Section: 4B - Cultural life.
Number of quotes: 1436
1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West
Roger Crowley
Book ID: 2 Page: 251
Section: 1A,4B
Visitors had been emitting exactly the same gasps of astonishment since Constantine the Great founded the second Rome and the second Jerusalem in the fourth century. “It seems to me,” wrote the Frenchman Pierre Gilles in the sixteenth century, “that while other cities are mortal, this one will remain as long as there are men on earth.”
Quote ID: 14
Time Periods: 17
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: 30
Section: 4B
The old Roman law echoed Plato’s voice, forbidding the worship of “new or foreign gods, unless they have been officially accepted” (Cicero, De Legibus, II, 8).
Quote ID: 35
Time Periods: 01
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 37
Section: 3C,4B
Constantius did not hesitate to call upon the services of eminent pagans, orators in particular. In 341, at the inauguration of the “great church” that Constantius had built in Antioch, a pagan sophist, Bemarchius, delivered the official speech in praise of the edifice. We know this from his colleague and rival Libanius, who reproached him for it. Libanius’ irritation was provoked more by professional rivalry than religious scruples. At the beginning of his stay in Constantinople, he himself had offered a panegyric to Constantius, who greatly appreciated it.
Quote ID: 40
Time Periods: 4
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 38/39
Section: 3C,4B
In 357, during his visit to Rome, Constantius had the altar of Victory removed from the Senate.{2} The altar was erected in front of a statue of the goddess commemoration the victory of Constantine over Maxentius; that remained in place.
Quote ID: 41
Time Periods: 4
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 57
Section: 3C,4B
Gratian surpassed his predecessor by eliminating the pensions paid by the imperial treasury to pagan priests, and by refusing to fill vacant positions in the sacerdotal colleges. When a deputation of senators came to ask him to rescind those measures and to remind him that officially he was the chief of the State cults---probably around the beginning of 383---he refused to receive them and with great ostentation dropped the title of pontifex maximus. These gestures marked a “separation between paganism and the State.”{1}
Quote ID: 42
Time Periods: 4
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 118
Section: 4B
The last pagans we can see clearly are to be found mainly among intellectuals, historians, philosophers, and poets.
Quote ID: 56
Time Periods: 67
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 127
Section: 4B
Macrobius offers a clearer voice. He probably wrote his Saturnalia shortly after 431, if not between 425 and 428, at any rate later than has been thought.{21}the work contains elements of solar theology, presented in a long speech that the author places in the mouth of a venerable champion of paganism, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, who had died some fifty years earlier (in 384). “It could scarcely have occurred to Macrobius’ Christian readers (by the 430s there would have been few pagan readers left) that there was anything anti-Christian about them,” says Alan Cameron.{22} But did Macrobius have the option to enter into a polemic if he wished his book to escape the fate accorded Porphyry’s treatise Against Christians---the pyre?
It is hard to see what interest Praetextatus’ speech could have had unless it were seen from a pagan religious view-point.
Quote ID: 61
Time Periods: 5
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 128
Section: 4B
The best symbol of the transfer of a heritage that was both Greek and pagan to Latin-speaking Christians, and through them to new nations, is perhaps that found in the figure of the bishop of Clermont, Sidonius Apollinaris, who was born around 430 and died between 480 and 490. Sidonius, an admirer of Neoplatonist philosophy, revised the Latin translation of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana made a century before by the pagan aristocrat Nicomachus Flavianus, who committed suicide after Eugenius’ defeat.{26} This was a work much appreciated by Jerome and Augustine, who did not regard it as hostile to Christianity.
Quote ID: 62
Time Periods: 5
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 129
Section: 2C,4B
In the West, a century after the definitive interdict decreed by Theodosius I and nearly a generation after the collapse of imperial power in that half of his domain, paganism, finally deserving the explanation often given today for its name, was of concern only to peasants.
Quote ID: 63
Time Periods: 5
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 129/130
Section: 4B
This same attitude, which was seen in connection with the statues of Menouthis, was adopted by Gregory of Tours toward the Gallic countryside.{29} Paganism was no longer worth refuting, nor even inquiring into, and for the first time a bishop referred to it “as a constituted religion.”{30}At the very end of the sixth century a series of letters by Pope Gregory the Great show him trying to convert the Barbaricini of Sardinia. Only their duke, Hospito, was a Christian. Later, Gregory discovered that the pagan peasants of that island paid the governor to be allowed to sacrifice with impunity.
Quote ID: 64
Time Periods: 6
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 131
Section: 4B
Amid the violent upheavals shaking the West, the paganism of intellectuals was doomed to extinction once intellectual circles became identified with clerical ones.
Quote ID: 65
Time Periods: 56
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 25/26
Section: 3A4,3C,4B
Constantine’s generosity brought its own problems, however. In North Africa the emperor found rival Christian claims for his favors.….
In Constantine’s world, however, differences of this kind were affected by a potent new factor – the prospect of imperial patronage for those who could persuade the civil authorities that theirs was the true position. For centuries Christians had appealed to emperors, but never before had the prospects of success involved the political rewards that were now at stake.
Quote ID: 134
Time Periods: 4
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 46
Section: 3C,4B
STOPPED HERE GOING THROUGH CONSTANTINE 7/25/23In the world after Constantine, the manner in which these questions were dealt with could no longer take the forms that might have been assumed in previous ages. A new age of high-profile theological politics had begun.
Quote ID: 150
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 12
Section: 4B
In 363, the court orator, Themistius, had delivered a panegyric, or hymn of praise, in honour of Jovian, the emperor whose campaign against the Persians was to end in such humiliation. Despite the disastrous reality of Jovian’s reign, the traditions of the panegyric required the adulation of the emperor as if he was divine.….
Themistius proved to be a remarkable survivor, especially as he was a pagan in an increasingly Christianised empire. Eighteen years later he was still on hand in Theodosius’ court to offer a new panegyric, which again stressed the divine imagery that surrounded the emperor.
Quote ID: 173
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 40
Section: 4B
Until the Edict of Toleration, the early Christian communities had been isolated and largely confined to the Greek-speaking cities of the empire. Evan as late as AD 300, Christians made up only a tiny minority, 2 per cent at best, of the Latin-speaking west.
Quote ID: 177
Time Periods: 23
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 57
Section: 3C,4B
Constantine was trying to mould a Church of his own making and in doing so he had broken with much of Christian tradition. He bequeathed lasting tensions to the Church in the form of debates over the correct use of wealth (how much, for instance, should be diverted into showcase buildings), the relationship of Christians to war and imperial authority, and the nature of the Godhead itself.
Quote ID: 191
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: xii
Section: 4B
I began realizing the extent to which the Church had benefited from but had also been shaped by the patronage of the state.
Quote ID: 168
Time Periods: 4
Aelius Aristides, Orations, LCL 533: Aelius Aristides I
Edited by Michael Trapp
Book ID: 402 Page: 277
Section: 4B
…now it is quite simply the entire human race and all nations that you sustain with the fairest of all benefactions, since as leaders in culture and all forms of learning you purify all men in all lands.JDC Note - I think this is Athens, not Rome.
Quote ID: 8515
Time Periods: 1
Aelius Aristides, Orations, LCL 533: Aelius Aristides I
Edited by Michael Trapp
Book ID: 402 Page: 319
Section: 4B
Or in the practice of oratory and other forms of learning? But to this day everyone flocks here…. JDC Note - Again, Athens.
Quote ID: 8518
Time Periods: 2
Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with Introduction,Commentary, Glossary and Index
Allen Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, Frank Card Bourne
Book ID: 15 Page: 112
Section: 4B
Document 129. LETTER OF OCTAVIAN ON JEWISH RIGHTS,ca. 35 B.C.
….
Caesar to Norbanus Flaccus, greetings.
The Jews, how many so ever they are, who according to ancient usage have been wont to offer and to send sacred monies to Jerusalem shall do this without hindrance.
Quote ID: 249
Time Periods: 01
Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with Introduction,Commentary, Glossary and Index
Allen Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, Frank Card Bourne
Book ID: 15 Page: 113
Section: 4B
Document 134. LETTER OF NORBANUS ON JEWISH RIGHTS,ca. 30 B.C.
….
The proconsul Gaius Norbanus Flaccus to the magistrates of the Ephesians, greetings.
Caesar has written to me that the Jews, wherever they may be, are accustomed, after they have assembled themselves by their own ancient custom, to contribute monies, which they send to Jerusalem. It is his will that these persons shall not be hindered from doing this.
Quote ID: 250
Time Periods: 0
Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with Introduction,Commentary, Glossary and Index
Allen Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, Frank Card Bourne
Book ID: 15 Page: 213
Section: 4B
Document 257. EDICT OF A MAGISTATE ON THE EPHESIAN BAKER’S GUILD, 150|200 A.D.….
I, therefore order the bakers not to indulge in meetings (2) and their leaders not to undertake audacious actions…
….
But if anyone of them hereafter is apprehended either attending a meeting contrary to orders or taking the lead in any tumult or sedition he shall be summoned and punished with the appropriate penalty.
….
(2) The magistrate is here following the same policy that Trajan directed Pliny to use in Bithynia, that is to forbid gatherings of artisans or of other persons who had common interests (betaeriae), since these frequently led to disorder (Pliny, Ep. 10, 34, 1 and 10, 96, 7).
CLUB clubs
Quote ID: 253
Time Periods: 2
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 54
Section: 4B
To preserve the peace and to draw favor from the gods was the duty of every Roman. It was one of his many obligations, like fighting for his country, paying taxes, and raising a family . . .
Quote ID: 270
Time Periods: 04
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 55
Section: 4B
The word religion comes from religare, “to bind”. Basically Roman religion was a contract between men and divinities, who offered service in exchange for gifts given. It provided favors and accommodation, but little in the way of what we would call a moral code. It filled the people’s lives more with holidays than with meaning, and in time it was doubted or rejected by intelligent men. The very oaths uttered to the gods were composed in legalistic language. Do ut des (“I give so that you may give”) was one of the principles of worship, though it was not the only one.
Quote ID: 271
Time Periods: 01234
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 181
Section: 4B
For some two hundred years following the accession of Augustus, the Mediterranean world was virtually at peace. War, when it was waged at all, was confined almost entirely to frontier areas. Never in human history had there been so long a span of general tranquility, and never again was peace to be maintained so steadily among so many people.Throughout much of the empire, men lived out their lives in quiet contentment, safe from marauding armies, going about their affairs in the knowledge that they were sheltered by Rome, a stern but generous master that demanded unyielding obedience to its laws, at the same time granting to each community the right to adapt those laws to local circumstances.
Quote ID: 284
Time Periods: 012
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 182
Section: 4B
There were times when Romans appeared to be awed by the scope of their success. Pliny the Elder speaks of the immense majesty of the Roman peace (immensa Romanae pacis maiestas) as though he could scarcely bring himself to believe that so great a thing had been accomplished.The legions that had imposed Roman rule were not, of course, gone or forgotten. Few Roman subjects dared to break the peace for fear of punishment almost too severe to contemplate. Those who did revolt - such as the hapless nationalists of Judaea - served as a terrifying example for any others who might be so inclined. Rebels could hope for no outside help, for as yet there existed no military power that could seriously challenge that of Rome.
PJ Note: Most of 2nd paragraph only has been used. None of 1st para.
Quote ID: 285
Time Periods: 12
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 182
Section: 4B
. . . the very immensity of the empire ensured that it could not all come apart at once. To the mass of Romans the occasional murders in the imperial palace, the sporadic uprisings in Britain, Gaul, or Africa, the revolts of the Jews were little more than ripples on the surface of a peaceful lake.
Quote ID: 286
Time Periods: 3
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 188
Section: 4B
The penetrating power of Roman civilization in any given province - the degree to which the Romans succeeded in stamping their own political and social brand upon a subject people - was largely determined by the characteristics of the society that they conquered. The essential differences between the western and eastern provinces were so marked that it seems that there were two empires long before any formal division into eastern and western branches took place.Latin was the lingua franca in all European lands that were situated to the west of the Illyrian shore of the Adriatic and in that part of Africa that extended westward from Cyrenaica.
East of this line Latin never replaced Greek.
Quote ID: 288
Time Periods: 0147
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 197
Section: 4B
The threat of war and the tumult of political upheaval were largely absent; Romans could now expect to die in their beds. To them the empire seemed secure. There were in fact many pressing problems; among the most important were the growing restlessness of the people and the absence of a common faith, a common purpose. Oriental religions were proliferating on Roman soil. New and startling divinities were being worshiped. For many Romans, apparently, the joy had gone out of life, and the long peace had become unendurable without the consolation of religion.
Quote ID: 290
Time Periods: 134
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 212
Section: 4B
The Greeks, though relishing the sight of human combat, had expressly forbidden games involving weapons, and they long refrained from building any amphitheatres in which spectacles of man against beast were to be presented. But the Romans, deriving their interest in bloody exhibitions from Etruscan funeral games, enjoyed the fight to the death.**Read with note from p. xiii**
Thus Augustus recorded that during his reign he had given the people twenty-seven gladiatorial shows in which 10,000 fighters appeared. He also gave them twenty-six spectacles of African animals in which about 3,500 beasts were killed. Whereas 320 pairs of public duelists had fought to the death during the aedileship of Julius Caesar, no less than 5,000 pairs were put in the ring during a festival celebrating a triumph of the emperor Trajan.
Quote ID: 294
Time Periods: 01
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 216
Section: 3B,4B
In his famous edict of A.D. 212 Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all free persons living within the empire. But the measure, although seemingly magnanimous, was actually demagogic and, in its way, oppressive. Once everyone was a citizen, the hitherto cherished concept of Roman citizenship, with its rights and rewards for people of Roman or Italian birth, lost its meaning and became a mere word. As the historian Michael Rostovtzeff has remarked, Caracalla’s chief purpose “was not so much to raise the lower classes, as to degrade the upper.” Moreover, admission to citizenship involved the assumption of heavy taxes by all concerned. In the preamble to the law Caracalla himself remarked that the gods would look with favor on the grateful offerings by the new citizens. Certainly he himself looked with favor on this new scheme of extortion . . .
Quote ID: 295
Time Periods: 3
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 227
Section: 3B2,4B
But even before this liberal trend in private and official attitudes had made itself felt, the increasing influence of the slaves had introduced a disturbing element into the larger society of free Roman citizens.Read with note from p. 227-228
Pliny the Elder quote is from HN 24.5
Quote ID: 303
Time Periods: 3
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 236
Section: 4B
Probus - “Soon perhaps”, he said, “the barbarians will be driven back and there will be no need for an army. There will be no more requisitions in the provinces, no demands for compulsory payments, and the Roman people will possess unfailing revenues. There will be no camps, no sound of trumpets, no fashioning or armaments, and the people will be free to follow the plow and do their own work, learn their own crafts, and sail the seas.”There were few emperors who dreamed of so idyllic a future, but there is little doubt that he was reflecting the common hopes and longings of many of his people. The idea of universal peace, which had haunted the Romans since the days of Numa, was revived during the last years of the third century, becoming all the more appealing the more distant it seemed to be.
Quote ID: 310
Time Periods: 3
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 257
Section: 2E3,4B
Tertullian, in the second century, had believed that Rome would last as long as the world, enduring until the Day of judgment. A special sanctity was attached to the inviolate city. But Alaric had proved that it was a city like any other, only too vulnerable. In far-off Bethlehem, Saint Jerome lamented: “The entire human race is implicated in the catastrophe. My voice is choked, and my words are broken with sobs while I write: The city now is taken that once held the world.”
Quote ID: 325
Time Periods: 245
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 260
Section: 1A,4B
After Odoacer [PJ: 433–493], invading chieftains fought for power and looted and burned the city; Italy began to split into its many principalities, which were not to be reunited until the nineteenth century. But the civilizing mission of Rome did continue through the agency of the Church - especially through the monasteries, which grew in usefulness and importance during the years of the barbaric invasions when men turned in relief from war to contemplation. These monasteries preserved the manuscripts of ancient Rome and Greece, many of which have come down to us only because the monks copied them.What caused this breakdown of Roman power - a power that had held the world in thrall for centuries? It is tempting to search for an answer, but of course no one really knows. The great eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon claimed that one of the reasons was that Christianity had sapped the vigor of the Roman people.
Quote ID: 327
Time Periods: 135
Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii A Day
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 17 Page: 76
Section: 4B
Rome has no law against blasphemy – the gods are expected to handle matters personally.
Quote ID: 348
Time Periods: 0147
Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii A Day
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 17 Page: 79
Section: 4B
There is also a lesser punishment, infamia, which is a public record that a citizen is such a generally bad lot that, though permitted to remain in Rome, the right to vote, take on debts, or speak in a public assembly is withdrawn.
Quote ID: 349
Time Periods: 013
Ancient Rome: In The Light Of Recent Discoveries (1888)
Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani
Book ID: 18 Page: 265/266
Section: 4B
The old Roman aristocracy was educated under the same principles as the English aristocracy is at the present time. Latin gentlemen of the republic and of the empire, as English gentlemen of nowadays, were not brought up in laziness and inactivity, but served their country with their intelligence and their strength, fighting gallantly in their youth against the foes of the commonwealth, and sharing the cares of government in their mature age.….
How like the Roman aristocracy of the present day!
Quote ID: 355
Time Periods: 01
Ancilla To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels
Kathleen Freeman
Book ID: 19 Page: 24
Section: 4B
22. HERACLEITUS OF EPHESUS – HERACLEITUS of EPHESUS was in his prime about 500 B.C. He wrote one book, covering all knowledge, metaphysical, scientific and political, in an oracular style.PJ: Fame
Quote ID: 361
Time Periods: 0
Ancilla To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels
Kathleen Freeman
Book ID: 19 Page: 26
Section: 4B
29. The best men choose one thing rather than all else: everlasting fame among mortal men.{2} The majority are satisfied, like well-fed cattle.PJ: Fame
Quote ID: 362
Time Periods: 01347
Ancilla To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels
Kathleen Freeman
Book ID: 19 Page: 127
Section: 4B
82. GORGIAS OF LEONTINI – GORGIAS of LEONTINI: latter half of fifth century B.C.
Quote ID: 366
Time Periods: 0
Ancilla To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels
Kathleen Freeman
Book ID: 19 Page: 133
Section: 4B,1A
(14) The power of speech over the constitution of the soul can be compared with the effect of drugs on the bodily state: just as drugs by driving out different humours from the body can put an end either to the disease or to life, so with speech: ...….
…drugs can drug and bewitch the soul.
Quote ID: 9190
Time Periods: 047
Ancilla To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels
Kathleen Freeman
Book ID: 19 Page: 138
Section: 4B
20. Cimon acquired money in order to use it, and used it to acquire honour.PJ: Fame
Quote ID: 367
Time Periods: 0
Aneirin: Y Gododdin
A. O. H. Jarman
Book ID: 288 Page: 0
Section: 4B
IntroductionGeneral
Y Gododdin is a poem of 1257 lines arranged in a hundred and three stanzas. In form it is an elegy, or a series of elegies, for individual members and sometimes groups of members of the tribe of Gododdin who fell at the battle of Catraeth, which is conjecturally dated c. 600
Quote ID: 7378
Time Periods: 67
Aneirin: Y Gododdin
A. O. H. Jarman
Book ID: 288 Page: 0
Section: 4B
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCESA close translation is given by K. H. Jackson in the The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish Poem (Edinburgh, 1969; reprinted by Edinburgh Paperbacks, 1978).
Quote ID: 7382
Time Periods: 67
Aneirin: Y Gododdin
A. O. H. Jarman
Book ID: 288 Page: lviii
Section: 4B
IntroductionLiterary Characteristics
We have seen how Aneirin’s contemporary Venantius Fortunatus, a bishop of the Gaulish church, was able to offer the father of two fallen warriors the non-Christian consolation that ‘to die for the sake of praise will be to live for ever’.
Pastor John’s note: Right!!
Quote ID: 7381
Time Periods: 67
Aneirin: Y Gododdin
A. O. H. Jarman
Book ID: 288 Page: xxxvii
Section: 4B
IntroductionThe Poem
Quite apart from the group from Gwynedd, many of the members of the war-band are depicted as men of substance, lords, even ‘kings’, in their own localities and their munificence as patrons is emphasized.
Quote ID: 7380
Time Periods: 67
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 2
Section: 2E6,4B
The next critical point comes about 180 C.E. A Christian faith with a suspended view of culture began to be visible as a new culture. It began to produce symbols and language that could be designated Christian. This is not to say there was no Christian culture prior to 180 C.E. It is only to say that the nascent Christian culture either was not yet distinguishable from society in general, or the first Christians lacked sufficient self identity to establish or itself symbols, language, art and architecture. From the beginning there had to have been social practices peculiar to the life of the first Christians.
Quote ID: 444
Time Periods: 2
Apology of Aristides on Behalf of the Christians: From a Syriac Ms. Preserved on Mount Sinai, The
Aristides Translated by J. Rendel Harris
Book ID: 423 Page: 36
Section: 4B
This is plain to you, O king, that there are four races of men in this world; Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians.
Quote ID: 8632
Time Periods: 2
Apostasy that Wasn’t, The: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church
Rod Bennett
Book ID: 561 Page: 51
Section: 2B,4B
Elsewhere, earnest philosophers were making rudimentary attempts to create a new Roman monotheism from the ground up. Sol Invictus—the Unconquered Sun, upon which all life on earth does, in fact, depend—was being put forward as the closest thing available to a living, all-powerful deity.
Quote ID: 9236
Time Periods: 012
Aristides, Panathenaic Oration, LCL 458
Translated by C. A. Behr, 1973
Book ID: 353 Page: 237/239
Section: 1A,4B
The present empire of both land and sea ͨ--and may it be immortal—is not unwilling to adorn Athens as a teacher and foster-father, but so great are its honours that now the only difference in the city’s condition is that it does not engage in serious affairs.
Quote ID: 8129
Time Periods: 1
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 438
Section: 4B
. . . in Rome herself, finally, the mistress of the world. . .
PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, II.12.
Quote ID: 9465
Time Periods: 34
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 461
Section: 4B
But your religion precedes ours by many years, and is therefore, you say, truer, because it has been supported by the authority of antiquity. And of what avail is it that it should precede ours as many years as you please, since it began at a certain time? or what {10} are two thousand years, compared with so many thousands of ages?
PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, II.72.
Quote ID: 9469
Time Periods: 34
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 512
Section: 4B
Book VI
13. That well-known and {4} most distinguished statuary, Phidias, when he had raised the form of Olympian Jupiter with immense labour and exertion, inscribed on the finger of the god PANTARCES is BEAUTIFUL,—this, moreover, was the name of a boy loved by him, and that with lewd desire,—and was not moved by any fear or religious dread to call the god by the name of a prostitute; nay, rather, to consecrate the divinity and image of Jupiter to a debauchee. . . . when we see that the artists themselves find amusement in fashioning them, and set them up as monuments of their own lusts!
PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, VI.13.
Quote ID: 9479
Time Periods: 034
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 518
Section: 4B
For with respect to this you have been in the habit of exciting against us the most violent ill-will, of calling us atheists, and inflicting upon us the punishment of death, even by savagely tearing us to pieces with wild beasts, on the ground that we pay very little respect to the gods; which, indeed, we admit that we do, not from contempt or scorn of the divine, but because we think that such powers require nothing of the kind, and are not possessed by desires for such things.
PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, VII.1.
Quote ID: 9481
Time Periods: 34
Augustine, NPNF1 Vol. 2, St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 653 Page: 1
Section: 4B
…we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.PJ book footnote reference: Augustine, The City of God, I, preface.
Quote ID: 9426
Time Periods: ?
Augustus Caesar
E.S. Shuckburgh
Book ID: 33 Page: 223
Section: 3B,4B
The sixth ode of the first book (written about B.C. 25) joins to the necessity of a restoration of the temples and a return to religion a warning as to the relaxation of morals, tracing the progress in vice of the young girl and wife, with the shameful connivance of the interested husband, and exclaims: “Not from such parents as these sprang the youth that dyed the sea with Punic blood, and brake the might of Pyrrhus and great Antiochus and Hannibal, scourge of God.” Again in the twenty-fourth ode of the same book, also written about B.C. 25, he warmly urges a return to the old morality, and promises immortality to the statesman who shall secure it: “If there be one who would stay unnatural bloodshed and civic fury, if there be one who seeks to have inscribed on his statue the title of ‘Father of the Cities,’ let him pluck up heart to curb licentiousness. (The reformation of morals.)
Quote ID: 567
Time Periods: 0
Augustus Caesar
E.S. Shuckburgh
Book ID: 33 Page: 285
Section: 4B
Vergil’s epic is Roman history on the highest plane, and has crystallised for ever a view of that history which has done more than arms and laws to commend it to the imagination of mankind.
Quote ID: 576
Time Periods: 01
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 11
Section: 4B
....in 28 B.C. there were 4,063,000 Roman citizens; twenty years later there were 4,233,000; in A.D. 14 there were 4,937,000.{2} It is hard to make an estimate of the total population of the empire, including slaves, but apparently about 70 million is a reasonable figure for the time of Augustus.[Footnote 2] Res gestae 8 (pp. 18-21 Vokmann).
Quote ID: 585
Time Periods: 01
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 15
Section: 4B
Religion was essentially public, not private; it was supported and regulated by the state.
Quote ID: 586
Time Periods: 4
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 81
Section: 4B
The torture of two slaves whom the Christians apparently called “deaconesses” added evidence of nothing but “a crude and exaggerated superstition”.
Quote ID: 596
Time Periods: 01
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 92
Section: 4B
Tatian believed that he had rejected nearly every aspect of Graeco-Roman culture when he turned to Christian “barbarism”. . .(#4)
Quote ID: 607
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 93
Section: 4B
It appears that the idea of a Christian empire was being promoted rather openly at this point.PJ note: The struggle had begun. Rome was being lured into the church’s bedchamber. She was taking off her linen garments for the beast’s pleasure, and the jilted pagan lovers of the beast were beginning to resist the empire’s attraction to the young virgin of Christ.
Quote ID: 608
Time Periods: 34
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 133
Section: 4B,2D3A
we may proceed to see in Montanism a reaction against any attempt to correlate Christianity with the life of the Graeco-Roman world.The anonymous author to whom we have referred ascribes Montanism to a recently baptized Christian named Montanus, who at the village of Ardabau on the Mysian-Phrygian border began to go into trances and “utter strange sounds.”
COPIED
Quote ID: 625
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 163
Section: 4B
By the beginning of the third century the Christian movement had practically completed its most crucial development or metamorphosis.
Quote ID: 640
Time Periods: 3
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 177
Section: 4B
No extant evidence suggests that any church writers really understood the social or the economic situation of the third century.. . . the middle class, from which Christian leaders were generally recruited, was engaged in a struggle for economic survival.
Quote ID: 647
Time Periods: 3
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 220
Section: 4A,4B
All these examples illustrate the close correlation of third-century Christianity with the philosophical and governmental world of the time.At the end of the third century, Christians had spread geographically, but were also steadily climbing upwards on the Graeco-Roman social ladder.
Quote ID: 650
Time Periods: 3
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 310
Section: 4B
If the fourth century marks the end of the history of the early church, it must be noted that in this respect the end was like the beginning.
Quote ID: 668
Time Periods: 4
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: xiii
Section: 4B
In spite of our concern for papyri and inscriptions, most of the evidence is both literary and highly selective. The literary character of most of it means that we are dealing with the works of the more highly educated Christians, not with “average” or “medium” examples. In some measure the ideas of the others can be recovered by reading between the lines of what the literate theologians wrote. We are always in danger, however, of ascribing undue importance to the literary evidence.
Quote ID: 580
Time Periods: 123
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: xiii
Section: 4B
One must wonder to what extent documents which came to be viewed as heretical or outmoded were allowed to perish.
Quote ID: 582
Time Periods: 123
Ausonius, LCL 115: Ausonius I, Books 1-17
Several
Book ID: 133 Page: 29
Section: 3C,3D,4B
Book II The Daily Round or the Doings of a Whole DayParagraph VIII Line 22
They say the heavenly bard {1}
. . . .
{1} sc. Virgil (Aen. vi. 282 ff.)
Quote ID: 2931
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 18
Section: 4B
Leading members of Augustine’s congregation at Hippo opined that rites performed for so long according to the ancient libri pontificales must have enjoyed the favour of God, and that it was only modern, secretive magic that should be condemned.
Quote ID: 684
Time Periods: 45
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 18
Section: 4B
Christians who thought like this did not feel polluted in the eyes of God that pagan rites continued to exist. It was sufficient that they themselves should remain clean. This attitude was summed up in the ruling of the pre-Constantinian Council of Elvira: landowners who feared the violence of their slaves would not be held guilty for having failed to forbid sacrifices on their estates; it was enough that they should not participate in them.42
Quote ID: 685
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 20
Section: 4B
Churches set up on estates, gifts to the local clergy, the support of local zealots in the destruction of shrines, such as that enjoyed by Saint Martin in Gaul from landowning families, ensured a more prominent role for Christian lay persons as filii ecclesiae, loyal and visible ‘sons of the church’ in their own city and region. These gestures brought a Christianised lay elite appreciably closer to the distant basis of their wealth at a time of growing uncertainty, when safety lay, in fact, in being on the spot, and active,…
Quote ID: 688
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 31
Section: 4B
With his habitual clarity, Paschoud sums up the situation for fourth-century pagans. They were as inflexible in their expectations as were the Christians.7
Quote ID: 690
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 36/37
Section: 4A,4B
Yet one only had to look at a professional philosopher such as Themistius to know that he was not for real. Themistius was a past-master at the art of ostentatiously rejecting the marks of power. When dining with the emperors, he was always careful to wear his philosopher’s dark tribonion. He even eschewed an official salary.19 But it was impossible not to notice that Themistius usually made his appearance when the emperor was intending to back down from a course of action that had proved unfeasible or unpopular.
Quote ID: 693
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 37/38
Section: 4A,4B
The philosopher moved in a basically conformist upper-class world. I do not mean conformist only in the pejorative sense. In the Roman empire, young men of the upper classes were socialised, from childhood up, to reverence ancestral custom, to value solidarity, and to appreciate and use power. To his peers, the philosopher was an invaluable safety-valve. He was a licensed maverick in an otherwise deadly serious class of persons.
Quote ID: 695
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 44/45
Section: 4B
If authority was to work without overt violence, it had to seem ‘natural’; it had to relay commands with quiet certainty from a position of unchallenged superiority to persons whose inferiority, also, was to be taken for granted. As a result of the religious changes of the age, the social hierarchy became even more high pitched. Peasants, and increasingly pagani, pagans treated as no better than countryfolk, were consistently presented as passive and congenitally simple minded, so that they could be expected to follow the gentle, because orderly, lead of their natural superiors in the true faith.
Quote ID: 701
Time Periods: 045
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 47
Section: 3C,4B
As far as the formation of the new governing class of the post-Constantinian empire was concerned, the fourth century was very definitely not a century overshadowed by ‘The Conflict of Paganism and Christianity’. Nothing, indeed, would have been more distressing to a member of the late Roman upper classes than the suggestion that ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ were designations of overriding importance in their style of life and in their choice of friends and allies.
Quote ID: 703
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 69
Section: 2B2,4B
Potentially exclusive explanatory systems coexisted in their minds. The host of the monk, Peter the Iberian [c. 417-491], an eminent Egyptian, was a good Christian; but he was also ‘caught in the error of pagan philosophers, whose ideas he loved greatly’.28
Quote ID: 718
Time Periods: 4
Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
Peter Brown
Book ID: 35 Page: 69
Section: 2B2,4B
A notable of Alexandria went to the healing shrine of Saints Cyrus and John, to receive a cure from their hands. But he claimed to have done so ‘in order that his horoscope should be fulfilled’.29
Quote ID: 719
Time Periods: 4
Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568
Guy Halsall
Book ID: 36 Page: 78
Section: 4B
As Averil Cameron has stated, ‘the fourth century witnessed the transformation of the old “orders”, still closely linked to birth and wealth, into a service aristocracy, in which rank depended on office... {49}
Quote ID: 734
Time Periods: 4
Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568
Guy Halsall
Book ID: 36 Page: 100
Section: 3C,4B
The key to Christianity’s dramatic spread was the importance of imperial patronage. {126} As we have seen, imperial service was, in various ways, vital in local politics. As Constantine’s success grew it became apparent that to receive his patronage one would need to be Christian. There were, furthermore, dramatic illustrations of Constantine’s favours to converts. Conversion was, thus, drawn down through Roman society along the arteries of patronage.
Quote ID: 737
Time Periods: 4
Barbarians Speak, The
Peter S. Wells
Book ID: 198 Page: 18
Section: 4B
The Roman Empire was one of the world’s greatest unifying forces, linking peoples militarily, politically, economically, and culturally, from northern Britain and the Straits of Gibralter in the west, to the upper Euphrates and southern Egypt in the east. Rome’s trade connections reached even further afield-north to Finland, south to sub-Saharan Africa, and east to India. The empire’s effects are apparent in the languages, customs, and legal systems in many European countries today and in other parts of the world where Europeans have settled or where indigenous peoples have borrowed ideas from ancient or modern Europe.
Quote ID: 4477
Time Periods: 147
Barbarians Speak, The
Peter S. Wells
Book ID: 198 Page: 20
Section: 4B
No other empire plays such a powerful role in our imaginations, and our ideas about the Roman Empire form a major component of what we think we know about “the past.”
Quote ID: 4478
Time Periods: 147
Barbarians Speak, The
Peter S. Wells
Book ID: 198 Page: 172
Section: 4B
Recent studies have argued that much of the public building in the new towns was sponsored not by the Roman state or the provincial government, but by members of the indigenous elite groups, as a way of demonstrating their wealth and power on the one hand, and their links with the cosmopolitan Roman fashions on the other.
Quote ID: 4481
Time Periods: 147
Barbarians Speak, The
Peter S. Wells
Book ID: 198 Page: 189
Section: 4B
This chapter focuses on the ways in which the peoples of Roman-occupied temperate Europe constructed their lives, their communities, and their identities in terms of the wide variety of choices and challenges with which they were faced during this dynamic time. The Roman Empire of which these groups were part was cosmopolitan and multiethnic on a large scale. There existed no “pure” Roman culture, nor any common “provincial Roman” society, but instead a wide variety of amalgamations of different traditions, constantly shifting over time.
Quote ID: 4483
Time Periods: 147
Barbarians Speak, The
Peter S. Wells
Book ID: 198 Page: 192
Section: 3B1,4B
But it is important to bear in mind that this apparent homogeneity of material expression, lifestyle, and to some extent worldview was restricted to the elites in the different provinces. As indigenous elites acquired status in the imperial aristocracy, they may have come to identify themselves first as members of the Roman nobility, and second as members of their local societies. The transmission of Roman ideology – a particular vision of the world and of how societies should operate – was a powerful force in bringing about change in Europe and throughout the empire.
Quote ID: 4485
Time Periods: 45
Barbarians within the Gates of Rome
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 37 Page: 83
Section: 1A,4B
The destiny of Rome cast so clearly by Vergil at the very dawn of the Empire was broadened and “humanized” in Themistius’ [317–390 - jdc] vision. The haughty would still submit, but now Rome would triumph as a cultural force by virtue of its intellectual powers; its Reason would transform the barbarians into civilized men. The emperor’s task was to create the conditions necessary for Reason’s conquests. Be the emperor Julian, Valens, or Theodosius, Themistius always strove to enlist him in the challenge by praising his personal manifestations of imperial virtue and cajoling him to use the carefully prepared moment to plant the seeds of Reason and Roman culture among the barbarians. In so doing the emperor became not merely the acknowledged leader of a political force, the Empire, but truly the guardian, almost the “tutor”, of Mankind. The barbarians would, of course, accept the abundant wisdom of their own submission to a higher purpose.
Quote ID: 749
Time Periods: 3
Barbarians within the Gates of Rome
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 37 Page: 186
Section: 4B
Early fifth century. . .In 400, charged by an imperial edict. . . This edict goes on to require similar screening among those young men claiming Christian clerical exemption.
Quote ID: 762
Time Periods: 45
Barbarians within the Gates of Rome
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 37 Page: xiii
Section: 3C,4B
Nonetheless there is a line leading from the Roman defeat near Adrianople in 378, through the “non-event” of the Sack of Rome in 410, to the settlement of the Goths and their allies in Aquitaine in 418.
Quote ID: 742
Time Periods: 45
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: 53
Section: 4B
The Roman architects were extraordinary engineers. But somewhere on the long, rutted road from antiquity to the Renaissance, the techniques they devised to erect massive arches and vault vast spaces were forgotten. Even the material that made their feats of engineering possible was lost.
Quote ID: 831
Time Periods: 147
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: 63
Section: 4B
Renaissance artists were traveling salesmen, brushes and chisels for hire, traveling from city-state to city-state, competing for commissions.Pastor John’s note: patron
Quote ID: 832
Time Periods: 7
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: xix
Section: 4B
St. Peter’s consumed the talents—and in some cases the genius—of the greatest artists of the age, among them Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bernini. They built at the command or whim of a pontiff-patron…
Quote ID: 822
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: 45
Section: 4B
At the present time there are in Britain, in harmony with the five books of the divine law, five languages and four nations – English, British, Irish, * and Picts. Each of these have their own language; but all are united in their study of God’s truth by the fifth – Latin – which has become a common medium through the study of the scriptures.
Quote ID: 2158
Time Periods: 7
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 113
Section: 4B
Exactly what freedom meant for these people is unclear; freedom is always relative, and particularly in traditional societies in which dependency is a given, the real issue is the nature of the dependency—political, economic, juridical—rather than whether it existed.
Quote ID: 865
Time Periods: 7
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 113
Section: 4B
Traditionally, slaves in Germanic societies were prisoners of war and individuals who lost their freedom as a result of crimes. However, as Germanic tribes moved into the Empire and established themselves alongside and in the place of Gallo-Roman landlords, they absorbed the tradition of Roman slavery.
Quote ID: 866
Time Periods: 47
Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World
Patrick J. Geary
Book ID: 40 Page: 114
Section: 4B
Thus at both ends of the social spectrum an amalgamation of traditional Gallo-Roman and barbarian societies was under way.
Quote ID: 867
Time Periods: 57
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 23
Section: 3A1,4B
Like bishops, many saints belonged to the upper Romano-barbarian strata of society. The leaders of the new Christian society came from aristocratic families. The aristocracy was educated and it ensured that government fell to the new, Christian, elite.
Quote ID: 4495
Time Periods: 4567
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 24
Section: 2E2,4B
Monastic life deeply influenced European mores. It taught Christian society to organize its use of time. By both day and night, the monks themselves would gather together at regular intervals and at special times (the eight monastic or canonical hours) to recite prayers. From the monks, Christians also learned to pay attention to their regimen.
Quote ID: 4496
Time Periods: 345
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 25
Section: 4B
Christianity’s remodeling of space was no less important than its remodeling of the measurement of time; and in both cases, the changes affected the whole of western Europe. Their organization led to new diocese divisions,
Quote ID: 4499
Time Periods: 67
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 27
Section: 4B
The first, which was of an economic nature, was the above-mentioned ruralization of a world that had been strongly urbanized under the Romans. Roads fell into disrepair, along with workshops, warehouses and irrigation systems, and agriculture declined. It was a technological regression in which the use of stone as a major building material diminished and wood made a comeback.
Quote ID: 4500
Time Periods: 7
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 27
Section: 4B
The monetary economy shrank and bartering took its place. Long-distance trading almost disappeared, except for the indispensable commodities such as salt.
Quote ID: 4502
Time Periods: 7
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Recently, historians have tended somewhat to discount the decline of the towns. But in truth the only one that continued to flourish to any degree were centers where bishops and the occasional barbarian chieftain resided, such as Tours, Reims, Lyon, Toulouse, Seville, Mainz, Milan, and Ravenna.
Quote ID: 4503
Time Periods: 7
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 31
Section: 3A4C,4B
Charlemagne’s most significant victory was won in the southeast. He was fighting against the king of the Lombards, who was a convert to Christianity. But as the latter persisted in harassing the pope’s possessions in Italy, including those in Rome, the pope himself had invited Charlemagne to take action against the Lombards.
Quote ID: 4505
Time Periods: 7
Birth of Europe, The
Jacques Le Goff
Book ID: 199 Page: 35
Section: 3A4C,4B
The domination of a minority of militaristic landlords made Europe a world of warriors. But it was also a world in which the majority of inhabitants were peasants. The social statuses of these peasants varied. There were still slaves, for Christianity had done nothing to improve their lot.
Quote ID: 4509
Time Periods: 7
Bishops, Barbarians, and the Battle for Gaul
Matthew E. Bunson
Book ID: 41 Page: 1
Section: 3A1,4B
In the face of the invasions, the Church in Gaul was confronted with many of the same difficulties as the communities elsewhere in the West, including the disappearance of local Roman authority and the emergence of violent barbarian kingdoms built upon the remains of Gallo-Roman civilization. Of the surviving institutions of Roman imperial society, however, only the Church in Gaul was positioned ideally not merely to endure but to influence those who claimed supremacy over the fallen empire.The history of the Church is filled with periods in which the Church has stood as the last vestige of civilization, of light, and of hope. Gaul in the early fifth century was just such a time.
Quote ID: 897
Time Periods: 5
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
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
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 100
Section: 4B
typical lechery of leaders in Rome.
Quote ID: 998
Time Periods: 0123
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 110
Section: 2A3,4B
the catacombs were not “secret meeting places”. They were very public places, far outside the city walls, no one being able to get to them without being seen by the guards.PJ: Clubs
Quote ID: 1001
Time Periods: 0123
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 161
Section: 4B
“Whereas for the Christian, politics must always be the servant of religion, for the pagan it is the other way around--religion must serve the ends of policy; and that is the fundamental cause of opposition of Christian and pagan polities.”
Quote ID: 1022
Time Periods: 1234
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 20
Section: 4B
This independence is shown most clearly in the Egyptian record known as the report of Wen Ammon. {4} This official was sent in the middle of the eleventh century to try to obtain some cedar wood at Byblos. He was robbed at Dor, nearly killed on Cyprus, and had the greatest difficulty in getting an interview with the king of Byblos.
Quote ID: 1052
Time Periods: 0
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 25
Section: 4B
North Africa was notorious in antiquity for its abundance of wild animals, including many now extinct in the area—elephants, lions, panthers, bears, and hyenas.{15}
Quote ID: 1056
Time Periods: 01
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 156
Section: 3A1,4B
The Romans were now fully embarked upon a policy of prudent generosity, the aim of which was to bind defeated states to them by liberal treatment.{2} On the one hand the manpower at their disposal would increase with every settlement of this kind, while on the other there would be no need to disperse their strength in maintaining garrisons amongst embittered and vengeful subjects. It is true that in earlier days Rome had sometimes annihilated a defeated state completely in order to satisfy the land-hunger of an increasing population of active peasants, and in future times policy or greed led on occasion to similar acts of ruthlessness, but in general the more sensible policy prevailed in Italy.[Footnote 2] See especially A.N. Sherwin White, The Roman Citizenship, 1939.
Quote ID: 1075
Time Periods: 012
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 166
Section: 4B
It is to be noted that the Romans sought to show that all their wars had been undertaken with proper justification in defence of themselves or their allies against aggression. Gibbon ironically remarked of the writer who consistently put forward this view of Rome’s wars: ‘according to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in self-defence’.
Quote ID: 1079
Time Periods: 01
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 166/167
Section: 4B
The so-called ‘fetial law’ in early Rome, which governed inter-state relations, did not permit aggressive wars, and it was on the basis of this early law that views of what constituted a ‘just war’ were erected, with substantial influence down to modern times. It is too easy to reject out of hand the self-justification of imperial powers, and to assume that their conquests have always been the result of determined and ruthlessly executed plans of aggression. In early days the fetial law—which was common to the Latin states and presupposed a rudimentary but sensible way of looking at war, at a time when by Greek standards Latium was still quite barbarous—was generally observed. The difficulties arose when Rome became a major power, when her security was affected in other ways than by attacks on her own territory or that of her allies, which were not covered by the fetial law. Several of Rome’s wars from the fourth century onwards could be regarded strictly speaking as unnecessary, when the right of defending an injured ally was used as an instrument of policy, in fact so successfully that it became traditional; the defence of a weaker friend was satisfying to the Roman moral sense and often had the fortunate result of increasing Roman power. It was not, however, the case that Roman policy was directed towards the mere acquisition of territory in the early third century.
Quote ID: 1080
Time Periods: 0
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 172/173
Section: 4B
The Roman achievement was one of great magnitude, for Rome had no naval tradition whatever and always felt uneasy at sea. The setting up of a small organization to look after naval matters came as late as 311, and the ships and their rowers came from allied states, chiefly Greeks.
Quote ID: 1081
Time Periods: 04
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 196
Section: 4B
234 The consequences of a Roman enclave within the limits of the Spanish empire would have been disastrous; the Roman policy of expansion by protecting smaller states would have been applied in the Carthaginian territory, and at any moment some disgruntled tribal chief might turn to the Romans for ‘friendship’.
Quote ID: 1086
Time Periods: 0123
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 240
Section: 4B
The total destruction of Carthage was an action ever remembered in antiquity. It gained point from the sack of Corinth in the same year, when Rome once for all established her rule in Greece. Yet it was not only because of the ruthlessness of the action in itself, as an impressive demonstration of Rome’s temper at this period, that it was regarded as a critical point in the development of Rome.
Quote ID: 1092
Time Periods: 0
Carthage: A History
B.H. Warmington
Book ID: 47 Page: 241
Section: 4B
Sallust, following a Greek commentator Poseidonius, saw in the destruction of Carthage the opening of the floodgates to a river of vices in the Roman state. No longer having the need to preserve the good old ways, the Romans became idle and luxury-loving, filled with a lust for power and riches. It was indeed the case that at this moment in Roman history a number of political, economic, and social problems urgently needed solutions; and these solutions were not forthcoming, owing to defects in the Roman constitution and a real deterioration in the standards of political behaviour among all classes in the state.
Quote ID: 1094
Time Periods: 0
Cathars: Perfect Heresy, The
Stephen O’Shea
Book ID: 261 Page: 4
Section: 3A1,4B
The church’s exterior was - and still is - a monument to power.
Quote ID: 6533
Time Periods: 4567
Cathars: Perfect Heresy, The
Stephen O’Shea
Book ID: 261 Page: 12
Section: 3A2A,4B
To the Cathars, ecclesiastical trappings of wealth and worldly power served only to show that the Church belonged to the realm of matter. At best, the pope and his underlings were merely unenlightened; at worst, they were active agents of the evil creator.
Quote ID: 6538
Time Periods: 7
Cathars: Perfect Heresy, The
Stephen O’Shea
Book ID: 261 Page: 12
Section: 4B
With startling ease, the Cathar preacher could portray medieval society as a fanciful and illegitimate house of cards.
Quote ID: 6539
Time Periods: 7
Cathars: Perfect Heresy, The
Stephen O’Shea
Book ID: 261 Page: 184
Section: 3A1,4B
As the French poured over the borders of Languedoc, Louis received fawning letters of obeisance from many local nobles. “It has come to our knowledge that our lord cardinal has decreed that all the land of the count of Toulouse shall be annexed to your domain,” one letter stated. “We rejoice from the bottom or our hearts...and we are impatient to be in the shadow of your wings and under your wise dominion.”
Quote ID: 6598
Time Periods: 47
Christian History Magazine: Converting by the Sword, Issue 63 Vol. XVIII No. 3
Richard Fletcher
Book ID: 360 Page: 44
Section: 4B
Many pagans were not adverse to converting to Christianity because they believed it would, in fact, give them more material prosperity than had their gods.
Quote ID: 8182
Time Periods: 45
Christian History Magazine: Defending the Cannibals, Issue 57 Vol. XVIII No. 1
J. David Cassel
Book ID: 370 Page: 16
Section: 4B
Marcus Minucius Felix, for example, wrote, “For we were once the same as you; blind and ignorant, our opinions were once the same as yours. We believed that the Christians worshipped monsters, ate the flesh of infants, and practiced incest at their feasts. We did not understand that these tales were always being spread abroad by the demons, without examination or proof.”
Quote ID: 8205
Time Periods: 237
Christian History Magazine: Defending the Cannibals, Issue 57 Vol. XVIII No. 1
J. David Cassel
Book ID: 370 Page: 17
Section: 4B
…that which they accused Christians. “Who would be so foolish as to worship [an ass’s head],” wrote Felix, “or even still more foolish, to believe it—except yourselves, who keep whole asses as sacred in your stables together with your or their Epona [horse goddess]?”
