Search Results: Augustine of Hippo

The monastic orders of the Middle Ages developed from the desire to live a spiritual life without the distractions of the world. Men and women who took religious vows were seeking a purity of experience they found lacking as lay people. Their...

Prostitution in the ancient world usually referred to a classification of women and men who offered their sexual services outside the parameters of law codes for ancient society. The word 'prostitute' derives from the Latin prostituere ("to...

The act of voluntary death was never condemned in antiquity. In fact, The English word "suicide" comes from the Latin for "self-slaying." The reason for a voluntary death had to be one that was honorable and necessary to remove any element...

The Council of Clermont in central France was held in November 1095 and witnessed Pope Urban II's (r. 1088-1099) historic call for the First Crusade (1095-1102) to capture Jerusalem for Christendom from its Muslim occupiers. The Pope's speech...

Christianity is the world's largest religion, with 2.8 billion adherents. It is categorized as one of the three Abrahamic or monotheistic religions of the Western tradition along with Judaism and Islam. 'Christian' is derived from the Greek...

Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus Christ, is one of the most venerated women from the ancient world. Her most common epithet is "the virgin Mary." She is celebrated by Eastern Orthodox Churches, Catholicism, and various Protestant denominations...

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Jewish scriptures and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Genesis takes its name from the opening line in Hebrew – beresit, ("in the beginning") – later translated into Greek as genesis ("origin"...

Judas Iscariot was one of the original disciples of Jesus of Nazareth (d. c. 30 CE), one of the twelve apostles. For handing Jesus over to the authorities, as described in the gospels, he has become the epitome of the act of betrayal in the...

Heinrich Bullinger (l. 1504-1575) was a Swiss reformer, minister, and historian who succeeded Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) as leader of the Reformed Church in Switzerland and became the theological bridge between Zwingli's work and that...

The Bible is often quoted in the modern discourse concerning human sexuality, gender identification, same-sex marriages, birth control, and especially abortion. However, most modern Christian teaching evolved from the writings of the Church...