1st millennium
From Missiopedia
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Overview: History - Epochs - Turnings - Centuries BC - Centuries AD
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Historical Summary by Century:
[edit] 1st to 4th: Roman Era
1st century - In the first century, the Pax Romana had established an enforced peace within the Mediterranean basin. Notable empires of the day included Rome, Persia, India and China. During the period of peace, a significant amount of commerce, philosophy and religious thinking traveled over the Silk Road between the empires. The first decades of this period opened with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, followed by the outward explosion of the Church. Initially, Christianity began as a religion of the poor and slaves, centered primarily on the urban cities. Freed from its Jewish roots, it began quickly moving amongst the much larger Gentile population. The first century is notable primarily for Rome's occasional intense persecutions of the church and for its bravery during its birth pains.
2nd century - With the arrival of the second century, persecutions of Christians grew somewhat more intense and as a result more Christians fled outward to the fringes of the Roman Empire. At the edges we find significant church planting occurring in Africa, India and even China. Many of these believers followed trade routes that enclaves of Jewish settlers had followed before them.
3rd century - Rome began to deterioriate and Christians grew to be numerically in the majority. Significant pockets of Christianity developed outside the Roman Empire. Christianity began to broaden out, having reach both in the rural and urban regions. Although there are still several sharp periods of persecution, most Christians are left to live in peace. In the East, the Sassanid empire rose in Persia; it briefly patronized Christianity but then turned against it.
4th century - Not even the initially severe persecution under Diocletian could stop Christianity's forward momentum at this point. One in 10 of the world's population is Christian and the Bible has been translated into several languages. In the opening years of the century, several kings of nations begin converting to Christianity, particularly Armenia and Ethiopia. The pivotal Council of Nicaea develops a standardized creed that will contribute to church unity for centuries. Most importantly, Constantine's edict of toleration in 313 paves the way for the church's explosive growth. The fourth century is a time of some great thinkers like Augustine of Hippo. At the same time, dark clouds are again hovering on the horizon as tribal nomads in the north begin to gather on Rome's borders, drawn by the riches of the civilization.
[edit] 5th to 8th: the Goths
5th century - Samuel Moffett calls the fifth century "one of the most tumultuous and bitter hundred years in all history." While the Gospel flourished on the edges of the Empire, the Empire itself felt the edges pressing in. Tribal nomads, called barbarians, were moving down from northern Europe, craving Rome's civilization. Goths pillaged Rome in the north, and Vandals took the important city of Carthage away from Rome in North Africa. In the 25-year cultural winter between 450 and 476, the Western Roman Empire virtually ceased to exist as a political entity. Christianity as a structure, due to internal conflict and disagreement and the outer political collapse of the western Roman Empire, split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern church (which would eventually become the Greek-influenced Eastern Orthodox Church). Yet, in spite this civil "dark age," Christianity itself was moving on. In perhaps one of the key moments of Christianity's history, Patrick went to Ireland as a missionary, saw that island converted, and from it was launched a monastic missionary movement that would preserve much of Western history and culture while evangelizing most of Europe.
6th century - During this century the Irish, who had been converted through Patrick's work during the close of the previous century, became a missionary movement sending laborers onto the European continent and converting the many "barbarian" nomadic tribes that were sweeping west and south across Europe. Monasteries were established throughout the west, north and south of Europe, ranging from France and Italy to Germany and Scandinavia. The Nestorians continued to push east into China while other believers pushed down into Eastern Africa. The explosive vitality of the Celtic missionary movement was preparing to bring it into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, which considered itself to be the church.
7th century - While Nestorian believers spread out across Asia and erected church buildings in China, the Celtic church was being subsumed into the Roman Catholic tradition. Numerous missionary bishops with their evangelistic monasteries were rapidly converting Germany, France and the Netherlands. These monasteries established schools supported by the kingly courts of the region which preserved much of Western culture and education. The Rule of St. Columban and the Rule of St. Benedict together set the foundation by which the monasteries functioned. Meanwhile, in Arabia, Mohammad declared he had received a new revelation and, after his death, Muslims began rapidly expanding across the Arab world.
8th century - This was a century of uncertainty for Christianity. While missionaries were making substantial gains in Europe, Islam was making equally substantial gains in Asia and Africa. In many places Christians welcomed the Arab forces because they promised (and indeed, at first, granted) more religious freedom than the locals had under the Catholics and Byzantines, respectively. While the Arabs were having successful military exploits in the south, Charlemagne was preparing to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire.
9th century - Christianity rebounded in Europe as Charlemagne conquered much of the continent and created the "Holy Roman Empire." During this century of relative peace learning and education spread out over the continent once more. Monks were founding monasteries and schools. Charlemagne's support of the arts made possible investments in education that would lay the foundations of medieval culture and further preserved from the Celts the writings of Greece and Rome. His son was a somewhat less able ruler, mainly preserving what his father had established. His three grandsons who inherited the empire quickly fell to squabbling amongst themselves and managed to let the empire fall apart; but nonetheless the basic foundation for the Christianization of Europe was set.
