The duration of this shower extends from November 29 to December 9. Estimates of the ZHR seem to remain above one during December 2-7, while a sharp rise to five occurs on December 5 (λ=253°). The radiant is located at α=15°, δ=-52° at the time of maximum. The meteors possess an average magnitude of 3.27, while only 2% leave trains. The shower is most notable for producing a rate of 100 meteors per hour in 1956---the year marking its discovery. The stream is probably produced by the lost period comet D/1819 W1 (Blanpain).

On December 5, 1956, observers in New Zealand, Australia, the Indian Ocean, and South Africa detected strong activity from the southern constellation Phoenix. Investigations by H. B. Ridley revealed maximum visual hourly rates of 100 and a radiant at α=15°, δ=-45°, while C. A. Shain estimated visual hourly rates greater than 60 and a radiant of α=15°, δ=-58°.

A complete investigation of the visual observations was made by Ridley during 1962. He said the activity was first detected by R. Lynch (Auckland, New Zealand) at 10:10 UT, and that it continued to become visible "as sunset progressed westwards," until last detected by S. C. Venter (Pretoria, South Africa) at 22:45 UT. Ridley's analysis could not clearly pinpoint the time of maximum, but he estimated "it must have lain somewhere between 17h and 21h UT." For orbital calculations, he adopted 19h UT (λ=253° 33') as the time of maximum. One of the most impressive features of the shower was the apparent presence of exploding fireballs, as observers were frequently comparing the meteors "to the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Sirius, etc." The meteors were also frequently described as reddish and yellow. From a table listing the magnitude distribution of 61 meteors, the Author finds an average magnitude of 2.39.

Radio-echo observations were also made from Adelaide Observatory (South Australia) on December 5, 1956, with A. A. Weiss determining a maximum rate of 30 per hour and a radiant of α=15°+/-2°, δ=-55°+/-3°. The hourly rate was considered a puzzle by Weiss. For major showers, such as the Delta Aquarids and Geminids, the radio-echo rate was always greater than the visual rate, while the radio-echo Phoenicids were only one-third the strength shown by visual observations. One possible theory put forth was that "Earth was still on the fringe of the stream" when radio observations were made. Another suggested explanation was the possibility that slow meteors possessed a lower ionizing efficiency that faster meteors---a condition never satisfactorily tested prior to the appearance of the Phoencids.

A search through the major catalogs of Southern Hemisphere meteor stream radiants reveals no prior observation of the Phoenicids. For the 30 years following the shower's sudden appearance in 1956, no return of the prominent activity was noted; however, visual observations were been made on numerous occasions since the early 1970's. According to R. A. Mackenzie (British Meteor Society), activity was detected by observers in the Southern Hemisphere during 1972, 1973, 1976, and 1977, with maximum ZHRs of 4, 5, 2, and 5, respectively.

The Western Australia Meteor Section (WAMS) has made excellent observations of this stream in recent years. In 1977, Phoenicids were noted during December 2-5, with a maximum ZHR of 4.68+/-1.91 coming on December 5 from a radiant of α=15°, δ=-57°. In 1979, activity was observed during December 5-6, with a maximum ZHR of 5.67+/-4.01 coming on December 5 from α=15°, δ=-51°. In 1980, activity was detected during November 29-December 9, with a maximum ZHR of 2.58+/-0.37 coming on December 4 from α=17°, δ=-52°. During 1983, 17 amateur astronomers compiled 62 man-hours and detected Phoenicids during December 1-10. The ZHR was above 1 during December 2-7, with a maximum of 5.6+/-1.3 coming on the night of December 4/5. The meteors had an average magnitude of 3.27, while only 2% left trains. Another extensive observation program was conducted in 1985, as 25 observers compiled 122 man-hours over 9 nights. The maximum ZHR reached 8, while the average magnitude was 2.38 and 4.8% of the meteors possessed trains. Finally, during 1986, 16 members of the WAMS observed for 40 man-hours during December 2-7, with a maximum ZHR of 4.6+/-1.6 coming on December 5/6. The average magnitude was 2.88, while 5.3% of the meteors left trains.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Phoenicid stream is its apparent link to the lost periodic comet D/1819 W1 (Blanpain). The link was first recognized by Ridley, during 1957, after he had computed a parabolic orbit. Weiss essentially confirmed the results later that year, but the small difference between the orbits was caused by the respective radiants Ridley and Weiss chose as representing the shower's activity---the adopted radiants differing by 10° in declination. Ridley indicated that the small change in the longitude of perihelion between the stream and comet orbits, as well as the smaller ascending node of the stream, logically fit the expected evolution of a low-inclination comet orbit. Unfortunately, the comet was only observed for 59 days during 1819-1820, so that an error of several months exists in the revolution period. This uncertainty, combined with probable perturbations by Jupiter, makes it quite impossible to establish how different the current comet's orbit is from the Phoenicid orbit.

Ridley computed the first orbits for this stream based on a radiant of α=15°, δ=-45°. The first orbit is parabolic, but after noting a similarity to the orbit of the lost periodic comet D/1819 W1 (Blanpain), Ridley computed the second orbit with an assumed period of 5.1 years.

Weiss computed the following two orbits based on the radio-echo determination of the radiant position as α=15°, δ=-55°. The first orbit parabolic, while the second orbit was computed with an assumed period of 5.1 years.

Visual observations of weak activity from this radiant in recent years reveals Weiss' radiant and calculations to best represent the stream's orbit.

The 1819 orbit of comet D/1819 W1 (Blanpain) was


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Diseases & Conditions

Small Bowel Bacterial Overgrowth

A healthy small intestine maintains a constant balance of bacteria to ensure normal digestive functioning.

The following can alter the bowel’s environment, reducing the number of protective bacteria:

When the number of protective bacteria is compromised, it upsets a balance. Some harmful bacteria normally kept in check by the protective bacteria are allowed to grow without restraint. This leads to a condition known as Small Bowel Bacterial Overgrowth (SBBO). If left untreated, the condition can lead to nutrient malabsorption with malnutrition.

Symptoms of SBBO include bloating, gas, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Risk Factors

The elderly are at an increased risk of developing SBBO due to decreased incidence in gastric acid production and increased occurrence of small bowel diverticula. Patients who have undergone surgery altering the stomach and beginning of the small bowel also are at risk for developing this condition.

Treatment of SBBO is aimed at restoring normal gut flora with proper antibiotic therapy, which should lead to a decrease in symptoms and improvement in nutritional health.

In a few individuals, surgical treatment can be used to correct the structural abnormality that leads to SBBO. However, under most circumstances, it is not a curable condition and requires ongoing monitoring with therapy.

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Simply put, DriDown™ represents the evolution of down insulation.

Regular down is treated with a molecular level polymer to create a hydrophobic finish on each individual down plume. This finish allows DriDown™ to stay dry longer, loft better, and dry faster than untreated down, keeping you warmer in any environment.

Technology Explanation

It’s widely accepted that down is the best insulation available… lighter, warmer, more compressible, and more durable than any other natural or synthetic insulation ever created. But down has one major flaw. As it gets wet from rain, condensation, humidity, or sweat, it begins losing its loft and its ability to keep you warm.

DriDown’s™ hydrophobic finish is key to the outstanding performance of DriDown™, enabling sleeping bags and jackets insulated with DriDown™ to stay drier, loft better, and dry faster than bags and jackets insulated with untreated down. This means any bag or jacket insulated with DriDown™ will keep you warmer, longer in any situation.

Sleeping Bags

In an 80% relative humidity environment, an untreated 15-degree down sleeping bag loses up to 30% of its loft over a period of eight hours. A 30% loss of loft essentially turns a 15-degree sleeping bag into a 30-degree sleeping bag. DriDown™ sleeping bags avoid this loss of thermal efficiency by retaining 98% of their loft, keeping you warmer all night long on both short and extended trips into the backcountry.

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Whether earning your turns, sitting on belay, or summiting a 14er, your down jacket is going to soak up some moisture, impacting its ability to insulate. With its hydrophobic finish, DriDown™ helps prevent sweat, rain, or melting snow from soaking in, keeping your down drier and lofting better for optimum warmth. And if any of our DriDown™ jackets do get wet, they will always dry faster than jackets with untreated down.

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Environmental Standards

DriDown™ is made with natural down and, unlike synthetic insulations, is not made from petroleum products. Down is a renewable natural resource and we’ve found that DriDown’s™ hydrophobic finish actually increases its durability over untreated down, enhancing the longevity of your apparel and sleeping bags. We are working on tests to measure how much more durable DriDown™ actually is.

All components of the polymer used in DriDown™ (including chemical manufacturing, finished chemical, and down processing) have been evaluated and rated as non-hazardous to human health, safety, and the environment by a third-party, internationally recognized agency. This rating tells the world that DriDown™ meets or exceeds rigorous standards for health, safety, and environmental sustainability.

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The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Quiz

Eric Foner

Directions: Click on the correct answer.

Questions 1-5 of 25:

The Dred Scott Decision was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent brought into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants) were what? (from Chapter 4)

What clause in the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness? (from Chapter 9 and Epilogue)

When was the Wisconsin Enabling Act enacted? (from Chapter 4)

Who was an anti-slavery activist who was active in the New York Committee of Vigilance and the Underground Railroad and helped Frederick Douglass escape to freedom? (from Chapter 8)

Illinois had prohibited slavery in its constitution in what year when it was admitted as a state? (from Chapter 4)

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery from BookRags. (c)2015 BookRags, Inc. All rights reserved.


