The Influence Of Christianity On English Literature

CHAPTER: I The Influence of Christianity on Western Civilization The positive influence of Christianity is far reaching especially in the rich history and culture of Western Civilization despite a long standing ignorance or adamant denial of its contributions. The Bible itself is responsible for much of the language, literature, and fine arts we enjoy today as its artists and composers were heavily influenced by its writings. Paul Maier, in writing the forward to the book How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt, says this about the profound impact Christianity has had on the development of Western Civilization: “No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement—whatever—has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done. Its shortcomings, , are nevertheless heavily outweighed by its benefits to all mankind” (Schmidt). Contrary to the history texts treatment of the subject, Christian influence on values, beliefs, and practices in Western culture are abundant and well ingrained into the flourishing society of today (Schmidt 12). In the Old Testament book of Hosea the writer states: “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” a statement that can well be applied to those today who are forgetful of the past (The Reformation Study Bible, Hosea 4.6a). Schmidt writes regarding liberty and justice as seen by today’s culture: “The liberty and justice that are enjoyed by humans in Western societies and in some non-Western countries are increasingly seen as the products of a benevolent, secular government that is the provider of all things. There seems to be no awareness that the liberties and rights that are currently operative in free societies of the West are to a great degree the result of Christianity’s influence (248). History is replete with examples of individuals who acted as a law unto themselves “often curtailing, even obliterating the natural rights and freedoms of the country’s citizens (249). Christianity’s influence, however, set into motion the belief that man is

accountable to God and that the law is the same regardless of status. More than one thousand years before the birth of Christ the biblical requirement given by Moses comprised an essential component of the principle that “no man is above the law.” One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19.15) Thus the accuser, regardless of position in society, could not arbitrarily incarcerate or execute the accused and was himself subject to the law. The New Testament also mandated two or more witnesses in ecclesiastical matters regarding an erring Christian in Matthew 18:15-17 (Schmidt 249). The criminal and justice systems of many free countries today employ this JudeoChristian requirement of having witnesses testify and in British and American jurisprudence, witnesses are part of “due process of law,’ a legal concept first appearing under King Edward III in the fourteenth century (Schmidt 249). One startling example of the concept that no man is above the law is seen in the conflict between the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great and St. Ambrose. It happened in 300 A.D. when some in Thessalonica rioted and aroused the anger of the emperor who overreacted by slaughtering approximately seven thousand people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose asked the emperor to repent and when Theodosius refused, the bishop excommunicated him. After a month Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral. Often mistaken as a struggle for power between church and state, the evidence in which Ambrose’s letter to the emperor cited sole concern for the emperor’s spiritual welfare conclude this as being the first instance of applying the principle that no one is above the law (Schmidt 250). The Magna Carta served as a courageous precedent some five hundred years later to the American patriots in the creation of the unique government of the United States. The charter, signed in 1215 at Runnymede by King John granted a number of rights never held before this

historic occasion including that “(1) justice could no longer be sold or denied to freeman who were under authority of barons; (2) no taxes could be levied without representation; (3) no one would be imprisoned without a trial; and (4) property could not be taken from the owner without just compensation (Schmidt 251). The Magna Carta had important Christian ties as demonstrated by its preamble that began, “John, by the grace of God…,” and stated that the charter was formulated out of “reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of God and the exaltation of Holy Church and the reform of our realm, on the advice of our reverend [church] fathers” (Schmidt 251). This document also followed the precedent established in 325 at the Council of Nicaea in which Christian bishops wrote and adopted a formal code of fundamental beliefs to which all Christians were expected to adhere. The Magna Carta displayed what its formulators as Christians expected of the king and his subjects regarding civic liberties (Schmidt 251). Natural law is a concept with a long history dating back to the Greco-Roman philosophers. Despite some variations among philosophers one point of agreement was understood as “that process in nature by which human beings, through the use of sound reason, were able to perceive what was morally right and wrong” (Schmidt253). With the emergence of Christianity common law was clarified to state that “natural law was not an entity by itself but part of God’s created order in nature through which he made all rational human beings aware of what is right and wrong” (Schmidt 253). The Apostle Paul expressed this in the New Testament book of Romans: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2.14-15).

Martin Luther stated: “Why does one then teach the Ten Commandments? Because the natural laws were never so orderly and well written as by Moses” (Schmidt 253). In his Two Treatises of Government, physician and political philosopher John Locke (1632-1703) claimed that government existed only to uphold the natural law and that governmental tyranny violated the natural rights of man (Schmidt 253). Natural rights were derived from nature and not from kings or government. The renowned English scholar Sir William Blackstone had immense influence on the American patriots in the eighteenth century who used his Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765) while formulating the fledgling government as evidenced by the Declaration of Independence. The words “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” document the reliability on the Christian understanding of the natural law (Schmidt 254). The Declaration of Independence goes on to state that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” thus reiterating the concept of “inalienable rights” given by nature. The term “self-evident” has Christian roots going back to theological writings of the eighth century. Schmidt quotes Gary Amos, author of Defending the Declaration, as saying: “To the medievalists, ‘self-evident’ knowledge was truth known intuitively, as direct revelation from God, without the need for proofs. The term presumed that man was created in the image of God, and presumed certain beliefs about man’s rationality which can be traced as far back as Augustine in the early fifth century” (pp. 254-55). Schmidt believes it is quite plausible that St. Paul’s biblical concept of “self-evident” (Romans 1.20) knowingly or unknowingly influenced Jefferson when he wrote the term into the Declaration (Schmidt 255). The last portion of the Declaration includes the phrase “Supreme Judge,” a term used in Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government, where he refers to Jephthah calling God “the Judge” in Israel’s fight against the Ammonites (Judges 11.27). If this is taken from Locke’s work, Amos contends, “then we have a direct link between the Bible and the Declaration of Independence (Schmidt 255).