Quote ID: 8206
Time Periods: 237
Christian Inscriptions
H.P.V. Nunn
Book ID: 299 Page: 32
Section: 4B
I confess that I wished to build a new hall for the archives, and to add columns thereto on the right and on the left, which might keep the name of Damasus as their own throughout the ages.
Quote ID: 7529
Time Periods: 4
Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical
Frank C. Senn
Book ID: 54 Page: 174/175
Section: 3A1,4B
In the sixth century, these Gothic kingdoms were overrun by the Lombards, although the newcomers were not able to conquer either Rome or Ravenna. The Italian peninsula was ruined by wars between the Lombards and the eastern Roman Emperors, who tried to reclaim Italy as a part of the Roman Empire. They did not succeed.Only the pope remained as a representative of the old culture, and the popes increasingly sided with the Gothic kings against the Byzantine emperors. This independent position of the papacy was firmly established when King Pippin of the Franks compelled the Lombards to surrender the territories of the Byzantine exarchate and turned them over, not to the emperor, but to the see of St. Peter as a papal state in 756. Pope Stephen II made Pippin, his wife and sons, “patricians of the Romans.”
Quote ID: 1217
Time Periods: 67
Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical
Frank C. Senn
Book ID: 54 Page: 213
Section: 4B
In typical Romanesque architecture, the classical columns of the Roman basilicas gave way to massive piers supporting rounded stone arches. There are few decorations and very small windows, giving the impression of a medieval fortress (which, indeed, the church sometimes was). The cathedral at Worms in Germany, built c. 1182-1234, actually has four massive towers, one at each corner. What added to the massiveness of the walls and columns was the concern to build stone roofs. The timber roofs over the old basilicas, it was thought, lacked dignity and could easily be destroyed by fire. But the Roman art of vaulting such large buildings demanded a technical knowledge that had largely been lost. As a result, the eleventh and twelfth centuries became times of ceaseless experimentation.
Quote ID: 1227
Time Periods: 7
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 1
Section: 1A,4B
Looked at from a sufficient distance, if indeed any distance is sufficient for a clear view, what seems to confront the observer of the religious scene in the period of my chosen title is a transition from one Establishment to another.
Quote ID: 1252
Time Periods: 147
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 18
Section: 4B
When their own beliefs were ridiculed, they answered indirectly through comic pieces on the stage, in both western and eastern cities. It was an age-old tradition to present the Olympian family as a target for laughter but something new to add the local saint or bishop; and perhaps against the church another tradition was invoked as well, of free speech against despotic or dictatorial force such as the little people in the audience as individuals would never dare to voice out loud—for that matter, like the theater in Communist-occupied Czechoslovakia.{62}
Quote ID: 1269
Time Periods: 345
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 39
Section: 4B
Otherwise, traditions of local independence were too long established to be much affected by incorporation into the Roman empire; shared festivals were few, and each city observed its own holy days. Almost nothing is known of these past the third century, for lack of resources; but we know they continued in some places for hundreds of years.{22}
Quote ID: 1281
Time Periods: 47
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 83
Section: 4B
Under Diocletian’s rule, the rate of increase in government was hugely accelerated. Increase continued more slowly over the next century or so. Impossible, though, any exact census of the administration must remain, still, it is safe to say that the roughly three hundred career civil servants in the reign of Caracalla (a. 211-217) had become thirty to thirty-five thousand at any given moment in the later empire, a change attributable in the greater part to Diocletian.{18} Over the same period, the clergy, too, grew enormously.
Quote ID: 1293
Time Periods: 34
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 86
Section: 4B
Little pagans and little Christians of more or less the same social stratum went to school together, went to the baths together, and together watched and learned from grown- ups of every religious persuasion dealing with an illness in the family, a bad harvest, or other similar challenges to understanding.
Quote ID: 1294
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 88/89
Section: 4B
There is a certain heresy regarding earthquakes, that they come not from God’s command and indignation but, it is thought, from the very nature of the elements, since it knows not what scripture says at Ps 103.32. . . . Paying no attention to God’s power, they presume to attribute the motions of force to the elements of nature, . . . . like certain foolish philosophers who, ascribing this to nature, know not the power of God.{31}Pastor John’s Note: look up
....
The Greeks, silly men, lavished their time and effort on the identifying of the elements in nature, etc., etc.; but “to the infinite number of points regarding such matters as they have discovered, or think they have discovered, a Christian will pay no mind.” No need to know how nature works, for such pretended knowledge is irrelevant to blessedness.
....
To a different Eusebius of the same period, this one the familiar church historian, “Investigation of natural phenomena is superfluous and beyond the human mind, and the learning and study of these matters are impious and false.”
....
Chrysostom, just like earlier bishops, vaunts the wisdom of the believing unlearned over the unbelieving learned; ridicules and rejects Plato and the other great names of the philosophic pantheon, just as Constantine had done; dismisses their teachings as mere cobwebs; and in the end approves only “rustics and ordinary folk.”{36}
Quote ID: 1295
Time Periods: 45
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 97
Section: 4B
Everyone knows that the world after the Decline differed from antiquity, everyone has some sense of what “medieval” means when “science” is mentioned and how the explanations offered by the one differ from those offered by the other.
Quote ID: 1307
Time Periods: 34
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 98
Section: 4B
In the earlier years of the present century Gustave Bardy had only to refer to it in an aside. “Is it not,” he asked, “one of the most characteristic traits of the third century—that blind faith and irrational engagement, by the best minds, in diviners of every sort and origin, in wonder-workers and prophets? Historians have yet to explain this invasion of the Mediterranean world by the worst superstition.”{70}....
Given the proportions and significance of the phenomenon, such lack of scholarly interest seems odd.
Quote ID: 1308
Time Periods: 3
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 99
Section: 4B
The contempt shown by Lucian and his like for their inferiors was not, it should be emphasized, a thing unheard of in later times—times when the views they had once scorned now generally prevailed. It is in fact easy to find the masses looked down on or at least seen as very different from the educated among the upper crust of the church in Basil’s day, or Augustine’s, or at any point thereafter. Illustrative passages have been cited at various points already, and discussion in modern sources appears just below (note 80).
Quote ID: 1310
Time Periods: 2456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 114/115
Section: 4B
Augustine wanted everything serious. His strictures one day provoked much grumbling from his congregation: hadn’t the people, before, who raised no objections, been Christians? The challenge he confronted on the morrow with carefully chosen words."That it might not seem as if we wished to put down our forebears, who had either tolerated or did not dare to forbid such excesses of an unthinking people, I explained by what necessity this bad custom seemed to have arisen in the church. For, when peace came after so many and such violent persecutions [i.e. post-313], crowds of pagans wishing to become Christians were prevented from doing this because of their habit of celebrating the feast days of their idols with banquets and carousing; and, since it was not easy for them to abstain from these dangerous but ancient pleasures, our ancestors thought it would be good to make a concession for the time being to their weakness and permit them, instead of the feasts they had renounced, to celebrate other feasts in honor of the holy martyrs, not with the same sacrilege but with the same elaborateness, luxus."{37}
The explanation he offered was of course not quite straightforward; for the “ancient pleasures” that converts wouldn’t surrender were not so much, or at all, the feasting that attended worship in the temples, however convenient he found it at this particular moment to depict them as such; rather, what had flowed into martyr cult was graveside cult, and this he chose not to correct.
2A1
Quote ID: 1317
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 121
Section: 4B
“There are those who say God is good, great, the top, beyond our perception, incorruptible, who will give us eternal life and that incorruptibility which he has promised in the resurrection, while temporal matters and matters of this world belong to daemones,” to superhuman beings of a lower order, those that scripture calls demons and the heathen, gods.2A1
Quote ID: 1324
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 142
Section: 4B
Nevertheless, it too belonged to ordinary life and ordinary people. Opposing views once held by Pliny, Plutarch, Plotinus and their like had long since been crowded out. Bishops and their salves, aristocratic landowners like Melania the Younger and her many thousands of peasants, high and low, all agreed about the essentials: about relics, saints, angels, demons, God, and Satan. No sharp division separated the different classes within the whole population calling themselves Christian.
Quote ID: 1372
Time Periods: 34
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 144
Section: 4B
No two churches existed, no two tiers, rather a “spectrum” of beliefs, to recall that useful term from the preceding chapter: a spectrum at one end of which was the very most authoritative, best thought-out Christianity, formed of long education in ecclesiastical traditions and literature, while at the other end lay the most careless and ill-informed. Even at the authoritative end, it is worth noticing a good deal of self-contradiction, in both rejecting as heathen and accepting as Christian the very same novelties.
Quote ID: 1375
Time Periods: 234
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 147
Section: 1A,4B
To begin with the world of letters: it was ruled by patrons. If patrons were Christians, who would remain a nonbeliever? There were conversions, of Nonnus, Kyros, Synesius;{156} converts became bishops; yet we might look for some retrospection—some hint of Persephone (or Lot’s wife) in, for example, the verses of Ausonius.
Quote ID: 1380
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 147
Section: 1A,4B
Christian literature in either learned language was permeated by the allusions, thought, symbolism, mythology, and esthetic of the pagan past, inevitably.{157} Inevitably, too, the pagan classics permeated the life and thought of the highly educated. Tags of Vergil or Homer could not be kept out of their very epitaphs, however Christian the deceased had been; they intruded on the dreams of ascetics in the desert, so we know from the famous confession of Jerome in the 370s.{158} In fear of such contamination of the mind, the bishops tried, without much success, to displace the older canon with truly Christian equivalents, to banish nonbelievers from the school- and lecture room, and to forbid at least the clergy to read outside their faith.{159}4B
Quote ID: 1381
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 148
Section: 1A,4B
For depictions of Jesus, as for those of pagan gods, much imperial symbolism was borrowed, explaining the ball (orb, globus) held in the hand, the throne (for bishops as well), the little tent (baldachin) above the throne—except that the baldachin may have come to the emperors from the gods, and only thereafter to Christian art and ceremony.{161} There were symbolic gestures borrowed, too: proskynesis, for example.{162}Finally, an illustration of the flow of art from pagan to Christian settings: a well-known horde of silver objects found on the Esquiline hill in Rome, dating to the later fourth century, with various dishes and various reliefs showing the ancestral deities of the city; also, a bridal casket showing on one of its panels Venus at her toilet surrounded by her Nereids, and in a conspicuous place the dedication to the nuptial pair, “Secundus and Projecta, may you live in Christ!”{163}
4B
Quote ID: 1382
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 151
Section: 1A,4B
Conversions were made, because they could only be made, through intimidation and physical force. So the authorities evidently judged.
Quote ID: 1383
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 153
Section: 4B
For an illustration: the sociocultural equivalent of Ambrose, but of the period before 250, would have explained hailstorms to you in natural terms; but after 250, whether Christian or pagan, high or low, such a person would have explained it in terms of supernatural agencies.
Quote ID: 1386
Time Periods: 3
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 153
Section: 4B
Elite and masses were in broad agreement about how the universe worked, though they put different names to the superhuman agencies at work in the world and preferred different forms of address to them.
Quote ID: 1387
Time Periods: 4
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 153
Section: 1A,4B
It must not be forgotten, since both pagan and Christian spokesmen drew attention to the fact, that conversion under pressure was unlikely to reach very far down into the mind. Prudential considerations, to curry favor or gain a rich wife, or not to lose one’s job or one’s life, diminished the meaning of conversion. True, post-Constantine, everything encouraged a sense of triumph and conviction among the crowds attending church; but everything also encouraged hypocrisy.{2} In the nature of the case no one today can make any good guess at the depth or prevalence of the converts’ inner feelings.
Quote ID: 1388
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 154
Section: 1A,4B
The results of the surge of recruitment, as they are described in the fourth chapter, were not destructive of the church. Quite the reverse: a wonderfully dynamic phase in church history commenced in which the deficiencies outlined in the opening paragraphs above were largely made good. The initial and lifetime appeal of the new faith was enormously enhanced. Christianity became (as a salesman would say today) a “full-service” religion. Converts could find in it, because they brought in to it, a great variety of psychological reward that had been important to them before, when they had addressed the divine within the pagan tradition.
Quote ID: 1389
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 158
Section: 4B
Official Christianity—the older, the urban, the bishop-directed—might be declared the whole, all that counted or deserved the name: a community with a creed, resembling as closely as possible the community sketched in the opening paragraphs, above, with all its deficiencies—a religious system, then, of a certain strict, narrow structure. The pagan system had a very different structure which events forced upon the church and so in good measure reshaped it.
Quote ID: 1402
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 10
Section: 4B
Human sacrifice, at least, was to be found in the past of the Etruscan, Roman, Punic, and Celtic populations. But that was all over, in the centuries that concern us.
Quote ID: 1407
Time Periods: 147
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 15
Section: 4B
Theirs Christians, however, was no crime per se; for sacrilege punishable by law referred to actions not so much against piety as against property (temple-robbing). Nor was atheism illegal on the municipal level.
Quote ID: 1415
Time Periods: 147
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 16
Section: 4B
On the other hand, the emperors themselves pressed no special religious views on their subjects, who no doubt waited with curiosity to see which deities would receive the publicized favor of each new ruler.
Quote ID: 1418
Time Periods: 01234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 17
Section: 4B
To the possibility of a new deity and new cult, no opposition arose.
Quote ID: 1419
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 19
Section: 4B
It was not the church’s liturgy, nor morals, nor monotheism, nor internal organization (when these things were correctly understood) that seemed to non-Christians much different from other people’s or at all blameworthy. At least, there is no evidence for anything of that sort.
Quote ID: 1423
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 19
Section: 4B
As to Christians’ everyday neighbors, whose ideas of social entertainment were inextricably rooted in festival practices (even if those were no more than superficially religious), they felt offended at being snubbed. Surely that was natural, at times, too, historically important, the chief cause of suspicion, dislike, and readiness to persecute.
Quote ID: 1424
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 20
Section: 4B
. . . how much there is to be found on practice and how relatively little ancient comment or discussion exists about that practice. I suppose the disproportion is mostly due to the unimportance of dogma.
Quote ID: 1425
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 22
Section: 1A,2D3B,4B
. . . the Apostles’ success in winning recruits arose from their deeds, above all, in healing.
Quote ID: 1426
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 22
Section: 4B
We cannot easily divest ourselves of our great knowledge and superior reasoning, so as to think more nearly like the people of the Roman Empire. They, however, took miracles quite for granted. That was the general starting point. Not to believe in them would have made you seem more than odd, simply irrational, as it would have seemed irrational seriously to suppose that babies are brought by storks.
Quote ID: 1427
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 32
Section: 4B
But it is just here that more puzzling problems arise. How did it ever happen that the church could grow at such a rate, so as actually to predominate in occasional little towns or districts by the turn of the second century and, by the turn of the fourth, to have attained a population of, let us say, five million?
Quote ID: 1428
Time Periods: 234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 33
Section: 4B
The church before Constantine had only a tiny share in what was at all times a tiny segment of the population, the elite; and the setting usually assigned to its leaders is the catechetical schools, to which were admitted only persons already converted.
Quote ID: 1429
Time Periods: 3
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 34
Section: 4B
That adds up to a fact recognized also in the abstract: that, after Saint Paul, the church had no mission, it made no organized or official approach to unbelievers; rather, it left everything to the individual.
Quote ID: 1430
Time Periods: 123
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 35
Section: 1A,4B
Granted, because rich and distinguished Christians “nowadays offer welcome to them on account of the word,” some are drawn into the work by hopes of social climbing.
Quote ID: 1431
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 35
Section: 4B
During most of the period I speak of, from around A.D. 100 to 312, Christians as such avoided attention. The fact is well known and easily illustrated.
Quote ID: 1432
Time Periods: 234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 37
Section: 4B
We should listen also to non-Christians who describe them; and first, to Celsus. There, the Christians’ injunctions are like this: “Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly.” By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of the God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children . . .
Quote ID: 1433
Time Periods: 23
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 38
Section: 4B
We have to confront the fact, because for us it is most important: it prevents us too from drawing close to what was a predominantly lower-class religious movement. Christianity after New Testament times is presented to us almost exclusively in pages addressed to upper-class readers. And they preferred to keep a good distance between themselves and their inferiors.
Quote ID: 1434
Time Periods: 23
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 48
Section: 3C,4B
Our point of inquiry has thus been turned all around and subjected to various questions from various angles. Were coreligionists given a monopoly in office by an incoming emperor in this half-century up to the mid-360’s? No. Did emperors or their men use good clear language when they called on divine aid in the camp, and did the symbolism of victory that they used for advertisement in army settings have a clearly religious meaning? No. The negatives all prepared us for the final question, whether the political history of this period can be written in religious terms at all. The answer is surely no.On an unofficial level, the physical facilities for non-Christian worship in every city and, for that matter, in most rural settings as well, were regularly given as a present.
Quote ID: 8160
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 49
Section: 3C,4B
The role of patron, then, permitted Constantine in his new faith to have “quite enormous consequences,” as I termed it a few pages back.
Quote ID: 1444
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 52
Section: 1A,4B
. . .we have the campaign between two North African congregations to secure for themselves their share of the good things in life. In the town of Tagaste, where the very rich Albina Martyred
Quote ID: 1449
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 53
Section: 3A3B,4B
The costs of pagan worship could be very considerable. Fancy offerings like an ox required a city’s purse; private offerings you had to save up for, and then you sent out invitations to the feast.Around pagan shrines it was not uncommon to find a dependent population. In good times, to which Libanius looked back regretfully in the later fourth century, the temples stood open, “and there was wealth in every one, a sort of common resort for people in need.”
The kind of generosity he remembered at its grandest appears for us in the second century, in proof of the boundless ambition of mind of a provincial millionaire, “which he would, for example, often turn to the sacrificing of a hundred oxen to the goddess (Athena) on a single day, banqueting the Athenian citizen populace at the sacrifice, tribe by tribe, clan by clan; and whenever the Dionysus-festival came around, in which the image of Dionysus descends to the Academy, he would provide drink in the Ceramicus for the city residents of all sorts, including aliens, as they lay on couches of ivy leaves.” How delightful! Of course, all this was easily brought to an end.
Or placed under new management. Judaism taught concern for poverty (and who outside that tradition in the ancient world would have been recorded on his tombstone as “a lover of the poor”?). The tradition carried forward within Christianity. As the pagan temples closed, the churches opened: . . .
Julian was right to see this transfer of function to his rivals as important to their success.
Quote ID: 1451
Time Periods: 34
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 63
Section: 4B
Mass media in antiquity were pretty limited. Such as they were, however, they belonged almost entirely to the church and its advocates. In the cities, at any rate, you heard the town crier roaring out the emperor’s decrees, full of preaching (see above, 12, p. 50) . . .
Quote ID: 1463
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 64
Section: 4B
Of all the instruments of publicity favored in the empire, rhetoric was by far the most familiar.
Quote ID: 1464
Time Periods: 1234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 64
Section: 4B
Maximus of Turin ]PJ: 380?–420? or 465], in the passage just quoted, goes on to appeal to his listeners for their active alliance: you may be good Christians yourselves, he says, but you must not neglect “your people; for there is hardly one of you whose fields are not polluted by idols, hardly any estate held free of worship to demons. The obligation fell on the master, then. He must address himself to the non-Christians among his dependents.
Quote ID: 1465
Time Periods: 5
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 65
Section: 1A,4B
“Many people,” says John Chrysostom [PJ:349–407] in Antioch, “have villages and estates and pay no mind to them nor communicate with them, but do give great attention to how the baths are working, and how the rates are set, and how halls and houses are constructed - not to the harvest of souls...Should not everyone build a church, should he not get a teacher and make a congregation and, above all things, see to it that all are Christians?” Reference - Hamily on the book of ActsJust as the emperor’s servants followed his lead (though not always), so the slaves and tenant farmers and dependents of one of those counts or senators, or any rich man, were open to both pressure and persuasion from him.
Consider the convert who was a slave in a non-Christian household. Insubordination! All sorts of problems! So, before Constantine, the church in Rome, and presumably elsewhere, sharply rejected such additions unless they had their master’s support. Later it still insisted, through the arm of the state, that he should determine the religion of his slaves - that is (at this quite different juncture), the master should enforce their religious conformity by means of a good beating, or, if one weren’t enough, “by progressively heavier beatings.” Here once more is the question: In what sense do you have a convert when he yields to mere force? We have confronted the problem before. So long as one got the semblance of results, Augustine, for one, saw no difficulties. Neither did Saint Gregory somewhat later. It is reasonable to take their views as representative of the religious Establishment overall as it had by then developed throughout the empire, because the same views are embodied in imperial legislation and accord entirely with that faith in violence that will be described in a later chapter.
Quote ID: 1466
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 66
Section: 4B
In rural settings, too, the population with no land, or too little land to support independence, was really very much under the thumb of a big man. This was true in the second century. A letter of Pliny describes what the role of religious leadership involved on his own holdings, not only for the benefit of his tenants but also to accommodate big crowds of worshipers attending the holy days at a shrine that happened to be on his property. In Spain in the third century there was a local custom according to which a landlord remitted to his tenants their costs for sacrifices, I suppose because the sacrifices were thought to be as much in the landlord’s interests as anyone’s. [USED] But these benevolent times were pre-Christian. A century later, the emperors announced that they would confiscate the lands of any man who so much as allowed, even in ignorance, a meeting for prohibited worship on his acres. Such an announcement, with introductory sermonizing of a highly colored sort, would be promulgated by being read aloud in public places at the most crowded times.
Quote ID: 1467
Time Periods: 234
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 85
Section: 1A,4B
As conversion progresses, the new religion becomes in its social dimension increasingly like the old . . . In the long run, conversion gave rise to strong pressures that affected the course of development of the new religion.”[Footnote]: Note also Geffcken (1978) 325, referring to a “vast mass of cultural forms passed from paganism into Christianity. . . a huge stream of tradition.”
Quote ID: 1475
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 89
Section: 1A,4B
All Gaza’s temples are torn down and burned and the city is cleansed of every belief but the Christian. The most stubborn opponents, faute de mieux For lack of something better, are tied up, marched away to the provincial capital, severely tortured, and all killed mala morte, “a great number”. Less stubborn folk repair to Porphyry’s [PJ: "of Gaza" 347–420] grand new church. There a question is raised about those “who had not left their mistaken ways of their free will but in fear and terror of the emperors”, to which Porphyry answers as the Apostle had: "Whether falsely or truly, Christ is preached, and I rejoice in that.’” (Phil. 1:18). His views fit naturally in a tradition already well established (see above, p. 12, 57, & 65).
Quote ID: 1477
Time Periods: 45
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 114
Section: 3C,4B
Yet the successes of Christian conversion were multiplied many fold. The rate of growth became still more rapid-growth, that is, measured by the only means available to us. They include number and size of basilicas, number and distribution of bishoprics, and size of following or congregation reasonably estimated from these data, matched by correspondingly fewer and less well-cared-for pagan temples, fewer priesthoods, and less attendance at festival days. What can have accounted for such dramatic developments?
Quote ID: 1497
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 116
Section: 2B2,4B
The inscription and the cult, then, are not pagan themselves but, like many a glimpse we have of the veneration of saints, strongly colored by pagan tradition, which could not be suppressed. On other inscriptions, undoubtedly Christian but Italian not African, appear dedications “to the gods and spirits of the departed,” showing the survival of a pagan picture of the afterlife; and, in Egypt. Christians likewise held views on that subject essentially unchanged from their remotest past, . . .
Quote ID: 1501
Time Periods: 345
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 6
Section: 2C,4B
The priesthoods, divided into four chief colleges, were public offices held by persons of high birth who had rendered distinguished service to the city. That there were only sixty offices for two to four hundred eligible men made the honor particularly desirable. Often one had to wait years before a position became vacant. Because the Romans thought that the official cults were an integral part of the public life of the city, they took it for granted that the priesthoods should be offered to the most prominent social and political figures. The practice had been defended by Cicero, who said that the “most distinguished citizens safeguard religion by the good administration of the state and safeguard the wise conduct of religion” (Dom. 1). In Rome the practice of religion was a public matter. Gov. of Bythnia
Quote ID: 4524
Time Periods: 0
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 7
Section: 4B
Assuming that this would be his last official position, Governor of Bithynia before retirement, Pliny was determined that his career culminate in a distinguished tenure of office. He would be no “ugly Roman.” His rule would be wise, just, understanding, respectful of local traditions, honest. In a letter to a friend who governed Achaea in Greece, Pliny enunciated the principles he thought should guide the office. He urged Maximus to have regard for the local gods, to honor the legends of the people’s past, not to detract from their dignity or pride, not to be domineering.
Quote ID: 4525
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 9
Section: 4B
Pliny arrived in Bithynia at a time Edward Gibbon called the happiest in mankind’s history. “In the second century of the Christian Era,”....
Quote ID: 4526
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 10
Section: 4B
A contemporary of Pliny, Dio Chrysostom, was troubled by the growing number of political factions vying with each other and causing unnecessary divisions within the cities. Sedition is perhaps too strong a word, but Dio was concerned enough to make a number of public speeches in which he warned against conducting the affairs of the city “by means of political clubs” (Or. 45.8).Key word: Club
Quote ID: 4527
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 12
Section: 4B
Should there not be some public organization for fighting fires? Pliny thought that the most reasonable solution was to organize an “association of workers to fight fires (collegium fabrorum) to avoid any future calamities.”The request sounds innocent enough, but Pliny’s cautious phrasing of his letter indicates that he knew Trajan might object to the formation of any association, no matter how harmless it appeared. It was precisely associations such as these, originally organized for nonpolitical purposes, that had led to trouble in the province. Furthermore, since the days of the late republic, the activities of clubs and associations had been restricted. All were subject to a system of licensing to prevent clubs from becoming a political nuisance, but Trajan thought that greater restrictions were necessary.
“I have received your suggestion that it should be possible to form a company of firemen at Nicomedia on the model of those existing elsewhere, but we must remember that it is societies like these which have been responsible for political disturbances in your province, particularly in its cities. If people assemble for a common purpose, whatever name we give them and for whatever reason, they soon turn into a political club” (hetaeria).
PJ: Clubs
Quote ID: 4528
Time Periods: 012
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 13
Section: 4B
The term used in this letter for “club”, hetaeria, is the same word Pliny was to use later when he wrote to Trajan about the Christians. It may seem surprising that the same term used to describe a firemen’s association would also be used to describe a group of Christians, but in the circumstances, and from Pliny’s perspective, the designation was appropriate, . . .. . . .
Clubs would support candidates for local office, sponsor campaigns, and post campaign slogans on the walls of local buildings. Ancient placards attest to the political activity of such associations: “The fruit dealers unanimously urge the election of Marcus Holconius Priscus as duovir with judicial power.” “The goldsmiths unanimously urge the election of Gaius Cuspius Pansa as aedile.” “The worshippers of Isis unanimously urge the election of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus as aedile.”{1} Trajan thought the clubs had gotten out of hand in Bithynia and he wished to halt their growth.
[Footnote 1] H. Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae (Berlin, 1906), nos. 6411a, 6419e, 6420b.
PJ note: Used paragraphs separately.
Quote ID: 4529
Time Periods: 2
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 15/16/21/23
Section: 4B
We can only say that the letter was written from one of the coastal cities of northern Pontus in the fall of A.D. 112.{2}Shortly after Pliny’s arrival in the city, a group of local citizens approached him to complain about Christians living in the vicinity. What precisely the complaint was we do not know, but from several hints in the letter it is possible to infer that the charge was brought by local merchants, perhaps butchers and others engaged in the slaughter and sale of sacrificial meat. Business was poor because people were not making sacrifices. Toward the end of the letter, written after Pliny had dealt with the problem, he observed that the “flesh of sacrificial victims is on sale everywhere, though up till recently scarcely anyone could be found to buy it.”
[Footnote 2] Discussion of Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s reply is extensive. See especially A. N. Sherwin-White, The letter of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford, 1966); Rudolf Freudenberger, Das Verhalten der romischen Behorden gegen die Christen im 2. Jahrlhundert (Munich, 1967). Among the older works E. G. Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government (London, [1984] 1934), is particularly valuable.
. . . .
On the other hand, it must be noted - indeed emphasized - that the accusations of promiscuity and ritual murder appear only in Christian authors. They are not present in the writings of pagan critics of Christianity.{4}
[Footnote 4] In Celsus’s book against the Christians there is no mention of Christians engaging in promiscuous rites. In his response to Celsus, Origen mentions the “rumor” that Christians “turn out the light and each man has sexual intercourse with the first woman he meets,” but he does not attribute it to Celsus (c. Cels. 6.27). It may be that the omission is insignificant and due to the fragmentary transmission of the writings of pagan critics, but it may also be that serious critics had more important things to say against Christianity.
. . . .
When he had received a definite yes from some members of the group, Pliny sent them off to be executed. In his letter to Trajan, he had requested whether the “mere name of Christians....is punishable, even if innocent of crime, or rather the crimes (flagitia) associated with the name” is cause for punishment. But he proceeded on the assumption that Christians were culpable for the sake of the name alone.
. . . .
He solved his dilemma by a “test” designed to determine who was and was not a Christian. He had statues of the emperor Trajan and of the Capitoline gods - Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva - brought into the room. Those who had already admitted that they were Christians he sent off to be executed, as he had done with the first group. Those who denied the charge he asked to repeat after him a “formula of invocation to the gods” and “to make an offering of wine and incense” to Trajan’s statue. He also ordered them to “revile the name of Christ”.
Quote ID: 4530
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 34
Section: 2C,4B
The term hetaeria, a transliteration into Latin of a Greek word, is usually rendered as “political club” or “association”.
Quote ID: 4536
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 45
Section: 2C,4B
One of the chief points of Celsus’s book against Christianity is that Christians formed “associations contrary to the laws” (c. Cels. 1.1). Instead of joining in with the public religious rites of the cities, like other associations, they refused to have anything to do with others and carried on their affairs in the fashion of an “obscure and secret association” (c. Cels. 8.17).PJ Note: Club
Quote ID: 4537
Time Periods: 12
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 46
Section: 2D3B,4B
Let me, says Tertullian, describe to you the “business of the Christian club (factio).”“We are an association (corpus) bound together by our religious profession, by the unity of our way of life and the bond of our common hope...We meet together as an assembly and as a society....We pray for the emperors....We gather together to read our sacred writing...With holy words we nourish our faith.....After the gathering is over the Christians go out as though they had come from a “school of virtue”.
PJ Note: Club
Quote ID: 4538
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 50
Section: 4B
Thus the three Roman writers who mention Christianity at the beginning of the second century agree in calling the new movement a superstitio.. . . .
In its most common and familiar sense, the term superstition referred to beliefs and practices that were foreign and strange to the Romans.
Quote ID: 4541
Time Periods: 2
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 55
Section: 4B
In this account the rebuilding of the Capitol is at once a religious and a civic occasion.
Quote ID: 4544
Time Periods: 1
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 56
Section: 4B
Originally the word piety was used to designate the honor and respect one showed to members of one’s family, children to parents, children and parents to grandparents, and everyone to one’s ancestors. But the term came to be used in a wider sense, designating loyalty and obedience to the customs and traditions of Rome, to inherited laws, to those who lived in previous generations - in short to the “fatherland.”
Quote ID: 4545
Time Periods: 123
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 58
Section: 4B
In the cities of the ancient world, religion was inextricably intertwined with social and political life. One did not speak of “believing in the gods” but of “having gods,” just as a city might “have laws or customs.”
Quote ID: 4548
Time Periods: 01
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 59
Section: 4B
Even attention to the smallest details, the minutiae of religious ceremonies (for example, the feeding of chickens or heeding the cry of a bird), was a mark of piety that contributed to the well-being and success of the Roman Republic (Livy 6.41.8).{5}[Footnote 5] Karl Koch, Religion. Sutdien zur Kult und Glauben der Romer (Nurnberg, 1960), 178-79.
Quote ID: 4549
Time Periods: 123
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 62
Section: 4B
The primary test of truth in religious matters was custom and tradition, the practices of the ancients. In Rome.....To be pious in any sense, to be respectable and decent, required the perpetuation of cult,” writes Ramsay MacMullen.{6} In philosophical matters, one might turn to intellectuals and philosophers, but in religious questions one looked to the past, to the accepted practices handed down by tradition, and to the guarantors of this tradition, the priest.
[Footnote 6] Ramsay MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven, 1981), 2.
Quote ID: 4550
Time Periods: 123
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 63
Section: 4B
"Those who attempt to distort our religion with strange rites you should abhor and punish, not merely for the sake of the gods, but such men by bringing in new divinities in place of the old, persuade many to adopt foreign practices, from which spring up conspiracies, factions and political clubs which are far from profitable to a monarchy. Do not therefore permit anyone to be an atheist or a sorcerer.” Dio Cassius 52.36.2
Quote ID: 4551
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 63
Section: 4B
In his now-classical study, Conversion, A. D. Nock, historian of Roman religion, showed that in ancient times religion and society were always thought to complement each other. When a person moved from one city to another, he or she adopted the gods of the new city. The idea of “conversion” - that is, a conscious and individual decision to embrace a certain creed or way of life - was wholly foreign to the ancients.Key word - superstitio
Quote ID: 4552
Time Periods: 0123
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 127
Section: 3A3A,3A3B,4B
Porphyry had no such illusion; he sensed that Christianity was here to stay and he sought, within the framework of the religious traditions of the Roman Empire, to find a way of accommodating the new creed. This is why he was so threatening to the Christians of antiquity and is so fascinating to us.
Quote ID: 4571
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 134
Section: 4A,4B
Porphyry and his Christian opponents shared many moral and religious values.
Quote ID: 4573
Time Periods: 23
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 158
Section: 4B
The issue between pagans and Christians centered on what Eusebius called “political theology” - that is, the religious and theological beliefs that are integral to the life of a people or a city.
Quote ID: 4593
Time Periods: 234
Chrysostom, An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children
Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople
Book ID: 12 Page: 7
Section: 4B,2E2
14. There is but one kind of place that is shameful, I mean the possession of great wealth, and that is shameful indeed.
Quote ID: 210
Time Periods: 4
Chrysostom, An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children
Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople
Book ID: 12 Page: 8
Section: 4B,2E2
17. …no one takes thought for his children, no one discourses to them about virginity and sobriety or about contempt of wealth and fame, or of the precepts laid down in the Scriptures.
Quote ID: 211
Time Periods: 4
Chrysostom, An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children
Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople
Book ID: 12 Page: 17
Section: 1B,4B
48. And do not, I pray, follow Greek customs. It is a great disgrace and laughable when in a Christian household some Greek pagan customs are observed; …
Quote ID: 212
Time Periods: 34
Church, State, and Citizen: Christian Approaches to Political Engagement
Edited by Sandra F. Joireman
Book ID: 60 Page: 41
Section: 3A4C,4B
For wars among equals, Luther insisted on very severe standards. Even if a contemplated war met just the war criteria, Christians still cannot fight with pride or arrogance. Christians, further, can have no part of wars fought for honor, which, to Luther, was nothing but a mask for greed.
Quote ID: 1519
Time Periods: 7
Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, LCL 268: Cicero XIX
Translated by H. Rackham
Book ID: 354 Page: 27
Section: 4B
…there are so many troubles in life that, though wise men can assuage them by balancing against them life’s advantages, fools can neither avoid their approach nor endure their presence.Pastor John’s note: wise = rich, fools = poor
Quote ID: 8135
Time Periods: 0
Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, LCL 268: Cicero XIX
Translated by H. Rackham
Book ID: 354 Page: 135
Section: 4B
…it had come to his mind that there had been an irregularity when he took Scipio’s park as the site for his augural tent, for he had subsequently entered the city bounds to hold a meeting of the Senate and when crossing the bounds again on his return had forgotten to take the auspices{a}; and that therefore the consuls had not been duly elected. The College of Augurs referred the matter to the Senate; the Senate decided that the consuls must resign; they did so. What more striking instances can we demand? A man of the greatest wisdom, and I may say unrivaled distinction of character, preferred to make public confession of an offense that he might have concealed rather than that the stain of impiety should cling to the commonwealth; the consuls preferred to retire on the spot from the highest office of the state rather than hold it for one moment of time in violation of religion. The augur’s office is one of high dignity; surely the soothsayer’s art also is divinely inspired.
Quote ID: 8569
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: On the Republic by Niall Rudd
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 62 Page: 129
Section: 4B,2C
They shall worship as gods those who have always been considered divine and those whose services have secured them a place in heaven—Hercules, Liber,{*} Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus—and also those qualities on whose account human beings are allowed to ascend to heaven—Good Sense, Moral Excellence, Devotion, Good Faith. In their honour there shall be shrines, but none in honour of vices.They shall observe the established rites.
Quote ID: 1555
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: On the Republic by Niall Rudd
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 62 Page: 129
Section: 2C,4B
Different divinities shall have different priests; all together shall have pontiffs; individually they shall have flamines.{*} And in the city the Vestal Virgins shall watch over the undying fire on the public hearth.Those who are unfamiliar with the methods and rituals for conducting these private and public ceremonies shall seek guidance from the public priests. Of these there shall be three kinds: one to preside over ceremonies and sacred rites, and another to interpret the strange utterances of prophets and seers which the Senate and people have accepted. In addition, the interpreters of Jupiter the Best and Greatest, that is, the public augurs, shall divine the future by means of signs and omens and maintain their art.
And whatever an augur shall pronounce unjust, unholy, harmful, or ill-omened shall be null and void. And if anyone fails to obey, that shall be a capital offence.
Quote ID: 1556
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: On the Republic by Niall Rudd
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 62 Page: 133
Section: 4B,2C
That the law enjoins the worship of deified human beings like Hercules and others indicates that, while the souls of all are immortal, those of the brave and good are divine.{*} It is right that Good Sense,{*} Devotion,{*} Moral Excellence,{*} and Good Faith’{*} should be deified; and in Rome temples have long been publicly dedicated* to those qualities, so that those who possess them (and all good people do) should believe that actual gods have been set up within their souls. At Athens, after atoning for the crime against Cylon, on the advice of the Cretan, Epimenides, they built a shrine to Insult and Shamelessness.{*} That was a misguided act; for virtues, not vices, should be deified. The ancient altar to Fever{*} on the Palatine, and the other to Evil Fortune{*} on the Esquiline must be refused recognition, and all things of that kind are to be rejected. If we have to devise names, we should choose rather ones like Conquering Power and Protectress, and titles like Jove the Stopper{*} and the Invincible, and names of desirable things like Safety, Honour, Help,, and Victory. Because the spirit is raised by the expectation of good things, Hope{*} was rightly deified by Calatinus.
Quote ID: 1559
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: On the Republic by Niall Rudd
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 62 Page: 138
Section: 4B
It is certainly true that whatever is best should be considered the oldest and the nearest to God.
Quote ID: 1562
Time Periods: 047
Cicero: The Nature of the Gods
Translated by P.G. Walsh
Book ID: 61 Page: 3
Section: 4B
Take our subject as an example. Most philosophers have stated that gods exist, the most likely view to which almost all of us* are led by nature’s guidance. But Protagoras* expressed his doubts about it, and Diagoras of Melos and Theodorus* of Cyrene believed that gods do not exist at all.Pastor John notes: Note the absence of anger for their opinions, even though Cicero was himself an auger (14).
Quote ID: 1545
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: The Nature of the Gods
Translated by P.G. Walsh
Book ID: 61 Page: 22/23
Section: 4B
If you were to ask me my view of the nature of the gods, I should perhaps have nothing to reply; but if you were to enquire whether I think their nature is such as you have just outlined, I would say that nothing seems to me less likely.58 ‘But before turning to the substance of your argument, I would first like to offer my reflections on you personally. I have often, I suppose, heard that friend of yours Lucius Crassus* assessing you as undoubtedly the most learned of all Roman Epicureans, and saying that few Greeks of the school were a match for you. But my awareness of his remarkable affection for you led me to imagine that he was exaggerating out of his goodwill for you. I hesitate to praise you to your face, but in my view your treatment of this obscure and difficult subject has been crystal-clear, not merely in ample exposition of your views, but also in elegance of expression more marked than is customary in your school.
Quote ID: 1546
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: The Nature of the Gods
Translated by P.G. Walsh
Book ID: 61 Page: 50
Section: 4B
‘If we seek to compare our Roman ways with those of foreigners, we shall find that in other respects we merely match them or even fall below them, but that in religion, that is, in worship of the gods, we are much superior.
Quote ID: 1547
Time Periods: 0
Cicero: The Nature of the Gods
Translated by P.G. Walsh
Book ID: 61 Page: 73
Section: 2A4,4B
But those who scrupulously rehearsed and so to say studied afresh all the ritual involved in divine worship were called religious* (religiosi), a word which derives from the verb to review (relegere)—just as elegant people are so called because they make choices (elegantes ex eligendo), diligent people because they are attentive (ex diligendo diligentes), and intelligent people because of their understanding (ex intellegendo intellegentes). All these words contain the same force of “choosing” which is present in the adjective “religious”. So the word “superstitious” came to note something deficient and “religious” something praiseworthy.
Quote ID: 9168
Time Periods: 01
Cicero: The Nature of the Gods
Translated by P.G. Walsh
Book ID: 61 Page: 146
Section: 4B
Following the discussion, we went our different ways. Cotta’s argument seemed to Velleius to be the more truthful, but in my eyes Balbus’ case seemed to come more closely to a semblance of the truth.*Pastor John’s note: = Who knows?
Quote ID: 1553
Time Periods: 0
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 355
Section: 4B
In March, 1772, Boswell called on Dr Johnson as he was preparing the fourth edition of his great Dictionary. Fertile as usual with bright, up-to-date ideas, Boswell suggested the inclusion of the work ‘civilization’. This, he thought, would be a useful general term to oppose ‘barbarity’ because ‘civility’ was more socially narrow. The lexicographer would have none of it; ‘he would not admit civilization, but only civility.’{1} To civilize, in the sense of extending the values of civility to those not irredeemably barbarous, was acceptable as a verb, but the process had not gone so far that civilization could be used of society as a whole.
Quote ID: 4630
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 358
Section: 4B
As Cicero became the most read of all the authors of antiquity, especially after the discovery of a complete text of his On the Orator in 1421, it was increasingly clearly realized that everything he was revered for, whether as a moral philosopher or master rhetorician, took active civic life for granted. Moral philosophy for the Romans represented the art of observing the highest ethical standards while living usefully and enjoyably within a large community.
Quote ID: 4631
Time Periods: 047
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 362
Section: 4B
And to see how instinctive the classical division between civilized and barbarian, brutish men became, we can look at the way in which Christian Europe’s own Amerindians, the Irish and the Russians, were described. George Turberville, who knew Ireland well, linked both in a poem of 1568. The Irish had been famous for their contribution to the early fortunes of Christianity in the British Isles, but now the poet remarks that he had never seen a people so beset with saints, yet all but vile and vain:Wild Irish are as civil as the Russies in their kind:
Hard choice which is the best of both, each bloody,
rude and blind.
Quote ID: 4632
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 363
Section: 4B
…Sir John Davies, a man who knew the country and strove to be fair-minded, found himself exasperatedly referring to Irishmen’s ‘contempt and scorn of all things necessary for the civil life of man . . . I dare say boldly that never any person did build any brick or stone house for his private habitation . . . Neither did any of them in all this time plant any gardens or orchards, enclose or improve their lands, live together in settled villages or towns’.{22}Pastor John’s Note: Irish
Quote ID: 4633
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 368
Section: 4B
Men in many walks of life sought and acquired distinction. But the norms themselves did not encourage individualism. Civility had been hard won, was protective of the status it had acquired, satisfied that it had regained the ground lost by Greece and Rome to the barbarians, and determined to keep it. Its most cherished values favoured conformity.….
The passage in which Tacitus described the civilizing of the Britons went on with a warning: ‘and, little by little, men drifted towards the pleasures of vice: porticoes, baths, elegant banquets. Among the naïve, this was known as “civilization”; it was nothing but a form of servitude.’
Quote ID: 4634
Time Periods: 01
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 372
Section: 4B
Of the transatlantic voyages, Busbecq remarked, ‘religion supplies the pretext and gold the motive.’{49}
Quote ID: 4635
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 399/400
Section: 4B
In England, those accused of crimes were entitled to plead ‘benefit of clergy’ in order to gain access to a lighter sentencing procedure for a wide variety of offences. It involved passing a basic literacy test: the ability to sign with a name rather than a cross and to puzzle through a line or two of scripture. Originating as a palliative to governmental claims to bring the clergy within a uniform secular legal system, its continuance after the Reformation owed something to a growing distrust of the illiterate masses. It was certainly an incentive to gain at least a veneer of education. Of two thieves who burgled the Earl of Sussex’s house in 1613 one was hanged, the other, who passed the test, was merely branded on the thumb.
Quote ID: 4636
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 464
Section: 4B
A stealthy rise in population; a more obvious gap between prices and wages; a not always welcome challenge to spiritual self-confidence: these offered fertile ground for agitation.….
Fear of insurrection was a steadily nagging irritant within the lives of those with power or property to lose.
Quote ID: 4642
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 471
Section: 4B
Higher prices, increased taxes: these were perceived as the dominant indicators of social unfairness. Even when the cause of a revolt was ostensibly religious, as during the riots in the southern Low Countries in 1579, a deeper aim was discerned: ‘to seize the wealth of the rich’.{15}
Quote ID: 4643
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 483
Section: 4B
Though medieval institutionalized charity – doles at monastery doors, homes for orphans and foundlings, almshouses for the decrepit, hospices for the sick – had responded to a mixture of protective love and society’s preference for tucking its casualties out of sight, the more common form was those individual ‘good works’, hand-outs at street corners, church doors or after weddings or funerals, that Reformers decried as useless bribes to obtain grace. Catholics saw the poor as an opportunity to display their charity: ‘the poor are on the cross of adversity’, ran a characteristic utterance of 1531, ‘as much for the salvation of those that aid them charitably as for their own salvation.’{33}
Quote ID: 4647
Time Periods: 7
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, The
John Hale
Book ID: 202 Page: 504
Section: 4B
In Domenico Romoli’s The Steward of 1560, the noisy, messy, unplanned and unthoughtfully prepared medieval feast has become civilized. There are forks as well as knives, guests no longer use their hands. There are table-cloths, sometimes changed between courses, and napkins. One course is cleared before another is provided. Servants are deft, quiet and carefully rehearsed. As with the design and contents of the garden outside, the meal indoors reflected the chastening influence of civility.….
The days of adventitious sharing in the noise and warmth within an open palace door and a hand-out of the leavings were over; the populace was firmly excluded from the pleasures of the rich.
Quote ID: 4648
Time Periods: 7
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 55/56
Section: 3A4,3C,4B
The advance of a Christian to the imperial throne produced an inevitable reconsideration of the church’s attitude to kingship. As long as the emperor was a non-Christian, sometimes openly anti-Christian, the theoretical question of church-state relations scarcely arose; the church could take a negative attitude toward the state without any doubt or hesitation by its leaders. But the emergence of the Christian king raised a host of new problems, for which the solution was not readily apparent.The readjustment in the church’s conception of kingship was further made inevitable by the close involvement of the emperor and bishops in each other’s affairs in the fourth century. Heresies, schisms, and requests for state interference in the life of the church by Christian bishops, on the one side, and what J. B. Bury aptly called the emperor’s despotic instinct to control all social forces, on the other, brought about a close union between church and state.
Quote ID: 4671
Time Periods: 4
Clement of Alexandria, ANF Vol. 2, Fathers of the Second Century
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 665 Page: 420
Section: 3A,4B
Further, manliness is to be assumed in order to produce confidence and forbearance, so as “to him that strikes on the one cheek, to give to him the other; and to him that takes away the cloak, to yield to him the coat also,” strongly restraining anger. For we do not train our women like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to be peaceable.
PJ footnote: Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, IV.viii.
Quote ID: 9497
Time Periods: 2
Clement of Alexandria, LCL 092
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 140 Page: 69
Section: 4B
Exhortation to the Greeks - Chpt. IIIt would be a long story to relate his varied adulteries and his corruptions of boys. For your gods did not abstain even from boys. For your gods did not abstain even another Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymedes. These are the gods your wives are to worship.
. . .
Let these be they whom your boys are trained to reverence, in order that they may grow to manhood with the gods ever before them as a manifest pattern of fornication!
Quote ID: 3017
Time Periods: 23
Clement of Alexandria, LCL 092
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 140 Page: 173
Section: 4B
Exhortation to the Greeks - Chpt. VIIAnd again, in this play the Ion, he displays the gods to the spectators without any reserve{b}:
How is it right that ye who made men’s laws
Yourselves are authors of unrighteous deeds?
