Section: 3A1B - Property
Number of quotes: 53
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 15/16
Section: 3A1B,4B
Among the problems they had to resolve was that of Christians who were raised to local positions of honor such as that of duumvir, one of the two presidents of the municipal council, or flamen, a priest of the imperial cult. The prestige of the office was related to the holder’s generosity. At the time of his nomination, he was expected to make a bequest to the municipal treasury as well as a gift to the people and, later, to provide his fellow citizens with entertainments - plays or gladiatorial contests. He also had to preside over ceremonies that we would consider religious, or at least be present at them.The bishops decided that as long as duumvirs held office they should not attend Christian services, and that flamines who had made pagan sacrifices should be permanently excluded from the Church. Those who had offered spectacles would be treated as adulterers (because of the immorality of the theater) or murderers (because of the gladiators). Those who had merely worn the obligatory crown in such ceremonies would be readmitted to the Church after two years.
These are rigorous measures. In 314 the Council of Arles decided that governors, and in general “those who wish to concern themselves with public affairs” (hi qui rem publicam agere volunt) would still be admitted to communion on the recommendation of their bishop.
Quote ID: 29
Time Periods: 4
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 58
Section: 3A1B
Q. Aurelius Symmachus, who was prefect of the city, drafted on this occasion an official “report” (relatio) that has remained famous. Like Libanius’ speech For the Temples, written about the same time or in 389--390, it was a plea for paganism, “the religion of our fathers,” warrant of Rome’s political greatness and also one of the many paths to the divine. “What does it matter by which wisdom each of us arrives at truth? It is not possible that only one road leads to so sublime a mystery.”{4}
Quote ID: 44
Time Periods: 4
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 124
Section: 3A1B
A quiet paganism emerges from some of the little poems collected by Naucellius, a friend of Symmachus, at the end of the fourth century. It is the same tone as the epigram in which Ampelius, proconsul of Achaia, had celebrated a half-century earlier the park he had made for him in Aegina: “And here I take all my pleasures and delight in them: countryside, villa, gardens watered by natural springs, and the lovely marbles of the odd-numbered Pierians nine Muses. Here I want to stay and live out a serene old age, re-reading the sage texts of the Ancients.”{11}Pastor John note: late 300’s
Quote ID: 59
Time Periods: ?
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 114
Section: 3A1B
When Valentinian acquiesced in his bishop’s demand, the underlying issue of religious toleration, clearly presented by Symmachus, was firmly rejected. The debate – and Ambrose’s victory – marked another turning point.
Quote ID: 207
Time Periods: 4
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 187
Section: 3A1B
After the victory at Actium in 31 B. C., Augustus placed on an altar in the Curia Julia a statue of Victory found at Tarentum and probably the work of a Greek artist. This was to be the most famous of the Roman statues of Victory. Altar of Victory senators burned incense, offered prayers annually for the welfare of the empire, took their oaths and pledged allegiance on the accession of each new emperor. Thus the statue became one of the most vital links between the Roman state and Roman religion and also a tangible reminder of Rome’s great past and her hopes for the future.There is no indication that Christians took any objection to the statue until 357 A. D., forty-four years after the Edict of Milan. In that year, Constantius II visited Rome and ordered the removal of the Altar of Victory. It is difficult to determine what exactly happened. The Altar was certainly restored.
….
The Christian emperors, Jovian (363, 364) and Valentinian I (364–375), left it unmolested. In 382 Gratian, influenced by St. Ambrose, took away some privileges, relating to property inheritance and support from state funds, from the pagan priests and the Vestal Virgins and also ordered the removal of the Statue of Victory {9}. This decree deeply affected the pagan senators and they decided to appeal to the emperor. The Christian senators in turn sent a counter-appeal to Pope Damasus.
Quote ID: 8110
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 191
Section: 3A1B
If the senate in 394, because it had a pagan majority, could withstand the moody Theodosius I, fresh from a victory (considered miraculous) over the pagans, why could not the senate, if it had a pagan majority, withstand the milder Gratian in 382 and the youthful Valentinian II in 384?
