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Rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes. As a matter of fact Rome was conceived, built, prospered, and then conquered from around 800 B. C. to 476 A. D. That is approximately one thousand three hundred years.
With these facts in mind it is still impossible to even attempt to think of how many individuals aided the development of the city Rome itself and or Rome s well known religion, Christianity. While some people purposefully engaged in events that would give Rome more power others attempted to destroy the city when in opposition to their intents their acts only made Rome stronger. One of the main reasons that Rome succeeded for such a long period of time was it s constituents belief in Christianity. Rome currently ceases to exist while the religion that saw it through so many obstacles is still alive and strong in about one third of the present population.
The rise and spread of Christianity in Rome did not take as long as the development of Rome, however it also took long enough to make it hard to even imagine how many people facilitated the rise and spread of Christianity. During the decline and fall of Rome Christianity was in a struggle to gain and retain believers. Many doubts and questions were formulating in the worried minds of Christian thinkers. The Four Fathers of the church are the most significant individuals who were able to successfully offer answers to these urgent questions or provide a tangible aid to explain the religion. The Four Fathers are St. Augustine, St.
Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory. The men prospered at nearly the same times, which proved to be a critical point in time for the survival of Christianity. Each man left a legacy behind which interrelated with one another s through the main goal, to develop guiding outlooks through effectively communicating the Bible. These four men are one of the main reasons Christianity exists today.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430), the most powerful Christian intellects (Lerner p. 212), was born in North Africa at Thagaste. Augustine was born into Christianity with a pagan father and a Christian mother, so he hesitated to completely turn to the Christianity faith. He went on to study in Carthage and there he became very intrigued with philosophy. He founded his own school of rhetoric at Rome in 383. For many years Augustine was frustrated because he could not find a religion that offered spiritual and or intellectual contentment.
While in Milan he came under the preaching of St. Ambrose, whose influence, along with a personal experience mentioned in Confessions, convinced Augustine to accept Christianity. Augustine returned to Africa to form his own community and received the title of a priest. He wrote many books, letters, treaties, and sermons about his convictions of the faults in Christianity and his resolutions. St. Augustine addressed the question about Christianity being responsible for the decline and fall of Rome.
The Christian Church more closely embodied the City of God and was preordained to replace Rome. The sack of Rome was thus part of God s divine plan and in no way tarnished the promise of the eternal city (Sherman p. 111). Now Augustine had to prove the divinity of God. Augustine s theology made a basis of the idea that humanity is naturally sinful and a divinity of omnipotence. He believes that God has a predetermined number of who will be admitted into Heaven and who will be damned.
He thinks that no human can understand the reason for this and God is entirely justified in doing this because we are all naturally inclined to evil. He proposed that all people should act good in hope that they are one of the chosen individuals on God s list of who will go to Heaven. Augustine imposed the idea that man should lead a life while being devoted to God and loving all things for the sake of God rather than the object itself. St. Augustine wrote a book about history with this idea of his in mind. Among two of his most noted works was this book, On The City Of God.
This book may have been his most notable gift to Christian theology. In this he argued that the entire human race from the Creation until the Last Judgement was and will be composed of two warring societies, those who live according to man and love themselves, and those who live according to God. The former belong to the City of Earth and will be damned, while the blessed few who compose the City of God will on Judgement Day put on the garment of immortality (Lerner p. 213. ) Augustine is saying that any person who loves any object on Earth simply for the objects beauty and not for the sake of God s creation of it will be damned to hell. Therefore Augustine designates two pre-requisites that man must be or do prior to acceptance into Heaven. A man must be on God s pre-designated list and must lead his life according to God and do all things for the sake of God. Augustine admits that no man can know when the final Judgement Day will come, therefore it is important to put every effort into living righteously.
I believe this may have been the time where the idea that man should live every day to its fullest because he never knows what day might be his last originated. Augustine would define fullest in this phrase as complete devotion to God. Augustine was slightly humble in the aspect that he did not believe that he formulated these ideas on his own but that they were stated in the Bible. He thought a person must be educated to fully understand the Bible due to the fact that it was obscure in explaining the beliefs and theologies. Since Augustine desired to interpret the Bible to all the people he could he knew it was necessary to take a slight interest in classical learning, only for the sake of God, to spread his word.
