saxon term crīstendōm appears to have been coined in the 9th century by a scribe somewhere in southern England, possibly at the court of king Alfred the Great of Wessex. The scribe was translating Paulus Orosius' book History Against the Pagans (c. 416) and in need for a term to express the concept of the universal culture focused on Jesus Christ. It had the sense now taken by Christianity (as is still the case with the cognate Dutch christendom, where it denotes mostly the religion itself, just like the German Christentum).
The current sense of the word of "lands where Christianity is the dominant religion" emerged in Late Middle English (by c. 1400).
Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall stated (1997) that "Christendom" [...] means literally the dominion or sovereignty of the Christian religion." Thomas John Curry, Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles,
defined (2001) Christendom as "the system dating from the fourth
century by which governments upheld and promoted Christianity." Curry states that the end of Christendom came about because modern
governments refused to "uphold the teachings, customs, ethos, and
practice of Christianity." British church historianDiarmaid MacCulloch described (2010) Christendom as "the union between Christianity and secular power."
Christendom was originally a
medieval concept which has steadily evolved since the fall of the
Western Roman Empire and the gradual rise of the Papacy more in
religio-temporal implications practically during and after the reign of
Charlemagne; and the concept let itself be lulled in the minds of the
staunch believers to the archetype of a holy religious space inhabited
by Christians, blessed by God, the Heavenly Father, ruled by Christ
through the Church and protected by the Spirit-body of Christ; no
wonder, this concept, as included the whole of Europe and then the
expanding Christian territories on earth, strengthened the roots of
Romance of the greatness of Christianity in the world.
There is a common and nonliteral sense of the word that is much like the terms Western world, known world or Free World. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World"
has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and
Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that
created a unified European identity.
This T-and-O map,
which abstracts the then known world to a cross inscribed within an
orb, remakes geography in the service of Christian iconography. More
detailed versions place Jerusalem at the center of the world.
Early Christianity spread in the Greek/Roman world and beyond as a 1st-century Jewish sect, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity. It may be divided into two distinct phases: the apostolic period, when the first apostles were alive and organizing the Church, and the post-apostolic period, when an early episcopal structure developed, whereby bishoprics were governed by bishops (overseers).
The post-apostolic period concerns the time roughly after the
death of the apostles when bishops emerged as overseers of urban
Christian populations. The earliest recorded use of the terms Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός) and catholic (Greek καθολικός), dates to this period, the 2nd century, attributed to Ignatius of Antiochc. 107. Early Christendom would close at the end of imperial persecution of Christians after the ascension of Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan in AD 313 and the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
According to Malcolm Muggeridge (1980), Christ founded Christianity, but Constantine founded Christendom. Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall
dates the 'inauguration of Christendom' to the 4th century, with
Constantine playing the primary role (so much so that he equates
Christendom with "Constantinianism") and Theodosius I (Edict of Thessalonica, 380) and Justinian I secondary roles.
Byzantium created a brilliant
culture, may be, the most brilliant during the whole Middle Ages,
doubtlessly the only one existing in Christian Europe before the XI
century. For many years, Constantinople remained the sole grand city of
Christian Europe ranking second to none in splendour. Byzantium
literature and art exerted a significant impact on peoples around it.
The monuments and majestic works of art, remaining after it, show us the
whole lustre of byzantine culture. That's why Byzantium held a
significant place in the history of Middle Ages and, one must admit it, a
merited one.
On Christmas Day 800 AD, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, resulting in the creation of another Christian king beside the Christian emperor in the Byzantine state.The Carolingian Empire created a definition of Christendom in juxtaposition with the Byzantine Empire, that of a distributed versus centralized culture respectively. Charlemagne began the first Medieval Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of intellectual and cultural revival, in the 8th century. It continued through his descendants into the 9th century.
The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in
both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. In the Greek
philosopher Plato's
ideal state there are three major classes, which was representative of
the idea of the "tripartite soul", which is expressive of three
functions or capacities of the human soul: "reason", "the spirited
element", and "appetites" (or "passions"). Will Durant made a convincing case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community where discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe:
... For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of
guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher.