The Constitution, the hallmark of the foundling government in America, was greatly influenced by the French Christian and philosopher Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) as evidenced by the three branches of America’s government. Schmidt makes note that one historian has said that Montesquieu’s book, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), “[gave] American Constitution writers their holy writ” and called Montesquieu “the godfather of the American Constitution” (256). Montesquieu’s political theory was incorporated into the Constitution mostly as a result of the role taken by James Madison, known as the principal architect. His arguments for a separation of powers stemmed from the Christian teaching of the fallen nature of man. He is quoted as saying, ‘The truth [is] that all men, having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.” In his Federalist Paper number 51 he notes, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary” (Schmidt 257). Many history texts have made note that the three powers are derived from Montesquieu’s theory but have failed to note the influence of Christianity on his beliefs: “It is not enough for a religion to establish a doctrine; it must also direct its influence. This the Christian religion performs in the most admirable manner, especially with respect to the doctrines of which we have been speaking. It makes us hope for a state which is the object of our belief; not for a state which we have already experienced or known” (Schmidt 257). The founding of America’s republic government can best be described as the pinnacle of our American Christian heritage. Noah Webster defined government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) as: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’“ Thus Webster defines government in a way that reflects the biblical concept of governmental authority, that is, beginning with the individual and extending outward to include all institutions (DeMar, God and Government, pp. 4-5). The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of self-government. As DeMar states, “A self-governed individual is

someone who can regulate his attitudes and actions without the need for external coercion” (14). Believing God’s law to be the sole standard for determining right and wrong John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate to the government of any other.” The words of Hugo Grotius (1858-1645) reveal the mindset of many who fled to the shores of America in search of religious freedom: “He knows not how to rule a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a Village; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him.” Though the Constitution does not implicitly assume a Christian nation or acknowledgement of the providence of God in national affairs, an omission greatly regretted by the Christian public at the time of adoption (Morris 296), fundamentals of Christianity were incorporated into the State Constitutions of the Revolution which demonstrated the Christian life and character of our civil institutions (Morris 269). Among other things, the influence of Christianity has spread into the concept of freedom and rights of the individual. Without this freedom there is no real freedom on the economic, political, or religious level (Schmidt 258). From its inception, Christianity has placed a high value on the individual in stark contrast to the Greco-Roman culture in which the individual was always subordinate to the state (Schmidt 259). Malcolm Muggeridge, once a non-Christian but later a strong defender of Christianity, said, “We must not forget that our human rights are derived from the Christian faith. In Christian terms every single human being, whoever he or she may be, sick or well, clever or foolish, beautiful or ugly, every human being is loved by his Creator, who as the Gospels tell us, counted the hairs of his head.” (Schmidt 260). Individual freedom has led to many positive effects in the history of Western society. One essential aspect of

this began with individuals such as Tertullian, Lactantius, St. Augustine, and later Martin Luther who promoted religious freedom. Luther, standing before Emperor Charles V and the Diet of Worms in 1521 declared: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recent anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me, Amen.” The First Amendment echoes the desire of prominent Christian forbears in promoting religious liberty and freedom of the individual (Schmidt 263). Christianity’s influence on education can be seen at its very inception with the teachings of Jesus who used words, parables, and human-life illustrations and taught others who then would become teachers themselves (Schmidt 170). Schmidt notes that the earliest Christians were mostly Jews who came from a long-standing tradition that valued formal education. St. Paul in his epistles makes references to Christians teaching in Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica, as well as other places (171). Teaching continued after the death of the apostles and in the very early church (A.D. 80-110) the Didache, basically an instruction manual for new converts to Christianity, appeared. Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch in the first decade of the second century, insisted that children be taught the Scriptures and a skilled trade, a concept carried over from the Jews (Schmidt 171). Jesus Christ’s command to the disciples and all Christians was to teach people “all things” that he commanded him. Newcomers, in preparation for baptism and church membership, were taught orally by the question and answer method. Both men and women over a period of two to three years were catechized and first were instructed in the teacher’s home (Schmidt 171). These types of instruction lead to formal catechetical schools with a strong emphasis on the literary. Justin Martyr, around A.D. 150, established schools in Ephesus and in Rome. Other schools quickly spread throughout the regions. The school is Alexandria, Egypt was well noted for its literary qualities (Schmidt 171). Christian doctrine was

the primary focus of these schools though the one in Alexandria also taught mathematics and medicine and when Origen succeeded Clement he added grammar classes (Schmidt 172). Although Christians were not the first to engage in formal teaching it appears they were the first to teach both sexes in the same setting. Schmidt notes W.M. Ramsey as stating that Christianity’s aim was “universal education, not education confined to the rich, as among Greeks and Romans…and it [made] no distinction of sex” (172). St. Augustine once said that Christian women were better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers (Schmidt 172). Details on the education of children are not known until the fourth to the tenth century when cathedrals and episcopal schools were maintained by bishops. The schools taught not only Christian doctrine but also the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The espiscopal schools primarily trained priests but also enrolled others. Children of royalty and the higher social ranks attended the cathedral schools and others were instructed in monasteries or nunneries, where girls predominated. Although children were encouraged to enter church vocations most entered secular ones. At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther, to his dismay, found widespread ignorance when he visited the churches in Saxony. He proceeded to write Small Catechism in 1529 noting that the common people had little to no knowledge of Christian teachings and that many pastors were incompetent to teach. He criticized the bishops for this indiscretion (Schmidt 176). Luther urged a state school system “to include vernacular primary schools for sexes, Latin secondary schools, and universities.” He also said that parents who failed to teach their children were “shameful and despicable” (Schmidt 177). Education in early America was built on the heels of the Reformation of the sixteenth century which “stressed reclamation of all of life, with education as an essential transforming force (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 39). Modeling the Academy of Geneva (founded by John Calvin in 1559), universities sprang up that would apply the Bible to all of life (DeMar 39).

On of the first colleges to be founded was Harvard in 1636 three years after John Eliot (16041690) first proposed a college for Massachusetts Bay. Harvard’s curriculum emphasized the study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), logic, divinity (theology), and communication (public speaking and rhetoric). Latin also linked students to classical studies and the writings of the church fathers (DeMar 43). The Puritans held to the belief that the collegiate education proper for a minister should also be the same for educated laymen. There was no great distinction between secular and theological learning (DeMar 44). The early motto of Harvard was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (“Truth for Christ and the Church”). Harvard’s motto today has been reduced simply to Veritas (DeMar 45). Other early universities built exclusively on Christian principles were William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), King’s College (1754), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1769) (p. 42). The education of colonial children was provided by a curriculum of three books in addition to the Bible: the Hornbook, the New England Primer, and the Bay Psalm book. The Hornbook, a single parchment attached to a wooden paddle, contained the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and religious doctrines written or printed on it. The 1690 first edition of the Primer contained the names of the Old and New Testament books, the Lord’s Prayer, “An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Westminster Assembly Shorter Catechism, and John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babes” (DeMar 41). The Primer was the most commonly used textbook for almost 200 years. Another popular textbook was The McGuffey Reader (Schippe 9). Noah Webster, educator and compiler of the 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language wrote: “Education without the Bible is useless.” (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 40) Christian faith was integrated into every facet of education in early America. Christianity’s influence on language, literature, and the arts is often overlooked and even taken for granted. Without the Bible much of what we enjoy today would be non-existent. The

