Section: 3A4B - Secular
Number of quotes: 52
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 58
Section: 3A4B
in 384 Ambrose declared that there were more Christians than pagans in the Curia.{3}
Quote ID: 43
Time Periods: 4
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 24
Section: 3A4B,3C
Constantine did not visit Rome after 326,….
The emperor’s last trip to Rome had been filled with unpleasantness, and quarrels within his household had led to the execution of both his son Crispus and his second wife, Fausta. Fausta’s palace on the Lateran was handed over to Silvester, the bishop, to serve as his official residence.{5} Henceforth, the most important man in Rome, it seemed, was the city’s bishop.
Quote ID: 132
Time Periods: 4
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 311
Section: 2D3B,3A4B
As Frend points out, the early Christian lived “under the guidance of the Spirit in the Last Times” and “felt no call to imitate his Jewish neighbour and rebel against the earthly dominance of Rome.”
Quote ID: 669
Time Periods: 123
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: xviii
Section: 3A4B
The popes who built St. Peter’s also built Rome. They commissioned the fountains and gardens, palaces and pizzas, and from the rubble of a vanished empire created a new city that would be a worthy setting or a Christian imperium.
Quote ID: 821
Time Periods: 7
Bede – Ecclesiastical History of the English People
History translated by Leo Sherley-Price; Revised by R. E. Latham; Translation of the minor works, ne
Book ID: 80 Page: 79
Section: 3A4B
III. Augustine’s third question: What punishment should be awarded to those who rob churches?Pope Gregory’s reply: The punishment must depend on the circumstances of the offender. For some commit theft although they have means of subsistence, and others out of poverty. Some, therefore, should be punished by fines, others by beating; some severely, and others more leniently.
Quote ID: 2161
Time Periods: 6
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 93
Section: 3A4B
Rather than claiming the right to central government, this aristocracy was much more comfortable allowing the bishop, chosen by and of themselves, to direct what remained of the public sphere, the res publicae, at the local level of the civitas, which included the city and its immediate territory. Thus Remigius’s plea to Clovis [PJ: ?–511] to follow his bishops’ advice is no more than a plea for him to follow the advice of the Roman aristocracy. Power over the people was held by the great landowners, who were the real authority.
Quote ID: 863
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 123
Section: 3A4B
The great majority of early Merovingian bishops were of aristocratic Gallo-Roman background. This was only to be expected given the role the episcopacy played in the late Roman Gaul. In fact, the lives of Merovingian bishop saints, composed in the seventh century, generally begin by describing the noble family from which the bishop had sprung: “he was noble by birth, but still more noble by faith” is repeated with minor variations throughout the literature.
Quote ID: 871
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 124
Section: 3A4B
As Martin Heinzelmann points out in a study of the 707 bishops whose names are known from the eight ecclesiastical provinces of Tours, Rouen, Sens, Reims, Trier, Metz, Cologne, and Besancon, for example, fully 328 are known only by their name. {3} However, of the 179 bishops who can be assigned to a social rank, only eight were, like Iniuriosus of Tours, who was “of inferior but nevertheless free parentage,” definitely not of the senatorial aristocracy.
Quote ID: 872
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 124
Section: 3A4B
Such episcopal dynasties reflected both the power of bishops to influence the naming of their successors and the networks, often stretching back generations, uniting senatorial families across Gaul. Control of episcopal sees was one of the major goals in family strategies, and the competition between senatorial families could be vicious and deadly.
Quote ID: 873
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 126
Section: 3A4B
Such complex family rivalries focused on the office of bishop because it was a prize worth fighting for. Control of major bishoprics was the key to continued regional power of the kindred. It also provided great wealth. From the fourth century on, enormous amounts of land had been passing into the hands of the church, and all this was controlled by the bishop.