Quote ID: 8112
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 192
Section: 3A1B
RE: The Theodosian Renaissance (4th cent revival of pagan civilization):Side by side with this and in many ways overlapping it and entwined with it, was the idea of a progressive Christianization of the Roman imperial institutions. Ambrose was very sympathetic to the latter idea and envisaged Christian Rome as the fulfillment of the pax Romana of Augustus {31}. There were, of course, certain things that could admit of no Christianization and among them would be the Altar of Victory.
Quote ID: 8114
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 194/195
Section: 3A1B
ME: It is not known whether the Senate was mostly Christian or Pagan at this time. Arguments are made on both sides.Symmachus presented his petition. Ambrose immediately lodged his objections. The battle had begun. It was to be a battle between Symmachus and Ambrose. It was no one-sided conflict. The two men had much in common. Symmachus, born of a distinguished family between 340 and 345, had been trained by a Gallic rhetor.
….
Symmachus became the greatest Latin orator of his day {38} and as a result, some of the highest offices in the State fell to his lot. in 369, he was sent on a deputation to Gaul and became a close friend of Ausonius, a Christian, eminent grammaticus and rhetor and tutor to Gratian. In 373, he became proconsul of Africa. We have already mentioned him as Prefect of Rome. He was a cultured man and a sincere pagan. He whom the admiration of of every worthwhile person, pagan or Christian, with whom he came in contact.
Ambrose was born in 334 or 340 {40}. [me: his family was prominent.] After his father’s death he was brought back to Rome and given the same type of education and with the same end in view as Symmachus. He, too, became a famous orator and had a prominent post assigned to him.
Page 95 starts here:
It was while at Milan in this official capacity and still a catechumen that he was elected bishop. He, too, had the faculty of inspiring deep and loyal friendships and it is not surprising that he and Symmachus were, and always remained close personal friends {41}.
{38} Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, II.19.
Quote ID: 8115
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 195
Section: 3A1B
For Aristotle Rhetoric is the power of observing in each particular case the available means of persuasion {43}. The technical means of persuasion came under three heads – the personal character of the speaker, the establishing of a favorable frame of mind in the audience, the proofs (or apparent proofs) contained in the speech itself {44}.
Quote ID: 8116
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 196
Section: 3A1B
Me: the following is FN 46, not the text.{46} To give an example from Ambrose himself: In 388 a Jewish Synagogue was burned at Callinicum, a place described by Ambrose as ignobili castro [me: "a lowly castle"]. The Christian bishop seems to have been accountable for the burning. Theodosius I ordered the bishop to rebuild the synagogue. Ambrose intervened. His picture of the dire consequences that would result from this edict becomes ridiculous unless we make allowances for rhetorical exaggeration.
Ep. XL, especially 20. M. 1155.
Quote ID: 8117
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 200
Section: 3A1B
Me: Sheridan’s summary of Ambrose’ argument on Page 198:"Christian senators cannot take an oath at a pagan altar."
Me: My summary of Ambrose’ argument on Page 199:
Is Ambrose threatening the emperor with excommunication, as he had doen with Theodosius I?Page 200:
Symmachus in his Relatio to the emperor: "We are asking that the gods of our fathers, the gods of our country be left unmolested. All religions should be regarded as one. They all seek truth and there is no one road to so vast a secret {60}."
{60"} This is the best known sentence in the Relatio.
Quote ID: 8118
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 201
Section: 3A1B
Ambrose speaking for Rome (responding in kind to Symmachu’s speaking for Rome:"I am not ashamed to be converted, along with the whole world, at my age. It is indeed true that no age is too late to learn…It is no shame to change to a better course."
Quote ID: 8119
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 202
Section: 3A1B
Symmachus:"Why is Roman religion not given the protection of Roman law?"
Ambrose:
You offer all kinds of inducements to your Vestals and yet you can find only a few willing to accept the office. They accept it for its worldly rewards. That is not true virginity. What about the Christians Virgins? They get no earthly reward; their life is one of hard work and privations. Yet their number is very large. Set a reward for virginity, but give it also to Christian Virgins. The Treasury will soon be bankrupt. The pagan Virgins got all under pagan emperors; surely it is only fair that Christian Virgins should have a share under Christian emperors. They complain about about the disabilities of their priests. What about Christian priests?"