English language incorporates many words and phrases taken from the Bible when first translated. In 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Scriptures in its entirety and from it appears many of the words we still use today including the words adoption, ambitious, cucumber, liberty, and scapegoat among others (Schippe 12). William Tyndale translated the first English translation from the original texts. A gifted linguist skilled in eight languages with impeccable insights into Hebrew and Greek, Tyndale was eager to translate the Bible so even “the boy that drives the plow” could know the Bible (Schippe 13). Some familiar words and phrases of his include: “let there be light (Genesis 1.3),” “the powers that be (Romans 13.1),” “a law unto themselves (Romans 2.14),” and “fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6.12)” (Schippe 13). The influence of Tyndale on the English language was solidified in the publication of the 1611 King James Bible which retained about 94 percent of Tyndale’s work (Schippe 12). A renowned scholar on the literature of the Bible, Alistair McGrath notes, “Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address” (Schippe 12). Despite the hostility and persecution towards the Christians in the early centuries under Nero and Domitian and later under the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation the Scriptures were meticulously copied by the priests and monks which in later years were translated into the languages of the common people even under threat of punishment (Schippe 14). Tyndale first worked in secret and when later betrayed and about to be burnt at the stake he called out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Within a year King Henry allowed English Bibles to be distributed. Two million English Bibles were distributed throughout a country of just over six million nearly seventy-five years after Tyndale’s death (Schippe 14). Writers, artists, and musicians over the centuries have been greatly influenced by the Bible. From Dante to Milton to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the words and themes found in the Scriptures have made their way into much of the literature we study and enjoy today. Other great

writers in the history of Western Civilization include Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner, to name a few (Schippe 44). Art depicting biblical scenes was made popular especially during the Renaissance with artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most famous composers, was greatly influenced by the Scriptures. His Magnificant was written for the Christmas service of 1723 at St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig (Schippe 237). The cantata, a genre of vocal music in the Baroque period and a key part of the German Lutheran service, was primarily used in Bach’s music. A deeply religious man, Bach signed his cantatas “S.D.G., which stands for Soli Deo Gloria—“to God alone the glory” (Schippe 237). Many other forms of music known today have Christian roots such as the sonata, the symphony, and the oratorio. Most forms of music began as psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and the outgrowth from there progressed as the monks and churches spread throughout the ages. Ambrose (340-97) first had members of his congregation sing psalms antiphonally and allowed all people to participate in the morning and evening church services by setting the words of his hymns to “an easy metrical form, the iambic diameter (Schippe 316). Biblical stories were dramatized and performed in song as early as the ninth century. A well-known church drama in the tenth century was Visitatio sepulchri (The Visit to [Christ’s] Sepulcher). Schmidt notes there is good reason to believe the opera evolved out of church dramas that appeared five hundred years before the Renaissance (316-17). The works of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn among others have greatly been influenced by the words of the Bible; oftentimes the music itself directly reflected that influence (Schippe 328-29). With the publishing of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1896 the idea that Christianity was responsible for the arrival of science has largely been pushed out of the minds of the people, especially in academic circles (Schmidt 218-19). However, there is a pronounced difference between the pagan and Christian

religions, that being the Christian presupposition of one God who is a rational being. Schmidt asks the question, ‘If God is a rational being, then may not human beings, who are made in his image, also employ rational processes to study and investigate the world in which they live?” (219). It was Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253), a Franciscan bishop and first chancellor of Oxford University, who first proposed the inductive, experimental method and his student, Roger Bacon (1214-94) who asserted that “all things must be verified by experience.” Nearly three hundred years later Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave momentum to the inductive method by recording his experimental results. Bacon has been called “the practical creator of scientific induction.” Besides his scientific interests he also devoted time to theology and wrote treatises on the Psalms and prayer (Schmidt 219). The inductive empirical method guided by rational procedures stood in stark contrast from the ancient Greek perspective of Aristotle which had a stranglehold on the world for fifteen hundred years. Even after these empirically minded individuals introduced their idea the scholastic world for the most part continued to hold to Aristotelianism which was the real “struggle” between the Catholic Church and science (Schmidt 219-220). One other prominent presupposition of Christianity is that God, who created the world, is separate and distinct from it unlike Aristotelian philosophy which saw the gods and universe intertwined. Pantheism regarded the scientific method as sacrilegious and an affront to divine nature and thus only in Christian thought where God and nature are separate would science be possible (Schmidt 221). Schmidt quotes Lynn White, historian of medieval science, as saying “From the thirteenth century onward into the eighteenth every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (222). William Occam (1280-1349) had a great influence on the development of modern science. His concept known as “Occam’s Razor” was the scientific principle that states that what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. It is the principle of parsimony. As was common with almost all medieval natural philosophers, Occam did not

confine himself to scientific matters and wrote two theological treatises, one dealing with the Lord’s Supper and the other with the body of Christ, both of which had a tremendous impact on Martin Luther’s thinking (Schmidt 222). Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), while a great artist and painter was also a scientific genius who analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics. However, his greatest benefit to science was in the study of physiology in which he produced meticulous drawings of the human body (Schmidt 223). Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) followed in Da Vinci’s footsteps. In his famous work, De humani corpis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, he corrects over two hundred errors in Galen’s physiological writings. (Galen was a Greek physician of the second century) The errors were largely found by dissecting cadavers (Schmidt 223). The branch of genetics flourished under the work of Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk, who after studying Darwin’s theory of evolution rejected it (Schmidt 224). In the field of astronomy great advances were made under devout Christian men Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. In physics we encounter Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Blaise Pascal (1623-62), Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854), Andre Ampere (1775-1836), Michael Faraday (1791-1867), and William Thompson Kelvin (18241907). These men held to a strong Christian faith as evidenced by their writings. Before he died, Kepler was asked by an attending Lutheran pastor where he placed his faith. Kepler replied, “Solely and alone in the work of our redeemer Jesus Christ.” Kepler, who only tried “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” died with the Christian faith planted firmly in his mind and heart. His epitaph, penned four months before his death stated: I used to measure the heavens, Now I must measure the earth. Though sky-bound was my spirit, My earthly body rests here (Schmidt 230).