Quote ID: 874
Time Periods: 456
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 127
Section: 3A4B
In fact, the episcopal office has been seen as the bulwark of the Roman population, and it alone could protect Roman traditions and culture from the barbarian Franks.Certainly in the early sixth century, and, in the south, through much of the seventh and eighth, bishops did come from great senatorial families. However, alliances and intermarriages between Romans and Franks began even before the time of Clovis, and in the course of the sixth century these families began to fuse, uniting the courtly favor and military power of Frankish leaders with the cultural traditions and regional patronage and kin networks of the senatorial aristocracy.
Quote ID: 875
Time Periods: 67
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 127/128
Section: 3A4B
True, some bishops arrived at their positions after a regular career in the clergy, rising from lector through priest to bishop, but this was so much the exception that when it occurred, as in the case of Bishop Nivard of Reims or Heraclius of Angouleme, hagiographers considered it worthy of comment.
Quote ID: 876
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 128
Section: 3A4B
Many bishops entered their office from secular life and even for those who rose within the clergy, the priesthood was normally not the route to ecclesiastical office.
Quote ID: 877
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 128
Section: 3A4B
However, since most of these bishops had entered the church late in life, the nature of this education was usually more in the tradition of late Latin letters than of theological or ascetic and spiritual instruction.
Quote ID: 878
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 129
Section: 3A4B
If many bishops held secular office prior to entering monasteries on their way to the episcopal dignity, many more went directly from their secular positions to their sees. The office of bishop thus crowned a cursus honorum in the traditional sense. In the fifth and sixth centuries, this career progression often went through the surviving offices of the later Empire or positions as regional administrators; increasingly in the seventh century meant service at the royal court.
Quote ID: 879
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 131
Section: 3A4B
The only potential rival that bishops faced for authority in the city was the count, but with the disappearance of civil government the rivalry was no equal contest. The position of bishop was considered a step up from that of count of the city, with the former office often filled by an aristocrat who had already served as count.
Quote ID: 880
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 132
Section: 3A4B
Toward the end of the sixth century the imbalance between the count and bishop became such that the former’s appointment needed approval by the latter or else the bishop actually appointed the count. Gregory, for example, had been requested by King Theudebert to reappoint Leudast. Rather than the representative of the king, the count had become an agent in episcopal administration.
Quote ID: 881
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 133
Section: 3A4B
Tradition demanded that the bishop be elected by the “clergy and people” of the diocese. In practice this was probably never how the majority of bishops were selected, although in the isolation of late Roman Gaul, something akin to this formula was probably followed, if by “clergy” one means primarily the archdeacon and by “people” the senatorial aristocracy. Following the establishment of the Frankish kingship, a new element was introduced, or rather reintroduced—the approval of the king.
Quote ID: 882
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 134
Section: 3A4B
Normally, three kings had to be secured—election, confirmation by the king, and consecration, the last being the most important. Once an individual had been consecrated, even if scandalously elected or unconfirmed, while he could as a last resort be exiled and even excommunicated, it was extremely difficult to replace him before his death, and in any case he remained a bishop.
Quote ID: 883
Time Periods: 56
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 134
Section: 3A4B
The sacred nature of consecration was such that God’s anointed remained a bishop, regardless of how he reached that position.
Quote ID: 884
Time Periods: 56
Bishops, Barbarians, and the Battle for Gaul
Matthew E. Bunson
Book ID: 41 Page: 1
Section: 3A4B,3D1
Since its introduction into the Gallic provinces—there was a Christian community in Lugdunum (modern Lyons) from around 177—the Christian faith had spread steadily in the cities, so that by 250 there were some 30 episcopal sees, and by A.D. 400 virtually every town or large community was governed by its own bishop. At the same time, the bishops in the cities had been forced to serve also as civil leaders, filling the administrative roles abandoned by imperial Roman officials. Bishops such as Sidonius Apollinaris, Avitus, Germanus of Auxerre, and Caesarius of Arles were viewed as defensores civitatum (defenders of the city). They maintained order in the civitates and were spokesmen and trustees for the patrimony of the bankrupt empire to the reges crinite, or “long-haired kings.” Indeed, the bishops in many instances were all that stood between the violent Germanic tribes and the defenseless citizens of a now-dead empire.What followed was a relationship of necessity between the bishops and the Germanic chieftains. For their part, the barbarian rulers needed the bishops to speak to their new subjects, to have some connection to the past, and to find a way to administer even rudimentary government. The bishops, meanwhile, had to work with the new overlords to protect their frightened people and safeguard Church property, as only the German kings and chieftains could keep their warriors in line.
