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What kind of person emerges from the Procopius portrayal of Justinian? According to Wikipedia “Procopius was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian’s wars, Procopius became the principal Roman historian of the 6th century, writing the History of the Wars, the Buildings, and the Secret History.”

Procopius begins by describing Justinian’s physical characteristics which aren’t bad, then he describes his personality’s which is bad. When Justinian became Emperor he changed pretty much everything. He basically ruined everything, but has one goal to unify Africa, Italy, Spain, Gaul and Britain with orthodox Christianity.

 

According to Mark’s gospel, what was the main issue dividing Jesus from the leaders of Israel? This past week I have been learning about the book of Mark. Mark is located in the New Testament in the Bible. It is the second and shortest of the four Gospel. In Greek the work Gospel means “good news”. Mark covers from Jesus’s birth to His ascension.  

One of the main issues dividing Jesus from the leaders of Israel is that Jesus was claiming to be the son of God. Whenever Jesus said this they called it blasphemy and became angry. An example of this is Mark 14: 61-64 “Once again the high priest interrogated him: ‘Are you the messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? ‘ Then Jesus answered: ‘I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

One other issue was Jesus’s miracles. Jesus did many miracles including walking on water, casting out demons, healing blind men, lepers, mute people, and feeding hundreds of people from very little food. Basically He could do anything because He was God. One of these miracles is casting out a deaf and dumb spirit in Mark 9: 14-29.

14 And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. 15 Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him. 16 And He asked the scribes, “What are you discussing with them?”

17 Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. 18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”

19 He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.” 20 Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.

21 So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”

And he said, “From childhood. 22 And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” 26 Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

28 And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

29 So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

Mark is a great book and I encourage you to read it.

The process by which Christianity was spread in England. According to BBC, “We tend to associate the arrival of Christianity in Britain with the mission of Augustine in 597 AD. … It began when Roman artisans and traders arriving in Britain spread the story of Jesus along with stories of their Pagan deities.”

Who was the Venerable Bede, and why was he significant? According to The British Library, “Bede was one of the greatest scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period. He produced a large number of works on subjects as varied as science, music, poetry and biblical commentary, but he is most famous for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, one of our best-written sources for early English history”. He was significant because he was a great writer and teacher. He was considered to be the greatest scholar of his time by multiple historians.

How important were the miracles in the book’s account of Jesus’ early ministry? This past week I have been learning about the book of Mark. Mark is located in the New Testament in the Bible. It is the second and shortest of the four Gospel. In Greek the work Gospel means “good news”. Mark covers from Jesus’s birth to His ascension

The miracles . in the Gospels were very important in Jesus’s life and ministry. Jesus healed many people and it wasn’t to be kind, even though it was. He preformed miracles to impact peoples lives, so they would believe in Him. His miracles didn’t just impact people in that time period, but in this one too. One of the miracles can be found in Mark 6: 30-44 feeding the five thousand.

30 Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

33 But a]the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. 35 When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. 36 Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves b]bread; for they have nothing to eat.”

37 But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.”

And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”

38 But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

39 Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties. 41 And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. 42 So they all ate and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish. 44 Now those who had eaten the loaves were c]about five thousand men.

In this miracle Jesus fed five thousand men and that doesn’t include the women and the children. That much people could have been at least ten thousand! Jesus could also do thing like healing the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute, possessed people, and walking on water. He could do anything because he was and is God.  

Discuss the shift in power from the Merovingians to the Carolingians. Why did it occur, and how? The two families, Merovingians and the Carolingians governed over a Germanic and Christian people called the Frank’s. The Merovingian family ruled over the Frank’s from the seventh century to the early eight century, and over the years that family had gone corrupt and problems were starting. Some corrupt practices had come into the church. At this time the Carolingian family help the place of the mayor in the palace and were handling the administrations. At this time Pepin the Short sees the need to legitimize his reign, so he askes the pope if it is good that men with the power have no title and the men with the title have no power. The pope says this isn’t good so he blesses the change of dynasty from the Merovingians to the Carolingians.

 What picture of Charlemagne emerges from Einhard’s biography? According to Wikipedia “Einhard was a Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated servant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his main work is a biography of Charlemagne, the Vita Karoli Magni, ‘one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages.'” In this biography Charlemagne is described as a ruthless warrior and a great military leader. Basically a role model to the soldiers. 