Assembly and Insertion Presses Information

Show all Assembly and Insertion Presses Manufacturers

Assembly and insertion presses are used for various types of assembly, including bearing or shaft assembly, insertion or press fitting, and staking.  Bearing presses are suitable for performing assembly operations including the assembly of bearings or laminations onto a shaft; and the insertion or removal of a shaft, rod, or bearing from a wheel, pulley, plate or hub.  Insertion and press fitting operations include the insertion of pins, threaded inserts and other fastehers into plates, spring assemblies, control arms, and injector nozzles, and other applications.   Staking presses are designed or suitable for staking  assembly operations. These machines can be used to join the parts of an assembly by bending sheet tabs, or deforming a projection.


Read the December 2015 issue online
more... IntermediateLessonsLessonsStyle GuideTechniqueJoe Satriani

Style Guide: Left-Hand Techniques

Style Guide: Left-Hand Techniques

Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Intermediate
Lesson Overview:
• Gain finger independence to make chords easier to grip and change.
• Practice hammer-ons and pull-offs to strengthen left-hand fingers.
• Use legato techniques to play fluid lines that don't require picking every note.

Click here to download MP3s plus a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.

Everyone talks about right-hand picking technique, but without a robust left hand, you’re not going to get very far. In this lesson, we’re going to talk about left-hand technique, how to build and develop better chops, and some amazing ways that your left hand can define your sound. We’re going to focus on finger independence to make switching between chords easier, and hammer-ons and pull-offs to strengthen your left hand and make you sound more fluid at the same time. Let’s start by talking about what your left hand does.

Role of the Left Hand

It’s safe to say that most of us take our left hands for granted—I know I did. I never purposely worked on my left hand until I got to college, and then I realized what a mess my fretting technique was. I studied classical guitar in college, and I was sure that my right hand would occupy most of my practice time, especially considering how different a classical guitarist’s right-hand technique is from playing with a pick. My first few months of lessons were dedicated to my left hand, and I had no idea how weak it was. Your left hand is really important, and I learned very quickly that my left hand was making it very hard for me to play the guitar; I just hadn’t really understood it until then.

Your left hand is in charge of fretting notes, as well as moving from note to note and string to string. When you break down what your left hand does, it’s much more complicated than your picking hand. Your picking hand has two motions: up and down. Add in the lateral movement to change strings and you’re done.

On the other hand (no pun intended), the left hand has to do a few very unnatural things. First, it has to strike individual fingers at different times. If you think back to our evolution, humans were basically hunter-gatherers: We gripped things with all of our fingers and our opposing thumbs allowed us a few new tricks. But for most folks, fingers are far from equal, and most fingers are weak. Across a single string, all four left-hand fingers can be in a line, but once you start playing chords, each finger can occupy a different string, and each finger has to move in a different direction. Take Fig. 1 for example, a simple movement of a C major chord to a D major chord.

This is probably something you learned early on, and for many people, this is a hard chord change. If you sit down and look at it, it’s easy to see why. Let’s break it into pieces: In a C major chord, your fingers are fairly evenly distributed. The third finger is lowest down, grabbing C on the 5th string, while your second finger grabs E on the 4th string. We skip a string and let your first finger grab the C on the 2nd string. The shape is natural and pretty diagonal, and it follows the natural curve of the hand. For beginning students, this is tricky because in order to have the 3rd string sound, you have to get your second finger arched up enough to not mute the open 3rd string. Because C is a common chord, we play it enough times that it just sort of works. Now take the D major chord. Where does each finger go? Let’s look at the transitions:

Third finger: From the 5th string 3rd fret to the 2nd string 3rd fret
Second finger: From the 4th string 2nd fret to the 1st string 2nd fret
First finger: From the 2nd string 1st fret to the 3rd string 2nd fret

Your fingers are doing some amazing things by moving in a very unnatural way to get to the D chord. Most of us can do this move quickly without error, but it’s an amazing feat. We’re crossing our fingers vertically into a pretty unnatural shape. But we learn it by repetition and don’t think too much about it. We learn enough tunes with enough open chords and we get pretty good at switching, but it is quite unnatural.

So, what is natural for the left hand? Grab a tennis ball, or other palm-sized round object, and grip it with your left hand. Take a note of the shape. When I do it, my fingertips are largely in line with each other, and my thumb is across from the second finger. That’s a natural left-hand position, and that rarely happens when you play the guitar. To get our hands used to doing these new things, we can do some drills to help make the basic guitar movements easier, and make everything we play better.


Exped Gemini IV

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Large canopy and huge vestibule. The vestibule arc pole creates space and standing height and allows for comfortable camping and a surprisingly low weight. Large enough for camping chairs and meals in comfort sheltered from the rain. Our new and unique pole structure generates high volume in the canopy. The steep walls on all sides allow for full use of floor space. Move around in comfort and enjoy the head room while dressing. Mesh pockets and gear loops store and organize gear.

- CampSaver.com


AeroCam Turbine First to be Blowin' in the Wind for Under $1 Per Watt

The "$1 per Watt" barrier may not sound as impressive as the sound barrier, but this next-gen wind turbine is the first, and has an unusual design. The AeroCam's horizontal-axis, flat-blade shape has blades that're dynamically angled to maximize wind-catching. It's also compact, so can fit into urban environments, and… »6/20/08 4:31am6/20/08 4:31am


The duodenum is a short section of smooth muscle that connects the stomach with the jejuneum section of the small intestine .  Although it is actually considered part of the small intestine, the duodenum begins at the stomach, loops around the head of the pancreas, and ends at the jejuneum. Attached to the duodenum is the common bile duct from which the liver and the gallbladder secrete bile and the pancreas secretes pancreatic juice. The submucosa layer of the duodenum contains glands called Brunner glands. These glands secrete mucus that is rich in bicarbonate. This bicarbonate neutralizes the acid from the stomach in the chyme and protects the duodenum from the acid.

When the chyme enters the duodenum, cells in the duodenum release the hormones intestinal gastrin, secretin, cholecystokinin, and gastric inhibitory peptide. Intestinal gastrin initially stimulates the stomach. However, secretin, cholecystokinin, and gastric inhibitory peptide inhibit the stomach.  Similarly, the acids and partially digested fats in the chyme cause the enteric nervous system to send a reflex to the stomach, which decreases the activity of the stomach. These measures help to inhibit the stomach until the duodenum can process the chyme.

These hormones have other functions in addition to inhibiting the stomach. Secretin causes sodium  bicarbonate to be released from the pancreatic duct and the common bile duct. Cholecystokinin causes the gallbladder to contract, which causes bile to flow into the common bile duct. Cholecystokinin also causes the pancreas to secrete pancreatic juice and the sphincter of Oddi to relax. Through the action of these hormones, pancreatic juice and bile are released through the duct into the duodenum. The pancreatic juice and bile then mix with the chyme.

A number of factors cause the stomach to secrete more chyme in the duodenum. The presence of chyme in the duodenum causes the duodenum to stretch. This stretching triggers a reflex that stimulates the stomach. The presence of peptides and amino acids in the chyme also cause cells in the duodenum to secrete gastrin, which causes the stomach to release more chyme into the duodenum.

Last Updated: Saturday, July 16, 2011


When It Comes To Technology, One Size Doesn’t Fit All

President Obama, in his most recent State of the Union address, singled out higher education institutions by saying, “Colleges must do their part to keep costs down.”  In this environment, it’s more important than ever that institutions, large and small, manage their operating expenditures closely.  In fact, budgeting and managing expenses has become mission critical.

We sit down with Ted Dacko, CEO of XLerant, to understand how the company’s technology has helped colleges improve the accuracy and efficiency of the budgeting process.

What is XLerant?
XLerant is a software company that has developed an intuitive “TurboTax-like” SaaS solution that replaces ineffective, error-prone spreadsheets with a practical and incredibly powerful corporate budget preparation tools for mid-sized and large organizations.

How has XLerant solved the budgeting woes of higher education institutions?
Nearly 80% of higher education institutions are trying to use basic spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel to manage the multi-billion dollar budgets.  And 90-95% of the users inputing data into those spreadsheets aren’t financial staff.  They are using archaic, error-prone technology during a time when increased transparency and greater ownership of the financial data is imperative.

How is XLerant positioned to tackle the unique challenges within the higher education system?
Institutions are complicated places, with many decentralized departments and schools, each responsible for their own spending and budgeting. The art department has a separate budget from the education department — all reporting to a director in the finance department. The budgeting and allocation process is complicated, with many authors and approval cycles.

XLerant is designed to overcome these challenges.  With the ability to collect and integrate multiple sources of information, the software improves collaboration and accuracy, for greater ownership of the numbers; all while increasing transparency.  Most organizations need something that bridges the gap on user experience.  When personnel have a difficult time using the budget technology it is very difficult for them to budget accurately.

Will XLerant save colleges and universities money?
Simply purchasing XLerant won’t necessarily save them money.  However, with the ability to track expenditures and budget accurately, organizations can certainly reduce the risk of error and prevent waste.  Not to mention, with an easy-to-use and implement system, it is sure to save the organization time and resources.


