This morning, get your coffee and walk back into the UCLA lecture hall where Prof Eugen Weber’s Lectures on Early Christianity in the Roman Empire ,(you may to follow the links out to the video). Roman culture begins to fail, the Stoics lose their grip over the ruling class. The people in these hard times look for ‘salous’- the health of the soul aka: salvation instead of the ascetic rationality of stoicism that valued virtue, wisdom, and strength. The more the disorder in the Empire grew the less relevant rationality was.
Meanwhile, the Hellenistic and Jewish influence act on Early Christianity while Christianity grows and acts to change the contemporary world from 100-400AD.
Do feel free to get caught back up if you missed the earlier lectures on the Rise of Rome and the Engineering of Rome. Professor Weber ‘s main point is that Early Christianity spread despite contempt and persecution from Rome.
Tags: Christianity, History, saturday lecture series, western tradition