During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of
Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores
(clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized the
instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost
unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The
clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority... by their
talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their
disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the
influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In the
latter half of the period in which they ruled [800 AD onwards], the
clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire [for
such guardians]... [Clerical] Celibacy was part of the psychological
structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were
unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their
apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to the awe in which
lay sinners held them....
In the East, Christendom became more defined as the Byzantine Empire's gradual loss of territory to an expanding Islam and the Muslim conquest of Persia. This caused Christianity to become important to the Byzantine identity. Before the East–West Schism which divided the Church religiously, there had been the notion of a universal Christendom
that included the East and the West. After the East–West Schism, hopes
of regaining religious unity with the West were ended by the Fourth Crusade, when Crusadersconquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and hastened the decline of the Byzantine Empire on the path to its destruction. With the breakup of the Byzantine Empire into individual nations with
nationalist Orthodox Churches, the term Christendom described Western
Europe, Catholicism, Orthodox Byzantines, and other Eastern rites of the
Church.
The Catholic Church's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community—for example, the Crusades, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans—helped
to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of
Europe's deep political divisions. The popes, formally just the bishops
of Rome, claimed to be the focus of all Christendom, which was largely
recognised in Western Christendom from the 11th century until the
Reformation, but not in Eastern Christendom. Moreover, this authority was also sometimes abused, and fostered the Inquisition and anti-Jewishpogroms, to root out divergent elements and create a religiously uniform community. Ultimately, the Inquisition was done away with by order of Pope Innocent III.
Christendom ultimately was led into specific crisis in the late Middle Ages, when the kings
of France managed to establish a French national church during the 14th
century and the papacy became ever more aligned with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Known as the Western Schism,
western Christendom was a split between three men, who were driven by
politics rather than any real theological disagreement for
simultaneously claiming to be the true pope. The Avignon Papacy developed a reputation for corruption that estranged major parts of Western Christendom. The Avignon schism was ended by the Council of Constance.
Before the modern period, Christendom was in a general crisis at the time of the Renaissance Popes because of the moral laxity of these pontiffs and their willingness to seek and rely on temporal power as secular rulers did. Many in the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the Renaissance became
increasingly entangled with insatiable greed for material wealth and
temporal power, which led to many reform movements, some merely wanting a
moral reformation of the Church's clergy, while others repudiated the
Church and separated from it in order to form new sects. The Italian Renaissance produced ideas or institutions by which men living in society could be held together in harmony. In the early 16th century, Baldassare Castiglione (The Book of the Courtier) laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady, while Machiavelli cast a jaundiced eye on "la verità effetuale delle cose"—the actual truth of things—in The Prince, composed, humanist style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of Virtù. Some Protestant movements grew up along lines of mysticism or Renaissance humanism (cf.Erasmus).
The Catholic Church fell partly into general neglect under the
Renaissance Popes, whose inability to govern the Church by showing
personal example of high moral standards set the climate for what would
ultimately become the Protestant Reformation. During the Renaissance, the papacy was mainly run by the wealthy
families and also had strong secular interests. To safeguard Rome and
the connected Papal States the popes became necessarily involved in
temporal matters, even leading armies, as the great patron of arts Pope Julius II
did. During these intermediate times, popes strove to make Rome the
capital of Christendom while projecting it through art, architecture,
and literature as the center of a Golden Age of unity, order, and peace.
Professor Frederick J. McGinness described Rome as essential in
understanding the legacy the Church and its representatives encapsulated
best by The Eternal City:
No
other city in Europe matches Rome in its traditions, history, legacies,
and influence in the Western world. Rome in the Renaissance under the
papacy not only acted as guardian and transmitter of these elements
stemming from the Roman Empire but also assumed the role as artificer
and interpreter of its myths and meanings for the peoples of Europe from
the Middle Ages to modern times... Under the patronage of the popes,
whose wealth and income were exceeded only by their ambitions, the city
became a cultural center for master architects, sculptors, musicians,
painters, and artisans of every kind...In its myth and message, Rome had
become the sacred city of the popes, the prime symbol of a triumphant
Catholicism, the center of orthodox Christianity, a new Jerusalem.