Such was the mindset of the fathers of modern science who held to deeply religious beliefs and saw no contradiction between faith and science. Had it not been for those men who believed in a rational God who created rational men who sought only to understand the world that God had created and obeyed the command to have “dominion” (Genesis 1.28) over the earth, science would not be as it is today. History books are filled with the rich details of men and women whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ and impacted the world through ideas found in Scripture in a wide array of disciplines. To deny the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization is to deny history altogether. Although at certain times there loomed dark areas in church history by those who deviated from the faith the overall positive contributions far outweigh the negative. There is no mistaking the fact that Christianity has changed the world for the better.

CHAPTER 2.

The Influence of Christianity on Anglo saxens. Great Britain has thousands of years of history. The first known inhabitants were the ancient Celts. Although they did not have a written language much is known about their culture. Celtic society had several classes which included, aristocrats; common people; and an educated class of lawyers, poets and priests. Most of the Celts lived in small rural settlements, raising crops and livestock. Tradition says that in 449 A.D. the first band of people from the great North German plain crossed the North Sea to Britain. These were the Jutes; the first of many Germanic invaders. After the Jutes came the Anglo-Saxons. Even though the Celts were no match for the invaders, they put up a fight. "The legendary King Arthur may have been the leader of the Celtic people who were driven into Wales. The Anglo-Saxons had a written language; the first known manuscript in their language is Beowulf. Beowulf is a good illustration of the mixing of long held Pagan beliefs and traditions with the new Christian faith.

The Anglo-Saxons were a more war-like tribe than the Celts, but their society was still well developed, "branching out from family to clan and tribe then to their kingdom." The AngloSaxons had great loyalty towards their chosen leaders. "They also liked to hold meetings where people could openly express what they thought and felt." Besides tremendous loyalty to their leaders, the Anglo-Saxons also had an Heroic Idea. They admired, "men of outstanding courage and strength." Beowulf fills this outline of the Heroic Idea quite well because he was extremely strong and courageous. The Anglo-Saxons felt that, "Loyalty to the leaders and the tribe,… as well as fierce personal valor were necessary for the survival of all." "The ruler was to be generous to those who were loyal, therefore the followers in return would remain loyal." An example of this is illustrated in Beowulf when Hrothgar has a mead hall built , called Herot Hall,

to reward his people. The Anglo-Saxons also had an acceptance of death. Their attitude towards death was not to fear death but rather that it is going to happen to everyone. This acceptance was because, "Everyone was aware of the shortness of life and the passing away of all things in the world." The poet of Beowulf illustrates this lack of fear of death, when Beowulf says, "So shall a man do when he aims to win lasting praise in battle—he does not worry about his life".(page26 the structure of Beowulf)Besides great loyalty and acceptance of death, the Anglo-Saxons also "had vigorous minds." "Learning in England was so admired on the continent that it was natural for European rulers to send to England for teachers." Parts of Anglo-Saxon civilization remains in our lives today. For example, some of the week day names. "Tuesday comes from Tiw, god of war; Wensday from Waden, the chief Teutonic god; Thursday from Thor, god of thunder; and Friday comes from Frigga, goddess of the home. Besides days of the week, "many basic American traditions in law, conduct, outlook, language, and literature" come from the AngloSaxons. Since there are some references to Christian beliefs in the Epic Poem Beowulf, the question has arose, from where did this Christian influence come? The Christian influence came to Britain in 314 a.d. by a bishop of London who attended the church council at Arles in France. Saint Augustine came in 597 A.D. established a monastery at Canterbury and became the first Archbishop as well as the most famous. The archbishops of Canterbury were called "Primates" of England, or the highest ecclesiastical authority. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon tribes took place about 600 a.d. and the ruler at the time was Ethelbert. The importance of this is that some of these Christian beliefs show up in Beowulf. In 664 there was a synod at Whitby Abbey, a famous monastery for men and women. The importance of this synod is that it united the English church with Roman Christianity. This church then began to draw the island kingdoms together and encourage ties. There is evidence in the poem Beowulf, of Christian and Pagan beliefs. One example of these

Pagan beliefs is the stance taken about revenge. In Christian teaching, it is better to turn the other cheek and forgive, rather than seek revenge. In Beowulf, there is a whole different approach to revenge. If your friend was killed there would be no turning the other cheek, revenge would be sought after. This can be illustrated by Beowulf’s best known saying, "Better a man should avenge his friend than mourn much". Another example of Pagan beliefs is how Beowulf finds such great delight in material rewards, treasures and the like. Again this goes against what I think a Christian hero to be. When Beowulf fights his last battle against the dragon and is mortally wounded, his "last thoughts were of the treasure he had won, that will keep his memory alive among man and his ancestors". I on the other had would be reminiscing over my life reviewing, how I lived my life and where I was headed to next after I died. Beowulf was not alarmed with the fact he was dying but concerned with keeping his memory alive.

Mixed in the Epic Poem Beowulf, there are references to Christian beliefs. In the poem, when it is being explained where Grendal came from, Grendal is referenced as a "hellish enemy". The Poem also says, God condemned them as kin of Cain. This shows that the person who wrote this poem had at least some Christian teaching since he referred Grendal to kin of Cain, who is a person from the Bible. Beowulf illustrates Christian beliefs himself in the poem. He acts like a savior much like Jesus did. An example of this is when Beowulf comes to save Hrothgar and his people from the hellish creature Grendal. This illustrates the idea of a Christian hero, although Beowulf was helping Hrothgar to add to his fame. Another way Beowulf acts like a savior is when he does battle with the dragon. He is old by the time he goes to save his people from a posed threat one last time. The outcome of the battle is that Beowulf is killed, but he does save his people from the dragon. Beowulf died in the way Jesus is said to have died on the cross in order to save us all.{page 72 the structure of Beowulf} The Anglo-Saxons were a very war like tribe who drive back the Celts to obtain what they