What is Satyanarayana Pooja?

Satyanarayana Puja, or Satyanarayan Pooja, is dedicated to Lord Vishnu, who is the preserver of the Universe in Hindu religion. Satyanarayana is a highly compassionate form of Lord Vishnu. Performing Satyanarayana puja is believed to usher in prosperity. The puja is performed after marriages, important ceremonies, achievements, purchase of property or house etc. There are devotees who perform the Satyanarayan Puja on all full moon days (Purnima). Basically, Satyanarayan Pooja is saying thanks to the Lord and also asking him to sustain the achievements.

Satyanarayana Puja begins with prayer to Lord Ganesha. Special prayers are also offered to Navagrahas. The rest of the puja is dedicated to Lord Satyanarayana which involves normal puja procedures and the chanting of the various names of Vishnu. Varieties of food are offered as ‘Prasad.’

The puja also involves listening to the origin of Satyanarayana puja, which is read by the priest or an elderly person. It is heard by the family members and those who are partaking in the puja. The story also explains the benefits of performing the puja.

Poornima (full moon day in a month) and Sankranti are considered highly auspicious to perform the puja.

Satyanarayana Pooja is usually performed in a temple or at home. Most devotees take the help of a priest to perform the puja.


Post-Marketing Drug Surveillance

Post-marketing drug surveillance (PMDS) is a system that allows consumers to report all effects and side effects of a medication after it has been released to the public. This allows health professionals to detect and prevent the dangers of negative drug reactions. In addition, PMDS could also increase the likelihood of finding new uses for existing drugs.

Unfortunately, PMDS is not mandatory, and physicians infrequently report side effects to monitoring agencies. Therefore, it is impossible to compile comprehensive data on the potential negative reactions to a drug. If PMDS was mandatory, valuable information about drugs could be gathered and processed much more quickly. Getting this information sooner would mean many more people spared from dangerous side effects, some of which have proven fatal.


Conference Paper

Fast Sub-window Search with Square Shape.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-25832-9_55 Conference: AI 2011: Advances in Artificial Intelligence - 24th Australasian Joint Conference, Perth, Australia, December 5-8, 2011. Proceedings
Source: DBLP

Research in this paper is focused to make a change on variety of Efficient Sub-window Search algorithms. A restriction is applied on the sub-window shape from rectangle into square in order to reduce the number of possible sub-windows with an expectation to improve the computation speed. However, this may come with a consequence of accuracy loss. The experiment results on the proposed algorithms were analysed and compared with the performance of the original algorithms to determine whether the speed improvement is significantly large to make the accuracy loss acceptable. It was found that some new algorithms show a good speed improvement while maintaining small accuracy loss. Furthermore, there is an algorithm designed from a combination of a new algorithm and an original algorithm which gains the benefit from both algorithms and produces the best performance among all new algorithms.

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Reasons the Welsh Revival of 1904 faded

Question 143, from Phil, Germany

I was interested to read what you wrote about the Welsh Revival. There seems to be a general reluctance in Christians to get involved with politics and social issues which you mention. Do you think that if those in the revival had been more involved in politics, the First World War could have been avoided. Or were those in the revival so far removed from politics of the day – in class, education and social and financial power – that it would have been impossible?

NB – In this previous freelance theology article, brief references are made to the shortening of the revival by two profound events. These were the First World War, and the rise of Socialism, which took hold in the mining communities of South Wales in particular in the first few decades of the 20th century.

Realistically it is impossible to state one way or the other the effects of the Welsh Revival, had it impacted significantly among the political class. Given that Wales was mostly regarded as a primitive provincial backwater, it’s very unlikely that even had the revival profoundly changed the outlook of those in power in Wales, that the First World War would have been prevented.

It is perhaps simplistic to look at the ‘Great War’ and the rise of Socialist politics as the reasons why the Welsh Revival faltered. Certainly these were key external factors. But there were a number of internal factors to contend with too.

Passover becoming the Lord’s Supper

Question 141, from John, United Kingdom

I was wondering when the churches began to separate the bread and wine out of the context of the Passover Seder, and how the “Bread and wine” became “the Lord’s Supper”. Can you help?

It is generally accepted that the ‘Last Supper’ that Jesus shared with his disciples took place around the time of the Jewish Passover. In the synoptic gospels, the ‘Last Supper’ certainly appears to be during Passover week, but John’s gospel implies it takes place beforehand. In John chapter 13, the Last Supper is set “just before the Passover feast” (verse 1), and the disciples assume Jesus is giving Judas instructions regarding preparations for Passover (verse 29). In addition, none of the gospels mention (more…)

Historical references to Jesus outside the gospels

Question 131, from Geraint, United Kingdom

What historical accounts exist of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, outside of Christian writings?

The simple answer to this question is ‘not many’. In fact, the first definite references to Jesus Christ are made in connection with his followers, and are usually negative.

The Jewish historian Josephus made probably the first recorded reference to Jesus in the book Antiquities of the Jews. In Book 20 of Antiquities, he relates the story of the martyrdom of James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ”. From the historical context given by Josephus, it can be deduced that James’ martyrdom took place in about 62AD. (James was the leader of the Jerusalem church after Peter fled following his dramatic exit from prison in Acts chapter 12, verses 1-19. James is the only leader of the Jerusalem church named in Acts chapter 21, verse 18.)

There has been some dispute over whether the phrase ‘who was called Christ’ was added into Josephus’ work at a later date. It certainly seems odd that a Jewish historian would use the Greek word for Messiah. It may be a simple factual reference to some people hailing Jesus as the Christ/Messiah, or it could have a slightly deeper meaning.

Josephus had ‘swapped sides’ at some point before he wrote this, having been captured by the Romans, and now saw himself as a Roman. It may be that his reference to Jesus as a messiah, indicates his own loss of faith in the Jewish idea of a coming saviour. Josephus may be referring to Jesus as the Christ/Messiah to indicate that the hope for a messiah had been fulfilled, but had, in his opinion, failed.

Film references to Jesus’ ‘descent into hell’

Question 113, from MC

In the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” which aired in 1977, there are two scenes where it seems to quote the Bible but I cannot find it anywhere. Do you know where this comes from?

“I went down unto the countries, to the countries buried beneath the earth, walked among the people of the past and I was lost, yet I heard your voice and you lifted me from the pit” (paraphrased)

The film ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ attempts to tell the story of Jesus’ life by harmonising the four gospels, which naturally results in certain events being missed out and other material being added in.

Certainly, it would seem that this is a deliberate reference to the doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell. This is the idea that between his death and resurrection Christ’s spirit entered Hades/hell and liberated the captive souls of the righteous. Although popular enough to be included in several creeds, there is a limited Scriptural basis for this belief. (more…)

More questions about The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Yet again The Da Vinci Code is the focus of some questions for freelance theology.

Question 108 from TLJ, United Kingdom
Is the Christian response to the Da Vinci Code actually detrimental in that it’s giving extra publicity to it?

Question 109, from JG, United Kingdom
In The Da Vinci Code the author says that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. My question is not did he marry, but if he had, would it theologically have affected our salvation. I was wondering what you think about this question. My church is up in arms about this. Please help.

Whatever one’s views on The Da Vinci Code, it seems as if the controversy around it will not die down, despite the poor critical reception for the film version released this summer. Further controversy has been stirred by the court case in which the author, Dan Brown, was accused of plagiarising a number of ideas (Brown was later acquitted).

Opinion within Christian circles seems to be mixed. There are those who dismiss the whole controversy as irrelevant, others who regard it as a positive sign of ‘spiritual hunger’, and still others who condemn it outright as ‘blasphemous’. Previous articles on freelance theology have highlighted (more…)

Why artists use a halo to depict saints and angels

Question from MP, United Kingdom

Where did the idea of a halo come from?

The idea that holy figures in Christianity be depicted with a halo (or, more accurately a nimbus) is a direct borrowing from late Roman and Hellenistic art. The ‘disc’ of the sun was frequently used to indicate divinity, initially with the various sun gods, but soon with almost every deity in the pantheon. Roman emperors were usually depicted with the nimbus since the time of Aurelius (AD270-275), indicating their status as divine ‘sons of God’.

Constantine, prior to his conversion to Christianity, was depicted with the nimbus and the title Sol Invictus (‘invincible sun’), but dropped both the title and the artistic portrayal after establishing Christianity as the official Imperial religion. Around this time the symbology of sun-worship started to be applied to Jesus Christ. Carsten Peter Thiede goes as far as to say: “One connection between Christ and the sun still visible today is the fact that his resurrection is not celebrated on the Sabbath, but on Sun-day, the Dies Solis.” [Heritage of the First Christians, Lion, 1992, p.127] It was then a short step to apply the solar disc to other principal Christian saints.

A number of varieties of nimbus (halo) exist in Christian art, including triangular ones representative of the Trinity, square ones for ‘living’ saints (who were alive when the picture was drawn) and, in the case of Mary, it is common to find her halo full of stars, symbolising her status as the ‘Queen of Heaven’.

