History 2401E Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Military Saint, Quid Pro Quo, Church Committee
19 Feb 2017
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Lecture 3: popular christianity & orthodoxy: cult of saints brief history. Manifested quickly: helped unify the roman empire, martyrs endurance of tortures was seen as divine intervention. Death of martyr known as their birthday into eternal life, would celebrate lives annually. Desert fathers and mothers retreat to the desert like christ did for 40 days to fight temptation (cid:894)as(cid:272)eti(cid:272) path (cid:895) (cid:862)ma(cid:396)t(cid:455)(cid:396)do(cid:373) of the se(cid:374)ses(cid:863) severe asceticism. Desert fathers and mothers were renowned for eating little, sleeping little, and hurting themselves. Not kind of sadism, they were trying to elevate their spiritual aspect, desires of the body led you away from this. They fought mental demons like christ, and envisioned themselves as fighting for all of humanity and not just themselves soldiers of god. Lifestyle and demonstration of an unusually close relationship with god. Lifestyle modeled on the life of christ charitable acts esp. to disadvantaged, asceticism critical in medieval times -> heroic asceticism, much more than ordinary people.
