The Martyrdom of Perpetua (with Max & Nazanin)
A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 - 1650)
Universidade Yale
This course follows the extraordinary development of Western Christianity from its early persecution under the Roman Empire in the third century to its global expansion with the Jesuits of the early modern world. We explore the dynamic and diverse character of a religion with an enormous cast characters. We will meet men and women who tell stories of faith as well as of violence, suppression, and division. Along the way, we encounter Perpetua and her martyrdom in Carthage; the struggles of Augustine the bishop in North Africa; the zeal of Celtic monks and missionaries; the viciousness of the Crusades; the visions of Brigit of Sweden; and the fracturing of Christianity by Martin Luther's protest. We hear the voices of great theologians as well as of those branded heretics by the Church, a powerful reminder that the growth of Christianity is a story with many narratives of competing visions of reform and ideals, powerful critiques of corruption and venality, and exclusion of the vanquished. The troubled history of Christian engagement with Jews and Muslims is found in pogroms and expulsions, but also in the astonishing ways in which the culture of the West was transformed by Jewish and Islamic learning. We shall explore the stunning beauty of the Book of Kells, exquisitely prepared by monks as the Vikings terrorized the coast of England. We will experience the blue light of the windows of Chartres, and ponder the opening questions of Thomas Aquinas' great Summa. We will read from the Gutenberg Bible of the fifteenth century, which heralded the revolution brought by the printing press. We will travel from Calvin's Geneva to Elizabeth's England to Trent, where a Catholic Council met to inaugurate a modern, missionary Catholic church. We will walk through the great Escorial of Philip II of Spain, hear the poetry of John of the Cross, and follow the Jesuits to Brazil and China. Christianity in the West was forged in the fires of conflict and tumult, and it brought forth both creativity and violence. It echoed with calls for God's world to be transformed, it inspired the most sublime art and architecture, yet it also revealed the power of the union of cross and sword to destroy. The course is a journey through the formation of the West as one strand of Christianity, as one chapter in a global story. It is a journey that has shaped our world.
Well developed and presented course.. It'll be good to have it continued from 1650 to where the Christian faith is today. I'll be very interested to be part of it if it is developed.
Recommend to anyone wanting to expand their knowledge on the growth of Christianity. The subtitles are a bit iffy at times, but if English is your first language you should be fine.
Augustine and the North African Church
"Augustine and the North African Church," studies two areas of early and vibrant Christian growth: Egypt and North Africa. These areas responded to intense Roman persecution by developing a theology of martyrdom. Indeed, both areas became bastions of early Christian theological thinking, with the North African Church producing the most important Christian theologian ever: Augustine of Hippo.
Martyrdom and Persecution14:32
The Martyrdom of Perpetua (with Max & Nazanin)5:35
Bruce Gordon
Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History
Selecionar um idiomaEspanholInglêsRomeno
Around 203 CE, a young noblewoman named Vibia Perpetua was
executed in the North African city of Carthage for
refusing to make a sacrifice to the Roman emperor.
Perpetua believed that a sacrifice to any deity besides her
Christian god contradicted her faith.
And she volunteered to die rather than submit to this Roman ritual.
She became one of the many North African Christians to suffer martyrdom
in the third century.
Perpetua is one of the most influential and famous martyrs of the early church.
In fact, the Catholic church to this day
list her in the litany of saints during the mass.
For Perpetua kept a diary recording
her approach to martyrdom a famous account that became [INAUDIBLE] cry for
early Christian communities, especially prosecuted communities in North Africa.
>> Her source arise in the form of a prison diary,
allegedly written in her own hand.
It's one of the earliest accent Christian texts and
the earliest by a female Christian.
This account called the Passion of Saint Perpetua
details Perpetua's ordeal in prison awaiting her death,
along with the plight of several other of her Christian companions.
Including a slave woman, Felicitas.
Here they are seen in an image from the year 1000.
>> Perpetua's story is striking because of the life she was willing to renounce and
the death that she chose.
She was a noblewoman with a father who loved her and who came to her in prison,
beseeching her to compromise at least a little bit on her faith.
Perpetua describes her father's plea thus.
My father, out of love for me, was trying to persuade me and shake my resolution.
Father, said I.
Do you see this vase here for example, or water pot or whatever?
Yes, I do said he.
And I told him, could it be called by any other name than what it is?
And he said, no.
Well, so too, I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.
>> Perpetua still refuse to perform public sacrifices on [INAUDIBLE] Roman gods and
the emperor.
Even though she had a very young son and her death would leave him motherless.
Her father appealed to her sense of family.
Perpetua recounts, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the step and
said, Perpetua, perform the sacrifice.
Have pity on your baby!
Even in the amphitheatre, the Roman authorities offer her yet
one more chance to return to her family unharmed by sacrificing to the emperor.
The governor said to me, have pity on your father's grey head.
Have pity on your infant son.
Offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the emperors, I will not, I retorted.
Are you a Christian?, said the governor.
And I said yes, I am.
>> The image of the young mother choosing death over a compromise in her faith
shocked the Roman authorities and continues to bewilder many today.
But in the context of North African Christianity,
a community tormented by Roman persecution at this time.
The image of Perpetua stealing herself and remaining faithful to Christ
became a symbol of steadfastness and spiritual fortitude to be emulated.
>> The threat of lethal punishment meant nothing to the martyrs,
whose ultimate goal was reunification with Christ in death.
For Perpetua, her death was a triumph, granting her immortality in heaven.
And she undertook her sacrifice cheerfully.
The editor of her diary recorded Perpetua and
several of her Christian companions thus.
The day of their victory dawned.
And they marched from the prison to the amphitheater joyfully,
as though they were going to heaven with calm faces.
Trembling if at all with joy rather than with fear.
Perpetua went along with the shinning [INAUDIBLE] than concept as
a beloved of God.
>> Perpetua's death was ultimately portrayed as her decision,
not that of her Roman captors.
She took the trembling hand of the young gladiator and
guided the sword to her throat.
It was as though so greater woman could not be dispatched
unless she herself were willing as our editor puts it.
Her death mirrored the passion of Christ, the ultimate death for
a Christian to emulate.
And one of with service a model for
martyrs through out the history of the church.
Perpetua's martyrdom was a testament to her faith and her love of Christ.
As well as the power of the Christian god over both Roman persecution and
the limits of mortality.
>> Perpetua's account of her martyrdom would attract new followers to
Christianity.
And also inspire early Christians to answer the call to martyrdom.
And not fear death or falter in their faith.
Perpetua's passion was preached by Augustine and other bishops across
North Africa and a basilica was erected over her tomb in Carthage.
Her story lived on in popular Christian culture, with Perpetua and other martyrs
celebrated with public festivities, including the recitations of their deaths.
To this day, she's revered across Christian traditions as a saint.
Perpetua's martyrdom is a testament to the vibrancy of the early
North African Church.
An area far removed from when it's traditionally considered the center of
early Christianity, Rome.