 The contemporary cultural depiction of the halo as a sort of hovering frisbee above the heads of dead people in heaven or angels, is therefore a continuation of Greco-Roman Pagan art dating back thousands of years. As with those original artists, the halo is an easy illustrator’s short cut to set the scene or characterise a person as good, although perhaps not quite divine.

The impact of The Da Vinci Code

Question from KR, India

Hello, I came across your site and I found it very useful. But, I couldn’t find one answer, I searched all over the internet but didn’t find any luck. Could you please tell me how the Da Vinci Code affected/influenced Western thought? I hope you can help me.

There is already an item on freelance theology about The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. In terms of this question, the book has had very little impact on Western academic thought because it is a poorly researched detective novel that repackages some old, unproven and historically dubious ideas as part of its storyline.

The Da Vinci Code has of course proved very popular in terms of book sales and, with a film dramatisation being released next year, that popularity is probably set to continue. However, while it has sparked interest in the history of Christianity, a cursory glance at the contemporary features of the book indicates that this is a work of fiction. For example, the Catholic organisation Opus Dei, cast as villains in the novel, do not have monks, and the real Westminster Abbey does not have metal detectors at the doors.

Given the lack of contemporary accuracy, it is telling that the author shies away from questions about the accuracy of his research. Despite an assertion of truth on the introductory page, most of the ‘revelations’ concerning Jesus and Mary Magdalene are old ideas borrowed straight from a book published in 1982 called The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The authors of that book are now reportedly suing Brown for borrowing their ‘research’ without asking permission.

Incidentally, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was dismissed as fringe nonsense back in the 1980s. Other parts of The Da Vinci Code, including the description of the discussions at the Council of Nicea and the assertion that the Emperor Constantine rewrote the Bible to ‘prove’ Jesus was divine are laughable in the extreme and betray a complete lack of historical knowledge.

The success of The Da Vinci Code is undoubtedly because it challenges conventional religious norms and established religion. As such, its popularity is telling, revealing that despite centuries of scholarship the sensational and novel (i.e. new) grabs the imagination of people, who are willing to accept fiction as fact for no other reason than that they want to.

Thanks for your question, KR.

Church History (part 3 of 3)

Christianity in the Modern Era

Looking at the fractured nature of Christianity these days, it can be hard to see where all these different strands have come from. On the one hand, Christianity is a developmental religion, with doctrine constantly being updated and made relevant to whatever the issues of the day are. As such it has a reforming streak to it, but whenever there is a reform, there is a backlash against it. The tension between conservatism preserving the historical faith as handed down through generations and radicalism seeking to reinterpret the faith to make it fit has been characterised as a tension between ‘order’ and ‘prophecy’. Established authority and yesterday’s truth are challenged by new ideas and tomorrow’s concerns – creating tension today.

The Enlightenment reforms Christianity from outside
There were reformers before Luther, but the 95 Theses provides a handy starting-point for the Reformation as a period in history. No such one-off event can be targeted for the Enlightenment. Broadly put this was a movement that is often called the Age of Reason and which became the dominant force in Western cultural thinking in the eighteenth century. Many of the great thinkers of the Modern Era are Enlightenment scholars – Leibniz, Kant, David Hume, Voltaire, Hegel, Isaac Newton and the like. The Enlightenment is a retrospective term given to this movement – like many such groupings it’s easy to think of the Enlightenment as some sort of club or group. For the main these thinkers acted alone, shaping society along the same general lines.

The principle aim of ‘enlightened’ thinkers was the subjugation of all truth-claims to human reason. The evolution of the scientific method and the growth in technology implied that everything could be understood by reasoned inquiry. It was no longer acceptable to resort to mystery – there had to be a reason behind events and that reason had to be discernible. There was a reaction to this mechanistic view of the universe. The Romantic movement of the nineteenth century, as typified by various popular poets, was an attempt to reclaim the mysterious and supernatural. Unfortunately the main proponents of the Romantic world-view were the original moral relativists and, in many ways, were regarded as subversive themselves due to their lax morality. Christianity was faced with a choice – rationalism or an ‘abandonment of decency’ and for the main opted for rationalism over romanticism.

The Enlightenment was the first major societal philosophy to impact Christianity since the Arian controversy tried to impose Greek philosophy on Christian theology and it had a profound effect. Anything that could not be rationally explained was often discounted. Doubts were cast over the miracle stories in the gospels, the sacraments of the church and principal doctrines like Hell. Many Enlightenment philosophers regarded Christianity as belonging to a bygone superstitious age and of little use in the rapidly changing society that was moving from a land-locked agricultural economy towards urban industrialisation. However, it took many decades (even centuries) for rationalist philosophy to filter down from the academic and scholarly classes into the general mindset of society and in the meantime there were numerous developments within Christianity.

John Wesley (1703-91)
Known mainly for being the founder of the Methodist church (although Methodism only separated from within the Church of England after his death), John Wesley was one of the first people to recognise the need to preach the gospel within Christendom. Wesley’s desire to see inhabitants of a ‘Christian country’ genuinely saved is a vital distinction that has had a lasting effect certainly on British evangelicalism and other non-conformist branches of the Church.

In his youth John Wesley belonged to a small group known as the ‘holy club’ along with his brother and another noted evangelist of the time, George Whitefield. This group came to be known as ‘Methodists’ and there are many hypotheses about why. The most common theory is that they followed a particular method of Bible study or prayer or some such. Like many names for groups in history the origins are obscure, but the name has stuck.

Wesley was an impassioned open-air preacher following his own ‘conversion experience’ and travelled throughout the UK and to North America, where he effectively founded a new church outside of the Anglican Communion by appointing two bishops. It was only later in the UK, after Wesley’s death, that the Methodists became independent, although they retained virtually all the theological views of the Church of England. Wesley himself only criticised the Anglican church on the basis that it was neglecting some Scriptural truths, such as justification by faith, which in his view needed restoring to their proper place. Wesley thus headed a ‘renewal’ movement, not a reforming movement as such.

John Wesley’s brother Charles wrote over 7000 hymns, including ‘Love Divine, all Love’s Excelling’, and, like John, never left the Anglican communion. Charles’ hymns were deliberate attempts to render theological truth in accessible ways. The Methodists were not the first people to do this, but the popularity of Methodism due to their hymns have resulted ever since in new movements within Christianity emulating them and writing their own hymns as a way of getting their message across.

Revivalism; Jonathan Edwards, Azusa Street, Wales 1904
Among the many popular movements in Christianity, those associated with the Holy Spirit and direct experience of God (as opposed to encounters mediated through the established church authorities) have always been contentious. Even ten years ago, the division within the charismatic stream over the ‘Toronto Blessing’ was as much an issue of established order being challenged by something that seemed new and different. Revivalism, and the idea that the Spirit moves occasionally in a society-changing way, has taken a large role in non-conformist theology, helped on its way by the New England Revival known as the Great Awakening in the eighteenth century and then the two big revivals of the first decade on the twentieth century – in Asuza Street, Los Angeles in 1905 and in Wales the year before. The Asuza Street revival gave rise to the Pentecostal Church, named after the events when the Holy Spirit was first given to the disciples on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. There are now millions of Pentecostals worldwide. The Welsh revival of 1904 stimulated growth in non-conformist denominations, revitalising many ‘chapels’ that had been founded in an earlier revival during the 1860s.

These spiritual movements tended to emphasise personal experience and, above all personal conversion – a central part of John Wesley’s earlier theology. As popular movements, generally attracting members of the working classes, they were held in little regard by academics and theologians. Many of the phenomena recorded during the Great Awakening by Jonathan Edwards, or by contemporary newspaper reports in 1904 were, of course, contradictory to a rationalist mindset. Many of these supernatural events could not be empirically verified and were therefore dismissed. Revivalism was seen as an attraction for the illiterate and the uneducated.

As a brief aside, it’s worth noting that the spiritual element of the revival movement, with its associated phenomena, seemed to fade away quite quickly in Wales. This is perhaps due to a number of historical reasons. Firstly a generation of believing young men was decimated by the carnage of the First World War. Secondly, the activists speaking out about the terrible working conditions found in the mining and steel industries were socialists, not Christians. The working class who had been so attracted to a spiritual movement that promised them something more felt disappointed – Christian faith had not met their immediate needs and they looked elsewhere. Thirdly, there was a growth of intellectualism, studious scrutiny of the Bible and theology, which effectively cut out those with limited education. Within twenty years a dynamic movement, which attracted a large number of converts from among the working class, had become an institutionalised middle class affair.

19th century mission as a modern endeavour (imperialism)
Christianity meanwhile was spreading beyond Europe and America. In the centuries after the Reformation many of the European nations had established ‘colonies’ across Africa and Asia. The British Empire was one of the largest and as the Empire exerted its considerable influence, large missionary organisations began to grow. Recently there has been much unfair criticism of Christianity for engaging in this ‘cultural imperialism’ and it is unfortunate that in many missionary endeavours, the attempt was made to ‘civilise’, i.e. Westernise, the ‘natives’ as much as to introduce them to Christianity.

