Augustine and late antique culture History 100, April 3, 2006

The paper topic will be e-mailed and posted tomorrow. You will get it in a handout on Wednesday, along with guidelines and grading standards. Late antiquity

BC 1000 500 500 1000 1500 AD Nicolas Poussin, St. John on Patmos (1640) Triumph of

• 313: Edict of Milan by Constantine • 361-63: Julian the Apostate; pagan revival and edict of toleration • 380: Catholic worship ordered by Theodosius I and Gratian • 391: Theodosius issues laws against paganism But: paganism continues, more discreetly Christians in late antiquity

• By 4th century, most Christian thinkers were trained in grammar and rhetoric • Conflict between worldliness of pagan thought and otherworldly focus of Christian theology • Knowledge of Greek declines in West • Literature sieved in transition from roll to codex St. Jerome (c. 347-420)

• Christian from Dalmatia • Educated in grammar and rhetoric at Rome • Monastic life in Syria and Palestine, interrupted by brief stay in Rome, 382-385 • Revised Latin Gospels, translated Old Testament from Hebrew (basis of Vulgate) • Dream (Letter 22): tension between Christianity and pagan inheritance El Greco, St. Jerome (c. 1610) St. Augustine (354-430)

• Born in Africa to pagan father and Christian mother, Monica • Educated in Africa; taught rhetoric in Africa, Rome, and Milan • Conversions: to philosophy (373), Manicheanism, and Christianity (386) • Confessions (c. 397-400): describes his life and conversion as model for Christians • On Christian Doctrine (begun 396): pagan literature subordinated to • City of God (413-426): historical vindication of Christianity

Botticelli, St. Augustine (c. 1480) Pagan culture and Christianity

• “The spoils of the Egyptians” • Cicero’s Academic skepticism employed against paganism • Classical literary forms: dialogue, treatise (cf. Christian forms: narrative, letter, prophecy) Christian dissension:

hairesis: opinion; for Christians, opinion that contradicts orthodoxy • Donatist heresy (Donatus): condemned by of , 314; separate Church in Africa • Arian heresy (): condemned at Council of Nicaea, 325 • Pelagian heresy (Pelagius): condemned at , 431