Then begins the Romanized Christianity, because the Roman Empire, which before persecuted, in this century became Christian. With this Christianity suffered a great mixture with the infiltration of Roman culture into early Christianity. The Christians, from oppressed to oppressors, from simplicity to opulence, from a very simple worship to a very sophisticated, sumptuous worship, a worship that brought much of the Greco-Roman culture into Christianity.

This century, as we already mentioned in the first part of this study, is a very rich century of information. We will pick only the most important points, those that, in our understanding, it is necessary to highlight.

Remembering that Emperor Constantine, responsible for the Edict of Milan, which happened in the year 313, had not yet made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. Although he had converted to Christianity, he proclaimed with the Edict of Tolerance an opening for worship, an official tolerance so that Christians could practice Christianity without suffering persecutions. The Empire became officially Christian in the year 380, with Theodosius.

In the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which occurred in 325, the Canon of the Church was established. Many truths were established and incorporated into Christian thought and great characters of Patristics appeared at that moment in history, that is, the Fathers of the Church.

The Council of Laodicea, which occurred in 364, was not really a Council, it was more a Synod. The difference between one and the other is that a Council has a universal characteristic, in which bishops, presbyters from all over the world participate, to discuss the Canon, the creed, the apostolicity of what will be the norm of the Church. Synod is a local meeting.

In this Synod of 364 they gathered in one of those primitive Churches that are cited in the text of Revelation, to discuss some articles of faith. The most important was that the holy day ceased to be Saturday, the day of rest foreseen in the text in Exodus, and became Sunday.

It was established in Laodicea that Sunday would be the day of the Lord. This is because Sunday, in Latin: Dominus, means “Lord”. Sunday, then, the day of the Lord. Also because it was on Sunday that the women went to the tomb where Jesus was placed, but it was empty. They say that He resurrected on Sunday, but, in fact, the women found Him on Sunday. Because it was a great joy to find Him on a Sunday, this day came to be called the Day of the Lord. For this reason the mass occurs on Sunday, to celebrate the resurrection. Also the previous thought of the Holy Trinity was revised and deconstructed, as not being true.

We had a religion that walked tied to the Roman Empire. After Constantine, came Emperor Julian, who entered history with the nickname of “the apostate”, which means: the one who breaks with the faith, who is in disagreement with the Canon. So, in the Council of Laodicea, he broke with the Holy Trinity.

There was a regression regarding ideas, because they resumed the notion that there was no longer the Holy Trinity. So, there was a rupture, made by this Emperor and they resumed the ideas of Arius, that is, that God and Jesus are not the same person. And some even regressed to pagan ideas. However, the idea of the Holy Trinity was rescued in 381, in the Council of Constantinople, with Emperor Theodosius, who at that time was already Christian.

Thus, it cannot really be said that it was Constantine who made the Roman Empire Christian. It was he who started it, but it did not prosper, because Emperor Julian deconstructed it. Then comes Emperor Theodosius, in 381 and he puts it back, rebuilds it so that it would no longer be removed. It can be said that the one who truly made the Roman Empire Christian, was Theodosius.

The worship of images was approved in this Synod, because the Romans worshiped images of gods. So, they built altars for the saints of the Church. With this, the order of the Ten Commandments was changed. The second commandment of the Law of God, which is on the Tablets of the Law, (you shall not make saints of clay...), was removed and the last commandment was divided into two to complete the Ten Commandments.

There were among Christians more attached to early Christianity, discussions about the worship of images, because there was not in early Christianity this worship of images, but for the Romans this was normal. Then, a very big confusion remains about it until the next century, with the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, when it was decided about the worship of images. The Church was deconstructing part of early Christianity.

Emperor Theodosius, who was Christian, in 380, officially declared that the Edict of Tolerance was no longer in force, that, from then on, the Roman Empire would become Christian. And in 381, he convened another Council, the second Universal Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. There, he endorsed the Nicene creed: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the same person.

And he also endorsed that, from then on, being the Empire Christian, everyone would be obliged to convert to Christianity. But what was the reason for this Council to have happened in the capital of the Eastern empire and not in the capital of the Western Empire? Because the Western Roman Empire had fallen.

In 374, there was the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Alaric invaded Rome and overthrew the Emperor, who was a boy of 13 years old at the time. Alaric surrounded Rome and Odoacer took possession of the Western Roman Empire. Part of the Roman citizens said that the Empire had fallen for becoming Christian. Those who were Christians said exactly the opposite, that if they had not become Christians, not even the eastern part would remain.

All the countries located around the Mediterranean Sea were part of the Roman Empire. Even the Mediterranean Sea they had as their property, because it was entirely inside the Empire. Even the name of the Sea was changed by them.

Jerome, in this century, was very important, because he made the version of the Bible that had been translated from Hebrew to Greek, because that was the second language of the time, and from Greek to Latin, because Latin was the language spoken by the Romans. He then went to the city of Bethlehem, and near what became known as the Church of the Nativity, he began to make a Latin version of the Bible, known as the Latin Vulgate. He wanted to vulgarize, make common, make it close to the language of the people.

But, some problems arose. The first translation that was made of the Old Testament written in Hebrew, was to Greek in a version known as the Septuagint, made by 70 wise men who gathered in Alexandria, in Egypt, to make the translation. However, there are words in Hebrew that when translated, they lose their meaning, or there are words that it is not even possible to translate. In Hebrew there are no vowels or even numbers, only consonants, which are also used for numbers. But they translated.