In the more robust cultures like Japan, which were able to resist Western Imperialism, Christianity has always been regarded as an unwelcome outside influence. There are very few Japanese Christians as a result. In Africa, where the native tribal cultures were comparatively weak and easy to conquer, Christian mission allied to colonisation was far easier, except in those regions of Northern Africa where Islam had taken hold. In the latter half of the twentieth century, as many former colonies gained independence, there was often a sense of embarrassment at the way native cultures were treated by the colonial powers. Christian missionaries have been regarded as one of the ways African or Asian culture was subjugated. This is a bit unfair and is almost hyper-revisionism. Very often it was Christian missionaries who introduced the first education and healthcare. In India, missionary William Carey is acknowledged as being instrumental in the development of written sub-continental languages due to his translation of the Bible into the vernacular.

However, it must be recognised that the ‘Golden Age of Christian Mission’ was thoroughly modern, in that it was based on the precepts that under-gird what we now refer to as modernism, especially the idea of conquest. There was a tendency to view Christianity, in its ‘scientific’, systematic form, as a natural ‘civilising’ force, being the product of the most advanced human societies on the planet.

Two modernist trends – the growth of liberalism versus fundamentalism
As Protestant Christianity entered the twentieth century, it was already beginning to diverge into two main streams. In many wings of the Protestant Church ‘Enlightened’ philosophy and the scientific modern worldview either held sway as Liberal Christianity or met a reaction – a denial of rationalism and a concern for the rediscovery and promotion of the ‘fundamentals’ of the faith. Fundamentalism is often characterised as being anti-intellectual, and indeed many leading fundamentalists have joyfully mocked academics and theologians as not being able to grasp ‘simple Biblical truth’. Generally though, fundamentalism looked for a return to basics, a renewal of Christianity and a rejection of scientific rationalist theology. Unfortunately, many fundamentalists were unable to disengage from the modern worldview. So, the principal arguments revolved around the burden of proof.

One key battleground was about the Bible. For a long time doubt had been cast as to the historical accuracy of the New Testament, with a distinction being made between the ‘historical Jesus’ and the ‘Christ of faith’. Many New testament scholars recognised that the New testament was a product of the believing church, therefore, they argued, the accounts of Jesus’ life were being retrospectively reviewed by the gospel authors. To put it another way, the early Christians believed Jesus was the Son of God and that must have coloured their writings. These doubts about the historical integrity of the gospels in particular, combined with a rationalist principle, which denied the literal truth of supernatural stories, meant that a new means of interpreting the Bible was called for.

In the early twentieth century a German scholar called Rudolf Bultmann began talking about ‘demythologising’ Scripture. According to Bultmann and other thinkers like him, the real truth of the Bible was not found in a literal understanding, but in what the accounts implied. For example, the account in John’s gospel of the transformation of the water into wine is loaded with symbolic images. The contents of the Jewish water jars that can only provide external cleansing are transformed into wine, representing the good things of the messianic Kingdom. The statement that the best has been kept till last could be read as John’s way of saying that the teaching of Christ has thus surpassed the old Jewish way of doing things.

Many other classic doctrines were demythologised – the resurrection and the end of the world being the prime examples. A common theme in what came to be known as ‘liberal’ theology was the idea that human progress would eventually lead to the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on Earth. This whole progressive scheme was derailed by two world wars – it was hard to see human progress leading to a Heavenly utopia given the slaughter of the Somme or the creation of Auschwitz and the Final Solution.

Fundamentalism grew in the first half of the twentieth century as a reaction to liberalism. In contrast to the progressive view espoused by liberals, it remains quite pessimistic, seeing the world and human society as under judgement and claiming the Biblical witness is that things will just get worse. The fundamentalist position on Scripture is that the Bible is wholly true (inerrant) and should be interpreted literally and universally, divorcing the Bible from the culture in which it was written and seeking to apply it to contemporary culture. So, for example, the instructions in Paul’s epistle to the Corinthian church regarding the role of women are taken to be universally binding and women are excluded from preaching.

The problem with fundamentalism is that it can be viewed as a product and result of modernism. The landmark case that defined fundamentalism as a force took place in the USA, when a number of self-declared fundamentalists took the federal government to court in order to prevent the teaching of evolution in schools and won (later the court ruling was overturned). Those arguments and subsequent creationist theology follow the same vein, namely that the Bible can be proven as scientifically accurate. The discussion takes place purely on the level of literal truth as proven by science, but this is an Enlightenment position taken to the extreme. Truth to the fundamentalists lies in empirical verification and scientific study, not to experienced religious reality. In many ways, fundamentalism is not an answer to rationalism, but merely a Christian expression of the rationalist worldview.

New streams, charismatic theology
After the Second World War, Christianity faced the challenge of adapting to massive social change. Now we recognise that change as the culture entering the post-modern era, moving beyond scientific rationalism and authoritarian structures, if not quite dispensing with extreme individualism. In the 1970s the Roman Catholic church modernised it’s practices at the second church council to be held in the Vatican (often referred to as Vatican II). In the 1990s, the Anglican church changed the long-standing tradition of a male-only priesthood and ordained women to ministry. Along the way, a new movement that worked in and around these established churches and was labelled the Charismatic Renewal affected both the world’s largest denominations.

The ‘charismatics’ first started to appear on the fringes of church life in the early 1960s, in radical communities like the Jesus Army. Often associated with revivalist church groups like the Pentecostals, and generally hailing from the evangelical wing of the Church, within forty years this disorganised and decentralised popular movement has become one of the most significant aspects of Christianity, affecting the whole Church. So, there are charismatic Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists and whole new church streams formed as well, of which the Vineyard are probably the most well known internationally (particularly after the events of the early 1990s that came to be known as the ‘Toronto Blessing’).

In many respects, the growth of charismatic, experiential theology has tied in with the gradual (and ongoing) transformation of the culture from Modernity to what is temporarily called Post-Modernity. With an emphasis on simplicity, mysticism, prayer, contemplation, worship and spiritual disciplines like fasting, the charismatic version of Christianity has proved very attractive to members of the post-modern culture. This has caused a backlash from ‘Modern’ Christians, who accuse it of lacking theological depth. One example of this would be the criticism levelled at the Alpha Course outreach model for teaching a diluted version of Christianity. But the Age of Reason is passing and it would seem that post-modern humans are less willing to be convinced through intellectual argument at all. There is a holistic element to post-modernity, which requires more than systematic theology, however correct, has to offer.

Naturally there have been some excesses. The huge growth in demonology and ‘spiritual warfare’ is a return to good old-fashioned superstition. The actions of the ‘Kansas City Prophets’ in the 1980s, which bordered on apocalyptic warnings of the imminent end and the rising of a new breed of Christian hero, undermined the credibility of the charismatic movement, and the excitement caused by the ‘Toronto Blessing’ was matched only by the disappointment when worldwide revival did not break out. But these errors of judgement aside, the development of charismatic Christianity alongside the societal moves away from Modernity point to the continuing relevance of the Christian message in a world that is leaving Christendom behind.

Why study Church History?
It may seem odd to leave this to the very end, but it’s my hope that this introduction, which could only ever be very lightweight and selective in it’s coverage, will inspire you to ask those important questions: Who are we? How did we get here? What’s happening next?

Christians are blessed by having two thousand years of history. The issues faced by Christians today regarding prevalent cultural philosophies are issues faced and resolved by our fathers in the faith. Most importantly, by knowing what has gone before, there is the hope that mistakes will be avoided, that a common way can be forged between preserving what is eternal in the faith, while finding new ways to express it in the here-and-now. Church History is, put simply, the record of how Christians have sometimes got it right and sometimes got it wrong. In judging how well we are doing, it helps to know what has gone before.

Church History Part 2 (of 3)

The Reformation period

Before the Reformation: crusades, monasteries and the Pope

Luther’s protest

The Anabaptists and ‘radical reformers’

Henry’s love life and The English Reformation

The New World

The dawn of the modern era

Church History Part 1 (of 3)

Jon the freelance theologian was recently invited to distill 2000 years of Church History into 3 hours with the participants of the Form course in Bristol Vineyard. What follows is the first of three essays written for Form. The caveat for the reader is that such a venture is naturally selective and may prompt further questions!

Introductory Remarks

It is important for any modern-day historian to realise first and foremost that he or she is living in the ‘modern’ era. Our concept of what history is differs from classical historians, so recapturing the ‘story’ involves the recognition that the storytellers are from another, quite alien, yet disturbingly similar, culture. On another level, understanding what has happened in the two thousand years since the earthly ministry of Christ includes several strands of history.

There is strand 1: straight history – what happened, who was involved and how it affected whatever happened next.
Strand 2 runs deeper: the historical development of Christian doctrine. Christian history is intertwined with doctrinal development – the ‘what, who, how’ are as much about orthodox beliefs, creeds, doctrines and theology. Without wanting to go off onto a tangent, it is nearly impossible for us, with our developed theologies, to practice ‘New Testament Christianity’, mainly because we have a New Testament, whereas the ‘New Testament Christians’ did not.
Strand 3 is the cultural element. Christianity has, since the fourth century been bound up with political, social and cultural mores. This has given Western Europe both the absolute monarchy ‘divine right of Kings’ and also democracy based on the equality of men before God. Christians of every age have been shaped by and, in turn, shaped the society they are in. Church history and, especially European development are inextricably linked.
A fourth strand that could be identified is a reforming strand. This is paradoxically both a conservative and a progressive movement within Christianity, wanting to return to basics in order to forge a new future. The reforming strand of church history is often overlooked.

