A History of Christianity Quotes

“He [Augustine] admitted: 'I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress by writing.'”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“Julian recognized that the strength of the orthodox Church rested to a great extent on the imperial discrimination in its favour. According to Ammianus, he tried to atomize the Church by ending the system:

'He ordered the priests of the different Christian sects, and their supporters to be admitted to the palace, and politely expressed his wish that, their quarrels being over, each might follow his own beliefs without hindrance or fear. He thought that freedom to argue their beliefs would simply deepen their differences, so that he would never be faced by a united common people. He found from experience that no wild beasts are as hostile to men, as Christians are to each other.'

”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“How could the Christian Church, apparently quite willingly, accommodate this weird megalomaniac [Constantine] in it's theocratic system? Was there a conscious bargain? Which side benefited most form this unseemly marriage between church and state? Or, to put it another way, did the empire surrender to Christianity, or did Christianity prostitute itself to the empire? It is characteristic of the complexities of early Christian history that we cannot give a definite answer to this question.”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“If Paul brought the first generation of Christians the useful skills of a trained theologian, Origen was the first great philosopher to rethink the new religion from first principles. As his philosophical enemy, the anti-Christian Porphyry, summed it up, he 'introduced Greek ideas to foreign fables' -- that is, gave a barbarous eastern religion the intellectual respectability of a philosophical defense. Origen was also a phenomenon. As Eusebius put it admiringly, 'even the facts from his cradle are worth mentioning'. Origen came from Alexandria, the second city of the empire and then it's intellectual centre; his father's martyrdom left him an orphan at seventeen with six younger brothers. He was a hard working prodigy, at eighteen head of the Catechetical School, and already trained as a literary scholar and teacher. But at this point, probably in 203, he became a religious fanatic and remained one for the next fifty years. He gave up his job and sold his books to concentrate on religion. he slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, had only one coat and no shoes. He almost certainly castrated himself, in obedience to the notorious text, Matthew 19:12, 'there are some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.' Origen's learning was massive and it was of a highly original kind: he always went back to the sources and thought through the whole process himself. This he learned Hebrew and, according to Eusebius, 'got into his possession the original writings extant among the Jews in the actual Hebrew character'. These included the discovery of lost texts; in the case of the psalms, Origen collected not only the four known texts but three others unearthed, including 'one he found at Jericho in a jar'. The result was an enormous tome, the Hexapla, which probably existed in only one manuscript now lost, setting out the seven alternative texts in parallel columns. He applied the same principles of original research to every aspect of Christianity and sacred literature. He seems to have worked all day and though most of the night, and was a compulsive writer. Even the hardy Jerome later complained: 'Has anyone read everything Origen wrote?'”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“The great majority of the early martyrs were Christians of a type which the Church would later classify as heretic. The first stories of martyrs reflect not only Jewish martyrologies, as one might expect, but a form of literature echoing the defiant opposition of Greek rebels against Roman domination. The so-called ‘Acts of the Pagan Martyrs’, which survive in Egyptian papyrus fragments, glorify men able to defeat their Roman persecutors in intellectual dialogue – philosopher heroes smashing tyranny with words, even though they subsequently lost their heads. These became models for Christian nonconformists, openly challenging the might of the State. The Church took an increasingly severe view of provocative would-be martyrs. Ignatius, martyred at Rome around 117, begged his influential friends not to intervene and deprive him of suffering in the Lord; this attitude would have been regarded as heretical later in the century, when the saintly Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, set the pattern by doing nothing to provoke the authorities. The Church would not compromise on the matter of emperor-worship or the divinity of Christ, but otherwise it did not look for trouble.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“This was the line usually followed by Roman governments. If they were strong and secure they were less inclined to yield to prejudice. Undisavowed Christianity remained a capital offence, but government did not, as a rule, force Christians into the choice between avowal and apostasy. It left them alone. One reason why the Church strove for uniformity, and so against heresy, was that non-orthodox practices tended to attract more attention and therefore hostility. ‘Prophesying’, the great offence of the Montanists, was strongly disapproved of by the State. It caused sudden and unpredictable crowd movements, panic and disruption of the economy.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“Constantine’s motives were probably confused. He was an exceptionally superstitious man, and he no doubt shared the view, popular among professional soldiers, that all religious cults should be respected, to appease their respective gods. He clearly underwent a strange experience at some time in his military career, in which his Christian troops played a part. He was a slave to signs and omens and had the Christian Chi-Rho sign on his shields and standards long before Milan. Superstition guided his decision to build a new capital, the choice of its site, and many other of his major acts of state. He was not baptized until his last illness. This was by no means unusual, since few Christians then believed in a second forgiveness of sins; sinful or worldly men, especially those with public duties seen as incompatible with Christian virtue, often delayed baptism till they were about to depart. But Eusebius’s account of Constantine’s late baptism is ambiguous; and it may be that the Church refused him the sacrament because of his manner of life. Certainly it was not his piety which made him a Christian.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“Constantine was almost certainly a Mithraic, and his triumphal arch, built after his ‘conversion’, testifies to the Sun-god, or ‘unconquered sun’. Many Christians did not make a clear distinction between this sun-cult and their own. They referred to Christ ‘driving his chariot across the sky’; they held their services on Sunday, knelt towards the East and had their nativity-feast on 25 December, the birthday of the sun at the winter solstice. During the later pagan revival under the Emperor Julian many Christians found it easy to apostasize because of this confusion; the Bishop of Troy told Julian he had always prayed secretly to the sun. Constantine never abandoned sun-worship and kept the sun on his coins. He made Sunday into a day of rest, closing the lawcourts and forbidding all work except agricultural labour. In his new city of Constantinople, he set up a statue of the sun-god, bearing his own features, in the Forum; and another of the mother-Goddess Cybele, though she was presented in a posture of Christian prayer.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“This was all very well: Columbanus's success indicates the appeal of his mission. But his activities, for the first time, brought the nature of Celtic monasticism firmly to the attention of the Church authorities -- to western bishops in general, and to the Bishop of Rome in particular. The Irish monks were not heretical. But they were plainly unorthodox. They did not look right, to begin with. They had the wrong tonsure. Rome, as was natural, had 'the tonsure of St Peter', that is, a shaven crown. Easterners had the tonsure of St Paul, totally shaven; and if they wished to take up an appointment in the West they had to wait until their rim grew before being invested. But the Celts looked like nothing on earth: they had their hair long at the back and, on the shaven front part, a half-circle of hair from one ear to the other, leaving a band across the forehead.”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“Augustine was struck by the fact, when they first met, that Ambrose read to himself, a habit unknown to the classical world: 'His eyes scanned the page, and his mind penetrated its meaning, but his voice and tongue were silent.' There were other impressive things about Ambrose.”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“Jesús de Nazaret procedía de la línea de David; nació de mujer, pero fue creado como Hijo de Dios, con todos sus atributos, gracias a su resurrección de entre los muertos. Vivió brevemente en Palestina, abrazó la pobreza terrenal y expió nuestros pecados con su muerte en la cruz. Dios resucitó al crucificado y enterrado, y con su mano derecha lo elevó al trono más excelso: «Por nosotros lo convirtió en el pecador que no conoció pecado, de modo que en él pudiésemos llegar a ser la virtud de Dios.» La muerte expiatoria de Jesús el Mesías, sacrificado por nuestros pecados, fue nuestra expiación y nuestra humanidad rescatada. Su muerte afecta la redención del cosmos y de toda la humanidad, pues en su muerte el mundo ha sido crucificado y ha comenzado a extinguirse; Cristo volverá prontamente del cielo, como el Hijo del Hombre.”
― Paul Johnson, La historia del cristianismo