Jerome took the Septuagint version, translated into Greek and made the translation into Latin. So, as the first translation was not exactly as it was in Hebrew, the others are also not exact translations.

When the 70 wise men of Alexandria made the translation of the Bible, they included some books that are known as the deuterocanonical books that were not in the tanakh (Old Testament), they are: Baruch, Judith, Wisdom, Tobit, Maccabees I and II, Ecclesiasticus. In addition to these, they made insertions in the books of Esther and Daniel. So, the Bible that we have today was translated from Hebrew to Greek, with inserted books, translated from Greek to Latin and so on.

Jerome was very questioned at the time, even Augustine of Hippo recommended that he should not make the translation. However, he wanted to be in accordance with the custom of the time. If the empire was Roman and the spoken language, Latin, then he decided to make the translation, Latin Vulgate.

All the reading that is done of the Bible has to be a careful reading, knowing that there may be interpolations, there may be words whose best meaning is not exactly that. We can use the suggestion of Paul, in the second epistle to the Corinthians, in chapter III, v6: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”.

Greek was the most important language at the time because it was the language of Alexander the Great. When the Macedonian Empire spread over the world, Alexander the Great took Greek to the planet and made it the official language of the world. When the Roman Empire established itself, Latin came to replace Greek.

Jerome was not important only for having made the Latin Vulgate, but also for the choice of what would be the Canon of the New Testament, which of the Gospels would be part of the New Testament.

Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste, in North Africa, in the year 354. North Africa was very fruitful in the construction of great apologists (defenders of the faith). He was also a man who converted. He had as mother, a saint, who prayed for him every day and who, later, was canonized, Saint Monica.

Augustine lived the values and customs of his time, he was very studious but, equally, he was someone who appreciated the pleasures of the world, literally. He was involved with women, drinks. And his mother always asking that he change behavior, rethink his own life.

Augustine left Tagaste and went to Carthage and there he devoted himself to studies. He liked to study, to read the classics, he wanted to give classes, he liked to be revered for his knowledge, he was very vain. He is author of two notable books, Confessions and City of God. His conversion came later.

At first, he studied the Doctrine of Mani or Manichaeus, a doctrinaire from Persia of the third century, who said that the structuring of the Universe is based on two forces, two extremes, and that there is no middle ground. And from this clash of forces will arise the maturation of good. Augustine becomes Manichaean.

Then he became neoplatonic, because he began to understand life from the perspective of Platonism, reading the works of Plato and Plotinus. He began to understand the reality of the world as if we had a sensible world and a world of ideas, a world of essences and a material world. So, he began to understand this division of worlds. Plato called sensible world and intelligible world, respectively, the world of forms and the world of ideas. And he said that it was through reason, understanding, that one could make the path between one and the other.

His mother always encouraged him to rethink his own life, to evolve his way of thinking. He became so vain that he went to Europe to give classes. And it was in the city of Milan that the process of his conversion began. There was a bishop in Milan, called Ambrose. Then, Augustine, hearing the preachings of this bishop talking about Jesus, about the beauty of the Gospel, began to convert.

At first, he made a junction of Platonism with Christianity. For him, Christianity is a perfectibilization of Plato’s ideas. Only that instead of reason, what makes us reach the world of ideas or intelligible world, is the grace of God.

On the day of his conversion, a Sunday, in the year 387, he was 33 years old. He was walking in a garden around the Church, then, he heard a child’s voice saying: “Take and read” (this is part of the tradition of the life of Augustine). He took the Bible and read. He opened, at random, on the page of the letter to the Romans, chapter XIII, which said: “Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in orgies and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not seek to satisfy the desires of the flesh”. He then became Christian.

Augustine of Hippo was responsible for the conversion of Alaric, the Visigoth. When Alaric invaded Rome, Augustine went to him and made him see that the Roman Empire was already in decline. He then asked him to spare the women and children, allowing them to stay in the temples and that they would not be touched. And Alaric respected Augustine’s request, because of his moral authority.

In 391, Augustine became a priest, in Hippo, and in 395 he became its bishop. Finally, he became an authority of the Church. He began to fight two heresies very common at the time. Remembering that heresy means being in disagreement with the proposal of the Church, so, the heretics needed to be fought.

The first heresy that he fought was called Donatism, from a bishop before him, from Carthage, called Donatus. The idea of this bishop was that: “You who became priest and bishop, after the Roman Empire became Christian, you do not have moral authority. If at the time of Emperor Diocletian you enlisted in the Roman army, if you worshiped the god Sun and agreed with the misdeeds of the Emperor, then you do not have moral authority”. Donatism preached that to have moral authority, to minister the sacraments of the Church, it was necessary to have been persecuted, like so many others were, it was necessary to be Christian in the purity of their purposes.

However, Augustine said it was not like that, and declared that, from the moment we become Christians, it is because the grace of God had made us new creatures, the past stayed behind. From now on, we will remain united by faith in Jesus Christ. Augustine was one of those who fought for the unity of the Church.

The second heresy that he fought was Pelagianism, from a British-English monk called Pelagius. This monk said that man has free will, he can even choose not to be religious, and still be saved. What matters in man are the works, not the article of faith. If man chooses to be good without being Christian, he will be saved. Augustine contradicted him, saying that to be saved he needed the grace of God, because grace is irresistible. He needed to be in the path of religion. To be saved, at a certain moment, it is necessary to accept Jesus to receive His grace.

“God does not choose the capable, but makes the chosen capable.”