Quote ID: 8120
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 202
Section: 3A1B
Ambrose:"The possessions of the Christian Church are meant for the poor. How many captives have the pagan temples ransomed? How much food have they given to the poor? How many exiles have they supported {69}."
{69} "He seems to be trying to correct popular misconceptions about the Church rather than answering Symmachus. The personal wealth of some of the clergy may have placed him in a difficult position and he may have been trying to circumvent sensitive topics."
Quote ID: 8121
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 204
Section: 3A1B
"Symmachus pleaded for the Altar on historical grounds, pointing to ther antiquity of worship. Ambrose was on difficult ground here. Anything connected with the maiores was firmly entrenched in Rome. Ambrose evaded the question. He talked about the pervasiveness of change. The physical world has gone through many changes, the moon has its phases, the year its seasons, man changes from infancy to maturity. Why should there not be a development in religious belief {72}? Roman religion itself has changed. It has adopted many foreign rites.". . .
Symmachus had suggested that the removal of the Altar of Victory would mean that the senators could no longer guarantee the truth of their statements by an oath. Ambrose replied that a Christian emperor could not allow men to bind themselves to faithlfulness by pagan ceremonies."
Quote ID: 8122
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 205
Section: 3A1B
RE: the Relatio:"With its quiet dignity, reserve, sincerity, and its pathetic promise that, if they get their Altar back, they will be careful to avoid insulting displays, it is a most appealing piece of writing. Ambrose in another place tells us that the first reaction of those in the Council of the Emperor, both Christian and pagan, was to restore the Altar and that Valentinian II had to convince perfidious Christians and oppose pagans. {75}. Ambrose’s answer has more force and fire. One can see the tension throughout it. He was a patriotic Roman, and Symmachus’ arguments made a deep impression on him. He was fighting his own feelings as well as Symmachus’ arguments.
Quote ID: 8123
Time Periods: 014
Altar of Victory - Paganism’s Last Battle
Rev. James J. Sheridan (pdf)
Book ID: 351 Page: 206
Section: 3A1B
There is one final reference. Writing in 403, Claudian mentions that the Statue of Victory is once again back in the Curia and will remain there {80}. If this is true (and there is no good reason to doubt it), Stilicho or Honorius, influenced by Stilicho, must have restored the Statue of Victory to its place, or, if it had never been removed from its place, must have reorganized some rites in connection with it {81}.The fate of the Altar and Statue of Victory was finally sealed by the law of 408 against heathen statues {82}.
{81} Some think that removals and restorations refer to both the Altar of Victory and the Statue of Victory. Others think that the statue was never removed from its place. There is no statement in ther ancient authors as to what happened to the Statue when the Altar was removed, and certainty on this point is unattainable.
{82} Cod. Theo. XVI.10.19.
Quote ID: 8125
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 117
Section: 3A1B
Symmachus did nothing better known or more eloquently recorded than to deliver to the emperor in A.D. 384 an address re-questioning the restoration of religious privileges to the pagan world he represented. They had been lost under the emperor’s brother and predecessor a few years earlier, and were now sought from what was thought to be a better-disposed government. The appeal, however, failed when Ambrose intervened.
Quote ID: 1503
Time Periods: 4
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 61
Section: 3A1B
Gratian’s removal of the altar of victory from the Senate was the occasion for a great debate between Symmachus, the leader of the pagan aristocracy, and the ablest Italian ecclesiastic, Bishop Ambrose of Milan (St. Ambrose).…
Symmachus was the eternal liberal with all his good and bad qualities: He was tolerant and generous, but weak and not a little naïve.
…
Ambrose was the hard man who knew that he possessed the Truth - Christianity is the one true religion; all others must be destroyed.