It is clearly noticeable that the popes of the Italian Renaissance
have been subjected by many writers with an overly harsh tone. Pope
Julius II, for example, was not only an effective secular leader in
military affairs, a deviously effective politician but foremost one of
the greatest patron of the Renaissance period and person who also encouraged open criticism from noted humanists.
The enterprise of individuals or of small aristocratic
bodies has meantime sown the world which we call civilised with some
seeds and nuclei of order. There are scattered about a variety of
churches, industries, academies, and governments. But the universal
order once dreamt of and nominally almost established, the empire of
universal peace, all-permeating rational art, and philosophical worship,
is mentioned no more. An unformulated conception, the prerational
ethics of private privilege and national unity, fills the background of
men's minds. It represents feudal traditions rather than the tendency
really involved in contemporary industry, science, or philanthropy.
Those dark ages, from which our political practice is derived, had a
political theory which we should do well to study; for their theory
about a universal empire and a Catholic church was in turn the echo of a
former age of reason, when a few men conscious of ruling the world had
for a moment sought to survey it as a whole and to rule it justly.
Developments in western philosophy and European events brought change to the notion of the Corpus Christianum. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state. The rise of strong, centralized monarchies denoted the European transition from feudalism to capitalism.
By the end of the Hundred Years' War, both France and England were able
to raise enough money through taxation to create independent standing
armies. In the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor took the crown of England. His heir, the absolute king Henry VIII establishing the English church.
In modern history, the Reformation and rise of modernity in the early 16th century entailed a change in the Corpus Christianum. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 officially ended the idea among secular leaders that all Christians must be united under one church. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio
("whose the region is, his religion") established the religious,
political and geographic divisions of Christianity, and this was
established with the Treaty of Westphalia
in 1648, which legally ended the concept of a single Christian hegemony
in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, despite the Catholic Church's doctrine that it alone is the one true Church founded by Christ. Subsequently, each government determined the religion of their own
state. Christians living in states where their denomination was not
the established one were guaranteed the right to practice their faith
in public during allotted hours and in private at their will. At times there were mass expulsions of dissenting faiths as happened with the Salzburg Protestants. Some people passed as adhering to the official church, but instead lived as Nicodemites or crypto-protestants.
The European wars of religion are usually taken to have ended with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), or arguably, including the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession in this period, with the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In the 18th century, the focus shifts away from religious conflicts,
either between Christian factions or against the external threat of
Islamic factions.
End of Christendom
Christian
majority countries in 2010; Countries with 50% or more Christians are
colored purple while countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored
pink.
One
part of [the] world ... has in recent years detached itself and broken
away from the Christian foundations of its culture, although formerly it
had been so imbued with Christianity and had drawn from it such
strength and vigor that the people of these nations in many cases owe to
Christianity all that is best in their own tradition.
Writing in 1997, Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall
argued that Christendom had either fallen already or was in its death
throes; although its end was gradual and not as clear to pin down as its
4th-century establishment, the "transition to the post-Constantinian,
or post-Christendom, situation (...) has already been in process for a
century or two", beginning with the 18th-century rationalist
Enlightenment and the French Revolution (the first attempt to topple the
Christian establishment). American Catholic bishop Thomas John Curry
stated in 2001 that the end of Christendom came about because modern
governments refused to "uphold the teachings, customs, ethos, and
practice of Christianity". He argued the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (1791) and the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom (1965) are two of the most important documents setting the stage for its end. According to British historian Diarmaid MacCulloch (2010), Christendom was 'killed' by the First World War (1914–18), which led to the fall of the three main Christian empires (Russian, German and Austrian)
of Europe, as well as the Ottoman Empire, rupturing the Eastern
Christian communities that had existed on its territory. The Christian
empires were replaced by secular, even anti-clerical republics seeking
to definitively keep the churches out of politics. The only surviving
monarchy with an established church, Britain, was severely damaged by
the war, lost most of Ireland due to Catholic–Protestant infighting, and was starting to lose grip on its colonies.
