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Who was the Venerable Bede, and why was he significant? The Venerable Bede (also called Saint Bede the Venerable) was, according to The British Library, “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”. Why was he significant? Let me tell you. He was one of the most important people of the middle ages because he was a great teacher and writer of his time. He is considered to be the most important scholar of his time by many historians.

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.”

How important were the miracles in the book’s account of Jesus’ early ministry? Last week, my lessons in English were based on the book of Mark and the ministry of Jesus. Here is a little about the book of Mark.

Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels in the Bible. The Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word “Gospel” in Greek literally means “good news”. This means that the Gospels were meant to bring good news to people. It is said that it is the earliest of the four Gospels, recording from the time of Jesus’ birth, to the time of his ascension.

Miracles were very important in the life and ministry of Jesus. He did not use them just because he was nice (and he was nice). He used them to preform certain ideas in the minds of people. And the miracles did not just impact the people of that era and time. They also impacted people throughout history, today, and even in the future. One of these miracles can be found in Mark 1:23-28,

23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” 26 And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. 27 Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” 28 And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.

According to Thomas Nelson, “This miracle demonstrated Jesus’ power over the forces of evil. The people of Capernaum were amazed and asked, “What new doctrine is this?”” These people were really surprised and impacted. Some even thought that he could cast out demons because he himself was possessed by one, which is stupid.

Another one is Mark 2:1-12,

2 And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 a]Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has b]power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

According to Thomas Nelson, “Jesus’ displays His power over sickness and His authority to forgive. The Pharisees questioned Jesus’ authority to forgive, but the people glorified God.” Jesus impacted a lot of people, so much even, that people wanted to kill him! Jesus can do these things because he is the Son of God.

The shift in power from the Merovingians to the Carolingians. Why did it occur, and how? These two families, the Merovingians and the Carolingians, governed the Franks, a Germanic people, who became Christians in the year 496. The Merovingian family ruled the Franks from the seventh century to the early eighth century. Over the years, the Merovingian dynasty had gone corrupt and many problems were beginning to occur. Under influence of the Merovingian family, corrupt practices were being brought into the church. Because of all these problems with the Merovingian family, the Carolingian family was handling the administrations. The Carolingian family held the place of mayor in the palace. During this corrupt time, Pepin the Short sees the need to legitimize his reign. He asks the pope, Pope Zachery the first, is it is good that the men with the power have no title and the men with the title have no power. The pope says that that is not good, so he blessed 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 the biography of Einhard, Charlemagne is described as a great military leader a ruthless warrior, and a role model and idol towards his soldiers.

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.” He was born on December 8, in the year 65 BC in the city or Venosa, Italy. He died on November 27, in the year 8 BC in the city of Rome, Italy. Horace wrote many good works, one of which is Odes, “The Art of Poetry”. He wrote lyric poetry, which is, 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 works, Horace writes to the person reading it specifically and tells them things that will mentally stick to them forever. His simple concept of cause and effect is that the person should stay in 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.” He tells the person to expect no more and no less that the middle, which he says is healthy.

In his Odes, Horace tells us that the only major thing in the lives of man, is death. Death comes to every human being at some point. With this end from which we can never escape from, men are equal during and after our final breath. Therefor, men are equal throughout their entire lives. The amount of riches and wealth a man receives will not mean anything after that person dies. A person can work hard to obtain riches, but it does not change their position. But, you can not just not work or live in poverty, so Horace says to live the golden mean, or the medium type of life. He says to live a balanced life.

He also says to avoid disappointment. If they live in a medium life, then they will not encounter big disappointments.

He even provides the example of the ant from the Bible. Proverbs 6:6-8 says “6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
    consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
    no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
    and gathers its food at harvest.

Throughout the entire book (or whatever it is called) he points towards the golden mean. He said we should live like the ant, which is a balanced lifestyle, not too much, and not too little. He also makes the point, why have a lot of gold if you are not going to take it with you if you die? The answer is, to live by the golden mean, a balanced lifestyle (or at least that is his answer).