In keeping with his convictions he believed that only select privileged Christians should learn classical thought in order to ensure the future of his mission to spread Christianity, teach others this faith, and further the ability to interpret the Bible. St. Ambrose (339 - 397) was the man from Milan whose influence convinced Augustine to convert to Christianity and be baptized. Ambrose originated two main points that we previously discussed about Augustine furthering Ambrose s thoughts. [The beginning and end of human conduct should be reverence for God rather than any other self-concern God helps some Christians but not others in this pursuit by the gift of grace (Lerner p. 211).
Ambrose s largest contribution came through example rather than writings and sermons like Augustine. St. Ambrose s most influential act was one which accomplished two goals at once. The second mission of Ambrose was to increase the independence of the church from the states powers.
St. Ambrose confronted the Emperor Theodosius the Great about a massacre of civilians. He claimed that by breaching divine commandments Theodosius was now subservient to church discipline. Ambrose refused to perform his sermons while the Emperor was present. At first Emperor Theodosius attempted to have Ambrose relieved but was unsuccessful. Ambrose was so strong in his beliefs he convinced the Emperor to support his mission and receive public repentance.
This act of Ambrose was so strong because it was unprecedented to have the church make the Roman government a subsidiary in a morality case. Ambrose was able to convince a superior to attempt a life of righteousness which opened eyes and interested many others. At the same time Ambrose furthered the independence of the church from the states power in the aspect of morality. Ambrose wanted to bring it to the attention of Christians that they should not be thinking of a choice between learning and believing, but rather between church and state. He argued that the church is superior to all other in a Christian society at large and that when concerning faith the church takes priority over the sovereign powers because the church cares for the salvation of the soul and not the physical being like the state.
Ambrose set Augustine up for a path of success through his teachings. The least original thinker of the great Latin fathers (Lerner p. 211), St. Jerome (340 - 420), made his largest impact through his knowledge of other languages and by being a good writer. He was born in Balkans and was trained to be a Latin writer. Jerome s most significant contribution was his translation of the Greek and Hebrew Bible into Latin. This Bible became the standard Bible for the nearly one-thousand years during the middle ages.
This ability enabled thousands maybe millions of people to read the Bible and get to know the faith on their own if the select group of teachers were not available. There are so many different languages that if the Christians were not able to translate then a limit would be reached in the ability to spread the faith. This is why Jerome s contribution is so important. Jerome did do a little philosophical thinking like his counterparts by submitting the idea that the Bible should not be taken literally at all times but also allegorically. He also affirmed the idea that classical learning is acceptable if it is limited to Christian purposes. The last Great Latin Father is St.
Gregory the Great who was known as Pope Gregory I the Great from 590 - 604. Gregory combined the Roman papacy and Benedictine monasticism to come up with a new western European religious policy. He implemented many of his predecessors ideas and thought about their acts to come up with this new theology. He favored Western Europe over Eastern as he was devising a new theology and believed that hell was a place or purification prior to entering Heaven. His most striking advancement for Christianity is one similar to Jerome s.
He did not translate Latin but rather simplified it to be more like the spoken Latin. This allowed many more people to familiarize themselves with the Christian faith. The main objective of the Four Fathers was to provide guiding principles for Christianity and communicate the Bible to as many people as possible. Considering that none of them were present while Jesus was alive it must have been incredibly difficult to organize thoughts that one can affirm that God had intended for it to be the particular way in which they chose to do. The Four Fathers must have put so much time into thinking and interpreting God s words from notes of others. The men discussed must have had an overwhelming power of persuasion and ability to know how to prove a thought of God s to thousands of people without any doubt.
They advanced Christianity through writing, thinking, actions, and faithfulness. These men were able to spread the faith so thoroughly that today we have many of their proposed beliefs as the law of religion. The Four Fathers of the church efficiently communicated the Bible. The Four Fathers are one of the main reasons Christianity exists today.
Bibliography Sherman, Dennis. Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations. New York: McGraw-Hill Co, 2000 Lerner, R. E. Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture. 3 rd ed.
New York: Norton &# 038; Company, 1998 Wolfson, H. A. The Philosophy of Church Fathers. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1970 Kermit S. T. Augustine: His Thought In Context.
New York: Paulist Press, 1995
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