This introduction is going to cover small amounts from each strand. In part one, we’ll look at the development of Christianity from a Jewish sub-sect through to the highly complicated creedal faith that was the official religion of the Roman Empire. In part two, we’ll look at the Reformation, which breached Christendom and changed Christian doctrine and Western culture forever. In part three we’ll look at some of the developments in the modern era and the pressures that have transformed the faith from outside. This is very much a brief introduction, designed to whet your appetite for church history. Hopefully it will leave you wanting to know more.

The early development of Christianity

Christianity spreads

The account of Christian origins we are most familiar with is the Book of Acts. Combined with other semi-autobiographical information, for example in Paul’s letters or the opening verses of Revelation, we can build up a picture of how Christianity started to spread through the Roman Empire.

The common theory is that Christianity piggy-backed the spread of Judaism. In the centuries immediately before Jesus, Jewish communities had started building synagogues in major cities throughout the Roman Empire, including Rome itself, Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in modern-day Turkey. Many of these Jews spoke Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. The Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) had been translated into Greek in the third century BC. In popular tradition, seventy-two Jewish elders did the translating in seventy-two days. Hence, the finished translation was called the Septuagint. (Seventy-two was an important number in Jewish folklore as it is a multiple of twelve and there are twelve tribes).

The earliest Christians were Jews, and would have been trilingual, speaking Aramaic (the language of Palestine), speaking and writing Greek and knowing at least enough Hebrew to understand the rituals in the Temple and the synagogues. As Christianity spread, with its outward-looking focus towards the gentiles, Greek became the common language of the early church. The New Testament is written in ‘koine’ Greek, the everyday commoners language used in the marketplace, the pubs and among the general populace.

It would be worth pointing out here that, contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not a semi-illiterate carpenter from some rural backwater. The Greek word ‘tekton’ that we translate as ‘carpenter’ means ‘architect’ or ‘master craftsman’. Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up, was a few miles from a large city that was being rebuilt by the Roman authorities called Sepphoris – a place big enough to have its own theatre – and the rebuilding would have employed master craftsmen from all over the region. Nazareth was also close to the ‘Via Maris’, the ‘road to the sea’, along which huge trading caravans travelled. The spice routes led from the Palestinian coast to Arabia, India, the Caucasus and many other foreign and exotic lands. Jesus would have been educated in the synagogue school, able to read Hebrew and Greek and perfectly able to converse with high ranking priests, Romans or other Greek-speaking foreigners (the Romans would probably have been conscripted from Greek-speaking territories and would be bilingual in Latin and Greek anyway).

Jesus’ followers were hardly the ignorant fishermen they are often portrayed as. In fact, as boat-owning, self-employed businessmen, who may even have had offices in Jerusalem, the first disciples were more middle class than is often recognised. These followers of Jesus were joined by clerks, doctors, lawyers, political activists, educated Pharisees, merchants and the like. The Roman Empire, with its ‘pax romana’, excellent road system, safe sea-lanes and network of synagogues were all conducive to the message of Jesus spreading, first within the scattered Jewish communities and then, as Christians grew more bolder (and the Jewish community leaders grew more hostile) directly to ordinary citizens of the Empire and even beyond.

Persecution and martyrdom

It wasn’t all easy going. The dominant religion in the Roman Empire was worship of the Emperor. The beginning of the Gospel of Mark, introduces Jesus as the son of God in the very first sentence. This was a loaded phrase – ‘uiou theou’ – more commonly used in the Imperial cult of the current living Emperor, whoever that might be. A common idea was that the Emperor ascended to divine status when he died, so his son taking over the throne must be the son of a god! Other titles of Christ were in similar use – ‘kyrios kai sote’ (lord and saviour), being the most common one.

The danger then for Christians was twofold. On the one hand, the superstition of the surrounding community would hold Christians accountable if anything went wrong, because they were the ones disrespecting the Gods/Emperor by refusing to worship them. The second strand was political – withdrawing from public Emperor worship was tantamount to treason.

The first major persecution of Christians where Christians were singled out by the authorities, instead of being the victims of mob violence was under the Emperor Nero in AD64. This followed a fire that devastated the city of Rome, which Nero blamed on the Christians. Even Roman commentators like Tacitus thought the fire was suspicious – Tacitus stopped short of accusing Nero of ordering arson, but noted a ‘sinister belief’ that pointed the finger at the Emperor. The Christians were blamed, according to Tacitus, to divert that accusation.

Without going into too much detail, the martyrs in the Neronian persecution suffered horrible deaths, including being lit as human torches in the gardens of the Imperial palace and being torn apart by wild dogs in the circus. It is often thought that Peter and Paul may have been martyred in Rome at about this time, but church traditions aside, there is no clear evidence for this.

Despite being instigated by the Emperor, Nero’s persecution was largely confined to Rome and it lasted a short time. Generally, for the first three hundred years of its existence, the church was left alone, but there were some notable exceptions. The Emperor Domitian persecuted Christians in Rome and Asia (modern day Turkey) at the end of the first century AD. Notable Christians Polycarp and Justin (who became known as Justin Martyr) were executed by the authorities in the 160s, there was major persecution in Gaul (France), motivated by mob violence, in 177, where a number of Christians were given the opportunity to ‘recant’ (i.e. deny the faith). This is the first known situation where the Emperor, at this time Marcus Aurelius (portrayed in the recent Hollywood epic Gladiator), instructed the authorities to free those who were willing to turn back to pagan worship.

Yet, this kind of persecution had the same effect as a tabloid scandal would today. It got the issue of Christianity noticed. The curiosity of many people was piqued – who were these mysterious ‘Christians’? What was it that drove them so willingly to die? Who was this ‘Jesus the Christ’? Hadn’t he been executed too? The rumours led people to find out more and as they did, the church grew in number and influence.

Martyrdom became a popular theme in the Christian community from the middle of the second century. Many of the leading lights in the movement had died for the faith – ten of the original twelve disciples, St Paul, and St James the Just (possibly Jesus’ brother) who led the church in Jerusalem, had all been killed according to church tradition. This idea of the ‘martyr-apostle’, who held to the gospel to the point of death, is of course modelled on Jesus himself. And it was to have a profound impact in North Africa, where one Christian called Tertullian explicitly stated that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’.

In 250AD, the Emperor Decius initiated a wide-ranging persecution of Christians. In order to identify the Christians everybody was ordered to sacrifice an animal in a pagan ceremony. Those who did not were tried and executed for being Christians. Although the persecution did not last long – Decius died in 251 – a huge controversy erupted in North Africa over what to do about those who had recanted or engaged in pagan rites under pressure from their neighbours or the authorities.

Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, had been in hiding during the persecution. When he returned to Carthage, he found the majority of Christians had either bribed an official to receive a certificate to say they had sacrificed or had actually sacrificed to the pagan gods. Cyprian argued that the recanters had denied Christ, were traitors and could not be readmitted to the church. If they had already been baptised – their baptism was null and void and because the church believed in one baptism for the remission of sins, they could not be baptised again and their sin could not be forgiven.

This was in direct contrast with the Bishop of Rome who urged for tolerance and readmission. Cyprian effectively split with Rome on this; his was regarded as authoritative throughout North Africa and he was influential in Spain as well. A half-century later, one his successors, Donatus, would take the fanaticism and no-holds-barred attitude of Cyprian further so that the church in Africa was split between the Donatists and those who still looked to Rome and again the issues would surround the activities of Christians under persecution. In Donatus’ case over who had surrendered their copies of the Holy Scriptures to be burned by the authorities rather than sacrificing in pagan temples, but the principle was the same.

In that sense persecution worked. When Constantine came to power in 313AD and issued his edict that made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, the church was divided. The continuing presence of the Donatists undermined Imperial authority in North Africa. A few centuries later, with the political will of the Empire weakened, Christianity all but died in out in the region, unwilling and unable to unite against a new religion: Islam. Cyprian, who started all this off was himself martyred in AD257.

An authoritative canon of Scripture

There are many myths, not all of them ancient, surrounding the New Testament. Whether it’s Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, or the popular misconception that the Bible was only written hundreds of years after the events they describe, it is important to recognise that the spread of Christianity goes hand-in-hand with the development of the New Testament.

A recent book called The Cosmopolitan World of Jesus by Carsten Peter Theide argues that the public library system throughout the Roman Empire helped the spread of Christianity. Thiede’s premise is that the early Christian communities wrote the gospels very early on as a missionary endeavour – the idea being to get them placed in libraries for general readers. One key argument in his favour is that Paul makes oblique references to Jesus Christ, which appear to presuppose knowledge on the part of the reader. While there has undoubtedly been some small editorship for the gospels, if Thiede’s theory is right, then what we have in our Bible today are virtually eyewitness accounts (Matthew’s gospel may have been based on Matthew-Levi’s shorthand notes jotted down as the disciples tramped around the countryside).

That’s not to say they are historically accurate in the way we would view history from a modern, scientific standpoint. The gospels tell a story from a particular point of view – it’s the early life of the messiah who came back from the dead. It is highly likely that the resurrection was the first thing, and perhaps was the only thing, that people knew about Jesus. It seems to form the central part of any teaching recorded in the New Testament about Jesus. Unlike modern evangelical theology which emphasises the atoning death of Christ, the first Christians stressed the resurrection as proof that there was a new ‘Way’ – a popular self-descriptive term used in the early church.