wanted. They had a well developed culture as well though. They had a written language and had a passion for fine objects like bracelets and brooches. They also had a great influence on English Literature. Their first known manuscript was Beowulf which had evidence of long standing Pagan beliefs and new forming Christian religion. Beowulf illustrates these different Pagan and Christian beliefs throughout the story whether by his attitude towards revenge, by his love for material possessions or even by the way he plays the savior throughout the book. Beowulf was not alone in illustrating the Christian belief in the Poem. Grendal shows that the writer of the poem had knowledge of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon tribes were basically a brave and courageous, as well as intelligent people The Schools of Caedmon and Cynewulf. Any attempt to estimate the development attained by Old English literature, as shown by the work of the two schools of poetry which the names of Caedmon and Cynewulf connote, must, of necessity, be somewhat superficial, in view of the fragmentary nature of much of the work passed under review. Caedmon stands for a group of singers whose work we feel to be earlier in tone and feeling, though not always in age, than that which we know to be Cynewulf’s or can fairly attribute to him. Both schools of thought are Christian, not even monkish; both writers, if not in equal measure, are sons of their age and palpably inheritors of a philosophy of life pagan in many respects. It is safe to say that, in both groups, there is hardly a single poem of any length and importance in which whole passages are not permeated with the spirit of the untouched Beowulf, in which turns of speech, ideas, points of view, do not recall an earlier, a fiercer, a more self-reliant and fatalistic age. God the All-Ruler is fate metamorphosed; the powers of evil are identical with those once called giants and elves; the Paradise and Hell of the Christian are as realistic as the Walhalla and the Niflheim of the heathen ancestor. 48 Yet the work of Cynewulf and his school marks an advance upon the writings of the school of Caedmon. Even the latter is, at times, subjective and personal in tone to a degree not found in pure folk-epic; but in Cynewulf

the personal note is emphasised and becomes lyrical. Caedmon’s hymn in praise of the Creator is a sublime statement of generally recognised facts calling for universal acknowledgment in suitably exalted terms; Cynewulf’s confessions in the concluding portion of Elene or in The Dream of the Rood, or his vision of the day of judgment in Crist, are lyrical outbursts, spontaneous utterances of a soul which has become one with its subject and to which selfrevelation is a necessity. This advance shows itself frequently, also, in the descriptions of nature. For Cynewulf, “earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God”; it is, perhaps, only in portions of Exodus and in passages of Genesis B that the Divine immanence in nature is obviously felt by the Caedmonian scop. 49 The greatest distinction between the one school and the other, is due, however, to the degree in which Cynewulf and his group show their power of assimilating foreign literary influences. England was ceasing to be insular as the influence of a literary tongue began to hold sway over her writers. They are scholars deliberately aiming at learning from others—they borrow freely, adapt, reproduce. Form has become of importance; at times, of supreme importance; the attempt, architecturally imperfect as it may be, to construct the trilogy we know as Crist is valuable as a proof of consciousness in art, and the transformation that the riddles show in the passage from their Latin sources furnishes additional evidence of the desire to adorn. 50 Yet, it is hard not to regret much that was lost in the acquisition of the new. The reflection of the spirit of paganism, the development of epic and lyric as we see them in the fragments that remain, begin to fade and change; at first Christianity is seen to be but thin veneer over the old heathen virtues, and the gradual assimilation of the Christian spirit was not accomplished without harm to the national poetry, or without resentment on the part of the people. “They have taken away our ancient worship, and no one knows how this new worship is to be performed,” said the hostile common folk to the monks, when the latter were praying at Tynemouth for the safety of their brethren carried out to sea. “We are not going to pray for them. May God spare none of them,” they jibed, when they saw that Cuthbert’s

prayers appeared to be ineffectual. It was many a year before the hostility to the new faith was overcome and the foreign elements blended with the native Teutonic spirit. The process of blending can be seen perfectly at work in such lines as The Charm for Barren Land, where pagan feeling and nominal Christianity are inextricably mixed. There, earth spells are mingled with addresses to the Mother of Heaven. But, in due season, the fusion was accomplished, and, in part, this was due to the wisdom with which the apostles of Christianity retained and disguised in Christian dress many of the festivals, observances and customs of pre-Christian days. That so much of what remains of Old English literature is of a religious nature does not seem strange, when it is remembered through whose hands it has come down to us. Only what appealed to the new creed or could be modified by it would be retained or adapted, when the Teutonic spirit became linked with, and tamed by, that of Rome.

CHAPTER 3

Christianity and renaissance Wall Hanging Renaissance Cross

Intricate Wall Hanging Christian Cross This Renaissance Cross is a symbolic representation of the emergence of Christianity as a world religion. With a traditional renaissance charm, this classic 15th century motif portrays Christ in his risen form, inspiring hope of redemption for all mankind. His hands rest on a heart that throbs compassion for the sufferings of humanity as his arms lift in offering of redemptive wisdom. Constructed from cultured marble, this stunning wall hanging Renaissance Cross measures 15" high and weighs approximately 4 lbs. History of Christianity during the Renaissance Dissent and concern over the condition of the church are evidence of the strength, not the weakness, of religion. Christianity during the Renaissance presents a contradiction: Although the institution of the Roman Catholic Church was in decay, there was extraordinary religious fervor in every part of Europe. Preachers, such as the highly popular Girolamo Savonarola of Florence, called on sinners to repent and enjoyed great success in Italy. A mystical religious movement that

drew, in part, from the teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart flourished in the portion of western Germany known as the Rhineland. Its members sought direct revelations from God without the church as an intermediary. In the Low Countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands a movement known as the devotio moderna emphasized individual and practical faith, a contrast with the more communal and metaphysical faith of the Catholic Church.

These teachings spread through schools and gained public attention through The Imitation of Christ (approximately 1424), a highly influential work usually attributed to Thomas à Kempis, a German monk and writer. Eager laymen built churches and chapels, and new devotional exercises—such as the stations of the cross and prayers using the rosary—became popular. With the introduction of the printing press in Europe during the 15th century, religious books were produced by the millions, and they found a ready market.

The increase in popular devotion posed a threat to traditional religion, especially when the prestige of church officials was low and they seemed incapable of, or uninterested in, close supervision of the faithful. Popular heretical movements emerged and challenged papal authority. These movements proposed, in varying degrees, to do away with the church as an institution. In the 14th century, British philosopher and reformer John Wycliffe and his counterpart in Bohemia, Jan Hus, formalized these attacks on church authority in their teachings and writings.

Heretics remained a small minority, however, and a variety of reformers who hoped to change the existing church were far more characteristic of the Renaissance. Theologians such as Jean de Gerson, who was particularly influential at the University of Paris in the early 15th century, supported conciliar theory, which aimed at reforming the Roman Catholic Church by placing supreme authority in a general council rather than in the papacy. Mystics preferred to deepen the

religious life of individuals, while many humanists hoped to reform Christian society by relying on education rather than on religious faith.