The bishops assumed key posts in the nascent royal regimes as judges, advisors, diplomats, and administrators. In so doing, they guaranteed the security of the Church, created the opportunity to influence directly the development of post-Roman institutions, and served as intermediaries between the old Roman culture and the new order. All this they did without compromising religious principle. [PJ: Ha!]
Kingdom of the Franks
In the immediate wake of the invasions, the Christians of Gaul confronted not only the final demise of imperial government and order, but persecution by the conquerors. The Germanic tribes, chiefly the Goths and the Vandals, had been converted to Christianity through the Arian missionary Ulfilas. They were hence adherents of the Arian heresy that had so troubled the Church in the fourth century. Once in control, the tribes sporadically persecuted orthodox Christians. They confiscated their lands, expelled bishops, and installed Arian liturgies. This persecution gradually eased, however, as the Germans began to assimilate and to conform to the only true civilization that any of them had ever encountered, that of the Romans. Wherever possible, the bishops negotiated a policy of moderation, such as at the Council of Agde for Visigothic Gaul in 506, but the Arian ascendancy under the Germanic tribes remained a lingering problem for the orthodox Church. The solution rested not in a resurgence of Roman imperial suzerainty but in the conversion of the barbarians. Indeed, the last significant Gallo-Roman official, Syagrius of Soisson, was defeated in 486 by the rising Germanic power in northern Gaul, the Franks.
Quote ID: 898
Time Periods: 456
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 202/203
Section: 3A1,3A4B,2E2
The emperor’s desire to bring the bishops into the fabric of the state involved a dramatic reversal of their status. Enormous patronage became available to those bishops ready to accept the emperor’s position on doctrine, and those who took advantage of it came to have access to vast wealth and social prestige. Rome was earmarked for the bishop’s household, so that by the end of the fourth century Ammianus Marcellinus was able to describe the extravagant lifestyle of the bishops of Rome: “Enriched by the gifts of matrons, they ride in carriages, dress splendidly and outdo kings in the lavishness of their table.”This was not the whole story as Ammianus himself recognized. As we shall see, many Christians were sufficiently repelled by the new wealth of the Church to be drawn to asceticism; even if they did not make for the desert themselves, many bishops turned to austerity and gave their wealth to the poor to reinforce their Christian authority. Whether they succumbed to the financial temptations or not, however, bishops were now men with a stake in good order, and when the traditional city elites and, in the west, the structure of government itself collapsed, it was to be they who took control.
Quote ID: 4894
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 204/205
Section: 3A4B
The authority of the bishops within the state was consolidated by tying them into the structure of the legal system. Constantine has extended to bishops the longstanding right of all the magistrates to free slaves. They could also hear civil cases if both sides agreed.
Quote ID: 4898
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 205
Section: 3A4B,3D
In 407 the emperor Honorius gave bishops the specific right to ban pagan funeral rites, and in the same legislation their right to enforce the laws aimed at Jews, pagans and heretics was reaffirmed. In the following year bishops were given equal status to the praetorian prefects in that there was no appeal from their judgments. Sitting in the courts now became a major part of a bishop’s life. Augustine would complain that he had so many cases he often had to sit through the whole morning and into the siesta. His time was filled with property disputes, cases of adultery, inheritance cases and the enforcement of laws against pagans and Donatists.
Quote ID: 4899
Time Periods: 45
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 211
Section: 3A4B
Inevitably, the more effective bishops absorbed the traditional responsibilities now increasingly evaded by the city elites. There are even cases of bishops--Synesius of Cyrene is a good example--securing the removal of an unpopular local governor.