Changes in worldwide Christianity over the last century have been
significant, since 1900, Christianity has spread rapidly in the Global South and Third World countries. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general, by 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.
Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World"
has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and
Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that
created a unified European identity. Historian Paul Legutko of Stanford University said the Catholic Church
is "at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science,
laws, and institutions which constitute what we call Western
civilization."
Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman Empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe. Until the Age of Enlightenment, Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science. Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature
etc. Art and literature, law, education, and politics were preserved in
the teachings of the Church, in an environment that, otherwise, would
have probably seen their loss. The Church founded many cathedrals, universities, monasteries and seminaries, some of which continue to exist today. Medieval Christianity created the first modern universities. The Catholic Church established a hospital system in medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria. These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups
marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age," according to historian of
hospitals, Guenter Risse. Christianity also had a strong impact on all other aspects of life:
marriage and family, education, the humanities and sciences, the
political and social order, the economy, and the arts.
Christianity had a significant impact on education and science
and medicine as the church created the bases of the Western system of
education, and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.Many clerics throughout history have made significant contributions to science and Jesuits in particular have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science. The cultural influence of Christianity includes social welfare, founding hospitals, economics (as the Protestant work ethic), natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law), politics, architecture, literature, personal hygiene, and family life. Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagansocieties, such as human sacrifice, slavery, infanticide and polygamy.
Christian literature
is writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the
Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied
writing. Christian poetry is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes, or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible, while others provide allegory.
Christian art is art produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the principles of Christianity.
Virtually all Christian groupings use or have used art to some extent.
The prominence of art and the media, style, and representations change;
however, the unifying theme is ultimately the representation of the life
and times of Jesus and in some cases the Old Testament. Depictions of saints are also common, especially in Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration. The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period AD 400 to 600, primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the 15th century Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity.
Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls; some isolated single sheets survive. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf,
sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to
illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum, traditionally made of unsplit calfskin, though high quality parchment from other skins was also called parchment.
There are few old ceramic icons, such as this St. Theodor icon which dates to c. 900 (from Preslav, Bulgaria).
Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from RomanImperialimagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art. Religious images are used to some extent by the Abrahamic Christian faith, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. In the Late Antique period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels. Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ.
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity. Christianity has used symbolism from its very beginnings. In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ, Mary
and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types
of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially
large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ.
Christian symbolism
invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian
ideas. Christianity has borrowed from the common stock of significant
symbols known to most periods and to all regions of the world. Religious symbolism is effective when it appeals to both the intellect and the emotions. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia
types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including
large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin, parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints. Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual
figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by
them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels.
Each saint has a story and a reason why he or she led an exemplary life. Symbols
have been used to tell these stories throughout the history of the
Church. A number of Christian saints are traditionally represented by a
symbol or iconic motif associated with their life, termed an attribute or emblem, in order to identify them. The study of these forms part of iconography in Art history.
Christian architecture
encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the
foundation of Christianity to the present day, influencing the design
and construction of buildings and structures in Christian culture.
Buildings were at first adapted from those originally intended
for other purposes but, with the rise of distinctively ecclesiastical
architecture, church buildings came to influence secular ones which have
often imitated religious architecture. In the 20th century, the use of
new materials, such as concrete, as well as simpler styles has had its
effect upon the design of churches and arguably the flow of influence
has been reversed. From the birth of Christianity to the present, the most significant period of transformation for Christian architecture in the west was the Gothic cathedral. In the east, Byzantine architecture was a continuation of Roman architecture.
Christian philosophy is a term to describe the fusion of various fields of philosophy with the theological doctrines of Christianity. Scholasticism, which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or school people) of medieval universities c. 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally started to reconcile the philosophy
of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology.
Scholasticism is not a philosophy or theology in itself but a tool and
method for learning which places emphasis on dialectical reasoning.
Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy,
was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. Since
these Christians believed God imbued the universe with regular geometric
and harmonic principles, to seek these principles was therefore to seek
and worship God.