Death is something that no one can escape from, however, Horace says that if you live in the golden mean, you will have satisfaction. What Horace calls the balanced lifestyle we call today the middle-class-lifestyle. He says that the rich and poor and everyone in-between are equal because they will all encounter death.

According to Wikipedia, “Roman civilization and history contributed greatly to the development of government, law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology, religion, and language in the Western world”. So, Rome was very significant in the history of Western civilization. Some other parts of Western civilization must have adopted some of Rome’s civilization, as in art, technology, architecture, etc. Rome was very significant.

According to Wikipedia, “Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, 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.” In the year 8 AD, he was banished by Emperor Augustus to the Black Sea region. It was there that he wrote his book the Metamorphoses. This book is just a series of poems that tell about his view of the god’s ethical performance.

Ovid made it very clear in his book the Metamorphoses that he has a view of the gods ethical performance even if he did not believed it. He included the ethical process of the gods and how they inflict negative and positive sanctions according to it.

On of the main themes in the Metamorphoses is pride. The gods were very prideful beings and so were men. When the gods make ethical decisions, their pride is the key factor of when they did this. It was said in the book that if anybody challenged or denied a gods pride, then the outcome would have extremely negative and very bad consequences.

There is a story based on pride in this book. It is in book number six. It is called “Rustics changed to frogs”. The story is when a god named Latona gives birth to twins, both of which are gods. After birth, she becomes very thirst and goes to a pond to get a drink of water. However, men at the pond resisted her and did not let her by. Latona thought that because she was a god, she should do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, in this case, it is to get a drink of water. She is being prideful. The men were also prideful because they thought that they had the power to stop a spiritual being from doing what she wanted, which is get a drink. They thought that this made them powerful. Latona tried many times to get a drink, but was rejected every time. Finally, she prayed and all the men there turned into frogs. They could no longer have a relationship with the gods. they were objects of nature, just like the animals. The problem in this story is pride. The men were turned into frogs because they were prideful. They were prideful because they thought that they had the power to stop a god from doing what she wanted to do. Because of this, they were punished by being turned into frogs.

Ovid also explains that in his book, it is possible for man to become a god. For example, Venus asked Jupiter to let Aeneas become a god. Jupiter answers this request by letting Venus take Aeneas to the river Numicius to cleanse him of all his immortality and to make him become a god. Another situation in which this happens is when Mars asked Jupiter to let Romulus (the founder of Rome in Roman mythology) become a god. Jupiter says yes and Romulus becomes a god. The way for humans to become a god, as Ovid explains in his book, is not for man to ask, but to do what they say and make them happy.

In what ways did Christianity represent a departure from the ideals and practices of ancient Greece and Rome? When Christianity spread throughout all the Greco-Roman world, many Greco-Romans became Christians. Even if they were Christians though, that did not mean that they had to give up some of their Greco-Roman art, skills, practices, etc. In fact, they brought all of those stuff with them and even changed them a little bit so that they fit in with their new religion (Christianity). So many Christians today still practice those things from Greco-Romans from hundreds of years ago.

Discuss 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.” So, they were basically barbarians. The way that these two groups are related are when the Visigoths looked for refuge among the Romans, and because they were a different people, they were treated poorly. Because of this, the Visigoths eventually invaded Rome and ransacked it until the Roman Empire paid them to leave.

Livy, also known as Titus Livius, was a Roman Historian, which means he wrote about Roman History.   Some of Livy’s works include some accounts of Rome that expand over seven hundred years. Sadly, some of those accounts did not survive to this day. He provides us with insight on Early Rome, but we cannot fully rely on them. If he cannot tell us much on ancient events or he does not know what happened, he either leaves out that part, or he fills in the blanks with his own thoughts of what happened.

Ovid, also known as Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, was a Roman poet. He lived during the reign of Augustus. He also wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people”. This is titled Ab Urbe Condita. Sometime in 8 BC, Ovid was banished to the Black Sea region by Augustus. About the same time he began writing a book called Metamorphoses. In this book, he tells of the story of creation (the way he thinks it goes), all the way through time up to the death of Julius Caesar. There is a main theme in this book. It is the “change of the gods”.