Quote ID: 4913
Time Periods: 45
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 212
Section: 3A4B
The men who could perform such roles were necessarily drawn from the traditional elites, and it was accepted that they would already be land-owning men of authority and education. “The cultural and social milieu which nurtured the urban upper classes of late antiquity did not distinguish future bishops from future bureaucrats,” as one scholar puts it, a point that could equally be made of eighteenth-century French bishops and nineteenth-century English bishops, so enduring was the transformation of the bishop’s status.{23.} Quoted in Hunt, “The Church as a Public Institution,” p. 265. An anonymous Catholic priest writing in the April 2000 edition of the magazine Prospect (London) tells the story of how a Vatican representative sent to Britain after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) brought the message that English Catholic bishops should be of the appropriate class, public school and Oxbridge educated, so that they would be socially fitted to develop ecumenical links with the Anglican bishops!
Quote ID: 4916
Time Periods: 457
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 213
Section: 3A4B
Well might Gregory of Nyssa complain that the Church’s leaders were consuls, generals and prefects, distinguished in rhetoric and philosophy, and no longer the ordinary men who had been Christ’s disciples.
Quote ID: 4917
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 218
Section: 3A4B
Ambrose, the local provincial governor, was summoned to keep order. To his surprise, he found himself acclaimed by the crowd and then accepted by the emperor Valentinian as the new bishop. He was not even a baptized Christian at the time, but within a week he had been baptized and installed. His sudden elevation is an example of just how far political needs, above all the need to keep good order, now predominated in church appointments.
Quote ID: 4925
Time Periods: 4
Constantine by Ramsay Macmullen
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 69 Page: 160
Section: 3A4B,3C
In dealing with the Church of Africa, his favor was characteristically directed to the official structure. Orthodox priests were to enjoy certain valuable immunities.….
Certain monks and nuns received individual grants of food from public storehouses. Clerical exemption from municipal munera was extended into Italy; and in 316, in a law addressed to Ossius (perhaps because inspired by him), slave-owners received permission to free their slaves not only before secular officials but through a far less complicated attestation in the presence of a bishop. Episcopal courts were soon authorized to hear any civil case, by change of venue from other courts and without right of further appeal. They became, that is, courts of last instance.
Quote ID: 1891
Time Periods: 4
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 231
Section: 3A4B
This letter is important for understanding the role of the bishop’s court in settling potential criminal suits; plaintiffs were entitled to bring such matters before secular or ecclesiastical tribunals, each of which provided different remedies.
Quote ID: 2397
Time Periods: 35
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 246
Section: 3A4B,3A4C
In 475 Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia (he is not mentioned by Sidonius) concluded an agreement with Euric. In the same year, a committee composed of four Gallic bishops, Basilius of Aix, Graecus of Marseilles, Faustus of Riez, and Leontius of Arles, arranged for the surrender of the Auvergne to Euric.
Quote ID: 2398
Time Periods: 5
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 249
Section: 3A4B
I hope you are ashamed of this treaty which brings neither honor nor advantage. The legations are channeled through you. Not only are the terms that have been negotiated revealed to you first of all, even though the emperor is not present, but terms to be discussed are entrusted to you.Pastor John’s note: Wow!
Quote ID: 2399
Time Periods: 5
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 250
Section: 3A4B
The letter’s recipient, Faustus, bishop of Riez and former abbot of the monastery of Lerins, may have been of British origin. He was one of the negotiators with Euric in 475 and was himself exiled around 476-484 for opposing Arianism.
Quote ID: 2400
Time Periods: 5
Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Brittain
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Book ID: 234 Page: 125
Section: 3A4B
At that time there were twenty-eight flamens in Britain and three archflamens, to whose jurisdiction the other spiritual leaders and judges of public morals were subject. At the Pope’s bidding, the missionaries converted these men from their idolatry. Where there were flamens they placed bishops and where there were archflamens they appointed archbishops.
