Toronto School of Theology Historical Department Wycliffe College University of Toronto. WYH 1010: History of Christianity I (to A.D.

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1 Toronto School of Theology Historical Department Wycliffe College University of Toronto WYH 1010: History of Christianity I (to A.D. 843), Fall 2008 Instructor: Dr. Gary Graber g.graber.history@hotmail.com COURSE DESCRIPTION This online course covers topics from the sub-apostolic age to the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the East, and the Carolingian revival and Treaty of Verdun in the West. Some of these topics include geographical expansion of the church; the relation of Christian faith to cultural settings and other religions; the development of doctrinal and ethical positions; forms of Christian life and worship; the rise of Islam. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Students are required to contribute to online discussions (see website information, below), write three short essays, and prepare one short final project. The first short essay is due on Sept. 15, on the topic of Perpetua. Students may choose the topics (and their corresponding due dates) of the other two short essays. Each of these course components (i.e. online contribution, each essay, and the final project) will be worth 20% of the final mark. See Assignments section below for more detail. TEXTBOOKS We will be using two textbooks for this course. Both are available from Crux, Wycliffe s bookstore. (1) Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity (Harper, 1984). (2) Alan L. Hayes, Church and Society in Documents A.D. (Canadian Scholars Press, 1995). WEBSITE INFORMATION Course content: This is a public website. Course administration, discussion boards, etc.: Blackboard, via: This is a password protected website. COURSE DESIGN This online course was authored by Dr. Alan Hayes, of Wycliffe College. I am indebted to him for the use of this online course material, and the template for this syllabus. SCHEDULE FOR FALL, 2008 This is the basic schedule we will be following for the course, which is subject to minor change up until the course begins. KEY: Week Of = The week containing the Monday in question; e.g. Sept. 8 refers to the week of Monday, Sept. 8 through Sunday, Sept. 14, Unless otherwise noted, a due date falling in a specific week will be the Monday. Example: Essay #1 (Perpetua) is due on Monday, Sept. 15. WP = Web Page course content found at TOPIC = (T) refers to the online discussion Topic from the Hayes text for that week; (W) refers to web page material topic HDR = The online Discussion Reading assignment for the week, drawn from the Hayes text. The number following HDR is the Chapter in Hayes containing the assignment. Example: For week of Sept. 15, HDR5 indicates the discussion for that week will focus on Chapter 5 of Hayes (Perpetua).

2 GT = Gonzales Text. The numbers following GT indicate the pages in the Gonzalez text that should be read that week. Example: For the week of October 6-12, you should read pages of Gonzalez. No reading is expected before the first class, but students who are able to read before September 8 the webpages and document listed for that day will find them helpful background. TBA = To be announced. Week Of WP Topic Source readings Sept (W) a. Reading history b. The persecutions: HDR1. Pliny-Trajan Reasons and results Sept (T) Perpetua: A North African Case Study HDR5.Perpetua (W) a. Various faces of the Christian GT movement; b. Greeks and Jews Sept (T) Justin s Second Apology HDR4. Justin (W) Church authority GT Sept. 29 (T) The Gospel of Thomas HDR3. Thomas (W) Church order GT Oct (T) Hippolytus: An early Church order HDR6. Hippolytus (W) a. The first Christian empire GT b. Scriptural interpretation Oct ,19 (T) Origen and the Bible HDR7. Origen (W) a. Eastern Christianity in the fourth and GT , fifth centuries; b. The making of Chalcedonian Christianity Oct. 20 [Reading week; no class] Oct (T) Chrysostom and the Bible HDR12. Chrysostom (W) a. Western Christianity in the fourth GT and fifth centuries; b. Augustine and others Nov (T) Augustine, Confessions Confessions, Books II, III (W) Holiness and spirituality Nov (T) Simeon: An extreme ascetic HDR17. Simeon (W) The early western Middle Ages Nov (T) Patrick: An evangelist to barbarians HDR15. Patrick (W) Islam and Christianity, and their mutual GT , impact & TBA Nov (T) The Donation of Constantine TBA (W) a. Charlemagne and his empire GT & b. Icons and the Triumph of Orthodoxy TBA Dec. 1 (T) The synodikon of Orthodoxy and the TBA canon of the synodikon Dec. 8 Final Project due