Quote ID: 4676
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 230
Section: 3A1B
When Gratian died in 383 and was succeeded by the boy emperor Valentinian II, the senators tried again, and it was Symmachus himself, now prefect of the city, who wrote an eloquent and powerful letter to Valentinian. It was not just the removal of the altar that he deplored but the denigration of all that it symbolized, the diverse spiritual world of paganism and the freedom of thought it allowed. “What does it matter,” he wrote, “by which wisdom each of us arrives at the truth? It is not possible that only one road leads to so sublime a mystery.” Ambrose saw the letter and replied, “What you are ignorant of, we know from the word of God. And what you try to infer, we have established as truth from the very wisdom of God.” Again, Ambrose prevailed and Valentinian refused Symmachus’ request.
Quote ID: 4937
Time Periods: 4
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 335
Section: 3A1B
The pagan intellectuals might reply, like Symmachus (Report on the Altar of Victory, 10;; from the translation by M. Lavarenne):What matters philosophy through which everyone seeks the truth?
One road alone does not suffice to attain so great a mystery!’
Quote ID: 5177
Time Periods: 4
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 3, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 319 Page: 141
Section: 3A1B
The breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest zeal for the cause of expiring Paganism; and his religious antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius and the inefficacy of his moral virtues.{2}….
Even skepticism is made to supply an apology for superstition. The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful attachment to those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of ages.
Pastor John’s note: This is the argument of Catholics now.
Quote ID: 7705
Time Periods: ?
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 3, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 319 Page: 143/144
Section: 3A1,3A1B,3D
…the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph at the chariot-wheels of Theodosius{2} In a full meeting of the senate the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the republic, the important question, whether the worship of Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the Romans? The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired; and the arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a recent admonition that it might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch.….
The hasty conversion of the senate must be attributed either to supernatural or to sordid motives; and many of these reluctant proselytes betrayed, on every favourable occasion, their secret disposition to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause of the ancient became more hopeless; they yielded to the authority of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the entreaties of their wives and children,{2} who were instigated and governed by the clergy of Rome and the monks of the East.
Quote ID: 7706
Time Periods: 4
Earliest Christian Heretics – Readings from Their Opponents, The
Edited By Arland J. Hultgren and Steven A. Haggmark
Book ID: 213 Page: 139/140
Section: 3A1B
Nor need we judge the way this charlatan juggles with church assemblies, courting popularity and putting on a show to win the admiration of simple souls, as he sits on the dais and lofty throne he has had constructed for him (how unlike a disciple of Christ!) or in the secretum, as he calls it, which he occupies in imitation of the rulers of the world.. . . .
When Paul had lost both the orthodoxy of his faith and his bishopric, Domnus, as already stated, took over the ministry of the Antioch church. But Paul absolutely refused to hand over the church building; so the Emperor Aurelian was appealed to, and he gave a perfectly just decision on the course to be followed: he ordered the building to be assigned to those to whom the bishops of the religion in Italy and Rome addressed a letter. In this way the man in question was thrown out of the church in the most ignominious way by the secular authority.
Quote ID: 5247
Time Periods: 3
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 215
Section: 3A1B,2C,3C
Gratian, however, under the influence of Ambrose did not assume the title of pontifex maximus, and in 382 withdrew the funds that had supported the public cult and removed the altar of Victory from the Curia. The pagan caucus in the senate led by Symmachus, carried on a struggle throughout the next decade to have the altar restored, but the offensive against paganism was renewed by Theodosius, who issued a series of laws prohibiting pagan worship throughout the empire.
Quote ID: 5341
Time Periods: 4
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 35
Section: 3A1B
In addition, from the late seventh century at the very latest, Anglo-Saxon kings began assenting to formal Latin documents that reorganized and recorded for posterity claims to landed property. Issued in the king’s name but drafted by churchmen, these documents—known as charters—adapted the forms of Roman provincial bureaucratic documentation with which continental missionaries were familiar. That seventh-century Anglo-Saxon kings could neither have read nor understood these Latin documents mattered little: from a royal perspective this was symbolic writing and an assertion of a new form of power; from an ecclesiastical one a means of securing a landed endowment, establishing enduring institutional structures and enhancing the clergy’s political influence.