Quote ID: 5849
Time Periods: 56
Greek Anthology, The, LCL 086: Greek Anthology V, Books 13-16
W. R. Paton, trans.
Book ID: 136 Page: 23
Section: 4B,3A4B
36.---The SameOn a picture of Theodorus the Illustrious and twice Proconsul, in which he is shown receiving the insignia of office from the Archangel in Ephesus.
Forgive us, O Archangel, for picturing thee, for thy face is invisible; this is but an offering of men. For by thy grace Theodorus hath his girdle of a Magister, and twice won for his prize the Proconsular chair. The picture testifies to his gratitude, for in return he expressed the image of thy beauty in colours.
Quote ID: 2985
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 402
Section: 3A4B
Fortunius had remarried a woman named Restituta and saw no reason why he should ever sever the new bond and resume his first marriage. While emotionally harsh, his reaction to Ursa’s return was in complete accordance with Roman law on captivity and marriage. Roman citizens who were kidnapped by enemy forces lost all of their citizen rights, from property ownership and patria potestas to the contraction of a legitimate marriage (conubium).. . . .
By the early fifth century, developing Christian social norms emphasized the dissolubility of the marital bond. Marriages were not to be severed under virtually any condition.{4} In the opinion of Rome’s bishop Innocent I (401-417 C.E.), to whom Ursa appealed for help, Ursa and Fortunius’s marriage had been “constituted by divine grace” and was, therefore, the only legitimate union.{5}
Quote ID: 2792
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 165
Section: 3A4A,3A4B
The consulate was the supreme honor available to a private citizen (even rarer now that so many went to emperors and their sons), while membership of the priestly colleges (even assuming they still existed) was a distinction shared with scores of others, a distinction that came to nobles like Tertullus unsolicited in their teens. {141}It is hard not to connect this text with a strikingly similar passage in Paulinus of Nola, urging Augustine’s young protege Licentius in 396 to renounce his worldly ambitions and follow Augustine’s footsteps: “If you heed and follow Augustine. . . then indeed you will be fashioned consul and priest, not in the phantom of a dream, but in reality.” And then, “For Licentius will be truly a pontifex and truly a consul, if you hug the footsteps of Augustine... tread the ways of God in close attendance on your master, so that you may learn... to deserve the priesthood.”{142} To be both consul and pontifex had been the summit of a Roman noble’s ambitions since the days of the Republic.”{143}
Quote ID: 6054
Time Periods: 4
Medieval Popular Religion 1000-1500
John Shinners (Edited)
Book ID: 150 Page: 10
Section: 3A4B
THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL (1215)In 1215 Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) gathered at Rome twelve hundred archbishops, bishops, abbots, and prelates from across Europe to discuss the state of the church.
Canon 16. Clerics shall not hold secular offices or engage in secular and above all, dishonest pursuits.
Quote ID: 3246
Time Periods: 7
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 196
Section: 3A4B
Lecture VIII(5) The circumstances out of which the modern Parish was more directly produced were those of Gaul and Spain. The original Christians of those great provinces of the West seem to have consisted almost entirely of inhabitants of the Roman towns.
. . . .
So closely did the ecclesiastical organization follow the civil organization, and so firm was its hold upon society, that in the France of the present day, with hardly an exception, there is a bishop wherever there was a Roman municipality, and an archbishop wherever there was a provincial metropolis {19}. As the municipal organization became weak the ecclesiastical organization became strong: Christianity was so enormous a factor in contemporary society, that the bishops gradually took the place of the Roman magistrate and exercised some of the civil jurisdiction which had belong to him.
