The period from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries A.D. is known as the "Dark Ages". This was the period when the Christian Church was dominant, the classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome declined, and Europe entered an era when theology ruled everything. The Christian theological worldview of the Middle Ages believed that man was born sinful, and according to the doctrine of "original sin," Adam and Eve, the ancestors of mankind, lived in paradise and led a beautiful and happy life, but because they ate the forbidden fruit, they were punished by God, expelled from paradise, and plunged into the earthly world of eternity. Thus, man is sinful in this life and in this world. Man can only turn to the Church and use repentance and prayer to seek God's favor and be saved from his sins, so that he can enter heaven after death. God is sovereign over everything, and man is worthless. Man is God's slave, God's lamb, and can only obey God faithfully. In those days, science was considered an insult to God, all learning was "owned" by priests, and all wisdom was "concentrated" in the Bible. In this age, as Engels noted, "Science is only the obedient handmaiden of the Church, and it must not go beyond the boundaries set by religious faith." The Church used its prerogative to suppress all "heresies". According to statistics, about five million people were sentenced to be burned at the stake in the European countries during the Middle Ages, many of whom were natural scientists. Therefore, during this period, the development of science was extremely slow, and in some areas it even regressed compared with ancient science.
"In Italy, capitalist production developed the earliest and serfdom relations disintegrated the earliest." (Marx, Capital, Volume I) So the Renaissance movement first began in Italy. Florence, the "cradle of the Renaissance", became the center of the new bourgeois cultural movement from the 14th century. During the reign of Cosimo of the Medici family (1434-1464) and later during the reign of Rosso (1469-1492), Florence experienced unprecedented economic and cultural prosperity, and became a beacon of light in "dark" medieval Europe. At that time, the new cultural movement in Italy and Florence, under the banner of "revival" of the ancient Greco-Roman culture, aimed directly at the theocratic rule of the Church. The bourgeoisie, which had just ascended to the stage of history, did not have a mature and complete system of thought, and in order to fight against the theological power of Christianity in the Middle Ages, it was necessary to have a powerful ideological weapon, which they thought was the secular and rational ancient Greco-Roman culture. Although these classical cultures were rejected by the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, denounced as heresy, and imprisoned for a thousand years, the emerging bourgeois thinkers brought them back to light.
In Florence, Italy, "humanism" also became a weapon against theology. Taking up the famous line of the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things", the humanists advocated respect for nature and human rights and opposed asceticism; they advocated science and culture and opposed superstition. They pull people from the world of the gods back to the reality of the human world. They glorified man, praised life and nature, and revered science and reason. Under the guidance of humanist thought, both social and natural sciences developed, producing modern realist literature and art, modern natural sciences based on experimental methods, a new materialist philosophy, political science, history and pedagogy, and a large number of multi-talented and learned giants. These giants raised the banner of humanism and launched a fierce attack on feudal absolutism and Christian theological rule, thus writing a new chapter in the history of human culture.
Second, the liberation of the natural sciences
The Renaissance was an era of active thought in favor of bold innovation. Columbus, Magellan, and Da. Gamma's great geographical discoveries; Da. The great geographic discoveries of Columbus, Magellan, and da Gama; the fine art innovations of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael were all accomplished in this era. After the dark night of the Middle Ages, science re-emerged with unexpected force and developed with miraculous speed. It was represented and pioneered by the great discoveries in astronomy made by such giants of science as Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
During Copernicus' time, Ptolemy's "geocentricity" was dominant in Europe. The medieval church deified geocentrism and used it as the basis for proving the existence of God. Copernicus believed that Ptolemy, by failing to distinguish between phenomena and essence, had taken falsehood for truth. Because of not feel the rotation of the earth, so that only feel the sun rises from the east and falls in the west every day, which is just like people sitting on a large ship traveling, often do not feel the ship is moving, but only see the shore in the back of the same thing moving. So, Copernicus put forward the heliocentric theory and published a huge book "theory of the operation of celestial bodies". He bravely proposed that the sun is the center of the universe, the earth is not the center of the universe, it is just an ordinary planet orbiting around the sun. Because Copernicus was limited by his time and class, he was not yet able to get rid of the influence of the old traditional concepts completely. He followed the ancient Greek idealistic school of thought that the circle is the most perfect shape, and thought that the orbit of the planets around the sun was circular and in uniform motion. But it turned out that the planets' orbits around the sun were elliptical and unequal. These imperfections in Copernicus' theory were developed and refined by Bruno and Kepler. Copernicus "sun-centered theory" of the birth of astronomy from religious theology under the shackles of liberation, the natural science from then on to get a new life, which has epoch-making significance in the history of the development of modern science.
