What was the Christian's name who was tortured by the Romans for supposedly lighting fires?  Peter (The Romans didn't even know who lit the fire--never did)
Which man in power was in charge of the last major Christian persecutions?  Diocletian
What did the whole army do after Constantine saw the sign from God?  Painted a cross on their shields
What is an edict?  Official law or prosecution
What was the result of Constantine having all religions treated equally?  They grew and spread into millions
What religion was Constantine's mother?  Christian
How large was the army increased by when Diocletian came in power? 400,000
What god did the Christians have to give sacrifice to after the fires?  Jupiter
Where did Constantine see the sign from God? Milvian Bridge
How long did it take for emperors to loose their power?  Two and a half years
How many government officials were there under Diocletian's rule? 20,000
Who did Christianity appeal to?  The poor and disenfranchised
What did the edict of Milan do? Who declared it?  Constantine and it declared Christians as a Roman religion.

Grace and Kelley Teaching

Diocletian persecutions was last major persecutions in Rome.  Commanded churches to be raised off the ground.  The first edict persecution was on January.  Burned Christians had no rights.  Romans though
November 20, 303 third execution. Earlier in January of 303 was the second.  304 4 edict.  Constantine ended prosecutions by his father.  No matter what religion you were you were treated equally.  Promoted Christianity.  He had a vision of the cross above the sun saying "conquer by this this".  This is what made him convert.  Constantine's mother was a christian.  He prayed to God because the Roman gods were letting him down.  The army painted a cross on their shields.  Kelley and Grace did a good job, but Mr. Schick took over halfway through class.  A man named Peter was striped, whipped until he bled, salt and vinegar was poured in his wounds and then was slowly boiled over a fire.  Edict: official law or proclamation.

Rome's Struggles

Pax Roman 27-180.  3rd century AD there were many diseases and it spread quickly.  Emperors start to loose hold on power, and there was too many poor people.  Diocletian reformed Rome, increased army to 400,00 people.  That is 1/3 bigger than during Augustus' time.  He recruited people from the barbarians.  New government had 20,000 people.  10x bigger than when Augustus was in power.  300 AD: 60 million people in the Roman empire.  Several million of them were Christians.  Christians used to be a weird little cult.  Diocletian ruled from 284-305.  At first he left the Christians alone but then he persecuted them like crazy.  Constantine ruled as emperor from 306-337.  A large fire broke out in his palace destroying lots of things except for a Christian church, so they blamed it on the Christians.  Diocletian made Christians give sacrifice to Jupiter, those who didn't were to be tortured.  Constantine changed the Roman empire by his conversion to Christianity.  Constantine made Christianity officially a Roman religion.

Review of Test

We went over the test.  Then we talked about Christianity in the Pax Romana.  Christianity used to be really small and people though of it as a cult.  It began with Jesus.  Almost all of what is written about Jesus is in the gospels.  Gospel means good news.  Stories were told and retold, then written down.  Jesus said that you must strive for perfection because God is perfect.  He sought out the imperfect and tried to help them.  He made friends with prostitutes and those people.  It was believed he was both man and son of God, but that is what all of the pharaohs and kings also said.  They didn't like Jesus for the same reason the didn't like Tiberius Gracchus: Jesus was trying to empower the poor and common people.  Jesus was a threat.  Bible is the only historical we have of Jesus.  Paul killed Christians by giving them to the Romans so they could use them as entertainment (put them in with the lions).  Paul had a vision of Jesus on the third day he was feeling whacky.  Predestination: God chose who was to be saved and who was to be damned.

Christianity

After we turning in the essay and took the test I had no clue about we read.  Read about Christianity and religion and Jesus.  Gospel writers did most of their writing from either spoken words or earlier documents.  Jesus did most of his teaching around the year 70 AD.  Gospel writers wrote about him later.

Working on Essays

We worked on our essays in class today.  Savannah, my partner, and I got through the introductory paragraph and I think it's going to be really good.  We have to hand it to him first thing in the morning as soon as we walk in the door.  That's all we did all class (that and trying to ignore the others).

PowerPoint

We talked about the PowerPoint Mr. Schick made and explained in class today.  We talked a bunch about the other brother.  Gaius, Tiberius' brother was also killed as well as 3,000 of their supporters.  Proletarians were people who were practically dirt.  They had no value or voice.  Profiteers were people who bought farms and profited from it.  Julius Caesar was very cocky and confident.  He went across the river and there is a saying to it but I can't exactly remember what it is.  Also in order to not be able to point the finger at any one person for the murder of Julius Caesar they passed the knife around and all wiped their hands on his blood.  Literally, "blood on your hands".