Living Life Handouts

The course “Living Life with the Early Church”, provides an introduction to the Christian Church from inception up to around 1200AD.

It was a time of turbulence. In the early days Christianity was misunderstood and persecuted in a very harsh climate: Christian ideas conflicted strongly with popular culture, but nevertheless ultimately prevailed in 313 at the Edict of Milan under the Emperor Constantine.

Problems continued. By around 350 a Christian Baptismal Certificate was required for any public office from street sweeper upwards, and the issue was what the minimum was one had to do to get the Certificate.

The Roman Empire however itself was progressively disintegrating. Rome fell in around 476, and a long period “the dark ages” followed of severe hardship, and once again the survival of the Church was at risk.

Throughout this hostile period however, many Christian authors and communities flourished, whose words, guidance and encouragement can stimulate us today in the 21st century. Indeed the wisdom, over 1500 years later has been proven to work in practice, and is still readily available, both in bookshops and on the Internet.

This Course assumes no prior knowledge, and provides an introduction to the periods and what some of the writers had to say.

This page provides some of the handouts which accompanied the individual sessions.

At each session, in addition to the main handout, an overall Reference Guide to Dates and Places (mainly the Roman Empire) was provided, and also readings illustrating the topics covered. After Week 5, a quick Reference Sheet on Symbolism was also provied. The sessions also included various computer slides which were provided in hard copy to those who requested them, and to postal subscribers.