(P/B) THE CLOSING OF THE WESTERN MIND

Παρουσίαση

The conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 368 AD brought a transformation to Christianity and to western civilization, the effects of which we still feel today. Previously, the Roman empire had absorbed and sustained the Greek intellectual tradition which, in the astronomy of Ptolemy, the medicine of Galen and the philosophy of Plotinus, reached new heights. Constantine turned Rome from the relatively open, tolerant and pluralistic civilisation of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority. The century after Constantine's conversion saw the development of an alliance between church and state which stifled freedom of thought and the tradition of Greek rationalism which was intrinsic to it. The churches enjoyed enormous patronage and exemptions from tax, and in return allowed the emperors to take on the definition and enforcement of an increasingly narrow religious orthodoxy. This book explores how the European mind was closed by the revolution of the fourth century. It looks at the rise of the 'divine' monarch, the struggle as Christianity painfully separated itself from Judaism, the conflict between faith and reason, and the problems in finding any kind of rational basis for Christian theology. In these centuries, a turning-point for Western civilisation, we see the development of Christian anti-Semitism, the origins of the opposition of religion and science and the roots of Christianity's discomfort with sex, issues which haunt the Christian churches to this day. The "Closing of the Western Mind" is a major work of history. Wide-ranging and ambitious, its central theme is the relationship between the two wellsprings of our civilisation, the Judaeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman, and how the tensions between them have created the culture in which we continue to live, think and believe. (from the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Map of the Roman Empire
Introduction
Terminology and Sources
Picture Acknowledgements
CHAPTER ONE:
Thomas Aquinas and 'The Triumph of Faith'
CHAPTER TWO: The Quest for Certainty
CHAPTER THREE: The Quest for Virtue
CHAPTER FOUR:
Changing Political Contexts: Alexander and the Coming of the Hellenistic Monarchies
CHAPTER FIVE:
Absorbing the East, Rome and the Integration of Greek Culture
CHAPTER SIX:
'All nations look to the majesty of Rome': The Roman Empire at its Height
CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Empire in Crisis, the Empire in Recovery: Political Transformations in the Third Century
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Jesus
CHAPTER NINE:
Paul, 'the founder of Christianity'?
CHAPTER TEN:
'A crowd that lurks in corners, shunning the light:
The First Christian Communities
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Constantine and the Coming of the Christian State
CHAPTER TWELVE:
'But what I wish, that must be the canon':
Emperors and the Making of Christian Doctrine
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
'Enriched by the gifts of matrons': Bishops and
Society in the Fourth Century
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Six Emperors and a Bishop: Ambrose of Milan
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Interlude: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and the Defence of Paganism
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Ascetic Odyssey
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Eastern Christianity and the Emergence of the Byzantine Empire,
395-600
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Emergence of Catholic Christianity in the
West, 395-640
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
'We honour the privilege of silence which is without peril': The Death of the Greek Empirical Tradition
CHAPTER TWENTY:
Thomas Aquinas and the Restoration of Reason
Epilogue
Notes
Modem Works Cited in the Text and Notes
Index