But if – I say it, though it shall not be –
Ye pay men penalties for violent rapes,
Phoebus, Poseidon, Zeus the king of heaven,
The price of crime shall strip your temples bare.{e}
Quote ID: 3028
Time Periods: 5
Clement of Alexandria, LCL 092
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 140 Page: 271
Section: 4B
The Rich Man’s Salvation1. Men who offer laudatory speeches as presents to the rich may rightly be classed, in my opinion, not only as flatterers and servile, since in the hope of a large return they make a show of granting favours that are really no favours, but also as impious and insidious.
. . .
They are insidious, because, although mere abundance is by itself quite enough to puff up the souls of its possessors, and to corrupt them, and to turn them aside from the way by which salvation can be reached, these men bring fresh delusion to the minds of the rich by exciting them with the pleasure that come from their immoderate praises, and by rendering them contemptuous of absolutely everything in the world except the wealth which is the cause of their being admired. In the words of the proverb, they carry fire to fire,{b} when they shower pride upon pride, and heap on wealth, heavy by its own nature, the heavier burden of arrogance.
Quote ID: 3033
Time Periods: 23
Climax of Rome, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 204 Page: 223
Section: 4B
The position of the Jews in the Roman empire was ambiguous. Since they did not worship the gods of Greece and Rome, they seemed atheists. They were also exclusive, both in regard to their customs—circumcision, diet of the Mosaic law, sacredness of the family—and in their conviction of being the Chosen Race. This exclusiveness endangered their survival by making them unpopular with their neighbours, whom they, in turn, appeared to dislike. ‘They regard the rest of mankind’, said Tacitus, ‘with all the hatred of enemies.’
Quote ID: 4764
Time Periods: 12
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 5
Section: 4B
With the elaboration of Christian doctrine, faith came to mean acquiescence in the teachings of the churches--to be seen as virtue in itself.
Quote ID: 4788
Time Periods: 45
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 55
Section: 1A,4B
With Augustus, Rome came of age as a city where the predominant culture, in architecture and literature in particular, was Greek, albeit used towards Roman ends and for the celebration of the glory of Augustus’ regime.
Quote ID: 4794
Time Periods: 0
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 57
Section: 2B2,4B
In the west, where city life was relatively undeveloped, new elites had to be created from the Celtic peoples, many of whom had been shattered by the campaigns of Julius Caesar. It helped enormously that the Romans were tolerant of local deities and that these could be absorbed into the Roman pantheon, as the gods and goddesses of Greece had been some centuries earlier.
Quote ID: 4799
Time Periods: 12
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 58
Section: 4B
The Romans proved deeply ambivalent towards Judaism. While they always respected antiquity in any spiritual belief (’Jewish rites, whatever their origins, are sanctioned by their antiquity,“ as the historian Tacitus put it), the Romans felt threatened by the exclusivity of monotheism.
Quote ID: 4800
Time Periods: 012
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 80
Section: 4B
The sons of chieftains could be brought up within the imperial court and then sent back as “Romans” keen to maintain contact with the empire.
Quote ID: 4813
Time Periods: 014
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 84
Section: 3B,4B
If there was a theme to Diocletian’s programme it was to centralize the state so that it could function more coherently and effectively. He built on earlier developments. In 212, for instance, all subjects of the empire except slaves had been made Roman citizens so all could be taxed equally. Diocletian took this further by stressing that a common citizenship meant accepting common responsibility for the state, and so those whose allegiances were questionable suddenly found themselves more vulnerable. Prominent among these were the Christians.
Quote ID: 4814
Time Periods: 34
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 151
Section: 4B
Christians lost that respect and were derided (by the second-century historian Tacitus, for instance) for their creation of a religion without tradition.
Quote ID: 4819
Time Periods: 12
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 206
Section: 2E3,3C,4B
It was an ancient tradition that a city should glorify itself through its temples. Aristotle suggested in his Politics that a quarter of the revenues of a city’s territory ought to be dedicated to the gods; others proposed as much as a third. Since Hellenistic times kings and emperors had showered their patronage on favoured cities. Many temples were crammed with gold and silver statues, and imperial patronage was a means of raising support for the gods.
Quote ID: 4900
Time Periods: 014
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 206
Section: 2E3,3C,4B
Constantine followed in this tradition and concentrated his patronage on the building and adornment of churches. As, unlike pagan temples, which were primarily designed to house cult statues, churches needed to house congregations, Constantine adopted the basilica as the most appropriate form. Yet as basilicas were now also used as the audience halls of the emperors (that surviving at Trier, although stripped of its original opulent decoration, gives some idea of the model), it is arguable that Constantine was stressing in yet another way the close links between the state and Christianity. It is hard for us to grasp the sheer scale of this imperial patronage. It was so lavish that Constantine had to strip resources from temples to fund it.
Quote ID: 4901
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 209
Section: 3C,4B
While it was the emperors who initiated the massive patronage required to build these churches, it soon became a badge of faith for wealthy Christians to contribute.
Quote ID: 4908
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 210
Section: 4B
One act of patronage encouraged another.
Quote ID: 4909
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 210
Section: 4B
In Ravenna, the seat of government of the Goth, and hence Homoean, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, Homoeans and Nicenes struggled to outdo each other in the decoration of their churches.
Quote ID: 4910
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 210
Section: 4B
It is clear, too, that church building was now also a matter of civic pride. “Other benefactions contribute to the decor of a city, while outlays on a church combine beauty with a city’s renown for godliness...for wealth that flows out for holy purposes becomes an ever-running stream for its possessors,” as one proud Christian put it.
Quote ID: 4911
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 235
Section: 3C,4B
This sense of guilt could only have been reinforced by the new wealth of the church and what the historian Eusebius was to call the “hypocrisy of those who crept into the church” in order to enjoy its benefits.
Quote ID: 4940
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 250
Section: 4B
The only true way to secure a rest from tension on earth is to escape completely from the exercise of moral responsibility; here is the “virtue” of obedience becomes crucial. William James, in his celebrated study The Varieties of Religious Experience, makes the point, quoting the response of a Jesuit:"One of the great consolations of the monastic life is the assurance that we have that in obeying, we can commit no fault. The Superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this or that, but you are certain that you commit no fault so long as you obey," because God will only ask you if you have duly performed what orders you received, and if you can furnish a clear account in that respect, you are absolved entirely
Here the abdication of the power to think for oneself is complete.
Quote ID: 4955
Time Periods: 7
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 253
Section: 4B
A law of Theodosius II of 438 speaks of “the thousand terrors” of the laws “that defend the boundless claim to honour” of the Church. Punishments were harsh, including, for example, capital punishment for the making of a sacrifice. For the first time in the history of the Roman empire, correct religious adherence became a requirement for the full enjoyment of the benefits of Roman society.
Quote ID: 4958
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 267
Section: 4B
The elimination of paganism was accompanied by a dampening-down of emotions, dance, and song so effective that we still lower our voices when we enter a church.
Quote ID: 4968
Time Periods: 7
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 300
Section: 4B
One by one, the ancient senatorial families of Rome had converted to Christianity; in the city we can see the shift in patronage from the old and now decaying ceremonial centre to the great new basilicas which were being built around it.
Quote ID: 4988
Time Periods: 45
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 322
Section: 4B
The last recorded astronomical observation in the ancient Greek world was one by the Athenian philosopher Proclus in A.D. 475, nearly 1100 years after the prediction of an eclipse by Thales in 585 B.C., which traditionally marks the beginning of Greek science. It would be over 1,000 years--with the publication of Copernicus“ De revolutionibus in 1543--before these studies began to move forward again.
Quote ID: 5002
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 337
Section: 4B
The texts of a Jerome or an Athanasius are marked by invective at the expense of reasoned argument. This was not only deeply unfortunate for Christianity but became a major hindrance to a state which was hoping to use a docile church to support its authority. Hence the imposition of authority, an imposition which, backed by Christian suspicions of scientific argument, crushed all forms of reasoned thinking.
Quote ID: 5003
Time Periods: 57
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 340
Section: 4B
I would reiterate the central theme of this book: that the Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed rather than simply faded away.
Quote ID: 5007
Time Periods: 47
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 340
Section: 4B
Whether the explanations put forward in this book for the suppression are accepted or not, the reasons for the extinction of serious mathematical and scientific thinking in Europe for a thousand years surely deserve more attention than they have received.
Quote ID: 5008
Time Periods: 47
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: xxii
Section: 4B
Pagans were normally tolerant of each other. So long as public order was not threatened, an individual could follow his, or in many cases her, spiritual instincts wherever they led.
Quote ID: 4784
Time Periods: 04
Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 206 Page: 19
Section: 3B,4B
Indeed, between 226 and 379 only nine kings ruled Persia; during the same period there were some 35 Emperors at Rome.
Quote ID: 5015
Time Periods: 34
Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 206 Page: 60
Section: 4B
Manichaeanism – in the sense that there is believed to be a continual fight between God and the Devil – is still today the faith of millions of ordinary people, if they only knew it.
Quote ID: 5038
Time Periods: 237
Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 206 Page: 68
Section: 3B,4B
Nevertheless, the Roman imperial phenomenon does ring a bell, because it does contain points of relevance to what is happening today, or rather to what will be happening before long. For what is likely to be happening, although not all of us will be alive to see it, is a confrontation between the western world and those outside it. It is not for me, now, to go into further details about this confrontation, but I do maintain that it is likely to occur. It also attacked the Roman empire, which was nearly destroyed 200 A.D.: but not quite. It was saved because of its superior organisation.Pastor John’s note: written in 1999
Quote ID: 5044
Time Periods: 237
Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 206 Page: 75
Section: 1A,4B
We are entitled, and rightly so, to speak of a single Greco-Roman civilisation, . . .
Quote ID: 5048
Time Periods: 123456
Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 206 Page: 82
Section: 4B,5A
Geographically, the Roman empire stretched, at its peak, three thousand miles from southern Scotland to southern Egypt; on the east, Roman frontiers lay in the sun-baked upper plains along the Euphrates River, and on the west stopped only by the Atlantic Ocean. This huge block was larger than the whole earth today, if measured in terms of ancient communications and transportation. . .
Quote ID: 5057
Time Periods: 23
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 8771
Time Periods: 14
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9767
Time Periods: 14
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9773
Time Periods: 14
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9788
Time Periods: 14
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9873
Time Periods: 14
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 8772
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9768
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9774
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9789
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9874
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 8773
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9769
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9775
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9790
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9875
Time Periods: 45
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 8774
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9770
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9776
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9791
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9876
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 8775
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9771
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9777
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9792
Time Periods: 4
Complete Palladas, The
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9877
Time Periods: 4
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 1.1-2, The
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Book ID: 336 Page: 424
Section: 3C,4B
265. EPIPHANY.For the great, mad crowd who become priests and monks for their bellies’ sake, that they may be provided for in this world, and who compose the larger part of the clergy, are not worthy to be discussed and much less is their vow of any validity.
Quote ID: 7840
Time Periods: 47
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 5, The
Edited by Eugene F. A. Klug
Book ID: 338 Page: 103
Section: 3C,4B
HOLY CHRISTMAS DAY…the end purpose of the government is temporal peace, while the ultimate end of the church is not peace comfort on earth, nice homes, wealth, power and honor, but everlasting peace.
Quote ID: 7854
Time Periods: 47
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 5, The
Edited by Eugene F. A. Klug
Book ID: 338 Page: 247
Section: 4B
THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY14. The same thing happened with the Roman Empire. Christ came to them, implored them to receive his gospel and follow him in true fear, acknowledgment, and faith….
Quote ID: 7856
Time Periods: 7
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 5, The
Edited by Eugene F. A. Klug
Book ID: 338 Page: 247
Section: 1A,4B
But the Roman emperor set himself and his empire against Christ, persecuted the gospel, crucified some Christians, killed others with the sword, and sought to destroy Christ and his followers. As a result, his government and empire fell, and Rome lay crumbled in the dust.
Quote ID: 7857
Time Periods: 57
Constantine and Eusebius
Timothy D. Barnes
Book ID: 64 Page: 142
Section: 3C2,4B
He thus could not perceive or document one of the crucial transitions in early Christianity. In 180 the Christians were an obscure sect, widely believed to enjoy “Oedipodean incests and Thyestean banquets.” {143} within a generation, however, there were Christians or Christian sympathizers at the imperial court and in the Roman Senate: an apologist could soberly inform a proconsul of Africa that if the proconsul wished to rid his province of Christians, he would need to decimate his own staff and social circle, and a governor of Arabia could ask the prefect of Egypt to send him a Christian teacher for an interview. {144}It is by no means easy to discover when a majority of the population of the Roman Empire (or any area within it) became Christian. The more significant stage in the transformation of Roman society occurred when figures like Tertullian in Africa, Clement and Origen in Alexandria, and, a little later, Cyprian in Carthage demonstrated the moral, social and intellectual respectability of their religion. {145} Eusebius’ picture of the Church before 200 is fundamentally anachronistic.
[Footnote 143] R. Freudenberger, Theologische Zeitschrift 23 (1967), 97 ff.
Quote ID: 1587
Time Periods: 234
Constantine and Eusebius
Timothy D. Barnes
Book ID: 64 Page: 145
Section: 3A,3B,4B
Once the Church enjoyed toleration, it was natural that it should copy allother organizations in the Roman Empire in regarding the emperor, simply because he was emperor, as patron, protector, and arbiter. {164} For the Christians of the third century there was no incongruity in inviting a pagan emperor to intervene in ecclesiastical affairs.
[Footnote 164] F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), 551 ff.
Quote ID: 1589
Time Periods: 3
Constantine and Eusebius
Timothy D. Barnes
Book ID: 64 Page: 191
Section: 3C,4B
When Constantine turned the impending war against Licinius into a Christian crusade, he happily united personal conviction with political advantage. A pagan emperor could no longer govern without the acquiescence and good will of his Christian subjects. {5}
Quote ID: 1600
Time Periods: 4
Constantine and Eusebius
Timothy D. Barnes
Book ID: 64 Page: 196/197
Section: 4A,4B
A Platonic philosopher writing in Alexandria about 300 prefaced a critique of Manichean doctrines with some observations on the state of Christianity which presumably reflect conditions in that city. He characterized Christianity as a simple philosophy, chiefly devoted to ethical instruction, which tells ordinary people how to behave and thus inculcates genuine virtue, piety, and desire for the good. He complained, however, that Christianity lacked a proper theoretical basis, either for theology or in ethics. Since they had no agreed basis for deciding theological issues, the leaders of sects sought novelty for its own sake, thereby converting a simple philosophy into something hopelessly complicated and ineffectual. {58}
Quote ID: 1603
Time Periods: 23
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 98
Section: 3C,4B
By imperial oppression, then, or under the ineluctable circumstances which required such stringent measures, the Roman world had been transformed. Small farmers had ceased to exist, and in their place there was mass cultivation by slave or serf labour. Once again the rich - the large landowners - had prevailed, by mercilessly exploiting the poor, whom economic necessity had forced to flock on to their lands.And it was Constantine who played the chief part in completing and formalizing this situation.
Quote ID: 1693
Time Periods: 4
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 99
Section: 3C,4B
The houses of the powerful were crammed full and their splendour enhanced to the destruction of the poor, the poorer classes of course being held down by force.
Quote ID: 1694
Time Periods: 4
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 99/100
Section: 3A1,4B
Everybody was out for what they could get. Officers treated their soldiers dishonestly, and pay was stolen. There were bribes at church councils Example: #06 pg. 237-238, and recurrent charges of handing over money in order to become a priest and gain high church office. Silvanus, the Donatist bishop of Constantina (Cirta), took bribes. Rich pagans claimed exemption from civic taxes and duties on the false ground that they were Christian priests.
Quote ID: 1696
Time Periods: 4
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 129
Section: 2B2,4B
The opposite view, of course, was taken by Christian writers such as Lactantius, who sought to present his faith as compatible and harmonious with Romanitas, ....
Quote ID: 1707
Time Periods: 3
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
James Carroll
Book ID: 68 Page: 80
Section: 3B,4B
...the caesars tolerated, and even admitted to the pantheon, local gods. But the Roman war machine, once set running, was ruthless beyond what the world had seen. And though local gods were left alone, Rome was perhaps the first empire to require of its subjects an at least outward show of assent to the proposition that the emperor, too, was God.{36}
Quote ID: 1811
Time Periods: 123
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
James Carroll
Book ID: 68 Page: 167
Section: 4B
But going back to the first century B.C.E., Jews had been exempted from the requirements to offer sacrifices to and utter blessings in the name of pagan gods. When the Church grew apart from the synagogue, Christians lost that exemption, which posed a growing problem as the emperors themselves began, in the third century, to claim the prerogatives of deity. Jews were also exempt from military service, but Christians were not.
Quote ID: 1814
Time Periods: 0123
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 1
Section: 4B
From the second century, or even earlier,{1} the Roman nobility had proclaimed that Roman greatness was a reward sent by the gods for Roman piety. The Romans might be excelled by foreigners in other skills but in religious observance they were surpassed by none.{2} A visitor to the Rome of the late republic would still observe a vast amount of traditional ritual. Apart from numerous festivals, every public act began with a religious ceremony, just as the agenda of every meeting of the senate was headed by religious business.{3}
Quote ID: 7604
Time Periods: 012
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 3
Section: 4B
While there is thus an abundance of evidence that the Romans were even obsessively convinced of the need to placate the gods, belief in the gods seems to have had little effect on their conduct. The reader of Latin literature feels that fear of divine displeasure was very rarely a motive…….
If it were not for the descriptions of ritual a reader might conclude that the Romans of the late republic lived in as secular a world as our own.
Quote ID: 7605
Time Periods: 0
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 39/40
Section: 4B
Cicero illustrates what seems to be the central concern of Roman religion: ‘Jupiter is called Best and Greatest not because he makes us just or sober or wise but healthy and rich and prosperous.’{1} Roman gods are called upon to help men in difficulties or to assure their well-being, not to make them morally better.{1} Cic. N.D. iii. 36 (87), cf. ibid. i. 41 (116); Epict. iv. 1. 60-1. R. M. Ogilvie (1969), 17: ‘Roman religion was concerned with success not sin.’
Quote ID: 7610
Time Periods: 0
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 51
Section: 4B
As almost every conceivable act of ordinary life required the co-operation of a competent deity, the scope for supernatural interest in human behavior was unlimited. Of all the deities, none were more generally worshipped than the penates.{3}{3} Not a proper name but a collective description of all gods worshipped in the home. Serv. on Aen. i. 378, cf. K. Latte, R.R. 89.
Quote ID: 8177
Time Periods: 01
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 262
Section: 2B2,4B
From beginning to end of his treatise, Lactantius supports Christian teaching with references to the Roman classics which it had been, and probably still was, his professional duty to teach to the young.{3} Cicero is quoted again and again.{4} Essential arguments are supported with quotations from Virgil or Seneca.….
In contrast, biblical citations are conspicuous only in one of the seven books:…
Quote ID: 7615
Time Periods: 3
Continuity and Change in Roman Religion
J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz
Book ID: 313 Page: 269
Section: 4B
Nevertheless, polytheism, apart from the ‘sentimental’ value of traditional cults, had two very powerful arguments in its favour, that divination seemed to work, and that the belief in gods was universal. The Christians, since the first Apology of Justin and probably before that, refuted these two arguments by asserting that both phenomena were the work of demons who, for their own purposes, had tricked mankind into honouring them as gods.
Quote ID: 7620
Time Periods: 2
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 18
Section: 4B
Piety lay in a calm performance of traditional rites and in a faithful observance of traditional standards.
Quote ID: 1900
Time Periods: 012
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 21
Section: 4B
Before Alexander the GreatAlthough private domestic cultus was free, the city-state did not tolerate serious interference with its religious homogeneity, as we see from the prosecution of Socrates for not believing in the city’s gods and for introducing new daemonia.
Quote ID: 1905
Time Periods: 0
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 25
Section: 4B
We feel for the moment in contact with a religion which could produce a church when we see in an inscription at Cumae ‘No one may be buried here except one who has become a Bacchant’.
Quote ID: 1907
Time Periods: 0
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 33
Section: 4B
Greeks In The East After AlexanderIn general, a Greek was very eager to come home and end his days in familiar and loved surrounding. That is why exile, even while spent in another Greek city, was so heavy a penalty, and why those who had suffered it would go to any lengths of treason to secure their return. When Odysseus preferred his return to Ithaca to immortality on Calypso’s island he was true to the spirit of the Ionian Greek, the most travelled of all the Greeks.
PJ: Fame
Quote ID: 1910
Time Periods: 0
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 67/68
Section: 4B
New cults, when they came to Rome, entered an atmosphere different from that of the Hellenistic cities in which they had previously found acceptance. In those cities, indeed, as in Rome, public worship was a public concern, and we have seen occasional interference by the authorities against unwarranted innovation. In Rome this was far more systematic and thoroughgoing. The religion of the republic was a relationship between the State and the gods. The State did its part and looked confidently to the gods to do theirs. Further, the State took over the responsibility of individual citizens and freed them from religio, uneasy fear of the supernatural, and emotion always latent and liable from time to time to break out in panic. The attitude of the State towards individuals was exactly like the attitude then of the head of household to its members. The elder Cato, in his treaties on agriculture, gives this advice about the bailiff’s wife, ‘Let her not perform ceremonies or bid another do so for her without the command of her master or mistress. Let her know that her master does worship for the whole household’ (ch. 143).
Quote ID: 1928
Time Periods: 0123
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 68
Section: 2C,4B
No Roman citizen might become a eunuch priest, and we hear of the banishment of a slave who castrated himself.
Quote ID: 1929
Time Periods: 0123
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 71
Section: 4B
There was a particular zeal to prevent any sort of religious professional quack, of the type discussed earlier in connexion with Orphism, from getting a hold upon the popular imagination and disturbing the public tranquillity. The classic instance is that of 186 B.C., when a religious movement, suddenly discovered and thought to be a grave menace to public order and safety, was suppressed.
Quote ID: 1933
Time Periods: 02
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 73
Section: 4B
The guilty were punished, all temples which could not claim antiquity were destroyed: no such meetings were held in future at Rome or in Italy.
Quote ID: 1934
Time Periods: 02
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 74
Section: 4B
The policy of checking the intrusion of alien elements, unless sanctioned and in fact introduced by the quindecimuiri, continued. As early as 181 B.C. certain suppose books of Numa Pompilius, said to have been found on the Janiculum, were burnt in public with the approval of the Senate, since the praetor adjudged that they tended in the main to the break up of beliefs.
Quote ID: 1935
Time Periods: 0
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 75
Section: 4B
Mithras alone remains private and yet fully approved.Pastor John’s Note: no threat to the State
Quote ID: 1936
Time Periods: 012
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 112
Section: 4B
The first century A.D., Cicero speaks of the decay of Delphi, Lucan speaks of its silence. This may be regarded as rhetorical exaggeration, but the treaties of Plutarch On the Decay of the Oracles, which is of real weight in view of Plutarch’s connexion with Delphi and the priesthood which he held there, bears witness to the reality of the decline.
Quote ID: 1945
Time Periods: 1
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 114
Section: 4B
Ancient speculation never lost the conviction that there was a straight forward explanation of the universe. Men turned then to the mysteries....Logically, on the theory that the various divine names belonged to one unity, one mystery might suffice. But initiates were bound to secrecy and what was divulged was not the whole story. So if a man was to get to the heart of the matter he must be initiated in as many mysteries as possible.Pastor John’s Note: Great wealth required, but Paul said, “All hidden wisdom is in Christ.”
Quote ID: 1946
Time Periods: 1
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 120
Section: 4B
From the fifth century B.C. to the end of the first century A.D. Greek and Roman thinkers had for the most part maintained a cool respect towards religious tradition...They did not, however, regard it as a source of enlightenment.... They could not pretend to themselves that they were drawing from it tenets of a way of life. This now changed, not of course abruptly or completely, but yet visibly. The path of the intellect, though it had so often seemed promising, was not leading to sure results.
Quote ID: 1949
Time Periods: 01
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 121
Section: 4A,4B
Further, the rise of Rome to power set higher and higher values on practical gifts, on the administration of things as they were rather than on the interpretation of things. As the scope of philosophy narrowed till it became almost entirely ethical, it naturally tended to use religious sanctions....
Quote ID: 1950
Time Periods: 0123
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 123
Section: 3B,4B
Literature then, as at most times till the eighteenth century, depended on patronage....In the Empire fashion spread swiftly downward and the views of the aristocracy have dominated the literature which survives, and without doubt dominated most of the far larger literature which has perished. There were no righteous poor, no critics of society except the philosophers, and they, too, had and needed backers.
Quote ID: 1951
Time Periods: 1237
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 125
Section: 2B2,3B,4B
It is therefore not surprising that the Flavian period saw a rise in the importance of the Egyptian gods. They remain outside the official city boundary, but appear on Roman coins in 71 and 73, and for the first time on the coins of Alexandria (which had an official character) Sarapis is called Zeus Sarapis.
Quote ID: 1953
Time Periods: 1
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 127
Section: 3B,4B
By the Antonine age, the trend of social change has had time to bear full fruit. The governing class is now recruited from the whole Empire, East and West alike: we find men born in the province of Asia holding time-honoured priesthoods in Rome itself.
Quote ID: 1954
Time Periods: 2
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 136/137
Section: 2B2,4B
Its popularity is shown by the common ascription to various deities of the epithet pantheus and by the representations of one of them with attributes of others. The latter begin in the second century B.C., but the wildest extent of the development is from the end of the first century of our era.....It is a theology of unity and mutual understanding, and not of conflict. Adhesion to a new cult was thus made easier: it need involve no more than the devotion of Catholics to the cultus of a new saint.
Quote ID: 1958
Time Periods: 1234
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 156/157
Section: 4B
Down to the middle of the third century men relapsed into paganism: we do not hear of their embracing it. Porphyry, according to a tradition which need not be doubted, a Christian for a time, only to return to the faith of his fathers and to attack Christianity with the enthusiasm of a convert from it.
Quote ID: 1959
Time Periods: 23
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 192/193
Section: 2A,4B
The world as a whole did not know much of Christians as distinct from Jews till the fire of Rome in 64, when Nero seized on them as scapegoats to satisfy popular resentment and made the admission of Christianity proof of guilt. Thereafter they were in the public mind, rather than in the public eye, as the object of the general odium directed against the Jews for being an anti-social and highly cohesive body, and of the special odium incurred by their reputation as incendiaries, revolutionaries, and generally abominable. But they were not conspicuous. The works directed against Christianity do not allude to out-of door-preaching.There were no visible out-of-door ceremonials, no temples recognizable as such till much later, and no priesthood displaying its character by its dress or its tonsure, or (in the early stages) its abstinence from secular employments....the one Christian type known to the populace was that of the martyr.
Quote ID: 1976
Time Periods: 123
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 197
Section: 3B,4B
Marcus Aurelius says (xi.3):‘What a fine thing is the soul which is ready if it must here and now be freed from the body and either extinguished or scattered or survive. But let this readiness come from a personal judgement and not out of a mere spirit of opposition, like that of the Christians; let it be in a reasoned and grave temper, capable of convincing another, and without theatricality.’
Quote ID: 1979
Time Periods: 2
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 208
Section: 4B
We have a very interesting petition from the people of Lycia and Pamphylia to Maximinus in 311-12 (in an inscription at Arycanda) asking him ‘that the Christians, who have long been mad, and still continue in their diseased state, be made to stop and not by any foolish new worship to transgress against that which is due to the gods’. The petition is probably inspired and due to men who knew that the Emperor desired to be thus entreated, but it crystallizes a popular attitude.There was much in ancient feeling to explain this: notably the idea that the welfare of the Roman State hung together with the due performance of the traditional Roman rites.
Pastor John’s Note: In 312, the year of Constantine’s conversion
Quote ID: 1983
Time Periods: 4
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 210/211
Section: 1A,4B
The success of Christianity is the success of an institution which united the sacramentalism and the philosophy of the time. It satisfied the inquiring turn of mind, the desire for escape from Fate, the desire for security in the hereafter; like Stoicism, it gave a way of life and made man at home in the universe, but unlike Stoicism it did this for the ignorant as well as for the lettered. It satisfied also social needs and it secured men against loneliness. Its way was not easy; it made uncompromising demands on those who would enter and would continue to live in the brotherhood, but to those who did not fail, it offered an equally uncompromising assurance.
Quote ID: 1985
Time Periods: 14
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 242
Section: 4B
We have seen how little cohesion there was in any contemporary pagan cults. The Christians had something new -- the letters of introduction given to a member of one community about to visit another, the relations and mutual assistance of one congregation to another (as for instance of Rome to Corinth), the formulation of agreed tenets and of an agreed view of their own history. Apart from times of persecution, a poor man must have gained a great sense of security from the organization. He knew that care would be taken of him in and after life, and that he would not be wholly left to his own resources.Our convert could thus without difficulty acquire devotion to the Catholic Church.
Quote ID: 1990
Time Periods: 234
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 246
Section: 4B
The concrete expectations of the Christians had no doubt an attraction for many who found life heavy and unjust and who looked for conditions under which its inequalities would be set right. The century which preceded the remaking of the Roman world by Augustus had seen several abortive attempts to initiate a social revolution. The firm government which followed did much to humanize life and certainly left to such movements no chance of success...the men who might have been expected to make uprisings did in fact display rather a sullen resignation...their outlook appears in the epitaph so often found over the remains of slaves and gladiators, ‘ I was not. I was. I shall not be. I do not care.’None of these men, unless they had fallen under Christian influence, expected divine intervention to change things.
Quote ID: 1991
Time Periods: 014
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 254
Section: 4B
The book of Acts describes various types of conversion...it is clear that the two most important factors were prophecy and miracle.
Quote ID: 1994
Time Periods: 1
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 259
Section: 4B
Augustine’s father was a pagan who lived in harmony with a Christian wife and did not prevent his son from being marked with the sign of the cross or veto the idea of his being baptized in a serious illness (i.II).
Quote ID: 1996
Time Periods: 45
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 261
Section: 4B
In his treatise On the Catechizing of those who are Unversed, he explains how the Christian scheme of faith should be set forth. It is all done on the values of the thing in itself. There is no emphasis on the renunciation of heathen beliefs and practices.Pastor John’s Note: Augustine
Quote ID: 1998
Time Periods: 45
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 272
Section: 4B
Religion in Greece and Rome was not a distinct and separate aspect of life, but something which ran through all its phases. We have therefore an abundance of literature about religion. We have, however, very little religious literature, in the sense of works written by devotees for devotees. This is a natural consequence of the absence of hierarchy and theology.Ancient literature was produced by a small class of educated persons who wrote for their like. It shows us the high points of ancient religious thinking.
Quote ID: 2000
Time Periods: 0
Councils: First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, The
Leo Donald Davis
Book ID: 224 Page: 13
Section: 4B
The decurions or town councilors, the well-to-do middle class property owners who managed and maintained the cities, began to evade their increasingly burdensome duties. Since the Empire was in fact a great federation of self-governing cities, the dying civic loyalty of the decurions threatened the whole administrative and financial structure of the Empire.. . . .
The old order was shaken. Concludes A.H.M. Jones: “Now the sense of noblesse oblige was failing among the aristocracy, the spirit of civic patriotism was fast vanishing in the middle class, the discipline of the troops was decaying, and there was nothing to take their place.”
Pastor John’s note: late 3rd century
Quote ID: 5621
Time Periods: 3
Councils: First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, The
Leo Donald Davis
Book ID: 224 Page: 17
Section: 4B
The Romans were traditionally tolerant of the beliefs of others, willing to allow a wide diversity as long as believers supported the state and did not outrage the Roman sense of decency.Pastor John note: Pope Boniface extreme evil
Quote ID: 5623
Time Periods: 45
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 32/33
Section: 4B
As we have seen, the evidence of the pressure from “mass conversions” has been exaggerated. Nor is there any evidence that the locus of superstitious practice lay among the “vulgar.” Indeed, it is the other way round: what is clearly documented is the tension caused by the way in which the demands of a new elite of well-to-do Christian laywomen and laymen were met by the determination of an equally new elite of bishops, who often came from the same class, that they and they alone should be the patroni of the publicly established Christian communities. Instead of a dialogue on “superstition” conducted between the disapproving “few” and the “common herd,” we must begin with a conflict more plausible to late-Roman men - a conflict between rival systems of patronage.
Quote ID: 5075
Time Periods: 4
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 40
Section: 4B,2A3
Exempt from many forms of taxation,{81} and not subject to the periodic financial blood-lettings that accompanied a secular career, the leaders of the Christian community found themselves in a difficult position. They had all the means of social dominance, and none of the means of showing it in acceptable form. . . .the bishops of the West, by contrast, found that they had to invent new ways of spending money. Building and the increase of ceremonial in connection with new foci of worship was the only way out. And where better than at the graves of the martyrs?
Quote ID: 5084
Time Periods: 345
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 40
Section: 4B
For bitter envy always fell on undistributed wealth in the ancient world, and the bishops could be made to feel this as much as any secular potentes. Yet they lacked the normal outlets by which the layman could buy off envy by ostentatiously flirting with bankruptcy in bouts of public giving.{82}
Quote ID: 5085
Time Periods: 4
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 41
Section: 4B
It is not surprising that, in the late fourth century, the saints suddenly began to “stand out” in such high eminence. As Bishop Alexander stated in his inscription at Tebessa,Here where you see walls crowned with gleaming roofs,
here where the high ceilings glitter and the holy altars stand:
this place is not the work of any noblemen, but stands
forever to the glory of the bishop, Alexander.{90}
Quote ID: 5087
Time Periods: 4
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 45
Section: 4B
Evelyn Patlagean has shown that one of the principal changes from a classical to a postclassical society was the replacement of a particularized political model of society, in which the unit was the city, its composition defined in terms of citizens and noncitizens, by a more all embracing economic model, in which all society was seen, in town and country alike, as divided between the rich and the poor, the rich having a duty to support the poor, which was expressed in strictly religious terms as almsgiving.{119}
Quote ID: 5089
Time Periods: 456
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 94
Section: 4B
As Macrina used to remind her brother, "Your father enjoyed a considerable reputation in his time for his culture; but his fame reached no further than the law courts of his own region. Later, he became known as a teacher of rhetoric throughout all Pontus. But all he wished for was fame within the bounds of his own home country. You, however, are a name to conjure with in far cities, peoples and provinces."{37}.
Quote ID: 5096
Time Periods: 4
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 119
Section: 4B
For a sharp dichotomy between “town” and “country,” “Christian” and “pagan” does not do justice to its nuances. Rusticitas, as Gregory observed its ravages, overlapped considerably with the habits of the rural population; but it was by no means limited exclusively to these. Rusticitas could be committed by most people on most days---and especially on Sundays.
Quote ID: 5101
Time Periods: 4
Cult of the Saints, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 208 Page: 120
Section: 2A3,4B
When members of Gregory’s own entourage, traveling to Brioude to avoid the plague, resorted to the use of amulets applied by local diviners to cure one of their fellows, what angers him is not that they were behaving like pagans, but that they had lost their sense of reverentia for the saints. It provokes in him a characteristic outburst:"Let the patronage of the martyrs be what the sufferer seeks....Let him pray for the help offered by the confessors, who are truly called friends of the Lord."{72}
Thus, in any place where a Christian shrine lay close to hand, the diffuse resources of the neighborhood, as these had been applied in the form of amulets and divination, were met by a precisely delineated image of ideal human relations sketched out by bishops such as Gregory with a certainty of touch that betrayed the long grooming of late-Roman aristocratic society.
Pastor John’s note: = A more sophisticated superstition
Quote ID: 5102
Time Periods: 46
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 8
Section: 4B
In his Error of Profane Religions, he accuses the Egyptians of worshipping water, the Phrygians earth, the Syrio-Phoenicians air, and the Persians fire: in other words, Isis and Osiris, Cybele, Tanit-Astarte and Mithras.
Quote ID: 5118
Time Periods: 4
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 10
Section: 3A2,4B
‘Let no one have separate gods, either new or foreign, unless they are officially allowed’, wrote Cicero in the Laws (II, 19).
Quote ID: 5122
Time Periods: 012
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 10
Section: 4B
In Rome, religio (national and authentic) was readily contrasted with superstitio (exotic and suspect). Anything that deviated from the ritual taught by the ancestors and legitimized by tradition smacked of superstitio, ...........
Quote ID: 5123
Time Periods: 0123
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 10
Section: 4B
Today, as then, one finds in the Roman church the same kind of mistrust towards anything that evades the necessary mediation of the institutional Church.
Quote ID: 5124
Time Periods: 047
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 13
Section: 4B
In Rome itself, freedmen of eastern origin played a growing part in the urban plebs who, in ‘clubs’ or collegia, guaranteed political agitators an ideal body of supporters to exploit.
Quote ID: 5128
Time Periods: 012
Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Book ID: 72 Page: 110
Section: 4B
The Christian Church did not adopt Latin until the great shock which, toward the middle of the third century, rent the empire asunder and shook the very foundations of ancient civilisation. {41}
Quote ID: 2005
Time Periods: 3
Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Book ID: 72 Page: 136
Section: 3B,4B
. . .– it is nevertheless beyond all doubt that “Christianity” in Rome goes back to the reign of Claudius (41-54), and that under Nero it had become so widespread that the emperor was able to throw the blame for the great fire of 64 onto the Christians.From the beginning of the empire members of the Jewish colony had proved so troublesome that in 19 A.D. Tiberius thought it necessary to take severe measures against them, and so numerous that he was able to ship off 4,000 Jews at one swoop to Sardinia. {134}
Quote ID: 2014
Time Periods: 1
Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Book ID: 72 Page: 204
Section: 4B
All in all, then, we find 59 days devoted to these traditional games of the Roman Republic before the time of Sulla. {6}
Quote ID: 2018
Time Periods: 0
Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Book ID: 72 Page: 205
Section: 4B
In other words, at the time of Claudius, the Roman calendar contained 159 days expressly marked as holidays, of which 93 were devoted to games given at public expense. The list does not include the many ceremonies for which the State took no responsibility and supplied no funds, but which were much in favour among the people and took place around the sanctuaries of the quarters in the chapels of foreign deities whose worship was officially sanctioned, and in the scholae or meeting places of the guilds and colleges. Even less does it take account of the feriae privatae of individuals or family groups.. . . but the additions seem to have outnumbered the subtractions, for we know that Claudius {11}, Vespasian {12}, and Marcus Aurelius {13} all found it necessary to cut down the number of holidays.
Quote ID: 2019
Time Periods: 01
Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Book ID: 72 Page: 206
Section: 4B
For the manuscript Calendar of Phiocalus, written in 354 A.D. and reflecting conditions of the third century, records 175 days of games out of about 200 public holidays, as against 93 out of 159 for the early empire . . .{14}The reality, therefore, far exceeded our statistics; and in attempting to analyse it, we are driven to conclude that in the epoch we are studying Rome enjoyed at least one day of holiday for every working day.
Religion presided at the birth of every one of these Roman “holidays,” and was more or less inseparably bound up with each.
Quote ID: 2020
Time Periods: 04
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 1, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 320 Page: 355/356
Section: 4B,3B2
*John’s note: With the election of the senator Tacitius to be emperor, and then his sudden death.*
Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal cities of the empire – Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage – to claim their obedience, and to inform them of the happy revolution which had restored the Roman senate to its ancient dignity. Two of these epistles are still extant. We likewise possess two very singular fragments of the private correspondence of the senators on this occasion. They discover the most excessive joy and the most unbounded hopes. ‘Cast away your indolence,’ it is thus that one of the senators addresses his friend, ‘emerge from your retirements of Baiae and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to the senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes. Thanks to the Roman army, to an army truly Roman, at length we have recovered our just authority, the end of all our desires. We hear appeals. We appoint proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps, too, we may restrain them – to the wise a word is sufficient.’{1} These lofty expectations were, however, soon disappointed; nor, indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome. On the slightest touch the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
Quote ID: 9030
Time Periods: 3
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 2, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 210 Page: 7
Section: 2D3B,4B
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed, however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must have existed some other cause which exposed the disciples of Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious, but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the highest importance. The Jews were a nation, the Christians were a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect the sacred institutions of their neighbours, it was incumbent on them to preserve in those of their ancestors.. . . .
The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the example of mankind, and it was universally acknowledged that they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish synagogue, afforded not any favour or security to the primitive church. By embracing the faith of the Gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true or had reverenced as sacred.
Quote ID: 5187
Time Periods: 123
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 2, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 210 Page: 39/40
Section: 2E1,4B
It was in the choice of Cyprian either to die a martyr or to live an apostate, but on that choice depended the alternative of honour or infamy.. . . .
The assurance of a lasting reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs. The honours which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who had fallen in the cause of their country were cold and unmeaning demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship.
Quote ID: 5193
Time Periods: 3
Dictionary of Roman Religion
Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins
Book ID: 73 Page: 9
Section: 4B
animal, sacred There were no animals regarded as incarnate gods in the Roman period, except in Egypt.....
There is no evidence that the animals themselves were worshipped.
Quote ID: 2027
Time Periods: 01
Didache: The Oldest Church Manual
Phillip Schaff
Book ID: 254 Page: 168/169
Section: 4B
2. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt boys; thou shalt not commit fornication. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; thou shalt not practice sorcery. Thou shalt not procure abortion, nor shalt thou kill the new-born child. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.….
An unnatural and revolting vice very prevalent among the heathen, even among the best classes in Greece, but severely condemned by the Mosaic law, as an abomination punishable with death, Lev. xviii. 22; xx. 13, and by Paul, Rom. i. 27; 1 Cor. vi. 9; 1 Tim. i.10 (“abusers of themselves with men”).
Quote ID: 6398
Time Periods: 12
Digest of Justinian, Vol. 1, The
Alan Watson
Book ID: 291 Page: 82
Section: 4B
“The following incur infamia: one who has been discharged from the army in disgrace by his general or the person with the power of decision in this matter; one who has appeared on the stage to act or recite; one who has kept a brothel; one who in criminal proceedings has been judged guilty of vexatious litigation or collusion in anything; one who has been condemned in his own name for theft, robbery with violence, insult, fraud, trickery or compromised in such a case;
Quote ID: 7394
Time Periods: 15
Digest of Justinian, Vol. 1, The
Alan Watson
Book ID: 291 Page: 83
Section: 4B
3 GAIUS, Provincial Edict, book 1: One who has hired himself out to appear on the stage and does not do so is not blacklisted, because this activity is not so disgraceful that even the intention requires punishment.
Quote ID: 7419
Time Periods: 15
Digest of Justinian, Vol. 4, The
Alan Watson
Book ID: 290 Page: 299
Section: 4B
1. ULPIAN, Praetor’s Edict, book 2: The action for violation of a tomb entails infamia.2. By “tomb” we understand any place of burial.
Quote ID: 7391
Time Periods: 15
Digest of Justinian, Vol. 4, The
Alan Watson
Book ID: 290 Page: 300
Section: 4B
4. PAUL, Praetor’s Edict, book 27: The tombs of enemies have no religious significance for us. Hence, we can take stones from them and put them to any use, and the action for violating a tomb will not lie.
Quote ID: 7393
Time Periods: 15
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 110
Section: 4B
The Church accepted slavery without demur as an integral part of the social and economic fabric of the empire; but in terms of its own inner life it was a matter of indifference; . . .
Quote ID: 5278
Time Periods: 234
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 145
Section: 4B
This same materialism is to be found in Cyprian with his quaint argument against cosmetics since they might prevent God’s recognizing the individual at the resurrection.
Quote ID: 5300
Time Periods: 3
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 158
Section: 2D3B,4B
Hence Clement could devote page after page to describing and condemning pagan luxury and lack of temperance and advocating frugality and a plain diet for the faithful, even listing the kinds of food they may eat, e.g. olives, herbs, milk, cheese, fruit, cooked foods without sauces, and a little meat but boiled rather than roast.The same condemnation of extravagance extended to clothes. Tertullian could trace female ornament back to the fallen angels. Clement had no doubt that ‘our life ought to be anything but a pageant’, and Cyprian regarded ostentation in dress as fit only for prostitutes. Complicated hair-styles were not tolerated and Christian men were expected not to shave but to preserve their natural beards.
Quote ID: 5309
Time Periods: 23
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 214
Section: 2B2,4B
It was in this way, by both precept and practice, that the Church sought to baptize the whole of daily life into Christianity, . . .
Quote ID: 5340
Time Periods: 4
Early Christianity - Origins and Evolution to AD 600
Ian Hazlett (Editor)
Book ID: 77 Page: 175
Section: 2B2,4B
Early Christian monuments echo contemporary Graeco-Roman styles, influenced by the great Greek masterpieces of the fourth century BC; thus the earliest portraits of Christ depict him as a handsome youth not unlike the Greek Apollo.
Quote ID: 2127
Time Periods: 45
Early Christianity - Origins and Evolution to AD 600
Ian Hazlett (Editor)
Book ID: 77 Page: 176
Section: 4B
The attitude of St Cyprian is instructive; on becoming a bishop he threw away his pagan books, and professed that he owed nothing to paganism, while continuing to write the impeccable formal prose which he had learnt from his pagan schoolmasters. Tertullian, Jerome and others show a similar combination of affected distain with actual indebtedness.
Quote ID: 2128
Time Periods: 345
Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment, The
Ronald J. Sider
Book ID: 347 Page: 15
Section: 4B
Killing was widespread and acceptable in the world where the early Christian lived. Roman culture of course accepted and glorified killing by the Roman army. Capital punishment via the sword and crucifixion was also the norm. In addition, Greco-Roman culture in the first three centuries justified and accepted widespread abortion, infanticide, and suicide. And one of the most popular “sports” events of the time was the gladiatorial contests, where trained gladiators fought to the death, cheered on by thousands of spectators.
Quote ID: 7989
Time Periods: 123
Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment, The
Ronald J. Sider
Book ID: 347 Page: 21
Section: 4B
Second Clement….
In the manuscripts, it [JC: Second Clement] appears immediately after First Cement and probably dates from the first part of the second century.
….
13. Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us repent immediately…For when they hear from us that God says, “It is no credit to you if you love those who love you, but it is a credit to you if you love your enemies and those who hate you,” when they hear these things, they marvel at such extraordinary goodness. But when they see that we not only do not love those who hate us but do not even love those who love us, they scornfully laugh at us, and the Name is blasphemed.{5}
Quote ID: 7990
Time Periods: 2
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 29
Section: 4B
By the end of the second century Christianity was penetrating the upper classes of society, and more than one highly placed personage might wake up to find his wife embarrassing him by disappearing to nocturnal vigils and prayers. Marcia, the concubine of the emperor Commodus (180-92), was a Christian, and was able to gain for the church in Rome a considerable measure of relief (below, p. 88).
Quote ID: 5366
Time Periods: 23
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 56/57
Section: 3A3B,4B
The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success.. . . .
A particular service which the community rendered to poor brethren (following synagogue precedent) was to provide for their burial.
. . . .
Hospitality to travelers was an especially important act of charity:
. . . .
At first clergy stipends were paid on a dividend system (monthly in the time of Cyprian of Carthage); it was only much later that the growth of endowments made fixed incomes possible at least in many churches.
. . . .
The financial independence of each church meant that rural clergy were ill paid while those in great cities or attached to popular shrines became well off.
. . . .
bishops who preferred to spend money on rich adornments and splendid churches were generally disapproved; in any event, there was no question of such elaboration before the time of Constantine.
Quote ID: 5374
Time Periods: 23
Early Greek Philosophy, LCL 526: Early Greek Philosophy III
Translated by Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most
Book ID: 429 Page: 143
Section: 4B
D13 (B29) Clement of Alexandria, StromataThe best men choose one thing instead of all others, the ever-flowing fame of mortals….
Quote ID: 8709
Time Periods: 23
Early Greek Philosophy, LCL 526: Early Greek Philosophy III
Translated by Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most
Book ID: 429 Page: 281
Section: 2B2,4B
R74 (cf. Nachtrag I, p. 491.42) Philo, Questions Genesis….
Heraclitus wrote the book on nature; which [scil. he wrote] having learned from the theologian [i.e. Moses] the ideas about the opposites, and having added to it an infinity of laborious arguments.{1}
Quote ID: 8710
Time Periods: 0
Early Greek Philosophy, LCL 526: Early Greek Philosophy III
Translated by Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most
Book ID: 429 Page: 285
Section: 2C,4A,4B
R77 (≠ DK) Justin Martyr, Apology….
And those people who have lived with the Word were Christians, even if they were considered to be atheists, as for example, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and those men similar to them, and, among the barbarians, Abraham […].
Quote ID: 8711
Time Periods: 2
Early Greek Philosophy, LCL 526: Early Greek Philosophy III
Translated by Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most
Book ID: 429 Page: 287
Section: 4A,4B
Clement cites Heraclitus [PJ: c. 535 BC– c. 475 BC] often.