Quote ID: 2174
Time Periods: 7
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 17/18
Section: 3A1B,4B
The bedrock of the system was the intense study of a small number of literary texts under the guidance of an expert in language and literary interpretation, the grammarian.--------------------
Essentially, these texts were held to contain within them a canon of ‘correct’ language, and children were to learn that language - both the particular vocabulary and a complex grammar within which to employ it. One thing this did was to hold educated Latin in a kind of cultural vice, preventing or at least significantly slowing down the normal processes of linguistic change. It also had the effect of allowing instant identification. As soon as a member of the Roman elite opened his mouth, it was obvious that he learned ‘correct’ Latin.
--------------------
To indicate how different, by the fourth century, elite Latin may have been from popular speech, the graffiti found at Pompeii - buried in the eruption of AD 79 - suggest that in everyday usage Latin was already evolving into less grammatically structured Romance.
--------------------
Grammar, in other words, was an introduction to formal logic. They also saw their literacy texts as a kind of accumulated moral database of human behaviour - both good and bad - from which, with guidance, one could learn what to do and what not to do.
--------------------
Still more profoundly - and here they were echoing an educational philosophy developed originally in classical Greece - Symmachus and his peers argued that it was only by pondering on a wide recorded range of men behaving well and badly that it was possible to develop a full intellectual and emotional range in oneself, to bring one to the highest state achievable.
--------------------
Not only did educated Romans speak a superior language, but, in the view of Symmachus and his fellows, they had things to discuss in that language which were inaccessible to the uneducated.
Quote ID: 5529
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 45
Section: 3A1B,4B
...by the fourth century the balance of power had changed. Symmachus, in Trier, was compromised not just the Senate of Rome, but civilized Romans throughout the Roman world.
Quote ID: 5537
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 138
Section: 3A1B,4B
The lifestyle of Symmachus and his friends provides a blueprint for that of the European gentry and nobility over much of the next sixteen hundred years.
Quote ID: 5585
Time Periods: 45
God’s Secretaries: - The Making of the King James Bible
Adam Nicolson
Book ID: 99 Page: 96/97
Section: 3A1,3A1B
Every minister had to appear before the diocesan registrar (or ‘Register’) to show him the licence by which he was allowed to preach. (The licence was a tool of conformity: it would be granted only if the minister had explicitly signed up to the canons which Richard Bancroft had drawn up for the English Church.) This was the moment at which the bishop’s secretary could make his killing.. . . .
To my verie loving friend, Mr. Baddeley, secretary to ye Rt. Reverend Father in God ye Ld. Bp. Of Coven. & Lichfield, These in London.
. . . .
One secret I will tell you, which I must entreat you to make a secret stil: vjd. A piece you may demaunde of every one of them, either licensed or not, for the exhibition of their license, and keep the profit to your self, however the Register may perhaps challenge it.
. . . .
This is a rare sight of one of the sinews of the Jacobean church in action: private extortion by a high-level and ambitious church official of a little bribe or pourboire from the impoverished, simple rural clergy; a man looking out for his own, passing on a little tip by which advantage can be gained and the beginnings of a fortune made; and an awareness, in the insistence on the tip being kept secret, that it was wrong.
Quote ID: 2529
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 52
Section: 2E3,3A1B
When country churches began to receive gifts of land, the city bishop was the only person who could legally hold them. In some cases he was not slow to claim them. However strongly a man might desire to specially benefit the church of his own district, and however much the ministers of such a church might need support, the city bishop was legally entitled to claim whatever was offered.
Quote ID: 5783
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 88/89
Section: 3A1B
Exactly a century after the Council of Vernon, a council or parliament which was held by Lewis II at Pavia recites the complaint of the clergy that “some laymen who have churches on their own property....do not give their tithes to the churches where they receive baptism, preaching, confirmation, and the other sacraments of Christ, but assign them at their own pleasure to their own churches and their own clerks”{1} The complaint was listened to, and the distinction between churches to which tithes were paid and those to which they were not paid came to be even more important than the distinction between baptismal and non-baptismal churches, and served as the real ground-plan upon which the later parochial system was built.