Three, the challenge of natural science to theology
Over the centuries, theological obscurantism is rampant, they elevate God's authority, disparage human beings, stifle scientific discovery, so that science serves as a slave of theology. The Copernican doctrine was an open challenge to theology, and it directed the spearhead of the struggle to the Church of Rome. Copernicus' doctrine overthrew the fundamental theories of astronomy at that time and distinguished science from mystical witchcraft. It offended the teachings of Christianity and was opposed by the Church. The Pope denounced Copernicus as a "false and wholly unscriptural heresy" and banned his writings, while brutally persecuting scholars who propagated Copernicus' teachings.
Bruno, the natural scientist who cried out for truth, defied the Church's ban and boldly exposed religious ignorance. He organically combined the advanced natural science and philosophy of his time and established his own materialistic natural philosophical cosmology. He insisted on supplementing and developing the Copernican doctrine. Copernicus reduced the earth from the center of the universe to a planet in the solar system, thus shaking the foundation of Catholic theological rule. Bruno, on the other hand, reduced the sun from the center of the universe to an ordinary star, which made people's scientific understanding of the universe advance one step further, which was a more thorough denial of the "geocentricity" preached by the Church and the "anthropocentrism" that arose therefrom. Bruno's claims caused hundreds of inquisitions to declare him a heretic, and the Roman Curia tried by all means to put him to death. To this end, they lured him back to his country by underhanded means and imprisoned him in the dungeons of Venice and Rome for eight years, in an attempt to force him to bow his head and confess his sins, renounce his views, confess to the Church, denounce himself, and surrender on bended knee. However, during these eight years of prison life, Bruno was tortured, but did not waver in his beliefs, did not give up his doctrine, and did not admit his "mistakes". 1600 February 17, Bruno was executed by fire in the Piazza delle Flore in Rome. Bruno went around enthusiastically publicizing the ideas of materialism and atheism, spreading the Copernican doctrine throughout Europe, making him the most resolute and courageous warrior against the Church and scriptural philosophy.
In the same period, the scientist Galileo, in order to maintain the truth, also fought with the Holy See indomitable struggle. He used his homemade telescope to observe the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, unveiling many secrets in the celestial bodies, providing evidence in favor of the Copernican doctrine, and dealing a fatal blow to the "world of God" which attempted to anesthetize people's spirit and will. Pope Paul V (1605-1621) seriously felt that although the Papacy had eliminated Bruno physically, it had not eliminated Copernicus ideologically, and now that Galileo was supporting Copernicus with new discoveries, the Papacy was once again shocked. So, on March 5, 1616, the Pope reaffirmed Copernicus' doctrine as "heresy" and his writings were banned, and no one was allowed to talk about them, propagate them, or read them, or else they would have to be tried by the Inquisition. However, the ecclesiastical warning did not make Galileo give up his astronomical research work, and after a long period of observing and studying the movements of the heavenly bodies, he became even more convinced of the correctness of the Copernican doctrine. 1632, Galileo's Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus was published after a long period of scrutiny. The publication of this work was met with great hatred by some of the clergy, who, under the pretext that the ban of 1616 was still in force, brought a complaint against it before the Inquisition. Soon the book was banned from sale and Galileo was summoned to stand trial before the Roman Inquisition. Galileo was nearly 70 years old and physically weakened, but despite being tortured to the point of exhaustion and death, he still argued and insisted on his own point of view, refusing to bow to the Holy See. In the end, Galileo was sentenced to prison, and after his release, he was placed under house arrest in Florence for seven years.
