This sixth century began with a Christianity that was already quite sophisticated. As it had become the official religion of the Roman Empire, it ended up losing the simplicity of the first centuries. A very great distance was created between the Christianity of the early centuries and the Christianity of this century onward.

Christianity was strongly influenced by three peoples. At first, by the Jews. Remembering that Jesus was born Jewish, his apostles were Jews, he spoke to Jews, and he himself said that he had not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. There was also the hypothesis at that time that Christianity would become a branch of Judaism. But this did not happen, because when the Christian message began to spread to other cultures, thanks to Paul of Tarsus, the expressions of Christianity began to move away from aspects of the Jewish worldview.

In a second moment, the ideas of the Gentiles joined Christian thought and, as they were under the authority of the Roman Empire, Roman religious thinking became the reference. Christianity then began to have power and status. It ended up adopting the customs and traditions of Roman culture. The followers began to worship images and venerate saints.

Later, there were the barbarian invasions, which had begun in the previous century. Christianity was influenced by these peoples, with their external cultures, unfamiliar cultures, gods, cults, and religious truths that were unknown until then. With all this, Christianity faced a great challenge. How could it accommodate all these influences that had infiltrated its core and still move forward. How could it live with such a variety of cultures and religious ideas.

Since the first influence, when Christianity ceased to be an arm of Judaism and effectively became a religion, there was resistance on the part of Christians in relation to all the persecutions they suffered for three centuries. Nevertheless, Christianity moved forward, but without the purity of the early days.

With the barbarian invasions, Christianity faced another very delicate situation. The barbarian peoples did not know Jesus nor his Gospel. They were very rough peoples, committed to their hegemonies, wanting to take new lands, establish their dynasties, and impose their own customs and beliefs. However, since the strength of Christianity was very great, as it had even converted the Roman Empire, the conversion of the barbarian peoples began in this century. And this is spectacular.

Then the king of the Franks emerged, Clovis, a remarkable figure for the spread of Christian ideas. The Franks were one of the barbarian peoples who came to gain great prominence in Europe. The Franks gave rise to France. The very name France comes from the Franks. Thus, Clovis, the king of the Franks, converted to Christianity, married Clotilde in a Christian ritual, and declared that their people would be Christian. In this way, Christian culture spread among the barbarian peoples.

The barbarian peoples, after overthrowing the Western Roman Empire and disputing its spoils, divided it among themselves, with each occupying a part.

The Franks were one of these barbarian peoples, living in the region that is today Germany. They then went to another region called Gaul and there fought against the Gauls. They ended up winning and dominating the entire region. They were so decisive in the domination of this land that they even managed to change its name from Gaul to France.

Thus, the Franks, with their leader Clovis converted to Christianity, made the barbarian peoples Christian, and Christianity grew greatly. France was important for the Christianization of Europe. If it were not for Clovis, perhaps the barbarian peoples would have taken everything. At that time, the preparation of France was already beginning to later receive, in the nineteenth century, Professor Allan Kardec.

Historians mention three notable figures for Christianity to exist today. Constantine, who enabled the Roman Empire to become Christian. Clovis, king of the Franks, because if it were not for him, Europe might have become pagan. Charlemagne, grandson of Charles Martel, who in 732, at the Battle of Poitiers, prevented Europe from becoming Muslim. These three figures are responsible for the structure of Christianity.

With the fall of Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476, historians mark this date as the beginning of the Middle Ages, which began with the barbarians and ended in 1453, when the Ottoman Empire overthrew the Eastern Roman Empire and took Constantinople. This period is known as the Dark Ages.

However, during this period, many good people emerged, such as Boethius and Thomas Aquinas. But it was also a period in which Christian ideas moved further away from primitive Christianity.

In this century, the Second Council of Constantinople took place, from May 5 to July 2 of 553, whose main focus was the need to definitively distance and eliminate the ideas of Origen, with his fifteen theses. One of them was apokatastasis, the final redemption of spirits. Another thesis of Origen was palingenesis, reincarnation. Origen was from Alexandria, studied Greek culture, and the Greeks believed in reincarnation. Origen’s ideas are entirely reincarnationist.