Quote ID: 5788
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 97
Section: 3A1B
In this way the parish became a prominent element in the later organisation of Christianity. The territorial idea completely ousted the original idea of a community or congregation. The members of the Church were not free to worship where they pleased, or to associate for religious purposes with whom they would.
Quote ID: 5790
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 102
Section: 3A1B
The evidence against the view that tithes have had a continuous and general existence in the Christian Church is negative, but at the same time conclusive. It is that for the first seven centuries they are hardly ever mentioned.
Quote ID: 5791
Time Periods: 4567
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 102/103
Section: 3A1B
Tithes as a Christian institution date, in fact, from the eighth century. They are one of the results of the great Carlovingian reformation. They are not strictly ecclesiastical in their origin, but came to the Church from the State. They were a rent paid for the leasing of church lands.
Quote ID: 5792
Time Periods: 7
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 28/29
Section: 3A1B,4B
The existence of this effectively hereditary aristocracy was a key feature of the empire. Not because it dominated government; most leading bureaucrats were not of senatorial origin, even if they became senators later (Maximus was in that sense atypical) but rather because it dominated the tone of government. The Roman empire was unusual in ancient and medieval history in that its ruling class was dominated by civilian, not (or not only) military, figures.... Senators regarded themselves very highly, as the ‘best part of the human race’ in the well-known words of the orator Symmachus (d. 402); their criteria for this self-satisfaction did not rely on military or physical prowess, but on birth, wealth and a shared culture.
Quote ID: 5897
Time Periods: 45
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 164
Section: 3A1B,3A4A,4B
Symmachus felt he could not do this “when so many are neglecting their priestly duties”. It is here that he makes his much-quoted remark that “it is now a way of currying favor for Romans to desert the altars”. What has not been sufficiently appreciated is that this is not a comment on the small numbers of pagans left because of the inroads of Christianity. It is a complaint about the small number of pontiffs who took the trouble to show up, whether at meetings of the college or at the festivals.. . . .
Ep. i.47 reproaches Praetextatus for vacationing at Baiae while Symmachus performs his pontifical duties in Rome, and while the tone is playful (“there is much to be discussed in our college; who allowed you a holiday from your public responsibilities?”), Symmachus devotes four sentences to the point.
Quote ID: 6053
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 165
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
The latest Roman pontifex known is Symmachus himself, who died in 402. No pontifex, augur, or quindecimvir is known to have lived later than 402.
Quote ID: 6055
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 167
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
Moderns tend to assume that nobles with many priesthoods were more dedicated pagans. In fact, the accumulation of more than two major priesthoods in a single person should probably be seen as an early sign of the decline of the priesthoods.. . . .
It may be that someone like Symmachus, who restricted himself to a single priesthood and took the trouble to attend as many meetings as he could, was actually serving the state cults better than those who ostentatiously filled their cursuses with a multitude of priesthoods they had no time for.
Quote ID: 6058
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 171
Section: 3A1B,3A4A
There is no reason to suppose the pontiffs were more pious than other pagans, or in any but a purely titular sense pagan leaders. In view of their wealth and social importance as aristocrats they were certainly the most authoritative representatives of Roman paganism, and so the obvious spokesmen to protest at the Christian abrogation of state subsidies for the cults in 382. On the other hand, they were not necessarily the most committed champions available. Indeed, the very fact that they were so prominent, both socially and politically, may have meant that most were unwilling to commit their prestige too decisively to a losing cause. Pontifices did not in any sense represent a pagan community in the sense that Christian clergy represented the Christian community.With a few pagan counterparts to bishops like Athanasius or Ambrose to rally the troops, the fate of Roman paganism just might have been different. But pagan priests known to have been appointed in their teens and twenties on the basis of birth and connections could hardly command either the authority needed for the task or the respect of their Christian counterparts. More important, it does not seem to have occurred to them to make the attempt. Men like Kamenius, Praetextatus, Flavian, and Symmachus were first and foremost aristocrats and landowners, not priests. The very fact that their descendants continued to hold high office in a Christian world is enough to show that it was their families and estates, not the cults, that they saw as their primary responsibilities.
