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Christianity
Article Free Pass- Introduction
- The church and its history
- The essence and identity of Christianity
- The history of Christianity
- The primitive church
- The internal development of the early Christian Church
- Relations between Christianity and the Roman government and the Hellenistic culture
- The early liturgy, the calendar, and the arts
- The alliance between church and empire
- Theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries
- Liturgy and the arts after Constantine
- Political relations between East and West
- Literature and art of the “Dark Ages”
- Missions and monasticism
- The Photian schism and the great East–West schism
- From the schism to the Reformation
- Christianity from the 16th to the 20th century
- Contemporary Christianity
- Christian doctrine
- The nature and functions of doctrine
- Scripture and tradition: the apostolic witness
- Evangelism: the first teaching about the God of Jesus Christ
- Catechesis: instructing candidates for baptism
- Liturgy: the school and feast of faith
- Ethics: obeying the truth
- Aversion of heresy: the establishment of orthodoxy
- Apologetics: defending the faith
- Restatement: respecting language and knowledge
- Inculturation: respecting places and peoples
- Dogma: the most authoritative teaching
- Consensus: patterns of agreement
- Theology: loving God with the mind
- Symbolics: creeds and confessions
- Development: the maturation of understanding
- Schism: division over substantial matters
- Controversy: fighting over the faith
- Ecumenism: speaking the truth in love
- God the Father
- God the Son
- God the Holy Spirit
- The Holy Trinity
- Anthropology
- What it is to be human
- The human as a creature
- The human as the image of God
- Human redemption
- The problem of suffering
- The resurrection of the body
- Progressive human perfection
- The “new man”: The human being in the light of Christ
- The “reborn human”
- Human liberation
- Joy in human existence
- The charismatic believer
- Christian perfection
- Fellow humans as the present Christ
- The church
- Church tradition
- Eschatology
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in early Christianity
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the medieval and Reformation periods
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the post-Reformation period
- The role of imminent expectation in missions and emigrations
- Eschatological expectations and secularization
- Concepts of life after death
- Aspects of the Christian religion
- Christian philosophy
- Christian mysticism
- Christian myth and legend
- The Christian community and the world
- The relationships of Christianity
- Christian missions
- Ecumenism
- Christianity and world religions
- Related
- Contributors & Bibliography
- Year in Review Links
- Introduction
- The church and its history
- The essence and identity of Christianity
- The history of Christianity
- The primitive church
- The internal development of the early Christian Church
- Relations between Christianity and the Roman government and the Hellenistic culture
- The early liturgy, the calendar, and the arts
- The alliance between church and empire
- Theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries
- Liturgy and the arts after Constantine
- Political relations between East and West
- Literature and art of the “Dark Ages”
- Missions and monasticism
- The Photian schism and the great East–West schism
- From the schism to the Reformation
- Christianity from the 16th to the 20th century
- Contemporary Christianity
- Christian doctrine
- The nature and functions of doctrine
- Scripture and tradition: the apostolic witness
- Evangelism: the first teaching about the God of Jesus Christ
- Catechesis: instructing candidates for baptism
- Liturgy: the school and feast of faith
- Ethics: obeying the truth
- Aversion of heresy: the establishment of orthodoxy
- Apologetics: defending the faith
- Restatement: respecting language and knowledge
- Inculturation: respecting places and peoples
- Dogma: the most authoritative teaching
- Consensus: patterns of agreement
- Theology: loving God with the mind
- Symbolics: creeds and confessions
- Development: the maturation of understanding
- Schism: division over substantial matters
- Controversy: fighting over the faith
- Ecumenism: speaking the truth in love
- God the Father
- God the Son
- God the Holy Spirit
- The Holy Trinity
- Anthropology
- What it is to be human
- The human as a creature
- The human as the image of God
- Human redemption
- The problem of suffering
- The resurrection of the body
- Progressive human perfection
- The “new man”: The human being in the light of Christ
- The “reborn human”
- Human liberation
- Joy in human existence
- The charismatic believer
- Christian perfection
- Fellow humans as the present Christ
- The church
- Church tradition
- Eschatology
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in early Christianity
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the medieval and Reformation periods
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the post-Reformation period
- The role of imminent expectation in missions and emigrations
- Eschatological expectations and secularization
- Concepts of life after death
- Aspects of the Christian religion
- Christian philosophy
- Christian mysticism
- Christian myth and legend
- The Christian community and the world
- The relationships of Christianity
- Christian missions
- Ecumenism
- Christianity and world religions
- Related
- Contributors & Bibliography
- Year in Review Links
The ages of the world
By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God’s dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that reworked Indo-Iranian notions about the ages of the world, influencing Christian views of time, history, and human destiny. The prophet Zoroaster (c. 628 bc–c. 551) and his followers in Iran taught that there were four ages of the world; each age was a different phase in the struggle between two kinds of powers—light and darkness, goodness and evil, spirit and matter, infinity and finitude, health and sickness, time and eternity. The forces of good and evil battled for the allegiance and the souls of human beings. In the last days a promised saviour (Saoshyant) would pronounce final judgment and announce the coming of a new world without end in which truth, immortality, and righteousness would have everlasting reign.