Thousands of different manuscripts have been archeologically retrieved from the first few centuries. Sometimes these are mere fragments of the New Testament, sometimes complete collections of e.g. the four gospels or Paul’s letters. The development of the canon of the New Testament, i.e. the fixed order and number of ‘books’ we have today, took some time. There are plenty of reasons for this.

Firstly, regardless of what fringe nutters might tell you, there weren’t a huge number of ‘other gospels’ knocking around in the first couple of centuries. Most of the non-canonical ‘gospels’, ‘acts’ and ‘apocalypses’ were written in the second or third century at the very earliest. Secondly, the early Church already had its Scriptures – what we now call the Old Testament. This was usually the Greek translation called the Septuagint and was regarded as being full of prophetic references to Jesus Christ, particularly in the Psalms and Messianic oracles as found in Isaiah. The idea that the writings of the earliest Christians were inspired by God and authoritative only came in after those said Christians left the scene. Thirdly, there was no real need to define any particular writings as orthodox while Christianity was vaguely homogenous and rooted in Judaism. However, as other influences crept into Christianity, from thinkers who had converted from pagan backgrounds, but had not left their pagan philosophical ideas behind, the heterogeneity of Christianity began to prove problematic. Fourthly, and this was the clincher, people began to ask which of the Christian writings they should read and how they related to the Scriptures (i.e. the Old Testament). Were they on a par? Or were they more important, because after all they were about Christ?

One of the significant people who precipitated the formation of the canon was called Marcion. There is little information about him, but we know he was excommunicated from the church in Rome in about AD144 for teaching that the Old Testament had nothing to do with Christianity. Marcion held a developed Gnostic belief and regarded the Old Testament God ‘Yahweh’ as an evil deity. The true God was revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and had nothing to do with the Jewish scriptures. To that end he produced his own collection of ‘true’ Scripture, which consisted of an edited down version of Luke’s gospel (coincidentally, the least Jewish of the Synoptic gospels) and similarly-edited letters of Paul.

The reaction to Marcion is very helpful to us in understanding the development of the New Testament. The response was unambiguous – there are four gospels, not one. This implies that all four were in common use by the middle of the second century and regarded as equally authoritative. Marcion and his followers were denounced and in return, leading theologians began circulating the lists of which books should be regarded as authoritative for orthodox Christians.

Another major influence on canon-formation was the semi-charismatic and prophetic movement known as Montanism that started in the third century. In Monatanist communities, prophecies under the influence of the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) were regarded as being authoritative. Some of these prophecies, relating to the end of the world, failed to come true and the question of what could be trusted became increasingly relevant. The idea that the canon should be effectively ‘closed’ against future additions was a natural development.

The New Testament as we know it today was finally confirmed by a papal declaration in AD405. In AD382, a synod in Rome accepted the list as drawn up by the great fourth century thinker Athanasius fifteen years previously. [Incidentally, Dan Brown’s assertion in The Da Vinci Code that the canon was finalised at the Council of Nicea is another indication of the author’s lack of scholarship.]

The criteria used by Athanasius and previous list-compilers occasionally differ, but the broad outlines are the same. These are – first-generation apostolic links (in Luke’s case a link to Paul; Mark is traditionally thought to be recording Peter’s memories), historical usage, i.e. how long the particular writings have been used in Christian circles, catholicity (their use across the churches, no local writings allowed) and their tone – if they contained obvious Gnostic teaching then they were out. The vast majority of rediscovered contemporaneous documents are either locally relevant, contain Christianised pagan philosophy, or of dubious historicity. It should be noted that the modern, literalist view of Scripture as the ‘Word of God’ was rarely held in the early church. The New Testament was authoritative because it was considered reliable testimony on which to base correct church practice and doctrine, not because it was ‘authored by God’.

Constantine establishes Christianity as the official religion

Christianity spread and as it came into contact with other ideas and beliefs it developed. Even before Constantine’s edict, there were many Christians producing semi-systematic theologies. Christians like Origen and Irenaeus were engaging pagan philosophers and writing ‘apologetic’ works which portrayed Christianity as a reasonable, plausible faith system.

However, it was after Constantine ascended to the Imperial throne and issued his edict that Christianity really began to develop into the doctrinal form that survives to this day. Constantine was actually in York in AD312, when he learned that his father had died and he was now Emperor. [If you go to York in England you can see a statue of him outside York Minster]. Being so far away, his political opponents seized their opportunity for power and so, before he could get into Rome and be crowned, he had to fight the battle of the Milvian Bridge. Before the battle he had his famous dream when he saw a glowing cross in the sky and heard a voice say ‘by this sign you will win’. He instructed his legion to daub the sign of the cross on their shields and armour and subsequently won the battle. The rest, as they say, is history.

At least, that’s the official version handed down for centuries. How much truth there is in it we don’t know. It may be that Constantine saw the influential church as a useful ally, or at least as too big a movement to suppress. With the church ‘on-side’, Christianity was no longer a subversive threat and what was the real difference in praying for the Emperor as opposed to praying to him? We know that Constantine was heavily into sun-worship and even after his ‘conversion’ minted coins with images of the sun on. However, cynicism aside, Constantine was the first Christian Emperor and under his patronage the church transformed into the most important cultural institution after the army. One interesting note: Constantine’s mother, Helen, toured the holy land founding churches on ancient Christian shrines and many of the sites she ‘discovered’ – including the Holy sepulchre, the Annunciation, the Church of the Nativity – are still churches today. Helen also found the ‘true cross’ (subsequently lost by the crusader armies) and many other relics long-venerated in Christian worship.

And of course, Constantine convened the most important council of bishops in Christian history: at Nicea in AD325.

The Council of Nicea

Every Sunday millions of Christians around the world say the ‘Nicene Creed’ as a public expression of their faith. This statement of belief was first put together by an ecumenical council (a collection of high ranking churchmen), under the auspices of the Emperor Constantine in AD325. The council was called together in order to lay a major dispute that had erupted in the church to rest.

The controversy, which is now known as the Arian heresy, centred on a presbyter from Alexandria called Arius who was accused of teaching a watered down faith, where Jesus was not fully divine. In fact, the Arian heresy was a conflict between pagan philosophy and received Christian tradition.

After Christianity became the official religion, a huge swathe of people became Christians, bringing with them all kinds of different religious ideas. Some of these may seem quite laughable and superstitious to modern minds, but at the time, these complicated belief systems were regarded as the most scientifically advanced theories. The most prevalent one, found in literally hundreds of variations, was the Gnostic idea of gradated divinity. This held that physical matter was inherently evil, therefore God, who was spirit and good, could not interact with it. A huge hierarchy of divinity was created working down from the supreme, spiritual, ultimate good, to a lesser divinity (the ‘demiurge’ or ‘logos’) which created the world (in some Gnostic systems the demiurge was evil), spiritual beings like angels (subdivided into different categories), humans, animals, plankton and so on. Human beings were ‘sparks of the divine’; souls trapped in evil physical matter. Liberation from matter came through secret knowledge: ‘gnosis’ in Greek, hence the term Gnosticism/Gnostic.

Thus in the Arian scheme of things, the Father was identified with the supreme good, and the Son was the created lesser divinity who in turn created the world. This was so similar to widely held beliefs that it proved immensely popular, because it combined the official religion with the most advanced religious philosophy available. And it should be pointed out that Arians never denied the divinity of Christ – but in their system he lacked full divinity, having been created. He was still the first-born of creation through whom all other things were made and he was divine, just not to the same level as the Father. So if you’re ever told that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Arians, they’re not, because they don’t subscribe any divinity to Jesus Christ in his ontological nature. Similarly if somebody tells you that the Council of Nicea voted on whether Jesus was divine or an ordinary human being, then they’ve been reading The Da Vinci Code – that’s another one of Dan Brown’s misleading (or ignorant) statements.

The key phrase in the Nicene Creed revolves around the word ‘homo-ousios’, which literally means ‘of exactly the same stuff’. Jesus is homo-ousios with the Father. Another handy little phrase is the idea that the Son is ‘eternally begotten’ and quite clearly ‘not made’. There is a relationship there, founded in eternity, that means the two relate as ‘Father’ and ‘Son’, but the idea that the ‘Son’ is a lesser divine being who was created is categorically excluded in the creed, and the eternal generation of the Son, excludes the idea of the Father ever existing alone. These all sound very complicated and obscure to us, but they do have huge overtones.

In Greek thought, salvation was often linked to being divinised, being made like God (a later thinker put it that ‘He became man, so that man could become like God’). In Greek the word ‘theosis’ is used. Now it was a principle of Greek thought that you could not be made greater by something lesser. So, if we were saved through Jesus’ death and resurrection, and if salvation meant taking on the attributes of God (i.e. eternal life), then Jesus had to be fully God. The people who argued for ‘homo-ousios’ saw this as an argument about salvation. The principle proponent of what has become the orthodox Christian view ever since was called Athanasius. He was from Alexandria and, in all honesty, was perhaps the first ecclesiastical politician and not averse to playing dirty. Kidnapping, blackmail and using mobs to break up the meetings of his opponents are some of the more probable crimes he was accused of. Yet, his legacy within Christianity is the defining creed that was issued in Nicea.