Both of these authors start the story with creation and provide background to it. Later, they use this background to describe how Rome came to be an important part of western  civilization. They both added their own accounts of origins of the city of Rome. Although their accounts are different, there are some similarities. Their stories of creation are basically the same as the great poet Hesiod’s in his book the Theogony. They are not exactly the same, however, they do follow the same storyline as the Theogony. They both include the corruption of man, but they follow different paths. Each of the author’s books each explained different ways of dealing with the corruption of mankind, but in different ways, however, they both end up in building up great hope for Rome.

Livy wrote his own account of the foundation of Rome. He explains that there was once two brothers, abandoned, and alone. Their names were Romulus and Remus. All they had, was each other. They were eventually found as baby’s  by a mother wolf. They were raised in her protection and care as her own. They one day, they two brothers left the wolf and set out to build their own city. Not long after they left, they found the perfect place to build a city, but there was only enough room for one city. They soon decided that one of them could build and name the city, but the other brother would have to help the other one. After a long time of arguing about who should name the city, Romulus grew tired of the arguments and killed Remus. He therefore named the city Rome. In Ovid’s story, the god Jupiter saw the wickedness of man and sent a flood to destroy them all. The only survivors were two people named Deuclion and Pyrra. They repopulated the Earth by tossing stones over their shoulders which then turned into human beings.

In both stories, the basis for an optimistic view is hope.

 Livy, also known as Titus Livius, was a Roman Historian, which means he wrote about Roman History.   Some of Livy’s works include some accounts of Rome that expand over seven hundred years. Sadly, some of those accounts did not survive to this day. He provides us with insight on Early Rome, but we cannot fully rely on them. If he cannot tell us much on ancient events or he does not know what happened, he either leaves out that part, or he fills in the blanks with his own thoughts of what happened.

Ovid, also known as Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, was a Roman poet. He lived during the reign of Augustus. He also wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people”. This is titled Ab Urbe Condita. Sometime in 8 BC, Ovid was banished to the Black Sea region by Augustus. About the same time he began writing a book called Metamorphoses. In this book, he tells of the story of creation (the way he thinks it goes), all the way through time up to the death of Julius Caesar. There is a main theme in this book. It is the “change of the gods”.

Both of these authors start the story with creation and provide background to it. Later, they use this background to describe how Rome came to be an important part of western  civilization. They both added their own accounts of origins of the city of Rome. Although their accounts are different, there are some similarities. Their stories of creation are basically the same as the great poet Hesiod’s in his book the Theogony. They are not exactly the same, however, they do follow the same storyline as the Theogony. They both include the corruption of man, but they follow different paths. Each of the author’s books each explained different ways of dealing with the corruption of mankind, but in different ways, however, they both end up in building up great hope for Rome.

Livy wrote his own account of the foundation of Rome. He explains that there was once two brothers, abandoned, and alone. Their names were Romulus and Remus. All they had, was each other. They were eventually found as baby’s  by a mother wolf. They were raised in her protection and care as her own. They one day, they two brothers left the wolf and set out to build their own city. Not long after they left, they found the perfect place to build a city, but there was only enough room for one city. They soon decided that one of them could build and name the city, but the other brother would have to help the other one. After a long time of arguing about who should name the city, Romulus grew tired of the arguments and killed Remus. He therefore named the city Rome. In Ovid’s story, the god Jupiter saw the wickedness of man and sent a flood to destroy them all. The only survivors were two people named Deuclion and Pyrra. They repopulated the Earth by tossing stones over their shoulders which then turned into human beings.

In both stories, the basis for an optimistic view is hope.

What kinds of contributions did the monks make to European society? Since monks were like Christians and God-loving people, they preached the Word of God to the European Society. They also wrote many manuscripts and served as missionaries to many people. They also did many weird things like give up everything to serve God.

What was the attitude of most Christian writers toward the philosophers of ancient Greece? They both had a lot in common. Some philosophers thought that there was a Maker of the universe and some of them believed in the immortal soul. Some Christians actually believed that some of the traditions of ancient Greece were consistent with Christianity.