Quote ID: 6061
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 396/398
Section: 3A1B,4B
The diversion of choice for many rich Romans vacationing on their estates was hunting. But Symmachus, like Pliny before him disclaimed both interest and expertise, and affects to believe that his closer friends like-wise devoted their country trips to reading rather than hunting. {200}. . . .
Symmachus and his friends were following a social pattern that goes back through Pliny to the age of the Republic. Cicero and his peers regularly kept their libraries in their various villas, where they did their serious reading and writing.
. . . .
We have already touched on the Epigrammata Bobiensia, prominently featuring work by the nonagenarian Naucellius.
It is summed up in poem 5:
Here I pursue my studies and my leisure devoted to the Muses…Thus I delight to live and extend my calm old age, re-reading the learned books of the writers of old.
This notion of gentlemanly studious leisure was by no means restricted to pagans.
. . . .
Symmachus’s Christian friend Mallius Theodorus withdrew from a distinguished public career to “dedicate his leisure to the Muses” (otia Musis), in the words of his panegyrist Claudian.
. . . .
A number of consequences may be drawn. First, the centrality of the country retreat in this conception of literary otium spectacularly underlines the elite nature of the culture it fostered. It is precisely the fact that it was above all a social marker that explains why the traditional culture was so enthusiastically embraced by Christian members and would-be members of that same elite. For the same reason it is unlikely even to have occurred to pagans to use the culture they shared as a weapon in the battle against their Christian peers – much less to proselytize their inferiors. {215} It was the only culture there was. The idea that love of the classics formed a bond between pagans in particular rather than members of the elite in general is neither probable in itself nor borne out by the available evidence.
Quote ID: 6097
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 75
Section: 3A1A,3A1B
Late 300s, violence increases against pagan practices and buildings. Two famous temples, the Serapaeum in Egypt (392) and the great temple of Zeus in Syria (386) destroyed by mobs organized and led by local bishops.….
By this time, the church’s fellowship in the light was all but destroyed. It was entirely immersed in politics. It was in bed with the beast.
….
See Pg. 83 by the end of the 4th century, monks and nuns “often took the lead in mob attacks on temples”
Quote ID: 6133
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 76
Section: 3A1B
Both John Chrysostom and Augustine urged on the violent bands of Xn marauders of pagan temples and statues. Bands of monks were prominent in these attacks.
Quote ID: 6134
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 76
Section: 3A1A,3A1B
At the same time, Xn hostility toward the Jews was rising intensely. John Chryostom’s preaching was full of it, and there was even legislation needed to restrain local Xns from attacking synagogues. Xns who converted to Judaism had to forfeit their property, Jews were banned from imperial service, etc.
Quote ID: 6135
Time Periods: 45
Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions, The
Margaret Deanesly
Book ID: 247 Page: 36
Section: 3A1A,3A1B
In 1229 a synod was held at Toulouse:"Lay people shall not have books of scripture, except the psalter and the divine office: and they shall not have these books in the vulgar tongue. Moreover we prohibit that lay people should be permitted to books of the Old or New Testament, except perchance any should wish from devotion to have a psalter, or a breviary for the divine office, or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly prohibit their having even the aforesaid books translated into the vulgar tongue."