Kepler, the famous German astronomer, also fought against the Church in defense of the truth. During his studies at the university, Kepler gradually became an admirer of Copernicus's doctrine, and his faith in theology was shaken, and he often engaged in heated arguments with his classmates, flagrantly defending Copernicus's theory of the universe. In his later years, he continued to fight relentlessly against idealism. The Catholic Church hated Kepler's behavior so much that they surrounded his house and threatened to execute him. Kepler was spared because he had been the emperor's mathematician. But this did not shake his faith, he still insisted on scientific research, and made great development of Copernicus's heliocentric theory.
Four, the triumph of natural science
Human reason, once freed from the confinement of the theological worldview, will have enormous power. Copernicus, Kepler and other astronomers in astronomy, the great discoveries, a far cry from religious prejudice, is a complete rejection of the theological system is also these giants of the discovery of the promotion of the development of the materialist worldview. The power of truth cannot be suppressed, and human understanding will never be stopped by the foolishness of religious thought. More than two hundred years later, the Pope had to recognize that heliocentrism is correct, and has vindicated Bruno, Galileo and a number of other scientists who died unjustly. It was a victory for truth, a victory for science, a victory for the giants of the Renaissance.
Ancient Greece:
The Greek culture created by the Greeks has extraordinary penetration, she was able to transcend the limitations of space and time, with the sailing fleet and the Roman legions spread to the Apennine, spread to the Rhine, spread to Bactria? She in turn has an unlimited vitality, and from time to time she is absorbed and transformed by later civilizations, thus becoming a treasure of mankind *** with and for eternity.
Ancient Greece is the cradle of Western civilization, the symbol of human wisdom. Although she did not form a unified country, but **** the same language, the same beliefs and the same language and the same kind of history but they are closely linked. Their "all-encompassing talents and activities have secured for them a place in the history of human development unrivaled by any other people". The ancient Greeks not only created a splendid and varied civilization, leading in literature, history, science, philosophy, and art, but also gave birth to all the germs of modern Western civilization.
Crete:
The Birthplace of Greek Civilization
Greek civilization was born on Crete, a small island said to be in the "middle of the world". It was here that the future King of Athens, Theseus, broke into the labyrinth and beheaded the horrible Minoan bull and became a hero worshipped by the Greeks, and in the early 20th century the labyrinth was miraculously unearthed, which broke the world's shocking news, and now, when people are faced with the ruins of the royal palace, which has been sealed for thousands of years, and appreciate the exquisite frescoes and detailed and unique artifacts, they cannot help but wonder that Crete is the place where the Greek culture was supposed to have originated.
However, the ruthlessness of history has swept away the splendor of Crete. Barbarism replaced civilization, the swarthy folk, endless battles, bloodshed and struggling deaths, an era that needed heroes and heroes did emerge, whose searing feats call for admiration from future generations. So the blind poet Homer rekindled the fire of Greek culture, cutting through the long dark night, he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey two epic poems, passionately eulogizing the almighty gods and the bloodthirsty warriors, no matter whether it is the sacred Athena, Poseidon, or mortal Achilles, Hector, no matter whether it is the Greeks or the Trojans, no matter whether it is the victor or the vanquished, all the heroism of the heroes were promoted by the respected poet. The venerable poet has promoted them all. The later Pindar, a poet second only to Homer, was brilliant and ambitious. He regarded poetry as a tool for spreading his own values, and he once solemnly declared to the world: "I will light up this dear city with flaming poetry, and let it burn. Let my words, spreading to every corner of the world, travel faster than a running horse or a ship fitted with wings." Pindar's poems are exuberant and give infinite beauty.