The West's rediscovery of the complete works of Aristotle led to the Renaissance of the twelfth century. It also created conflict between faith and reason, resolved by a revolution in thought called scholasticism. The scholastic writings of Thomas Aquinas impacted Catholic theology and influenced secular philosophy and law into the modern day.
Insights gained from Aristotle triggered a period of cultural
ferment that Matthews and Platt say, one "modern historian has called
the twelfth century renaissance". Historians of science David C. Lindberg, Ronald Numbers and Edward Grant have described what followed as a "medieval scientific revival". Science historians such as Noah Efron,
therefore, give credit to multiple medieval Christian scientists for
providing the early "tenets, methods, and institutions of what in time
became modern science".
Byzantine art exerted a powerful influence on Western art in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Gothic architecture, intended to inspire contemplation of the divine, began in the same centuries.
Renaissance included revival of the scientific study of natural phenomena. Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) devised a step-by-step scientific method; William of Ockham (1300–1349) developed a principle of economy; Roger Bacon (1220–1292) advocated for an experimental method in his study of optics. Historians of science credit these and other medieval Christians with
the beginnings of what, in time, became modern science and led to the Scientific Revolution in the West.
Interior panorama of the Hagia Sophia, the patriarchal basilica in Constantinople designed 537 AD by Isidore of Miletus, the first compiler of Archimedes' various works. The influence of Archimedes' principles of solid geometry is evident.
Beginning at Cluny Abbey (910), which used Romanesque architecture to convey a sense of awe and wonder and inspire obedience, monasteries gained influence through the Cluniac Reforms.However, their cultural and religious dominance began to decline in the mid-eleventh century when secular clergy, who were not members of religious orders, rose in influence. Monastery schools lost influence as cathedral schools spread, independent schools arose, and universities formed as self-governing corporations chartered by popes and kings.Canon and civil law became professionalized, and a new literate elite formed, further displacing monks. Throughout this period, the clergy and the laity became "more literate, more worldly, and more self-assertive".
Significant in this respect were advances within the fields of navigation. The compass and astrolabe along with advances in shipbuilding, enabled the navigation of the World Oceans and thus domination of the worlds economic trade.
Under Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085), the Roman Church became what John Witte Jr.
calls "an autonomous legal and political corporation" that functioned
as a "state" with a strong sense of its own socioeconomic and political
interests. Following the era of Innocent III (1198–1216), the Papacy stood as the highest authority in the West for nearly two centuries. Hospitals, almshouses, and schools continued to be founded by the church of this era. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, the church had built
huge cathedrals of staggering beauty in Catholic Europe.
The Cistercian movement was a wave of monastic reform after 1098. Cistercians were instrumental in promoting technological advancement and were among the best industrialists of the Middle Ages. Of the 740 twelfth-century Cistercian monasteries, nearly all possessed
a water wheel used to develop innovative hydraulic engineering
techniques, water circulation systems for central heating, produce olive
oil or forge metal and produce iron. They taught and practiced advanced
farming techniques such as crop rotation and were skilled
metallurgists.
The first universities in Europe developed from schools that had been maintained by the Church for the purpose of educating priests. These universities evolved from much older Christiancathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date when they became true universities, though the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.
From the 1100s, Western universities,
the first institutions of higher education since the sixth-century,
were formed into self-governing corporations chartered by popes and
kings. Bologna, Oxford and Paris were among the earliest (c. 1150). Divided into faculties which specialized in law, medicine, theology or liberal arts, each held quodlibeta (free-for-all) theological debates amongst faculty and students and awarded degrees. With this, both canon and civil law began to be professionalized.
During the Renaissance,
great advances occurred in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics,
math, manufacturing, and engineering. The rediscovery of ancient
scientific texts was accelerated after the Fall of Constantinople, and
the invention of printing which would democratize learning and allow a faster propagation of new ideas. Renaissance technology
is the set of artifacts and customs, spanning roughly the 14th through
the 16th century. The era is marked by such profound technical
advancements like the printing press, linear perspectivity, patent law, double shell domes or Bastion fortresses. Draw-books of the Renaissance artist-engineers such as Taccola and Leonardo da Vinci give a deep insight into the mechanical technology then known and applied. Gutenberg's printing press made possible a dissemination of knowledge to a wider population, that would not only lead to a gradually more egalitarian society, but one more able to dominate other cultures, drawing from a vast reserve of knowledge and experience.
