Chapter 11: The Early Church and the Changing Roman World
Study activity, printable worksheet, explained answers, and source references for your chapter.
Printed chapter: pages 65-71. Complete connected chart: pages 98–145. These page references match the reviewed manuscript.
Listen to Chapter 11 · View Chapter 11 on the chart · Download the two-page worksheet
Match a claim to its source
Read Acts 11:26 and 15:1-6, 19-29. Add cards for an ancient historical account, an imperial policy, and a council’s creed. Sort selected statements from this chapter by their supporting source. Finish by tracing the eastern imperial band beyond the western turning point of 476.
Find the detail on the chart, identify what each number measures, and record the source used for your explanation.
Practice questions and explained answers
Try the worksheet first. Tap a question to reveal its explanation.
1. Are Christian teachers’ bars a family tree from Jesus?
No. They display an intellectual or religious historical sequence. A succession of teachers does not establish biological parentage.
2. Where does Acts connect the name Christians with disciples?
Antioch, in Acts 11:26. The verse provides a specific place and statement.
3. What dispute does Acts 15 address?
The requirement of circumcision and the law of Moses for Gentile believers. The AD 50 in the chart is Adams’ chronological placement.
4. Why qualify general claims about Nero’s persecution?
Tacitus describes a particular episode at Rome. It should not become a claim of uninterrupted persecution everywhere in the empire.
5. What question is central to the Nicene creed’s language about the Son?
The Son’s relation to the Father, including being begotten rather than made and of one substance with the Father. The council is not a list-making session for Bible books.
6. What continued after the conventional western turning point of 476?
The eastern Roman imperial state. The western transition did not end every Roman institution or the eastern imperial stream.
Complete connected chart
Download all four parts and print in order, at actual size (100%). These contain one complete set of 48 numbered chart tiles, divided into four downloads. Follow the tile labels to connect the chart. Use the chapter enlargements for small lettering.
- Chart part 1 of 4 — tiles 1–12
- Chart part 2 of 4 — tiles 13–24
- Chart part 3 of 4 — tiles 25–36
- Chart part 4 of 4 — tiles 37–48
Sources to consult
These are the chapter’s source references, not quotations from those works. Use the named title, institution, record number, or passage to locate the source. Some external sources may have access restrictions.
- Acts 1:8; 2:1-11; 11:19-26; 15:1-29; 25:1-12; 28:16-31, King James Version.
- British Museum, Collections Online, Nero, authority BIOG59557: reign AD 54-68.
- Tacitus, Annals 15.44, Latin text and commentary at Dickinson College Commentaries. The passage reports punishments after Rome’s fire; its author wrote later and expresses hostility toward Christians.
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History 2.25, translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 1 (1890), available at New Advent. Eusebius records and cites earlier traditions about Paul and Peter.
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 3.6-10, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 1, available at New Advent.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Greek and Roman Art, “The Flavian Dynasty (69-96 A.D.),” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (2000): Vespasian AD 69-79, Titus AD 79-81, Domitian AD 81-96.
- Parco archeologico del Colosseo, “Arch of Titus,” monument and conservation descriptions: Jerusalem victory, posthumous dedication, construction under Domitian, and Temple spoils in the reliefs.
- Constantine and Licinius, text conventionally called the “Edict of Milan” (AD 313), English translation hosted by Université Grenoble Alpes, Roman Law Library, Edictum Mediolanense.
- Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, permanent exhibition introduction, “From the Ancient World to Byzantium”: the gradual transition, 313, Constantinople in 330, division in 395, and western dissolution in 476.
- First Council of Nicaea (325), creed, canons, and synodal letter, translated in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 14, available at New Advent.
- Marco Cristini, “When did Odoacer Depose Romulus? A Reappraisal of the Western Empire’s ‘Fall’ in 476,” Latomus 83.2 (2024), 262-270, DOI 10.2143/LAT.83.2.3293436.
- Sarah T. Brooks, “Byzantium (ca. 330-1453),” Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (2001; revised 2009): Constantine’s reign, Constantinople, the later term Byzantium, and the inhabitants’ Roman identity. Only these framework claims are used here.
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