The age of the pure and ancient Greek style was an era when the Greeks were constantly exporting immigrants abroad, and their colonies spread all over Western and Southern Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea coast, from Massalia to Byzantium, and from Poteida to Sinope, like countless roots extending from the trunk of this Greek homeland, hungrily sucking the cultural sustenance of the surrounding soil. Egyptian religion, Persian philosophy, Phoenician writing, Babylonian astronomy and the arts of the "barbarians", countless ancient civilizations and thousands of years of cultural achievements spread rapidly through these roots to the rolling hills of the Peloponnesus, to the fruitful orchards of Attica, and to the barren mountains of Bia. The Greeks were immensely fortunate to have been embraced by many ancient civilizations as the pampered darlings of millions, enjoying the bounty left to them by the civilizations of the East.
Theater:
Played a role in enriching people's spiritual life
The Greeks loved life and enjoyed it. "The full realization of all one's primary faculties, to the extent that life offers them, so that it is good and beautiful" - this is the definition of happiness written in ancient Greece. It is a concept full of the vitality of life, which runs through all Greek history. Elegant theater played a role in enriching the spiritual life of the people. Sophocles was the master of Greek tragedy, and his works, despite the wear and tear of distant ages and the omissions of falsehoods, still have a beautiful style and skillful technique. The flavor of "classical" is like this: refined, quiet and solemn; vigorous and restrained; solemn and elegant. Its structure is also classical, with each line of the poem interconnected and gradually evolving to a climax that reveals the significance of its theme. Greek literature was fruitful, and the achievements of the theater were by no means accidental; perhaps it was the victory in the Hippocratic War that gave the Greeks the self-confidence and passion necessary to create a great age of drama, or perhaps it was the advanced trade. Economic prosperity enabled them to support choral and dramatic competitions that consumed thousands of dollars. The great playwrights, besides Sophocles, were Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes, who used their pens to create scene after scene of sorrow and joy. They used their pens to create scene after scene of sorrow and joy, scenes that tugged at the heartstrings, and characters that were vivid, vivid, and with outstanding personalities. The democratic atmosphere is the root of the vibrant and colorful Greek drama. Aeschylus could let Prometheus defy the power of Olympus without fear of being suppressed by the supremacy of the gods in the Middle Ages; Euripides was able to break through the barriers of the idea of the inferiority or superiority of men, and let the humiliated Medea tell the world that "only women suffer the most", which was a heartfelt statement. Euripides was able to break through the barriers of male superiority and female inferiority, allowing the humiliated Medea to say that "only women suffer the most". The blossoming of the Greek theater will always be a precious heritage of mankind.
History:
The Greeks' Reflection on the Past
The ancient Greeks regarded the recollection of the past as an inherent human instinct. They did not want to keep their perceptions always on the surface of a problem, but rather to trace the essence of things so as to achieve perfect rationality. The Greeks were historically conscious from a very early age, and unbeknownst to them Homer played part of the role of historian, and his poems, though literary, are not devoid of numerous historical facts. The successful excavation of Troy itself proves the truth of Homer's account. The magnificent Greek-Polish war and the numerous sufferings and severe trials that the Greeks endured during this war left an indelible mark on the minds of the Greeks. This stimulated a great historian, Herodotus, who vowed to pass on this sad story to future generations so that it would be remembered for generations to come, and the History of the Hippocratic War, which was honored as a masterpiece of classical historiography, was born, and Herodotus thus gained the reputation of "the father of history". Later on, Thucydides pushed Greek historiography to a new peak. He had personally experienced the Peloponnesian War which took place at the end of the fifth century B.C. It is hard to forget that the brothers between the city-states put on the heavy armor, picked up the throwing guns and short swords, and rushed at each other mercilessly; the compatriots fell down in batches, and the relatives died one by one; the pestilence god flew in the sky, and the white bones were exposed on the hills, which was simply the disaster and nightmare of the Greeks! The pain of the war, the rise and fall of the country and individuals y impacted the mind of Thucydides, resulting in his mind to write a long-lasting fine "History of the Peloponnesian War", in the history of historiography set up a monument to the admiration of future generations.
