Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (300-600) - The Provincialization of the Empire (250-350) - The Sources of God's Grace

5 important questions on Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (300-600) - The Provincialization of the Empire (250-350) - The Sources of God's Grace

In the Mass, the central liturgy (service) of the earthly Church, the bread and wine on the altar became the body and blood of Christ, the "Eucharist."
Through the Mass the faithful were joined to one another; to the souls of the dead, who were remembered in the liturgy; and to Christ himself.

The importance of the Mass was made clear in the very architecture and decoration of Christian churches.
An example is the sixth-century church of San Vitale in Ravenna, where the apse (a large semi-circular structure at the eastern end of the church) forms a brilliant marble and mosaic halo around the alter. Above the altar, full-length figures of the emperor (on the left) and empress (on the right) along with their retinues bring the bread and wine to the altar.
In this way, the emperor and empress associated their earthly power with the Eucharist and the Mass.

The Eucharist was one potent source of God's grace. Another one were the saints.
The saints were people so beloved by God, so infused with his grace, that they were both models of virtue and powerful wonder-workers.
In the early Church, the saints had mainly been the martyrs, men and women who died for their faith. After the time of Constantine, the saints of the fourth and fifth centuries found ways to be virtual martyrs even while alive.

Healer of illnesses, mediator of disputes, worker of wonders, Antony's power was not only spiritual but also physical and judicial.

Writing was one way to appropriate the power of the saints.
When holy men and women died, their power lived on in their relics (whatever they left behind - their bones, hair, clothes, sometimes even the dust near their tombs).

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