Brandi Cruz History 200A Dr.

Arvanigian Essay 2 30 October 2011

The Affects of the Rise of Christianity and the Decline of Rome On Historical Writing

In late antiquities, important historical writers such as Polybius utilized a scientific approach to their writings. While Polybius was Greek, he wrote about the history of Rome with the intentions of a universal readership of not only Greeks but also other cultures under the dominance of Rome such as the Spaniards and the Carthaginians. His detached logic or lack of xenophobia meant that he embraced Roman expansion and his message to others was to accept the colonization of Rome. 1 It also meant that Polybius was empirically inclined in his writings because he examined the strengths of Romes balanced constitution with regards to its internal structures and procedures. Writers such as Polybius, Livy, and Tacitus set the tone for other historians who were writing about Rome. As a result, historical documentation consisted of heroes, battles, and the republic.2 History was presented as having no unityprior to the Punic Wars.3 Also, it was considered cyclic in nature and like the empire, history was seen as endless because philosophers argued it repeated after the passage of thousands of years.4 The rise of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire created a societal crisis, which caused shifts in historiographical writing that influenced medieval chronicles. The change in writing was partially instigated by the beginning of Christianity. It was seen as a threat to the continuity of the Roman Empire because it weakened the states support by dividing its citizens. 5 According to Breisach, Christians refused to take part in the pagan

1 2

Dr. Arvanigian, History 200A Seminar, 10/17/2011. Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, third edition (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007), 108. 3 Eva Matthews Sanford, The Study of Ancient History in the Middle Ages, Journal of the History of Ideas 5, no. 1 (January 1914): 21. 4 Breisach, 108. 5 Breisach, 108.

celebrations despite their being Roman traditions`. As a result, Romans blamed Christians for the empires decline. Christian refusal was based on the belief that history was linear and broken into the specific stages of Creation, Fall, and Redemption.6 According to Breisach, Christians did not wholly reject a cyclical concept because they believed in a cycle that began with sin and finished with restoration.7 However, their belief was not one of limitlessness since history was moving towards a distinct end that would not be repeated once it concluded. Also, unlike certain Greek and Roman historians, Christian historians did not search for truths in cause and effect but instead they believed God created the connection that spanned between the two testaments through means that only his followers understood.8 This initial shift from classical history to Christian writing was a result in the decline of the Roman state. The instability of Rome meant that in the midst of radical and seemingly endless change Christians would have to formulate histories in order to preserve the continuity of past, present, and future.9 They had to develop their own historical schemes in the place of those offered by the Roman state, which were based on principals that conflicted with their religious beliefs. In part, the cause for instability was due to the initial invasions and subsequent migrations of Germanic tribes like the Visigoths, who sacked and burned Rome in 410 BC.10 Another reason for the decline of Rome was the impoverishment of the state.11 Lastly, instability was furthered by the end of the Pax Romana, which had once assured the Roman Empire of widespread support.12 Furthering the shift in historical writing is the understanding that for Christians, the Bible rather than classical historians was the ultimate authority on history. As a result, they heavily emphasized the presence of a right interpretation of the Bible as well as the purity of the translated document; the importance of which influenced the sanctity of Christian tradition.13 However, their belief in a religious history did not prevent them from utilizing other sources for information. Early Christians were also interested in learning about the people and places
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R.W. Southern, Presidential Address Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St. Victor th and the Idea of Historical Development, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 21, 5 ser. (1971): 159. 7 Breisach, 108. 8 Breisach, 110. 9 Breisach, 107. 10 Breisach, 116. 11 Breisach, 107. 12 Breisach, 102. 13 Breisach, 109.

