Role of Roman Emperors in the Spread of Christianity Essay Example for Free

Role of Roman Emperors in the Spread of Christianity Essay The very cruelty and hate of Christianity that various Roman emperors exhibited actually worked in favor of that religion. As it is said, The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, for in many ways, persecution was beneficial to the new religion. Persecution gave the Christians a chance to flex their spiritual muscles, which many did, to great effect. The miracles that took place during these martyrdoms converted many of the pagans, which in turn led to more martyrdoms. Persecution served, essentially, to strengthen the faith of those already Christians, and to convert those who were not. By the very cruelties with which the emperors attempted to crush the young religion they actually aided it. But one emperor who supported christianity is the one who played the biggest role among all emperors in spreading christianity. His name was Constantine. Constantine was a hugely influential emperor who changed the course of history and greatly affected the spread and development of Christianity. During Constantines reign, Roman art became less realistic. Simple and massive effects were preferred over classical forms and styles, and so art became more stylised. This culminated in the Christian era of artwork that would follow. For the next twelve years, Constantine and Licenius shared the government of the Empire. Constantine, convinced of the power of his vision and subsequent victory in battle, was the first Roman Emperor to adopt Christianity. Christians were still persecuted at this time, and so in 313 Constantine issued an official edict of toleration. The Edict of Milan not only protected Christians, but granted greater rights to followers of all religions. In 324 the Empire faced many difficulties, and Constantine defeated Licinius and became the sole Emperor. As the emperor, Constantine quickly moved the capital of the Roman empire from Rome to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul). In 325, Constantine assembled the Council at Nicaea with a group of bishops. The counsel debated many doctrinal points concerning Christianity, and created the Nicaean creed to unify Christian doctrine and practices. Some common beliefs of the early Christian church were at this point voted against and eradicated from the Churchs teachings. This was the first time that church and state began to merge, and that the imperial office was used to strengthen a church. For Constantine, his motivations were probably as much political as religious. The number of Christians was increasing within the empire, as was the influence of the church. Merging the two strengthened the power of both. From Constantines rule on, Christianity was the official religion of the empire. The Christian Church was granted tax exempt status, and Roman coins issued during this period have a cross on them. Although Constantine had long supported Christianity, he was not baptized until he was on his deathbed. He died in 337. Constitine, who was the Emperor of Rome was a Pagan. Before going into battle he thought he saw Jesus initials in the clouds and determined it was an omen and had his men put those initials on their shields. Well, Constitine won that battle and subsequently summoned all priests of stature into Rome to create the Bible. They went through the various books that had been written and pared that big pile of writings down into what became the bible. Constitine then proclaimed that christianity was the official religion of Rome and the Roman Empire.

The Life of Frederick Douglass :: American History Slavery Narratives Essays

The Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, near Hillsborough. He doesn’t know for sure of his age, he has seen no proof and his master will not inform him. Most masters prefer for their slaves to stay ignorant. He believes that he was around twenty-seven and twenty-eight when he began writing his narrative - he overheard his master say he was about seventeen years of age during 1835. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was separated from him when he was an infant and she died when he was seven years old. Frederick’s father was a white man who could have been his master but he never found out. Education was of utmost importance in his life. He received his first lesson while living with Mr. and Mrs. Auld. Sophia Auld, Frederick’s "mistress", was very humane to him and spent time teaching him the A, B, C’s. After he mastered this, she assisted him in spelling three and four letter words. At this point in his lesson Mr. Auld encountered what his wife was doing for Frederick and forbid her to continue. He believed that "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell" and continuing with "learning would spoil the best nigger in the world". The masters felt that an ignorant slave formed a choice slave and any beneficial learning would damage the slave and therefore be futile to his master. His next step on the road to success was during his seven years living with Master Hugh’s family. Frederick would make friends with as many white boys as he possibly could on the street. His new friends would be transformed into teachers. When he could, Frederick carried bread on him as a means of trade to the famished kids for knowledge. He would also carry a book anytime he had an errand to run. The errand would be completed quickly, allowing extra study time. When Frederick was working in Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard he would notice timber marked with various letters. He soon discovered how the letters matched the type of wood and the names of these letters. Any boy he met that could write he would challenge them to a writing contest. Frederick would use the letters he recently learned and told the child to challenge that. He then copied the Italics in Webster’s Spelling Book until he knew them well.

