Keep The Faith's Podcast

Dr. John Rao discusses the character of life and organization of government and society in the two main eras of the Roman Empire: the Principate (from Augustus until the 200's A.D.) and the Dominate (200's A.D. onwards). He describes how the Roman system became more and more "totalitarian" in a way that would clash with the expanding Christian vision.

A discussion by Dr. John Rao of the different centers of early Christianity--Alexandria, Palestine, Antioch, Asia Minor, Rome, and Gaul--and the key Church Fathers and institutions through whose work Christian theology was developed. 

Dr. John Rao describes how the first great Christian writers had to explain why their religion was an acceptable one. The Apostolic Fathers and Apologists sought to show that Christianity was ancient, because it was the completion of Judaism; that it "made sense"; and, perhaps most importantly for practical reasons, that it was necessary for the survival of the Roman Empire and society.

What was necessary for Christian theology to develop? Dr. John Rao discusses the obstacles that had to be overcome in order even to begin developing a theology, as well as the numerous new problems theological speculation would engender. The idea that the world as we know it was soon coming to an end was one major roadblock to serious theological work. Why bother? this apocalyptic spirit asked. 

Dr. John Rao shows that in order for theology to grow, sources of Christian teaching had to be more clearly identified, authoritative interpreters pinpointed, and, inevitably, the value of Greek philosophical language and thought admitted. Alexandria, long a center for Jewish use of Greek Platonic and rhetorical tools, was crucial in Christian theological growth. Africa, too, despite the suspicion...

Dr. John Rao shows that two distinct theological approaches clashed in the early Church. One, emerging from Alexandria and tied with the work of Origen, was highly allegorical in its interpretations of Scripture. The other, coming out of Antioch, was more literal and historical in its methodology. Many of the Trinitarian and Christological struggles pitted them against one another and yet allowed...

One of the greatest early problems of Church History was a rigorism that did not wish to allow Penance to have the role that it must in the life of sinful Christians. Dr. John Rao shows how the Popes fought this rigorism from the earliest times, and how Donatism, which only wished "the pure" to guide the Church, involves a failure to understand the real nature of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Dr. John Rao treats here of the roots of Arianism, its rather simple basic beliefs, and its expansion in the wake of the Council of Nicaea through till the victory of the orthodox at the Council of Constantinople. The Arian Crisis of the 300's is shown to be very much tied in with political machinations and episcopal "empire-building". Reaction to it did, however, lead to a sound development of Ca...

Dr. John Rao presents a summary of some of the Christological heresies emerging out of the earlier Trinitarian battles. These led to the discussions of Christ's divine and human natures and His single divine Personality at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

Dr. John Rao introduces this Symposium on life in the Empire and its relation to the barbarian world in the years between the defeat at Adrianople in the 370's and the Persian/Arab invasions of the 600's.

Dr. John Rao explores the different problems that varied groups of invaders posed for the eastern and the western sections of the old united Empire. While the East remained more of a unit, the West saw power shared by remnants of the imperial administration, renegade generals, city magistrates, bishops, and barbarian chieftains, often very confusedly intermingled with one another. Justinian's atte...

The Council of Chalcedon of 451 and Pope Leo the Great's "Tome" defining Christ as one Divine Person with two natures, human and divine, unleashed the long-lasting, heretical Monophysite Movement. Dr. John Rao shows how this badly split the unity of the Church and caused many political and social problems as well. 

Dr. John Rao explores a variety of issues that put the Papacy in Italy on a collision course with the Empire ruled from Constantinople. Caesaro-Papism on the one hand and growth in the sense of papal supremacy, often fed by Greek refugees seeking protection from imperial interference in Church affairs on the other, played a major role in embittering West and East.

Dr. John Rao explores the many divisions between Italy and the Empire. Popes were horrified at imperial attempts to negotiate with Monophysites and thereby ignore Chalcedon. Romans were outraged over the kidnappings of Popes Vigilius and Martin and the virtual murder of the latter. They felt abandoned by the Exarch of Ravenna to the ravages of the Lombards. They disliked the fact that St. Gregory'...

Visigothic Spain developed a rich Catholic culture from the 500's through the early 700's, which was important for the development of the whole Christian Medieval West. Dr. John Rao shows that St. Isidore of Seville's writings in particular were instrumental in saving much of Classical culture and justifying Church cooperation with friendly German tribes.

The Franks in Gaul under the Merovingian Dynasty led by Clovis and his descendents were the first German tribe to become Catholic. Dr. John Rao explains that their history from the 500's until the 700's was, unfortunately, one of internal division and corruption.

Irish and Benedictine monks both worked to convert Anglo-Saxon Britain. There, Dr. John Rao explains, they influenced one another and finally built the vision of a monastic life combining work, study, and prayer. Irish like St. Columbanus, and Anglo-Saxons like St. Boniface, then reformed the weak Merovingian Church and converted German tribes outside the borders of the old Empire.

The Roman Empire in the East could not help the West by the 600's. It was attacked first by Persians and then the new force represented by the Islamic world. Dr. John Rao discusses Islam, its military advances, and then the eighth century assault on icons--Iconoclasm--which troubled the Empire and its relations with the Popes in the wake of its territorial losses.

Visigothic, Irish, Benedictine, and Anglo-Saxon influences all came together in Frankish Gaul by the early 700's. The Carolingian Family came to power in an alliance with the Papacy, which could no longer work with the Emperors in Constantinople and needed help against the Lombards in Italy. Dr. John Rao discusses the great medieval coalition of the Popes, Roman culture, and the Germans creating a...

The new western Empire, sealed by Charlemagne's coronation in 800, had many problems, all explored by Dr. John Rao. Bad German customs still prevented a full appreciation of Christianity and Roman culture. Internal divisions and new invasions of Vikings, Magyars, and Saracens combined together to barbarize the Church rather than Romanize and Christianize the West by the late 800's.

The Papal-Carolingian alliance evoked arguments from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to speak of life as a hierarchically-organized Pilgrimage to God led by Emperor and Bishops. Dr. John Rao discusses the character and tensions of this early medieval vision of order.

Popes, bishops, monks, and secular clergy all fell prey to simony and barbarism by the late 800's, to a large degree due to the failure of the attempt to restore the Empire through the Carolingians. Dr. John Rao talks here of the tragic--though temporary--collapse of the dream of Christianizing and Romanizing the Germans. 

Dr. John Rao discusses the recognition of the need to rebuild political, religious, and social order out of the feudal chaos of the late 800's and 900's. This rebuilding would require taming the Vikings, Saracens, and Magyars; calming the wild soldiery inside Christendom; restoring order in Germany, France, and Italy; and reforming the Church. 

Differing visions of how to reorder the "pilgrimage to God" competed in the 900's and 1000's. Dr. John Rao discusses three of these: one that saw the problem as that of rebuilding the Empire through the German and French Kings; another involving bishops who roused their dioceses to war versus unruly counts and castlekeepers; and a third, most symbolized by the monks of Cluny, which said that what...

The monks of Cluny and others like them saw two groups that had to be "transformed" before all others: the soldiers and the clergy. In order to do this work properly, they needed a reformed Papacy on their side. Dr. John Rao shows how the Papacy, by the time of Pope Gregory VII, had been so transformed that it actually took charge of the whole movement of sanctifying society at large.