Quote ID: 6452
Time Periods: 457
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 510
Section: 2D3B,3A4B
75. Celsus exhorts us also to accept public office in our country if it is necessary to do this for the sake of the preservation of the laws and of piety. But we know of the existence in each city of another sort of country, created by the Logos of God. And we call upon those who are competent to take office, who are sound in doctrine and life, to rule over the churches. We do not accept those who love power. But we put pressure on those who on account of their great humility are reluctant hastily to take upon themselves the common responsibility of the church of God. And those who rule us well are those who have had to be forced to take office, being constrained by the great King who, we are convinced, is the Son of God, the divine Logos. Even if it is power over God’s country (I mean the Church) which is exercised by those who hold office well in the Church, we say that their rule is in accordance with God’s prior authority, and they do not thereby defile the appointed laws.If Christians do avoid these responsibilities, it is not with the motive of shirking the public services of life. But they keep themselves for a more divine and necessary service in the church of God for the sake of the salvation of men. Here it is both necessary and right for them to be leaders and to be concerned about all men, both those who are within the Church, that they may live better every day, and those who appear to be outside it, that they may become familiar with the sacred words and acts of worship; and that, offering a true worship to God in this way and instructing as many as possible, they may become absorbed in the word of God and the divine law, and so be united to the supreme God through the Son of God, the Logos, Wisdom, Truth, and Righteousness, who unites to Him every one who has been persuaded to live according to God’s will in all things.
Quote ID: 3466
Time Periods: 23
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 25
Section: 1A,3A4A,3A4B,4B
But the Pontifex Maximus was a Roman and a statesman. He left to others the wrangling over terms of Greek art; for him it was enough to insist upon what had been handed down. These gladiatorial displays of logic went on for a well-nigh a hundred and seventy years, during which time the only Pope who furnished a statement of any length to the combatants was Leo I; and his manner is the Roman, sententious and judicial, not argumentative. The Latin language, copious in legal phrase, abounding in the technicalities of ritual, was neither delicate not flexible enough to express the finer shades of heresy. It was the language of command: strong, plain, and matter of fact.
Quote ID: 7921
Time Periods: 1567
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 51
Section: 3A1,3A4B,3A3B,3G
He alone signs the treaty of peace with Agilulf. He insists on the freedom of soldiers who are desirous of becoming monks, although the Emperor had forbidden it. If, as Pope, he was the richest landowner in Italy, with thousands of serfs and myriads of acres yielding him a revenue, from these resources he nourished his Romans at the doors of the basilicas. Neither would he permit his coloni to be ruthlessly oppressed. He maintained the churches, ransomed captives, set up hospitals for pilgrims, and saw to it that twice in the year a corn-bearing fleet from Sicily supplied Rome with provisions at Portus.
Quote ID: 7935
Time Periods: 67
Paradiso, The
John Ciardi
Book ID: 260 Page: 175
Section: 3A4B
Canto XV: WARRIORS OF GOD CACCIAGUIDA ON FLORENCEI served with Conrad in the Holy Land,
and my valor so advanced me in his favor
that I was knighted in his noble band. 141
Quote ID: 6528
Time Periods: 7
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 100
Section: 3A1,3A4B
For this reason, the recognition by Constantine of the bishop’s court of arbitration, his episcopalis audientia, proved decisive for the elaboration of a Christian representation of society. For this court gave reality to the subtle shift by which the bishop, as “lover of the poor,” became also the protector of the lower classes.The episcopalis audientia was not, by any means, a court open only to the humble.
. . . .
These parties could be rich landowners. Some even became Christians in order to avail themselves of the services of the bishop, as a cheap and expeditious arbitrator.{154}
. . . .
Roman law, based on careful consultation with experts, determined the bishop’s judgment.{156}
Quote ID: 4061
Time Periods: 4
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 152
Section: 3A4B
At Jerash in modern Jordan (Gerasa), Bishop Paul built a special prison for those awaiting trial. By so doing, he intervened in a manner characteristic of the age. He facilitated existing forms of criminal practice. Prolonged imprisonment before trial had not been sanctioned by Roman law. Libanius had denounced such imprisonment in 386 as an abuse by which the powerful terrorized the lower classes.{165} In building a prison sometime in the early sixth century, the bishop of Jerash acted “to the advantage of the city.” He institutionalized, by claiming to render more humane, what had begun centuries before as an illegal form of constraint upon the poor and had come to be accepted as normal in his own time.{166}Pastor John’s Notes: John has notes written on very last page of the book.