Science:
An opportunity for Greece to flourish
The Egyptians studied measurement in order to build pyramids, palaces, and temples, and to measure the fertile land left behind by the flooding of the Nile, and the priests looked to the skies in order to learn the will of the "gods". The Greeks were more interested in the mysteries of the universe and the laws of creation than they were. Alexander's expedition almost brought the Greeks to the "end of the world", and they could not help but lament their ignorance and foolishness when they faced the turbulent Indus River and crossed the scarcely-visited Caucasus. At the same time, a large number of Hellenistic cities sprang up in the convergence of Asia, Africa and Europe, and libraries were also established, which undoubtedly provided an opportunity for the vigorous development of science. As we know, Pythagoras discovered the "Great Theorem of the Universe" at a very early stage; Euclid summarized the experience of his predecessors and created a systematic geometry; his Principles of Geometry has been passed down for thousands of years and has not deteriorated, and until now it is a popular textbook in the universities of Europe; Archimedes of Syracuse was a good thinker, and he realized the existence of buoyancy force from the overflowing water in the bathtub, and worked out the equilibrium position of the floating body. He realized the existence of buoyancy from the overflowing water in the bathtub, found the mathematical formula for the equilibrium position of the floating body and created liquid statics. He gained strength and self-confidence from science and asserted that if he was given a fulcrum, he would pry up the whole earth, which is a kind of fearlessness and perseverance to challenge nature. Herein lies the honor of the Greek scientist. The Roman soldier who killed Archimedes, who begged for time to think about the problem, did not expect to be condemned to an eternity of unforgiveness. Greek astronomy benefited from Babylon. Aristarchus of Samos suspected "geocentrism" long before Copernicus, Hipparchus made the main astronomical instruments of the time, the planetarium and quadrant, invented the method of dividing the earth's position by the lines of latitude and longitude, and calculated the lengths of the solar year, the lunar year, the sidereal year, and the lunar year with a fairly close to accurate value. The length of the solar, lunar and sidereal years were calculated with fairly close accuracy. Romantic Greeks also gave myths to the confusing vault of the sky and their division of the constellations, whenever night falls, we sit in a quiet farmhouse looking up at the sky, in the fireflies and the twinkling of the stars in the reverie, as if to see Apollo with wings on the flying shoes to the harp-playing nymphs, the Pegasus rose up in the air over the top of the head of a fierce lion, and the hussar hunter is waving his baton fiercely smashed to the wolf of heaven! ...... In addition to the illustrious astronomy, physics and mathematics, the Greeks achieved exploratory results in all aspects of botany, zoology and medicine, laying a solid foundation for the development of modern disciplines.
