1. Begins, then, the romanized Christianity, for the Roman Empire, that before persecuted, in this century became Christian. With this, Christianity suffered a great mixture, with the infiltration of the Roman culture into the nascent Christianity. The Christians passed from oppressed to oppressors, from simplicity to opulence, from a very simple cult to a very sophisticated, sumptuous cult, a cult that brought much of the Greco-Roman culture into Christianity.

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

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

4. In the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, that occurred in 325, it was established the canon of the Church. Many truths were established and incorporated into the Christian thought and there arose, in this moment of the history, great characters of the Patristics, that is, the Fathers of the Church.

5. The Council of Laodicea, occurred in 364, was not exactly 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 and presbyters from the entire world participate to discuss the canon, the creed, the Apostolicity of that which will be the norm of the Church. Synod is a local meeting.

6. In this synod of 364, they gathered in one of those primitive Churches that are cited in the text of the Apocalypse, 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 of Exodus, and passed to be Sunday.

7. It was established in Laodicea that Sunday would be the Day of the Lord. This 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 sepulcher where Jesus was placed, but it was empty. They say that He resurrected on Sunday, but, really, the women found Him on Sunday. For being a great joy to find Him on a Sunday, this day passed to be called Day of the Lord. For this reason is that the mass occurs on Sunday, to celebrate the resurrection. Also was revised and deconstructed the previous thought of the Holy Trinity, as not being true.

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

9. There was a regression regarding the ideas, for they resumed the notion that there was no longer the Holy Trinity. Then, 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 regressed even to the pagan ideas. However, the idea of the Holy Trinity was rescued in 381, in the Council of Constantinople, with the Emperor Theodosius, who, at that height, already was Christian.

10. Thus, it cannot really be said that it was Constantine who made the Roman Empire Christian. It was he who initiated, but did not prosper, for the Emperor Julian deconstructed. Came the Emperor Theodosius, in 381, and placed it again, reconstructing to no longer be removed. One can say that who truly made the Roman Empire Christian was Theodosius.

11. The adoration of images was approved in this synod, for the Romans adored images of gods. Then, they built altars for the saints of the Church. With this, the order of the Ten Commandments was altered. The second commandment of the Law of God, that is in 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.

12. There was, among the Christians more rooted to Christianity, discussions regarding the adoration of images, because there was not, in the nascent Christianity, this cult of adoration of images, but, for the Romans, this was normal. There remained, then, a very great confusion regarding this until the next century, with the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, when it was decided about the adoration of images. The Church was deconstructing part of the nascent Christianity.

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

14. And he ratified, also, that, from then on, being the Roman Empire Christian, all would be obliged to convert themselves to Christianity. But what the reason for that this Council had happened in the capital of the Eastern Empire and not in the capital of the Western Empire? Because the Roman Empire of the West had fallen.

15. In 476, there was the fall of the Roman Empire of the West. Alaric invaded Rome and overthrew the Emperor, who was a boy of 13 years at the time. Alaric surrounded Rome and Odoacer took possession of the Roman Empire of the West. Part of the Roman citizens said that the Empire had fallen for becoming Christian. Already those who were Christians said exactly the contrary: that, if they had not become Christians, there would not remain even the eastern part.

16. All the countries located around the Mediterranean Sea made part of the Roman Empire. Even the Mediterranean Sea they had as their property, for being entirely inside the Empire and, even the name of the sea was by them changed.

17. Saint Jerome (priest, theologian and Christian scholar), in this century, was very important, for he made the version of the Bible that had been translated from Hebrew to Greek, for this was the second language of the time, and from Greek to Latin, for Latin was the language spoken by the Romans. He went, then, to the city of Bethlehem and, in the proximities of that which became known as the Church of the Nativity, began to make a Latin version of the Bible, known as the Latin Vulgate. He wanted to vulgarize, make common, make close to the language of the people.

18. 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 Septuagint, made by 70 sages who gathered in Alexandria, in Egypt, to make the translation. However, there are words in Hebrew that, when translated, lose the meaning, or still, there are words that it is not possible even to translate. In Hebrew there do not exist vowels or even numbers, only consonants, that are also used for numbers. But they translated.