Quote ID: 8712
Time Periods: 023
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 28
Section: 4B
This accommodation to a received culture was not confined to ‘popular religion’. Christianity was no longer a low-class religion. The conversion of the upper classes had begun; the growth in social mobility and the vast expansion of the civil service brought the conditions for the advancement of many Christians; pagan men of learning were showing increasing interest in Christianity.
Quote ID: 5408
Time Periods: 3
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 30
Section: 4B
When Augustine was writing, nearly half a century after Victorinus’ conversion, Christian and pagan were more sharply polarised in Western society. The conflicts of the age of Julian, and in the West in the 380s and 390s between the pagan aristocratic reaction and the Christian court, had put a question mark against the easy symbiosis of Christianity and pagan culture.
Quote ID: 5411
Time Periods: 45
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 30/31
Section: 4B
About the time of Jerome’s death in 420 and Augustine’s ten years later, the confrontations of the late fourth century between Christians and pagans were receding into the mists. In reality, the struggle was over, the battle lines breaking up. Paganism was dying out fast in the senatorial families, and the Church’s view of mixed marriages was softening. From the 430s the popes were making common cause with Roman aristocrats in a revival of classical architectural traditions, and the Christian descendants of Symmachus and Nicomachus Flavianus were carrying on their ancestors’ literary activities, securing the continuity of their secular interests. Mass-christianization of Roman society from the highest level down was depriving Christians of a clearly felt and easily discernible identity in their society.Christianization
Quote ID: 5412
Time Periods: 5
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 32
Section: 2C,4B
The question of what it was that defined a Christian had never been easy to answer; but it had become especially troubling in an age when Christianity seemed to have become so easy. How much of the old life could be carried over into the new? To this question there was no clear answer, or there were too many.
Quote ID: 5414
Time Periods: 1234
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 127
Section: 4B
Much recent study has taught us to see this substitution of almsgiving - preferably anonymous! - for the ancient competitive and conspicuous works of public munificence as one of the profoundest aspects of a new conception of society
Quote ID: 5432
Time Periods: 234
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 150
Section: 4B
With the decline of public authority, public places were encroached on and privatised. Diminished and re-directed civic munificence created churches, chapels and monasteries instead of the traditional civic buildings.
Quote ID: 5451
Time Periods: 3
Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era
Edited by: John F. Hall
Book ID: 551 Page: 152
Section: 4B
Religion was, of course, the area in which Rome was most heavily influenced by the Etruscans….
Quote ID: 9215
Time Periods: 0147
Etruscans, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 221 Page: 224
Section: 4B
The primary reason for this prosperity was the wealth of Veii’s agricultural resources. Their potentialities were exploited by extremely skillful irrigation, so characteristic of the Etruscans who in their turn became the mentors of Rome.
Quote ID: 5462
Time Periods: 0
Etruscans, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 221 Page: 226
Section: 4B
This thoroughfare was part of an elaborate network of roads, for they were fine road-builders, and taught this science, like irrigation, to Rome.
Quote ID: 5463
Time Periods: 0
Etruscans, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 221 Page: 230
Section: 4B
. . .relied on their neighbor Veii as their chief cultural model.
Quote ID: 5465
Time Periods: 0
Etruscans: How Did the Etruscans Shape Roman History and Society?
Daily History https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Etruscans_shape_Roman_history_and_socoety3F
Book ID: 444 Page: 3
Section: 4B
The Etruscan kings were great builders and they transformed Rome from a rude settlement of huts and simple dwellings into a true city. The monarch probably introduced Etruscan builders and architects into the city. The Etruscans were great engineers and they were outstanding builders.
Quote ID: 8815
Time Periods: 014
Etruscans: How Did the Etruscans Shape Roman History and Society?
Daily History https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Etruscans_shape_Roman_history_and_socoety3F
Book ID: 444 Page: 4
Section: 4A,4B
The Tarquin kings the Etruscans exposed the Romans to Greek culture. Many Roman nobles would send their sons to schools in Etruscan cities and here they learned Greek and read its literature and philosophy.{12} Greek thought and literature enriched Roman culture.
Quote ID: 8816
Time Periods: 014
Etruscans: How Did the Etruscans Shape Roman History and Society?
Daily History https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Etruscans_shape_Roman_history_and_socoety3F
Book ID: 444 Page: 4
Section: 1B,4B
Even after the Etruscan kings were expelled the Romans still respected the oracles of the Etruscans. The Roman Senate ordained that the Etruscan oracles and ceremonies be maintained in perpetuity by the state and they were practiced by Roman priests until the Christian era.{16}
Quote ID: 8818
Time Periods: 014
Etruscans: How Did the Etruscans Shape Roman History and Society?
Daily History https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Etruscans_shape_Roman_history_and_socoety3F
Book ID: 444 Page: 5
Section: 4B
The Romans largely secularized the custom of men fighting although it retained some religious symbolism such as the presence of an attendant dressed as the divinity Hermes.{17} The Romans over the course of the centuries took what was essentially an Etruscan religious ceremony and turned it into a gory public sporting event.
Quote ID: 8819
Time Periods: 014
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 28
Section: 4B
By the end of the first millennium, Latin had become the mark of an elite, inseparably associated with the authority of kings and clergy alike throughout much—but not all—of the early medieval West.
Quote ID: 2168
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 31
Section: 4B
Throughout the ancient world, Latin implied cultural superiority. Like Greek, the lingua romana was regarded as the language of learning, law, and rationality—those hall-marks that, Romans opined, raised their own world to a higher level than those around them. To a Roman, the peoples who lived beyond the imperial frontiers were unkempt and ferocious, ‘barbarians’ whose way of life contrasted unfavourably with that of the inhabitants of the empire. The term ‘barbarian’ was laden with heavy cultural and linguistic prejudice: ‘as much distinguishes a barbarian from a Roman as a four-legged creature from a two-legged one, or a dumb girl from a man with the power of speech’, wrote the late-fourth-century poet Prudentius.{17}
Quote ID: 2170
Time Periods: 01234
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 31
Section: 4B
From an imperial perspective, Greek and Latin marked out a superior society that had no respect for the ignorant and uneducated.Based on education, the distinction between Roman and ‘barbarian’ was cultural not racial, and thus never formed an impermeable barrier.
Quote ID: 2171
Time Periods: 014
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 47
Section: 4B
By the seventh century, and in some places rather earlier, monastic communities found themselves the main guardians of the educational traditions and literary heritage of Antiquity. 3F
Quote ID: 2176
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 223
Section: 4B
In effect, early medieval Christianity was neither centralized nor systematized. Not a single, uniform cultural package to be adopted or rejected as an entity, it comprised a repertoire of beliefs, social practices, and organization forms that could be adopted and adapted piecemeal. Thus Christianity jumped from one cultural and political context to another, repeatedly mutating and reconstituting itself in ways that preserved its core features.
Quote ID: 2183
Time Periods: 6
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 224
Section: 4B
Pluralisms and possibilities remained the hallmarks of early medieval Christianity—or, better, of early medieval Christianities—and enabled this universal religion to take endlessly varied local forms. Christianity thus reinforced the localisms so characteristic of the early Middle Ages.
Quote ID: 2184
Time Periods: 56
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 235
Section: 3A1,3A2,4B
When it came to the mutual reinforcement of political and sacral power, there was no better model than Christianity.
Quote ID: 2190
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 235
Section: 4B,3A4C
Thus, however stark the triumphalist antithesis of Christian truth and pagan error became, this conceptual dichotomy did not generally inform everyday religious experience, except for Christian armies urged into battle specifically to defeat pagans.
Quote ID: 2191
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 251
Section: 3A1,4B
During Antiquity, ‘Europe’ signaled one of the three continents of the known world. But in the centuries from c.500 to c.1000, much of the continent came to adopt a new identity, as Christendom, the community of all baptized believers in Christ and the Christian God. Men and women from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle now had something in common.
Quote ID: 2195
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 255/256
Section: 1A,4B
Even so, Rome’s hold over the imagination of all the inhabitants of Christian Europe was long since assured. Northern writers dreamed on, without mundane reality interrupting their idealized visions of the ‘queen of cities’.{8} Famed throughout the triple world by Franks, ‘faithful Christians and emperors’, it was secure in its reputation as ‘mother of kings and glory of Italians’,{9} ‘the mother of martyrs, the domicile of the apostles’,{10} ‘the capital of the world . . . mother of all churches’.{11}
Quote ID: 2197
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 256
Section: 4B
…a powerful idea but a shabby urban experience.Pastor John’s note: Rome
Quote ID: 2198
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 262
Section: 4B
Because Christianity was the main vector for the transmission of the literacy culture of the Roman world and churches the main agents of its preservation, the form and content of these myths were liable to be influenced by both biblical and classical origin tales.{16}Pastor John’s note on page 263: The Mormons aren’t the only ones with a mythological origin.
Quote ID: 2199
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 275
Section: 4B
Increasing diplomatic contact between the Frankish and Byzantine courts also enabled direct observation and emulation, for the prestige of the Romaioi, the Romans, as the Byzantines understood themselves to be, elicited a mixture of grudging admiration and keen imitation throughout the early Middle Ages—and for long thereafter. Whether at the Carolingian or, later, the Ottonian imperial court, appropriation of aspects of Byzantine court culture and ceremonial took place…
Quote ID: 2202
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 276
Section: 4B
Thus we should not think of ‘empire’ only with reference to the two specific early medieval polities, Byzantine and (after 800) western, whose rulers were formally vested with the title of emperor. Far more than that, ‘empire’ was a widely used term for a particular kind of successful kingdom. It implied domination and hegemony—military, political, cultural.
Quote ID: 2203
Time Periods: 7
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 276/277
Section: 3A1,4B
Having revived Charlemagne’s slogan, in the slightly but significantly altered form of ‘the renewal of the empire of the Romans’, Otto attempted to take it literally rather than metaphorically. In 998, he rebuilt the old imperial palace in Rome and set about governing form there, the first emperor to do so since the early fourth century.. . . .
Otto died before he could learn the lesson that, for a transalpine emperor, Rome was more useful as an idea than as a centre of government. As an idea, it drew on the antique past to confer a potent form of legitimacy; as a place of power, it was best left well alone, distant but powerfully evocative.
Quote ID: 2205
Time Periods: 47
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 291
Section: 4B
However much the political map of Europe had been transformed between c.500 and c.1000, Rome could not shake off its association with empire. Rather, its imperial dimension was reconfigured, formed anew to suit the needs of the powerful warrior kings of early medieval northern Europe.
Quote ID: 2213
Time Periods: 56
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 292
Section: 4B
In Rome, the peoples of Europe found a common fascination.
Quote ID: 2214
Time Periods: 56
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 293
Section: 3A1,4B
In 1049, another pope named Leo crossed the Alps. With Leo IX’s journey to Reims, a different story begins. It tells of the formation of a papal monarchy, exercising authority throughout Latin Christendom by means of a centralized judicial and administrative machinery of government. This story reaches its apogee in the thirteenth century, when the city of Rome functioned as the jurisdictional headquarters of an international ecclesiastical institution, regulating theological doctrines, social norms, political procedures, and rituals of worship throughout the Latin west.
Quote ID: 2215
Time Periods: 6
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 295
Section: 4B
To its north, the cultural hegemony of the Roman way of life had yielded to a matrix shaped by Christianity, a religion into which many separate Roman cultural elements had been gradually subsumed.
Quote ID: 2216
Time Periods: 56
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 295
Section: 3A1,4B
In short, from a world of Roman culture within which Christianity was one element in 500, by 1000 Europe had become a Christian world of which Roman cultural attributes formed one aspect.
Quote ID: 2217
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 296/297
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
….the role of Christianity as a transmitter of many other aspects of Roman culture besides its normative creed. All of these are subsidiary, however, to its critical diagnostic: a cluster of dominant ideologies in which Rome held a central, inspirational place but no ascendant political role as it once had in Antiquity and would again, differently conceived, under papal guidance. To that extent, Europe after Rome is also Europe before Rome—after the crumbling of the political hegemony of the western Roman Empire but before the ecclesiastical hegemony of the international Roman Church.
Quote ID: 2218
Time Periods: 67
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 2
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
I say again, renewing the terms, The Church is Europe: and Europe is The Church.{*}”[Footnote *] Far from denying the universality of the Roman Catholic Church, the author is rather showing that the Church was, by God’s will and Providence, “incarnated” in and shaped by European civilization, centered in Rome (see page 19), and that on its human side the Catholic Church is Roman and European.
Quote ID: 2220
Time Periods: 7
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 3
Section: 4B
The Catholic understands the soil in which that plant of the Faith arose. In a way that no other man can, he understands….. . . .
….what cousinship we claim with the ritual of false but profound religions, ….
Quote ID: 2221
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: x
Section: 4B
…our European structure, built upon the noble foundations of classical antiquity, was formed through, exists by, is consonant to, and will stand only in the mold of, the Catholic Church.“Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish.”
“The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.”
Quote ID: 2219
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 17
Section: 4B
The history of European civilization is the history of a certain political institution which united and expressed Europe, and was governed from Rome.. . . .
The institution—having accepted the religion, having made of that religion its official expression, and having breathed that religion in through every part until it became the spirit of the whole—was slowly modified, spiritually illumined and physically degraded by age. But it did not die. It was revived by the religion which had become its new soul. It re-arose and still lives.
This institution was first known among men as Republica; we call it today “The Roman Empire.” The Religion which informed and saved it was then called, still is called, and will always be called “The Catholic Church.”
Europe is the Church, and the Church is Europe.
Quote ID: 2222
Time Periods: 46
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 18
Section: 4B
Europe and the Catholic Church were and are one thing. The only people who do not grasp it (or do not admit it) are those writers of history whose special, local, and temporary business it is to oppose the Catholic Church or who have a traditional bias against it.
Quote ID: 2223
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 19
Section: 1A,4B
The divisions and the sub-divisions of Europe, the parish, the county, the province, the fixed national traditions with their boundaries, the emplacement of the great European cities, the routes of communication between them, the universities, the Parliaments, the Courts of Law, and their jurisprudence, all these derive entirely from the old Roman Empire, our well-spring.
Quote ID: 2225
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 22/24
Section: 4B
Now, the men living in the Roman Empire regarded civic life in a totally different way. All conceivable antagonisms (and they were violent) were antagonisms within one State. No differentiation of State against State was conceivable or was attempted.. . . .
The world outside the Roman Empire was, in the eyes of the Imperial citizen, a sort of waste. It was not thickly populated, it had no appreciable arts or sciences, it was barbaric.
. . . .
The members of these communities….were all tinged with the great Empire on which they bordered. …. They thought in terms of it. They had a sort of grievance when they were not admitted to it. They perpetually begged for admittance.
. . . .
Men lived as citizens of one State which they took for granted and which they even regarded as eternal.
Quote ID: 2227
Time Periods: 147
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 30
Section: 4B
….from A.D. 190 to A.D. 270. It is the first moment in which we can perceive the Church as a developed organism now apparent to all.
Quote ID: 2228
Time Periods: 3
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 31
Section: 4B
Let us suppose him the head of a Senatorial family in some great provincial town such as Lyons. He would then find himself one of a comparatively small class of very wealthy men to whom was confined the municipal government of the city. Beneath him he would be accustomed to a large class of citizens, free men but not senatorial; beneath these again his society reposed upon a very large body of slaves.…we may infer from what we know of that society that the majority would certainly have been of the servile class, free men less numerous, while senators were certainly a very small body (they were the great landowners of the neighborhood); ….
Quote ID: 2229
Time Periods: 04
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 32
Section: 4B
This last point is essential; because the Roman Empire, though it required no large armed force in comparison with the total numbers of its vast population for it was not a system of mere repression — no such system has ever endured), yet could only draw that armed force from a restricted portion of the population.
Quote ID: 2230
Time Periods: 01
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 33
Section: 4B
With the Christian Church it would be otherwise. He would know as an administrator (we will suppose him a pagan) that this Church was endowed; that it was possessed of property more or less legally guaranteed. It had a very definite position of its own among the congregations and corporations of the city, peculiar, and yet well secured.
Quote ID: 2231
Time Periods: 4
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 33/34
Section: 4B
…a phenomenon perpetually novel; in the third place (and this was the capital point)….. . . .
the only subsidiary organism which had risen within the general body of the Empire.
. . . .
Like a sort of little State, the Catholic Church included all classes and kinds of men, and like the Empire itself, within which is growing, it regarded all classes of its own members as subject to it within its own sphere.
Quote ID: 2232
Time Periods: 3
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 35
Section: 4B
The Catholic Church was not an opinion, nor a fashion, nor a philosophy; it was not a theory nor a habit; it was a clearly delineated body corporate based on numerous exact doctrines, extremely jealous of its unity and of its precise definitions, and filled, as was no other body of men at that time, with passionate conviction.
Quote ID: 2233
Time Periods: 3
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 38
Section: 1A,4B
The conception which the Catholic Church had of itself in the early third century can, perhaps, best be approached by pointing out that if we use the word “Christianity” we are unhistorical. “Christianity” is a term in the mouth and upon the pen of the post-Reformation writer; it connotes an opinion or a theory; a point of view; an idea. The Christians of the time of which I speak had no such conception.
Quote ID: 2235
Time Periods: 13
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 39
Section: 1A,4B
One can talk, in speaking of the first three centuries, of stoicism, or epicureanism, or neoplatonism; but one cannot talk of “Christianism” or “Christism.” Indeed, no one has been so ignorant or unhistorical as to attempt those phrases. But the current phrase “Christianity,” used by moderns as identical with the Christian body in the third century, is intellectually the equivalent of “Christianism” or “Christism”; and, I repeat, it connotes a grossly unhistorical idea; it connotes something historically false; something that never existed.
Quote ID: 2236
Time Periods: 13
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 44
Section: 4B
…in the years 160-200 and onwards.I have purposely chosen this moment, because it is the moment in which Christian evidence first emerges upon any considerable scale.
Quote ID: 2237
Time Periods: 23
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 46/47
Section: 1A,4B
Well, there comes after this considerable body of contemporary documentary evidence (evidence contemporary, that is, with the very spring and rising of the Church and proceeding from its first founders), a gap which is somewhat more than the long lifetime of a man.This gap is with difficulty bridged. The vast mass of its documentary evidence has, of course, perished, as has the vast mass of all ancient writing. The little preserved is mainly preserved in quotations and fragments. But after this gap, from somewhat before the year 200, we come to the beginning of a regular series, and a series increasing in volume, of documentary evidence.
Quote ID: 2239
Time Periods: 12
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 52/53
Section: 1A,4B
Now it has been the singular fortune of our European civilization that an end did not come. Dissolution was in some strange way checked. Death was averted. And the more closely one looks into the unique history of that salvation—the salvation of all that could be saved in a most ancient and fatigued society—the more one sees that this salvation was effected by no agency save that of the Catholic Church.. . . .
Every other great civilization has, after many centuries of development, either fallen into a fixed and sterile sameness or died and disappeared. There is nothing left of Egypt, there is nothing left of Assyria.
Quote ID: 2241
Time Periods: 146
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 60
Section: 4B
In order to understand what happened we must first of all clearly represent to ourselves the fact that the structure upon which our united civilization had in its first five centuries reposed was the Roman Army. By which I do not mean that the number of soldiers was very large compared with the civilian population, but that the organ which was vital in the State, the thing that really counted, the institution upon which men’s minds turned, and which they thought of as the foundation of all, was the military institution.
Quote ID: 2244
Time Periods: 145
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 61
Section: 4B
…all that the word “Emperor” –the Latin word Imperator—means, is a commander-in-chief.
Quote ID: 2245
Time Periods: 014
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 74/75
Section: 4B
Sidonius Apollinaris, the famous Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, lived and wrote his classical work at such a date after Alarie’s Roman adventure and Radagasius’ defeat that the life of a man would span the distance between them; it was a matter of nearly seventy years between those events and his maturity.
Quote ID: 2254
Time Periods: 5
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 75
Section: 4B
Had a grandson of Sidonius traveled in Italy, Spain and Gaul in his later years, this is what he would have seen:In all the great towns, Roman life was going on as it had always gone one, so far as externals were concerned. The same Latin speech, now somewhat degraded, the same dress, the same division into a minority of free men, a majority of slaves, and a few very rich masters, round whom not only the slaves but the mass of the free men also were grouped as dependents.
In every city, again, he would have found a Bishop of the Catholic Church, a member of that hierarchy which acknowledged its center and headship to be at Rome. Everywhere religion, and especially the settlement of divisions and doubts in religion, would have been the main popular preoccupation.
Quote ID: 2255
Time Periods: 67
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 77
Section: 4B
Now, in the sixth century, the papers are made out in the old official way and (of course) in Latin, all the public forces are still Roman, all the civilization has still the same unaltered Roman character; ….. . . .
To get his papers in the Capital he will be directed to the “Palatium.” This word does not mean “Palace.”
. . . .
But the original word Palatium had a very different meaning in late Roman society. It signified the official seat of Government, and in particular the center from which the writs for Imperial taxation were issued, and to which the proceeds of that taxation were paid.
Quote ID: 2257
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 78/80
Section: 4B
The first thing that would be noticed on entering the presence of this person who governed Spain, would be that he still had all the insignia and manner of Roman Government.He sat upon a formal throne as the Emperor’s delegate had sat: the provincial delegate of the Emperor. On official occasions he would wear the official Roman garments: the orb and the scepter were already his symbols (we may presume) as they had been those of the Emperor and the Emperor’s local subordinates before him. But in two points this central official differed from the old local Governor whom he exactly succeeded, and upon whose machinery of taxation he relied for power.
These two points were: first, that he was surrounded by a very powerful and somewhat jealous body of Great Men; secondly, that he did not habitually give himself an imperial Roman title, but was called Rex.
. . . .
On the contrary, he spoke as absolutely as ever the Imperial Governors had done in the past, and indeed he could not do otherwise because the whole machinery he had inherited presupposed absolute power.
. . . .
Now what is the meaning of the word Rex?
It is usually translated by our word “King.” But it does not here mean anything like what our word “King” means when we apply it today—or as we have applied it for many centuries.
. . . .
It means 1) The chief-tain of an auxiliary group of soldiers who holds an Imperial commission: and it means 2) That man acting as a local governor.
Quote ID: 2258
Time Periods: 67
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 87/88
Section: 4B
….the men of the fifth and sixth centuries were intent upon the unity and exactitude of religion. That the religion to which the Empire was now converted, the religion of the Catholic Church, should triumph, was their one preoccupation. For this they exiled themselves; for this they would and did run great risks; as minor to this they sank all other things.The Catholic hierarchy with its enormous power at that moment, civil and economic as well as religious, was not the creator of such a spirit, it was only its leader.
Quote ID: 2262
Time Periods: 56
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 94
Section: 4B
European civilization is still one, whether men see that unity or no. The Catholic Church is still the soul of it, whether men know it or do not know it.
Quote ID: 2266
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 137
Section: 4B
The third characteristic of the Dark Ages was the curious fixity of morals, of traditions, of the forms of religion, and of all that makes up social life.
Quote ID: 2272
Time Periods: 7
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 138/139
Section: 4B
The fourth characteristic of the Dark Ages was a material one, and was that which would strike our eyes most immediately if we could transfer ourselves in time, and enjoy a physical impression of that world. This characteristic was derived from what I have just been saying. It was the material counterpart of the moral immobility or steadfastness of the time. It was this: that the external forms of things stood quite unchanged. The semi-circular arch, the short, stout pillar, occasionally (but rarely) the dome: these were everywhere the mark of architecture. There was no change nor any attempt at change. The arts were saved but not increased, and the whole of the work that men did with their hands stood fast in mere tradition. No new town arises, ….. . . .
No new roads were laid. The old Roman military system of highways was kept up and repaired, though kept up and repaired with a declining vigor. The wheel of European life had settled to one slow rate of turning.
Quote ID: 2274
Time Periods: 7
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 141
Section: 3A1,3A4,4B
The last characteristic of the Dark Ages is that which has most engrossed, puzzled, and warped the judgment of non-Catholic historians when they have attempted a conspectus of European development; it was the segregation, the homogeneity of and the dominance of clerical organization.The hierarchy of the Church, its unity and its sense of discipline was the chief civil institution and the chief binding social force of the times.
Quote ID: 2275
Time Periods: 7
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 141
Section: 3A1,3A3,4B
Meanwhile the Catholic hierarchy as an institution—I have already called it by a violent metaphor, a civil institution—at any rate as a political institution—remained absolute above the social disintegration of the time.167/168 -1A- To summarize what has gone before: the Catholic Church becomes by the fifth century the soul, the vital principle, the continuity of Europe. It next suffers grievously from the accident, largely geographical, of the Eastern schism. It is of its nature perpetually subject to assault; from within, because it deals with matters not open to positive proof; from without, because all those, whether aliens or guests or parasites, who are not of our civilization, are naturally its enemies.
Quote ID: 2277
Time Periods: 57
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 185
Section: 4B
Corresponding to that terrible and as yet unanswered question—the culmination of so much evil—necessarily arises this the sole vital formula of our time: “Europe must return to the Faith, or she will perish.”
Quote ID: 2278
Time Periods: 6
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 191
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
In such a crux, there remains the historical truth: that this our European structure, built upon the noble foundations of classical antiquity, was formed through, exists by, is consonant to, and will stand only in the mold of, the Catholic Church.Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish.
The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.
Quote ID: 2279
Time Periods: 47
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 74
Section: 4B
Book I chapter IX[Footnote] The Acta Pilati now extant are Christian forgeries of uncertain date. Those to which Eusebius refers were heathen forgeries introduced in the time of the great persecution under Maximin[us].
Quote ID: 3076
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 399
Section: 4B
Book X chapter IV. . . whether one should call thee a new Bezalel the architect of a divine tabernacle, or Solomon the kind of a new and far goodlier Jerusalem, or even a new Zerubbabel who bestowed upon the temple of God that glory which greatly exceeded the former;
Quote ID: 3124
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 407
Section: 2E3,4B
Book X chapter IV. . . all and of themselves they recognize as the one and only God, and confess that Christ the Son of God is sovereign King of the universe, and style Him as Saviour on monuments, inscribing in an imperishable record His righteous acts and His victories over the impious ones, in imperial characters in the midst of the city that is Empress among the cities of the world.
Quote ID: 3125
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 451
Section: 4B
Book X chapter V“And inasmuch as these same Christians had not only those places at which it was their wont to assemble, but also are known to have had others, belonging not to individuals among them, but to the lawful property of their corporation, that is, of the Christians, all these, under the provisions of the law set forth above, thou wilt give orders to be restored without any question whatsoever to these same Christians, that is, to their corporation and assembly.
Quote ID: 3136
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 379
Section: 4B
“Perceiving long ago that religious liberty ought not to be denied, but that it ought to be granted to the judgment and desire of each individual to perform his religious duties according to his own choice, we had given orders that every man, Christians as well as others, should preserve the faith of his own sect and religion.”
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, X.v.2.
Quote ID: 9546
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 383
Section: 3C,4B
1. —it has seemed good to me, most esteemed Anulinus, that those men who give their services with due sanctity and with constant observance of this law, to the worship of the divine religion, should receive recompense for their labors.
2. Wherefore it is my will that those within the province entrusted to thee, in the catholic Church, over which Caecilianus presides, who give their services to this holy religion, and who are commonly called clergymen, be entirely exempted from all public duties, that they may not by any error or sacrilegious negligence be drawn away from the service due to the Deity, but may devote themselves without any hindrance to their own law.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, X.vii.1–2.
Quote ID: 9549
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 383
Section: 3C,4B
1 Municipal offices and magistracies were a great burden under the later Roman empire. They entailed heavy expenses for those who filled them, and consequently, unless a man’s wealth was large, and desire for distinction very great, he was glad to be exempted, if possible, from the necessity of supporting such expensive honors, which he was not at liberty to refuse. The same was true of almost all the offices, municipal and provincial offices, high and low. Discharging the duties of an office was in fact practically paying a heavy tax to government.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: NPNF2, Vol.1, 383. Eusebius, Church History, X.vii, footnote 1.
Quote ID: 9550
Time Periods: 4
Evocatio decorum as an Example of a Crisis Ritual in Roman Religion
Danuta Musial & Andrze Gillmeister https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2018-2-7
Book ID: 440 Page: 97
Section: 4B
In the opinion of Plutarch, the Romans knew certain evocations and enchantments affecting the gods, by which the Romans also believed that certain gods had been called [GREEK], forth from their enemies.{3}This is clear reference to the cult of the Roman ritual evocatio, which was foreign to the Greek practices.
Quote ID: 8804
Time Periods: 01
Evocatio decorum as an Example of a Crisis Ritual in Roman Religion
Danuta Musial & Andrze Gillmeister https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2018-2-7
Book ID: 440 Page: 97
Section: 4B
The discovery in the early 1970s of an inscription from Isaura Vetus changed the attitude of many researchers to the issue of evocatio. In fact some of them are inclined to admit that the Roman ritual of evocatio was practiced more often than is normally considered to be the case.
Quote ID: 8805
Time Periods: 01
Evocatio decorum as an Example of a Crisis Ritual in Roman Religion
Danuta Musial & Andrze Gillmeister https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2018-2-7
Book ID: 440 Page: 98
Section: 4B
In this context, above all, the evidence of Pliny is worthy of attention, when he mentions (citing Verrius Flaccus) the ritual of the god (evocari deum), informing the reader that this ritual was a part of the pontiff’s teachings (durat in pontificum disciplina id sacrum) (Plin. HN. 28.4.18).….
According to Pliny the foreign god was promised a cult ‘with the Romans’ (apud Romanos cultum), not in Rome.
Quote ID: 8806
Time Periods: 01
Evocatio decorum as an Example of a Crisis Ritual in Roman Religion
Danuta Musial & Andrze Gillmeister https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2018-2-7
Book ID: 440 Page: 101
Section: 4B
One of the main effects of evocatio, like every crisis ritual, was the reestablishment of the stability of society, even if in fact ritual practices created a new reality, rather than renewing the old one. In the case of Rome the consensual character of this rite is one of the conditions enabling us to draw the conclusion that the ritual was directed largely towards its own citizens.
Quote ID: 8809
Time Periods: 01
Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Book ID: 88 Page: 7
Section: 4B
In his Voice of Illness, Aarne Siirala tells us that his visit to death camps in eastern Europe after the war overwhelmed him with shock and revealed to him that something was gravely sick at the very heart of our spiritual tradition.…
The holocaust may not be reduced to a monstrous criminal act to be deplored and then forgotten. Auschwitz has a message that must be heard: it reveals an illness operative not on the margin of our civilization but at the heart of it, in the very best we have inherited. The holocaust challenges the foundations of Western society.
…
While it would be historically untruthful to blame the Christian Church for Hitler’s anti-Semitism and the monstrous crimes committed by him and his followers, what is true, alas, is that the Church has produced an abiding contempt among Christians for Jews and all things Jewish, a contempt that aided Hitler’s purposes.
Quote ID: 2331
Time Periods: 6
Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Book ID: 88 Page: 25
Section: 4B
Since Hellenistic society regarded Greek culture as the standard for humane existence, that such a group of “barbarians” would refuse assimilation into Hellenistic culture on the grounds that its gods were false and its manners “unclean” was a cultural affront of no small proportions. The stage was set for Kulturkampf between Jewish and Greek society that took the form of forced attempts at Hellenization, such as that under Antiochus Epiphanes.
Quote ID: 2333
Time Periods: 0
Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Book ID: 88 Page: 25
Section: 4A,4B
In addition, Jewish religious thought in the Diaspora and even in Palestine appropriated many Hellenistic elements, and Jewish Hellenistic apologists, such as the author of Aristeas’ letter, Josephus, and Philo, went far in the direction of presenting Judaism in the dress of Greek philosophy.
Quote ID: 2334
Time Periods: 012
Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Book ID: 88 Page: 29
Section: 4B
A ritual murder charge against the temple cult is found in Greek writers, but this charge is not taken up by the Church Fathers, who only recently had to refute the same charge against themselves.This idea arose quite independently of pagan tradition in the Middle Ages. The head tax (fiscus Judaicus), the prohibition against circumcizing non-Jews, and the exclusion of Jews from Jerusalem -- marks of punishment of the Jews after the Jewish Wars-- were to find their reaffirmation in Christian anti-Judaic legislation.
Quote ID: 2336
Time Periods: 26
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 1
Section: 1A,4B
In Gibbon’s day, and until very recently, few people questioned age-old certainties about the passing of the ancient world—namely, that a high point of human achievement, the civilization of Greece and Rome, was destroyed in the West by hostile invasions during the fifth century.
Quote ID: 5467
Time Periods: 156
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 3/4
Section: 1A,4B
It has therefore come as a surprise to me to find a much more comfortable vision of the end of empire spreading in recent years through the English-speaking world. {3} The intellectual guru of this movement is a brilliant historian and stylist, Peter Brown, who published in 1971 The World of Late Antiquity. In it he defined a new period, ‘Late Antiquity’, beginning in around AD 200 and lasting right up to the eighth century, characterized, not by the dissolution of half the Roman empire, but by vibrant religious and cultural debate. {4}As Brown himself subsequently wrote, he was able in his book to narrate the history of these centuries ‘without invoking an intervening catastrophe and without pausing, for a moment, to pay lip service to the widespread notion of decay’. ‘Decay’ was banished, and replaced by a ‘religious and cultural revolution’, beginning under the late empire and continuing long after it. {5} This view has had a remarkable effect, particularly in the United States, where Brown now lives and works.
3D2
Pastor John’s note: but the decay is obvious. This author disagrees with this assessment, that nothing happened at all.
Quote ID: 5468
Time Periods: 3456
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 4
Section: 1A,4B
There has been a sea change in the language used to describe post-Roman times. Words like ‘decline’ and ‘crisis’, which suggest problems at the end of the empire and which were quite usual into the 1970s, have largely disappeared from historians’ vocabularies, to be replaced by neutral terms, like ‘transition’, ‘change’, and ‘transformation’. {8} For instance, a massive European-funded project of research into the period 300-800 chose as its title ‘The Transformation of the Roman World’. {9} There is no hint here of ‘decline’, ‘fall’, or ‘crisis’, nor even of any kind of ‘end’ to the Roman world. ‘Transformation’ suggests that Rome lived on, though gradually metamorphosed into a different, but not necessarily inferior, form.3D2
Quote ID: 5469
Time Periods: 346
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 74
Section: 4B
Photo 4.3: A philosopher-king with a Gothic moustache. Copper coin of the Ostrogothic king Theodahad (534-6). The design on the reverse is closely modelled on coins of the first century AD, down to the claim that this was issued ‘by decree of the Senate’ (Senatus consultu, the ‘SC’ that appears on either side of the Victory).
Quote ID: 5489
Time Periods: 6
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 81
Section: 4B,3D2
….in the 480s the bishop of Reims, Remigius, wrote to Clovis, the new Frankish king of the region in which his see lay. Remigius, of course, also wrote in Latin, the language of high culture and history, and he congratulated Clovis on taking over ‘the governance of Belgica Secunda’. This was not strictly true: the Roman province of Belgica Secunda had long ceased to exist. {34} But Remigius was not only flattering Clovis; by presenting him in a Roman light, he was also gently steering him towards a particular view of his command—later in the same letter he encouraged the king (at this date a pagan) to heed the advice of his bishops. The tactic worked; later in his reign Clovis was baptized into the Catholic faith by Remigius himself.
Quote ID: 5499
Time Periods: 56
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 87
Section: 4B
It is currently deeply unfashionable to state that anything like a ‘crisis’ or a ‘decline’ occurred at the end of the Roman empire, let alone that a ‘civilization’ collapsed and a ‘dark age’ ensued. The new orthodoxy is that the Roman world, in both East and West, was slowly, and essentially painlessly, ‘transformed’ into a medieval form. However, there is an insuperable problem with this new view: it does not fit the mass of archaeological evidence now available, which shows a startling decline in western standards of living during the fifth to seventh centuries. {1} This was a change that affected everyone, from peasants to kings, even the bodies of saints resting in their churches. It was no mere transformation—it was decline on a scale that can reasonably be described as ‘the end of a civilization’.
Quote ID: 5500
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 88
Section: 4B
In the areas of the Roman world that I know best, central and northern Italy, after the end of the Roman world, this level of sophistication is not seen again until perhaps the fourteenth century, some 800 years later.
Quote ID: 5501
Time Periods: 6
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 95
Section: 4B
This research has shown that lead and copper pollution—produced by the smelting of lead, copper, and silver—were both very high during the Roman period, falling back in the post-Roman centuries to levels that are much closer to those of prehistoric times. Only in around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did levels of pollution again attain those of Roman times. {13}
Quote ID: 5502
Time Periods: 17
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 100
Section: 4B
I am keen to emphasize that in Roman times good-quality articles were available even to humble consumers, and that production and distribution were complex and sophisticated.
Quote ID: 5503
Time Periods: 01234
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 104
Section: 4B
In the post-Roman West, almost all this material sophistication disappeared. Specialized production and all but the most local distribution became rare, unless for luxury goods; and the impressive range and quantity of high-quality functional goods, which had characterized the Roman period, vanished, or, at the very least, were drastically reduced. The middle and lower markets, which under the Romans had absorbed huge quantities of basic, but good-quality, items, seem to have almost entirely disappeared.Pottery, again, provides us with the fullest picture. {27} In some regions, like the whole of Britain and parts of coastal Spain, all sophistication in the production and trading of pottery seems to have disappeared altogether: only vessels shaped without the use of the wheel were available, without any functional or aesthetic refinement. In Britain, most pottery was not only very basic, but also lamentably friable and impractical (Fig. 5.7). In other areas, such as the north of Italy, some solid wheel-turned pots continued to be made and some soapstone vessels imported, but decorated tablewares entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared; ….
Quote ID: 5504
Time Periods: 17
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 109
Section: 4B
Domestic housing in post-Roman Italy, whether in town or countryside, seems to have been almost exclusively of perishable materials. Houses, which in the Roman period had been primarily of stone and brick, disappeared, to be replaced by settlements constructed almost entirely of wood.. . . .
At present it seems that in Italy only kings and bishops continued to live in such Roman-style comfort. {33}
. . . .
Furthermore, as far as we can tell, even when stone and brick were used, the vast majority of it was not newly quarried or fired, but was second-hand material, only very superficially reshaped to fit its new purpose.
. . . .
It may have been as much as a thousand years later, perhaps in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, that roof tiles again became as readily available and as widely diffused in Italy as they had been in Roman times.
Quote ID: 5505
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 110
Section: 4B
The almost total disappearance of coinage from daily use in the post-Roman West is further powerful evidence of a remarkable change in levels of economic sophistication.
Quote ID: 5506
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 117
Section: 4B
What we observe at the end of the Roman world is not a ‘recession’ or—to use a term that has recently been suggested—an ‘abatement’, with an essentially similar economy continuing to work at a reduced pace. Instead what we see is a remarkable qualitative change, with the disappearance of entire industries and commercial networks. The economy of the post-Roman West is not that of the fourth century reduced in scale, but a very different and far less sophisticated entity. {43}This is at its starkest and most obvious in Britain. A number of basic skills disappeared entirely during the fifth century, to be reintroduced only centuries later.
. . . .
All over Britain the art of making pottery on a wheel disappeared in the early fifth century, and was not reintroduced for almost 300 years.
. . . .
Sophistication in production and exchange did survive in post-Roman Britain, but only at the very highest levels of society and the highest level of artefacts.
Quote ID: 5507
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 118
Section: 4B
It may initially be hard to believe, but post-Roman Britain in fact sank to a level of economic complexity well below that of the pre-Roman Iron Age.
Quote ID: 5508
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 120/121
Section: 4B
The case of central and southern Italy raises a very important point. The complex system of production and distribution, whose disappearance we have been considering, was an older and more deeply rooted phenomenon than an exclusively ‘Roman’ economy. Rather, it was an ‘ancient’ economy that in the eastern and southern Mediterranean was flourishing long before Rome became at all significant, and that even in the northwestern Mediterranean was developing steadily before the centuries of Roman domination.. . . .
What was destroyed in the post-Roman centuries, and then only very slowly re-created, was a sophisticated world with very deep roots indeed.
Quote ID: 5509
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 123
Section: 4B
We will never know precisely why the sophisticated economy that had developed under the Romans unravelled. The archaeological evidence, which is all we really have, can tell us what happened, and when; but on its own cannot provide explanations as to why change occurred.
Quote ID: 5510
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 124
Section: 4B
In the early fifth century all this disappeared, and, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Britain reverted to a level of economic simplicity similar to that of the Bronze Age, with no coinage, and only hand-shaped pots and wooden buildings. {2}
Quote ID: 5511
Time Periods: 5
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 124
Section: 4B
If we measure ‘Golden Ages’ in terms of material remains, the fifth and sixth centuries were certainly golden for most of the eastern Mediterranean, in many areas leaving archaeological traces that are more numerous and more impressive than those of the earlier Roman empire. {4}
Quote ID: 5512
Time Periods: 56
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 126
Section: 4B
By AD 700 there was only one area of the former Roman world that had not experienced overwhelming economic decline—the provinces of the Levant, and neighbouring Egypt, conquered by the Arabs in the 630s and 640s.
Quote ID: 5513
Time Periods: 7
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 133
Section: 4B
. . .in Roman times, for instances, there had been a continuous process of upgrading and repairing the road network, commemorated by the erection of dated milestone; there is no evidence that this continued in any systematic way beyond the early sixth century. {19}
Quote ID: 5514
Time Periods: 67
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 133
Section: 4B
Security was undoubtedly the greatest boon provided by Rome. Peace was not constant through the Roman period, being occasionally shattered by civil wars, and in the third century by a serious and prolonged period of Persian and Germanic invasion. However, the 500 years between Pompey’s defeat of the pirates in 67 BC and the Vandal seizure of Carthage and its fleet in AD 439 comprise the longest period of peace the Mediterranean sea has ever enjoyed. On land, meanwhile, it is a remarkable fact that few cities of the early empire were walled—a state of affairs not repeated in most of Europe and the Mediterranean until the late nineteenth century, and then only because high explosives had rendered walls ineffective as a form of defence. The security of Roman times provided the ideal conditions for economic growth.
Quote ID: 5515
Time Periods: 134
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 136/137
Section: 4B
Economic complexity made mass-produced goods available, but it also made people dependent on specialists or semi-specialists—sometimes working hundreds of miles away—for many of their material needs. This worked very well in stable times, but it rendered consumers extremely vulnerable if for any reason the networks of production and distribution were disrupted, or if they themselves could no longer afford to purchase from a specialist. If specialized production failed, it was not possible to fall back immediately on effective self-help.
Quote ID: 5517
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 145
Section: 4B
(Cattle Photo) 7.3 The rise and fall of the Roman cow. The approximate size of cattle, from the Iron Age, through Roman times, to the early Middle Ages. The information is based on finds from 21 iron-age, 67 Roman, and 49 early medieval sites.
Quote ID: 5518
Time Periods: 7
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 146
Section: 4B
I would also seriously question the romantic assumption that economic simplicity necessarily meant a freer and more equal society. There is no reason to believe that because post-Roman Britain had no coinage, nor wheel-turned pottery, and mortared buildings, it was an egalitarian haven, spared the oppression of landlords and political masters. Tax, admittedly, could no longer be collected in coin; but its less sophisticated equivalent, ‘tribute’, could perfectly well be extorted in the form of sheaves of corn, pigs, and indeed slaves.
Quote ID: 5519
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 148
Section: 4B
In Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, there was an unbroken tradition of some building in mortared brick and stone throughout the post-Roman centuries, as we have seen, and many impressive earlier buildings were also kept in repair. Late sixth-century Anglo-Saxon visitors to Rome, for instance, would have seen things undreamed of in their native Britain, where the Roman buildings had been allowed to decay and all new building was in timber. They would have found a few newly built brick churches, freshly decorated with mosaics and frescos, and, above all, a large number of immensely impressive fourth- and fifth-century basilicas, kept in repair and in continuous use. Old St Peter’s, for instance, the fourth-century predecessor of the present basilica, stood proud throughout the Middle Ages—a huge building, around 100 meters long and with five aisles separated by a forest of marble columns.But, if we look at the new churches of post-Roman Italy, what is most immediately striking about them is how small they are (Fig. 7.4). Buildings of the late sixth, seventh, and early eighth centuries are very rarely over 20 meters long; a modern viewer might well describe them as ‘chapels’ rather than ‘churches’.
Quote ID: 5520
Time Periods: 4567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 153
Section: 4B
However, what is striking about the Roman period, and to my mind unparalleled until quite recent times, is the evidence of writing being casually used, in an entirely ephemeral and everyday manner, which was none the less sophisticated. The best evidence for this comes, unsurprisingly, from Pompeii, because the eruption of AD 79 ensured a uniquely good level of preservation of the city’s buildings and he various forms of writing that they bore. Over 11,000 inscriptions, of many different kinds, have been recorded within Pompeii, carved, painted, or scratched into its walls.
Quote ID: 5521
Time Periods: 1
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 164
Section: 4B
Reading and writing, and the importance of the written word, certainly did not disappear in the post-Roman West. Only in some remote provinces did the use of writing vanish completely, as it did in Anglo-Saxon Britain during the fifth century, to be reintroduced by Christian missionaries only around AD 600.
Quote ID: 5522
Time Periods: 567
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 172
Section: 4B,2E2
For instance, the opinion of the ‘Dark Ages’ expressed in 1932 by the English Catholic writer Christopher Dawson has close echoes in recent scholarship, although his religious enthusiasm and affiliation are much more transparent than those of most present-day historians:To the secular historian, the early Middle Ages must inevitably still appear as the Dark Ages, as ages of barbarism, without secular culture or literature, given up to unintelligible disputes on incomprehensible dogmas . . . But to the Catholic they are not dark as much as ages of dawn, for they witnessed the conversion of the West, the foundation of Christian civilisation, and the creation of Christian art and Catholic liturgy. Above all, they were the Age of the Monks… {7}
Quote ID: 5523
Time Periods: 7
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 179
Section: 4B
The transition from Roman to post-Roman times was a dramatic move away from sophistication towards much greater simplicity.
Quote ID: 5524
Time Periods: 67
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 183
Section: 4B
The end of the Roman West witnessed horrors and dislocation of a kind I sincerely hope never to have to live through; and it destroyed a complex civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue for ever substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.
Quote ID: 5525
Time Periods: 67
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 8
Section: 4B
If the Roman legion in combat was a professional killing-machine, it was also much more. Its building capacity could turn immediate military victory into the long-term domination of territories and regions: a strategic weapon on which an empire could be built {3}
Quote ID: 5527
Time Periods: ?
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 14
Section: 4B
The Empire’s longevity leads us to another point of crucial importance. When you stop to think about it, it becomes immediately obvious that over so many centuries the Empire could not have remained unchanged. England has been a kingdom more or less continuously since the time of Elizabeth I, but has changed out of all recognition. So too the Roman Empire: 400-plus years of history turned the later Roman Empire of the fourth century AD into an animal that Julius Caesar would scarcely have recognized.
Quote ID: 5528
Time Periods: 04
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: 25/26
Section: 4B
In a speech to Valentinian’s brother Valens in 364, the philosopher and orator Themistius implies, to devastating effect, a comparison between Constantinople and Rome that highlights the latter’s drawbacks as an imperial capital
Quote ID: 5530
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 36
Section: 4B
Two points of particular interest emerge. First, a perceived superiority in Latin could override social inferiority. Ausonius, though numbered among the educated Roman elite, came from nothing like so distinguished a background as Symmachus. Second, and for present purposes much more important, Ausonius had made his name as a self-employed teacher of Latin rhetoric operating under the auspices of the university of Bordeaux, near the Atlantic coast of Gaul. By the fourth century, Bordeaux had emerged as one of the major centures of Latin excellence in the Empire. Not only does this show us expertise in Latin flourishing well beyond the confines of Italy, but Ausonius himself was not from Rome, nor even from Italy, but of Gallic background. {43} Yet here we have one of the blue-blooded Romans of Rome approaching him with deference, and seeking his good graces in matters to do with Latin literature.
Quote ID: 5532
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 37
Section: 4B
Latin language and literature spread across the Roman world because people who had originally been conquered by Caesar’s legions came to buy into the Roman ethos and adopt it as their own.-------------------
Accepting the grammarian and the kind of education he offered meant accepting the whole value system which, as we have seen, reckoned that only this kind of education could create properly developed - and therefore superior - human beings.