An interesting aside to note here is that Nicea was the first place where a debate was had over whether words and terms could be used that weren’t found in the Bible. The real achievement at Nicea was the recognition that Biblical terminology was not enough to fully explain the Christian faith – that actually doctrine went beyond the pages of Scripture. Ironically, it was the orthodox party, those wanting to keep to the ‘true’ faith as they had received it, who made the step of using extra-Biblical terms and concepts. Many of those who decried the use of ‘homo-ousios’ as not being Biblical wanted a version of Christianity that had more in common with pagan Greek thought than with the witness of the New Testament.

The Holy Spirit debate, leading up to the Council of Constantinople 381AD

There is a tendency among church historians to view the Council of Nicea as the culmination of Christian doctrinal development. In fact, it was only the beginning. Nicea precipitated over fifty years of theological conflict between the Arians who denied the Son was of the same level of divinity as the Father and the ‘orthodox’. As mentioned before, ‘homo-ousios’ became the key word to define your standpoint. During this time period, various different Emperors supported either the Nicene or the Arian position (except for Julian who tried to reintroduce paganism) and Athanasius found himself exiled several times when his views fell out of favour.

The Nicene Creed was finally ratified at the Council of Constantinople in 381, so it should really be called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It differs from the earlier version because it contains a paragraph about the Holy Spirit. In the run-up to Constantinople, the arguments had switched from the relationship of the Father and the Son to the person and purpose of the Holy Spirit. The ‘Macedonian’ party argued that the Holy Spirit was some sort of superior angel, not really divine at all. This was, of course, harking back to the hierarchical view of classes of angel, but it also had to do with a resurgence of strict monotheism; by and large the Macedonians sided with the Arians and denied the divinity of Christ.

It was left to a quite brilliant, yet reclusive, theologian called Gregory of Nazianzus to argue the case for the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In a series of theological sermons delivered in Constantinople, Gregory laid out the framework for all subsequent Trinitarian theology. Gregory’s phrase, that the Spirit ‘proceeded’ from the Father, has become the way the Spirit is understood to relate to the other persons in the one Godhead. Obviously it had to be different from begetting, else the Spirit was a second Son, so Gregory hit on procession, a word linked to some obscure Biblical passages, but also getting around the etymological objections of the Macedonians.

Gregory initially chaired the Council of Constantinople, where, under the Emperor Theodosius I, the Nicene Creed with it’s controversial use of ‘homo-ousios’ and some additional lines about the Spirit, was declared the expression of true belief; a standing it has never lost in Christian doctrine.

The procession of the Holy Spirit was the grounds for one major doctrinal conflict, a few centuries later. In the Western Church, the phrase ‘and the son’ (‘filioque’) was added to the creed, so that the Spirit proceeded from both Father and Son. This was done in a high-handed manner by the then Pope, much to the chagrin of bishops in the East and was one of the prime causes of the Great Schism between the Roman Church and what became known as the Orthodox Church in Greece, Russia and Eastern Europe.

Coming soon: Church History Part 2.


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Mayo Clinic and IBM host medical language initiative

ROCHESTER, Minn., and ARMONK, NY -- Biomedical informatics researchers at Mayo Clinic and IBM today launched a Web site for the newly founded Open Health Natural Language Processing (NLP) Consortium. The consortium is establishing the open-source space to promote past and current development efforts, including participation in information extraction from electronic medical records.

As part of the launch, Mayo Clinic and IBM released their clinical NLP technologies into the public domain. The site will allow the approximately 2,000 researchers and developers working on clinical language systems worldwide to contribute code and further develop the systems.

"We are inviting our international colleagues to help continue development of these valuable tools," says Christopher Chute, M.D., Dr.P.H., Mayo Clinic bioinformatics expert and senior consultant on the project. "By making it an open-source initiative, we hope to enable wide use of these NLP tools so medical advancements can happen faster and more efficiently."

"The recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act promises to accelerate the adoption of electronic medical records," said Dan Pelino, IBM's general manager, Global Healthcare & Life. "Because the success of such reform rides on delivering interconnected and intelligent information to health care professionals everywhere, Mayo and IBM are tapping into the collaborative power of the open-source community to speed the development of Natural Language Processing (NLP). Adoption of this technology will provide physicians with insights into each patient's condition, allowing them to electronically retrieve the exact knowledge they seek from patient health records rather than reading through every record provided, as they must do today." Patient privacy is a main concern and consideration; all current and any future required safeguards and regulations will be adhered to strictly.

NLP is a relatively new and specialized area within computer science dealing with computational methods for understanding human language. In medicine, clinical NLP systems process the vast repositories of text generated by patient-clinician interactions. Such systems categorize and structure it according to standard nomenclature -- in this case focusing on terms used in a range of medical specialties -- that will ultimately speed data searches for both diagnoses and medical research. These NLP platforms or "pipelines" aid indexing and searching electronic medical records within institutions to quickly find similar cases or conditions, so physicians are not reliant solely on their own clinical experience in analyzing a problem. Researchers may also use these tools to aid retrospective epidemiological studies or do groundwork for new clinical trials.

"Large-scale information extraction from the clinical narrative is a vital component in advancing translational research and patient care," adds Guergana Savova, Ph.D., medical informatics specialist and Mayo's NLP lead on the project. "It 'unlocks' the clinical textual data that resides in huge repositories. Such technology would allow for large-scale data aggregation, analyses and usage -- just imagine the power of data from millions of patients."

"There is a treasure trove of historical unstructured data that provides essential information for the study of disease progression, treatment effectiveness and long-term outcome which NLP systems make available to clinicians and researchers," states Anni Coden Ph.D., IBM's NLP principal on the project. "Such data can provide guidance for prospective studies and furthermore facilitate the integration of data from multi-modal data sources."

As an increasing percentage of health care and academic medical centers adopt electronic medical records, searching and extracting information from them in an automated fashion becomes essential. Mayo Clinic and IBM jointly developed a system for extracting information from more than 25 million free-text clinical notes based on IBM's open-source Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA). As part of the system, developers build strings of "annotators" that become a pipeline, allowing physicians to mine the text for references of specific conditions, drugs, diseases, signs and symptoms; anatomical areas or organs; or treatment procedures. IBM and Mayo Clinic also developed a system to extract cancer disease characteristics from unstructured pathology reports to facilitate "consistent retrieval and transmission of cancer cases." The system extracts tumor characteristics, lymph node status and metastatic disease information enabling the automatic computation of cancer stage, which is critical to determine optimal treatment.

The two clinical text solutions released open-source by Mayo Clinic and IBM aim at processing two specific types of notes. Clinical notes describe patient-physician encounters, while pathology reports center around tissue findings. Both options are already adding value for Mayo and its patients:

  • Physicians can research past records to examine earlier cases of rare conditions, thereby "conferring" with their colleagues across time to aid diagnosis and treatment decisions.

Mayo's open-source solution, clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System (cTAKES), focuses on processing the patient-centric clinical notes. Its low level components, for example the software that discovers sentence and word boundaries, assigns words part-of-speech tags and forms phrases out of the words, are "trained" to understand clinical language. The higher-level information extraction components, for example the ones that determine which textual spans are highly relevant to the clinical meaning of a note, are specifically designed for this domain. cTAKES has the functionality to recognize whether a clinical concept is negated, relevant to the patient or to the patient's family, which are attributes critical to understanding patient-centered medical language.

IBM's medKAT systems (medical Knowledge Analysis Tool) is a UIMA-based, modular and flexible system that uses advanced NLP techniques to extract structured information from unstructured data sources, such as pathology reports, clinical notes, discharge summaries and medical literature. medKAT/P is a version customized for the pathology domain, based on a representation of cancer, its characteristics and disease progression. The system recognizes concepts such as primary tumor and its associated attributes (e.g. histology, anatomical site, etc.) or lymph node status and its associated attributes (e.g. number of positive and excised nodes) by identifying mentions (e.g. histology or anatomical sites) and their relations (including negation). medKAT can be viewed as a development platform that is adaptable to user and domain requirements. It has been designed to operate within institutional systems or databases of any size.

Contact: Robert Nellis
Mayo Clinic

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MiShare is a secure collaborative file transfer system provided by MCIT. The MiShare infrastructure provides a method approved by the UMHS Compliance Office for UMHS personnel, non-UMHS business partners, patients and researchers to securely transfer files, including files that contain electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), protected research data, or other sensitive information. Files are encrypted while being uploaded or downloaded, and are encrypted while they are on the MiShare server.

To access the system, launch a web browser and go to the following link:

From that page, anyone with a Level-2 account and med.umich.edu email address can authenticate to send files, in the form of packages, to other UMHS personnel or someone at another institution. Patients or any other Non-UMHS individuals can send packages to a UMHS person by clicking the Register and Send Files link.

With MiShare, uploaded packages are not transferred from UMHS systems to external systems. Rather, packages remain on the server and must be retrieved from the UMHS server by the recipient using a provided link. The MiShare system can only be used to transfer files either through SSH/sFTP or through a web https; it is not possible to mount a MiShare volume as a drive letter for a desktop computer. As files are uploaded and bundled in packages, they are also encrypted to allow secure transfer. Packages will currently only be available for five days. Packages older than 5 days are automatically deleted.