Depth Perception

The fourth class on my list to blog about is called Christianity in Late Antiquity. For this class, I go down to Cambridge for a lecture once a week, and I have a supervisor here at Westfield House who I meet with periodically to discuss the research paper I will be completing for this class.
My lecturer's name is Dr. Thomas Graumann and my supervisor here is Dr. Boris Gunjevic. Both of these men are very knowledgeable about the Early Church and I have a great deal to learn from both of them.
The eight lectures compiling Christianity in Late Antiquity cover the years from 306AD to 430AD. In 306AD, Constantine the Great was proclaimed supreme ruler of the Roman Empire. He was proclaimed emperor in York, England, which is where I saw his statue in front of York Minster Cathedral. The West belonged to Constantine.
What made this emperor so special was his conversion to Christianity. For the first time, Rome had a Christian emperor, which stopped the previously ongoing persecutions of Christians in the Empire. When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, it paved the way for important government-sanctioned councils such as the Councils of Nicaea (in the year 325) and Constantinople (381), at which men compiled the biblical canon and composed the Nicene Creed.
Many controversies ensued during this time, perhaps the most famous of which was the Arian controversy. Arius claimed that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are creations of the Father and not one in nature with him. This was combated by Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, after whom the Athanasian Creed was titled.
This era of Late Antiquity also encompassed the lives of the four principal church fathers of the Western Church: Ambrose of Milan, Gregory, Jerome, and St. Augustine of Hippo. You might remember Augustine from one of my past blogs.
He was the Bishop of Hippo, which is in North Africa, toward the beginning of the fifth century. He fought Arianism and other heresies in North Africa and Italy during his life. Among his most influential works are Confessions, which describes his conversion to Christianity as a young man, and The City of God. He died in 430AD, which is where my lectures will end as well.
I have attended the first five of my eight lectures for Christianity in Late Antiquity thus far, and I have begun the first draft of my paper for it. It is a pleasure to learn about the Ancient Christian Church so close to where all the events took place. And I'm honored to live in a region that was once under the rule of Constantine the Great.