Essays on Tertullian

In its first three centuries, Christianity began to separate from Judaism while also selectively incorporating the Jewish Scriptures and laws that it regarded as most useful, as is clear from the Didache. There were Gnostic Christians who were prepared to reject Judaism completely, along with the books of the Bible that finally became known as the Old Testament in the 4th Century. They regarded the Genesis Creator of the Hebrew Bible as a false and evil God and also denied the humanity and Jewish heritage of Jesus and his earliest followers. Orthodox Christianity did not accept the Gnostic argument that ...

1. Discuss the cultural connections and parallels between Classical Greece and the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire in terms of art, literature, religion and philosophy. The Eastern Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire), was Greek-speaking and Hellenistic in culture, and contained two-thirds of the population and some of the largest cities like Alexandria, Constantinople and Antioch. Poltically, culturally and economically, it was the most important part of the Empire and survived until 1453, for nearly 1,000 years after the fall of the West. In pagan times before the 4th Century AD, all of the Roman gods ...

SHORT SUMMARY

Jesus of Nazareth was a Palestine Jew who grew up in Galilee, an important center of the militant Zealots and resistance to the rule of the Romans and their local collaborators like the Herodians and the Temple priests in Jerusalem. Contrary to later interpretations, his original message was not intended to undermine the traditional Jewish religion, but to emphasize that the Kingdom of God was at hand and that his disciples should love God and one another. His commandments were for the Jews to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and to love ...