Quote ID: 5533
Time Periods: 012
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 37/39/40
Section: 4B
The transformation of life in the conquered provinces thus led provincials everywhere to remake their lives after Roman patterns and value systems. Within a century or two of conquest, the whole of the Empire had become properly Roman. The old Ladybird Book of British History had a vivid picture of Roman Britain coming to an abrupt end in the fifth century with the legions marching off and the Roman names for places being superseded (a composite image of departing soldiers and broken signposts, as I recall it). But this is a mistaken view of what happened. By the late Empire, the Romans of Rome Britain were not immigrants from Italy but locals who had adopted the Roman lifestyle and everything that came with it. A bunch of legionaries departing the island would not bring Roman life to an end. Britain, as everywhere else between Hadrian’s Wall and the Euphrates, was no longer Roman merely by ‘occupation’.
Quote ID: 8466
Time Periods: 015
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 44
Section: 4B
Everywhere, the enthusiastic adoption of Roman values had made proper Romans of provincials. This was the true genius of the Empire as a historical phenomenon. Originally conquered and subdued by the legions, the indigenous people had gone on to build Roman towns and villas and to live Roman lives in their own communities.
Quote ID: 5535
Time Periods: 015
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 44
Section: 4B
Eventually, the teachers there became so expert that, as in the case of Ausonius, the provincials were able to instruct the metropolitans.These astonishing developments changed what it meant to be Roman. Once the same political culture, lifestyle and value system had established themselves more or less evenly from Hadrian’s Wall to the Euphrates, then all inhabitants of this huge area were legitimately Roman. ‘Roman’, no longer a geographic epithet, was now an entirely cultural identity accessible, potentially, to all. From this followed the most significant consequence of imperial success: having acquired Romanness, the new Romans were bound to assert their right to participate in the political process.
Quote ID: 5536
Time Periods: 567
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: 58
Section: 3D2,4B
As a result, the defended Roman frontier came by the mid-first century AD to be established broadly along a line marked by the Rivers Rhine and Danube. Some minor adjustments apart, it was still there three hundred years later. The consequences were profound. West and south of these riverine frontiers, European populations, whether Jastorf or La Tene, found themselves sucked into a trajectory towards Latin, togas, towns and, eventually, Christianity.
Quote ID: 5541
Time Periods: 56
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 68
Section: 4B
A staggering 200,000 people, it has been calculated, met a violent death in the Colosseum alone, and there were similar, smaller, arenas in every major city of the Empire.
Quote ID: 5542
Time Periods: 04
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 80
Section: 4B
Barbarians weren’t what they used to be. Even if cast firmly as junior members, the Goths were part of the Roman world.
Quote ID: 5549
Time Periods: 567
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 100
Section: 4B
Lying to the Emperor was treason. Rather than face interrogation, which in such cases routinely involved torture, Palladius committed suicide en route [PJ: 375]. The full story slowly emerged.
Quote ID: 5551
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 103
Section: 4B
...it is important to be realistic about the way human beings use political power, and not to attach too much importance to particular instances of corruption. Since the power-profit factor had not impeded the rise of the Empire in the first place, there is no reason to suppose that it contributed fundamentally to its collapse.
Quote ID: 5553
Time Periods: 567
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 105
Section: 4B
We know that in emergencies, galloping messengers, with many changes of horse, might manage as much as 250 kilometres a day. But Theophanes’ [PJ: born c. 752–c. 818] average on that journey of three and a half weeks was the norm: in other words, about 40, the speed of the oxcart. This was true of military as well as civilian operations, since all the army’s heavy equipment and baggage moved by this means too.
Quote ID: 5554
Time Periods: 7
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 107
Section: 4B
Looking at the map with modern eyes, we perceive the Roman Empire as impressive enough; looked at in fourth-century terms, it is staggering. Furthermore, measuring it in the real currency of how long it took human beings to cover the distances involved, you could say it was five times larger than it appears on the map.
Quote ID: 5555
Time Periods: 47
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 110
Section: 4B
On the military side, the enlarged army may have done its job in the short term: but manpower shortages within the Empire forced fourth-century emperors to draw increasingly on ‘barbarian’ recruits from across the frontier. As a result, the Roman army declined in both loyalty and efficiency.
Quote ID: 5557
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 115
Section: 4B
The private funding of public building in one’s hometown belonged to the very early imperial period, when this constituted the prime route to self-promotion. Putting up the right kinds of public building was part of persuading some high official to recommend your hometown to the emperor for the grant of a Roman constitution. Once your town had Latin rights, then financing buildings became a strategy for winning power and influence within it.
Quote ID: 5558
Time Periods: 01
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 116
Section: 4B
The confiscation by the state of local endowments and taxes in the third century removed most of the fun from local government. By the fourth, there was little point in spending freely to win power in your hometown, if all you then got to do was run errands for central government.
Quote ID: 5559
Time Periods: 034
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 117
Section: 4B
Because bureaucratic positions were so attractive, emperors were flooded with requests for appointments. Many of these were granted. Emperors always liked to raise their popularity ratings by appearing generous, and these kinds of grants seemed, individually, pretty harmless.
Quote ID: 5560
Time Periods: 014
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 117
Section: 4B
And, because of the delay involved in getting a post under these conditions, parents were appending their children’s names to waiting lists at birth. Thus, far from showing the power of a newly oppressive central state, the rise of the imperial bureaucracy demonstrates the continuation of the same kind of political relationship between centre and locality that we have already observed. Here again, as in the rescript system and in the whole process of Romanization itself, the state certainly started the ball rolling by setting up a new rule book, as it were. But the process was taken over by locals responding to the rule changes and adapting them to their own interests.
Quote ID: 5561
Time Periods: 145
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 118
Section: 4B
Written sources and archaeological excavation both confirm that the late Roman landowning elite, like their forebears, would alternate between their urban houses and their country estates.
Quote ID: 8467
Time Periods: 56
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 119
Section: 3C,4B
With the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312, the old ideological structures of the Roman world also began to be dismantled, and for Edward Gibbon this was a key moment in the story of Roman collapse.
Quote ID: 5562
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 119
Section: 4B
The main difference between early and late armies lay not in their numbers, but in the fact that barbarian recruits now sometimes served in the same units as citizens, rather than being segregated into auxiliary forces.
Quote ID: 8468
Time Periods: 456
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 121
Section: 2A3,4B
On the religious front Constantine’s conversion to Christianity certainly unleashed a cultural revolution. Physically, town landscapes were transformed as the practice of keeping the dead separate from the living, traditional in Graeco-Roman paganism, came to an end, and cemeteries sprang up within town walls.
Quote ID: 5564
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 121
Section: 3C,4B
The Church, as Gibbon claimed, attracted large donations both from the state and from individuals. Constantine himself started the process, the Book of the Popes lovingly recording his gifts of land to the churches of Rome, and, over time, churches throughout the Empire acquired substantial assets.
Quote ID: 5565
Time Periods: 456
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 122/123
Section: 4B
But while the rise of Christianity was certainly a cultural revolution, Gibbon and others are much less convincing in claiming that the new religion had seriously deleterious effect upon the functioning of the Empire.
Quote ID: 5568
Time Periods: 34
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 125
Section: 1A,4B
By 438, the Senate of Rome was a thoroughly Christian body. At the top end of Roman society, the adoption of Christianity thus made no difference to the age-old contention that the Empire was God’s vehicle in the world.
Quote ID: 5571
Time Periods: 5
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 127/128
Section: 4B
As with the expansion of the bureaucracy, the imperial centre had successfully deployed new mechanisms for keeping the energies and attentions of the landowning classes focused upon itself.Taxes were paid, elites participated in public life, and the new religion was effectively enough subsumed into the structures of the late Empire. Far from being the harbingers of disaster, both Christianization and bureaucratic expansion show imperial centre still able to exert a powerful pull on the allegiances and habits of the provinces. That pull had to be persuasive rather than coercive, but so it had always been. Renegotiated, the same kinds of bonds continued to hold centre and locality together.
Pastor John’s note: Wow
Quote ID: 5578
Time Periods: 345
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 129
Section: 4B
Above all, written law freed men from the fear of arbitrary action on the part of the powerful (the Latin word for freedom – libertas – carried the technical meaning ‘freedom under the law’). Legal disputes were treated on their merits; the powerful could not override the rest. And Christianization merely strengthened the ideological importance ascribed to written law. For whereas Christian intellectuals could criticize as elitist the moral education offered by the grammarian, and hold up the uneducated Holy Man from the desert as an alternative figure of virtue, the law was not open to the same kind of criticism. It protected everyone in their designated social positions.-----------------------
... it became easy to portray all-encompassing written Roman law – as opposed to elite literary culture – as the key ingredient of the newly Christian Empire’s claim to uphold a divinely ordained social order. {39}
Quote ID: 5579
Time Periods: 45
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 133
Section: 4B
By the third quarter of the fourth century, as Christianity spread and attracted imperial patronage, the landowning classes likewise began to move, as we have seen, into the Church and soon came to dominate the episcopate. The first grammarian-trained bishops I know of are Ambrose in the west and the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa) in the east, all ordained in about 370. {43}
Quote ID: 5581
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 134
Section: 4B
The Empire had always been run for the benefit of an elite. And while this made for an exploited peasantry and certain level of largely unfocused opposition, there is no sign in the fourth century that the situation had worsened. {45}
Quote ID: 5582
Time Periods: 4
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 135
Section: 4B
But landowning was the supreme expression of wealth, and, as in pre-industrial England, those who made money elsewhere were quick to invest it in estates – because, above all, land was the only honourable form of wealth for a gentleman.
Quote ID: 5583
Time Periods: 147
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 136/137
Section: 4B
There are no known examples of landowners, even with excellent connections, being let off tax entirely, but many won reductions. All reductions were, however, precarious in that if your patron lost power, then the benefits that accrued to you might also be lost.
Quote ID: 5584
Time Periods: 147
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
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 141
Section: 1A,4B
It has been a long journey of discovery, but the evolution of the Roman Empire up to about AD 300 is finally coming into focus. On the one hand, we are dealing with an historical phenomenon of extraordinary power. Built originally on military might, the Empire deployed, across the vastness separating Hadrian’s Wall from the Euphrates, an all-encompassing ideology of superiority. By the fourth century, subjected peoples had so internalized the Roman way of life that the original conquest state had evolved into a commonwealth of thoroughly Roman provincial communities.
Quote ID: 5586
Time Periods: 1234
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 410/411
Section: 4B
As we saw earlier, villas disappeared equally quickly in much of the Balkans at the time of the Gothic war of 376-82.This doesn’t mean that all their former owners were necessarily killed and the landowning class eliminated. Rural surveys in Noricum have demonstrated, on the contrary, that building in the fifth century switched to the construction of what Germanophone archaeologists call Fliehburgen, ‘refuge centres’. These are substantial walled settlements, sometimes built with permanent occupation in mind, placed in highly defensible positions, usually on hill tops and frequently with a church at their centre.
------------------
Much of the action of the Life of Severinus takes place against a backdrop in which small walled settlements, castella - the contemporary term for archaeologists’ Fliehburgen - provide the basic form of settlement being used to protect Roman life. The Life also makes clear that, by the 460s, the citizens of these small towns had become responsible for their own protection, putting together small forces to defend their walls - citizen militias, in fact.
Quote ID: 5599
Time Periods: 45
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 412
Section: 4B
In Noricum, it was sometime in the 460s that the troops disbanded, and my best guess would be that it happened shortly after the defeat of the Byzantine armada. But the garrison troops had wives and children living with them, so that even when they disbanded they stayed where they were. Old garrisons didn’t die, but slowly faded away into the citizen militias who, as we’ve already seen, continued to protect their walled settlements once the formal Roman army in the province had ceased to exist. This is the situation that most of the anecdotes in the Life of Severinus presuppose.
Quote ID: 5601
Time Periods: 5
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 413
Section: 4B
With the divine assistance to which the saint had access, says Eugippius, some of the towns of Noricum were able to maintain for some time a lifestyle that preserved much of its old Romanness. The emphasis has to be added. One theme of the Life of St. Severinus is a kind of London-in-the-Blitz determination to carry on being more Roman than usual.
Quote ID: 5602
Time Periods: 5
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 422
Section: 2E2,4B
Landed wealth is by definition immovable. Unless you belonged to the super-rich of the Roman world, owning lands far to the east as well as in Gaul or Spain, then when the Roman state started to fail, you were left with little choice. You either had to mend fences with your nearest incoming barbarian king so as to secure the continuation of your property rights, or give up the elite status into which you had been born. If, as the Empire collapsed around them, Roman landowners perceived the slightest chance of holding on to their lands, they were bound to take it.
Quote ID: 5603
Time Periods: 45
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 431
Section: 1A,4B
During the same period there were many living in western Europe and North Africa who continued to think of themselves, and were thought of by others, as Romans.
Quote ID: 5607
Time Periods: 56
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 432
Section: 1A,4B
The Destruction of Central Romanness
What did come to an end in 476 was any attempt to maintain the western Roman Empire as an overarching, supra-regional political structure.
------------------------------
After 476, all this came to an end. While substantial numbers of the old Roman landowning class still survived in the west with their distinctive culture more or less intact, the key centralizing structures of Empire had gone.
------------------------------
Provincial Romanness survived in parts of the west after 476, but central Romanness was a thing of the past.
Quote ID: 5609
Time Periods: 156
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 438/439
Section: 3A1,4B
In many places, then, local Romanness survived pretty well. Catholic Christianity, a Latin-literate laity, villas, towns and more complex forms of economic production and exchange all endured to some extent - except in Britain - on the back of the landowning class. Consequently, across most of the old Roman west, the destruction of the forms and structures of the state coexisted with a survival of Roman provincial life. {9}------------------
Was the end of the Roman state a major event in the history of western Eurasia, or merely a surface disturbance, much less important than deeper phenomena such as the rise of Christianity, which worked themselves out essentially unaffected by the processes of imperial collapse?
----------------
As we have seen, there was no sudden, total change, and this fact has laid a new emphasis on the notion of continuity, on the idea that the best way of understanding historical development in the late and post-Roman periods is to consider it in terms of organic evolution rather than cataclysm. {10}
Quote ID: 5611
Time Periods: 147
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 439
Section: 4B
To participate in the benefits of Empire, provincial elites needed to gain Roman citizenship. The easiest way to do this was to set up your own town with Latin rights, and hold high office within it. A rush towards this kind of urbanization, therefore, followed the establishment of Roman dominance. You also needed to be able to speak ‘proper’ Latin, so that Latin literary education spread too, and to show that you had bought into the values of classical civilization. Public buildings in which such a civilized life might be lived with one’s peers (meeting houses, baths, and so on) and the villa style of domestic architecture were the concrete manifestations of that Roman vision.
Quote ID: 5612
Time Periods: 3456
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 440
Section: 4B
Most of what has been called Romanization was not a state-directed top-down activity. Rather, it was the outcome of the individual responses of conquered elites to the brute fact of Empire, as they adapted their society to the new conditions that Roman domination imposed upon them.
Quote ID: 5613
Time Periods: 147
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 440
Section: 4B
An essential part of the deal, however, was that, while they transformed their lifestyles so as to participate in what the state had to offer, the Empire’s armies protected them. Local Romanness was thus inseparable from the existence of Empire.
Quote ID: 5614
Time Periods: 047
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 441
Section: 4B
When a ‘proper’ Latin poet called Venantius Fortunatus turned up at court from Italy, he delighted equally both Roman- and Frankish-descended grandees present. This individual made a career out of singing for his supper, his party piece being elegant couplets in praise of the dessert. Despite this, neither kind of grandee bothered any more with a full Latin education. They did teach their children to read and write, but their aims were more limited. As a result, by about 600, writing was confined to clerics, while secular elites tended to be content just to be able to read, especially their Bibles; they no longer saw writing as an essential part of their identity.
Quote ID: 5615
Time Periods: 56
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 442
Section: 4B
....the intellectual world of the early medieval Church became a solidly clerical one. This would not have happened, had laymen remained as educated as clerics.
Quote ID: 5618
Time Periods: 6
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 4
Section: 3A2,4B
This Alexandrian event, however, seems to have fundamentally changed many people’s awareness of the threat to traditional religious institutions. For the first time, pagans understood that Christian attacks could reach the most permanent and impressive elements of the urban religious infrastructure. Christians now saw temple destructions, both within and outside of cities, as a realistic way to remake the religious topography of the empire.….
Older men did not see the world in this way. They generally shared neither their junior’s interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their tendency toward violent religious confrontation.
Quote ID: 8296
Time Periods: 45
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 17
Section: 4B
The Roman Empire was full of gods in 310. Their temples, statues, and images filled its cities, towns, farms, and wildernesses.
Quote ID: 8297
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 18
Section: 4B
A short fourth-century catalog of the types of buildings found in the city of Alexandria offers a window into this environment. It lists almost 2,500 temples in the city, nearly one for every twenty houses.{2}
Quote ID: 8298
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 19
Section: 4B
The Roman countryside housed an even greater array of sacred sites. These included large temple complexes,{8} grottoes and other rustic sacred locations,{9} and a large category of rural structures that served, in effect, as temples run by the household that controlled the land.
Quote ID: 8299
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 29
Section: 4B
These high rates of mortality meant that the modern ideal of a nuclear family did not reflect the realities of Roman domestic life.{67} Composite families were instead the norm. First, marriages typically joined a woman in her teens to a man in his late twenties and lasted about fourteen years.{68} Many widowers remarried, and it was assumed that children of both marriages would live together in the father’s home and be brought up as part of one family unit with him as its head.{69}
Quote ID: 8300
Time Periods: 34
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 36
Section: 4B
Idolatry, he claims, is “a crime so widespread,…[that] it subverts the servants of God.”{127}….
Tertullian warns that Christians must be “fore-fortified against the abundance of idolatry” and not just its obvious manifestations.{128}
….
At the center of the work, however, Tertullian pauses to try to answer an interesting rhetorical question. If all this is prohibited, he asks, “How is one to live?”{131}
Quote ID: 8301
Time Periods: 23
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 39
Section: 4B
Many people, both Christian and pagan, skipped the religious festivals and public sacrifices that crowded the calendar, for a range of reasons. Libanius [PJ: 314–393], for example, once required his students to skip a festival for Artemis because their declamations needed work.{6}
Quote ID: 8303
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 149/150
Section: 3A1,4B
The final pagan generation brought up their children expecting that they would similarly embrace and thrive in this system. Many of their children did, but, by the 360s, it was becoming clear that some children of the post-Constantinian empire did not react to these opportunities in the way that their parents hoped. Unlike their parents, some elite youth of the 350s, 360s, and 370s came to suspect the rewards secular careers promised, and sought opportunities outside of them. In increasing numbers, they turned their backs on the lucrative jobs for which they were training, and embraced either service in the Christian church or, more controversially, a type of Christian ascetic life.
Quote ID: 8315
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 151
Section: 3A1,4B
Beginning in the 370s, however, men who had once served as teachers, advocates, and even imperial governors entered into bishoprics, a trend that accelerated as the fifth century approached.{4}Ambrose offers perhaps the most familiar example of this new breed of bishop.{5} Ambrose came from a wealthy, senatorial, Christian family that owned extensive property and had built its fortune through service within the Constantinian imperial administration.{6}
Quote ID: 8316
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 152
Section: 3A1,3A3B,4B
Ambrose himself notes that this was not the career that many would have envisioned for a former governor and the son of a prefect,{16} but the resources and social obligations of a late fourth-century bishop would have resembled those available to a member of the imperial elite.….
The Christian tradition of charitable contributions further augmented the material resources a bishop controlled.{21}
Quote ID: 8317
Time Periods: 34
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 153
Section: 3A1,4B
Many of the middle-class bishops of the early fourth century managed to do this, but as Ambrose’s later career shows, the elite bishops of the late fourth century could do far more than their predecessors.….
These elite church officers sought a type of success that depended only somewhat on the imperial system. This and their higher social status meant that they were less easily cowed by emperors than some of their socially middling predecessors had been.
….
If they proved too problematic, emperors could marginalize bishops by separating them from all of these resources and supporters.{29} Emperors still possessed some tools to control the conduct of these men.
Quote ID: 8318
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 164/165
Section: 4A,4B
By the 380s, the growing interest in ascetic circles and Episcopal service among young Christians created two subgroups of curial and senatorial figures over whom imperial officials had limited influence.{117} The young men who entered church offices remained somewhat engaged with the wider world. They were uninterested in offices and honors defined by the imperial system, but they remained plugged into elite social and cultural networks. They also depended on imperial resources and approval in order to effectively do their jobs.….
These were the first elites of the fourth century who immunized themselves against the rewards that imperial officials could offer and the punishments they could inflict.{118}
….
As more people came to accept the authority that these young Christian bishops and ascetics claimed, the Roman social and administrative system needed to find ways to contain their influence and direct their energies. As the 380s will show, the empire was not always successful.
Quote ID: 8324
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 181
Section: 3A1,4B
Gregory was replaced as bishop of Constantinople by Nectarius, a Constantinopolitan senator and former government official who, like Gregory, traded his career within the imperial system for a position of honor in the church.{86}
Quote ID: 8325
Time Periods: 4
Final Pagan Generation, The
Edward J. Watts
Book ID: 384 Page: 220
Section: 4B
The fourth century has come to be seen as the age when Christianity eclipsed paganism and Christian authority structures undermined the traditional institutions of the Roman state. Modern historians have highlighted the rising influence of bishops, the emergence of Christian ascetics, the explosion of pagan-Christian conflict, and the destruction of temples. This is one fourth-century story, but it is neither the story that the final pagan generation would have told nor the one that later generations told about them. Their fourth century was the age of storehouses full of gold coins, elaborate dinner parties honoring letter carriers, public orations before emperors, and ceremonies commemorating officeholders. These things occurred in cities filled with thousands of temples, watched over by myriads of divine images, and perfumed by the smells of millions of sacrifices.
Quote ID: 8329
Time Periods: 4
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 16/17
Section: 4B
Queen Isabella of Spain, the supporter of Columbus and his explorations, once boasted that she had “taken only two baths in my life” and was “proud of it.”In the 1,000-room palace of Catherine the Great of Russia there was only one bathtub - a small affair made of tin - and it was located in a “meager and mean room.”
“The Queen (Elizabeth) hath built herself a bath wherein she doth bathe herself once a month, whether she require it or no,” ran a snappy item from a gossip sheet of Queen Elizabeth’s time.
When the Saracens invaded Spain they brought with them bath tubs and the practice of bathing. But pious Spain would have nothing to do with “this abomination of the infidel.” And King Ferdinand issued a royal edict commanding that all bath tubs be destroyed.
. . . .
In 1845 the Boston City Council prohibited bathing except on the advice of a physician, and this law was in effect until 1862. A somewhat similar law in Philadelphia failed to pass by two votes. In 1846 the state of Virginia taxed bathtubs thirty dollars a year.
Quote ID: 2357
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 22
Section: 4B
When the idea of gas street lights was first introduced into the meeting of the city council of Boston it was rejected on the basis of the following all-embracing arguments.Religious – God meant it to be dark.
Moral – It will kill fear of darkness.
Police – Thieves will be emboldened.
Quote ID: 2358
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 93
Section: 4B
Scientist Simon Newcomb wrote in 1906, just as success of the airplane was in the offing, “The demonstration that no combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force can be united in a practicable manner by which men shall fly seems to the writer to be as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact to be.” –SIMON NEWCOMB, “Sidelights on Astronomy,” p. 345, Harper and Brothers, 1906.
Quote ID: 2359
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 110/111
Section: 4B
From ancient times came the theory that the arteries carry air, and this is exactly what the word “artery” means –“air tube” or “air carrier.” Williams Harvey, highly respected court physician to James I, to Charles I, and to the boy who later became Charles II, after a great deal of dissection and experimentation, dared to explain his (our modern) theory of circulation-the functions of the arteries, veins, and lungs. His colleagues denounced him bitterly as a “crack-brained fool” for opposing Galen, and he was all but ostracized by his associates and friends. He lost his official position and most of his practice.
Quote ID: 2360
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 112/113
Section: 4B
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was a French chemist who made a number of important contributions, probably the best known of which was his work with oxygen. He overthrew the phlogistic theory, which had delayed the development of chemistry for over a century.. . . .
He held that the function of the lungs was not to cool the blood, as Galen had thought, but to put oxygen into the blood and to throw off the carbon dioxide.
. . . .
He was arrested, tried by a Revolutionary tribunal, and on May 8th, 1794, he was guillotined.
Quote ID: 2361
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 133/134
Section: 4B
Galileo studied the heavens and came to the conclusion that the earth, instead of the sun, moved-that is, that the earth moved around the sun.. . . .
He went to Rome, was examined by the Inquisition, threatened with torture, and forced to kneel and recant his heretical beliefs. He spent the last seven years of his life under very severe restrictions-virtually a prisoner.
Quote ID: 2362
Time Periods: 7
Fools and Foolishness
Harry C. McKown
Book ID: 90 Page: 145
Section: 4B
In 1888 Thomas Edison marketed his first phonograph, and within a few years it took the country by storm. That is, it took everybody by storm except the music critics. These dignitaries condemned it as “a great hindrance to musical education,” and urged that musical patrons “refuse to be enticed by it.” Now, this “hindrance” is used in musical education in nearly every school in the country.
Quote ID: 2363
Time Periods: 7
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 51
Section: 4B
“New social relations based on imperial and Christian patterns replaced tribal organization.” In the 6th century
Quote ID: 5641
Time Periods: 67
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 53
Section: 4B
“The striking persistence of pagan images into the sixth century serves as a reminder that early Christian art by no means obliterated its Greco-Roman predecessor.”
Quote ID: 5643
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 75
Section: 4B
“Secular education in Gaul was replaced by a new ‘proto-medieval’ syllabus, directed by and for the needs of the church. Christian learning replaced pagan, but very slowly, and without ever eradicating a Roman attachment to Latin poets and classical rhetoric.
Quote ID: 5662
Time Periods: 45
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 75
Section: 4B
By the seventh century, the church was the chief administrator of public education. It was also the principal force in the employment of artists, and an main source of patronage. As this public influence grew, so Xty’s stand against open paganism grew sterner.
Quote ID: 5663
Time Periods: 7
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 77
Section: 3A2B,4B
In 529, Justinian made it illegal for pagans to hold public teaching positions. The Academy at Athens was doomed, its property confiscated. To replace all such educational systems with Christian education was his goal.
Quote ID: 5664
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 79
Section: 1A,4B
. . . author speaks of a “complex synthesis of pagan and Christian elements” in the educational system of the sixth century. Only the most “dangerous” elements of paganism were cast aside outright. Clement and Origen argued from a philosophical point of view that was a mixture of Platonic and Christian thought, and in doing so “protected the teaching of pagan thought, mythology, and literature to a degree. But by the sixth century, Christians were much less receptive to ancient philosophy . . . .”
Quote ID: 5665
Time Periods: 347
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 84
Section: 4B
Carolingian poets attempted to revive classical verse forms.
Quote ID: 5666
Time Periods: 7
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 89
Section: 4B
“The formation of Late Antique cultural unity through widespread acceptance of the Christian faith . . . created a medium whereby ancient skills and techniques could be inherited, in education, oratory, and rhetoric, legal practice, and artistic traditions.”
Quote ID: 5668
Time Periods: 567
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 89
Section: 4B
Because of Xty, the classical heritage had been preserved and could flourish. . . . Equally, Xty was actively shaping, restricting, and reworking this inheritance, which it also transmitted to non-Mediterranean regions.”
Quote ID: 5669
Time Periods: 567
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 114
Section: 4B
“Early Christian architecture was designed to impress . . .”
Quote ID: 5671
Time Periods: 4
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 133
Section: 4B
Beginning with the 7th cent, we have a real “dark age”.
Quote ID: 5681
Time Periods: 7
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 144
Section: 1A,2E2,4B
Gibbon lamented that “Soldier’s pay was lavished on a useless multitude of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity.”Decline and Fall, 4:175.
Pastor John’s Note: What Gibbon failed to acknowledge is the powerful effect that such claims had on the minds of people; it proved to be more effective in permanently subduing the masses to the will of those who would rule over them than any army of soldiers could have.
Quote ID: 5688
Time Periods: 45
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 144
Section: 1A,2E2,4B
Footnote “The huge army of clergy and monks were for the most part idle mouths, living upon offerings, endowments and state subsidies.”from a “Jones”, a quoted scholar.
Quote ID: 5689
Time Periods: 45
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 145
Section: 4B
“western Christians rejected the exclusively Latin culture of a clerical elite, which emerged in all the successor states of the West.”
Quote ID: 5685
Time Periods: 67
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 148
Section: 4B
In the 580s the Senate ceased to meet. large parts of Rome turned to waste, or vineyards, etc. Ravenna was the functioning capital.
Quote ID: 5690
Time Periods: 6
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 255
Section: 4B
The Arbogast of the letter was count of Trier. I am inclined to agree with the placement of this letter soon after Sidonius’s exile, but it might date much earlier in his episcopal career.. . . .
The Roman tongue has long been effaced from Belgic and Rhenish lands; but if its splendor has anywhere survived, it is surely with you; though the authority (iura) of Rome has collapsed on the frontier, as long as you live and preserve your eloquence, the language does not falter. For this reason, as I return your greeting; I rejoice that traces of our vanishing literary culture remain in your illustrious breast; continue your assiduous studies and you will find that people with learning are as much above simple folk as humans are above beasts.
Quote ID: 2401
Time Periods: 5
Galen on Jews and Christians
Richard Walzer
Book ID: 410 Page: 11
Section: 4B
Reference 1Me:
From a fragment from Galen’s lost work, On Hippocrates’s Anatomy, written between 162 and 166, Galen spoke of the opinions of certain physicians, saying,
“They compare those who practice medicine without scientific knowledge to Moses, who framed laws for the tribe of the Jews, since it is his method in his books to write without offering proofs, saying ‘God commanded, God spake.’”
Quote ID: 4556
Time Periods: 23
Galen on the Jews: Summary of Platonic Dialogues, Part 3, Reference 6
By Galen
Book ID: 591 Page: ?
Section: 4B
This work is lost, but a quotation is found in Arabic authors in somewhat different forms. Hunain ibn Ishaq records that he translated a work in four parts, written by Galen in eight parts, containing summaries of works by Plato.{18}The first version is found in Abu Ali Isa ibn Ishaq ibn Zura {19} (known as Ibn Zura, d. 1008 AD), On the main questions discussed between Christians and Jews. {20} Walzer translation:{21}
“Galen ... says at the end of his summary of Plato’s Republic: “In the religious community of the followers of Christ there are most admirable people who frequently act according to perfect virtue; and this is to be seen not only in their men but in their women as well. ” And I see that he admires them for their virtue, and although he is a man whose position is known and whose opposition to Judaism and Christianity is manifest and clear to everybody who has studied his books and knows what he states in them, he nevertheless cannot deny the excellent qualities which the Christians display in their virtuous activities.”
Quote ID: 9320
Time Periods: 2
George Washington’s Rules of Civility Traced to Their Sources and Restored
Moncure D. Conway
Book ID: 95 Page: 20
Section: 4B
The world does not depend on a man’s inner but on his outer life. Emerson once scandalised some of his admirers by saying that he preferred a person who did not respect the truth to an unpresentable person. But, no doubt, he would regard the presentable person as possessing virtues of equal importance. The nurture of “civility and decent behavior in company and conversation,” is not secondary, but primary, importance.
Quote ID: 2451
Time Periods: 7
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 50
Section: 4B
In Apuleius’s colorful novel The Metamorphoses, when a lowly night watchman began to tell a story to his friends, he first extended his right arm and made what the novelist called “the orator’s gesture” (Apul. Met. 2.21). Such incidents challenge the idea that the rather intricate rules of rhetoric were the exclusive preserve of the nobility and imply that this knowledge penetrated much deeper into Roman society.
Quote ID: 2454
Time Periods: 2
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 101
Section: 4B
The English word acclamation has acquired connotations of approval or praise, but the Latin word from which it is derived, acclamatio, simply means any shouted comment, whether positive or negative.{1}
Quote ID: 2456
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 101
Section: 4B
In Roman society the acclamation had a long history of use as an important feature of many social occasions.
Quote ID: 2457
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 102
Section: 4B
Throughout Roman history the senate, people, and army had directed laudatory acclamations at prominent politicians.
Quote ID: 2458
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 102
Section: 4B
During the early empire acclamations acquired new importance, since they became a central component of ceremonies associated with the emperor, most notably in the accession process by which a new emperor was identified and legitimized.
Quote ID: 2459
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 102
Section: 4B
For the urban plebs to a much greater degree than for the other groups, however, acclamations became the primary means of communication and interaction with the emperor.
Quote ID: 2460
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 112
Section: 4B
The volume and variety of shouted acclamations accompanying an emperor’s entrance furnished a rough measure of his standing with the urban plebs, in the same way that figures of the late republic had used such acclamations to judge their popularity.
Quote ID: 2461
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 128
Section: 4B
Acclamations have several notable features that enabled them to serve as such powerful and versatile forms of interaction between emperor and urban plebs. The most significant of these qualities are the existence of a body of well-known acclamation formulas and the rhythmic nature of many acclamation chants themselves.
Quote ID: 2462
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 129
Section: 4B
Verbal formulas allowed large numbers of people to communicate directly with a minimum of prior planning. In the circus demonstration of A.D. 196, described by Dio, the participation of so many thousands was made possible because everyone in the audience knew the basic formulas.
Quote ID: 2463
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 130
Section: 4B
The fundamental importance of formulas in organizing mass acclamations was strikingly revealed by the disaster that ensued when Nero compelled a group of Italians from rural Italy to attend one of his theatrical performances, where they were forced at sword point to praise his thespian skills. The frightened rustics were ignorant of the acclamation formulas used in Rome and of the various types of rhythmic applause that the urban plebs were accustomed to employ. Attempting to imitate the complex verbal acclamations of the locals, the Italians merely created chaos in the theater with their confused, disjointed shouting, and with their “inexperienced hands” they disrupted the smooth rhythms of the urban applauders (Tac. Ann. 16.5).
Quote ID: 2464
Time Periods: 014
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 145
Section: 4B
By his time, Quintilian admitted that while in theory there should be no more than a trace of singing in an oration, in practice there were many who overstepped the bounds of decorum and delivered almost musical speeches. He labeled this the greatest fault of contemporary oratory.
Quote ID: 2465
Time Periods: 1
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome
Gregory S. Aldrete
Book ID: 96 Page: 147
Section: 4B
Even funeral eulogies could be presented in a rhythmic manner. During Tiberius’s eulogy at the funeral of Augustus, he allegedly said to the crowd, “I, like the leader of a chorus, merely give out the leading words, while you join in and chant the rest” (Dio 56.35).
Quote ID: 2466
Time Periods: 014
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 9
Section: 4B
In 358 BC, three hundred and seven Roman prisoners of war were slaughtered as human sacrifices in the forum of Tarquinii. In 40 BC Octavian, the future Augustus, immolated to deceased members of the Julian family three hundred of the principal people of rebel Perusia (Perugia), pointing out with sinister irony that he must allow his Etruscan enemies the rites which belonged to their own national customs.
Quote ID: 2467
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 11
Section: 2A3,4B
Obviously, most spectators just enjoyed the massacre without any such antiquarian reflections. But the more thoughtful ancient writers continued to be well aware that gladiators had originated from these holocausts in honour of the dead. The African Christian Tertullian, writing two centuries after the birth of Christ, described these combats of the amphitheatre as the most famous, the most popular spectacle of all. "What was offered to appease the dead was counted as a funeral rite....It is called munus (a service) from being a service due...The ancients thought that by this sort of spectacle they rendered a service to the dead, after they had tempered it with a more cultured form of cruelty."
Quote ID: 2470
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 11
Section: 2A3,4B
For such reasons, gladiators were sometimes known as bustuarii or funeral men. Throughout many centuries of Roman history, these commemorations of the dead were still among the principal occasions for such combats; indeed the cult of deceased and deified emperors provided typical opportunities. Men writing their wills often made provision for gladiatorial duels in connection with their funerals.
Quote ID: 2471
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 12
Section: 2A3,4B
The munera - the word is never used for any sort of games other than gladiatorial displays - came to be fixed in December, the time of the Saturnalia. Although the predecessor of our Christmas, this was also the festival of the god Saturn, whose name was linked with human sacrifice.
Quote ID: 2472
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 30
Section: 2A3,4B
Most gladiators, at Rome and elsewhere, were slaves; but in addition, there were always some free men who became gladiators because they wanted to.
Quote ID: 2473
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 31
Section: 2A3,4B
An exceptional feat of survival was claimed by the gladiator Publius Ostorius at Pompeii - a freeman and voluntary fighter, combatant in no less than fifty-one fights.
Quote ID: 2474
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 33
Section: 4B
Another rich source of scandal was the adoption of the gladiatorial career by women. The mind reels at the thought of what a female Roman gladiator must have been like;
Quote ID: 2477
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 35
Section: 4B
The number of days in each year given up to annual games and spectacles of one sort or another in the city was startlingly large, and increased continually. Already 66 in the time of Augustus, it had risen to 135 under Marcus Aurelius, and to 175 or more in the fourth century. Yet these are figures which take no account of the enormous and repeated special shows given by each successive emperor.
Quote ID: 2478
Time Periods: 0124
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 36
Section: 2A3,4B
The arch-patron of this gigantic activity was always the emperor. Gladiatorial entertainments had become a wholly indispensable feature of the services a ruler had to provide, in order to keep his popularity and his job.
Quote ID: 2480
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 49
Section: 2A3,4B
No arms were allowed in the schools, for fear of outbreaks - or suicides. Symmachus in the fourth century AD rather unsympathetically tells a harrowing story of twenty-nine Saxon prisoners of war, who despite supervision succeeded in doing away with each other en masse, rather than fight in the arena.
Quote ID: 2483
Time Periods: 014
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 74/75
Section: 4B
When a man fell, the herald raised their trumpets, and spectators yelled ‘Got him! He’s had it!’ (habet, hoc habet). The fallen fighter, if he was in a state to move, laid down his shield, and raised one finger of his left hand as a plea for mercy. The decision whether his life should be spared rested with the provider of the games; but he generally found it politic to take account of the spectators’ loudly expressed views. Thumbs up, and a waving of handkerchiefs, meant that the man should be spared, thumbs down that he should not.
Quote ID: 2488
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 76
Section: 4B
While African boys raked over the bloodstained sand, fallen gladiators were taken away. A ghoulish touch, reminiscent of the religious origins of the sport, was added by the costumes worn by those who removed the bodies, who were dressed as Mercury (Hermes Psychopompos), divine guide of dead men’s souls to the infernal regions. Another distasteful note was struck by officials disguised as Charon, the underworld ferryman inherited by Roman myth from Charun the savage death-demon of the Etruscans, the people from whom the whole gladiatorial institution came. For when a man had been struck down and lay in his death agony, it was the function of these Charons to finish him off.
Quote ID: 2489
Time Periods: 0123
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 85
Section: 1B,4B
Of the Colosseum they said in the eighth century, ‘As long as it stands, Rome will stand; when it falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall.’ The Colosseum has often been raided, but has never fallen.
Quote ID: 2490
Time Periods: 17
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 114/115
Section: 4B
Another factor to be reckoned with was the absolute mastery of the early Roman paterfamilias over his children. ‘The Roman lawgiver,’ wrote Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ‘gave the father complete power over the son, power which lasted a whole lifetime. He was at liberty to imprison him, flog him, to keep him a prisoner working on the farm, and to kill him.’ And though the laws were modified, much of the spirit remained.
Quote ID: 2491
Time Periods: 0
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 116/117
Section: 2A3,4B
A century and a half later, Pliny the younger is equally disappointing. He praises a friend who gave a gladiatorial display and approves of the disdain of death and love of honourable wounds which such combats encouraged, inspiring, he said, ambition in the hearts even of criminals and slaves. Nowhere do we see more clearly than in the inadequate comments of this usually kind-hearted man what it was to live in a society where some people had no rights at all; and where policy and tradition had institutionalized the brutalities inherent in this situation.Pastor John’s note: Institution!!!
Quote ID: 2492
Time Periods: 01234
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 117
Section: 2A3,4B
The earliest and most notable protest comes from the Romano-Spanish philosopher, essayist and dramatist Seneca the younger. Whatever his equivocations as Nero’s minister, he must be credited with the first known unambiguous attack upon the whole institution of gladiators, and the popular enjoyment of its human bloodshed. Seneca invokes the Stoic Universal Brotherhood.
Quote ID: 2494
Time Periods: 01
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 123
Section: 4B
When Augustine in the Confessions (c. 400) told of his friend’s seduction by the arena, it did not sound as if the danger was dead, and two or three years later the poet Prudentius, in his denunciation of the pagan Symmachus, was still urging the emperor to forbid the use of such shows in order to inflict death-sentences upon criminals. Curiously enough, Prudentius suggested that the emperor should instead only allow them to be pitted against wild beasts - a sport which still persisted, although the state was now Christian. The puritan, economical ruler Anastasius banned them in 499, but they were revived and went on during the sixth century; indeed they were not officially abolished until AD 681.
Quote ID: 2500
Time Periods: 567
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 123
Section: 4B
As regards gladiators, however, Prudentius’ plea was very soon followed by the final crisis. This was precipitated by Telemachus, a monk from Asia Minor, who rushed into a Roman arena to part the fighters, and was torn to pieces by the infuriated crowd. Honorius seized the opportunity to abolish gladiators and their games altogether. This event is usually dated to AD 404. {1}
Quote ID: 2501
Time Periods: 45
Gladiators
Michael Grant
Book ID: 97 Page: 124
Section: 3A2A,3C,4B
Moreover, some of the most bloodthirsty human holocausts in the arena were perpetrated by Constantine the Great, who made the empire officially Christian; and gladiatorial combats were not abolished until approximately ninety-two years after the Christian revelation that he claimed to have experienced. Yet, for all that, it was appropriate that a monk should have taken the initiative in the final abolition of this scandal. For in the last resort, and in spite of the long time-lag, its termination must be attributed to the spreading of Christian ideas.
Quote ID: 2502
Time Periods: 04
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 34
Section: 2B2,4B
Attempts to bring Isis into Rome during the first century B.C. were not successful. Tertullian mentions that the Egyptian gods Sarapis,{18} Isis, and Harpocrates were prohibited and tells of consuls who overturned altars erected to them and checked the vices characteristic of “disgusting and pointless superstitions.” Though by the end of the second century A.D., Sarapis had become a Roman{19} (obviously Isis and Harpocrates had received the citizenship too), there had been a lengthy struggle over admitting such alien gods.
Quote ID: 8670
Time Periods: 012
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 40
Section: 2B2,4B
Dionysus in ItalyIn Italy the cult was not officially accepted before the end of the Roman republic. Its gradual movement into Roman circles was due to private initiative, not to public approval. It may have arrived when Greek prisoners taken by the Romans at Tarentum in 208 B.C. brought the Greek cult of Dionysus to south Italy in a secret and dangerous form.{43} Within two decades it became clear that the Bacchanalia were not compatible with the Roman character. In 186 B.C. the consuls put down the Dionysiac rites, practiced by slaves and some others, because they were secret and dangerous, not controlled by reason or authorized by the state. It may have been Julius Caesar who first authorized the cult. In the second century it was fully respectable.
Quote ID: 8671
Time Periods: 0123
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 42
Section: 4B
The most peculiar feature of the temple at Jerusalem was that it contained no statues. This lack made possible the inventions of Greco-Roman writers, who variously describe what was “really” inside. Tacitus tells us that they had a statue of the ass which supposedly guided them in the wilderness.
Quote ID: 8672
Time Periods: 012
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 42
Section: 2B2,4B
According to a tale related by Diodorus Siculus, when the Syrian king Antiochus IV “entered the innermost sanctuary of the god’s temple” he found “a marble statue of a heavily bearded man seated on an ass, with a book in his hands” and concluded that this was Moses.{56} A little later the anti-Jewish author Apion claimed that the king had found a golden ass’s head.{57} A further fiction concerned the king’s discovery of a kidnapped Greek who was being fattened in the temple so that the Jews could eat him.{58}
Quote ID: 8673
Time Periods: 012
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 57
Section: 4B
It is hard to find out what ordinary people thought the gods did for them.
Quote ID: 8675
Time Periods: 0123
Great Leveler: Violence and History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, The
Scheidel, Walter
Book ID: 359 Page: 4
Section: 4B
Yet by the time of Pope Gregory the Great, around 600 CE, great estates had disappeared, and what little was left of the Roman aristocracy relied on papal handouts to keep them afloat.
Quote ID: 8154
Time Periods: 56
Great Medieval Heretics: Five Centuries of Religious Dissent, The
Michael Frassetto
Book ID: 226 Page: 26
Section: 4B
The changes that took place around the year 1000 laid the foundation for a real revolution in the life and structure of the Church, but their immediate effects were not always positive. The increasingly elaborate sacramental structure of the Church and the expansion of its claims to authority alienated many faithful at all levels of society.
Quote ID: 5723
Time Periods: 7
Greek Anthology, The, LCL 086: Greek Anthology V, Books 13-16
W. R. Paton, trans.
Book ID: 136 Page: 5
Section: 2E3,4B
5.---On the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in the property of AmantiusTHIS house thou didst make for God, Amantius, in the middle of the sea, combating the swirling waves. Nor south nor north wind shall shake thy holy house, guarded as it is by this divine temple. May thy days be many; for thou by invading the sea hast made New Rome more glorious.
Quote ID: 2981
Time Periods: 5
Greek Anthology, The, LCL 086: Greek Anthology V, Books 13-16
W. R. Paton, trans.
Book ID: 136 Page: 13
Section: 4B
{1}Physicians, called other language because they refused fees from sick folk who were willing to become Christians.
Quote ID: 2983
Time Periods: 5
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: ?
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 16
Section: 4B
Christianity easily swept away the great gods, but the minor daemons of popular belief offered a stubborn resistance. They were nearer the living rock.
Quote ID: 2542
Time Periods: ?
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 73
Section: 4B
Whereas we say a prayer before and after the meal, the Greeks before the meal offererd a few bits of food on the hearth and after it poured out a few drops of unmixed wine on the floor. The libation was said to be made to Agathos Daimon, the Good Daemon, the guardian of the house, who appears in snake form.
Quote ID: 2550
Time Periods: ?
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 86
Section: 4B
After the great victory over the Persians, Athens took the lead in commerce and culture. Its people were, of course, proud of its great achievements and of the empire which it had acquired. Patriotic and even chauvinistic feelings sprang up, and in this age they could find expression only in religion. The state and the gods were a unity. The gods had given victory, power, and glory to the Athenian state. The Athenians gloried in being the most pious of all peoples and in celebrating the most numerous and magnificent festivals in honor of the gods. They were able to do this because they could afford the costs......
In the long run this kind of religion was no boon to the great gods. Religion was to a certain degree secularized.
.....
The great gods became greater and more glorious, but religious feeling gave way to feelings of patriotism and to display in festivals and sacrifices.
Quote ID: 2554
Time Periods: ?
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 139
Section: 4B
In backward parts of the country, however, the old mode of life and the old popular religion persisted and have continued to persist down to our own day.
Quote ID: 2560
Time Periods: ?
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: xiii
Section: 4B
Nevertheless, the hard core of Greek religion is to be found in its observances: these took their shape among men whose focus was first the hearth and then the city state
Quote ID: 2541
Time Periods: ?
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: 9
Section: 4B
In Gaul, and Spain every important city had its colony of Roman settlers, in whose hands were not only the executive and judicial functions of the imperial government, but also for the most part, the municipal administration.[also page 9 – used this part of the quote] In the empire of the first three centuries the Roman colony formed also the centre of that worship of the Emperor which, rather than the worship of Jupiter and Mars, was the official religion. In the later empire it formed the centre and nucleus of Christianity.
Quote ID: 5768
Time Periods: 12345
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: 11/12
Section: 3A1,3A3,3A4,3D2,4B
The Celts and Romans still formed the mass of the population. They retained their customs and their laws. The framework of the imperial organization remained without material change. And within that framework two features, the one of German character and the other of German usage, preserved much that was old, and laid the foundation of much that was to come. The one feature was that the Germans loved the country rather than the town, and that consequently, though great estates changed hands, the cities were left for the most part to their former inhabitants. The other feature was that, following their traditional usage, they did not impose their own laws upon the inhabitants of the territories which they conquered, but allowed each race to retain, and to be judged by, its own legal code. The general result was that in the cities was gathered together almost all that survived of Rome; the schools preserved the Roman tongue, the courts preserved Roman law, the Church preserved Roman Christianity. Of all this survival of Roman life, the bishop of the civitas was the centre. Round him the aristocracy of the old Roman families naturally gathered. He symbolised to them their past glories and their ancient liberties. He was their refuge in trouble, and their chief shield against oppression. His house was not infrequently the old praetorium, the residence of the Roman governor. Even his dress was that of a Roman official. In him the empire still lived.3A
Quote ID: 5770
Time Periods: 56
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: 24
Section: 4B
For, as a rule, such communities had come into existence under very different conditions from those of the earlier Christian communities, whether in the East or the West. They were not the free associations of Christian colonies who met together, and elected their own officers. They were formed by the owners of great estates who, being themselves Romans and Christians, built chapels in which they and their households might worship, and round which the new converts from paganism gradually clustered. Their officers were not elected, but nominated. They were appointed, paid, and dismissed by the owner of the estate on which they served.