“The most important element in all these early Churches was the genealogical tree of truth.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“In general, the effect of the crusades was to undermine the intellectual content of Islam, to destroy the chances of peaceful adjustment to Christianity, and to make the Moslems far less tolerant: crusading fossilized Islam into a fanatic posture.”
― Paul Johnson, History of Christianity

“Ágoston nézete szerint háborúnak mindig is lennie kell, feltéve, hogy abban Isten akarata és parancsolata teljesül. A dolog ilyetén megfogalmazása kétszeresen is veszedelmes volt. Nemcsak lehetségesnek tekintette az „igazságos” háborút – a kifejezés közhellyé vált a keresztény erkölcsteológiában –, hanem hiteltelenné tette a pacifistát, akinek az egyházi tekintélyek által igazságosnak minősített háborúval szembeni magatartását az isteni parancsolat megtagadásává sikerült torzítani. (…) Az ágostoni tanításban még ennél is kártékonyabb volt a logikai kapcsolat, amely létrejött az „isteni parancsra vívott háború” gondolata és a pogányok megtérítése, illetve az eretnekek megsemmisítése – a „kényszeríts bejőni mindenkit, hogy megteljék az én házam” szindróma – között. Az erőszak nemcsak létjogot nyert, de különösen dicséretes erénnyé lényegült, ha azokkal szemben alkalmazták, akik másféle hitet vallottak – vagy semmilyet.”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity

“A Montaigu Egyetemet gúnyosan csak „Teológia Anya segglyuká”-nak nevezték a párizsiak. Az egyetem ódon volt, roskatag, nyirkos és koszos; az élelmezés felháborító, a hálótermek húgyszagúak, és mindennapos volt a verekedés. Erazmus már huszonhat esztendős volt, és mélységesen gyűlölte az egészet, akárcsak Rabelais, aki azt kívánta, bárcsak égne porig. Két másik alamnus – Loyolai Ignác és Kálvin János – azonban éppen ellenkezőleg: csodálták az intézmény szigorát és egyszerűségét, és nagyszerűen érezték magukat az egyetemen; íme egy igazi és komoly szakadék a 16. századi humanisták és puritánok között. Az egyetem a vallás mechanikus oldalát hangsúlyozta. A Louvain Egyetemen, ahol Erazmus szintén eltöltött némi időt, 1493-ban még hosszan vitázott arról a tanári kar és a diákság, hogy négy, egymást követő napon elmondott ötperces ima nagyobb eséllyel talál-e meghallgatást, mint egyetlen, húszperces fohász, meg arról, hogy egy tízperces, tíz emberért mondott ima hatékonyabb-e, mint tíz egyperces. A vita nyolc héten át tartott, tehát tovább, mint amennyi idő alatt Kolumbusz Kristóf 1492-ben, vagyis egy évvel korábban Amerikába ért.”
― Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity