Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
Number of quotes: 61
Book ID: 43 Page: 296/297
Section: 4B
We are not certain - it is only the general opinion - that the Petronius whose Satyricon still finds many readers was the Caius Petronius who died by Nero’s orders a year after Lucan. . . . Some forty epigrams are ascribed to a Petronius, including a line that almost sums up Lucretius: primus in orbe deos fecit timor-“it was fear that first in the world made gods”; {3} but these fragments too are silent about the author’s identity.
Quote ID: 902
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 43 Page: 307
Section: 2C,4A
[RE: Seneca] His pessimism, his condemnation of the immorality of his time, his counsel to return anger with kindness ,{54} and his preoccupation with death{55} made Tertullian call him “ours,”{56} and led Augustine to exclaim, “What more could a Christian say than this pagan has said?”{57} He was not a Christian; but at least he asked for an end to slaughter and lechery, called men to a simple and decent life, and reduced the distinctions between freeman, freedman, and slave to “mere titles born of ambition or of wrong.”{58}
Quote ID: 903
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 43 Page: 309
Section: 4B
Pliny begins by rejecting the gods; they are, he thinks, merely natural phenomena, or planets, or services, personified and deified. The sole god is Nature, i.e., the sum of natural forces; and this god apparently pays no special attention to mundane affairs.{68}Pastor John’s Note: 77AD
Quote ID: 904
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 43 Page: 391
Section: 4B
Law was the most characteristic and lasting expression of the Roman spirit. As Greece stands in history for freedom, so Rome stands for order; and as Greece bequeathed democracy and philosophy as the foundations of individual liberty, so Rome has left us its laws, and its traditions of administration, as the bases of social order.
Quote ID: 906
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 43 Page: 578/579
Section: 2A5
The form, ceremony, and vestments of Hebrew worship passed down into Christian ritual…Many Judaic festivals—e.g., Passover and Pentecost—were accepted into the Christian calendar, however altered in content and date…In Christ and Peter Christianity was Jewish; in Paul it became half Greek; in Catholicism it became half Roman. In Protestantism the Judaic element and emphasis were restored.
Quote ID: 8479
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 43 Page: 595
Section: 1A
[Bold Used]Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass.
Quote ID: 8072
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 43 Page: 599
Section: 2A2
By the close of the second century these weekly ceremonies had taken the form of the Christian Mass. Based partly on the Judaic Temple service, partly on Greek mystery rituals of purification, vicarious sacrifice, and participation, through communion, in the death-overcoming powers of the deity, the Mass grew slowly into a rich congeries of prayers, psalms, readings, sermon, antiphonal recitations, and, above all, that symbolic atoning sacrifice of the “Lamb of God” which replaced, in Christianity, the bloody offering of older faiths.
Quote ID: 907
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 43 Page: 599
Section: 2D3A
On that dies Domini, or Lord’s Day, the Christians assembled for their weekly ritual. Their clergy read from the Scriptures, led them in prayer, and preached sermons of doctrinal instruction, moral exhortation, and sectarian controversy. In the early days members of the congregation, especially women, were allowed to “prophesy” - e.g., to “speak forth,” in trance or ecstasy, words to which meaning could be given only by pious interpretation. When these performances conducted to ritual fever and theological chaos, the Church discouraged and finally suppressed them. At every step the clergy found itself obliged not to generate superstition, but to control it.
Quote ID: 7970
Time Periods: 234567
Book ID: 43 Page: 602
Section: 4B
All in all, no more attractive religion has ever been presented to mankind. It offered itself without restriction to all individuals, classes, and nations; it was not limited to one people, like Judaism, nor to the freemen of one state, like the official cults of Greece and Rome.
Quote ID: 908
Time Periods: 47
Book ID: 43 Page: 605
Section: 2D3A
About 156 Montanus denounced the increasing worldliness of Christians and the growing autocracy of bishops in the Church; he demanded a return to primitive Christian simplicity and austerity, and a restored right of prophecy, or inspired speech, to the members of the congregations. Two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, took him at his word and fell into religious trances; and their utterances became the living oracles of the sect. Montanus himself prophesied with such eloquent ecstasy that his Phrygian followers-with the same religious enthusiasm that had once begotten Dionysus-hailed him as the Paraclete promised by Christ. He announced that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and that the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse would soon descend from heaven upon a neighboring plain. To the predestined spot he led so large a host that some towns were depopulated. As in early Christian days, marriage and parentage were neglected, goods were communistically shared, and an absorbed asceticism anxiously prepared the soul for Christ.{39} When, about 190, the Roman proconsul Antonius persecuted Christianity in Asia Minor, hundreds of Montanists, eager for paradise, crowded before his tribunal and asked for martyrdom. He could not accommodate them all; some he executed; but most of them he dismissed with the words: “Miserable creatures! If you wish to die are there not ropes and precipices?”{40} The Church banned Montanism as a heresy, and in the sixth century Justinian ordered the extinction of the sect. Some Montanists gathered in their churches, set fire to them, and let themselves be burned alive. {41}Used in Chapter 1
Quote ID: 909
Time Periods: 26
Book ID: 43 Page: 613
Section: 2D3A
Sinking into a morose puritanism, Tertullian in his fifty-eighth year rejected the orthodox Church as too sullied with worldly ways, and embraced Montanism as a more outright application of the teachings of Christ. He condemned all Christians who became soldiers, artists, or state officials; all parents who did not veil their daughters; all bishops who restored repentant sinners to communion; finally he called the pope pastor moechorum-“shepherd of adulterers.”{59}COPIED
Quote ID: 910
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 43 Page: 613
Section: 4A
In Egypt the growth of the Church was slower, and its early stages are lost to history; suddenly, late in the second century, we hear of a “Catechetical School” in Alexandria, which wedded Christianity to Greek philosophy, and produced two major fathers of the Church. Both Clement and Origen were well versed in pagan literature, and loved it after their own fashion; if their spirit had prevailed there would have been a less destructive break between classical culture and Christianity.
Quote ID: 911
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 43 Page: 622/623
Section: 3B
Anxious to raise more revenue, he doubled the inheritance tax to ten per cent; and noting that the tax applied only to Roman citizens, he extended the Roman franchise to all free male adults in the Empire (212); they achieved citizenship precisely when it brought a maximum of obligations and a minimum of power.Pastor John’s Note: Caracalla
Quote ID: 912
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 623
Section: 2B
…this second Julia found there two promising grandsons. One, by her daughter Julia Soaemias, was a young priest of Baal; his name was Varius Avitus, and would be Elagabalus-“the creative god.” (Wrongly transformed by Latin writers into Heliogabalus-“the sun-god.”)
Quote ID: 913
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 626
Section: 3B
He recognized the absurdity of his cousin’s effort to replace Jove with Elagabal, and he co-operated with his mother in restoring the Roman temples and ritual. But to his philosophic mind it seemed that all religions were diverse prayers to one supreme power; he wished to honor all honest faiths; and in his private chapel, where he worshiped every morning, he had icons of Jupiter, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, Abraham, and Christ. He quoted frequently the Judaeo-Christian counsel: “What you do not wish a man to do to you, do not do to him”; he had it engraved on the walls of his palace and on many a public building.Pastor John’s Note: Alexander Severus
Quote ID: 914
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 628
Section: 3B
Philip the Arab was defeated and killed at Verona by Decius (249), an Illyrian of wealth and culture whose devotion to Rome well deserved a name so honorable in ancient story. Between campaigns against the Goths he laid out an ambitious program for the restoration of Roman religion, morals, and character, and gave orders for the destruction of Christianity;Pastor John’s Note: not simply anti-Xn. Apparently, he was just trying to restore dignity & stability to the Empire.
Quote ID: 915
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 638
Section: 3B
Meditating distant campaigns, and fearing an assault upon Rome during his absence, he persuaded the Senate to finance, and the guilds to erect, new walls around the capital. Everywhere in the Empire city walls were being built, signifying the weakening of the imperial power and the end of the Roman peace.Pastor John’s Note: Aurelian
Quote ID: 916
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 639
Section: 2B,3B
Turning to the tasks of peace, he re-established some economic order by reforming the Roman coinage; and reorganized the government by applying to it the same severe discipline that had regenerated the army. Ascribing Rome’s moral and political chaos in some degree to religious disunity, and impressed by the political services of religion in the East, he sought to unite old faiths and new in a monotheistic worship of the sun-god, and of the Emperor as the vicar of that deity on earth. He informed a skeptical army and Senate that it was the god, and not their choice or confirmation, that had made him Emperor. He built at Rome a resplendent Temple of the Sun, in which, he hoped, the Baal of Emesa and the god of Mithraism would merge. Monarchy and monotheism were advancing side by side, each seeking to make the other its aide. Aurelian’s religious policy suggested that the power of the state was falling, that of religion rising; kings were now kings by the grace of God. This was the Oriental conception of government, old in Egypt, Persia, and Syria; in accepting it Aurelian advanced that Orientalization of the monarchy which had begun with Elagabalus and would complete itself in Diocletian and Constantine.
Quote ID: 917
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 639/640
Section: 3B
It now hailed as imperator one Diocles, the son of a Dalmatian freedman. Diocletian, as he henceforth called himself, had risen by brilliant talents and flexible scruples to the consulate, a proconsulate, and command of the palace guards. He was a man of genius, less skilled in war than in statesmanship. He came to the throne after a period of anarchy worse than that which had prevailed from the Gracchi to Antony; like Augustus, he pacified all parties, protected all frontiers, extended the role of government, and based his rule on the aid and sanction of religion. Augustus had created the Empire, Aurelian had saved it; Diocletian reorganized it.His first vital decision revealed the state of the realm and the waning of Rome. He abandoned the city as a capital, and made his emperial headquarters at Nicomedia in Asia Minor, a few miles south of Byzantium. The Senate still met in Rome, the consuls went through their ritual, the games roared on, the streets still bore the noisome pullulation of humanity; but power and leadership had gone from this center of economic and moral decay. Diocletian based his move on military necessity: Europe and Asia must be defended, and could not be defended from a city so far south of the Alps. Hence he appointed a capable general, Maximian, as his co-ruler (286), charging him with defense of the West; and Maximian made not Rome but Milan his capital. Six years later, to further facilitate administration and defense, each of the two Augusti chose a “Caesar” as his aide and successor: Diocletian selected Galerius, who made his capital at Sirmium (Mitrovica on the Save), and was responsible for the Danube provinces; and Maximian appointed Constantius Chlorus (the Pale), who made his capital at Augusta Trevirorum (Trèves). Each Augustus pledged himself to retire after twenty years in favor of his Caesar, who would then appoint a “Caesar” to aid and succeed him in turn. Each Augustus gave his daughter in marriage to his “Caesar,” adding the ties of blood to those of law.
Quote ID: 918
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 640/641
Section: 3B
The monarchy was divided, but it was absolute. Each law of each ruler was issued in the name of all four, and was valid for the realm. The edict of the rulers became law at once, without the sanction of the Senate at Rome. All governmental officials were appointed by the rulers, and a gigantic bureaucracy spread its coils around the state. To further fortify the system, Diocletian developed the cult of the Emperor’s genius into a personal worship of himself as the earthly embodiment of Jupiter, while Maximian modestly consented to be Hercules; wisdom and force had come down from heaven to restore order and peace on earth. Diocletian assumed a diadem - a broad white fillet set with pearls - and robes of silk and gold; his shoes were studded with precious gems; he kept himself aloof in his palace, and required visitors to pass the gantlet of ceremonious eunuchs and titled chamberlains, and to kneel and kiss the hem of his robe. He was a man of the world, and doubtless smiled in private at these myths and forms; but his throne lacked the legitimacy of time, and he hoped to buttress it to check the turbulence of the populace and the revolts of the army, by enduing himself with divinity and awe.
Quote ID: 919
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 641
Section: 3B
This adoption of Oriental despotism by the son of a slave, this identification of god and king, meant the final failure of republican institutions in antiquity, the surrender of the fruits of Marathon; it was a reversion, like Alexander’s, to the forms and theories of Achaemenid and Egyptian courts, of Ptolemaic, Parthian, and Sassanid kings. From this Orientalized monarchy came the structure of Byzantine and European kingdoms till the French Revolution. All that was needed now was to ally the Oriental monarch in an Oriental capital with an Oriental faith. Byzantinism began with Diocletian.
Quote ID: 920
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 641
Section: 2C,3B
He and his colleagues redivided the Empire into ninety-six provinces grouped into seventy-two dioceses and four prefectures, and appointed civil and military rulers for each division.
Quote ID: 921
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 643/644
Section: 3B
Since every taxpayer sought to evade taxes, the state organized a special force of revenue police to examine every man’s property and income; torture was used upon wives, children and slaves to make them reveal the hidden wealth or earnings of the household; and severe penalties were enacted for evasion.{57} Towards the end of the third century, and still more in the fourth, flight from taxes became almost epidemic in the Empire. The well to do concealed their riches, local aristocrats had themselves reclassified as humiliores to escape election to municipal office, artisans deserted their trades, peasant proprietors left their overtaxed holdings to become hired men, many villages and some towns (e.g., Tiberias in Palestine) were abandoned because of high assessments; {58} at last, in the fourth century, thousands of citizens fled over the border to seek refuge among the barbarians.{59}
Quote ID: 922
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 644
Section: 3B,4B
It was probably to check this costly mobility, to ensure a proper flow of food to armies and cities, and of taxes to the state, that Diocletian resorted to measures that in effect established serfdom in fields, factories, and guilds. Having made the landowner responsible, through tax quotas in kind, for the productivity of his tenants, the government ruled that a tenant must remain on his land till his arrears of debt or tithes should be paid. We do not know the date of this historic decree; but in 332 a law of Constantine assumed and confirmed it, and made the tenant adscriptitius, “bound in writing” to the soil he tilled; he could not leave it without the consent of the owner; and when it was sold, he and his household were sold with it.{60} He made no protest that has come down to us; perhaps the law was presented to him as a guarantee of security, as in Germany today. In this and other ways agriculture passed in the third century from slavery through freedom to serfdom, and entered the Middle Ages.Similar means of compelling stability were used in industry. Labor was “frozen” to its job, forbidden to pass from one shop to another without governmental consent. Each collegium or guild was bound to its trade and its assigned task, and no man might leave the guild in which he had been enrolled.{61} Membership in one guild or another was made compulsory on all persons engaged in commerce and industry; and the son was required to follow the trade of his father.{62} When any man wished to leave his place or occupation for another, the state reminded him that Italy was in a state of siege by the barbarians, and that every man must stay at his post.
Quote ID: 923
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 645
Section: 3B,4B
Confronted by enemies on every side, the Roman state did what all nations must do in crucial wars; it accepted the dictatorship of a strong leader, taxed itself beyond tolerance, and put individual liberty aside until collective liberty was secured. Diocletian had, with more cost but under harder circumstances, repeated the achievement of Augustus. His contemporaries and his posterity, mindful of what they had escaped, called him the “Father of the Golden Age.” Constantine entered the house that Diocletian built.
Quote ID: 924
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 646
Section: 4B
In pre-Christian days the Roman government had for the most part allowed to the rivals of orthodox paganism a tolerance which they in turn had shown to the official and imperial cults; nothing was demanded from the adherents of new faiths except an occasional gesture of adoration to the gods and head of the state. The emperors were piqued to find that of all the heretics under their rule only the Christians and the Jews refused to join in honoring their genius. The burning of incense before a statue of the emperor had become a sign and affirmation of loyalty to the Empire, like the oath of allegiance required for citizenship today. On its side, the Church resented the Roman idea that religion was subordinate to the state; it saw in emperor-worship an act of polytheism and idolatry, and instructed its followers to refuse it at any cost. The Roman government concluded that Christianity was a radical––perhaps a communist––movement, subtly designed to overthrow the established order.
Quote ID: 925
Time Periods: 023
Book ID: 43 Page: 646
Section: 3B,4B
Before Nero, the two forces had found it possible to live together without blows. The law had exempted the Jews from emperor-worship, and the Christians, at first confused with the Jews, were granted the same privilege. But the execution of Peter and Paul,* and the burning of Christians to light up Nero’s games, turned this mutual and contemptuous tolerance into unceasing hostility and intermittent war.Pastor John’s Note: (The asterisk above was not part of the original quote-it was John’s mark for this note.) Their “executions” are undocumented; this may be Xn myth. This author assumes the veracity of Xn historians.
Quote ID: 926
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 43 Page: 647
Section: 2D3B,3A1,4B
Pagan civilization was founded upon the state, Christian civilization upon religion. To a Roman, his religion was part of the structure and ceremony of government, and his morality culminated in patriotism; to a Christian his religion was something apart from and superior to political society; his highest allegiance belonged not to Caesar but to Christ. Tertullian laid down the revolutionary principle that no man need obey a law that he deemed unjust. {4} The Christian revered his bishop, even his priest, far above the Roman magistrate; he submitted his legal troubles with fellow Christians to his church authorities rather than to the officials of the state. {5} The detachment of the Christian from earthly affairs seemed to the pagan a flight from civic duty, a weakening of the national fiber and will. Tertullian advised Christians to refuse military service; and that a substantial number of them followed his counsel is indicated by Celsus’ appeal to end this refusal, and Origen’s reply that though Christians will not fight for the Empire they will pray for it. {6}
Quote ID: 927
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 43 Page: 647
Section: 2D3B,4B
Marriage with a non-Christian was forbidden. Christian slaves were accused of introducing discord into the family by converting their masters’ children or wives; Christianity was charged with breaking up the home. {8}
Quote ID: 928
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 43 Page: 647
Section: 2D3B,4B
The opposition to the new religion came rather from the people than from the state. The magistrates were often men of culture and tolerance; but the mass of the pagan population resented the aloofness, superiority, and certainty of the Christians, and called upon the authorities to punish these “atheists” for insulting the gods. Tertullian notes “the general hatred felt for us.” {9}
Quote ID: 929
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 43 Page: 647
Section: 4B
If accused, a Christian could usually free himself by offering incense to a statue of the emperor; thereafter he was apparently allowed to resume the quiet practices of his faith. {12}Pastor John’s note: Who imposed the standard on believers of not offering incense?
Quote ID: 930
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 43 Page: 650
Section: 3A4C,3B
The renewal of the barbarian attacks ended this truce. To understand the persecution under Decius (or Aurelius) we must imagine a nation in the full excitement of war, frightened by serious defeats, and expecting hostile invasion. In 249 a wave of religious emotion swept the Empire; men and women flocked to the temples and besieged the gods with prayers. Amid this fever of patriotism and fear, the Christians stood apart, still resenting and discouraging military service, {20} …….
Quote ID: 931
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 650
Section: 3B
Apparently Christians were not asked to abjure their own faith, but were commanded to join in the universal supplicatio to the deities who, the populace believed, had so often saved imperiled Rome. Most Christians complied; in Alexandria, according to its Bishop Dionysius, “the apostasy was universal”; {21} it was likewise in Carthage and Smryrna; probably these Christians considered the supplicatio a patriotic formality.
Quote ID: 932
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 650
Section: 3B
Six years later, Valerian, in another crisis of invasion and terror, ordered that “all persons must conform to the Roman ceremonials,” and forbade any Christian assemblage. Pope Sixtus II resisted, and was put to death with four of his deacons. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage was beheaded, the bishop of Tarragona was burned alive.In 261, after the Persians had removed Valerian from the scene, Gallienus published the first edict of tolerations, recognizing Christianity as a permitted religion, and ordering that property taken from Christians should be restored to them. Minor persecutions occurred in the next forty years, but for the most part these were, for Christianity, decades of unprecedented calm and rapid growth. In the chaos and terror of the third century, men fled from the weakened state to the consolations of religion, and found them more abundantly in Christianity than in its rivals. The Church made rich converts now, built costly cathedrals, and allowed its adherents to share in the joys of this world.
Quote ID: 933
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 43 Page: 651
Section: 2E6,3B
Galerius, however, saw in Christianity the last obstacle to absolute rule, and urged his chief to complete the Roman restoration by restoring the Roman gods. Diocletian hesitated; he was averse to needless risks, and estimated more truly than Galerius the magnitude of the task. But one day, at an imperial sacrifice, the Christians made the sign of the cross to ward off evil demons. When the augurs failed to find on the livers of the sacrificed animals the marks that they had hoped to interpret, they blamed the presences of profane and unbelieving persons. Diocletian ordered that all in attendance should offer sacrifice to the gods or be flogged, and that all soldiers in the army should similarly conform or be dismissed (302).
Quote ID: 934
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 651
Section: 3B
Galerius at every opportunity argued the need of religious unity as a support to the new monarchy; and at last Diocletian yielded. In February, 303, the four rulers decreed the destruction of all Christian churches, the burning of Christian books, the dissolution of Christian congregations, the confiscation of their property, the exclusion of Christians from public office, and the punishment of death for Christians detected in religious assembly. A band of soldiers inaugurated the persecution by burning to the ground the cathedral at Nicomedia.The Christians were now numerous enough to retaliate. A revolutionary movement broke out in Syria, and in Nicomedia incendiaries twice set fire to Diocletians’ palace. Galerius accused the Christians of the arson; they accused him; hundreds of Christians were arrested and tortured, but the guild [guilt]? was never fixed.
Quote ID: 935
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 651/652
Section: 3B,3C2
Maximian carried out the edict with military thoroughness in Italy. Galerius, become Augustus, gave every encouragement to the persecution in the East. The roll of martyrs was increased in every part of the Empire except Gaul and Britain, where Constantius contented himself with burning a few churches. Eusebius assures us, presumably with the hyperbole of indignation, that men were flogged till the flesh hung from their bones, or their flesh was scraped to the bone with shells; salt or vinegar was poured upon the wounds; the flesh was cut off bit by bit and fed to waiting animals; or bound to crosses, men were eaten piecemeal by starved beasts. Some victims had their fingers pierced with sharp reeds under the nails; some had their eyes gouged out; some were suspended by a hand or a foot; some had molten lead poured down their throats; some were torn apart by being tied to the momentarily bent branches of trees. {23} We have no pagan narrative of these events.
Quote ID: 936
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 652
Section: 3B,4B
As the brutalities multiplied, the sympathy of the pagan population was stirred; the opinion of good citizens found courage to express itself against the most ferocious oppression in Roman history. Once the people had urged the state to destroy Christianity; now the people stood aloof from the government, and many pagans risked death to hide or protect Christians until the storm should pass. {24} In 311 Galerius, suffering from a mortal illness, convinced of failure, and implored by his wife to make his peace with the undefeated God of the Christians, promulgated an edict of toleration, recognizing Christianity as a lawful religion and asking the prayers of the Christians in return for “our most gentle clemency.” {25}
Quote ID: 937
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 652
Section: 1A
There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.
Quote ID: 938
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 653
Section: 3B
Diocletian, peaceful in his Dalmatian palace, saw the failure of both the persecution and the tetrarchy. Seldom had the Empire witnessed such confusion as followed his abdication..... A year later Maximinus Daza adopted the same title, so that in place of the two Augusti of Diocletian’s plan there were now six; no one cared to be merely “Caesar.”
Quote ID: 939
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 654
Section: 3C,4B
Early in 313, Constantine and Licinius met at Milan to co-ordinate their rule. To consolidate Christian support in all provinces, Constantine and Licinius issued an “Edict of Milan,” confirming the religious toleration proclaimed by Galerius, extending it to all religions, and ordering the restorations of Christian properties seized during the recent persecutions. After this historic declaration, which in effect conceded the defeat of paganism, Constantine returned to the defense of Gaul, and Licinius moved eastward to overwhelm Maximinus (313).
Quote ID: 940
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 655
Section: 3C
But neither of the Augusti had quite abandoned the hope of undivided supremacy. In 314 their mounting enmity reached the point of war. Constantine invaded Pannonia, defeated Licinius, and exacted the surrender of all Roman Europe except Thrace. Licinius revenged himself upon Constantine’s Christian supporters by renewing the persecution in Asia and Egypt. He excluded Christians from his palace at Nicomedia, required every soldier to adore the pagan gods, forbade the simultaneous attendance of both sexes at Christian worship, and at last prohibited all Christian services within city walls. Disobedient Christians lost their positions, their citizenship, their property, their liberty, or their lives.Constantine watched for an opportunity not only to succor the Christians of the East, but to add the East to his realm. When barbarians invaded Thrace, and Licinius failed to move against them, Constantine led his army from Thessalonica to the rescue of Licinius’ province. After the barbarians were driven back, Licinius protested Constantine’s entry into Thrace; and as neither ruler desired peace, war was renewed.
Quote ID: 941
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 655
Section: 3C
Was his conversion sincere—was it an act of religious belief, or a consummate stroke of political wisdom? Probably the latter. {33} His mother Helena had turned to Christianity when Constantius divorced her; presumably she had acquainted her son with the excellences of the Christian way…
Quote ID: 942
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 656
Section: 3A4,3C
His letters to Christian bishops make it clear that he cared little for the theological differences that agitated Christendom—though he was willing to suppress dissent in the interests of imperial unity. Throughout his reign he treated the bishops as his political aides; he summoned them, presided over their councils, and agreed to enforce whatever opinion their majority should formulate. A real believer would have been a Christian first and a statesman afterward; with Constantine it was the reverse. Christianity was to him a means, not an end.
Quote ID: 943
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 43 Page: 656/657
Section: 3A4B,3C
Christians were especially numerous in Rome under Maxentius, and in the East under Licinius; Constantine’s support of Christianity was worth a dozen legions to him in his wars against these men. He was impressed by the comparative order and morality of Christian conduct, the bloodless beauty of Christian ritual, the obedience of Christians to their clergy, their humble acceptance of life’s inequalities in the hope of happiness beyond the grave; perhaps this new religion would purify Roman morals, regenerate marriage and the family, and allay the fever of class war. The Christians, despite bitter oppression, had rarely revolted against the state; their teacher s had inculcated submission to the civil powers, and had taught the divine right of kings. Constantine aspired to an absolute monarchy; such a government would profit from religious support; the hierarchical discipline and ecumenical authority of the Church seemed to offer a spiritual correlate for monarchy. Perhaps that marvelous organization of bishops and priests could become an instrument of pacification, unification, and rule?Nevertheless, in a world still preponderantly pagan, Constantine had to feel his way by cautious steps. He continued to use vague monotheistic language that any pagan could accept. During the earlier years of his supremacy he carried out patiently the ceremonial required of him as pontifex maximus of the traditional cult; he restored pagan temples, and ordered the taking of the auspices. He used as well as Christian rites in dedicating Constantinople [PJ: ?]. He used pagan magic formulas to protect crops and heal disease. {36}
Gradually, as his power grew more secure, he favored Christianity more openly. After 317 his coins dropped one by one their pagan effigies, until by 323 they bore only neutral inscriptions. A legal text of his reign, questioned but not disproved, gave Christian bishops the authority of judges in their dioceses; {37} other laws exempted Church realty from taxation, {38} made Christian associations juridical persons, allowed them to own land and receive bequests, and assigned the property of intestate martyrs to the Church. {39} Constantine gave money to needy congregations, built several churches in Constantinople and elsewhere, and forbade the worship of images in the new capital. Forgetting the Edict of Milan, he prohibited the meetings of heretical sects, and finally ordered the destruction of their conventicles. {40} He gave his sons an orthodox Christian education, and financed his mother’s Christian philanthropies. The Church rejoiced in blessings beyond any expectation. Eusebius broke out into orations that were songs of gratitude and praise; and all over the Empire Christians gathered in festal thanksgiving for the triumph of their God.
Quote ID: 944
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 657
Section: 3A,3B,4B
[Used this part]. In the interval between the Decian and the Diocletian persecution the Church had become the richest religious organization in the Empire, and had moderated its attacks upon wealthy. Cyprian complained that his parishioners were mad about money, that Christian women painted their faces, that bishops held lucrative offices of state, made fortunes, lent money at usurious interest, and denied their faith at the first sign of danger. {41} Eusebius mourned that priests quarreled violently in their competition for ecclesiastical preferment. {42}
Quote ID: 945
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 657
Section: 1A
While Christianity converted the world, the world converted Christianity, and displayed the natural paganism of mankind.
Quote ID: 946
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 657
Section: 2E2
About 275 an Egyptian monk, Anthony, began a quarter century of isolated existence first in a tomb, then in an abandoned mountain castle, then in a rock-hewn desert cell. There he struggled nightly with frightful visions and pleasant dreams, and overcame them all; until at last his reputation for sanctity filled all Christendom, and peopled the desert with emulating eremites. In 325 Pachomius, feeling that solitude was selfishness, gathered anchorites into an abbey at Tabenne in Egypt, and founded that cenobitic, or community, monasticism which was to have its most influential development in the West. The Church opposed the monastic movement for a time, and then accepted it as a necessary balance to its increasing preoccupation with government.
Quote ID: 947
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 659
Section: 3C1
Constantine, coming to Nicomedia after overthrowing Licinius, heard the story from its bishop. He sent both Alexander and Arius a personal appeal to imitate the calm of philosophers, to reconcile their differences peaceably, or at least to keep their debates from the public ear. The letter, preserved by Eusebius, clearly reveals Constantine’s lack of theology, and the political purpose of his religious policy.“I had proposed to lead back to a single form the ideas which all people conceive of the Deity; for I feel strongly that if I could induce men to unite on that subject, the conduct of public affairs would be considerable eased. But alas! I hear that there are more disputes among you than recently in Africa. The cause seems to be quite trifling, and unworthy of such fierce contests. You, Alexander, wished to know what your priests were thinking on a point of law, even on a portion only of a question in itself entirely devoid of importance; and you, Arius, if you had such thoughts, should have kept silence. . . . There was no need to make these questions public . . . . since they are problems that idleness alone raises, and whose only use is to sharpen men’s wits . . . these are silly actions worthy of inexperienced children, and not of priests or reasonable men.”{46}
The letter had no effect. To the Church the question of the “consubstantiality” (homoousia) as against the mere similarity (homoiousia) of the Son and the Father was vital both theologically and politically.
Quote ID: 948
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 659
Section: 3C1
As the controversy spread, setting the Greek East aflame, Constantine resolved to end it by calling the first ecumenical—universal—council of the Church. He summoned all bishops to meet in 325 at Bithynian Nicaea, near his capital Nicomedia, and provided funds for all their expenses. Not less than 318 bishops came, “attended” says one of them, “by a vast concourse of the lower clergy”: {47} the statement reveals the immense growth of the Church.
Quote ID: 949
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 660
Section: 3C1
The Council also decreed that all churches should celebrate Easter on the same day, to be named in each year by the Bishop of Alexandria according to an astronomical rule, and to be promulgated by the Bishop of Rome. On the question of clerical celibacy the Council inclined to require continence of married priests; but Paphnutius, Bishop of Upper Thebes, persuaded his peers to leave unchanged the prevailing custom, which forbade marriage after ordination, but permitted a priest to cohabit with a wife whom he had married before ordination. {50}
Quote ID: 950
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 661
Section: 3C1
At the same time it marked the replacement of paganism with Christianity as the religious expression and support of the Roman Empire, and committee Constantine to a more definite alliance with Christianity than ever before. A new civilization, based on a new religion, would now rise over the ruins of an exhausted culture and a dying creed. The Middle Ages had begun.
Quote ID: 951
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 663
Section: 3C2
The bishops learning is enormous, his style is armed with feeling and rises to eloquence in moments of theological odium. He frankly excludes such matters as might not edify his Christian readers or support his philosophy, and he manages to write a history of the great Council without mentioning either Arius or Athanasius. The same honest dishonesty makes his Life of Constantine a panegyric rather than a biography. It begins with eight inspiring chapters on the Emperor’s piety and good works, and tells how he “governed his empire in a godly manner for more than thirty years. “ One would never guess from this book that Constantine had killed his son, his nephew, and his wife.
Quote ID: 952
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 43 Page: 663
Section: 2E1,2A3
Apparently by his commission she went to Jerusalem, and leveled to the ground the scandalous Temple of Aphrodite that had been built, it was said, over the Saviour’s tomb. According to Eusebius the Holy Sepulcher thereupon came to light, with the very cross to which Christ had died. Constantine ordered a Church of the Holy Sepulcher to be built over the tomb, and the revered relics were preserved in a special shrine. As in classical days the pagan world had cherished and adored the relics of the Trojan War, and even Rome had boasted the Palladium of Troy’s Athene, so now the Christian world, changing its surface and renewing its essence in the immemorial manner of human life, began to collect and worship relics of Christ and the saints. Helena raised a chapel over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem, modestly served the nuns who ministered there, and then returned to Constantinople to die in the arms of her son.
Quote ID: 953
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 664
Section: 2A1,3C
As his illness increased, he called for a priest to administer to him that sacrament of baptism which he had purposely deferred to this moment, hoping to be cleansed by it from all the sins of his crowded life. Then the tired ruler, aged sixty-four, laid aside the purple robes of royalty, put on the white garb of a Christian neophyte, and passed away.
Quote ID: 954
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 43 Page: 665
Section: 1A
“The two greatest problems in history,” says a brilliant scholar of our time, are “how to account for the rise of Rome, and how to account for her fall.” {1}
Quote ID: 955
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 43 Page: 665/666
Section: 4B
A serious decline of population appears in the West after Hadrian.. . . .
So many farms had been abandoned, above all in Italy, that Pertinax offered them gratis to anyone who would till them. A law of Septimius Severus speaks of a penuria hominum—a shortage of men. {4} In Greece the depopulation had been going on for centuries. In Alexandria, which had boasted of its numbers, Bishop Dionysius calculated that the population had in his time (250) been halved. He mourned to “see the human race diminishing and constantly wasting away.” {5}
. . . .
What had caused this fall in population? Above all, family limitation. Practiced first by the educated classes, it had now seeped down to a proletariat named for its fertility; {6} by A.D. 100 it had reached the agricultural classes, as shown by the use of imperial alimenta to encourage rural parentage; by the third century it had overrun the western provinces, and was lowering man power in Gaul. {7}
. . . .
Second only to family limitation as a cause of lessened population were the slaughters of pestilence, revolution, and war. Epidemics of major proportions decimated the population under Aurelius, Gallienus, and Constantine. In the plague of 260-65 almost every family in the Empire was attacked; in Rome, we are told, there were 5000 deaths every day for many weeks. {10}
. . . .
The rapidly breeding Germans could not understand the classic culture, did not accept it, did not transmit it; the rapidly breeding Orientals were mostly of a mind to destroy that culture; the Romans, possessing it, sacrificed it to the comforts of sterility. Rome was conquered not by barbarian invasion from without, but by barbarian multiplications within.
Quote ID: 956
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 43 Page: 667/668
Section: 1A,4B
The greatest of historians held that Christianity was the chief cause of Rome’s fall. {11} For this religion, he and his followers {12} argued, had destroyed the old faith that had given moral character to the Roman soul and stability to the Roman state. It had declared war upon the classic culture—upon science, philosophy, literature, and art. It had brought an enfeebling Oriental mysticism into the realistic stoicism of Roman life; it had turned men’s thoughts from the tasks of this world to an enervating preparation for some cosmic catastrophe, and had lured them into seeking individual salvation through asceticism and prayer, rather than collective salvation through devotion to the state. It had disrupted the unity of the Empire while soldier emperors were struggling to preserve it; it had discouraged its adherents from holding office, or rendering military service; it had preached an ethic of nonresistance and peace when the survival of the Empire had demanded a will to war. Christ’s victory had been Rome’s death.. . . .
PJ Note:
Contrast the following to Robert Paynes opinion. Durant says Greek influence weakened the Empire; this man says it undermined it, allowing for proto-Xty to grow:
The breakup of the old religion had begun long before Christ; there were more vigorous attacks upon it in Ennius and Lucretius than in any pagan author after them. Moral disintegration had begun with the Roman conquest of Greece, and had culminated under Nero; thereafter Roman morals improved and the ethical influence of Christianity upon Roman life was largely a wholesome one. It was because Rome was already dying that Christianity grew so rapidly. Men lost faith in the state not because Christianity held them aloof, but because the state defended wealth against poverty, fought to capture slaves, taxed toil to support luxury, and failed to protect its people from famine, pestilence, invasion, and destitution; forgivably they turned from Caesar preaching war to Christ preaching peace, from incredible brutality to unprecedented charity, from a life without hope or dignity to a faith that consoled their poverty and honored their humanity. Rome was not destroyed by Christianity, any more than by barbarian invasion; it was an empty shell when Christianity rose to influence and invasion came.
Quote ID: 957
Time Periods: 124
Book ID: 43 Page: 670/671
Section: 1A,4B
It is easier to explain Rome’s fall than to account for her long survival. This is the essential accomplishment of Rome—that having won the Mediterranean world she adopted its culture, gave it order, prosperity, and peace for 200 years, held back the tide of barbarism for two centuries more, and transmitted the classic heritage to the West before she died.. . . .
Here and there, in East and West, it created a desert and called it peace. But amid all this evil it formed a majestic system of law which through nearly all Europe gave security to life and property, incentive and continuity to industry, from Decemvirs to Napoleon.
. . . .
It administered its Empire at first with greed and cruelty, then with such tolerance and essential justice that the great realm has never again known a like content. It made the desert blossom with civilization, and atoned for its sins with the miracle of a lasting peace. Today our highest labors seek to revive the Pax Romana for a disordered world.
Within that unsurpassed framework Rome built a culture Greek in origin, Roman in application and result.
Quote ID: 958
Time Periods: 127
Book ID: 43 Page: 671
Section: 4B
Rome did not invent education, but she developed it on a scale unknown before, gave it state support, and formed the curriculum that persisted till our harassed youth. She did not invent the arch, the vault, or the dome, but she used them with such audacity and magnificence that in some fields her architecture has remained unequaled; and all the elements of the medieval cathedral were prepared in her basilicas. She did not invent the sculptural portrait, but she gave it a realistic power rarely reached by the idealizing Greeks. She did not invent philosophy, but it was in Lucretius and Seneca that Epicureanism and Stoicism found their most finished form. She did not invent the types of literature, not even the satire; but who could adequately record the influence of Cicero on oratory, the essay, and prose style, of Virgil on Dante, Tasso, Milton, . . . . of Livy and Tacitus on the writing of history, of Horace and Juvenal on Dryden, Swift, and Pope?
Quote ID: 959
Time Periods: 147
Book ID: 43 Page: 671/672
Section: 1A
When Christianity conquered Rome the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the pontifex maximus, the worship of the Great Mother and a multitude of comforting divinities, the sense of supersensible presences everywhere, the joy or solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror. The reins and skills of government were handed down by a dying empire to a virile papacy; the lost power of the broken sword was rewon by the magic of the consoling word; the armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the Church moving in all directions along the Roman roads; and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Through the long struggles of the Age of Faith the authority of the ancient capital persisted and grew, until in the Renaissance the classic culture seemed to rise from the grave, and the immortal city became once more the center and summit of the world’s life and wealth and art. When, in 1936, Rome celebrated the 2689th anniversary of her foundation, she could look back upon the most impressive continuity of government and civilization in the history of mankind. May she rise again.Pastor John notes: This man’s Christianity blurs his vision. His judgments are not to be trusted without being corroborated.
Quote ID: 960
Time Periods: 4
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