The Renaissance also encouraged practical reformers. As papal legate (official representative of the pope) to Germany in the mid-15th century, Nicholas of Cusa pursued a vigorous reform campaign directed particularly at monks who had violated their monastic vows. The monasteries in Paris also underwent significant reform in the early decades of the 16th century. Most successful of all was the work of Cardinal Ximenes, the leading church figure of Spain in the early 16th century. He set standards for qualifications, training, and discipline for the Spanish clergy. Such reforms were by no means universal, and the visible condition of the church continued to bring widespread demands for reform. The religious history of the Renaissance reveals both weakness and vigor. People of this era expressed discontent with the actual state of the church, but they also expressed hope for improvement. Renaissance Humanism: Humanism is the term generally applied to the predominant social philosophy and intellectual and literary currents of the period from 1400 to 1650. The return to favor of the pagan classics stimulated the philosophy of secularism, the appreciation of worldly pleasures, and above all intensified the assertion of personal independence and individual expression. Zeal for the classics was a result as well as a cause of the growing secular view of life. Expansion of trade, growth of prosperity and luxury, and widening social contacts generated interest in worldly pleasures, in spite of formal allegiance to ascetic Christian doctrine. Men thus affected -- the humanists -welcomed classical writers who revealed similar social values and secular attitudes. Historians are pretty much agreed on the general outlines of those mental attitudes and scholarly interests which are assembled under the rubric of humanism. The most fundamental point of

agreement is that the humanist mentality stood at a point midway between medieval supernaturalism and the modern scientific and critical attitude. Medievalists see humanism as the terminal product of the Middle Ages. Modern historians are perhaps more apt to view humanism as the germinal period of modernism. Perhaps the most we can assume is that the man of the Renaissance lived, as it were, between two worlds. The world of the medieval Christian matrix, in which the significance of every phenomenon was ultimately determined through uniform points of view, no longer existed for him. On the other hand, he had not yet found in a system of scientific concepts and social principles stability and security for his life. In other words, Renaissance man may indeed have found himself suspended between faith and reason. As the grip of medieval supernaturalism began to diminish, secular and human interests became more prominent. The facts of individual experience in the here and now became more interesting than the shadowy afterlife. Reliance upon faith and God weakened. Fortuna (chance) gradually replaced Providence as the universal frame of reference. The present world became an end in itself instead of simply preparation of a world to come. Indeed, as the age of Renaissance humanism wore on, the distinction between this world (the City of Man) and the next (the City of God) tended to disappear. Beauty was believed to afford at least some glimpse of a transcendental existence. This goes far to explain the humanist cult of beauty and makes plain that humanism was, above everything else, fundamentally an aesthetic movement. Human experience, man himself, tended to become the practical measure of all things. The ideal life was no longer a monastic escape from society, but a full participation in rich and varied human relationships.

The dominating element in the finest classical culture was aesthetic rather than supernatural or scientific. In the later Middle Ages urban intellectuals were well on the road to the recovery of an aesthetic and secular view of life even before the full tide of the classical revival was felt. It was only natural, then, that pagan literature, with its emotional and intellectual affinity to the new world view, should accelerate the existing drift toward secularism and stimulate the cult of humanity, the worship of beauty, and especially the aristocratic attitude. Almost everywhere, humanism began as a rather pious, timid, and conservative drift away from medieval Christianity and ended in bold independence of medieval tradition. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), one of the greatest humanists, occupied a position midway between extreme piety and frank secularism. Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) represented conservative Italian humanism. Robust secularism and intellectual independence reached its height in Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). Rudolphus Agricola (14431485) may be regarded as the German Petrarch. In England, John Colet (c.1467-1519) and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) were early or conservative humanists, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) represented later or agnostic and skeptical humanism. In France, pious classicists like Lefèvre d'Étaples (1453-1536) were succeeded by frank, urbane, and devout skeptics like Michel Montaigne (1533-1592) and bold anti-clerical satirists like François Rabelais (c.1495-1533). Humanistic contributions to science consisted mainly in the recovery of Greek scientific literature which evinced a more accurate and acceptable body of facts and ideas than most medieval scientific works. However, we should not exaggerate the humanist contribution in this field. Everything of value, for instance, in Galen (c.130-201) had long been incorporated into medieval medicine. The scientific treatises of Aristotle, Euclid, and Ptolemy were translated into Latin and known to scholars before the Renaissance. Moreover, Islamic scholars had already

introduced most Attic and Hellenistic science into western Europe, often with vast improvements on the original. Humanism embodied the mystical and aesthetic temper of a pre-scientific age. It did not free the mind from subservience to ancient authority. If the humanists revered Aristotle less than the Schoolmen did, they worshipped Neoplatonism, the Cabala, and Cicero more. They shifted authorities rather then dismissed them. Even Aristotle, the greatest of Scholastic authorities, did not lack humanist admirers. The great libraries assembled by wealthy patrons of literature like Cosimo de' Medici, Pope Nicholas V, and the Duke of Urbino, devoted much space to the Church Fathers and the Scholastic philosophers. The humanists did, however, read their authorities for aesthetic pleasure as well as moral uplift. The intellectuals of antiquity, in contrast to the Christians, were relatively unconcerned about the supernatural world and the eternal destiny of the soul. They were primarily interested in a happy, adequate, and efficient life here on earth. Hellenic philosophy was designed to teach man how to live successfully rather than how to die with the assurance of ultimate salvation. This pagan attitude had been lost for about one thousand years, when Europe followed the warning of Augustine against becoming too engrossed in earthly affairs, lest assurance of successful entry into the New Jerusalem be jeopardized. Humanism directly and indirectly revived the pagan scale of virtues. When men like Petrarch and his fellow humanists read pagan literature, they were infected with the secular outlook of the Greeks and Romans. Even rather pious humanists became enamored of what Augustine branded the City of Man. Petrarch, a devout Christian, worshipped the pagan eclecticism of Cicero. Erasmus suggested that such titles as St. Socrates and St. Cicero were not inappropriate or sacrilegious, and openly preferred the pagans to the Schoolmen. "Whatever is pious and conduces to good manners ought not to be called profane," he wrote.

The first place must indeed be given to the authority of the Scriptures; but, nevertheless, I sometimes find some things said or written by the ancients, nay, even by the heathens, nay, by the poets themselves, so chastely, so holily, and so divinely, that I cannot persuade myself but that, when they wrote them, they were divinely inspired, and perhaps the spirit of Christ diffuses itself farther than we imagine; and that there are more saints than we have in our catalogue. To confess freely among friends, I can't read Cicero on Old Age, on Friendship, his Offices, or his Tusculan Questions, without kissing the book, without veneration towards the divine soul. And, on the contrary, when I read some of our modern authors, treating of Politics, Economics, and Ethics, good God! how cold they are in comparison with these! Nay, how do they seem to be insensible of what they write themselves! So that I had rather lose Scotus and twenty more such as he (fancy twenty subtle doctors!) than one Cicero or Plutarch. Not that I am wholly against them either; but, because, by the reading of the one, I find myself become better, whereas I rise from the other, I know not how coldly affected to virtue, but most violently inclined to cavil and contention. The leading intellectual trait of the era as the recovery, to a certain degree, of the secular and humane philosophy of Greece and Rome. Another humanist trend which cannot be ignored was the rebirth of individualism, which, developed by Greece and Rome to a remarkable degree, had been suppressed by the rise of a caste system in the later Roman Empire, by the Church and by feudalism in the Middle Ages. The Church asserted that rampant individualism was identical with arrogance, rebellion, and sin. Medieval Christianity restricted individual expression, fostered self-abnegation and self-annihilation, and demanded implicit faith and unquestioning obedience. Furthermore, the Church officially ignored man and nature. In other ways medieval civilization suppressed the ego. In the feudal regime the isolated individual had little standing. He acquired status and protection mainly as a member of a definite

group, whether lordly or servile. The manorial system revolved around the community rather than the individual. When the cities through off the yoke of feudalism, they promised collective and corporate liberty rather than individual freedom. In commercial relations group life was paramount, both in the town guilds and the peasant villages on manorial estates. Everything was regulated by law and custom. The individual who attempted to challenge authority and tradition, in matters of thought or action, was either discouraged or crushed. The period from the 14th century to the 17th worked in favor of the general emancipation of the individual. The city-states of northern Italy had come into contact with the diverse customs of the East, and gradually permitted expression in matters of taste and dress. The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.Individualism and the instinct of curiosity were vigorously cultivated. Honest doubt began to replace unreasoning faith. The skeptical viewpoint proposed by Abelard reached high development and wide acceptance among the humanists. Finally, the spirit of individualism to a certain degree incited the Protestant revolt, which, in theory at least, embodied a thorough application of the principle of individualism in religion.It need not be supposed that the emancipation of the ego was wholly beneficial to the human race. Yet, that aspect of humanism which combated the sovereignty of tyrant, feudal lord, class, corporation, and tradition, has, for better or worse, had a tremendous influence upon the subsequent history of Europe. Indeed, it was during the humanist era that the freedom of individual expression and opposition to authority was first brought to the surface and became an integral part of the western intellectual tradition. CHAPTER 4

CHRISTIANITY AND ROMANTICISM. GOETHE'S Faust is such an odd, spectacular mix of theology and Romanticism. Few would consider it a Christian work, yet its mysticism wells in part from Christian sources. Looking at its welter of philosophy, science, and myth, one wonders if there could be a Christian Romantic, and what it would be: how could one explore the self and celebrate it, while at the same time suspecting it, finding its nature tending toward evil? Romanticism is often considered the opposite of Christianity in the same way it is thought of as the opposite of Classicism: order versus disorder, discipline versus freedom, exaltation of the self versus obedience to the law of God. These issues are explored in detail in Harold P. Simonson's Radical Discontinuities: American Romanticism and Christian Consciousness, which traces the two ideals, Jonathan Edwards' Christ versus Ralph Waldo Emerson's romantic mysticism, throughout American literature. Simonson concludes that the two are opposites, "radical discontinuities" (Simonson 9). But in fact there is an overlap between the two areas. Some writers who are well-known as Romantics also firmly believe in salvation through Christ, such as the German romantic Novalis and the nineteenth-century Scottish fantasy writer George MacDonald whom he influenced, and whose novel Lilith is the subject of this essay. Neither Emersonian nor Edwardsian in thought one neither with Goethe nor with Schiller, MacDonald steers a course midway between these poles and borrows liberally from both. Granted that there is a "radical discontinuity" of content between pure Christianity and pure Romanticism, and that one cannot place both the imagination and Christ on the highest rung of the ladder of values, still, the writer is free to appropriate forms and ideas to his or her own use. Romantic Christianity takes the conventions of Romantic literature and applies them to Christian thought. It is true that the Romantic tools and themes-sentient nature, rebelliousness, Gothicism,

etc.-tend to retain their Romantic essence and sometimes produce a Christianity that fits too loosely for conservative thinkers because it seems to honor the imagination too generously. The Christian elements in Faust may be seen as overwhelmed by the Romantic. There are right and wrong, but it is man's nature to choose the wrong. As God tells the Devil in Faust, "Es irrt der Mensch, solang er strebt" (Goethe 86). One makes mistakes as long as he strives, and indeed the only unpardonable sin in Faust is to stop striving. However, George MacDonald in Lilith uses all the Romantic trappings to communicate ideas that are consistent with a liberal but traditional Christianity and antithetical to many of the most common Romantic assumptions. The apparent conflict between contents and package adds an additional element of interest to this intriguing tale. A brief general definition of Romanticism shows all the stereotypical characteristics that are easy to find in MacDonald's famous story. Romantic literature stresses emotion over intellect, involves a turning in upon the self, and tends to focus on the genius, the hero, the exceptional individual in conflict. The literature emphasizes imagination as the entry to transcendence and to the spiritual world. Its setting is exotic, supernatural, and/or remote. It is often death-obsessed; when the work is occasioned by loss, the Romantic writer attempts to transcend the loss by reclaiming the beloved through the power of the imagination. For the Romantic the word may be a magic talisman, apotropaic, used by the hero to gain control over others or over nature. In general, when we think of the Romantic, we tend to envision the self-portrait of the artist as hero, as someone who, again like Goethe's Faust, defies all laws to find forbidden knowledge and power and to enrich his understanding of his world. God sometimes becomes another element for the seeker to explore, contact with the divine having been reduced to just another "peak experience."

Many Romantics were particularly attracted to the form of the medieval Romance. This story of a knight who goes forth, bearing his lady's token, to defend his country, overcoming supernatural opponents and fulfilling his quest in the shifting, unpredictable landscape he must traverse between real and unreal makes an ideal vehicle for the cosmic search for self. For the Romantic writer, the hero of this genre undertakes a quest that has no bounds, but allows the inspired and/or tormented soul to search throughout the world and beyond for his true being. The Scottish writer's fantasy Lilith is subtitled "a Romance." It uses elements of both Romantic literature and the form of the Romance to express MacDonald's own lifelong search for a remedy for death, and his finding of the Christian solution. ROMANTIC Christianity, in Lilith and elsewhere, tends toward the positive; it desires to console and be consoled rather than threaten. Its "fortunate fall" theology often extends to the conclusion that sin is a learning experience. Its protagonists are saved, as Goethe's Faustus is saved, not because they have lived the good and lawful life-indeed Faustus has done the opposite-but rather because his errors are those of a generous soul: one makes mistakes as long as he keeps striving. Vane, like Dr. Faustus, continues to strive, until, unlike Faustus, he receives two forms of revelation-testimony and experience, which finally convince him of salvation. Indeed, MacDonald was accused of being a universalist, and fired from his ministry- or, to be precise, his salary was so greatly diminished that he and his family could no longer live on it, and he was forced to lecture instead of preach for a living.

CHAPTER 5:

CHRISTIANITYAND POST MODERN LITERATURE Postmodernism derives from - an aesthetic movement that is usually known as "modernism". Modernism is the movement in visual arts, music, literature and drama, which rejected old Victorian standards of how those things should be done. There was a time of "high modernism" from around 1910 - 1930, where some major people of literature helped to redefine poetry and fiction. 'Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka, and Rilke are considered the founders of twentieth-century modernism.' The Modernist Movement actually started to show itself around the mid-nineteenth century in France. Modernism's idea was that of re-examining all aspects of life to see what was "holding back" progress and then replacing it with ways to get the same end result. The Modern Movement said that 'the new realities of the twentieth century were permanent and imminent and that people should… accept that… new was also good and beautiful'1 - hence why it was also known as the aesthetic movement. The beginning of the Modernist Movement in the 1890's to 1910 began a line of new thinking of that which said we should 'push aside previous norms entirely, and instead of merely revising past knowledge in light of new techniques, it would be necessary to make more thorough changes'. The "avant-garde" was what Modernism was first called and remained as a name for movements which attempt to overthrow some kind of tradition or the status quo. But the Modern Movement was not just defined by its avant-garde, but also by a trend with previous artistic norms. It also argued that to keep that standards of previous accomplishments, it was required to advance technique and theory. The time between 1910 and 1930 is what is considered the 'explosion of Modernism', when a growing unease with social order began to take place (seen in the Russian Revolution of 1905). In 1913 a Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, composed Rite of 1

Spring which depicted human sacrifice and painters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, caused shock by throwing out traditional means of paining paintings. There is also a form of Modernism that got into the Catholic Church in the mid-nineteenth century too. 'Modernism' was used by Pope Pius X to describe doctrinal ideas by a group of theologians, that said the 'Christian church and its dogma are human institutions that have evolved in time like other institutions'. In Pius X's encyclical Lamentabili Sane (July 3rd, 1907), he said "the fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable". He also described this form of Modernism not as herasy, but as a mixture of all herasies (Pascendi Dominici gregis, 39). The church seemed to be reacting to cultural themes of the Renaissance humanism and Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. This Modernist crisis in the Roman Catholic Church mainly took place in France and British Catholic circles, and a little bit in Italy, but no where else. By the 1920's, Post-modern culture had started to arise - ironically, by the time Modernism was starting to be accepted, it was changing. A cultural movement that started in Zürich, Switzerland during World War 1, known as Dada or Dadaism featured aspects of Postmodernism. The Dada movement was mainly focussed on the visual arts, literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic design. Dadaism is similar in thought to a philosophical position known as Nihilism, which holds the view that the world, and mainly human life and existence, is pointless and without any meaning or value. Modernism, according to Dr. Mary Klages, says that: 'From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include: 1. An emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing. 2. A movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiplynarrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.

3. A blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in T.S. Eliot or E.E. Cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce). 4. An emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials. 5. A tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular ways. 6. A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the poetry of William Carlos Williams) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation. 7. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.' And that Postmodernism follows a lot of these same ideas of Modernism by rejecting genre boundaries betweens "art" and other forms of art. Post-modern art and thought tends to lean towards fragmentation and discontinuity - mainly in narrative structures and knowledge. This meaning, that, Modernism presents a broken view of human thinking or consciousness subjectivity, and makes it as something to be mourned over. Whereas Postmodernism says the opposite: that it should not be mourned, but instead celebrated. So let me recap: Modernism is the aesthetic movement in all the different art forms, such as; music, visual arts and literature, that rejected the old Victorian ideas of how art and many other areas of life should be done. Postmodernism then came from that with similar ideas, but significant differences influenced by such other movements as Dadaism and Nihilism which celebrated the idea that life is pointless, and that knowledge and a narrative for life is not universal but is based only on individual viewpoint; there is no absolute knowledge or truth. Therefore, it would seem people living with the Post-modern point of view would like things that are radical and against that which is considered 'traditional' or 'the standard'. So if we as Christians can get Jesus across to Post-modern people in a radical way - i.e. moving away from the traditional images that the Catholic Church and Church of England have portrayed to people for centuries, then they may well accept the Gospel message. Engaging in a conversation about Christianity usually brings up the following questions or statements: 'church is boring, though'

and 'what about the Crusades?' The best way I have found to handle these is by explaining that not all churches are like that of the Anglican or Catholic Church, and that there some other churches, like Pentecostal churches, that are a lot more lively and free in their worship. Also, with the Crusades in mind, and possibly other such events (like the Spanish Inquisition) it is good to explain that not everything called "Christian" actually is; sometimes things can be more political with a religious mask. This would make an excellent link to bring God into the picture and to talk about how He is an all loving God - not one to cause pointless genocides, but that He loves each and every one of us, no matter what. Introduce Jesus; He was a radical of the day, stirring up people, changing the way people thought - changing or bringing about new ways to do things that the people of the day had been doing for years with their own traditions and ways and means. And for that, He was killed by His own people, but God had an over-arching plan: the Jews thought that they were ending Jesus' teachings, but God's plan encompassed everything and that through His death, people could come to know God again personally. At this point questions may arise as to 'why' and a brief explanation of the fall of man away from God in Genesis might be required. The Post-modern culture may find it hard to grasp the idea of an absolute truth and narrative to the whole of life, instead of it just being all about them. But with a good explanation and introduction to who God really is and what He is like, then they may just accept Him. So to conclude: relate to Post-modern people on the level that to follow Jesus goes against everything society and the world says to do and how to live, but that being a Christian is something new and different - breaking the boundaries of what people accept and expect. But at the same time, show that there is absolute truth in the world and that life does have meaning and purpose - and that can be found in God.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON ENGLISHLITERATURE

R.DANIEL RUBARAJ, M.A. MPhil.