Work Bibliography Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Work Bibliography - Research Paper Example The fist is an official document that served as an imperial record of the confiscation of church property, and reveals the depth to which persecution took place, and the Roman Empire re-embraced the persecution of Christians. It also points to an even more systematic persecution than had happened before, where persecutions would only be carried out in cases where Christians were overt in their worship, and would refuse to deal with Roman authorities, or when a local Roman Official was incredibly intent in the persecution. The acceptance of the Church in the decades before Julian’s reign, however, pushed Christianity into public life. This meant that the rise of persecution struck more deeply at the now open Christianity than previous persecutions had at closeted Christianity. This article also outlines a letter from a man to his wife that indicates the kinds of small personal resistances that Christians attempted to undertake in the face of this new brutal oppression. Though t hey would not often stand openly against the state, according to this article, they also did not bend to that oppression, and attempted to resist in the small ways that were available to them. Harrison, J. R. 2002. Paul and the Imperial Gospel at Thessaloniki.  Journal for the Study of the New Testament  25 (1): 71-96. ... the creation of Bishops who would preside over a certain area, and made the travel of Christians from one area to another easier, as well as allowing the birth of Christian communities in areas where there had not been ones previously easier, because they had a mold and a model to follow. Furthermore, it indicates that this administrative copying of the Roman Empire also had a profound impact on the theology of the Christian Church, allowing for the deciding of theological issues through councils of Bishops, but also reducing the populism of the earliest church in favor of a more top-down, authoritarian religious practice. den Boeft, J., and D. H. Williams. 1996. Ambrose of Milan and the end of the Arian-Nicene conflicts.  Vigiliae Christianae  50 (3): 315. This text outlines the role of one of the most important early Bishops, Ambrose of Milan, in bringing to a close the Arian-Nicene conflict. Though the council of Nicene decided on an orthodoxy, declaring the Arian beliefs hete rodox or heretical, this did not stop the continuation of Arian practices. This was a pattern that emerged though many church councils, where the losing side would continue to act in the ways they had previously, especially if, as was the case with the Arian heresy, the heresy was geographically concentrated. The article argues that without strong defense of orthodoxy, as was provided by Ambrose of Milan, it is quite possible that Arian beliefs would have continued to flourish for many years after the Nicean council. It outlines the steps Ambrose took to defend orthodoxy as decided by the Council of Nicene. But it also complicates the historical memory of Ambrose of Milan somewhat, by demonstrating that he had substantial investment in defending the orthodoxy for reasons other than theological