A Few Events of Christian History Quiz

Answer: Nero

Nero became the emperor in his teens after his adopted father, Claudius, died in A.D. 54. Some people believe that Nero's mother poisoned Claudius in order to bring Nero into power. When Rome caught fire in A.D. 64, Emperor Nero put the blame on the Christians and started brutally persecuting them. One Roman biographer named Suetonius (pronounced swĭ-tō'-nē-əs) claimed that Nero himself had set the fire. Emperor Nero committed suicide in A.D. 68 after a series of revolts.

Constantine was a Roman emperor who was reportedly converted to Christianity after seeing a vision of a cross. Athanasius was significant in the early church for defending the doctrine that Jesus was God. Diocletian's reign as Roman emperor from A.D. 284 to A.D. 305 was the final great wave of Christian persecution under the Roman Empire.

Answer: Antony of Egypt

A lot of what we know about Antony of Egypt comes from a biography of him that was written by Athanasius. He was born to rich parents who died when he was eighteen or twenty. About six months after his parents died he gave away all his money and became a hermit. At one point in his life he spent twenty years living alone on a mountain on the Nile named Pispar (now called Dayr al-Maymūn). Athanasius' account of Antony's life has Antony in the wilderness being attacked by Satan, who supposedly used visions to tempt him. Athanasius' biography spread around Europe and is believed to have helped popularize the practice of monasticism.

Augustine of Hippo was a bishop who wrote 'City of God.' Leonardo da Vinci (not "Leonardo of Vinci," as the wrong answer read) was an Italian painter and scientist who painted 'The Last Supper.' Saul of Tarsus was a man from the New Testament who persecuted Christians, but then became a Christian himself after seeing a vision.

Answer: First Council of Nicaea

The First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 was called by Emperor Constantine in order to come to a position about who Jesus was. A man named Arius had been teaching that Jesus was not God but instead was a creature created by God and was less powerful than God. Arius was there at the council to defend his beliefs, while Athanasius defended the orthodox position that Jesus was a member of the Trinity and therefore was God, equal to God the Father. The council decided that, yes, Jesus was God, and Arius was condemned as a heretic.

The Roman Catholic church called The Council of Trent in the 1500s as a reaction to the Protestant Reformation. First Council of Shrurch and Council of Fonster are made up.

Answer: Jerome

Jerome was a Christian scholar who completed his Latin translation known as the Vulgate in 405. He used different sources for different parts of the Bible, including the Septuagint and a multilingual Bible called the Hexapla that had been created by Origen. He didn't bother to translate all of the Apocrypha so the Vulgate simply has old Latin versions for some of the Apocryphal books. The Vulgate was popular in the western churches and in 1546 the council of Trent declared it the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.

Origen was a Christian theologian and writer who was the teacher of a school in Alexandria, according to ancient records. John Wycliffe was a Protestant Reformer who completed the first translation of the Bible into English. Eugene Peterson wrote the popular paraphrase of the Bible known as 'The Message.'

Answer: Ireland

When Patrick was around sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and became a slave. Later he escaped and went back to the European continent for a while, and then back to Britain to live with his family again. While he was in Britain he reportedly saw a vision of Irish people asking him to go and evangelize Ireland. He spent a while studying on the continent and then went to Ireland as a missionary, where he succeeded in turning it into a mostly Christian nation.

Scotland was united under King Kenneth McAlpin around 843 A.D. Gaul was a region in Western Europe around what is now France. Rypt was dreamed up by yours truly.

Answer: 1054

The Schism of 1054 occurred when Pope Leo IX and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other, creating two separate churches. Differences between the churches included that the Western church used unleavened bread in the Lord's Supper, while the Eastern church used leavened.

Answer: Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas' enormously long "Summa Theologica" dealt with thousands of different theological issues from a Catholic perspective. The questions it dealt with included "whether life is properly attributed to God," "whether the book of life is the same as predestination," and "whether the active intellect is something in the soul."
Josh McDowell is a Christian writer who wrote "More than a Carpenter." Francis Mooth and Robert Dagon are made up, although in the Old Testament Dagon was a false god that the Philistines worshiped (see Judges 16:23).

Answer: Huldrych Zwingli

Zwingli did much of his ministry from the city of Zurich (pronounced Zər'-rĭk) in northeastern Switzerland. In 1523 he had a debate with a representative of the pope in Zurich. Zwingli came up with a list of 67 articles that he presented as his doctrines. Many of the priests in Zurich came to agree with him, and changes were made: Priests were allowed to get married, musical instruments removed from worship, images pulled out of the churches.

Zwingli believed that the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper was simply a way to commemorate Jesus' death and sacrifice, and was not really related to Jesus' body and blood, except as a symbol. This went against Martin Luther's teaching that Jesus' body and blood became somehow joined with the bread and wine during the Lord's Supper, although both Luther and Zwingli rejected the Catholic belief that the food actually turned miraculously into Jesus' body. In 1529 Luther and Zwingli had a meeting at Marburg, a city in central Germany. After comparing their beliefs on fifteen different issues, they found out they agreed on fourteen of them, the only exception being what it was that actually happened at the Lord's Supper. Luther refused to unite with Zwingli for that reason, and no agreement was reached.

Answer: True

It was in 1534. The Act of Supremacy separated the Church of England from the Catholic Church.

Answer: False

George Fox was an early founder of the Society of Friends, known as Quakers. He disliked formal religion and creeds, and emphasized emotion and personal experience. His group encouraged people to listen to an "inner light" from God inside their hearts, taking away attention from written doctrine from the Bible.

The Baptists were formed in the early 1600s, supporting only baptism of believers.