Drawing on Jewish apocalyptic literature (exemplified in the Book of Daniel), early Christian apocalypse (exemplified in the Book of Revelation) elaborated the theme of the ages of the world as a series of historical periods in which good struggles against evil: (1) from the creation of the world and of humanity to the Fall into sin and out of Eden; (2) from the Fall to the first coming of Christ; (3) from the first to the second advent of Christ, which includes the 1,000-year reign of Christ and his saints and the Last Judgment; and (4) the creation of a new heaven and a new earth in which those who have chosen the good (i.e., Christ) will live in eternity. Within this framework of the mythical history of the ages of the world, Christian apocalyptic re-envisions a number of themes important to Jewish apocalypticism: the Son of man and the great tribulation prior to the judgment of the world; the battle between Christ and the Antichrist, a false messiah or “great liar” who denies that Jesus is the Christ and who pitches the world into moral confusion and physical chaos; and the ultimate triumph over Satan, who appears as a dragon but who no longer deceives the nations of the world.
The theme of the ages of the world has had a long and fruitful life in Christian thought and undergirds many Western concepts of progress toward a better state of existence or of decline toward extinction. Montanus, a heretical Christian prophet of the early 2nd century, claimed that history progressed from an age of the Father to an age of the Son to an age of the Holy Spirit, of whom Montanus was the manifestation. Such apocalyptic myths underlie not only the religious theories of a multistage history, as propagated by Joachim of Fiore, Martin Luther, the early Jesuits, Christopher Columbus (in his Book of Prophecies), and Giambattista Vico, but also the more secular philosophies of history developed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Henri de Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Schelling, and Karl Marx.
-
People
- (German theologian and church historian)"/> (German theologian and church historian)"/> Adolf von Harnack (German theologian and church historian)
- al-Ḥākim (Fāṭimid caliph)
- (Flemish theologian)"/> (Flemish theologian)"/> Cornelius Otto Jansen (Flemish theologian)
- (king of Scotland)"/> (king of Scotland)"/> David I (king of Scotland)
- (Dutch humanist and scholar)"/> (Dutch humanist and scholar)"/> Desiderius Erasmus (Dutch humanist and scholar)
- Elaine Pagels (American scholar)
- (German theologian)"/> (German theologian)"/> Ernst Troeltsch (German theologian)
- (German theologian)"/> (German theologian)"/> Ferdinand Christian Baur (German theologian)
- (king of Denmark)"/> (king of Denmark)"/> Harald I (king of Denmark)
- (Bohemian religious leader)"/> (Bohemian religious leader)"/> Jan Hus (Bohemian religious leader)
- (Czech philosopher)"/> (Czech philosopher)"/> Jerome Of Prague (Czech philosopher)
- Jesus Christ
- (English philosopher)"/> (English philosopher)"/> John Locke (English philosopher)
- John Toland (British author)
- (Mohawk chief)"/> (Mohawk chief)"/> Joseph Brant (Mohawk chief)
- (Spanish architect)"/> (Spanish architect)"/> Juan de Herrera (Spanish architect)
- Keshab Chunder Sen (Hindu philosopher and social reformer)
- (German religious philosopher)"/> (German religious philosopher)"/> Martin Buber (German religious philosopher)
- Martin E. Marty (American historian of religion)
- (mother of Jesus)"/> (mother of Jesus)"/> Mary (mother of Jesus)
- Mary Hannah Fulton (American physician and missionary)
- Matthias Flacius Illyricus (European religious reformer)
- Michael Psellus (Byzantine philosopher, theologian, and statesman)
- (Italian artist)"/> (Italian artist)"/> Michelozzo (Italian artist)
- Mieszko I (duke and prince of Poland)
- Minh Mang (emperor of Vietnam)
- (Danish bishop and poet)"/> (Danish bishop and poet)"/> N.F.S. Grundtvig (Danish bishop and poet)
- (German religious leader)"/> (German religious leader)"/> Nikolaus Ludwig, count von Zinzendorf (German religious leader)
- Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev (Russian philosopher)
- Olaf I Tryggvason (king of Norway)
- Olaf II Haraldsson (king of Norway)
- Pelagius (Christian theologian)
- (American theologian)"/> (American theologian)"/> Philip Schaff (American theologian)
- (French philosopher)"/> (French philosopher)"/> Pierre Bayle (French philosopher)
- Pseudo-Dionysius The Areopagite (Syrian author)
- (German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)"/> (German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)"/> Saint Albertus Magnus (German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)