3 ASSIGNMENTS 1. Essay #1. Everyone must write their first essay on the topic of Perpetua (See Hayes, Ch. 5). This essay is worth 20% of the course mark. The essay should be three or four pages, double-spaced, on the primary source reading in Hayes, Church and Society in Documents, A.D , chapter 5, which is Perpetua s diary as introduced by an anonymous ancient editor. (Don t write about Hayes introduction to this, and don t make reference to other secondary source material. This is due September 15. See Hayes, Documents, pp. xi ff., for instructions. Particularly, please understand what a thesis statement is, and incorporate one into your essay; essays lacking a thesis statement will miss the objective of the assignment. Please write me if you are unclear about what is expected in your essay! Essay #2 and #3. You select the topic for Essay #2 and Essay #3. Each of these essays is worth 20% each of the course mark, and their format should be the same as noted above. Once you choose a topic, that essay is due on the Monday that topic is being discussed online. For example, if you choose to write about Justin s Second Apology, that essay is due on Sept. 22; if you choose to write on Simeon, that essay is due on Nov Weekly Online Discussions. During the semester, you will need to log in to Blackboard and take part in the online discussions each week. I will pose discussion questions to get the ball rolling each week. The topic of the discussion for the week is indicated by the HDR information in the course schedule above. For example, for the week of Nov. 17 to Nov.23, the online discussion will be on Ch. 15 of Hayes (Patrick). Your participation in the weekly online discussions is worth 20% of the final mark. 5. Final Project. The final project is essentially an open book final examination, where I provide you with a list of names/events/ideas taken from Gonzalez, and you will identify, in your own words, these names/events/ideas. For example: If Constantine is on the final, you d need to identify who he was, what his significance (according to Gonzalez) was, and so on. In addition, there may be some short answer questions that require you to connect the dots from what Gonzalez has said. Example: What persecution does Gonzales say was the worst for the Church? Briefly discuss the salient points of this persecution. These will be short answers, but I will be looking for answers that are accurate but not copied from the text. The final is worth 20% of the final mark. I will provide more information about the final project during the semester. PURPOSES OF THE SHORT ESSAYS The first purpose of the short papers is to give you practice in interpreting documents in their historical context. That means asking questions such as these for each document: who (what kind of person) wrote it? for what audience? for what reason? at what time and in what place? with what effect? What are the author s theological, cultural, and other premises? What particular issues concern the author? Why did the author choose this particular genre of writing? Needless to say, documents do not provide sure answers to all these questions, or to the other questions which you might ask of the document. Sometimes the document provides no data to answer the question at all; often it provides ambiguous data that can be interpreted variously. A second purpose is to help you develop skills of expository writing, particularly historical writing. A third purpose is to help you develop skills of pastoral listening. One historian (Butterfield) says that a primary tool of the historian is a sympathetic imagination. Strive (like a pastoral counsellor!) to understand historical figures and their times from the inside. In this sense, God, who alone knoweth the very secrets of the heart, is the only true historian. Before writing your first essay, please read Writing a Short Essay in Hayes, pp. xi xiv. This is very important. Above all, structure the paper with a thesis statement (not a mere statement of intention or general theme) in the introduction, and an exposition which develops, clarifies, and demonstrates the thesis statement, using primary evidence. An essay that simply summarizes the reading, or make general observations outside the context of a thesis statement and defence, has missed the object of the assignment and will receive a correspondingly appropriate mark (e.g. B- or lower). Your essay should provide a thesis statement near its beginning, with the bulk of the essay providing evidence supporting your thesis.

4 PURPOSE OF ONLINE DISCUSSION Besides demonstrating that you have indeed read the assigned material, contributing to each week s online discussion allows an exchange of ideas that should benefit everyone. PURPOSE OF THE FINAL PROJECT The final assignment will enable you to interact with the Gonzalez text, which covers the historical highlights of the period. We ll try and structure the questions so that students who have kept up on their reading through the semester will be able to answer everything relatively quickly, since they will have had time to ponder the points that Gonzalez makes. COMMUNICATION AND TURNING IN ASSIGNMENTS I will monitor and contribute the online discussions, and be available to discuss online or over the phone any questions you may have about the course or the assignments. I prefer you attach your assignments in to me, in Word or WordPerfect if possible. DUE DATES Extensions are not casually granted. However, in the case of an emergency (i.e. hospitalization, not just a sore throat!), contact me as soon as possible for arrangements. An essay or assignment that is to me after the stated due date will be regarded as late, and may be penalized. BLACKBOARD INSTRUCTIONS Logging in to your Blackboard Course Website Like many other courses, WYH1010HF uses Blackboard for its course website. To access the WYH1010HF website, or any other Blackboard-based course website, go to the UofT portal login page at and login using your UTORid and password. Once you have logged in to the portal using your UTORid and password, look for the My Courses module, where you ll find the link to the WYH1010HF course website along with the link to all your other Blackboard-based courses. (Your course registration with ROSI gives you access to the course website at Blackboard.) Note also the information at LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE 1. Students who are successful in the course will develop skills in the historiographical criticism of primary sources. (Engaging texts critically and thinking historically are essential activities of Christian ministry and scholarship.) The following are questions of historiographical criticism: Who (or what kind of person) wrote the document? And for what audience? (In the case of official documents, what institutional process generated the document?) For what reason? At what time and in what place? With what intended effect? What are the author s theological, cultural, and other premises? What particular issues seem to concern the author? Why did the author choose this particular genre of writing? Does the document show signs of being edited? If so, is it possible to distinguish the author s premises, purposes, and historical context from the editor s? 2. Students should aim to learn the basic elements of early and early medieval Christianity. Specifically, students will be able to identify the major figures, the most important primary sources, and the major historiographical interpretations of the following themes in early Christian history. For the period A.D., (1) the partial transition of Christianity from Jewish soil to Gentile soil;

5 Christ? (2) alternative ways in which Christians related their faith to their diverse cultural contexts; (3) the need for the Church to organize itself, and some of its ways of dong so; (4) the ways in which early Christians, orthodox and heretical, answered the question, Who is Jesus For the period , (1) the consequences of the legalization of Christianity; (2) the major controversies (Donatism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Pelagianism) what was at stake in them, the theologians who debated them, and the ways they were disputed; (3) the major ascetic movements, and their contribution to Christian thought and life; (4) the transition of Christianity from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. For the period , (1) the differences and commonalities, tensions and mutual influences among the three major cultures of the Mediterranean world in this period, viz., western Christian, eastern Christian, and Islamic; (2) the Europeanization of Christianity (and the Christianization of Europe); (3) the major controversies, particularly the iconoclastic controversy; (4) the major theories and practices of the exercise of religious authority in eastern Christianity and western Christianity. For all three periods, (1) the worship and spirituality of ordinary Christians in the various regions of the Mediterranean world, and (2) the social and political dynamics of Church order, including the role of minorities. CONTACT INFORMATION Gary Graber Wycliffe College