Origen carried within himself the concepts of spiritual liberation. He was considered a gnostic. For him, Jesus is the model, the guide, he teaches me, but I do not necessarily need to accept him. I need to accept and live the proposals he brings me. For the Church, this was a heresy.

Therefore, at this Second Council of Constantinople, Origen and his theses were set aside, and it was decided that the soul is created at the moment of conception and that at the moment of death there will be a judgment and one’s fate will be defined.

Traditions explain why Origen’s ideas were fought against. Theodora, the wife of Justinian the Second, who was the emperor of the Eastern Empire, had been a courtesan. Since people at that time believed in reincarnation, they commented that just as a former courtesan, coming from a lower life, had become empress, so too could this happen to everyone, having a better destiny. Theodora did not like these comments about her past. So she ordered the killing of all five hundred of her former companions, so that no more comments about her would remain.

As she had ordered the killing of her companions so that her history would not spread, the people who believed in reincarnation began to say that she would have to be reborn many other times to pay for her debts, because in reincarnationist belief, if there is a cause, there must be an effect. Thus, she would bear the effects of her own sowing. Theodora spoke to her husband, Justinian the Second, so that he would pressure Bishop Vigilius to hold a council that would put an end to the doctrine of reincarnation, since she did not like the idea of being reborn to pay for her debts. And in a close vote, according to this tradition, Origen’s ideas were removed from the Church’s proposal. From that point on, the Church ceased to be reincarnationist.

In this century, some great religious figures emerged who wanted to bring the idea of Christianity into the already weakened structure of the Western Roman Empire. One of them was Gregory the Great. He was the great religious figure of the sixth century and made major contributions to the Church that last to this day. One of them was Gregorian chant, since according to him the best way to praise God was through singing.

The patriarch of the East did not accept Gregory. He told him that the Empire had fallen and that only the Byzantine Empire of the East remained. Gregory replied that Western Christianity had not ended and that they were still there. He named the Christians of the West as the servants of the servants of God.

In 591, in one of his sermons, he suggested that Mary of Magdala was the same person mentioned in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, as the woman caught in adultery and taken to the square to be stoned. On another occasion, he made another hypothesis, that Mary of Magdala was the one who washed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair. Faced with these interpretations by Gregory, theologians of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church reached different conclusions. Today, the dominant opinion is that Mary of Magdala is not the woman caught in adultery in chapter 8 of the Gospel of John. They are two different women. As for the woman who washed Jesus’ feet, Mary of Magdala would be the one mentioned in Luke chapter 7. The anointing described in the other Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, would have been done by another Mary, Mary of Bethany, which is the dominant view today. In truth, knowing who is who does not truly free our souls from their imperfections.

A curiosity. Mary of Magdala and Mary Magdalene are the same person, because women from Magdala were known as the Magdalans. Over time, the letter g disappeared, leaving Magdalene.

The sixth century is characterized by the height of the Eastern Byzantine Empire, whose emperor was Justinian, who transformed the city of Constantinople, today Istanbul. There was a true cultural effervescence there, making it a very rich city, with exuberant trade and many churches. One in particular became the jewel of universal architecture, the Church of Hagia Sophia. Hagia means holy and Sophia means the wisdom of God. He built the church in honor of the Wisdom of God, the Byzantine Christian Church.

In 570, the structures of the world began to change, because in the city of Mecca, Muhammad, the prophet Mohammed, was born. However, his religious importance would be seen in the following century.

Boethius, a Christian philosopher, emerged in this century. He became known as a theologian philosopher, because his inspiration was that reason should be together with religion, that there was no way to separate faith and reason, science and religion. He was very important because, in addition to being a theologian, he was a statesman and a philosopher. He wanted to bring Christianity north again.

We cannot say that the Middle Ages were only an age of darkness, because several important figures emerged in this century and brought great contributions to Christianity. However, many persecutions occurred, much blood was shed, and there was the emergence of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and much intolerance.

The divinity never left us alone. There were always people who came to try to bring Christianity back to its center, but unfortunately the great majority insisted on remaining disturbed.