- (Russian painter)"/> (Russian painter)"/> Saint Andrey Rublyov (Russian painter)
- (Christian bishop and theologian)"/> (Christian bishop and theologian)"/> Saint Augustine (Christian bishop and theologian)
- (Anglo-Saxon historian)"/> (Anglo-Saxon historian)"/> Saint Bede the Venerable (Anglo-Saxon historian)
- (Christian Apostle)"/> (Christian Apostle)"/> Saint Paul, the Apostle (Christian Apostle)
- Saint Theophilus of Alexandria (Egyptian theologian)
- Sir Sigmund Sternberg (British philanthropist and entrepreneur)
- (Danish philosopher)"/> (Danish philosopher)"/> Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher)
- (king of Hungary)"/> (king of Hungary)"/> Stephen I (king of Hungary)
- (American missionary and educator)"/> (American missionary and educator)"/> Susan Lincoln Tolman Mills (American missionary and educator)
- Theōdūrus Abū Qurrah (Syrian bishop)
- Tu Duc (emperor of Vietnam)
- (grand prince of Kiev)"/> (grand prince of Kiev)"/> Vladimir I (grand prince of Kiev)
- (prince of Bohemia)"/> (prince of Bohemia)"/> Wenceslas I (prince of Bohemia)
- (British missionary)"/> (British missionary)"/> William Carey (British missionary)
-
Places
- Armageddon (biblical place)
- (ancient city, Israel)"/> (ancient city, Israel)"/> Caesarea (ancient city, Israel)
- (Ireland)"/> (Ireland)"/> Clonmacnoise (Ireland)
- (Spain)"/> (Spain)"/> El Escorial (Spain)
- Le Temple (prison, Paris, France)
- (monasteries, Greece)"/> (monasteries, Greece)"/> Metéora (monasteries, Greece)
- (mosque, Córdoba, Spain)"/> (mosque, Córdoba, Spain)"/> Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba (mosque, Córdoba, Spain)
- (mountain, Greece)"/> (mountain, Greece)"/> Mount Athos (mountain, Greece)
- (ridge, Jerusalem)"/> (ridge, Jerusalem)"/> Mount of Olives (ridge, Jerusalem)
- (Italy)"/> (Italy)"/> Rome (Italy)
- (monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)"/> (monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)"/> San Francesco (monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)
- School of Alexandria (institution, Alexandria, Egypt)
- (ecclesiastical state, Europe)"/> (ecclesiastical state, Europe)"/> Vatican City (ecclesiastical state, Europe)
- (Scotland, United Kingdom)"/> (Scotland, United Kingdom)"/> Whithorn (Scotland, United Kingdom)
-
Topics
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Annunciation (Christianity)
- apocrypha (biblical literature)
- apologetics (Christianity)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Apostle (Christianity)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Ascension (Christianity)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Assumption (Christianity)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> baptism (Christianity)
- (denomination)"/> (denomination)"/> Baptist (denomination)
- (biblical literature)"/> (biblical literature)"/> Beatitude (biblical literature)
- (sacred text)"/> (sacred text)"/> Bible (sacred text)
- biblical literature
- canon law (religion)
- catechism (religious manual)
- (liturgical vessel)"/> (liturgical vessel)"/> chalice (liturgical vessel)
- (doctrine of Christ)"/> (doctrine of Christ)"/> Christology (doctrine of Christ)
- church (Christianity)
- Church Father (Christianity)
- church year (Christianity)
- city mission (Christianity)
- confirmation (Christianity)
- creationism
- (religious symbol)"/> (religious symbol)"/> cross (religious symbol)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> ecumenism (Christianity)
- gospel music
- heresy
- (Jesus Christ)"/> (Jesus Christ)"/> Incarnation (Jesus Christ)
- justification (Christianity)
- kerygma and catechesis (Christian theology)
- Kingdom of God (Christianity)
- Kirishitan (religion)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Last Supper (Christianity)
- (philosophy and theology)"/> (philosophy and theology)"/> logos (philosophy and theology)
- Lord’s Prayer (Christianity)
- (theology)"/> (theology)"/> Mariology (theology)
- ministry (Christianity)
- moral theology
- (biblical literature)"/> (biblical literature)"/> New Testament (biblical literature)
- oratorio (music)
- (religion)"/> (religion)"/> ordination (religion)
- original sin (theology)
- Passion music (vocal music)
- patristic literature (Christianity)
- (Christianity)"/> (Christianity)"/> Protestantism (Christianity)
- Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (biblical criticism)
- Roman Catholicism
- Second Coming (Christianity)
- Sunday school
- theological liberalism (religion)
- tithe (almsgiving)
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