mentioned within the scriptures. They read earlier historians, who focused on Near Eastern history like Josephuss work on Jewish history. They used his writings as a commentary to the Bible in order to provide historical context to fill in gaps in understanding created by wholes within the texts.14 However, despite their admiration for classic historians like Livy, their limited understanding of the Greek language and the lack of available texts from Roman historians further restricted the types of sources they used in their study of biblical history. 15 Also, while addressing issues of accuracy and truth, authors also dealt with difficulties in chronology. According to Breisach, since documents like the Old Testament did not necessarily have dates to accompany events succession in time was indicated by temporal words (then, after, soon) and by the passage of generations. A narrative which stayed primarily within one culture needed no more.16 As a result, writers had trouble placing certain moments in time into chronological order, which made creating documents based on timelines problematic. Certain Christian writers such as Eusebius of Cesara attempted to address the issue of time by creating such documents as chronological canons for the church, that borrowed material from Hellenistic historians in order to produce more complete chronologies through the addition of time-tables and yearsas other nations became prominent.17 Later chroniclers like Jerome would produce versions of Eusebiuss works with the intention of further fixing the problems with chronology; however, Eva Sanford argues that Eusebiuss Chronica and Jeromes Latin translation caused more confusion than they fixed.18 Yet, from 400 to 650 AD, chroniclers such as Gregory of Tours used Jeromes version of Eusebius as the definitive order of events.19 Chronological problems also meant that calculating biblical age was made difficult. As a result, other Christian chroniclers emphasized the use of phases like the six world ages or the four world empires for periodization, a concept inherit in the Christian understanding of linear movement from creation to the last judgment. Christian writings underwent further changes with St. Augustines City of God. After the burning of Rome by the Visigoths and the empire facing destruction, St. Augustine argued against making a connection between providence (the City of God) and the physical (the Earthly
14 15

Dr. Arvanigian, History 200A Seminar, 11/21/2011. Sanford, 22. 16 Breisach, 112. 17 Breisach, 113. 18 Sanford, 25. 19 Breisach, 123.

City) such as the city of Rome. 20 His reasoning was that the Earthly City was imperfect as well as fallible and by making such a connection Christianity was weakened because people would question its authority in moments of crises. Also, Christianity was considered universal because it crossed state boundaries, which means that its history was universal and allowed for writers to utilize works from historians separated through time and space but in order to be universal it could not be tied to a specific state. According to Breisach, Augustine redefined the relationship between the sacred and profane throughout time because he argued Christians, who studied the past, must always sort out and try to understand those events which had a direct bearing on the status of the City of God whereas the Earthly City was both unstable and held no meaning because it was subject to constant change.21 However, St. Augustines key contribution to history, which influenced later chronicle writings, was the understanding of divine intervention and that God is a part of history.22 He outlined a simple system of development based on the six days of Creation from the book of Genesis. Augustine believed that the creation story foreshadowed the six ages of history, and the seventh day of rest corresponded to the eternity beyond the end of history.23 However, while Augustine argued that St. Mathews Gospel defined the boundaries of at least three of the stages, he did not fully clarify the division between the ages. It was not until the British chronicler Bede, who agreed with Augustines argument of six separate ages, that features of each of the ages were stipulated and Bede went further to introduce into their structure an element of autonomous development.24 The synthesis Bede created with Augustines work not only solidified the six stages but furthered instigated the use of stages in chronicle writing. The changes in writing that occurred during the transitional period where Christianity was gaining control and the Roman Empire was declining were the result of different factors. For example, the foundation of Christian beliefs changed the perception of history to a linear movement with a distinct end. Also, the decline of the Roman Empire pushed Christian writers to develop a new means of indicating continuity, which in turn led to the addressing of issues in purity of tradition, translation, and text by striving for accuracy as well as truth. In addition, Christian authors development of a universal history and the drive for chronological
20 21

Dr. Arvanigian, History 200A Seminar, 10/24/2011. Breisach, 117. 22 Dr. Arvanigian, History 200A Seminar, 11/21/2011. 23 Southern, 161. 24 Southern, 161.

improvement presented a religious oriented writing tradition, that continued to change over time and influence medieval chroniclers. The profound works of early Christian writers and chroniclers such as Eusebius, St. Augustine, and Bede guided other authors in the use of periodization and their approaches to documenting biblical history.