Quote ID: 5773
Time Periods: 567
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: 28
Section: 3D1,4B
It is pertinent to point out that the victory which was ultimately won was a victory not only of centralisation over independency, but also of Catholicism over Arianism.For both faith and discipline the crisis was supreme; and it is of singular importance to note that the reformation which shaped the history of the West in all subsequent centuries was effected, under God, by the co-operation of Church and State.
Quote ID: 5774
Time Periods: 567
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: 29
Section: 3A1,4B
Both the co-operation itself, and the form which it took, were due to the enthusiasm and genius of our great countryman Boniface. To him more than to any other single cause the main features of the ecclesiastical system of the West are due.
Quote ID: 5775
Time Periods: 567
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: 44
Section: 2E3,4B
The owner of a church building claimed and exercised the right of appointing and dismissing its ministers at his pleasure and without reference to any other authority. In the city churches the ancient rule remained; their officers were appointed by the bishop with the approval of his council and of the whole community.
Quote ID: 5779
Time Periods: 47
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: 45
Section: 2E3,4B
It must be remembered that the mass of country churches were not, in the modern sense of the term, consecrated, and that those who had built them retained over them the same right of ownership which they had over other buildings on their estates. They could sell, alienate, or destroy them. They appointed officers to them as they appointed farm-bailiffs. There was no right of interference, either ecclesiastical or civil. It is obvious that in such cases discipline was impossible.
Quote ID: 5780
Time Periods: 47
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: 103
Section: 4B
The tenth or tithe of the produce was a traditional and customary rent for lands to leased.
Quote ID: 5793
Time Periods: 47
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: 141/142
Section: 4B
But a system which is the product of considerations of expediency tends also to be modified by considerations of expediency. In certain of its features the grouping of Churches according to Roman provinces, or combinations of provinces, has been permanent; but in certain other features it has given way to a system of grouping according to political divisions, in which the organisation of the Roman empire has been superseded or ignored. Provincial Churches have been succeeded by national Churches.
Quote ID: 5801
Time Periods: 67
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: 142/143
Section: 4B
Each kingdom found an ecclesiastical organisation existing, and endeavoured to incorporate it. The earlier bonds began to give way under the pressure of the new need of keeping the kingdom together. The kings gathered together the bishops and clergy within their domain, irrespective of the earlier arrangements.
Quote ID: 5802
Time Periods: 67
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: 143/144
Section: 4B
And when assembled in such mixed meetings of clergy and laity under the king’s authority, they did not attempt to draw a sharp distinction between secular and ecclesiastical affairs. Whatever affected the people at large came within the sphere of their control. Out of such meetings grew the sense of a unity which was not only political, but also ecclesiastical. The nation and the Church of the nation grew from the same roots and side by side. Each was independent of external control, but neither asserted an independence of the other.
Quote ID: 5803
Time Periods: 67
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: 152
Section: 4B
It was in this way, by the holding of meetings at which both the ecclesiastical and civil elements were represented, and which dealt with ecclesiastical no less than with civil questions, that there grew up the conceptions of both ecclesiastical and political unity which, more than physical force, welded together the diverse populations of what are now Spain, France, and England, each into a single whole. The older Roman arrangements lasted on, but only for limited purposes. The province was superseded by the nation in almost all respects, except that of internal discipline. The meetings of bishops in provincial councils tended to vanish under the influence of their meeting side by side with the nobles and civil officers in the more important national council. Of the ecclesiastical unit which was so formed the national council was the only representative.
Quote ID: 5804
Time Periods: 67
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: 154
Section: 4B
The great medieval institution of national Churches claims our respect as an instrument of spiritual good in the past.
Quote ID: 5805
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: 159/160
Section: 3A1,4B
In the century which had immediately succeeded the collapse of the Roman administration the majority of the clergy were Romans, citizens of the Roman municipalities, imbued with Roman traditions, and on a higher level of civilisation than the greater part of those to whom they ministered. In the eighth century the clergy, as is shown by their names, were mostly Teutons or Celts; and they do not seem to have been far removed from the ordinary level of their countrymen. Not only had the Christian ministry become a profession and means of livelihood; it had also become a lucrative profession. The great increase in the wealth of the Christian churches had fostered the growth of a class of clergy who were almost completely secularised. They hunted; they hawked; they traded; they lent money upon usury. And with the secularisation of their office came the degradation of its ideal of living.Pastor John’s note: Hatch romanticizes Romanness.
Quote ID: 5807
Time Periods: 47
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: 163
Section: 4B
In a capitulary of Pippin for his kingdom of Lombardy in 782, {1} the bishop was required to compel his clergy to live under “canonical” order; and if he failed to do this, the king’s officer was to decline to treat them as clerks and to put them on a level with other freemen in regard to liability to military service. That this penalty was an onerous one may be inferred from the number of persons who became clerks in order to escape it.
Quote ID: 5808
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: 226/227
Section: 4B
Nor can we believe that the form under which we ourselves live is final. The wisdom of our forefathers must yield to the wisdom of our contemporaries, and the wisdom of our contemporaries will in its turn yield to the wisdom of our children. And yet it is possible even for one who accepts this inevitable law of change to look with regret at some of the ancient forms which are passing into the world of shadows, and to express the hope that from the mists of the unrealised future there may come forth institutions as fruitful for good to the souls of men as those of the beautiful but irrecoverable past.
Quote ID: 5809
Time Periods: 6
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 65
Section: 4B
It was the startling discovery that these two religions were wholly different from all others that caused such consternation: in the easy-going eclecticism of Roman religion, it was the exclusiveness of Judaism and Christianity which shocked, not their doctrine.
Quote ID: 2572
Time Periods: ?
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 67
Section: 2E3,4B
The last two chapters have shewn, it is hoped, that Hadrian was an innovator, that he had conceived a new form of polity, namely the empire as a family of provinces, the happy and prosperous children of the Mother City, and that he intended that the veneration of that city, and of himself as its lord, should be the spiritual bond of empire.
Quote ID: 2573
Time Periods: 2
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 101
Section: 4B
Europe owes its faith, arts and civilization to three cities, Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. Hadrian influenced all three in a manner and to a degree that no other man has ever done, before or since. Jerusalem he disliked, Rome he mistrusted, Athens he adored.
Quote ID: 2575
Time Periods: ?
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 142
Section: 4B
Many Jews, even, who wished to move among Gentiles as one of them, concealed their origin by means of plastic surgery.
Quote ID: 2577
Time Periods: ?
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 163
Section: 3B,4B
Bar Kokhba. He also did something else, which was to prove a disaster to his nation. He persecuted the Christians. In his role of Messiah, he found particularly obnoxious those who not only refused to acknowledge his Messianic quality, but went further and worshipped One whom they knew to have been the only true Messiah. It is from this act that the final separation of Jews and Christians is to be dated (though some Jewish apologists would place the responsibility on the later Christian Councils). Between the year 70 and the year 132 there had been a period of polemic between Jews and Christians, without a complete break. But Bar Kokhba’s execution of Christians caused the Christian attitude to harden into the tragic hostility which has ended only in our own day, when the Judaeo-Christian ethic has been assailed by a paganism more terrible than any of old,
Quote ID: 2582
Time Periods: 12
Harlot Church System: “Come out of her, My people”, The
Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.
Book ID: 231 Page: 63
Section: 1A,4B
Bob Hughey says, “What began as a movement in Israel became a philosophy in Greece, became an institution in Rome, became a culture in Europe, and became a big rich enterprise in America.”
Quote ID: 5818
Time Periods: 246
Hesiod - Theogony Works and Days
Hesiod
Book ID: 108 Page: 3
Section: 4B
From the Muses of Helicon let us begin our singing, that haunt Helicon’s great and holy mountain, and dance on their soft feet round the violet-dark spring and the altar of the mighty son of Kronos.
Quote ID: 2624
Time Periods: ?
Hesiod - Theogony Works and Days
Hesiod
Book ID: 108 Page: 3
Section: 4B
This is what the goddesses said to me first, the Olympian Muses, daughters of Zeus the aegis-bearer.
Quote ID: 2625
Time Periods: ?
Hesiod - Theogony Works and Days
Hesiod
Book ID: 108 Page: 37
Section: 4B
Muses from Pieria, who glorify by songs, come to me, tell of Zeus your father in your singing.
Quote ID: 2626
Time Periods: ?
Hesiod - Theogony Works and Days
Hesiod
Book ID: 108 Page: xix
Section: 4B
Right is the daughter of Zeus (256), the rule Zeus has laid down for mankind (276-80). He listens to her reports of injustice, rewards the righteous with prosperity, and punishes the unrighteous.
Quote ID: 2623
Time Periods: ?
Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition
Introduction and Commentary by Alistair C. Stewart
Book ID: 419 Page: 67
Section: 4B
…it is to be noted here that presbyters and patrons were functionally identical, indeed that Hermas himself is both leader and patron of his own community.{17} Leadership thus depended upon wealth, the possession of a house, and so the ability to act as pro-istamenos depended on the possibility that one might also act as prostatis (patron) to the church. There is thus an ambiguity in the word pro-istamenos, by which both governance and patronage might be indicated.{18} Given the necessity for domestic Christianity to have wealthy leaders who might also give social support to the church, it is quite possible that the pro-istamenoi, are both leaders and patrons.
Quote ID: 8589
Time Periods: ?
Historical Atlas of the Celtic World, The
Dr. Ian Barnes
Book ID: 232 Page: 114
Section: 4B
The desertion by Rome left Britain to disintegrate into a collection of petty kingdoms ruled by Romanized Celtic leaders. Ranging from the Picts of Scotland through to the Channel was a series of statelets which, from 410, mirrored Christian diocesan districts, probably based upon ancient tribal land holdings. The Celtic successor states faced the Saxon onslaught.
Quote ID: 5820
Time Periods: 57
Historical Atlas of the Celtic World, The
Dr. Ian Barnes
Book ID: 232 Page: 120
Section: 4B
The Celtic peoples of Britain now transformed into a Romanized settled society facing a tribal enemy. Angles, Saxons, and others who were semi nomadic, capable of existing in a less organized world, raided and pillaged Romano-Celtic settlements.
Quote ID: 5821
Time Periods: ?
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 116/117
Section: 4B
1. After the national religion and the religious sense generally in cultured circles had been all but lost in the age of Cicero and Augustus, there is noticeable in the Grӕco-Roman world from the beginning of the second century a revival of religious feeling…….
These needs rather sought new forms of satisfaction corresponding to the wholly changed conditions of the time, including intercourse, and mixing of the nations…
….
Religion and individual morality became more closely connected.
Quote ID: 8737
Time Periods: ?
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 118
Section: 4B
With all this Polytheism was not suppressed, but only put into a subordinate place. On the contrary, it was as lively and active as ever. For the idea of a numen supremum did not exclude belief in the existence and manifestation of subordinate deities. Apotheosis came into currency. The old state religion first attained its highest and most powerful expression in the worship of the emperor….
Quote ID: 8738
Time Periods: ?
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 131
Section: 4B
The history of dogma has to shew how the old eschatological view was gradually repressed and transformed in the Gentile Christian communities…….
Wherein the results of Greek practical philosophy could find a place.
….
The former had nothing but sure hopes and the guarantee of these hopes by the Spirit, by the words of prophecy and by the apocalyptic writings. One does not think, he lives and dreams, in the eschatological mode of thought; and such a life was vigorous and powerful till beyond the middle of the second century.
Quote ID: 8747
Time Periods: ?
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 298
Section: 4B
The fact that, even then, there were Jewish Christians here and there who sought to spread the [Greek] among Gentile Christians, has been attested by Justin and also by other contemporary writers.{1} But there is no evidence of this propaganda having acquired any great importance. Celsus also knows Christians who desire to live as Jews according to the Mosaic law (V. 61), but he mentions them only once….
Quote ID: 8759
Time Periods: 2
History of the Franks
Gregory Bishop of Tours
Book ID: 110 Page: x/xi
Section: 2E1,3A1,4B,2A3
However the natural advantages of Tours at this time were surpassed by the supernatural ones. Thanks to the legend of St. Martin this conveniently situated city had become “the religious metropolis” of Gaul. St. Martin had made a great impression on his generation.{1}....
[Footnote 1] In France, including Alsace and Lorraine, there are at the present time three thousand six hundred and seventy-five churches dedicated to St. Martin, and four hundred and twenty-five villages or hamlets are named after him. C. Bayet, in Lavisse, Histoire de France, 2I, p. 16.
He belonged to the privileged classes. Of his father’s family he tells us that “in the Gauls none could be found better born or nobler,” and of his mother’s that it was “a great and leading family.” On both his father’s and his mother’s side he was of senatorial rank, a distinction of the defunct Roman empire which still retained much meaning in central and southern Gaul. But the great distinction open at this time to a Gallo-Roman was the powerful and envied office of bishop. Men of the most powerful families struggled to attain this office and we can therefore judge of Gregory’s status when he tells us proudly that of the bishops of Tours from the beginning all but five were connected with him by ties of kinship.
In spite of all these advantages, under the externals of Christianity, Gregory was almost as superstitious as a savage. His superstition came to him straight from his father and mother and from his whole social environment. He tells us that his father, when expecting in 534 to go as hostage to king Theodobert’s court, went to “a certain bishop” and asked for relics to protect him. These were furnished to him in the shape of dust or “sacred ashes” and he put them in a little gold case the shape of a pea-pod and wore them about his neck, although he never knew the names of the saints whose relics they were.
Quote ID: 2640
Time Periods: 7
History of the Franks
Gregory Bishop of Tours
Book ID: 110 Page: xxii
Section: 3A2A,3D2,4B
Outside of the interests of the orthodox group, Gregory is not morally thin-skinned; he shared in the brutality of his contemporaries, as we can see in many recitals. His portrait of Clovis throws no false light back on Gregory. Clovis was a champion and favorite of the right supernatural powers in their fight with the wrong ones, and any occasional atrocities he committed in the struggle were not only pardonable but praiseworthy.{1}....
The truth was that the condition of the people’s minds made the profession an impossibility. Disease was looked upon as supernatural. The sick man thought he had a better chance if he called the priest rather than the doctor.
Quote ID: 2641
Time Periods: 67
Homer, Illiad, LCL 170: Homer I, Books 1-12
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 143 Page: 45
Section: 4B
Book 1 lines 413-420
Then, shedding tears, Thetis answered him: “Alas, my child, why did I rear you, cursed in my child-bearing? If only it had been your lot to stay by your ships without tears and without grief, since your span of life is brief and will not last long; but now you are doomed to a speedy death and are unfortunate above all men; therefore it was for an evil fate that I bore you in our halls.
Quote ID: 3141
Time Periods: ?
Homer, Illiad, LCL 170: Homer I, Books 1-12
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 143 Page: 421
Section: 4B
Book 9 lines 355-360
But now, since I am not minded to do battle with noble Hector, tomorrow I will make sacrifice to Zeus and all the gods, and heap well my ships, when I have launched them on the sea; then you will see, if you wish and have any interest in my ships at early dawn sailing over the teeming Hellespont, and on board men eager to ply the oar; and if they great Shaker of the Earth grants me fair voyaging, on the third day I will reach deep-soiled Phthia.
Quote ID: 3143
Time Periods: ?
Homer, Illiad, LCL 170: Homer I, Books 1-12
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 143 Page: 425
Section: 4B
Book 9 lines 408-415
For my other the goddess, silver-footed Thetis, tells me that twofold fates are bearing me toward the doom of death: if I remain here and fight about the city of the Trojans, then lost is my return home, but my renown will be imperishable; but if I return home to my dear native land, lost then is my glorious renown, yet will my life long endure, and the doom of death will not come soon on me.
Quote ID: 3144
Time Periods: ?
Homer, Illiad, LCL 171: Homer II, Books 13-24
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 144 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Book 13 lines 345-351
Thus divided in purpose, the two mighty sons of Cronos were fashioning grievous woes for mortal warriors. Zeus was eager to have victory for the Trojans and Hector, in this way giving glory to Achilles, swift of foot; yet was he in no way minded that the Achaean army should perish utterly before Ilios, but was eager only to give glory to Thetis and to her son, strong of heart.
Quote ID: 3145
Time Periods: ?
Homer, Illiad, LCL 171: Homer II, Books 13-24
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 144 Page: 113
Section: 4B
Book 15 lines 75-77
. . . just as I first promised and bowed my head to it on the day when the goddess Thetis clasped my knees, begging me to show honor to Achilles, sacer of cities.”
Quote ID: 3146
Time Periods: ?
Homer, Illiad, LCL 171: Homer II, Books 13-24
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 144 Page: 293
Section: 4B
Book 18 lines 88-95
...for my heart commands me neither to live on nor to remain among men, unless Hector first, struck by my spear, loses his life, and pays for his despoiling of Patroclus, son of Menoetius.” Then, shedding tears, Thetis answered him: “Doomed then to a speedy death, my child, will you be, from what you say; for immediately after Hector is your own death ready at hand.”
Quote ID: 3147
Time Periods: ?
Horace, Odes and Epodes, LCL 33: Horace
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 438 Page: 163
Section: 4B
It is because you hold yourselves inferior to the gods that you rule.
Quote ID: 8796
Time Periods: 01
Horace, Odes and Epodes, LCL 33: Horace
Translated by Niall Rudd
Book ID: 438 Page: 199
Section: 4B
Whoever wants to get rid of unholy bloodshed and the madness of civic strife, if he aspires to having Father of Cities inscribed on his statues, oh let him have the courage to curb lawless license. He will be a famous man in future generations….
Quote ID: 9266
Time Periods: 1
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Thomas Cahill
Book ID: 111 Page: 22
Section: 4B
Fecund Venus and bloody Mars did not vacate the field to the pathetic, pacifist Christ. Rather, the life of the old religion had already drained away; and by the time Christianity came to the attention of the Roman gentry, the gods were shadows of their formerly lively selves.
Quote ID: 2652
Time Periods: ?
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Thomas Cahill
Book ID: 111 Page: 23
Section: 4B
Consul, the highest position any Roman (apart from the royal family) can attain.
Quote ID: 2653
Time Periods: ?
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Thomas Cahill
Book ID: 111 Page: 24
Section: 4B
During the four centuries that elapsed from the time of Augustus to the time of Ausonius, the life of the capital turned ever more insubstantial and brittle, so that some ceremony or other, meticulously executed, could become the apogee of a man’s life.
Quote ID: 2654
Time Periods: ?
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Thomas Cahill
Book ID: 111 Page: 62/63
Section: 3A1,4B
“From the beginning of my episcopacy,” the aristocratic Cyprian of Carthage, monumental bishop of third-century Africa, confided to his clergy, “I made up my mind to do nothing on my own private opinion, without your advice and without the consent of the people.” By the end of Augustine’s life, such consultation was becoming the exception. Democracy depends on a well-informed electorate; and bishops could no longer rely on the opinion of their flocks - increasingly, uninformed and harried illiterates.In many districts, they were already the sole authority left, the last vestige of Roman law and order. They began to appoint one another and thus was born - five centuries after the death of Jesus - the self-perpetuating hierarch that rules the Catholic church to this day.
Quote ID: 2660
Time Periods: 345
Hyperides: Funeral Oration
Judson Herrman
Book ID: 113 Page: 41
Section: 4B
But I suppose (everyone) knows that we educate our children (with this goal), that they may become brave men. Since these men were distinguished in wartime virtue, it is obvious that they were taught well as children.
Quote ID: 2709
Time Periods: ?
Hyperides: Funeral Oration
Judson Herrman
Book ID: 113 Page: 45
Section: 4B
They made freedom a common possession for everyone, but they offered the glory that came from their deeds as a private crown for their fatherland.
Quote ID: 2710
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 2/3
Section: 4B
Leaving out of sight all the distinctions of privileged and unprivileged classes in Rome, of dominus and servus, ingenuus and libertines, patronus and cliens, with which we have here no concern, and fixing our attention on the civis romanus, we shall find that civil honour at Rome is known to us entirely under its negative aspect.
Quote ID: 2717
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 4
Section: 4B
It has been observed above that the Roman State and the Roman jurist always looked on existimatio as a condition of which the citizen was already in enjoyment.
Quote ID: 2718
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 13
Section: 4B
The nature of the subject which we have to treat in detail is now tolerably clear. It is the subject of the special disqualifications based on an injury to reputation (laesa existimatio).Pastor John notes: John’s note: disqualifications regarding the reception of honors or governmental positions
. . . .
It was this civic disability, conceived consciously as based on a moral imperfection, that was generally spoken of by the Romans as infamia.
Quote ID: 2719
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 19
Section: 4B
In the pleadings of Cicero which have reference to disqualification based on loss of reputation we find fama and existimatio used constantly as synonyms.Pastor John’s note: reputation
Quote ID: 2720
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 19
Section: 4B
There was no convenient negative form for the term existimatio, which was becoming technical: but there was for its synonym fama: infamia, in fact, must have been the technical equivalent to laesa existimatio or minutio existimationis.
Quote ID: 2721
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 21
Section: 4B
….‘That Roman is called infamis, who in consequence of a general rule (not of censorian caprice), in regard to a subsisting citizenship, has lost the political rights belonging thereto.’Pastor John notes: John’s note: Savigny; author disagrees. See page 33
Quote ID: 2722
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 33
Section: 4B
It is obvious, from the foregoing review, that the criminal law of Rome knew of no one perpetual disqualification attendant on a minutio existimationis brought about by conviction. Above all, loss of the most distinctive political right of citizenship—the suffragium—is never mentioned in these cases. Sometimes these laws disqualify from honores and from the Senate, sometimes from the album judicum, sometimes they go so far as to inhibit the evidence of the condemned; but nowhere are the disabilities uniform, and nowhere do they imply the loss of all political privileges.
Quote ID: 2723
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 105/106
Section: 4B
4. Effects of the Censorian Infamia.The primary effect of the censorian infamia was always a disqualification for certain public rights. The nature of the disqualification depended partly on the rank of the person disqualified, but was always regulated to some degree by the gravity of the offence. The senator, guilty of an action that disgraced his position, was removed from the list {2}, the knight was forced to give up his position in the equestrian centuries {1}, and the commoner was removed from the tribe (tribu moveri) or made an aerarius (aerarius fieri, relinqui).
. . . .
….if the censor, at this epoch, made a man an aerarius, he deprived him of his vote and of his right of service in the legions.
Quote ID: 2724
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 121/130
Section: 4B
….instances of immediate infamia.i. ‘Qui corpora suo muliebria passus est {1}.’
ii. Those who have hired out their services to fight with wild beasts
. . . .
As cases of mediate infamia it specifies---
iii. Condemnation on a capital charge {5}.
iv. Apparently false accusation (calumnia) in an ordinary criminal court (judicium publicum).
. . . .
v. Ignominious dismissal of a soldier from the army {1}.
. . . .
It is evident, therefore, that this case does not quite correspond to others of immediate infamia, since it does not follow on a course of action merely, but on one recognised by a judgment. The judgment, however, is not a legal sentence, and since the infamia is here recognised as the result of a matter of fact, it may be fairly brought under this category. The ignominious dismissal is here mentioned merely in connection with the purposes of the Edict. But throughout the history of Rome it involved other more serious disqualifications. In Caesar’s municipal law it is made a bar to being a member of a local Senate: in the Empire such persons lost all the specific civil privileges of soldiers (jus militia {1}) and were forbidden to live at Rome, and apparently in any place where the Emperor was residing {2}.
vi. Dishonourable trades or professions are next mentioned: and amongst these the profession of an actor: any one who has appeared on the stage (scaena), for the purpose of exhibiting himself, is declared infamis by the Edict {3}.
. . . .
As regards the main point, what constituted a stage, Ulpian quotes Labeo’s definition, that it was any place to which the public was admitted, and where one exhibited one’s self, in whatever manner, for their amusement {4}.
. . . .
vii. Immediate infamia also attached to one qui lenocinium fecerit {3}, whether this trade was exercised directly or indirectly {4}; the stigma even attached to the freedman, who had exercised it during a condition of slavery.
. . . .
viii. ….It relates to the rules of mourning (luctus) at Rome.
ix. (Skipped)
. . . .
x. We now turn to the cases of infamia mediate mentioned in the Edict….
. . . .
As calumnia consisted in bringing false charges…. so praevaricatio consisted in concealing true charges {1}.
. . . .
xi. The Edict next takes cognizance of certain private delicts: theft (furtum), robbery (vi bona rapta), injury (injuriae), and fraud (dolus malus); ….
Quote ID: 2725
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 131
Section: 4B
xii. In certain obligatory relations other than delicts an adverse judgment on the defendant produced infamia: this was the case with the contractual relations….
Pastor John notes: John’s note: etc.
Quote ID: 2726
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 144/145
Section: 4B
(xxi) …. But it was chiefly after the conception had been fixed by Constantine that we find a change in the character of the infamia. It was a change that naturally accompanied the transference of law-making from the judges and the interpreting jurisconsults to the sole person of the Emperor. The infamia has no longer a natural growth: it almost loses its moral significance. It is employed merely as a very powerful weapon in the hands of the Emperor to check evils of administration as they arose.
Quote ID: 2727
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 145
Section: 4B
(xxii) Who, in a case which he had sent on appeal to the Emperor, had not forwarded all the documents which had been produced by the parties in the case, and were necessary to the full solution of the question at issue.Pastor John notes: John’s note: judges, etc.
Quote ID: 2728
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 146
Section: 4B
(xxvii) After the Court the Bar deserved attention: and we find the Emperors taking precautions against a form of civilised barbarism peculiarly difficult to deal with—the unmeasured license of invective and insinuation which not infrequently marks the pleadings of advocates.Pastor John notes: John’s note: lawyers
Quote ID: 2729
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 147
Section: 4B
(xxxi) In civil matters, the only new regulation—if indeed it was a new one and not the restatement of an old principle—that comes before us during this period, recalls the early working of the infamia in its connection with private law; for it refers to the violation of verbal compacts. By a constitution of Areadius and Honorius, of the year 395 A.D., any one over age who has violated a pact or transaction by not fulfilling the promises contained in it, or has attempted to evade it by a request made to the judge, or a supplication addressed to the sovereign, is declared infamis {5}.
Quote ID: 2730
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 151
Section: 4B
(xxxvi) …. The life of a senator (decurio) came in course of time to be one of burden, expense, and even of danger: and concealment of the unlucky people who were qualified for the local senates was not unusual. A constitution of Valentinian I, Valens and Gratian, of 371 A.D., punishes any one guilty of such concealment with infamia {3}.
Quote ID: 2731
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 152
Section: 4B
(xxxix) The last instance of infamia that we have to chronicle was an inevitable consequence of the recognition of a canon of orthodoxy by the State. By an Edict of Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I, published in 380 A.D., all heretics are declared infames {3}. Special disabilities were from time to time inflected both on heretics and pagans. Theodosius I declared the Eunomians intestabiles: a similar threat was pronounced by the same Emperor against Christians who had gone over to heathendom {4}. But it was on heretics rather than on pagans that disabilities were most frequently imposed; and by this infamia was finally meant exclusion from all honours and dignities.
Quote ID: 2732
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 153
Section: 4B
The definitions of heresy depend on the decisions of the successive councils. By Justinian orthodoxy was defined in accordance with the decisions of the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon {1}
Quote ID: 2733
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 154
Section: 4B
It has now been sufficiently demonstrated that infamia was always primarily a matter of public law; ….
Quote ID: 2734
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 171/172
Section: 4B
By the Lex Julia, as it has been preserved to use by Ulpian {1}, senators and their descendants are forbidden to marry freedwomen, actresses, and the daughters of actors or actresses. Other freeborn Romans (ingenui) were forbidden to marry prostitutes, lenae, a woman manumitted by a leno or lena, one caught in adultery or condemned in a judicium publicum, actresses; and, in accordance with a senatus consultum, a woman condemned by the Senate.
Quote ID: 2735
Time Periods: ?
Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Book ID: 115 Page: 177
Section: 4B
Of the theory of the censorian infamia, so far as its permanence was concerned, two possible views may be taken. One is that it was in theory perpetual, while subject to reversal by each succeeding censor: ….. . . .
The other view is that the disqualifications pronounced by the censor were considered as valid only for the lustral period of five years which intervened between his ordinances and the appointment of his successor {1}: ….
Quote ID: 2736
Time Periods: ?
Inferno of Dante, The
Robert Pinsky
Book ID: 235 Page: 49
Section: 4B
Canto V lines 55-57---
And wanton Cleopatra. See Helen, too,
Who caused a cycle of many evil years:
And great Achilles, the hero whom love slew
Pastor John’s note: Dido - The poem is glutted with mixture of mythical and historical people
Quote ID: 5870
Time Periods: 07
Inferno of Dante, The
Robert Pinsky
Book ID: 235 Page: 335
Section: 4B
Canto XXXI lines 121-124This man can yield
The thing that’s longed for here; therefore bend down
And do not curl your lip. He can rebuild
Your fame on earth.
Quote ID: 5886
Time Periods: ?
Inferno of Dante, The
Robert Pinsky
Book ID: 235 Page: 345
Section: 4B
Canto XXXII lines 89-92“Alive is what I am,”
I told him, “and if fame is what you crave,
Then you might value having me note your name
Among the others.”
Quote ID: 5888
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 341 Page: 21/22
Section: 4B
The difficulty arises from our overlooking the entirely different aspect under which religion presented itself to a Roman mind. It was a matter which lay, not between the soul and God, but between the individual and the state. Conscience had no place in it. Worship was an ancestral usage which the state sanctioned and enforced. It was one of the ordinary duties of life.{1} The neglect of it, and still more the disavowal of it, was a crime. An emperor might pity the offender for his obstinacy, but he must necessarily either compel him to obey or punish him for disobedience.
Quote ID: 7878
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 341 Page: 51/52
Section: 4B
The verses of Homer were not simply the utterances of a particular person with a particular meaning for a particular time. They had a universal validity. They were the voice of an undying wisdom. They were the Bible of the Greek races.{1}
Quote ID: 7881
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 341 Page: 133
Section: 1A,4B
It was in reality a victory in which the victors were the vanquished. There was so large an absorption by the original communities of the principles of their opponents as to destroy the main reason for a separate existence.
Quote ID: 7886
Time Periods: 234
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 32
Section: 4B
English undergraduate writing his Greek prose. The crown of all was the acquisition of the art of speaking extempore. A student’s education in Rhetoric was finished when he had the power to talk off-hand on any subject that might be proposed.
Quote ID: 7736
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 37
Section: 4B
A second indication of the hold which education had upon the age is the fact that teaching had come to be a recognized and lucrative profession. This is shown not so much by instances of individual teachers, who might be regarded as exceptional, as by the fact of the recognition of teachers by the State and by municipalities. The recognition by the State took the double form of endowment and of immunities from public burdens. (a) Endowments probably began with Vespasian, who endowed teachers of Rhetoric at Rome with an annual grant of 100,000 sesterces from the imperial treasury.
Quote ID: 7737
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 39
Section: 4B
(b) The immunities of the teaching classes began with Julius Caesar, and appear to have been so amply recognized in the early empire that Antoninus Pius placed them upon a footing which at once established and limited them. He enacted that small cities might place upon the free list five physicians, three teachers of rhetoric, and three of literature; that assize towns might so place seven physicians, three teachers of rhetoric, and three of literature; and that metropolitan cities might so place ten physicians, five teachers of rhetoric, and five of literature; but that these numbers should not be exceeded.
Quote ID: 7738
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 163
Section: 4B
In other words, the earliest communities endeavoured, both in the theory which they embodied in their manuals of Christian life, and in the practice which thy enforced by discipline, to realize what has since been know as the Puritan ideal. Each one of them was a community of saints. “Passing their days upon earth, they were in reality citizens of heaven.”.............
To be a member of the community was to be in reality, and not merely in conception, a child of God and heir of everlasting salvation: to be excluded from the community was to pass again into the outer darkness, the realm of Satan and eternal death. Over these earliest communities and the theory which they embodied there passed, in the last half of the second century and the first half of the third, an enormous change. The processes of the change and its immediate causes ore obscure.
Quote ID: 7740
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 164
Section: 4B
In both the production of this change and its further developments Greece played an important part. The net result of the active forces which it brought to bear upon Christianity was, that the attention of a majority of Christian men was turned to the intellectual as distinguished from the moral element in Christian life.
Quote ID: 7741
Time Periods: ?
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 169
Section: 4B
The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, which the earliest Christian communities endeavoured to carry into practice, have been transmuted by the slow alchemy of history into the ethics of Roman law. The basis of Christian society is not Christian, but Roman and Stoical. A fusion of the Roman conception of rights with the Stoical conception of relations involving reciprocal actions, is in possession of practically the whole field of civilized society.....
The conversion of the Church to Christian theory must precede the conversion of the world to Christian practice. But meanwhile there is working in Christianity the same higher morality which worked in the ancient world, and the maxim, Follow God, belongs to a plane on which Epictetus and Thomas a Kempis meet.
Quote ID: 7744
Time Periods: ?
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 21
Section: 4B
The guilty thief is produced, is interrogated as he deserves; he is tortured, the torturer strikes, his breast is injured, he is hung up… he is beaten with sticks, he is flogged, he runs through the sequence of tortures, and he denies. He is to be punished; he is led to the sword. Then another is produced, innocent, who has a large patronage network with him; well-spoken men are present with him. This one has good fortune: he is absolved.This is an extract from a Greek-Latin primer for children, probably of the early fourth century. It expresses, through its very simplicity, some of the unquestioned assumptions of the late Roman empire.
Quote ID: 5892
Time Periods: 456
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 21
Section: 4B
Actually, all the post-Roman societies, pagan, Christian or Muslim, were equally used to violence, particularly by the powerful; but under the Roman empire it had a public legitimacy, an element of weekly spectacle, which surpassed even the culture of public execution in eighteenth-century Europe.
Quote ID: 5893
Time Periods: 7
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 24
Section: 4B
The empire was in one sense a union of all its cities (some thousand in number), each of which had its own city council (curia in Latin, boulē in Greek) that was traditionally autonomous. Each city also had its own kit of impressive urban buildings, remarkably standard from place to place.
Quote ID: 5894
Time Periods: ?
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 24
Section: 4B
The Gaulish poet Ausonius (d. c. 395) wrote a set of poems in the 350s called the Order of Noble Cities, nineteen in number, from Rome at the top to his own home town of Bordeaux at the bottom (he uses the word patria, ‘fatherland’, of both Rome and Bordeaux); he enumerated his cities by their buildings, and, in so doing, he was in effect delineating the empire itself.
Quote ID: 5895
Time Periods: ?
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 25
Section: 4B
So this sort of commitment to urban politics did not depend on the traditional structure of city councils. Essentially, it went on as long as Roman values survived; this varied, but in many parts of the empire it continued a long time after the empire itself fell.
Quote ID: 5896
Time Periods: 47
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 26
Section: 4B
[When we consider] the inefficiency and poor record-keeping of Roman government ... we might wonder how the Roman world held together at all. But it did; a complex set of overlapping structures and presumptions created a coherent political system....
Quote ID: 7417
Time Periods: 3456
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 27
Section: 4B
The empire, in a sense, was run by amateurs. But the group of amateurs at least had shared values, and family experience in many cases as well....PJ: 4th and 5th centuries.
Quote ID: 7418
Time Periods: 45
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
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 29/30
Section: 4B
A shared culture perhaps marked the Roman senatorial and provincial aristocracies most, for it was based on a literary education. Every western aristocrat had to know Virgil by heart, and many other classical Latin authors, and be able to write poetry and turn a polished sentence in prose; in the East it was Homer. The two traditions, in Latin and Greek, did not have much influence on each other by now, but they were very dense and highly prized. There was a pecking-order based on the extent of this cultural capital.
Quote ID: 5898
Time Periods: 2345
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 30
Section: 4B
by the fifth century the aristocracy knew both Virgil (or Homer) and the Bible.
Quote ID: 5899
Time Periods: 5
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 30
Section: 4B
Roman literary culture used to be regarded as the high point of civilization; this belief, inherited from the Renaissance, perhaps reached its peak in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English public-school tradition, in which Virgil (and indeed Juvenal, by now seen as a more difficult author) was regarded as a basic training even for the government of India, not to speak of an academic center.
Quote ID: 5900
Time Periods: 456
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 30/31
Section: 4B
But it is important to recognize its all-pervasiveness; in all the cities of the empire, even local office was linked to at least some version of this education. The shared knowledge and values that it inculcated was one of the elements that held the empire together, and indeed made the empire remarkably homogeneous…
Quote ID: 5901
Time Periods: 45
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 31
Section: 4B
Roman law was another intellectual system that was, in principle, the same everywhere, and it acted as a unifying force.PJ: discussing roughly the Constantine to Theodosius time frame.
Quote ID: 5902
Time Periods: 45
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 34/35
Section: 4B
And, most important, from the fourth century onwards the government issued laws to tie the peasantry, who were actually paying the taxes, to their place of origin, so that they would not move around or leave the land, thus making tax-collection more difficult.
Quote ID: 5903
Time Periods: 456
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 35
Section: 4B
Taxation thus underpinned imperial unity itself, for it was the most evident single element in the state’s impact on the population at large, as well as the mainstay of the army, the administration, the legal system and the movement of goods throughout the Mediterranean and elsewhere, all the elements which linked such a large land area together.
Quote ID: 5904
Time Periods: 2345
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 52
Section: 1A,4B
Christian vocabulary, imagery and public practice were thus politically dominant in the empire by 400, a dominance which would only increase thereafter; and in cities, which were the foci for almost all political activity, Christians were for the most part numerically dominant as well. But we must ask what sort of Christianity this was, what effective content it had: how much it absorbed traditional Roman values (and even religious practices), how far it changed them, and what its own fault-lines were, for there were many of these.
Quote ID: 5905
Time Periods: 456
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 58/59
Section: 3A1,4B
The church in the fourth and fifth centuries became an elaborate structure, with perhaps a hundred thousand clerics of different types, more than the civil administration, and steadily increasing in wealth as a result of pious gifts. It was not part of the state, but its wealth and empire-wide institutional cohesion made it an inevitable partner for emperors and prefects, and a strong and influential informal authority in cities...
Quote ID: 5908
Time Periods: 45
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 59
Section: 3A1,4B
The fact that this institutional structure did not depend on the empire, and was above all separately funded, meant that it could survive the political fragmentation of the fifth century, and the church was indeed the Roman institution that continued with least change into the early Middle Ages.
Quote ID: 5909
Time Periods: 357
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 171
Section: 4B
The Episcopal hierarchy of the late empire in most places survived into the early Middle Ages without a break. As we shall see, the monastic tradition established by John Cassian and Benedict of Nursia did as well, and took on even greater force in northern Europe. The organizational framework of Roman Christianity, discussed earlier, was still fully in operation. One important difference, however, was that it was less united.
Quote ID: 5916
Time Periods: ?
Inheritance of Rome, The
Chris Wickham
Book ID: 236 Page: 175
Section: 4B
The Christian culture of the early Middle Ages was, however disunited, not under threat.4B
Quote ID: 5920
Time Periods: 6
Institutes of Gaius (c. 170 A.D.) Fourth Commentary, The
http://thelatinlibrary.com/law/gaius4.html
Book ID: 409 Page: 2
Section: 4B
Hence, it was decided that, a person who brought an action against another for cutting his vines, and in the pleadings called them “vines,” should lose his case, as he ought to have called them “trees,” because the Law of the Twelve Tables, under which the action for cutting vines was brought, speaks in general terms of the cutting of trees.
Quote ID: 8538
Time Periods: 0
Institutes of Gaius (c. 170 A.D.) Fourth Commentary, The
http://thelatinlibrary.com/law/gaius4.html
Book ID: 409 Page: 5
Section: 4B
The proceeding of Manus Injectio was employed in certain cases, as for instance, by the Law of the Twelve Tables, when judgment had been obtained against a debtor. This was as follows: the party who brought the suit said, “As judgment has been rendered against you, or you have been condemned to pay me ten thousand sesterces, and you have not paid them, for this reason I lay my hands upon you, as being indebted to me under the judgment for ten thousand sesterces”; and at the same time he seized him by some part of the body, and the debtor was not permitted to resist, or to protect himself by law, but he appointed a defender, who conducted the case for him, or, if he did not do so, he was taken to his house by the plaintiff and placed in chains.
Quote ID: 8539
Time Periods: 0
Jerome, NPNF2 Vol. 6, Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 673 Page: 422
Section: 4B
Moreover, I have learnt from those same letters that, in defiance of the authority of Paul, nay, rather of Peter, John, and James, who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, and commanded them to remember the poor, you forbid any pecuniary relief to be sent to Jerusalem for the benefit of the saints. Now, if I reply to this, you will immediately give tongue and cry out that I am pleading my own cause. You, forsooth, were so generous to the whole community that if you had not come to Jerusalem, and lavished your own money or that of your patrons, we should all be on the verge of starvation. I say what the blessed Apostle Paul says in nearly all his Epistles; and he makes it a rule for the Churches of the Gentiles that, on the first day of the week, that is, on the Lord’s day, contributions should be made by every one which should be sent up to Jerusalem for the relief of the saints, and that either by his own disciples, or by those whom they should themselves approve; and if it were thought fit, he would himself either send, or take what was collected.
....
But he longed to give to the poor of the holy places who, abandoning their own little possessions for the sake of Christ, turned with their whole heart to the service of the Lord.
....
And this custom continues in Judea to the present day.
Quote ID: 9649
Time Periods: 45
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 1 / Spring 2011
(Editor) David Brakke & Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 119 Page: 49/50
Section: 4B
The Officia of St. Ambrose’s De officiisJed W. Atkins
However, Ambrose’s extensive moral writings and treatises also provide much of value for those who are interested in the reception, application, and transformation of Greek and Roman philosophy in late antiquity, as Marcia Colish has demonstrated.{3} The most famous of these works by Ambrose is his treatise De officiis, which is modeled on Cicero’s homonymous work written four centuries earlier.{4}
Ambrose’s De officiis is deeply indebted to Cicero’s. At the outset of his work, he informs the reader that he is writing for his spiritual sons “in the same way that Cicero wrote to instruct his [natural] son” (Ambr. Off. 1.24).{5}
. . . .
So close are the parallels that some scholars have suggested that Ambrose is too indebted to his model to advance his own thought in any significant way beyond the intellectual horizons of Cicero. {7} One scholar, writing fifty years ago, even accused Ambrose of plagiarism.{8}
Quote ID: 2767
Time Periods: 04
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 2 / Summer 2011
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 120 Page: 167/168
Section: 4B
…the dichotomies introduced into scholarly thinking by the terms “pagan” and “Christian” have hampered a full appreciation of the evidence. While it is true that the inscription is. . . .
….best understood under a Christian interpretation, there can be no doubt that the author of the inscription works knowingly with and among the conventions of Greek funerary epigrams. {39}
Quote ID: 2768
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 2 / Summer 2011
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 120 Page: 191
Section: 4B
To my bath, the brothers of the bridal chamber carry the torches, here in our halls, they hunger for the true banquets, even while praising the Father {121} and glorifying the Son. There with the Father and the Son is the only spring and source of truth.
Quote ID: 2770
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 2 / Summer 2011
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 120 Page: 194
Section: 4B
The language of NCE 156 sends its roots down deep into Scripture, Valentinian theology, and the long tradition of pagan funerary poetics.. . . .
….an overly sharp dichotomy between “pagan” and “Christian” has hampered our appreciation of this multivalent artifact.
NCE 156 gives us a solid piece of evidence for the existence and location of a concrete community of Christians sometime during or just after the middle of the second century. The date alone is very significant: an Antonine date would place NCE 156 earlier than the Abercius inscription, which is often considered to be the earliest Christian inscription. {129} NCE 156 may be a better candidate for that honor.
Quote ID: 2771
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 341
Section: 4B
Decius’ decree in effect established a requirement that all Romans, i.e. all those living in the Roman Empire, had to sacrifice to their local gods in a manner approved by the imperial authorities.”{31}
Quote ID: 2787
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 409
Section: 4B
Consequently, elite householders were expected both to resolve highly ambiguous situations and to settle fractious disputes involving their family members.. . . .
During the early empire, householders privately settled conflicts involving family members within the context of domestic councils (consilia).{29}
Quote ID: 2795
Time Periods: 56
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 410
Section: 3A1,3A3,4B
.....late ancient bishops, especially those in Rome, wielded far less power in society than elite householders.{33} However, bishops could potentially offer the family something that lay householders could not: a reputation for spiritual acuity and a perceived familiarity with both religious ethics and civil law.
Quote ID: 2796
Time Periods: 456
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 412
Section: 3A1A,4B
A remarriage in the wake of a spouse’s kidnapping by a Visigothic or Hunnic army generated a welter of new questions for the Christian householder, which neither Roman law, classical tradition, nor biblical text could independently answer. These new grey areas of Christian life produced precisely the sorts of questions that late antique Roman bishops tried to define and resolve.. . . .
The abduction of Romans by barbarians was a violent but fairly commonplace event in late antiquity, especially the western regions of the empire during the fifth and sixth centuries.
Quote ID: 2798
Time Periods: 56
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 414
Section: 4B
Thus, because marriage rested on consent more than any other principle, a returning captive could not force a spouse to revive the marriage; mutual agreement for the match had to be reconfirmed.{48}
Quote ID: 2799
Time Periods: ?
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 415
Section: 3A1A,4B
However, in the sixth century, Justinian altered the right of postliminium: marriages continued so long as the captive was thought to be alive. In cases where the captive spouse was known to be alive, marriages could be dissolved only after incurring legal penalties (i.e. the loss of betrothal gifts or dowry).{51} If the survival of the captive was uncertain, Justinian ruled that spouse could remarry after a waiting period of five years without punishment.
Quote ID: 2800
Time Periods: 6
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 417
Section: 3A1A,4B
While the circumstances and precise date of Ursa’s return to Rome are uncertain, she arrived in the city sometime between 410 and 417 C.E. only to discover that her husband, Fortunius, had remarried in her absence. It is unclear precisely what motivated Ursa to dispute her husband’s new union and to insist on the legitimacy of their original marriage.. . . .
Ursa on her own approached the bishop of Rome, Innocent, in the hope that he might not only be sympathetic to her cause, but also help her to reinstate the original marriage.{58}
Quote ID: 2801
Time Periods: 5
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 450
Section: 3A1,4B
The abduction of nuns was not only an offense against Christian discipline, but–as laid down in a Novel by Justinian from 546 well known to Gregory–also a crime recognized by civil law.{53}
Quote ID: 2816
Time Periods: 6
Julian’s Against the Galileans
R. Joseph Hoffmann
Book ID: 123 Page: 149
Section: 4B
Now while I find this position risible, I am not suggesting that the teachers should change their views before being allowed to teach; rather I offer them a choice: either not to teach what they do not find worthy of belief, or, if they still wish to teach, require them to convince their charges that none of the writers whose works they study—Homer, Hesiod, and the rest—should be counted guilty of impiety or naivete or error with respect to the gods, as they have said.After all, since it is by the work of these writers that they are able to make a living and receive pay, is it not the most crass admission of greed that they would sell their souls for a few drachmas?
. . . .
…there is no reason for men to teach what they do not believe to be true.
Quote ID: 2849
Time Periods: ?
Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse
Kate Cumming and edited by: Richard Barksdale Harwell
Book ID: 124 Page: 35
Section: 1A,4B
As there is much noise and confusion constantly here, it is almost impossible to collect one’s thoughts. I miss the calm of the holy Sabbath more than anything. I have read and talked to the men, and it astonishes me to see how few are members of the Church. They all seem to think and know that it is their duty to belong to it, but still they remain out of it. How much more will they have to answer for than those who have never known God, and have not enjoyed the privileges of the gospel. “He that confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is I heaven.”
Quote ID: 2855
Time Periods: 17
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 20
Section: 4B
The ceremonial aspects of an official’s public appearances often extended beyond setting and costume, for formalism in word and deed characterized many of his activities.
Quote ID: 8481
Time Periods: ?
