Early Christian Writings Final Exam Review

Final Exam -- Study Guide Early Christian Writings 1. **Early Christian Monasticism** a. [Key Terms\ ] i. [Asceticism] -- any form of exercise or training often associated with Greco-Roman philosophers and those attempting to maintain or develop spi...

Final Exam -- Study Guide Early Christian Writings 1. **Early Christian Monasticism** a. [Key Terms\ ] i. [Asceticism] -- any form of exercise or training often associated with Greco-Roman philosophers and those attempting to maintain or develop spiritual or religious status. 1. Can be positive (as in adding something i.e. physical beatings or physical exercise or eating bitter foods) 2. Can be negative ( as in taking something away like food, sleep, sex, alcohol. 3. Can be total or partial 4. Temporary or only for a period of time. ii. [Monasticism] 5. From the word monochos -- which means withdrawal 6. Any person who withdraws from society to live separately in order to pursue an alternative usually religious life 7. For Christianity this hits its stride in the 3^rd^ and 4^th^ centuries in Egypt. 8. Monks generally lived with harsh ascetic lifestyles a. Greatly restricted diets i. Long periods of fasting b. No family or sex c. Long prayer routines and arduous habits 9. Monks could be either solitary (hermit) or communal ( living together in what we call a monastery. 10. All monks are ascetics, but NOT all ascetics are monks. b. [Key Texts\ ] iii. [Evagrius -- Praktikos ] 11. Need you to know some of the eight deadly sins that Evagrius names d. Gluttony e. Lust f. Greed g. Sadness h. Anger i. Vainglory j. Pride k. Acedia (noonday demon -- untranslatable 12. You need to know that for Evagrius demons are mostly internal states of the mind and soul that afflict the body rather than physical and actual beings. 13. You need to know that for Evagrius the ultimate state of the human being and the goal of Christian life is apatheia or passionlessness l. The only correct passion / love / desire is for God. http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/01\_Prak/00a\_start.htm iv. [Life of Antony\ ] 14. Written by Athanasius about Antony m. Not clear how well he knew what he was talking about 15. Need to know some of the general details of the Antony's life described by Athanasius n. How he came to start being a monk o. The story of his spiritual development ii. What he had to do iii. How long (roughly) it took iv. What he did with relation to demons v. The big fight in the tomb vi. The miracles he peforms after the fight vii. The perfection he exudes p. The status of demons in the Life of Antony viii. Real and physical or metaphorical and spiritual 16. Purpose of the text q. Are readers supposed to become Antony? r. What is the significance of Athanasius receiving the mantle of antony 17. Key ideas s. Humans can through great pains grow into near perfection t. The world must be rejected so that God can be accepted. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2811.htm 2. **Major Teachers of Christian Doctrine** c. [Augustine of Hippo\ ] v. Key ideas 18. Original Sin u. Derives from his reading of Genesis in which Adam and Eve made a catastrophic decision that burdens all of humanity with a deep and unchangeable (at least for humans) guilt. v. Human nature is distorted because of original sin. w. Humans are born with it and it destroys their free will because humans are born slaves to their desire as a result of original sin 19. Grace x. Humans can only be rescued from their condition of original sin by the divine bestowing of grace. y. This grace is double insofar as you need grace to desire god and you need grace to pursue a reorientation of your will towards god rather than itself. 20. Judgment z. All humans under the yoke of original sin deserve eternal damnation and punishment a. There are no exceptions, and innocence (even of babies) does not alleviate the responsibility all humans share for original sin. b. As such only those bestowed with God's double grace will be saved, all others doomed to suffer eternally. 21. Sin c. For Augustine, sin is more of a state of being than a particular ethical action. ix. You are sin, it's less that you do sin. d. Even people who do good things in this world are merely serving themselves and their desires rather than God. e. Good works and good ethics do NOT save the human being; only God can. 22. Pleasure and Happiness f. Even things that seem and feel good in this world are NOT good because, ultimately, they are distractions from God. g. So human attachments to one another (i.e. love) are ultimately problematic and evil insofar as they distract from God. 23. Evil h. Evil is no thing / nothing. i. Evil is what happens when humans turn away from God. d. [Origen of Alexandria\ ] vi. [Key Ideas\ ] 24. All living things started from God, and therefore, all living things must ultimately be returned to God. j. This idea is called apokatastasis panton or the restoration of all k. This means Origen believes in universal salvation x. Or the idea that all human beings must ultimately be saved. l. Even satan and demons are saved because through eons of teaching by God they will no longer be the same beings they became. 25. All living things started as minds in Genesis 1, and then in Genesis 2 all living things became distracted to varying degrees. The degree to which they fell determined what kind of body and what kind of circumstances they exist in. They then fell to the status of soul and finally the status of body. They can be restored to the status of minds over eons. 26. Jesus is simply a mind that never got distracted but took on a body anyway m. This idea is later deemed heresy after the councils. 27. Humans do not suffer from original sin; our nature is not corrupted; it can and will be restored. 28. Humans are still punished for bad actions, as are all beings, because if they take bad actions, they move farther from the goal of being restored, and it takes them longer, and they suffer more. 29. Hell is only temporary and serves a teaching function. 30. Pharoah has free will because God acted the same to him as God does to all, it is pharaoh who responded differently to God that caused his heart to be hardened. 31. Scripture itself has layers of meaning that often go well beyond the literal letter. The reading of scripture helps us to return to God as do other things (i.e. ethical actions, imitation of Christ, the sacraments, etc. ) 32. Before the end of time, all living beings will voluntarily choose to be returned to Christ; they will do this because it is in our nature, and it is what everyone wants whether they know it or not. 33. The purpose of Christ was to model the return. 34. Being made firey is an analogy to being close to the presence or Holy Spirit of God. 35. In the end all of us will become God or equal to christ. 36. Understand his view of Free will and interpretation of the Pharaoh event