19. Saint Jerome took the Septuagint version, translated to Greek, and made the translation to Latin. Then, as the first translation already did not remain exactly as it was in Hebrew, the others also are not exact translations.

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

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

22. All reading that is made of the Bible has to be a careful reading, knowing that there may exist interpolations, there may exist 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, verse 6: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”.

23. Greek was the most important language at the time, for it was the language of Alexander, the Great. When the Macedonian Empire spread through 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 substitute Greek.

24. Saint Jerome was not important only for having made the Latin Vulgate, but also for the election of which would be the canon of the New Testament, which Gospels would make part of the New Testament.

25. Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste, in the north of Africa, in the year 354. The north of Africa was very fruitful in the construction of great apologetes (defenders of the faith). He also was a man that converted himself. He had as mother a saint, that prayed for him every day and that, further ahead, was canonized: Saint Monica.

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

27. Augustine left Tagaste and went to Carthage and there delivered himself to the studies. He liked to study, to read the classics, wanted to give classes, 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.

28. In a first moment, he studied the doctrine of Mani, or Manichaean, a doctrinator of Persia of the 3rd century, that said that the structuring of the Universe is founded in two forces, two extremes, and that there is no middle term. And from this clash of forces is that will arise the maturation of the good. Augustine became Manichaean.

29. After, he became Neoplatonic, because he began to understand life under the prism 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. Then, he began to understand this division of the worlds. Plato called of sensible world and intelligible world, respectively, the world of forms and the world of ideas. And he said that it was by means of the reason, of the understanding, that one could make the path between one and the other.

30. His mother always encouraged him so that he rethink his own life, that he go evolving 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 began the process of his conversion. There was a bishop in Milan called Ambrose. Then, Augustine, hearing the preachings of this bishop speaking of Jesus, of the beauty of the Gospel, began to convert himself.

31. In a first moment, he made a junction of Platonism with Christianity. For him, Christianity is a perfectibilization of the ideas of Plato. Only that, instead of the reason, what makes us arrive to the world of ideas or intelligible world is the grace of God.

32. On the day of his conversion, a Sunday, in the year of 387, he counted 33 years of age. He was walking in a garden around the Church, then heard a voice of child that said: “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, that said: “As of day, let us walk decently; not in orgies and drunkenness, nor in debauchery and libertinage, nor in quarrels and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not seek to satisfy the desires of the flesh”. He became, then, Christian.

33. Augustine of Hippo was the responsible for the conversion of Alaric, the Visigoth. When Alaric invaded Rome, Augustine went to him and made him see that the Roman Empire already was in decline. He asked him, then, that he spare the women and the children, permitting that they remain in the temples and that they not be touched. And Alaric respected the request of Augustine, this by his moral authority.

34. In 391, Augustine became priest, in Hippo, and in 395 became its bishop. Finally, he became an authority of the Church. He began to combat two heresies very common of the time. Heresy means to be in disagreement with the proposal of the Church; then, the heretics needed to be combated.

35. The first heresy that he combated was called Donatism, of a bishop prior to him, of Carthage, called Donatus. The idea of this bishop was that: “You that became priest and bishop after the Roman Empire became Christian, do not have moral authority. If, in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, you enlisted yourself in the Roman army, if you rendered cult to the god Sun and compacted with the abuses of the Emperor, then you do not have moral authority”. Donatism preached that, to have moral authority and administer the sacraments of the Church, it was necessary to have been persecuted, as so many others were; it was necessary to be Christian in the purity of its purposes.

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

37. The second heresy that he combated was Pelagianism, of a British monk called Pelagius. This monk said that the man has free will; he can, even, choose not to be religious and, even so, be saved. What matters in the man are the works, not the article of faith. If the man chooses to be good without being Christian, he will be saved. Augustine opposed him, saying that, to be saved, it was necessary the grace of God, for the grace is irresistible. It was necessary to be in the path of religion. To be saved, in determined moment, it is necessary to accept Jesus to receive His grace.

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