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 22
Section: 4B
The verbal forms of vows were fixed and their construction involved much priestly learning; the same peculiarities of vocabulary and phrasing were also a feature of laws.{31}
Quote ID: 8482
Time Periods: ?
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 23
Section: 4B
In a system that operated in such a manner, members of the elite and citizens at large would regularly have encountered government in the form of ritualized occasions of one kind or another, and this feature of public life would have influenced perceptions about the nature of government and magistracies and clearly identified the proper sort of activity conducted in the appropriate way. On one level, these ceremonial events emphasized the distance between officials and common citizens.
Quote ID: 8483
Time Periods: 3
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 26
Section: 4B
The boundaries of Roman territory also marked the limits of Roman religious practices; according to the younger Pliny (Ep. 10. 50), the emperor Trajan maintained that dedications of temples in accordance with Roman procedures were not valid in the territory of non-Roman cities.
Quote ID: 8484
Time Periods: ?
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Thus, magistrates crossing the pomerium and leaving the sphere of the urban auspices were expected to auspicate. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (cos. 163), having returned to the city to consult the senate, forgot to take the auspices again when he crossed the pomerium on the way back to the campus Martius to supervise the election of his successors, and for this reason the augurs recommended to the senate that the elections be held to be invalid.{11}
Quote ID: 8485
Time Periods: 0
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 28
Section: 4B
...Livy (45.12.9-12) reported that a consul of 168 issued an edict setting a day for his soldiers to assemble but failed to enter a templum to auspicate before doing so; the augurs declared the day wrongfully set and the legions remained in Rome.
Quote ID: 8486
Time Periods: 0
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 31
Section: 4B
Lands governed by different rules and possessing different characters were often adjacent: urbs and ager, Roman territory and non-Roman, sacred and profane, public and private, and the private property of one owner and that of another. Visible boundaries, therefore, would have been a necessity.
Quote ID: 8488
Time Periods: 2
Lands, Laws, and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome
Daniel J. Gargola
Book ID: 398 Page: 33
Section: 4B
It is no surprise, then, to find that the boundary stones had their own protective deity. In the Roman calendar, February 23 was set aside for the Terminalia, given to the worship of Terminus, the god of boundaries.{40}
Quote ID: 8489
Time Periods: 0
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: 166
Section: 4B
Goddard claimed that the great Roman families remained pagan down to the late fifth century. But it is important to distinguish between the possibility that a few (perhaps more than a few) nobles continued in the privacy of their homes to drop a few grains of incense on a domestic altar, and the continued existence of the priestly colleges. According to Liebeschuetz, when Gratian renounced the title of pontifex maximus, this means that “there would be no one to fill vacancies in the priestly colleges, which would therefore die out.”
Quote ID: 6056
Time Periods: ?
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 173/174
Section: 3A2B,4B
We have the outline of a conversion for one minor member of the nobility, a certain Firmicus Maternus, vir clarissimus, inferred from his two surviving works: the Mathesis, an astrological work undoubtedly written by a pagan, and De errore profanarum religionum, the most intemperate surviving work of Christian polemic. What we do not have, unfortunately, is a narrative, any account of how and why Maternus turned from paganism to such an aggressive form of Christianity. {2}. . . .
If we had only his Mathesis, he would have been confidently classified as a pagan. The ferocious polemic of the De errore might seem to imply a powerful conversion experience between the two works that produced an evangelical fervor.{3} But there is another possibility, persuasively argued by Caseau.{4} Given the suspicion inevitably aroused by opportune conversions among ambitious members of the elite, such converts were under some pressure to prove their conversions genuine. Take Arnobius’s Adversus Nationes. Though often described as Christian apologetic, according to Jerome Arnobius wrote the book to convince a bishop, skeptical because in his pagan days he had attacked Christianity, that he was a genuine convert. {5}
. . . .
We should bear in mind that his Mathesis (337) opens with a flattering dedication to a prominent pagan, Lollianus Mavortius, whose distinguished career Firmicus obsequiously traces from office to office, apostrophizing him no fewer than thirty times in the course of his book, just as he repeatedly apostrophizes Constantius and Constans in De errore.{9} While no doubt delighted to observe the conversion of a former pagan man of letters and protégé of pagan aristocrats, skeptical Christians might need to be convinced that he really had rejected his pagan past.
Quote ID: 6064
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 175
Section: 1A,3C,4B
For those brought up in the world of civic cults and private initiations, it cannot have been easy to comprehend the exclusive, absolute commitment Christianity demanded. During much of the fourth century, there must have been many who took a genuine interest in Christianity and presented or considered themselves as Christians but, while rejecting sacrifice to what they were willing to accept were false gods, still followed (say) pagan burial customs, continued to watch a favorite festival, or occasionally consulted a haruspex. Rigorist would have dismissed such folk as not better than outright pagans.. . . .
Take Bacurius, an Iberian chieftain who rose to the rank of magister militum in Theodosius’s army at the Frigidus. Rufinus was in no doubt that he was a sincere Christian, but Libanius seems to have thought of him as a pagan (PLREi. 144). Both men actually knew him, and, by itself, the opinion of either would have been considered decisive by any modern scholar. But what do we do with both?
4B
Quote ID: 6066
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 183
Section: 4B
Here we are fortunate enough to have a genuine and more abundant set of statistics, deriving from a source that has yet to be fully exploited by historians, the more than twelve thousand 37 sculptured sarcophagi found in and around Rome, dating from the early second to the early fifth century. Few are dated exactly, but most can be assigned a date to within a couple of decades on stylistic grounds. On the latest available figures there are 788 pagan and 71 Christian sarcophagi dating from 270-300; 317 pagan and 463 Christian from 300-330; and only 12 pagan but 325 Christian from 330-400. {38} Christian are already outnumbering pagan sarcophagi before the death of Constantine.
Quote ID: 6071
Time Periods: ?
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 185/186
Section: 4B
Then there are Jerome’s attacks on the Christian society of Rome during his stay of 382-85. Scores of passages lambaste the Roman clergy for their greed, venality, hypocrisy, gluttony, and corruption, nor does he spare the Christian nobility on whom they preyed. {51}. . . .
Jerome’s vivid sketches are (of course) exaggerations, not to say caricatures, inspired as much by literature as real life. But they clearly imply an established, surely second generation Christian elite, not a few recent converts.
Quote ID: 6073
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 186
Section: 4B,3A1
In fact, it helps to explain Jerome’s famous anecdote about Praetextatus telling Damasus that he would convert at once if he could be bishop of Rome, a joke implying that, in the eyes of a leading pagan noble of the 360s, the bishop of Rome was a man of wealth and power, a priest with the social status of a pontifex or augur.
Quote ID: 6074
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 203
Section: 4B
Thirty-seven years after the Frigidus [PJ: Battle in 394 between Theodosius (east) and Eugenius (west)], the “pagan ringleader” of modern textbooks [PJ: Eugenius?] may have appeared to contemporaries much as he does in Macrobius’s Saturnalia, a great man of a bygone age, whose one mistake was to have joined the wrong side in a civil war. A pagan, to be sure, but then so were the ancestors of many good Christians of the 430s. Fifth-century Christian aristocrats felt no embarrassment about their pagan forbears.. . . .
That is to say, his Christianity is an extra layer on top of the qualities he has inherited from his pagan ancestors. Despite their paganism, those ancestors are not rejected.
Quote ID: 6077
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 206
Section: 4B
It is often claimed of writers who fall into this category that such and such a passage “could not have been written by a Christian.” At best, this means that a well-informed and observant Christian is not likely to have written thus. But a poorly informed or not very pious Christian might have. And even a well-informed and observant Christian might have if he was writing in a classicizing genre, for example an epithalmium or a panegyric, whether in prose or (especially) verse. If all we had from the pen of Sidonius Apollinaris was his imperial panegyrics, and we knew nothing about his life beyond these poems, it might well have been argued that he was a pagan.
Quote ID: 6078
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 206
Section: 4B
The survival of Sidonius’s correspondence puts it beyond doubt that he had always been a Christian, who eventually entered the church and ended his days as a bishop. As late as 468 (his panegyric on Anthemius), audiences at western courts clearly still enjoyed classicizing poetry full of the old mythology.
Quote ID: 6079
Time Periods: 567
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 207
Section: 4B
Many (too many) studies have been devoted to the religious beliefs of Rutilius. One or two outliers have allowed the possibility that he was a Christian; the great majority have concluded that he was a pagan, with many insisting that he was an ardent pagan who hated Christians.. . . .
Claudio Bondi’s 2003 film de Reditu (il ritorno) represents Rutilius returning to Gaul in order to raise an army to overthrow the Christian government of Ravenna (excerpts available on YouTube). He would (I suspect) have been very disappointed if he had tried to rally the now largely Christian aristocracy of Roman Gaul for any such attempt.
Quote ID: 6080
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 207/208
Section: 4B
Take the case of Claudian. Augustine calls him “alien from the name of Christ,” but we do not know whether he had positive information or was just guessing from his poems. Orosius calls him a “most stubborn pagan,” but otherwise simply copied the passage he quotes from Augustine. The “pagan” imagery of which critics once used to make so much is now recognized to be purely literary.{5} While there is no way of discovering his personal beliefs, there is one thing we do know for certain: all his poems were written for Christian patrons and publicly performed in front of an overwhelmingly Christian audience at court in Milan and (later) Ravenna.4B
Quote ID: 6081
Time Periods: 45
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 208
Section: 4B
In the most famous passage of his poem, Rutilius eloquently describes how Rome has always risen with renewed and increased strength from her defeats, whether the Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, or Hannibal.
Quote ID: 6082
Time Periods: 15
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 209
Section: 1A,4B
But where did he read them? Seneca’s prose writings were not fashionable in the pagan circles of the later empire. His style was severely criticized by Fronto and Gellius, and he is seldom quoted by the grammarians.. . . .
As early as the second century close parallels to New Testament ideas and phrases were noted in his writings, and to Tertullian he was Seneca saepe noster. By the fourth century it was even believed that he had known St. Paul, and a correspondence between them (in bad Latin) was duly produced to prove it.
PJ note: Seneca saepe noster means “almost one of us”.
. . . .
Jerome went so far as to include Seneca in his catalogue of Christian writers. Of all his works, De Superstitione was the one most likely to be read by Christians rather than pagans. For the attack it contains on the Roman state religion was, according to Augustine, “fuller and sharper” than even Varro’s (CD iv. 10)
Quote ID: 6084
Time Periods: 145
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 217/218
Section: 4B
The Rome of Rutilius’s eulogy is not the brick and marble fifth-century city but Roma the symbol and personification of an empire. Roma is apostrophized as the goddess who made a single fatherland for nations far apart (63), made a city of what was once a world (66), the goddess every corner of her dominion celebrates (79). In the diction of poetry, dea Roma means no more than the personification with helmet, shield, and one bare breast that are her attributes in art and literature, Christian no less than pagan, down into the sixth century. Rutilius’s white-haired Roma rejuvenated by the defeat of the Goths derives from Claudian, but then so does Prudentius’s Roma, rejuvenated by her conversion to Christianity.{55}. . . .
No educated fifth-century Christian would have found anything objectionable in Rutilius’s stirring eulogy of Rome.
Quote ID: 6086
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 223
Section: 3C2,4B
His account of Olybrius’s city prefecture is another fascinating illustration of Ammianus’s technique:He never deviated from a humane policy, and took great pains to ensure that no word
or act of his should be accounted harsh. He punished slander severely, pruned the profits of the treasury wherever he could, drew a sharp distinction between right and wrong, and all in all was an admirable judge and very mild towards those he governed. Nevertheless, these good qualities were overshadowed by a defect, which did little harm to the community but was discreditable in a high official. His private life verged on the luxurious and was almost entirely devoted to the stage and to women, though his liaisons were not criminal or incestuous. (28. 4. 2)
A seemingly glowing testimonial-with a sting in the tail. Once again, Barnes detects an explanation in terms of Olybrius’s Christianity. But this would be a strangely oblique way of attacking a man for his religion.
Pastor John notes: Ammianus was a pagan.
Quote ID: 6087
Time Periods: ?
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 229
Section: 4B
Drepanius’s classical culture stands out in sharper relief in that there is not a single allusion to the Bible, here again unlike his contemporary and fellow disciple of Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, who not infrequently quotes Scripture in his poems. {97}
Quote ID: 6090
Time Periods: 4
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 230
Section: 4B
This is a discovery with important ramifications. It is not just the puzzle of Pacatus Drepanius that has finally been solved. The solution raises the bar for similar puzzles in the future. If the pious Christian his poem reveals him to have been can refer to “the god who is your consort,” describe the dress of flamines and pontifices as venerable, and call a Christian emperor to his face “a god we can see,” it makes it harder to know at what point we can say with confidence that this or that classicizing formula could not have been written by a Christian.Pastor John’s note: We have not yet seen “The Last Pagans of Rome”.
2E5
Quote ID: 6091
Time Periods: 45
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 256
Section: 4B
It was in the pages following this passage that Boissier enunciated his famous doctrine of a general pagan “conspiracy of silence” about Christianity. He had been amazed to find no mention of Christianity in the pagan grammarians, orators, poets, and historians of the age.. . . .
The silence is deafening enough, but is conspiracy the right word or contempt the right explanation?
Quote ID: 6093
Time Periods: 23
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
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 567
Section: 4B
Enough has already been said about the popularity of classicizing poetry at the Christian courts of Milan and Ravenna.{2} It is easy to see why people like Augustine were distressed to see Christians applauding poems on Christian emperors decked out with pagan gods and goddesses, elaborately described in all their traditional dress and paraphernalia.3D
Quote ID: 6098
Time Periods: 45
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 567/568
Section: 4B
That late fourth-and fifth-century western culture was dominated by Virgil needs no demonstration. The writings, prose as well as verse, of all educated people, Christians no less than pagans, were steeped in Virgilian echoes and quotations.{5}
Quote ID: 6099
Time Periods: 45
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 585/586
Section: 4B
Perhaps the most intriguing Macrobian conception is Vergil the pontifex maximus. In i. 24 he represents his interlocutors mapping out the course of their future discussions. Symmachus announces that he will cover rhetoric in Vergil. Next comes Praetextatus, in a passage quoted out of context:Of all the high qualities for which Virgil is praised, my constant reading of his poems leads me to admire the great learning with which he has observed the rules of pontifical law in many different parts of his work, as if he had made a special study of it. If my discourse does not prove unequal to so lofty a topic, I undertake to show that our Vergil may fairly be regarded as a pontifex maximus. (i.24.16)
. . . .
For Macrobius, the key factor is the learning displayed by the citation. In context, pontifex masimus has less the modern associations of “high priest” than “religious expert.” CHECK SPELLING
. . . .
The same applies to the immediately following sentence, in which Flavian announces the topic of his contribution:
I find in our poet such knowledge of augural law that, even if he were unskilled in all other branches of learning, the exhibition of this knowledge alone would win him high esteem.
Quote ID: 6100
Time Periods: 5
Last Pagans of Rome, The
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 241 Page: 741/742
Section: 2B2,4B
It was evidently important to some members of the Christian elite that Christianity should be made to look as classical as possible.. . . .
It was not the Nicomachi or the Symmachi who were the first Roman patrons of the classicizing poet Claudian, but the Christian Anicii. If we are to have any hope of understanding the classicizing taste of the aristocracy of late antique Rome, we must first give up the idea that it has any connection with their religious beliefs. There is no such easy key to the problems of patronage.
Quote ID: 6101
Time Periods: 45
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: x
Section: 4B
Even our access to the earlier classics of the ancient world, in Latin and Greek, was made possible only through the copying activities of the late antique Christians and their early medieval successors, locked in an endless, unresolved dialogue with their own pagan past.
Quote ID: 2869
Time Periods: 4567
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 13
Section: 4B
Christians found various ways in which to exert a claim over the classical culture which long remained the main staple of education for the elite. Indeed, among the 7th century liturgical and documentary papyri found in the remote outpost of Nessana on the Egyptian border are texts of Virgil.
Quote ID: 2873
Time Periods: 67
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 90
Section: 1A,4B
A romantic and of course very political school of thought used to hold that ancient polytheism-- that of the temples rather than the schools-- “survived” under a decent yet not suffocating veiling of Christianity. In the extreme case of crypto-polytheism one might indeed literally turn around an icon of Christ and find Apollo painted on the back. But what more usually happened was that late polytheism went on evolving, often--as in the case of Iamblichus and Julian-- under the direct or indirect influence of Christianity, but also itself influencing the practices of ordinary Christians, so that in the resultant local fusions there was much, on both sides, that was passed to posterity, although impure and thoroughly alloyed.
Quote ID: 2881
Time Periods: 247
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 107
Section: 4B
The concept of “barbarian” was an invention of the Graeco-Roman world, projected onto a whole spectrum of peoples living beyond the frontier of the empire.
Quote ID: 2882
Time Periods: 014
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 172
Section: 2E2,4B
But away from the stark simplicities of the desert and its holy men who had turned their back on the cities of the Roman world, the accommodation between Christianity and the habits, customs, and social expectations of many in the empire was a vital factor in securing widespread acceptance of the new imperial religion.
Quote ID: 2886
Time Periods: 27
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: vii
Section: 4B
In Rome itself the pope was still a “Roman.” Every document emanating from the papal chancery was dated by the regnal date of the Roman emperor who reigned at Constantinople and by the Indicto, a fifteen-year tax cycle that had started in 312.Pastor John’s Note: at 800 AD. DBL CHECK DATE
Quote ID: 2866
Time Periods: 7
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: vii
Section: 4B
The tax system of the Islamic empire continued with little break the practices of the Roman and Saasanian states. Its coins were danarii, dinars. The system of post-horses and of governmental information on which its extended rule depended was called after its Roman predecessor veredus, al-barid. Its most significant enemy was still known, in Arabic, as the empire of Rum-- the empire of Rome in the east, centered on Constantinople.Pastor John’s Note: at 800 AD
Quote ID: 2867
Time Periods: 7
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: viii
Section: 4B
Although alternately decried and romanticized by scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries as pure “barbarians,” the ruling classes of the postimperial kingdoms of the west had, in fact, inherited a basically Roman sense of social order and a Roman penchant for extended empire. Power still wore a Roman face.
Quote ID: 2868
Time Periods: 567
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 11
Section: 4B
It was becoming a fashion to pilgrimage to the “holy land”.
Quote ID: 6147
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 62
Section: 3C,4B
Under C, “Roman churches were endowed with their own generous income from specified estates”
Quote ID: 6123
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 72
Section: 3A1,4B
By “popular demand” bishops began to be elected to their posts. Ambrose was the son of a high Roman official, skilled in Latin, a provincial governor in northern Italy, when by public demand he was appointed bishop of Milan in AD 374. Not only was he a non-cleric, he had not even received Christian baptism.PJ Note: Not baptized = he was not even a Christian.
Quote ID: 6129
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 72/73
Section: 3A1,4B
Pagan senators sought Ambrose’s favor for friends.
Quote ID: 6130
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 78
Section: 4B
In the early fifth century, one may begin to speak of a “Xn society” because by then we have a “Christianization of the Roman aristocracy”.
Quote ID: 6137
Time Periods: 5
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 107
Section: 4B
Example: civil service end of 2nd cent. = a few hundred. Late Roman period = 30-35 thousand.
Quote ID: 6144
Time Periods: 246
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 110
Section: 4B
The history of the Roman Empire can be summarized in terms of “increased authoritarianism.”
Quote ID: 6145
Time Periods: 04
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 112
Section: 4B,3D
“The Roman state at the end of the fourth century differed from its predecessor in terms of natural development, or changing external factors, rather than because of any major change of direction.”
Quote ID: 6146
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 117
Section: 4B
“One striking feature of the fourth century is the tendency of landowners to amass estates on an enormous scale.”
Quote ID: 6148
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 120
Section: 4B
“. . . following Roman precedent, slavery continued as a well-established institution in the medieval west.”Pastor John’s note: The Following Sections Are Very Important
Quote ID: 6149
Time Periods: 47
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 124/126
Section: 3C,4B
1) after C’s law permitted the church to inherit wealth (must it not have become an institution with the Empire for this to occur?), some “sees” found themselves owners of substantial estates, and certain “bishops found themselves taking on the same responsibility of managing estates with slaves and tenant farmers (coloni) as other landlords.”
Quote ID: 6150
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 126
Section: 4B
“Just as bishops inherited..." see Pg. 124, nos. 1
Quote ID: 6152
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 127
Section: 4B
”On the other hand, the benefits to the donor of such giving sometimes came close to those derived from civic euergetism; Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus two noted Xns of the time acted as patrons just as surely as the civic dignitaries of the early pagan empire.“
Quote ID: 6153
Time Periods: 045
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 127
Section: 4B
Viewed in these terms, it does not seem that the supposed contrast between earlier euergetism and Xn charity was always as great as has been supposed.“
Quote ID: 6154
Time Periods: 045
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 127/128
Section: 4B
Upper class rich women obtained a measure of economic and social freedom through Xty. rejecting traditional marriage and family and living as they chose. J. Chrysostom’s friend, the widow Olympias, “is said to have supported with her wealth and advice Nectarius the patriarch of Constantinople” and a host of other notable early Xn leaders, including “many saints and fathers who lived in the capital city”.PJ: Partroness
Quote ID: 6156
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 131
Section: 4B
Classical styles and motifs remained popular in building for a long, long time.
Quote ID: 6157
Time Periods: 047
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 140
Section: 4B
There was, as it were, a “great gulf fixed” between barbarians and Romans. It was not racism, but the perceived difference between civilized behavior and boorishness. This perception was consistent with that of the Greeks.
Quote ID: 6160
Time Periods: 047
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 163
Section: 2E1,4B
“Official diptychs sponsored by Xns, such as the diptych of Probus (406), simply add Xn symbols such as the chi-rho to the standard representation of late Roman dignitaries.”
Quote ID: 6165
Time Periods: 5
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 175
Section: 4B
Xn opposition to pagan celebrations and entertainment did not prevent them from having festivals of their own “with public banquets and drinking, stalls with all kinds of things on sale and an elaborate fireworks display as good as anything one might expect even from Alexandria. Pagan and Christian festivals like these were apparently held regularly throughout the year.”Of course, Xns would not long tolerate the competition.
Quote ID: 6171
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 176
Section: 3C,4B
“Acclamation” was an important part of late Roman politics. Public acclamations of local governors could prove to be critical to his continuance in office. “Constantine required in AD 331 that records of acclamations be sent regularly to the emperor, so that they could be taken into account in determining future careers of the officials in question.”….
This practice was “taken over by the church, and acclamations and gangs of supporters” played significant roles in “ecclesiastical disputes and during the preliminaries to church counsels, as at Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon in 461, where the lead was taken by a group of monks.
Quote ID: 6172
Time Periods: 045
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 177/178
Section: 4B
Xn charity a cover for greed. “The poor, the poor”... but why?….
“What was really different about this period was that consciousness of the poor changed dramatically. In a sense, the existence of the poor was required by Xn ideology in order to neutralize the fact that the church itself was not only growing rich but also actively courting wealthy patrons.”
Quote ID: 6173
Time Periods: 456
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 178
Section: 4B
There was no real social revolution concerning the poor, nor any attempt to rid the empire of poverty. “Indeed, Xns argued that the division of society into rich and poor was divinely ordained.”
Quote ID: 6174
Time Periods: 456
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 187/188
Section: 2C,4B
“In particular, Roman landowning families, with their strong cultural traditions, provided many of the powerful bishops of the period, and Latin continued to be used as the language of administration and culture.”
Quote ID: 6178
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 71c
Section: 3A3,3C,4B
By a law, C made the Xn church able to inherit property. Immense wealth began to flow to her. With such wealth, a local bishop might find himself looked upon as an authoritarian figure by the local populace. He begins to play the part of urban patron.
Quote ID: 6128
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 187b
Section: 4B
By the early sixth century, several barbarian kingdoms were established within the borders of what was the Roman Empire, most notably the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Franks (also called the Merovingians) ... and the Visigoths [in Spain]. Even after these kingdoms were in place, so many Roman traditions and institutions continued that these kingdoms are referred to as ’sub-Roman’ societies.
Quote ID: 6177
Time Periods: 6
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 193b
Section: 3C,4B
“Constantine unwittingly created a church which for centuries would rival the power of the state. No fundamental economic transformation took place in the later empire; indeed, the church now absorbed much of the surplus revenue, just as external pressures increased the difficulties of maintaining an adequate army to such a level that the western government effectively gave up the struggle.”
Quote ID: 6181
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire: An Archaeology AD 150-600, The
Richard Reece
Book ID: 244 Page: 163
Section: 4B
The empire, in a sense, ‘happened’, rather than ‘was constructed’. The method of succession from one emperor to another was never set out or agreed and this must be held responsible for some of the major troubles of the empire.
Quote ID: 6184
Time Periods: 045
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 28
Section: 4B
There is indeed a famous text in the Digest, attributed to Salvius Julianus:‘Ingrained custom is not unreasonably maintained as, as good as law; this is what is known as the law based on men’s habits. For sincere actual legislation is only binding because it is accepted by the judgment of the people, those things of which the people have approved without any writing at all will justly be binding on everyone. And therefore the following principle is also quite rightly accepted, that legislation can be abrogated not only by the vote of a legislator but also by desuetude, with the tacit agreement of all men.’
Quote ID: 2889
Time Periods: 03
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 33
Section: 3A4,4B
it was a part of the philosophy of the Romans that the duty of a citizen included taking this share of the burdens of the law: acting as judge, arbitrator or juror and supporting his friends in their legal affairs by coming forward as witness, surety and so on.
Quote ID: 2890
Time Periods: 03
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 41
Section: 4B
One of the most extraordinary facts of Roman law is that a slave manumitted (that is, given his freedom) in proper form before a magistrate or by will, and not in contravention of certain Augustan legislation, by a Roman citizen master, became himself a Roman citizen.
Quote ID: 2891
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 41
Section: 4B
They certify that the emperor:‘has given citizenship to them, their children and descendants, and conubium with such wives as they should subsequently marry, but only to one wife for each individual’.
Quote ID: 2892
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 56
Section: 4B
In the agricultural society of early Roman times, the farmer worked the land with his whole family, sons and slaves. And between sons and slaves in the old man’s power, there was not all that much difference- except in ultimate expectations. To the end of Roman law, the rules about filius familias and servus are curiously alike; the ‘power of life and death’ applies over both, neither can own anything - they can have only peculium - and so on.Pastor John’s note: Gal. 4
Quote ID: 2893
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 83
Section: 4B
One consequence of conviction in certain civil suits and (probably) all criminal trials was ‘infamy’, infamia or ignominia. Infamy could indeed arise in other ways, and it could have other consequences besides legal ones; the subject is complicated and much has been written about it. The concept enshrines very characteristic Roman attitudes. The small aristocratic society of early Rome, valuing above all overt esteem (existimatio, dignitas), dreaded its loss exceedingly. The disapproval of a man’s peers was channeled through the censors, the customary guardians of public morality, who provided a sharp extra-legal sanction against behavior that offended accepted canons by their ‘censorial mark’ the nota censorial entered against a man’s name in the census-lists, which was both an expression and at the same time a cause of his being held ‘infamous’.
Quote ID: 2894
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 108
Section: 4B
In one sense, though not what the Romans meant by ius vitae et necis, a ‘power of life and death’ was regularly exercised: it was the right of the paterfamilias to decide whether new-born children should be reared or exposed (their mother had no voice in the matter), and exposure was common and not a crime.
Quote ID: 2895
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 168
Section: 4B
...little practical importance’. Theft was, like damage, a tort - though a penal one; you sued the thief in the civil courts, for your property plus substantial penalties (the thief caught in the act and the robber with violence were liable for fourfold, most other thieves for double).Pastor Johns note: Ex 21-23
Quote ID: 2896
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 256/258
Section: 4B
The first duty was military service.…
Taxation was a second universal liability.
….
Finally, upon cives Romani were incumberant the civic responsibilities of guardianship and acting as judges and jurors in the courts of Roman Law.
Quote ID: 2898
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 265
Section: 4B
The populous Romanus was never allowed free political assembly; not only its voting assemblies but even public meetings for political speeches had to be presided over by a magistrate, who controlled the proceedings.Pastor John’s note: Acts. clubs
Quote ID: 2899
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 265
Section: 4B
Whether this statute should be attributed to Julius Caesar or to Augustus remains unsettled; Suetonius seems to attribute it to each of them in turn, but the facts that the ancient ban on independent political meetings turns up in the charter of Urso [PJ: 44 BC] perhaps tips the balance in favor of giving this important Julian Law to Caesar. It enacted that, except for certain time-honored formal societies, every other association whatsoever must henceforward be licensed.PJ: clubs
Quote ID: 2900
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 267
Section: 4B
The most prominent, and perhaps genuinely much of the most important, was a combination of cult to a patron deity and social get-together, with plenty of hierarchy and precedence such as people love.….
They found occasionally petitioning the government about their interests, and the ‘election posters’ of Pompeii testify that there at least they played a vigorous part in local politics, proclaiming their support for candidates for office; though precisely at Pompeii there were illicit collegia which were dissolved after disturbances in AD 59. But common action in pursuit of economic or political aims (especially if it led to rioting) might be regarded by the government as subversive; strike meetings by the bakers’ union at Ephesus, for example, were sternly repressed, and at Ephesus again the reader will recall not only Paul’s clash with the silversmiths’ union who saw their livelihood in danger but also the warning of the town clerk that public demonstrations about this would look to Rome like a political riot.
PJ: clubs
Quote ID: 2902
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 271
Section: 4B
Everyone is struck by apparent contrast between the simplicity and lack of savagery of the penalties for crime in the Republican age of Rome and the diversity and increasing brutality of those under the Principate.
Quote ID: 2903
Time Periods: 01234
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 273
Section: 4B
Exile in its various forms was on the whole for upper class, hard labor for the lower. Beyond this came the death penalty (which in the ‘extraordinary’ jurisdiction really meant death by decapitation), and beyond even that came the summa supplicia, aggravated death by crucifixion, burning, or being thrown to the beasts in the circus.
Quote ID: 2904
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 280
Section: 4B
Now the Jews of Judaea were a nation, a clear ethnic group, and their special habits of religious thought well known throughout the Mediterranean world form of old; their cult was given special license and sanction by the Romans as a national idiosyncrasy.….
Judaea was destroyed after several national rebellions, but even so the Jews of the Dispersion were never persecuted for their religion. It has been plausibly suggested that they were a specially protected, exempted and sanctioned religious minority because it was admitted by all that they were loyally adhering to their ancestral tradition - their own ‘faithful ritual’, however repugnant it might seem to outsiders. The Christians, on the other hand, were the rejecters of the state religion not on the basis of an ancestral and recognizable tradition, but in rejection of that too; they were therefore (and we cannot escape from this) followers of a religio illicta, alone punishable as such.
Quote ID: 2905
Time Periods: 0123
Law and Life of Rome (90 B.C – A.D. 212)
J.A. Crook
Book ID: 127 Page: 283
Section: 4B
A third consideration is that, quite contrary to what one might tend to suppose, in our period Roman law was decidedly nonecumenical. This is in many ways a merit; Rome believed in her mission to govern peoples and to maintain the ‘Roman Peace’, and one can find many tributes to the blessings of that peace, but she did not believe in any mission to spread the institutions, as opposed to the protection, of Roman law beyond the range of those who wished (and were judged worthy) to accept her citizenship.….
Rome gave citizenship - lavishly enough - with one hand, so she diminished its rights, for all save honestiores, with the other.
….
Rome took care everywhere to secure upper-class control.
Quote ID: 2906
Time Periods: 0123
Laws of the Salian Franks, The
Translated and with an Introduction by Katherine Fischer Drew
Book ID: 245 Page: 162
Section: 4B
4. He who kills a count (grafione) shall be liable to pay six hundred solidi. 168
Quote ID: 6195
Time Periods: 56
Laws of the Salian Franks, The
Translated and with an Introduction by Katherine Fischer Drew
Book ID: 245 Page: 163
Section: 4B
5. If anyone kills a bishop (episcopum), and it is declared murder (in mordrem miserit), he shall be liable to pay eighteen hundred solidi. 176
Quote ID: 6196
Time Periods: 56
Laws of the Salian Franks, The
Translated and with an Introduction by Katherine Fischer Drew
Book ID: 245 Page: 178
Section: 4B
3. If anyone kills a deacon, he shall be judged liable to pay twelve thousand denarii (i.e., three hundred solidi).4. If anyone kills a presbyter, he shall be judged liable to pay twenty-four thousand denarii (i.e., six hundred solidi).
. . . .
1. If anyone kills a count he shall be judged liable to pay twenty-four thousand denarii (i.e., six hundred solidi).
Quote ID: 6198
Time Periods: 56
Laws of the Salian Franks, The
Translated and with an Introduction by Katherine Fischer Drew
Book ID: 245 Page: 191/192
Section: 4B
1. If anyone wishes to move into a village (villam) in place of another and some of those who live in the village take the position that they wish to receive him but there is one of them who opposes, he may not have the right to move there.. . . .
4. But if anyone has moved into a strange village and no protest has been made according to law for twelve months, he may reside there secure just as the other neighbors do.
Quote ID: 6199
Time Periods: 56
Legacy of Greece, The
Edited by R. W. Livingstone
Book ID: 469 Page: 44/45
Section: 3A,4B
After the second century the comparison of the Christians to modern revolutionists becomes too absurd for discussion. There is a good deal of rhetorical declamation about riches and poverty in the Christian Fathers; but unfortunately the Church seems to have done very little to protest against the crying economic injustices of the fourth and fifth centuries. From first to last there was nothing of the ‘Spartacus’ movement about the Catholic Church. As soon as the persecutions ceased, the bishops took their place naturally among the nobility.
Quote ID: 9040
Time Periods: 347
Legionary - The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 128 Page: 185
Section: 4B
At the gate, the Senate meets the Triumphator (i.e. the victorious general). This man travels in the turret-like triumphal chariot, with his male offspring (if any) alongside him on horseback. The Triumphator wears the traditional purple robe of Jupiter, and has his face painted red, in emulation of that god’s most ancient statue. To make sure that the distinction between emulating Jupiter and being Jupiter is clear, a slave stands holding a laurel wreath over the conqueror’s head, and mutters quietly, ‘Remember, you are only a man’.
Quote ID: 2909
Time Periods: 0123
Legionary - The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 128 Page: 185
Section: 4B
Processional route of a Roman triumphFrom the temple of Bellona to the Porta Triumphalis,
Through the city to the Circus Flamininus,
From there to the Circus Maximus,
On to the Roman Forum and the Sacred Way,
And finally up the Capitoline Hill,
Finishing at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
Other translations in New Eusebius, no. 283; NPNF2 vol. 3, p. 41;
2.6-8 in Hanson, p. 139; 4-5 in Hanson, p. 6
Quote ID: 2910
Time Periods: 0123
Lives of the Twelve Caesars, The
Suetonius
Book ID: 246 Page: 78
Section: 4B
Considering it also of great importance to keep the people pure and unsullied by any taint of foreign or servile blood, he was most chary of conferring Roman citizenship and set a limit to manumission. When Tiberius requested citizenship for a Grecian dependent of his, Augustus wrote in reply that he would not grant it unless the man appeared in person and convinced him that he had reasonable grounds for the request. When Livia asked it for a Gaul from a tributary province, he refused, offering instead freedom from tribute, and declaring that he would more willingly suffer a loss to his privy purse than the prostitution of the honor of Roman citizenship.
Quote ID: 6203
Time Periods: 1
Livy, History of Rome, LCL 114: Livy I, Books 1-2
B. O. Foster, Trans.
Book ID: 356 Page: 67
Section: 4B
XIX. When he had thus obtained the kingship, he prepared to give the new City, funded by force of arms, a new foundation in law, statutes, and observances.*John’s note: “he” is Numa*
Quote ID: 9891
Time Periods: 0
Livy, History of Rome, LCL 114: Livy I, Books 1-2
B. O. Foster, Trans.
Book ID: 356 Page: 307
Section: 4B
XXVIII. Aulus Verginius and Titus Vetusius then entered upon the consulship [PJ: 494 BC]. Whereat the plebs, uncertain what sort of consuls they would prove to be, held nightly gatherings, some on the Esquiline and others on the Aventine, lest if they met in the Forum they might be frightened into adopting ill-considered measures, and manage all their business rashly and haphazard. This seemed to the consuls, as indeed it was, a mischievous practice.PJ: clubs
Quote ID: 8713
Time Periods: 02
Livy, History of Rome, LCL 114: Livy I, Books 1-2
B. O. Foster, Trans.
Book ID: 356 Page: 321
Section: 4B
XXXII. Thereupon the senators became alarmed, fearing that if the army should be disbanded there would again be secret gatherings and conspiracies.PJ: clubs
Quote ID: 8714
Time Periods: 02
Livy, History of Rome, LCL 396: Livy XIII, Books 43-45
Translated by Alfred C. Schlesinger
Book ID: 315 Page: 283/285
Section: 4B
At the very outset, when he proclaimed a day for his legions to assemble, he entered the sacred enclosure{2} without taking the auspices. When the augurs were consulted on this matter, they declared that the day had been wrongfully set. The consul set out for Gaul, and had a fixed camp near Campi Macri{3} close to Mounts Sicimina and Papinus. Later he spent the winter in the same region with the allies of the Latin Name; the Roman legions had remained at Rome, because the day for the assembly of the army was wrongfully appointed.
Quote ID: 8570
Time Periods: 01
Lollards of the Chiltern Hills: Glimpses of English Dissent in the Middle Ages, The
W. H. Summers
Book ID: 248 Page: 16
Section: 4B
Robert Grossetete, Bishop from 1235 to 1253, was born of humble peasant stock in Suffolk, and his whole career was not only that of a true Christian pastor, but that of a great English patriot. No “hireling that cared not for the sheep,” no cold and unsympathising foreigner, he looked on each peasant and serf in his unwieldy diocese as a fellow-countryman and a brother in Christ. He has been styled “a Reformer before the Reformation,” but his protests were against the corruptions of the Church in discipline, and the encroachments of the Papal Court, not against the received doctrines of Catholicism. He set himself against impropriation of tithes, against absentee and pluralist clergy, and against the holding of secular office by bishops and priests.page 35-36 of new book
Quote ID: 6232
Time Periods: 7
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 420 Page: 4
Section: 4B
But virtually all forms of modern Christianity, whether they acknowledge it or not, go back to one form of Christianity that emerged as victorious from the conflicts of the second and third centuries.
Quote ID: 8590
Time Periods: 47
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 420 Page: 91
Section: 4B
In some ways, this matter of being “right” was a concern unique to Christianity. The Roman Empire was populated with religions of all kinds: family religions, local religions, city religions, state religions. Virtually everyone in this mind-bogging complexity, except the Jews, worshiped numerous gods in numerous ways.{1} So far as we can tell, this was almost never recognized as a problem.
Quote ID: 8598
Time Periods: 2347
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 420 Page: 250/251
Section: 3C,3D,4B
As a result of the favors Constantine poured out upon the church, conversion to the Christian faith soon became “popular.” At the beginning of the fourth century, Christians may have comprised something like 5 to 7 percent of the population; but with the conversion of Constantine the church grew in leaps and bounds. By the end of the century it appears to have been the religion of choice of fully half the empire. After Constantine, every emperor except one was Christian.{3} Theodosius I (emperor 379-95 CE) made Christianity (specifically Roman Christianity, with the bishop of Rome having ultimate religious authority) the official religion of the state.
Quote ID: 8608
Time Periods: 4
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 420 Page: 255
Section: 4B
Moreover, since the gods sometimes punished individuals or communities that failed to acknowledge them, Christians could be seen as being at fault when disasters struck. As Tertullian famously exclaimed:They (the pagans) think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited. If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, “Away with the Christians to the lion!” (Apology 40)
Jews were not blamed for such disasters, even though they, too, did not worship the gods, because Jews were following ancestral traditions that forbade them to engage in such worship. Since the antiquity of religious tradition was so important in the ancient world, and since Jews could justify their practices through ancient tradition, they were normally not compelled to abandon their religious commitments to participate in civic cult.{6}
Quote ID: 8614
Time Periods: 2
Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 427 Page: 117
Section: 4B
Looking intently into the crowd she saw the Lord sitting there, in the appearance of Paul.PJ: In the tradition of Homer.
Quote ID: 8689
Time Periods: 45
Love Affairs of the Vatican, The
Dr. Angelo S. Rappoport
Book ID: 250 Page: 130
Section: 3A1,4B
The war between Henry, the German Emperor, and the Pope [PJ: Gregory VII] was being waged. Papacy and Empire had entered into that long struggle for supremacy which was to last for centuries. The successors of Charlemagne and the inheritors of St. Peter were each claiming the rule of the world.. . . .
The former monk ordered the German Emperor to appear before the papal throne in Rome, and when the inheritor of the succession of Charlemagne disobeyed, he was excommunicated, deprived of his Imperial dignities, and his crown bestowed upon the Duke of Swabia. Henry was ultimately obliged to travel to Canossa, there to do penance and to humiliate himself before the proud ruler on the throne of St. Peter.
Quote ID: 6265
Time Periods: 7
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 6
Section: 4B
I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fareAn impious road to realms of thought profane;
But ‘tis that same religion oftener far
Hath bred the foul impieties of men.
Pastor John’s note: anti-religion
Quote ID: 3419
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 7/9
Section: 4B
When man’s life lay for all to see foully groveling upon the ground, crushed beneath the weight of Superstition,{a} which displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect...
Quote ID: 8637
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 9
Section: 4B
Therefore Superstition is now in her turn cast down and trampled underfoot, whilst we by the victory are exalted high as heaven.
Quote ID: 8638
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 9/11
Section: 4B
One thing I fear in this matter, that in this your apprenticeship to philosophy you may perhaps see impiety, and the entering on a path of crime; whereas on the contrary more often it is that very Superstition which has brought forth criminal and impious deeds.
Quote ID: 8639
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 11
Section: 4B
You will yourself some day or other seek to fall away from us, overborne by the terrific utterances of priests.
Quote ID: 8640
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 15
Section: 4B
The first principle of our study we will derive from this, that no thing is ever by divine power produced from nothing.{f} For assuredly a dread holds all mortals thus in bond, because they behold many things happening in heaven and earth whose causes they can by no means see, and they think them to be done by divine power.
Quote ID: 8641
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 95
Section: 4B
Wherefore, it’s surer testing of a manIn doubtful perils-mark him as he is
Amid adversities; for then alone
Are the true voices conjured from his breast,
The mask-off-stripped, reality behind.
Quote ID: 3423
Time Periods: 04
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 95
Section: 4B
But nothing is more delightful than to possess lofty sanctuaries serene, well fortified by the teachings of the wise, whence you may look down upon others and behold them all astray,{a} wandering abroad and seeking the path of life:--the strife of wits, the fight for precedence, all labouring night and day with surpassing toil to mount upon the pinnacle of riches {b} and to lay hold on power. O pitiable minds of men, O blind intelligences!
Quote ID: 8642
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 135
Section: 1B,4B
First, since I teach concerning mighty things,And go right on to loose from round the mind
The tightened coils of dread religion.
Quote ID: 3424
Time Periods: 0
Lucretius, On The Nature Of Things, LCL 181: Lucretius
Lucretius
Book ID: 162 Page: 189
Section: 4B
Address to EpicurusO you who first amid so great a darkness were able to raise aloft a light so clear, illumining the blessings of life, you I follow, O glory of the Grecian race,{a} and now on the marks you have left I plant my own footsteps firm, not so much desiring to be your rival, as for love, because I yearn to copy you…
….
You are our father, the discoverer of truths….
Quote ID: 8643
Time Periods: 0
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 4
Section: 4B
Neither emperors nor their entourages could force religious change on the aristocracy, even if they wanted to. The same is true of the church and its bishops.
Quote ID: 7426
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 5
Section: 3C,4B
By placing the senatorial aristocracy at the center of the discussion, this study tries to avoid the missteps that have caused previous scholarly approaches to falter, chief among them the persistent tendency to underestimate the autonomy and resources of the aristocracy in facing imperial and episcopal influence. The dominant model of change is problematic precisely in this regard, for it sees religion spreading from “top to bottom,” as it were, with an aristocracy accepting the religious example set by enthusiastic and powerful Christian emperors out of ambition or greed, or simply indifference to religion.PJ: She does not believe that happened.
Quote ID: 7427
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 5
Section: 3C,4B
This study does not reject the idea that emperors had an impact on the aristocracy. However, because emperors were working against an imbedded and considerably autonomous senatorial culture, the emperor’s influence was more limited and more diffuse than many have argued.
Quote ID: 7428
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 61
Section: 4B
But even if an aristocrat did not hold a priesthood, he or she would nevertheless be considered a supporter of the state cults; there were few atheists in the Roman empire, even among aristocrats. Aristocratic involvement in the pagan cults was simply part of the way life was organized, and therefore part of how aristocrats expressed who they were in society.
Quote ID: 7430
Time Periods: 047
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 63
Section: 4B
Private pagan cults also offered aristocrats avenues for augmenting social honor. They allowed aristocrats to prominently assert individual and/or family identity within an intimate, elite context. Just as families and individuals choose to join a specific church or synagogue as a means of showing who they are, so too, in antiquity, aristocrats had the freedom to choose to support any one of a number of deities as a means of expressing identity and social standing. The wealthy aristocrat could even introduce a new cult; few cities would deny such a request if a respectable and influential person were to propose the introduction of a new cult to a popular god and had the financial resources to endow it. {273}PJ: "Join the Church of your choice."
Quote ID: 7431
Time Periods: 01234
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 65
Section: 4B
Aristocrats continued to proclaim with pride their pagan priesthoods alongside their public offices in inscriptions into the second half of the fourth century.
Quote ID: 7433
Time Periods: 4
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
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 67
Section: 4B
the emperor was not the sole source of honor. The acceptance of friends and family was key in establishing aristocratic honor.
Quote ID: 7435
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 67
Section: 4B
In the fourth century Christian leaders were eager to address the status concerns of senatorial aristocrats. They encouraged aristocrats to take on prestigious roles in Christian institutions as patrons and ultimately as bishops. Moreover, these roles brought with them the honor that an aristocrat coveted. The willingness to incorporate aristocrats as donors to church building is one way in which Christian leaders addressed the values and behavior patterns of this class.
Quote ID: 7436
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 67
Section: 4B
In sum, any attempt to understand the conversion of the senatorial aristocracy must look at the question from the viewpoint of the aristocrats to whom status was central. Their concern would be what role the aristocracy would play in the new, state-supported religion, and how Christianity would affect their honor.
Quote ID: 7437
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 140
Section: 4B
In my view, the historical evidence indicates that Christianity did not alter the fundamental dynamics of aristocratic families
Quote ID: 7440
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 153
Section: 4B
by the late fourth century, Augustine claims, marriages between pagans and Christians were no longer considered sinful. {69}
Quote ID: 7441
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 175
Section: 4B
Other Christian aristocratic women could gain prestige through their patronage of Christian writers and thinkers, as their pagan peers had supported pagan literati.
Quote ID: 7444
Time Periods: 014
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 181
Section: 3C,4B
Constantine had the most dramatic impact on late Roman society. As he ushered in legislation to make Christianity a licit religion and took on the role of patron of the church, he showed that Christianity was a viable indeed imperially favored, option. Churches and clergy became the recipients of imperial patronage in the form of land, buildings, and funding. {9}
Quote ID: 7445
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 185
Section: 3C,4B
Nor do Valentinian’s laws show him as actively working to advance Christianity among the aristocracy. As Ammianus remarked in praise, “he remained neutral on religious differences neither troubling anyone on that ground nor coercing him to reverence this or that. He did not bend the necks of his subjects to his own belief by threatening edicts, but left such matters undisturbed as he found them.” {34}
Quote ID: 7450
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 185
Section: 3C,4B
Religious tolerance did not prevent Valentinian I from taking a stand on issues pertaining to the Christian community. He did, for instance, outlaw certain groups as heretical and penalized clerics who defrauded their flocks. {36} But these laws did not advance conversion directly. Rather, this emperor and his brother Valens appear far more engaged in pursuing military goals than advancing Christianity. {37}PJ: Her biases are dulling her judgments.
Quote ID: 7451
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 188
Section: 3C,4B
Given the oft-expressed view that Christian emperors of the fourth century favored coreligionists, it is noteworthy that the office-holding patterns among Roman aristocrats in this study population show that Christians were not predominant from Constantine’s time on.
