Prompt 3

Jordan Greenwell

Mrs. Wilhelmus/ s. Wagener

AP Language

6 August 2013

Middle Ages

                Christianity was booming in the early Middle Ages.  The Roman Empire and the rest of Europe was becoming a Christian nation.  As Christianity became more and more popular, philosophy was starting to become less popular.  This was happening because of the differences in opinions between religion and philosophy.  The only way that philosophy would take a comeback into popularity would be to adapt and agree with what religion was saying.

                Philosophers had to change their ideas because the church could often get angered by their teachings.  As more and more people were becoming Christian, more and more people were becoming angered by what some philosophers were teaching.

                One way that the philosophers were changing their ideas were by merging their ideas with the churches ideas.  St Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274, Christianized the ideas of Aristotle.  In Sophie’s World it says, “Aquinas believed that there need be no conflict between what philosophy or reason teaches us and what the Christian Revelation or faith teaches us.”  His ideas worked and people were accepting in that philosophy now had similar ideas as the church.

                Another philosopher from the Middle Ages was St. Augustine, who, lived from 354 to 430.  He merged the churches ideas with Plato’s just as Aquinas did with Aristotle’s.  He also had the same success as Aquinas with the society of his age.