leanna uses paul!
david and i found, via word of mouth, a new good cheap pizza place where Natalie's used to be. 2 pizzas, 3 toppings, $10. so he took me out for dinner today, which was great.
school was long but good today. i'm really enjoying my seminar, perhaps because it's on subject matter i feel fairly comfortable and confident with--> medieval christianity. today involved me nearly losing it with one of the other students. she started it by saying that Constantine did not promote Christianity, but merely allowed it to exist, as is evident by the fact that he can never have been very devout due to his end of life baptism.
i was fairly disgusted by this misinformation but fortunately several other medievalists and the prof jumped to defend him arguing that 1) it was still common practice to be baptised near the end of your life since it takes away your sins (as paige said, that's when you want to get hit by the bus) 2) he built a number of churches but no temples (a classical tradition. the emperors were always building templa for the gods they wished to allign themselves with) 3) edict of milan 4) the number of church councils he sat on... that point being settled, discussion moved to the article "suffering images of the redeemer", or the lack of them in the Early Christian Era.
the article listed five theories for this lack of images, one of which was that the early Christians might have been ashamed of crucifixion because it was a criminal's death. this woman was going on about how this was probably a plausible theory (a theory i do not like at all) so i decided to silence her. my arguments from St Paul, logic, and theology managed to win approval and a "good points" from my prof as well as proving my point that i've felt rather good about myself for the rest of the day. my first point was paul: "I am not ashamed of the gospel" and went from there. Christians, ashamed of the very cross by which they gain new life and redemption from sins and are able to live eternally with God? someone else pointed out that since Christ took on the sins of the world at death it was even a fitting death for him, the death of the guilty non-roman. I can understand defending the crucifixion, but one should only be ashamed of the cross if they feel that Christ was actually a criminal, not the savior.
in short, i love medieval studies because we've been having good discussions every class.
thursday i am trying my hand at a red thai curry. tonight i have to translate too much latin. oh well.
school was long but good today. i'm really enjoying my seminar, perhaps because it's on subject matter i feel fairly comfortable and confident with--> medieval christianity. today involved me nearly losing it with one of the other students. she started it by saying that Constantine did not promote Christianity, but merely allowed it to exist, as is evident by the fact that he can never have been very devout due to his end of life baptism.
i was fairly disgusted by this misinformation but fortunately several other medievalists and the prof jumped to defend him arguing that 1) it was still common practice to be baptised near the end of your life since it takes away your sins (as paige said, that's when you want to get hit by the bus) 2) he built a number of churches but no temples (a classical tradition. the emperors were always building templa for the gods they wished to allign themselves with) 3) edict of milan 4) the number of church councils he sat on... that point being settled, discussion moved to the article "suffering images of the redeemer", or the lack of them in the Early Christian Era.
the article listed five theories for this lack of images, one of which was that the early Christians might have been ashamed of crucifixion because it was a criminal's death. this woman was going on about how this was probably a plausible theory (a theory i do not like at all) so i decided to silence her. my arguments from St Paul, logic, and theology managed to win approval and a "good points" from my prof as well as proving my point that i've felt rather good about myself for the rest of the day. my first point was paul: "I am not ashamed of the gospel" and went from there. Christians, ashamed of the very cross by which they gain new life and redemption from sins and are able to live eternally with God? someone else pointed out that since Christ took on the sins of the world at death it was even a fitting death for him, the death of the guilty non-roman. I can understand defending the crucifixion, but one should only be ashamed of the cross if they feel that Christ was actually a criminal, not the savior.
in short, i love medieval studies because we've been having good discussions every class.
thursday i am trying my hand at a red thai curry. tonight i have to translate too much latin. oh well.