How Do Speeches Offer Practical Solutions and Optimism in Times of Social Division and Racial Conflict?

Great speeches offering practical solutions, optimism for the future and moral clarity can unify and motivate people in times of social conflict and racial division. Subsequently, an understanding of people and the world is developed, and a relationship between the voice and the audience is created. This profound level of optimism and hope can be seen in JFK’s Inaugural Address, and Jessie Street’s Is It to Be Back to the Kitchen? A relative distinctive voice is also significantly found in Anthony Burgess’ classic novel, A Clockwork Orange. The compelling speeches display a significant level of hope and optimism by creating a distinctive, reasoning and humble voice that addresses issues of inequality and racial conflict; and by outlining their intention of unifying and motivating the nation in order to create change and a more prosperous future. This allows a greater understanding of people and the world, and can be compared to the ever-changing voice portrayed in A Clockwork Orange. John F. Kennedy once said, â€Å"I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic. † In this single sentence, he uses a method of Aristotle’s persuasive speech making. One of the greatest examples of using rhetorical strategies is indeed John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address of 1961. JFK uses diction, syntax, and Aristotle’s method of persuasion in his inaugural address that not only made it uniquely his own, but made it undoubtedly one of the best, emotion-tugging speeches ever . He displays certain distinctive qualities in his voice that provide a unifying and motivating sense of hope. Kennedy appears to be humble and reasoning, and offers practical solutions and optimism for the future of the nation through various discourses to establish his â€Å"good character†. As Kennedy was a powerful and authoritative figure of that time, he was able to create a profoundly influential and famous speech that not only captured the audience’s attention, but allowed a sense of hope, optimism and moral clarity in a difficult time. He does this through his range of discourses throughout the speech, including religious and cultural. For example, Kennedy states that â€Å"the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. † By saying this, he suggests that â€Å"God† is not a religious stranger, but rather a trustworthy, like-minded leader. This technique opens the minds of listeners and allows his audience to be influenced and lead by his powerful directional voice. Through this masterful and influential voice, he both motivates and his audience on an emotional level and reassures them as to the reasonableness of his call to action on an intellectual level. This opens a greater and deeper understanding of the world and the way in which directional and influential voices allow the world to remain optimistic and become unified in a time of social conflict and racial division. Similarly, opposite techniques are used in Jessie Street’s â€Å"Is It to be Back to the Kitchen? † are used to achieve a similar outcome- through her influence and distinctive voice. In comparison to JFK’s Inaugural Address, in Jessie Street’s â€Å"Is It to be Back to the Kitchen? a distinctive voice occurs, in which Street addresses the nation in a much more straight-forward and uncomplicated way. This is a significantly powerful yet excessively prosaic speech that both unifies the nation, and offers a sense of hope and optimism in a time of social conflict and racial division. The strong and highly influential views of Street are conveyed through her distinctive unifying voice, and her ability to convey her message on the level of her listeners without seeming condescending or superior. Street's distinctive voice is highly prosaic, and possesses a somewhat conversational quality, that allows her to convey her powerful message at a deeply personal and casual level, that is straight forward and easy to understand. She also augments this by using rhetorical questions and repetition of questioning, and by addressing her audience directly. This applies throughout the entire speech. For example, when Street asks â€Å"Do you remember that one of the first things that the Nazis did when they came to power was to put the women out of the professions; out of the factories? or â€Å"Don’t you agree? † not only is Street directly addressing her audience to reach them on a personal level, she is also using excessively prosaic language to come to terms with her audience and level with them in a reasoning way. By using this significantly prosaic and reasoning language, we are able to identify ways in which a message can be conveyed through everyday conversation, ra ther than by giving a highly thought-out and eloquent speech. Similarly, the colloquial yet unusual speech of A Clockwork Orange is highly distinctive, and Alex’s vileness in A Clockwork Orange underlines the theme that human beings, no matter how depraved, shouldn’t be deprived of their freedom of self-determination. The State’s destruction of Alex’s ability to make his own moral choices represents a greater evil than any of Alex’s crimes, since turning Alex into an automaton ultimately sanctions the notion that human nature is dispensable. Alex truly grows as a human being only in the last chapter, after the government removes his conditioning and he can see the error of his ways for himself, without the prompting of an external, controlling force. In contradiction to previous points made, this restriction and deprivation of voice In conclusion, when composers use distinctive voices in their texts they allow us to better understand significant issues in the world and the people in the world who are involved in these issues, which is the nation as a whole. Great speeches offering practical solutions, optimism for the future and moral clarity can unify and motivate people in times of social conflict and racial division. Subsequently, an understanding of people and the world is developed, and a relationship between the voice and the audience is created. This can be seen clearly in JFK’s Inaugural Address, and Jessie Street’s Is It to be Back to the Kitchen? I is also highly relevant in Anthony Burgess’ classic novel A Clockwork Orange. These texts allow us to significant issues and the world and understand people and the world through the use of distinctive voices.