Quote ID: 4090
Time Periods: 456
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 84
Section: 2A,3A4B
They were Christians, but they had not ceased to be aristocrats. They still needed to celebrate their power. To do this they drew upon ceremonies, art-forms, and literary styles which reached back into the non-Christian past.
Quote ID: 6705
Time Periods: 45
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 105
Section: 3A3B,3A4B
It was to the great properties under direct papal administration that Rome looked for sustenance.The estates were divided into units called ’patrimonies’ and were administered overall by a Roman cleric, normally a subdeacon called the ’rector’.
Quote ID: 4315
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 106
Section: 3A3B,3A4B
The central administration of the papacy was also tightened. The notaries were formed into a college under a primicerius (the chief clerk or chancellor) and a deputy (the secundicerius), and officials were appointed, as the treasurer and the accountant. All were, nominally at least, to be clergy; laymen appointed were to be tonsured and formally enrolled among the clergy. All were directly under the pope’s vigilance.The purposes behind this vast organization were the maintenance of Rome, the provision of funds for charity, and the payment of subsidies to imperial troops and peace-offerings to the Lombards.
Quote ID: 4316
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 114
Section: 3A4B
The seven deacons, each in charge of one of the seven regions into which Rome had been ecclesiastically divided. . .
Quote ID: 4326
Time Periods: ?
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 225
Section: 3A4B,3A4C
’So we decree under sanction of anathema that no layman or person of any other status shall presume to attend a papal election in arms; but the election shall be in the hands of the known priests and leaders of the Church and of all the clergy. And when the election is made and the elect conducted to the patriarchal palace, the leaders of the militia and the whole army, the leading citizens and the whole population of this city of Rome shall go to greet him as their Lord.
Quote ID: 4379
Time Periods: 7
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 228
Section: 3A4B,3A4C
Petrarch’s friend, Cola di Rienzo, saw himself as the man chosen by God to resurrect the ancient past. He claimed to be the divine agent of the renovatio, that mysterious regeneration of the earth which would bring about eternal peace under a single emperor – himself. On the fifth day of Lent in 1347, he hung from the architrave of the church of San Giorgio in Velabro a banner reading: In breve tempore Romani Torneranno al loro antico buon stato. “Soon the Romans will return to their ancient state of glory.” It seemed at first a harmless gesture, but it was to have astonishing consequences. All Rome cherished the thought of a revival of her long-lost glory: all Rome was prepared to follow in the footsteps of this son of an innkeeper and a washerwoman who proclaimed himself Tribunus Augustus and for a few months led the Romans in a frenzied effort to recapture their vanished greatness.....
The triumph took place on the first day of August, 1347. The roads between the Capitol and the Lateran were strewn with roses.
....
Already he believed himself to be the successor of Augustus, and in a loud voice he summoned kings and emperors to present themselves before the judgment seat. In particular he summoned Pope Clement VI, then in Avignon, and Electors of Germany to appear before him “to inform us on what pretext they have usurped the inalienable right of the Roman People, the ancient and lawful sovereigns of the empire”.
....
He had a deep feeling for ancient Rome and for the Roman people, who were suffering under the exactions of their rulers, the noble families of Colonna, Orsini and Savelli. His brother had been killed in a street-brawl, and the murderer was allowed to go unpunished. Cola di Rienzo therefore represented to an extraordinary degree the fierce resentments of the Romans against their rulers and against the weight of history. But resentment was turning in fantasy and then to madness.
....
Having raised an army to defend the Republic, he required money to pay his soldiers: the Romans refused to pay the taxes he imposed on them, marched to the Capitol and arrested him. At first they did not know what to do with the man who had so often addressed them brilliantly, encouraging them in their fight for freedom. They spent an hour thronging around him and gazing at him, hoping he would speak, hoping he would once more employ his eloquence to save his own life. But he was tongue-tied, gripped by fear, very pale, his face bloated, and after an hour someone struck a knife in his heart.
On the Capitoline hill, in the place where for centuries the blood of the sacred white ox had fallen, Augustus Caesar was himself being sacrificed.
Quote ID: 4449
Time Periods: 7
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