Quote ID: 6214
Time Periods: 7
Lollards of the Chiltern Hills: Glimpses of English Dissent in the Middle Ages, The
W. H. Summers
Book ID: 248 Page: 14
Section: 3A1B
…. in every village there was a parish priest. There is reason, however, to fear that these clergy were as a rule sadly ignorant and inefficient. They preached but little; and when Archbishop Peckham tried to institute a reform in the days of Edward I., he went no further than to require that every clerk should deliver four sermons a year to his parishioners!page of new book
Pastor John’s note: A.D. 1100-1200 ±
Quote ID: 6230
Time Periods: 7
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 65
Section: 3A1B,4B
Even in the early fifth century the office of pontifex was desirable, or so it was to the consul Tertullus who addressed the senate as consul and would-be pontifex, claiming that these were “offices of which I hold the first and hope to obtain the second.” {286}But by the last decades of the fourth century there are signs that not all aristocrats were eager to hold priesthoods in the state cults;
Symmachus, however, attributed an aristocrat’s unwillingness to hold pagan priesthoods to a desire for advancement. {287}
Quote ID: 7434
Time Periods: 45
Roman Empire, The
Colin Wells
Book ID: 266 Page: 251
Section: 3A1B,4B
Bulls and bears were among the less exotic fauna on display. Pliny records the appearances of tigers, crocodiles (risky – Symmachus in the fourth century had some which refused to eat and barely survived till needed, Letters vi.43), giraffes, lynxes, rhinoceroses, ostriches, hippopotami (Natural History viii.65). Lions were commonplace, with six hundred in a single show as long ago as the first century BC (Pliny, Natural History viii. 53, Dio xxxix.38). Elephants were also seen, and slaughtered, in the late Republic, and by Nero’s day were being bred in Italy (Columella iii.8). Commodus, who prided himself on his marksmanship, once killed five hippopotami in a single show; after Roman times, no hippopotamus was seen in Europe again until 1850. The scale of operations, from the capture of such beasts to their transport, their nourishment in captivity, and their eventual delivery to the arena, was enormous.
Quote ID: 6734
Time Periods: 47
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 28
Section: 3A1B,4B
....the senator Symmachus “left in his letters the abiding monument of a great aristocrat, secure, snobbish, and dilettante. He hopelessly led against St. Ambrose the fight for the preservation of the traditional cults of the senate’s meeting, the reverence to the statute of Victory.”----
But the families [Anicii and Symmachii] in their turn became Christian and made Christianity fashionable, taking its management and patronage into their care, as they maintained at great cost the civic amenities, the games in the circus, the city services and the senate. They stood out beyond the confines of Theodoric’s Italian dominions and interests; they represented still, after its effective disappearance as a political unit, the old international order; their ties of family and connection matched their wide culture, their patronage of learning and education.”
Quote ID: 4232
Time Periods: 45
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 204
Section: 3A1B
This last was a Roman legal claim Pope Zachary, a by-the-book kind of guy, for under Roman law barbarian squatter’s rights to uncultivated land became absolute after thirty years’ uninterrupted tenure.
Quote ID: 4372
Time Periods: 7
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 59
Section: 3A1B
Now, in 382, under the urgings of bishop Ambrose, Gratian not only removed the altar but abolished the age-old subsidies to the priesthoods. The Senate sent the eloquent and highly esteemed Symmachus to plead respectfully against these measures. He was refused an audience. The following year Gratian completed the disestablishment by formally repudiating the robe and title of Pontifex Maximus, but later the same year he was murdered and the uneasy throne at Milan was occupied by Valentinian II, a boy of twelve.{47}
Quote ID: 7120
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 59
Section: 3A1B
The exchange with Ambrose is one of the most celebrated religious debates in the Roman world.Symmachus sincerely believes that the ending of the state cults will jeopardise divine protection of the empire, but he is naturally careful not to offend Christianity. So great a secret as the truth and meaning of existence, he suggests, eludes man’s puny reason and cannot be attained by any one particular route. What practical rites each of us follows is perhaps of secondary importance. But, just as each man on earth is given an individual soul, so each city and people is given a special guardian spirit or genius. Man’s knowledge of the divinity is obscure, but one acknowledged kind of evidence we can have is the consistent good fortune bestowed by the divine, whatever its ultimate essence. Rome has enjoyed this blessing down the many centuries when the rites were faithfully and correctly performed. Is this now a time to abandon them? Are we on such good terms with the barbarians that we can do without the Altar of Victory?
Quote ID: 7121
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 121
Section: 3A1B,2E3,4B
Private houses increasingly became the locations of pagan worship, just as they had once been for Christian. Sincere pagans such as Symmachus and Libanius, after all, believed that the gods required incense, libations and other offerings, and would hardly abandon these rituals provided they could be enacted discreetly.{20}
Quote ID: 7144
Time Periods: 45
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