Antiquity to Reformation Assignment The first part of this exam consists of short answer questions. Answer four of the following six
questions. Each answer should be between one half (1/2) page to a maximum of one (1) page in
length.
1) Identify Plato, briefly explain his key ideas and historical significance. How does the
“Divided Line” excerpt from Plato’s Republic illustrate Plato’s view of the nature of
reality and being?
2) What features characterized the Hellenistic era and what made the Hellenistic schools of
philosophy different from those of the Hellenic era?
3) What role did Christianity play in the period of the late Roman Empire? How can we see
that relationship reflected in the writing of St. Augustine?
4) What was the cultural synthesis of the medieval era and how do we see that synthesis in
the work of Thomas Aquinas? Antiquity to Reformation Assignment

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5) What was Renaissance humanism? How does Lorenzo Valla’s On the Donation of
Constantine demonstrate humanist methodology?
6) Identify Martin Luther and the key aspects of his break from Rome. How was this
reflected in Luther’s Address to the Christian Nobility?
Part 2: Essays
I have provided two questions. You will answer one essay question. This essay will be
synthetic, drawing on larger themes from across the course. Make your answer between four (4)
and six (6) pages, double-spaced. The goal of your essay is to present a grounded description of
some of the major changes we have tracked over the course of the term. You will need to draw
upon a selection of primary sources (the weekly primary readings) and secondary sources (for
this exam, that means the textbook and lecture notes).
1) Throughout this course, we have encountered a number of different ideas about the
relationship between Christianity and worldly government. Drawing from the textbook,
lectures, and the course primary sources, track the development of ideas concerning the
relationship between the Church’s spiritual power and the temporal civil power from late
antiquity to the early-modern era.Antiquity to Reformation Assignment
2) This course has tracked the development of three major eras within the Western tradition:
antiquity; the medieval; and the early modern. Drawing from the textbook, lectures, and
the course primary sources, address the major characteristics of the medieval era as they
emerged from classical antiquity and the transformations that marked the shift from the
medieval to the early modern era. In doing so, address the difference between the
medieval and modern worldviews, and the importance of the Renaissance and the
Reformation to that transformation. Antiquity to Reformation Assignment

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