The Portrayal of Rural Life in 18th Century Poetry Essay

Discuss the portrayal of rural life in one or more of the passages. In this essay I will be exploring the presentation of rural life in eighteenth century poetry, by studying the poetic conventions of anti-pastoral poetry and more particularly by analysing `The Threshers labour by Stephen Duck. I will approach the issue by first of all addressing the meaning of pastoral poetry, and more specifically what pastoral poetry meant to eighteenth century poets, before looking at the meaning of anti-pastoral as opposed to pastoral. I will then perform a close reading of Ducks `The Threshers Labour as a challenge to the traditional pastoral form. The traditional subject of pastoral poetry was that of life in the country, particularly†¦show more content†¦The Victorian poet Mathew Arnold changed his pastoral view of nature in his poem Dover Beach written in 1851. He realised that the `natural world can no longer be constructed as a land of dreams, but is in fact a bleak battle for survival without divine purpose (Gifford, 1999, p120). This is the essence of anti-pastoral poetry, to write about the realties of rural life rather than indulge in the `beauty of the country with no reference to the hardship of country life. `The Threshers Labour (1736) is Ducks depiction of the hard realities of country life that would not be found in traditional pastoral poetry of the period. Duck had previously worked as a thresher and so had experienced the hardships of the trade. Manual labour is the central subject of the poem, which immediately places it as anti-pastoral, as opposed to traditional pastoral poetry of the period such as that of Popes Windsor Forest, that depicts the `beauty of county life. This is perhaps why this poem encounters problems of genre. As Sambrook states: The Threshers Labour is one of the earliest eighteenth-century poems to belong to no recognised literary kind....pastoral, anti-pastoral, counter-pastoral, georgic, anti-georgic, or plebian georgic, `The Threshers Labour has been called all of these, but still there remains no critical consensus. (Sambrook, 1993, p) As this quote suggests, Ducks poem cannot easily be placed into one set of poetic conventions. However I plan to showShow MoreRelated Comparison of the Portrayal of Nature in Blake and Wordsworth1518 Words   |  7 PagesComparison of the Portrayal of Nature in Blake and Wordsworth One of the most popular themes for Romantic poetry in England was nature and an appreciation for natural beauty. The English Romantic poets were generally concerned with the human imagination as a counter to the rise of science. The growing intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries placed scientific thought in the forefront of all knowledge, basing reality in material objects. The Romantics found this form of world viewRead MoreIndian English Novel17483 Words   |  70 PagesIndian novels which were merely patriotic gained a rather contemporary touch with the coming of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K.Narayan. The social disparity of India which was aptly described by Mulk Raj Anand in his Coolie, the imaginary village life with its entire unedited realities in R.K. Narayan`s Malgudi Days and last but not the least the aura of Gandhism depicted by Raja Rao in his remarkable novel Kanthapura portrayed a whole new India. The need of the `foreigners` depicting IndiaRead More One Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 PagesPerspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig Also in this series: Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life Lisa M. Fine, The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. Van Gosse and Richard Moser, eds., The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture in Recent America Joanne Meyerowitz, ed., History and September 11th John McMillian