Cultural History of Catholic Christianity

Pre-Critical History Pre-critical History: supports identity of a given community Artistic: selects, orders, describes, awakens and sustains readers’ interest, tries to persuade and convince Ethical: apportions praise and blame Explanatory: accounts for existing institutions in terms of origins and development and contrasts them with those found in other communities Apologetic: corrects false accounts of the community’s past, refutes calumnies of outsiders Prophetic: foresight for the future

Critical History Critical History: objective knowledge of the past Heuristic: brings to light relevant data Ecstatic: leads inquirer out of original perspectives to perspectives proper to the object Selective: chooses out of a totality of data those relevant to the understanding achieved Critical: removes data from one use or context to another Constructive: weaves together the web of interconnected links grounded in the data cumulatively brought to light as understanding progresses

Questions for Historical Inquiry Who did (or refrained from doing) what? When (what were its antecedents and consequences)? Where (are there geographically parallel or analogous instances)? Under what circumstances? From what motives? With what results? What did those doing the action think it meant? What was “going forward” or “retreating” in the community undergoing this/these action(s)?

Christopher Dawson as Critical Historian Framework: –Crisis precipitating intense spiritual activity generating a new apostolate –Achievement creating new form of Christian culture in life, art, and thought –Attack from without or within with earlier phase’s achievement depreciated

“Seven Stages of Western Culture” Age of Hellenism Roman Empire Formation of Western and Eastern Christendom Medieval Christendom Humanist Culture and Religious Division Age of Revolution Disintegration of Europe

“Six Ages of the Church” Origins to Constantinian Conversion (c. 30 – 313 CE) Constantinian Conversion to Rise of Islam (c. 313 CE – c. 632 CE) Construction of European Christendom (c. 632 CE – c CE) Emancipation of the Church from Feudal Structures (c – c CE)

Reformations and Revolutions (c CE – c CE) The Church and the Modern World (c CE – c CE) [The Church and the Post-Modern World (c CE – the present]