What was Horace’s concept of personal ethical cause and effect? According to Wikipedia “Quintus Horatius Flaccus known in the English-speaking world as Horace was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.” Horace was born on December 8th in the year 65 Bc, And died on November 27 in the year 8BC. Horace wrote many things including the book Odes, “The Art of Poetry.” According to Wikipedia “Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.” In his books Horace writes likes he is talking to you. He writes things that may or may not affect their lives. Horace’s concept of personal ethical cause and effect is the “golden mean.” According to Wikipedia ““The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic maxim “nothing in excess” and emphasized in later Aristotelian philosophy.” 

In the Odes Horace writes a lot about death. He says things like the only major thing in life is death. We can never escape death no matter how hard we try to. It’s the one thing all men have in common. Because of this all men are equal. No one’s life means more than someone else’s. We are all equal. All the riches we have on earth will mean nothing to us once we die. You cannot do anything with those riches once you die. So Horace says to live by the golden mean, the middle way. 

Throughout Odes Horace uses examples of the ant. Proverbs 6: 6-7 says 

6 Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

Death is something that no one can escape no matter how hard you try. So Horace says if you live be the golden mean you will have satisfaction.

Why was Rome significant in the history of Western civilization? According to Wikipedia “The Roman Empire, itself built upon the legacy of other cultures, has had long-lasting influence with broad geographical reach on a great range of cultural aspects, including state institutions, law, cultural values, religious beliefs, technological advances, engineering and language.” 

What was Ovid’s view of the gods’ ethical performance? According to Wikipedia According to Wikipedia, “Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.” Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. Ovid wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people” which is called Ab Urbe Condita. Around 8 BC Augustus banished Ovid to the Black sea. About that same time Ovid started writing a book called Metamorphoses. This book is Ovid’s worldview on how creation happened. 

In most of the stories in the Metamorphoses the main theme is pride. Both the gods and men were prideful. The gods were so prideful that if anyone denied their pride that they would have to face the harsh and cruel consequences. Some of these consequences were bad sanctions. 

One of the stories that has a lot of pride in it is book six. This is called “Rustics changed to frogs”. This story begins when a goddess named Latona gives birth to twins, which are both gods. She becomes very thirsty after giving birth and so she goes to get a drink from a pond. There were some men at the pond and they did not let her pass and get a drink. This is because they thought that if they resisted a god that they would become powerful. This is mans pride. The goddess Latona was also being prideful because she thought as a god that she could do what she wanted when she wanted. She tried multiple times to get a drink and every time they resisted. Finally she was done with them so she prayed that they would become frogs. The men did become frogs after this. It’s crazy that all of this happened over a drink of water. 

In what ways did Christianity represent a departure from the ideals and practices of ancient Greece and Rome? When Christianity spread throughout Greece and Rome many Greeks and Romans became Christians. Even though they became Christians they thought that they could mix some of their older religion into Christianity. To this day some “Christians” still have the same practice. 

The relationship between Rome and the Visigoths. According to Wikipedia “The Visigoths were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is known as the Migration Period.” The Visigoths were basically barbarians. Rome and the Visigoths are related because when the Visigoths took refuge in Rome they were treated poorly because they were different. Because Rome did this the Visigoths soon invaded Rome.

Was there any basis for an optimistic view of Rome in Livy and Ovid? Titus Livius was a Roman historian. Livy wrote down many thing about the history of Rome, but some of his writings do not exist today. We cannot believe some of these stories though. Much of these writings he does not know what happened so he writes down his imagination to fill in the blanks.  

Ovid’s full name was Publius Ovidius Naso. Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. Ovid wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people” which is called Ab Urbe Condita. Around 8 BC Augustus banished Ovid to the Black sea. About that same time Ovid started writing a book called Metamorphoses. This book is Ovid’s worldview on how creation happened. 

Both Livy’s and Ovid’s stories begin on their view of creation and then how they think Rome originated. Livy’s view on the creation of Rome starts when two children named Romulus and Remus were born. The king saw them as a threat and ordered them to be put in the river. the river god ,Tiberius, saved them and put them at the bank of where Rome would eventually be. There a she-wolf heard them crying and went to them and let them nurse of her. Eventually a shepherd found and adopted them. When they became adults they argued about who would build a great city and rule over it. Soon enough Romulus killed Remus, built the city, then named it Rome. 

In Ovid’s version mankind was so wicked that the god Jupiter sent a flood to destroy them all. there were two survivors, Deuclion and Pyrra. they repopulated the earth by tossing rocks over their shoulders which turned them into people. 

These two stories have some similarities, but they’re mostly different. They both begin with the corruption of mankind and end with building up hope for Rome. The basis of optimism for these two books is hope.