Studying astronomy and geometry. Early fifteenth-century painting, France.
Some scholars and historians attributes Christianity to having contributed to the rise of the Scientific Revolution. For example, Professor Noah J Efron
says that "Generations of historians and sociologists have discovered
many ways in which Christians, Christian beliefs, and Christian
institutions played crucial roles in fashioning the tenets, methods, and
institutions of what in time became modern science. They found that
some forms of Christianity provided the motivation to study nature
systematically..." Virtually all modern scholars and historians agree that Christianity
moved many early-modern intellectuals to study nature systematically.
The rise of Protestantism contributed to the conceptualization of human capital, development of the Protestant work ethic, the European state system, development of banking and modern capitalism in Northern Europe, and overall economic growth. However, urbanization and industrialisation created a plethora of new social problems. In Europe and North America, both Protestants and Catholics provided
massive aid to the poor, supported family welfare, and offered medicine
and education.
Scientific Revolution
Galileo Galilei’s early 17th-century telescopic observations began the transformation of what had been a narrowly technical revision of classical astronomy by Copernicus - the pious Church official - into an increasingly aggressive challenge to traditional cosmology and the long-standing synthesis of Aristotelian physics and Christian theology. The upheaval of the Scientific Revolution ended the medieval view of natural philosophy as the servant (or "handmaiden") of theology. As natural philosophy continued to grow in power, self-confidence and
independence during the 17th century, European society around it began
to undergo a tectonic shift in intellectual attitude — from fides quaerens intellectum to a new mode of understanding that was, increasingly, completely uncoupled from religion. The science historian Alexandre Koyré
memorably described this unintended outcome of the Scientific
Revolution - the stripping of hierarchical order, purpose and meaning
from the universe — as the "utter devalorization of being." In his Pensees published in 1670, the mathematician, philosopher and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal wrote that the "eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."
Relative geographic prevalence of Christianity versus Islam versus lack of either religion (2006)
In 2009, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Christianity was the majority religion in Europe (including Russia) with 80%, Latin America with 92%, North America with 81%, and Oceania with 79%. There are also large Christian communities in other parts of the world, such as China, India and Central Asia, where Christianity is the second-largest religion after Islam. The United States is home to the world's largest Christian population, followed by Brazil and Mexico.
The estimated number of Christians in the world ranges from 2.2 billion to 2.4 billion people. The faith represents approximately one-third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with the three largest groups of Christians being the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with an estimated 1.2 billion adherents.
Demographics of major traditions within Christianity (Pew Research Center, 2010 data)
A religious order
is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in
some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific
religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its
founder's religious practice. In contrast, the term Holy Orders
is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to a group
of individuals who are set apart for a special role or ministry.
Historically, the word "order" designated an established civil body or
corporation with a hierarchy, and ordination meant legal incorporation
into an ordo. The word "holy" refers to the Church. In context,
therefore, a holy order is set apart for ministry in the Church.
Religious orders are composed of initiates (laity) and, in some
traditions, ordained clergies.
Catholic canon law (Latin: jus canonicum) is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities
of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and
government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward
the mission of the church. The canon law of the Latin Church was the first modern Western legal system, and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West.
Throughout the Middle Ages, a symbiotic relationship existed
between ecclesiastical institutions and civil governments. Canon law and
secular law were connected and often overlapped. Churches were dependent upon lay rulers, and it was those rulers - not
the Pope - who determined who received what ecclesiastical job on their
lands.
Canon law enabled the church to sustain itself as an institution and wield social authority with the laity. In the East, Roman law remained the standard. After the Empire fell,
the West was a world of relatively weak states, endowed aristocracies,
and peasant communities that could no longer use law from a "fallen"
empire to uphold church hierarchy. Instead, the church adopted a feudalistic oath of loyalty, which became
a condition of consecration which affected the hierarchy of church
relations at every level.