Wisdom:
Propelling the Greeks to pursue the supreme truth
The Greeks revered wisdom, and the divine blessing in charge of wisdom in their minds was the beautiful and magical Athena. There are few ancient civilizations that have produced as many philosophers and sages as Greece. Flowers blossomed and fell, heat and cold came and went, the moon moved and stars shifted, and rivers flowed, the Greeks were always perplexed by the uncertainty of the world and delighted in the search for the unchanging truths of the ages. Wise men flashed, thinking inexhaustible, Thales of Miletus, the life-giving water as the origin of all things, Anaximenes insisted that the air around the perimeter of the universe is the fundamental, and Heraclitus as if from the jumping and dancing with the fire to see the ultimate answer, he said: "This world, neither by a god, nor by a man made, was a long time ago, and is now, and will be an everlasting fire, and will be an everlasting fire, and will be an everlasting fire. will also be an everlasting fire." Barmenides and Democritus also expressed their own views. The development of trade has contributed to this hundred-fold debate. There is trade, there is the flow of people, the elite from all over the world together will inevitably collide with the spark of thought. Athens became one of the most developed city-states in the Greek world in terms of trade and commerce after its victory over the Persians, and the perfect democratic system released free air, which attracted talents from all over the world like a magnet and gave them leisure to think. It was under these conditions that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon took the crown of the kingdom of wisdom. The ugly, ill-dressed Socrates wrote nothing, but enlightened Plato to forget drama, sports, and women, and to pursue the supreme truth. Plato was given a garden on the outskirts of the city, which later became the world-famous "Academy of Athens", where mathematics and philosophy were taught. The Academy, where students did not have to pay a fee and women were allowed to stop and listen, was a melting pot that brought together and refreshed the cultural achievements of Greece over the centuries. We have always categorized Plato's ideas into logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics, but his doctrines were not systematic, but rather a mishmash of beautifully contemplative "dialogues". Plato believed that everything depended on the Idea, worshipped the love of truth that transcends the physical and spiritual, and envisioned a society free from corruption, poverty, tyranny, and war, where everyone had the right to an education and ignorance was ruled by the wise in his ideal state. Aristotle, who succeeded Plato, was profoundly learned and intellectually gifted, and left his solid footprints in philosophy, political science, logic, rhetoric, or poetics and science.
Greece was a people who dared to think, to challenge and to practice. Although some of the most praiseworthy works no longer exist, a careful study of the surviving buildings, carvings and bottle paintings provides insight into the splendor of Greek artistic achievement. The Parthenon is a masterpiece of Greek architecture and a symbol of man's conquest of nature. Its various parts have an enduring balance, and do not topple because of the deliberate length of the Tauric columns on which they depend for support; it is stretched, extended, erect, strong, and in harmony with the elegance of the human body. The Greeks revered the beauty of the human body and made statues of the almighty gods and the best of the Olympian games. They admired the masculinity and strength of men, and prized the grace and femininity of women. "The arm of the discus thrower and the twisting posture of the bent knee will always make people feel an unstoppable force, and the graceful "s" shape of the Venus of Milos and the crippled arm will make people think endlessly. Red and black collocation produces a stable, elegant visual effect, the Greeks used them as the glaze color of the pottery, with the ever-changing geometric shapes and flowing lines on the bottles and jars to tell the moving legend: there are horse-drawn chariots in the gallop, there is the Odyssey's arduous journey back to his hometown, as well as the depths of the sea siren Siren's seductive song. No wonder, Marx highly valued Greek art not only can give the spiritual enjoyment of future generations, but also "on a certain aspect is still a norm and an unattainable model". Years can pass, power can be replaced, but the Greeks created civilization is like an eternal flame will never be extinguished.
Ancient Rome:
Culture
The dominant culture of the Eastern Roman Empire was Greek. Greek was not only the language of everyday life, but the ****ing language of the church, literature, and commerce. For the Romans of that time, the distinction today between the "Latin Empire in the west" and the "Greek Empire in the east" and the emphasis today on the fact that the empire in the east was not the "true" Roman Empire was of little importance. The Roman Empire was a multilingual empire. The Roman Empire was a multilingual empire, and Eastern Rome was no exception. There were Greeks, Vlachs, Armenians, Jews, Egyptians, Syrians, Illyrians and Slavs, all of whom had their own languages. But Greek culture spread to the country from the metropolises of the empire such as Constantinople, Antioch, Ephesus, Thessaloniki and Alexandria. Though it was not yet evident, the Eastern Roman Empire developed their own style under the impression of their scholars such as John Guiselstrom
Ancient Greek achievements:
(i) Literature: Homeric Hymns
Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus, the Father of Tragedy)
(ii) Architecture: the Parthenon
(iii) Science: Archimedes (physicist, mathematician)
Euclid (mathematician)