The church developed an oath of loyalty between men and their king to create a new model of consecrated kingship. Janet Nelson writes that:
This
rite has a continuous history in both Anglo-Saxon England and Francia
from the eighth-century onward, with further refinements in the ninth
and tenth. It is, among other things, a remarkable application of law by
early medieval churchmen in the West, to which the East offers no
parallel.
Canon laws were created by councils, kings, and bishops, and by lay
assemblies. Law was not state-sponsored, systematized, professionalized,
or university-taught in this period.
Within the framework of Christianity, there are at least three
possible definitions for Church law. One is the Torah/Mosaic Law (from
what Christians consider to be the Old Testament) also called Divine Law or Biblical law. Another is the instructions of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel (sometimes referred to as the Law of Christ or the New Commandment or the New Covenant). A third is canon law which is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of churches. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these three bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was initially a rule adopted by a council (From Greek kanon / κανών, Hebrew kaneh / קנה, for rule, standard, or measure); these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
Christian ethics in general has tended to stress the need for grace, mercy, and forgiveness because of human weakness and developed while Early Christians were subjects of the Roman Empire. From the time Nero blamed Christians for setting Rome ablaze (64 AD) until Galerius
(311 AD), persecutions against Christians erupted periodically.
Consequently, Early Christian ethics included discussions of how
believers should relate to Roman authority and to the empire.
Under the Emperor Constantine I
(312–337), Christianity became a legal religion. While some scholars
debate whether Constantine's conversion to Christianity was authentic or
simply matter of political expediency, Constantine's decree
made the empire safe for Christian practice and belief. Consequently,
issues of Christian doctrine, ethics and church practice were debated
openly, see for example the First Council of Nicaea and the First seven Ecumenical Councils. By the time of Theodosius I (379–395), Christianity had become the state religion of the empire. With Christianity in power, ethical concerns broaden and included discussions of the proper role of the state.
Render unto Caesar... is the beginning of a phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels
which reads in full, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,
and unto God the things that are God's". This phrase has become a
widely quoted summary of the relationship between Christianity and
secular authority. The gospels say that when Jesus gave his response,
his interrogators "marvelled, and left him, and went their way." Time
has not resolved an ambiguity in this phrase, and people continue to
interpret this passage to support various positions that are poles
apart. The traditional division, carefully determined, in Christian
thought is the state and church have separate spheres of influence.
Thomas Aquinas thoroughly discussed that human law is positive law which means that it is natural law
applied by governments to societies. All human laws were to be judged
by their conformity to the natural law. An unjust law was in a sense no
law at all. At this point, the natural law was not only used to pass
judgment on the moral worth of various laws, but also to determine what
the law said in the first place. This could result in some tension. Late ecclesiastical writers followed in his footsteps.
Christian democracy
is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to
public policy. It emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the
influence of Catholic social teaching. In a number of countries, the democracy's Christian ethos has been diluted by secularisation. In practice, Christian democracy is often considered conservative on cultural, social and moral issues and progressive on fiscal and economic issues. In places, where their opponents have traditionally been secularist socialists and social democrats, Christian democratic parties are moderately conservative, whereas in other cultural and political environments they can lean to the left.
Attitudes and beliefs about the roles and responsibilities of women in Christianity
vary considerably today as they have throughout the last two
millennia—evolving along with or counter to the societies in which
Christians have lived. The Bible and Christianity historically have been
interpreted as excluding women from church leadership and placing them
in submissive roles in marriage. Male leadership has been assumed in the
church and within marriage, society and government.
Some contemporary writers describe the role of women in the life
of the church as having been downplayed, overlooked, or denied
throughout much of Christian history. Paradigm shifts
in gender roles in society and also many churches has inspired
reevaluation by many Christians of some long-held attitudes to the
contrary. Christian egalitarians have increasingly argued for equal roles for men and women in marriage, as well as for the ordination of women to the clergy. Contemporary conservatives meanwhile have reasserted what has been termed a "complementarian" position, promoting the traditional belief that the Bible ordains different roles and responsibilities for women and men in the Church and family.
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