Quote ID: 7453
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 198
Section: 3C,4B
The emperors gave monies and land to the church and its clergy, often for building projects, a conventional arena for elite patronage. Here, too, emperors varied. Constantine was extremely generous in his gifts to the church and its bishops; the Liber Pontificalis records the basilicas he funded over the western empire and the monies and lands that he bequeathed. Other emperors were not known for being as generous as Constantine, but most fourth-century emperors did support building projects or gave land to the church. {84} Such patronage made visible the new prestige of the church and its officials in society.By supporting the church and its clergy in such conventionally aristocratic ways, the emperors established themselves as models of Christian patronage that other aristocrats could follow.
Quote ID: 7464
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 198/199
Section: 3C,4B
By acting according to aristocratic norms--as patron, as leaders and as participant in an increasingly prestigious religious group--the emperors infused Christian practices and understandings into traditional areas of late Roman elite society. The emperors made themselves, in essence, exemplars of how to be aristocratic and Christian at the same time. Thus they became a symbolic focus, showing how it was possible to be Christian even as they remained prestigious members of the aristocracy.
Quote ID: 7465
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 200
Section: 4B
Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.---Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, The Leopard (trans. A. Colquhoun)
Quote ID: 7466
Time Periods: 7
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 200
Section: 3A1,3D,4B
By the 380’s and 390’s conversion may well have appeared to many late Roman aristocrats as the best way to preserve their world. Aristocrats did have to adapt in certain ways to become Christian, but what is often missed is that Christianity also adapted as it came into contact with the aristocracy.
Quote ID: 7467
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 201
Section: 3C,4B
In general, Christian leaders took aristocratic status culture into account in two ways. First, they communicated through the prevailing modes of discourse; they fashioned the rhetoric of Christianity to make it pleasing to educated elite listeners. {3} Second, Christian leaders shaped the message of Christianity in public and private so as to appeal to aristocrats, achieving a fit between Christian and aristocratic social concerns and values.
Quote ID: 7468
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 201
Section: 3C,4B
I am also arguing against those scholars who see in the aristocracy of the later Roman empire a growing need for salvation, a growing anxiety within its core that led this group to seek the assurances of the message of Christianity.
Quote ID: 7469
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 201/202
Section: 3C,4B
The efforts of Christian leaders to adapt aristocratic status culture into a Christian framework were so successful that for the majority of fourth-century aristocrats, Christianity did not entail a radical reorientation---the classic notion of conversion---from their previous way of life. {6}
Quote ID: 7470
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 202
Section: 3C,4B
Christian leaders, while acknowledging secular honors, nonetheless downplayed such honors as compared to those attained through Christianity.
Quote ID: 7471
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 203
Section: 4B
The career of Paulinus of Nola shows some of the ways in which aristocrats’ concern for honor and office were assimilated into Christian ecclesiastical office.
Quote ID: 7472
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 203
Section: 4B
Yet, as Paulinus devoted himself to his new patron, St. Felix, he felt, in the words of R. Van Dam, that “he had acquired a set of connections more important than the ones at the imperial court offered to him by Ausonius, for St. Felix had introduced him to the friends of the celestial Lord. As a result, in about 410 Paulinus became bishop of Nola, as well as, after the pope, the most prominent Christian leader in Italy.” {11}
Quote ID: 7473
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 203/204
Section: 4B
Nor did his choice bring ruin to himself and his family, as his friends had feared. Rather, Paulinus secured the continuing prosperity of his relations; his family continued to act as influential patrons, albeit of Christian shrines, still feuded with other aristocratic families, and still enjoyed their ancestral estates near Bordeaux into the fifth century. {14} Thus the family Paulinus prospered in material terms (ecclesiastical office did not entail the loss of private income) and achieved social prestige--success in traditional aristocratic terms---but it did so by attaining ecclesiastical, not secular, office.As Paulinus’ career showed, church office could offer secure and satisfying opportunities for the acquisition and demonstration of honor. It was in many ways a better avenue to these rewards than civic office, which presented dangers of the sort noted by Paulinus in counseling one young man, Licentius, to choose the life of Christian ascetic over civic office: “Avoid the slippery dangers of exacting state service. Position is an inviting title, but it brings evil slavery and wretched end. He who now delights in desiring it, later repents of having desired it. It is pleasant to mount the summit, but fearsome to descend from it; if you stumble, your fall from the top of the citadel will be worse.” {15}
Quote ID: 7474
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 204
Section: 4B
Like Paulinus, Jerome argued in favor of asceticism, but his argument appealed to an aristocrat in terms of social prestige and competition for honor:Before he began to serve Christ with his whole heart, Pammachius was a well known person in the senate. Still there were many other senators who wore the badges of proconsular rank
...."Today all the churches of Christ are talking about Pammachius. The whole world admires as a poor man one whom heretofore it ignored as rich. Can anything be more splendid than the consulate? Yet the honor lasts only for a year and when another has succeeded to the post its former occupant gives way." {16}
Pastor John’s note: FAME
Quote ID: 7475
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 204/205
Section: 4B
In the 380s church leaders in Rome also tried to formulate a coherent ecclesiastical career path. {19} Both groups may well have been responding to the ethical dilemmas faced by Christian secular office holders; Paulinus, for one, emphasized the moral problems he confronted when, as magistrate, he was unwilling to condemn a man to death. {20} Increasingly, aristocrats chose to follow one track or another---secular or ecclesiastic---to acquire honor. By the mid-fifth century the bishops at Rome declared that the two paths were incompatible; no former magistrate could be ordained. {21}As ecclesiastic careers crystallized, such offices increasingly offered opportunities for bishops to acquire prestige and influence in worldly terms. Ambrose perhaps best represents the activist bishop who, as he condemned the punishment meted out by the emperor Theodosius, intervened directly in worldly affairs. {22} The growing prestige of the episcopate led the aristocratic Praetextatus to remark that he would convert immediately if Damasus would make him bishop of Rome. {23}
The growing prestige of the church, along with political upheavals that brought the collapse of imperial structures in certain parts of the empire, contributed to making ecclesiastical office attractive to aristocrats. By the 470s in Gaul---an area that suffered from a series of crises earlier in the century---Sidonius Apollinaris could claim, “Beyond question, according to the view of the best men, the humblest ecclesiastic ranks above the most exalted secular dignity.” {24} Yet the goal was familiar---honor through office.
Pastor John’s note: FAME
Quote ID: 7476
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 207
Section: 4B
As Christian leaders justified wealth because it could be used for charity, they encouraged traditional patterns of expenditure on the part of aristocrats who, for centuries, had “done good for their cities” (evergetai in Greek) by contributing to public expenses. Now, these contributions---which scholars term “euergetism”---were being directed to a different use, namely the church, which was increasingly being seen as part of the public domain.
Quote ID: 7477
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 207
Section: 4B
Wealthy aristocrats could turn to Christianity secure in the knowledge that their traditional way of demonstrating social preeminence---euergetism---would continue to bring them prestige and the approval of a Christian community.Simultaneously, Christian fathers tried to redefine the benefits of evergetism in spiritual, not secular, terms. They reiterated the notion that charity was the way to atone for sin. In particular, charity redeemed the sin of avarice, a vice that many bishops railed against in this period. {43}
Quote ID: 7478
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 207/208
Section: 4B
Maximus worked out a contractual concept of almsgiving whereby “charitable deeds were calculated in terms of atonement and could redeem sin as a new baptism. Indeed, charity was more effective than baptism in that it could be repeated.” {46}
Quote ID: 7479
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 208
Section: 4B
As B. Ramsey recognized in his study of almsgiving in the Latin church in the fourth and fifth centuries, the impetus for charity remained fundamentally donor-centered. Although injunctions to give to the poor and to practice charity with humility were frequently repeated, and some Christian fathers criticized donors who practiced charity out of a desire for popular acclaim, the texts from this period do not demonstrate any real social concern. Rather, charity was valued as a spiritual exercise that brought benefits to the giver in the form of the remission of sin.
Quote ID: 7480
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 210
Section: 4B
Christian leaders claimed that they were the heirs of a literature as ancient and as eminent as that of their pagan contemporaries. They prided themselves on possessing a religion of “the word”; their claim to “bookishness” would appeal to aristocrats for whom, it has been well observed, “literate culture conveyed power.” {58}PJ: The diff between barbarians was largely literary
Quote ID: 7481
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 212
Section: 3D,4B
Some Christians considered both friendship and “Christian love” largely in classical philosophical terms. The writings of Ambrose are exemplary of this position. Ambrose’s De officiis ministrorum imitates the form and accepts much of what Cicero and classical philosophers have to say about friendship. Indeed, Ambrose did not do much more than translate Cicero’s views on friendship into a Christian tract. {69} Ambrose’s text aimed at identifying biblical passages to illustrate Ciceronian ideas; so, for example, Ambrose cited the biblical examples of Jonathan and Ahimelech as men who rightly put friendship not before virtue, but before their own safety, an idea expressed in other words by Cicero. {70}
Quote ID: 7482
Time Periods: 4
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 214
Section: 4B
The centrality of the concept of nobilitas to the late Roman aristocrat made it a key focus for the efforts of church leaders engaged in the conversion of this group. Typically, when Christian leaders spoke of nobilitas, they recognized the traditional criteria---family and office---but claimed such were of lesser worth in determining nobilitas than Christian piety. Christian leaders most often used as their examples of Christian “nobility” men and women who were already ennobled by traditional aristocratic standards. In these ways they essentially incorporated the traditional bases for nobilitas into their Christian version, even as they sought to place it at a lower level than Christian spirituality.
Quote ID: 7483
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 216
Section: 4B
By the mid-fifth century the basis for nobilitas was effectively changed, for by then it was being conferred on men who held church, not secular, office. In the words of Avitus of Vienne, “true and unblemished nobility” lay in ecclesiastical office. {101} Those Christians who held an office in the church were “the most noble”. In Italy, too, by the middle of the fifth century we find aristocrats accepting church office as a higher “nobility” than secular office. {102} In Gaul, by the fifth century it became a standard claim that a cleric was “noble by birth, more noble by religion.” {103} But, paradoxically, as in the fourth century, men already ennobled by standard aristocratic notions of family attain a higher nobility through Christian office. The aristocratic notion of nobilitas was in place, now based on ecclesiastical, not secular, office.
Quote ID: 7484
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 217
Section: 4B
Romanus claims nobilitas---as a character trait---is open to men, presumably all men. If so, this passage suggests that nobilitas is a private, potentially universal virtue, apart from social class. {105} Such a view may reflect Prudentius’ own position in the world; the poet came from Spanish provincial circles and returned there, removed from the senatorial aristocracy and its old consular families.Some more determined Christian attacks on “nobility” appear in the fifth century.
Quote ID: 7485
Time Periods: 45
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 217
Section: 4B
However, Hilarius notes, Honoratus’ nobility did not arise from his long family stemma nor his offices but, rather, from membership in the Christian brotherhood: “We are all one in Christ, and the height of nobility is to be reckoned among the sons of God. Our glory cannot be increased by the dignity of our earthly family except by renouncing it. No one in heaven is more glorious than he who has repudiated his family ancestry and chooses to be enrolled as only a descendant of Christ.” {107}
Quote ID: 7486
Time Periods: 5
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 219
Section: 4B
The interaction between aristocrat’s status culture and the message of Christianity helps us to understand how Christianity came to appeal to late Roman aristocrats and how, in its efforts to convert the aristocracy, Christianity was “aristocratized.” Church leaders accepted as important certain central aristocratic ideals---such as nobilitas, amicitia, and honos---even as they attempted to redefine them to be consonant with a Christian message.
Quote ID: 7487
Time Periods: 45
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 8/9
Section: 4B
In that case, we must be careful to avoid melodramatic insistence on sudden and widespread changes in the climate of religious belief in the Mediterranean world of the second and third centuries. Instead, we have to make the considerable imaginative leap of entering into a world where religion was taken absolutely for granted and belief in the supernatural occasioned far less excitement than we might at first sight suppose. Mediterranean men shared their world with invisible beings, largely more powerful than themselves, to whom they had to relate. They did this with the same sense of unavoidable obligation as they experienced in wide areas of their relations with more visible neighbors.
Quote ID: 6269
Time Periods: 23
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 12
Section: 4B
In the period between 200 and 400, Mediterranean men came to accept, in increasing numbers and with increasing enthusiasm, the idea that this “divine power” did not only manifest itself directly to the average individual or through perennially established institutions: rather “divine power” was represented on earth by a limited number of exceptional human agents, who had been empowered to bring it to bear among their fellows by reason of a relationship with the supernatural that was personal to them, stable and clearly perceptible to fellow believers.
Quote ID: 6271
Time Periods: 34
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 13
Section: 4B
Let us, therefore, compare the two ages, between which the shift in the locus of the supernatural became increasingly apparent. In about 400, the direct descendants of men who, in the age of Antonines, had placed their hopes in times of illness on the invisible and timeless Asclepius, a kindly figure of their dream world, turned in increasing numbers to visible, mortal human beings to whom God had “transferred” the power of healing. {38}
Quote ID: 6272
Time Periods: 34
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 13/14
Section: 2E2,4B
A society prepared to vest fellow humans with such powers was ever vigilant. Men watched each other closely for those signs of intimacy with the supernatural that would validate their claim. Holiness itself might be quantifiable. Symeon Stylites, we are told, touched his toes 1,244 times in bowing before God from the top of his column. The true horror of this story lies not in the exertions of the saint, but in the layman who stood there counting. {40}Agents of the supernatural existed and could be seen to exist.
. . . Literary portraiture in the form of biography and autobiography flourished: the Acts of the Martyrs; Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, . . .Athanasius’ Life of Anthony; Augustine’s Confessions. . .
Quote ID: 6273
Time Periods: 23
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 16
Section: 4B
What gives Late Antiquity its special flavor is precisely the claims of human beings.
Quote ID: 6274
Time Periods: 34
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 28
Section: 4B
One singular merit, among so many, of Geffcken’s Ausgang des griechisch-rӧmischen Heidentums is that his profound epigraphic knowledge led him to assign a precise moment to the end of civic paganism. The inscriptions proclaiming public allegiance and whole-hearted private support to the cults of the traditional gods of the city, which had struck Geffcken as quite unexpectedly numerous in the late second and early third centuries, wither away within a generation after A.D. 260. The Tetrarchic age sees a brief, diminished, flare-up, and then the darkness descends forever on the gods. {8}Pastor John’s Note: Then, if a bishop stepped in to fill the civic void, the people would have seen in him a return to the ancient, stable norm.
Quote ID: 6286
Time Periods: 3
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 31
Section: 4B
“Philotimia: No word understood to its depths goes further to explain the Greco-Roman achievement.” {19} This was the driving force behind those more vague emotions--”patriotism,” “archaism,” “vanity”--that we ascribe to Antonine men. It had remained an explosive substance. On the one hand, it committed members of the upper class to a blatant competitiveness on all levels of social life.. . . .
On the other hand, the competitiveness of philotimia, still assumed and needed, as it had done for centuries, an audience of significant others who were potential competitors.
. . . .
In such a context, Galen’s rich man would move from stage to stage of his career, in each seeking out a peer group with whom he could meaningfully compare himself {21}
. . . .
The phenomena that distinguished the society of the Later Empire -- a sharpening of the division between the classes, the impoverishment of the town councillors and the accumulation of wealth and status into ever fewer hands -- were the most predictable developments in the social history of the Roman world. They were well under way by A.D. 200. {22}
Quote ID: 6287
Time Periods: 014
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 32
Section: 4B
“Yet there are others, Chians, Galatians or Bithynians, who are not content with whatever portion of either repute or power among their fellow-countrymen has fallen to their lot, but weep because they do not wear the patrician shoe.” {27} Indeed, of all the developments in the social history of the Roman Empire, the process by which local families from the larger cities of the Greek East in the fourth century were drained upwards and away to the senate and court of Constantinople, leaving behind them a rump of resentful and vociferously impoverished colleagues, is the most predictable. {28}
Quote ID: 6288
Time Periods: 4
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 33
Section: 4B
Faced by tensions that were clearly pulling the local community out of shape, urban elites all over the Empire appear to have strenuously mobilized the resources of their traditional culture, their traditional religious life, and for those who had good reason to afford it, their traditional standards of generosity in order to maintain some sense of communal solidarity.
Quote ID: 6289
Time Periods: 3
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 34
Section: 4B
At no time in the ancient world were the cultural and religious aspects of the public life of the towns mere trappings which the urban elites could or could not afford, and which, therefore, they found themselves forced to dispense with after A.D. 260. . . Cultural and social attitudes were intimately interwoven in the style of urban life.
Quote ID: 6291
Time Periods: 0123
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 34
Section: 3B,4B
. . .to move from the age of the Antonines to the age of Constantine is not to pass through some moment of catastrophic breakdown, of bankruptcy, depletion, pauperization, and the consequent “cutting back” of expenditure on religious and cultural activity but rather to pass from one dominant lifestyle, and its forms of expression, to another; to pass, in fact, from an age of equipoise to an age of ambition.
Quote ID: 6292
Time Periods: 234
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 35
Section: 4B
The age of the Antonines . . . Put at its most material, to lavish funds on the public cults was a way of insuring oneself against envy and competition. The benefactor gave over wealth to the gods who, as invisible and immortal, stood for all that could be shared by the community.
Quote ID: 6294
Time Periods: 2
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 36
Section: 4B
Later still, in the fifteenth century, the rise to outright dominance of the Medici in Florence was cannily masked by the erection of vast Catholic shrines.{36} Such precautions were taken for granted in the second century A.D.
Quote ID: 6295
Time Periods: 27
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 39
Section: 4B
Ideals of unaffected friendship relations and of power exercised without pomp and circumstance were valued in the age of the Antonines, and they continued to be cherished in many circles throughout Late Antiquity {51}
Quote ID: 6297
Time Periods: 27
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 45/46
Section: 4B
In the third century, the life of the upper classes of the Roman world did not collapse under pressure outside: it exploded.
Quote ID: 6298
Time Periods: 3
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 49/50
Section: 1A,4B
By assuming that paganism withered away, and that it was immediately replaced by Christianity, we ignore a large, and fascinating, tract of Late Roman religious life: paganism was transformed by being linked to a new ceremonial of power.
Quote ID: 6305
Time Periods: 245
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 55/56
Section: 2A3,2C,4B
The martyrs were not merely protesters against conventional religion, nor were they particularly noteworthy as men and women who faced execution with unusual courage: as the notables of Smyrna told a later bishop, they were too used to professional stars of violence – to gladiators and beast hunters – to be unduly impressed by those who made a performance out of making light of death. {8} Rather, the martyrs stood for a particular style of religious experience. “The primitive Christians,” wrote Gibbon, “perpetually trod on mystic ground.” {9} The Christians admired their martyrs because they had made themselves the “friends of God”; they summed up in their persons the aspirations of a group made separate from, and far superior to, their fellow men by reason of a special intimacy with the divine.The rise of the Christian church in the late second and third centuries is the rise of a body of men led by self-styled “friends of God,” who claimed to have found dominance over the “earthly” forces of their world through a special relation to heaven.
. . . .
Friendship with God raised the Christians above the identity they shared with their fellows. The nomen Christianum they flaunted was a “non-name.” It excluded the current names of kin and township and pointed deliberately to a widening hole in the network of social relations by which other inhabitants of the Roman towns were still content to establish their identity: “He resisted them with such determination that he would not even tell them his own name, his race, or the city he was from, whether he was a slave or a freedman. To all their questions he answered in Latin: ‘I am a Christian!’” {10}
Quote ID: 6310
Time Periods: 23
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 58/59
Section: 4B
A growing certainty that “friends of God” could exist and could be seen to exist in this world and that their friendship with God entitled them to considerable and permanent powers over their neighbors becomes ever more clear from the mid-third century onwards. At just this period, the equipoise of the Antonine age collapsed. At a time when the “model of parity” was sapped by the tendency of a few members of the local community to enjoy a privileged status at the expense of their fellows, religious leaders emerged, and were encouraged to emerge, in pagan and Christian circles alike, who were prepared to stand out from their fellows in a far more blatant eminence than previously.
Quote ID: 6313
Time Periods: 3
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 63
Section: 3B,4B
On one feature, all Late Antique men were agreed. Friendship with the invisible great had the same consequences as friendship with the great of this world: it meant far more than intimacy; it meant power.
Quote ID: 6318
Time Periods: 345
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 64/65
Section: 2C,4B
In a society that knew all about the immediate social effects of friendship and patronage, the emergence of men and women who claimed intimate relations with invisible patrons meant far more than the rise of a tender religiosity of personal experience, and more than the groping of lonely men for invisible companionship. It meant that yet another form of “power” was available for the inhabitants of a Mediterranean city.The problems that Late Antique men faced, therefore, were not whether such power existed, nor whether it rested solely in the Christian church. The power had to be focused and its apparently random distribution canalized trenchantly and convincingly onto a definite class of individuals and a definitive institution. Hence the importance of the rise of the Christian bishop in the third century, and of the Christian holy man in the fourth century.
In the second century, the boundaries between the human and the divine had remained exceptionally fluid. The religious language of the age is the language of an open frontier. . .
Quote ID: 6319
Time Periods: 234
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 73
Section: 4B
The Christian teachers offered a view of man and the world that cut many of the Gordian knots of social living in a manner that was all the more convincing for being safely symbolic.
Quote ID: 6328
Time Periods: 3
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 97
Section: 4B
Two generations only separate the outstanding career of Cyprian from the reign of Constantine and the anachoresis of Anthony and Pachomius. In this short time, a long “debate on the holy” was brought to a close. The outlines of the situation that characterized Late Antiquity had emerged. A special class of men had come to wield growing power in Roman society by reason of their exceptional relationship with the supernatural.
Quote ID: 6340
Time Periods: 34
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 97/98
Section: 4B
Yet the growing clarity that becomes so marked a feature of the late third and fourth centuries was gained at a heavy cost. A wide range of alternatives came to be closed. This closing of alternatives is only indirectly associated with the rise of Christianity and the decline of paganism. Instead, we sense that the koine of Mediterranean religious experience as a whole has shifted in an insensible tide that washed all its shores and has touched all its inhabitants. Pagans and Christians alike took up a new stance to another “style” of religious life, in which expectations of what human beings could achieve in relation to the supernatural had changed subtly and irreversibly from the age of the Antonines. The change cut off the Christian church quite as much from its own past as from its pagan contemporaries. A new form of Christian religiosity ratified the new position of Christian leaders in Roman society.
Quote ID: 6341
Time Periods: 234
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 7
Section: 4B,3B
Pagan slaves belonging to the prisoners were arrested and tortured in order to secure admissions from them that their masters had also indulged in incest and cannibalism – Thyestian feasts and Oedipean intercourse.{53} With a certain amount of prompting from the soldiers some made the desired statements.
Quote ID: 7651
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 15
Section: 3B,4B
There is no evidence that the Christians regarded their quarrel specifically with the authorities, let alone with the Roman Empire. Their witness was against the ‘world’ (which, of course, was represented for the time being by the pagan Roman Empire), but they saw their acts in eschatological and not political terms. The Devil was their enemy; {122} the Paraclete was their Advocate
Quote ID: 3179
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 18
Section: 2D3B,3B,4B
This is revealed in a curious incident. Time and again the Christians under torture have denied the charges of cannibalism and incest made against them. They claimed indignantly that their religion did not involve these or any other evil actions. The authorities tortured a slave girl named Biblis who had previously shown a willingness to recant. In a sudden burst of strength she cried out, ‘How could such men eat children, when they are not allowed to consume the blood even of irrational animals (Greek Word)?’{147} The statement sounds as though it had been made under the stress of the moment, and is interesting. It suggests that the Christians at Lyons were still observing the strict Apostolic rules concerning food (Acts 15:20 and 29), and as is well known, these were derived from orthodox Jewish practice.{148}Pastor John notes: Footnote on page 28
Quote ID: 3180
Time Periods: 23
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 104
Section: 1B,4B
Developments leading up to the establishment of the Imperial cult may be briefly told. The Roman Republic was famed for ‘religio’. Both foreign observers and citizens testify to the pride felt by the Roman governing classes for their devotion towards their ancestral religion. To Polybius, writing in Rome in circa 150 B.C., religious devotion was the one outstanding mark of superiority which Rome possessed over the Greeks of his day.
Quote ID: 3181
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 105
Section: 4B
Polybius was echoed a century later in a statement which Cicero put into the mouth of the Stoic, Balbus. ‘Moreover, if we care to compare our national characteristics with those of foreign peoples, we shall find that, while in all other respects we are only the equal or inferiors of others, yet in the sense of religion, that is, reverence for the gods we are far superior’ (De Natura Deorum, ii.3.8). Sallust (Jugurtha, I4.I9) and later, Horace (Odes iii.6.5) were to repeat the same sentiments. To Vergil (Aeneid vi.791-807), Augustus ruled because he honoured the gods.. . . .
The gods in their totality were the guardians of Rome. Failure to give them their proper due, embodied in rites handed down from time immemorial, could bring disaster to Rome and her achievement.
Quote ID: 3182
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 106
Section: 2C,4B
It is interesting that Cicero’s Balbus, despite his Stoicism, applauds the views of Cotta, a religious sceptic who was none the less Pontifex Maximus, in rejecting the arguments of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers for the existence of gods, as being subject to logical suspicion and therefore unacceptable as a basis of religious conduct. {8} Instead, the only basis Cotta can accept was that of tradition, the mos maiorum and that was to be accepted without question.{9}. . . .
‘If we reject devotion towards the gods, good faith and all associations of human life and the best of virtues, justice, may also disappear.’{11}
. . . .
Roman religion was therefore less a matter of personal devotion than of national cult.{13}
. . . .
A religio was licita for a particular group on the basis of tribe or nationality and traditional practices, coupled with the proviso that its rites were not offensive to the Roman people or their gods.
Quote ID: 3183
Time Periods: 01
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 115
Section: 3B,4B
The myth of Actium, as Syme has shown,{72} was religious as well as national. On the one side stood Rome and all the protecting gods of Italy, on the other, the bestial divinities of the Nile. If the Roman people were to be strong and confident in their future, honour must be done to the gods of Rome. Their dignified and reverent worship was the moral buttress of Rome’s continuing power. The qualities of virtus and pietas could not be dissociated. Thus there begins a period of self-assertiveness in Roman paganism, patriotic as well as religious. It was not that there was active proselytization on behalf of the Roman gods, but these became the symbols of Empire, of the culture and language of Rome.
Quote ID: 7663
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 127
Section: 4B
In the last century of the Republic the Greek cities had caused Rome considerable trouble. The legacy of the asylum given by the Seleucids to Hannibal was a long one, breeding prejudice and suspicion on both sides.. . . .
In return, Greeks in Asia kept up a subtle barrage of polemic against a power whose strength they feared but whose culture they despised.
Quote ID: 3186
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 128/129
Section: 4B
The great ‘atheists’ of the Hellenistic world were thinkers who would hardly have dreamt of robbing temples, yet unlike Socrates they were not heroes even among intellectuals. Diagoras of Melos, Protagoras of Abdera and Theodorus of Cyrene went down to history as men who ‘cut at the root of all the fear and reverence by which mankind is governed’. {10}. . . .
It was a matter for rejoicing that atheists were expelled from their cities and their works burnt in the marketplaces.
Quote ID: 3187
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 129/130
Section: 4B
Finally, wherever they settled, the Greeks tended to regard themselves as urban outposts against the barbarian world. {13} They did not generally assimilate the surrounding native populations to their culture. Town versus countryside is a recurring theme in the social history of the Ancient World, and not without cause. In Asia Minor, the Phrygians, Lycaonians and even the immigrant Celtic Galatians maintained for centuries their gods, traditions and languages, and resisted Hellenization. {14}. . . .
The Greek cities of Asia with their fine walls, public buildings, temples and agora stood as isolated in the barbarian countryside on which they depended for their food, as the cities of the early Industrial Revolution stood in the European landscape.
. . . .
Not, however, content with the status of privileged foreigners, the Jews claimed the same rights as the Greek citizens, while insisting on religious privileges which robbed citizenship of its meaning. ‘Why’, asked the outraged Apion at the end of the first century A.D. ‘do the Jews claims to be citizens of Alexandria when they will not worship the same gods as we?’ {24}
Quote ID: 3188
Time Periods: 01
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 131/132
Section: 4B
As against this, the Jews alone of the ancients possessed a religion, ethic and theory of history which could be found in a single book, the LXX, accessible to all. {31} They had a world view of events, based on the continual handing on of a tradition which extended back to the creation of the world. Anyone could see that the Hebrew prophets were real people who lived in remote but nevertheless historical times. {32} And, in an age when the claim of antiquity to be the equivalent of truth was strong, {33} the Jews could present to the world a monotheism and high religious ethic and history which their chronicles proved were far older than Homer (Contra Apionem, ii.I6)
Quote ID: 3189
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 132
Section: 4B
By the middle of the first century B.C. Judaism seems to have established a sort of religious and ethical superiority. Instead of succumbing to Christianity, Hellenism might have succumbed to this had it not been for the stumbling-block of the Law.. . . .
For the Jews were ubiquitous.
Quote ID: 3190
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 135/136
Section: 4B
An apostate Jew, named Antiochus, accused his fellow countrymen, including his own father who was Ethnarch, before the city authorities of conspiring to set Antioch on fire. In one night the whole town was to be consumed, and Antiochus produced some ‘conspirators’ in the persons of foreign Jews who happened to be in the city at the time. There was apparently just enough evidence to lend colour to his story. The mob immediately demanded that the prisoners should be burnt alive, and the authorities complied. The unhappy Jews, presumably innocent of the charge, were burnt in the amphitheatre. Then the mob set on other Jews, and Antiochus, after doing sacrifice himself, persuaded the city authorities to order a sacrifice test ‘because they would by that means discover who they were that plotted against them, since they would not do so; .... . . .
As if this was not enough, when there was a real fire in the agora shortly afterwards, people were only too ready to believe more of Antiochus’ accusations against the Jews.
….
Significant, however, is the differing attitude of the Greek and Roman authorities respectively. The Greeks seized on the incident to do what their fellows had tried to do in city after city in Asia Minor, namely to curtail the special privileges enjoyed by the Jews. Now super-loyalists themselves, they asserted that the Jews by their rebellion had forfeited their special status and therefore must sacrifice just as the Greeks were bound to do (Greek Words). ‘Sacrifice or die.’ The choice was soon to have a familiar ring in these same cities.
The Romans, despite the fact that they were engaged in a tremendous struggle with the Jews in Palestine, intervened not only to restore order, but to see that a modicum of justice was granted to the Jewish community.
Quote ID: 3192
Time Periods: 1
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 137
Section: 3B,4B
Nearly fifty years later, Pliny’s advisers in Bithynia urged the same course and for the same reasons, against the Christians. Supplication with incense to the Emperor’s statue and the recitation of prayer to the gods were ‘things (which so it was said) those who are really Christians cannot be made to do’.
Quote ID: 3193
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 139
Section: 4B
the Jews were described as ‘friend and allies’ (Greek Words), they were allowed to live according to their customs
Quote ID: 3196
Time Periods: 01
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 139
Section: 4B
Dolabella, the proconsul of Asia, resulted in an unequivocal statement of the privileges of the Jews which were regarded as traditional. {74} ‘I do therefore grant them’, the decree runs, ‘freedom from going into the army, as the former prefects have done, and permit them to use the customs of their forefathers, in assembling together for sacred and religious purposes, as their law requires and for collecting oblations necessary for sacrifices.
Quote ID: 3197
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 139/140
Section: 4B
In Augustus’ reign, a further crop of rescripts are recorded, protecting the Jews from various injustices and abuse to which their Greek neighbours in the cities of Asia and Cyrenaica were subjecting them. Robbery of Jewish sacred books and money was made punishable as sacrilege. {76}. . . .
In 4 B.C., it is recorded that no less than 8000 Jewish residents in Rome greeted the deputation of fifty Jews from Palestine who were coming to the capital with a petition demanding the deposition of Archelaus. {79}
. . . .
They were regarded as a separate nation with their own laws and cult, and so long as they did not violate the jurisdiction of the city’s gods there was no reason for the authorities to interfere. In return, the attitude of the Roman Jews was loyal, and a group who dedicated a synagogue in Augustus’ reign evidently felt no scruples about calling themselves ‘Augustesi’. {81} The Emperor in his turn demonstrated good-will towards the Jews by sending gifts to the Jerusalem Temple, and commanding that a burnt offering be made there daily for ever at his expense, in token of his respect to the supreme God of the Jews. {82} Little wonder that the deaths of both Julius Caesar and himself were bitterly lamented by the Roman Jews.
Quote ID: 3198
Time Periods: 01
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 139
Section: 4B
At about the same time, an embassy from Hyrcanus to Dolabella, the proconsul of Asia, resulted in an unequivocal statement of the privileges of the Jews which were regarded a traditional.{74} ‘I do therefore grant them’, the decree runs, ‘freedom from going into the army, as the former prefects have done, and permit them to use the customs of their forefathers, in assembling together for sacred and religious purposes, as their law requires and for collecting oblations necessary for sacrifices, and my will is that you write this to the several cities under your jurisdiction’. These rescripts provided a firm foundation for their privileged status in the Empire.
Quote ID: 9894
Time Periods: 0
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 143/144
Section: 4B
By 33 the fear of a national Jewish uprising under a king of the Jews had become a reality. This deep-seated anxiety was echoed by Philo in 39/40, when he pointed to the vast numbers and extent of the Jewish nation and put into the mouths of Petronius’ Council the impossibility of the military situation ‘if these vast hordes’ should rise against Rome. {97} The shift of Roman interest and sentiment away from the Jews was already taking place in the reign of Tiberius.. . . .
Caligula’s exaggeration of the Imperial cult in his own favour, and his hostility to the Jews for not respecting it, entailed a major shift in Roman policy in the Mediterranean, for these resembled the acts of a Seleucid king more than Roman tradition.
Quote ID: 3201
Time Periods: 1
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 237
Section: 4B
Events prove that this was the case. The outward marks of the fury of the Jewish war were removed as soon as possible. Circumcision was once more permitted to Jews, but if performed on non-Jews was regarded as castration and punishable by the same penalties. {8} Thus the situation pre-I30 was restored. Judaism was once more religio licita, but restricted to the narrowest national limits.
Quote ID: 3202
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 259
Section: 2C,4B
As the decade 150-160 wore on, Christians gradually concentrated on themselves the hatred of the Greek-speaking world previously reserved for the Jews.. . . .
The key to the deepening wave of hatred was the accusation of ‘atheism’,{154} – the old battle cry of Greek provincial against the Jew, and now turned against the Christians.
Quote ID: 7675
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 520/521
Section: 3C,4B
Persecution had failed as a policy. When one looks for the immediate causes of the Christian triumph one need only consult Lactantius. The pagan world had had enough, enough of bloodshed, enough of the butchers’ shop in service to the gods, enough of the deaths of men known (like Pamphilus) to be upright, learned and brave.{290} As the killing went on, so more turned to Christ. Persecution even quickened the pace of conversions.{291}
Quote ID: 7687
Time Periods: 4
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 560
Section: 2D3B,4B
Not only does Hilary abuse his sovereign as ‘Antichrist’, but denounces his rule as a direct continuation of the age of persecution. Constantius was the heir of Nero, Decius and Maximian,{141} and if that was not sufficient echo of current Donatist writing, there follows the claim that the Devil having failed to destroy Christians by force was turning to treachery instead.
Quote ID: 7695
Time Periods: 4
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 561
Section: 2D3B,4B
In the better defined situation of southern Gaul during the barbarian settlement, circa 439, Salvian’s denunciation of the Roman world was also based on the visible evidence of growing corruption and oppression.{150} He was aware how serfdom had developed under the pressure of crushing taxation and of patronage and he paints a grim picture of the extortions practised by the curiales and officials against the provincial population. ‘Yet what else is the life of all business men but fraud and perjury of the curials but injustice, of the petty officials but slander, of all soldiers but rapine?’{151} In such circumstances, the rule of the barbarian invaders was to be preferred to that of Rome.
Quote ID: 7696
Time Periods: 5
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 571
Section: 3A3B,4B
Victory came eventually from a combination of circumstances. The catastrophic events of the 250s and 260s seem to have shaken the faith of many in the saving power of the ‘immortal gods’. The city aristocracies, the traditional enemies of the Christians and indeed of all revolutionary sects, declined in wealth and power.. . . .
Their tradition of charitable works and brotherly self-help may have been decisive…
. . . .
The Church had become a great popular movement.
. . . .
The conversion of Constantine raised as many problems as it solved.
Quote ID: 7697
Time Periods: 34
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 284: Minor Latin Poets I
Several
Book ID: 137 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Publilius Syrus (line 100)We tolerate the usual vices but blame new ones.
PJ: fl. 85–43 BC. good motto fore 2nd century
Quote ID: 2986
Time Periods: 0
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 284: Minor Latin Poets I
Several
Book ID: 137 Page: 29
Section: 4B
Publilius Syrus (line 113)When vices pay, the doer of the right is at fault.
Quote ID: 2987
Time Periods: 0
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 484: Minor Latin Poets II
Minor Latin Poets
Book ID: 153 Page: 799
Section: 4B
Rutilius NamatianusA Voyage Home to Gaul Book I
Line 387-391 and 395-398
We pay the abuse due to the filthy race that infamously practises circumcision: a root of silliness they are: chill Sabbaths are after their own heart, yet their heart is chillier than their creed. Each seventh day is condemned to ignoble sloth,
. . .
And would that Judaea had never been subdued by Pompey’s wars and Titus’ military power.{d} The infection of this plague, though excised, still creeps abroad the more: and ‘tis their own conquerors that a conquered race keeps down.{e}
Quote ID: 3278
Time Periods: 5
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335/411/423/425/429/431
Section: 2D3A,4B
Pastor John’s note: Minicius Felix incidentally reveals elements of the true faith which still existed among believers of his time (early third century A.D.)
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers are the illiterate dregs of society. OctaviusVIII.4
Octavius’ answer: We do not take our place among the dregs of the people, because we reject your official titles and purples; we are not sectarian in spirit, if in quiet gatherings … we are of one mind for good. OctaviusXXXI.6
Octavius’ answer: If we Christians are compared with you, although in some cases our training falls short of yours, yet we shall be found on a much higher level than you. OctaviusXXXV.5
Octavius’ answer: Who can he be poor who is free from wants, who does not covet what is another’s, who is rich toward God? The poor man is he who, having much, craves for more. OctaviusXXXVI.4
Octavius’ answer: You may be deceived by the fact that men who know not God abound in riches, are loaded with honours and set in seats of authority. Unhappy they, who are raised to high place, that they may fall the lower! … We are all born equal; virtue alone gives distinction. OctaviusXXXVII.7
Quote ID: 7806
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335
Section: 4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers conspire against authority. OctaviusVIII.4
Quote ID: 7807
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335
Section: 2D3B,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers despise temples, the gods, sacred rites, titles, robes of honor. OctaviusVIII.4
Quote ID: 7814
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335/337
Section: 2D3B,4B
Is it not then deplorable that a gang—excuse my vehemence in using strong language for the cause I advocate—a gang, I say, of discredited and proscribed desperadoes band themselves against the gods? Fellows who gather together illiterates from the dregs of the populace and credulous women with the instability natural to their sex, and so organize a rabble of profane conspirators, leagued together by meetings at night and ritual fasts and unnatural repasts, not for any sacred service but for piacular rites, a secret tribe that shuns the light, silent in the open, but talkative in hid corners; they despise temples as if they were tombs; they spit upon the gods; they jeer at our sacred rites; pitiable themselves, they pity (save the mark) our priests; they despise titles and robes of honour, going themselves half-naked! What a pitch of folly! what wild impertinence! present tortures they despise, yet dread those of an uncertain future; death after death they fear, but death in the present they fear not: for them illusive hope charms away terror with assurances of a life to come.PJ Note: Original source is ?
Quote ID: 8087
Time Periods: 347
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337/413
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers have secret signs and marks. OctaviusIX.2Octavius’ answer: We do in fact readily recognize one another, but not as you suppose by some token on the body, but by the sign manual of innocence and modesty; our bond, which you resent, consists in mutual love. OctaviusXXXI.8
Quote ID: 7809
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337
Section: 4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers worship the head of an ass. OctaviusIX.3
Quote ID: 7811
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337
Section: 4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers revere the private parts of their leader. OctaviusIX.4
Quote ID: 7812
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337/338/407
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers encase an infant in dough and then trick a new member into slicing it, thinking it is a food dish. Believers lap up the blood of infants slain in their secret meetings, and then dismember and eat the infant’s dead body. After that cannibalistic banquet, believers extinguish the lights and indulge in the most despicable lusts. Octavius, IX.5–6.Octavius’ answer: None can believe such slander except those who are capable of it. You polytheists expose newborns, abort fetuses, sacrifice babies and adults, eat and drink of the animals from the arena who just killed and ate people, and your gods have eaten their own children. Octavius, XXIX.2–6.
Quote ID: 7813
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337
Section: 4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers fall in love almost before they are acquainted. OctaviusIX.2
Quote ID: 7815
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337
Section: 2D3B,4B
Root and branch it must be exterminated and accursed. They recognize one another by secret signs and marks; they fall in love almost before they are acquainted; everywhere they introduce a kind of religion of lust, a promiscuous ‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ by which ordinary fornication, under cover of a hallowed name, is converted to incest.
Quote ID: 8088
Time Periods: 347
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 339/409/411/413
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: The religion of believers is a religion of lust, and in calling each other brother or sister, they make their immorality incestuous. Octavius IX.2, 6–7Octavius’ answer: That is false, but it is true about you polytheists. Persian law allows unions with mothers. Egyptian law and Athenian law allow marriage to sisters. The gods that you polytheists worship have committed incest with mothers, daughters, and sisters. Octavius XXXI.3
Octavius’ answer: We call ourselves ‘brethren’ to which you object, as members of one family in God, as partners in one faith, as joint heirs in hope. Octavius XXXI.8
Quote ID: 7810
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 341
Section: 2D3B,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers have no temples, no altars. OctaviusX.2
Quote ID: 7816
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 341/421
Section: 2D3B,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: They threaten the whole world and the universe and its stars with destruction by fire Octavius, XI.1Octavius’ answer: Many, I am well aware, conscious of their deserts, hope rather than believe that annihilation follows death; they would rather be extinguished than restored for punishment. They are led astray by the impunity allowed them in life, and also by the infinite patience of God, whose judgments though slow are ever sure and just. Octavius, XXIV.12.
Quote ID: 7817
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 347/431
Section: 2D3B,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: You believers do not attend the shows; you take no part in the processions; avoid public banquets, abhor the sacred games, meats from then victims, drinks poured in libation on the altars. OctaviusXII.5Octavius’ answer: As regards our rejection of the sacrificial leavings and cups used for libations, it is not a confession of fear, but an assertion of true liberty.…. We abstain from participation, to show that we have no truck with the demons to whom libations are poured, and are not ashamed of our own religion. OctaviusXXXVIII.1
Quote ID: 7820
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 347/431/433
Section: 2D3B,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: You believers twine no blossoms for the head, grace the body with no perfumes; you reserve your ointments for funerals ….OctaviusXII.56Octavius’ answer: We delight in the flowers of spring…. We strew or wear them loose, we twine soft garlands for our necks. You must excuse us for not crowning our heads; our custom is to sniff sweet flower perfumes with our nose, not to inhale them with the scalp or the back hair…. Our funeral rites we order with the same quietness as our lives; we twine no fasting crown, but expect from God the crown that blossoms with eternal flowers. OctaviusXXVIII.2.
Quote ID: 7821
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 401
Section: 4B
We too were once in the same case as you, blindly and stupidly sharing your ideas, and supposing that the Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants, and joined in incestuous feasts; we did not understand that the demons were for ever setting fables afloat without either investigation or proof; and that all the while no one came forward with evidence, though he would have gained not only pardon for wrong done but also reward for his disclosure; and that, so far from any wrong-doing of any kind, accused Christians neither blushed nor feared, but regretted one thing only, that they had not been Christians before.
Quote ID: 8101
Time Periods: 23
Mithras: Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries, The
Manfred Clauss
Book ID: 389 Page: 9
Section: 4B
In Greek popular tradition, a god differed from a human in being immortal, and endowed with superhuman powers, which bestowed that immortality: human beings were in fact mortal gods, a god an immortal human. The cleft between god and human was not unbridgeable, and could indeed be bridged by every mortal.
Quote ID: 8340
Time Periods: 0
Mohammed and Charlemagne
Henry Pirenne
Book ID: 373 Page: 28
Section: 1A,4B
In 417 Rutilius Namatianus was still boasting of the eternal nature of Rome.{1}
Quote ID: 8215
Time Periods: 15
Mohammed and Charlemagne
Henry Pirenne
Book ID: 373 Page: 45
Section: 4B
In short, “Romania,” though somewhat diminished in the North, still survived as a whole.{1} It had, of course, altered greatly for the worse. In every domain of life, in the arts, literature and science, the regression is manifest.….
There was nothing to take its place, and no one protested against it. Neither the Church nor the laity conceived that there could be any other form of civilization. In the midst of the prevailing decadence only one moral force held its own: the Church, and for the Church the Empire still existed.
Quote ID: 8220
Time Periods: 56
Monumental Christianity, Or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church
John P. Lundy
Book ID: 155 Page: 50
Section: 4B
It is the received opinion that the early Christians were persecuted by the Roman authorities out of mere hatred to their Religion, and that the secret assemblies were held to avoid persecution as much as possible. This opinion demands a rigid scrutiny. Political justice was one of the few Romans virtues still lingering at the rise of Christianity.PJ: Clubs
Quote ID: 3298
Time Periods: 123
Monumental Christianity, Or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church
John P. Lundy
Book ID: 155 Page: 52
Section: 3B,4B
Two distinguished writers on Civil Law, in modern times, have advanced the more plausible theory that the general cause of the Roman persecutions of Christianity was the infraction of the law against secret assemblies.PJ: Clubs.
Quote ID: 3302
Time Periods: 23
Monumental Christianity, Or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church
John P. Lundy
Book ID: 155 Page: 54
Section: 2A3,4B
Besides this, there was another Roman law of the twelve tables which forbade the burial or the burning of a corpse in the city, perhaps on the score of health or uncleanness.{2} The ancient Roman practice was to bury the dead; the custom of burning was established in the time of Scylla.
Quote ID: 3304
Time Periods: 0
Mysteries of Mithras: The History and Legacy of Ancient Rome’s most Mysterious Religious Cult, The
Charles River Editors
Book ID: 385 Page: 19
Section: 4B
This is perfectly seen in the way in which many Romans fell deeply and passionately in love with the Hellenic culture even as they wrested control of the ancient world from the Greeks. Some Romans fully embraced the Greek pantheon and theology, as well as certain Greek customs, and in addition to this, the finest Roman households hired Greek tutors for their sons to teach them the sciences and philosophy. The well-known book on stoic philosophy written by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was based primarily upon the Hellenic philosophy of stoicism which Marcus Aurelius so readily embraced and practiced.
Quote ID: 8332
Time Periods: 01
Mysteries of Mithras: The History and Legacy of Ancient Rome’s most Mysterious Religious Cult, The
Charles River Editors
Book ID: 385 Page: 43
Section: 4B
While there had been female initiates and practitioners in the Persian Empire and in other Eastern countries, this was not the case in the Roman Empire. The cult of Mithras was a military religion, and in the Roman Empire only men served within the ranks of the legions.
Quote ID: 8333
Time Periods: 234
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 7
S.R. Llewelyn
Book ID: 525 Page: 70
Section: 4B
Marcus Petronius Mamertinus, prefect of Egypt, says: I have discovered that many of the soldiers traveling without a diploma through the chora requisition boats, animals and people contrary to what is proper…….
whence it happens that private persons suffer outrages and insults and the army on account of its greed and wrong-doing acquires a bad name.
….
…I will exact vigorous punishment if anyone is caught taking or giving after this order.
Quote ID: 9142
Time Periods: 2
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 7
S.R. Llewelyn
Book ID: 525 Page: 94
Section: 4B
The Roman innovation and extension of the liturgical system to include official posts was a particularly harsh development. Not only were many of the liturgical posts unremunerated{9} but their holders were personally liable for any loss to the fiscus. In time the burden became so great that nominated individuals turned to flight rather than bear the cost of the liturgy.
Quote ID: 9143
Time Periods: 1234
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 7
S.R. Llewelyn
Book ID: 525 Page: 94
Section: 4B
…the types of compulsory service, namely, the magistracies, liturgical posts and conscripted labour….
Quote ID: 9144
Time Periods: 1234
Nova Historia [New History]
Zosimus Historicus
Book ID: 376 Page: 256
Section: 4B
Alaric had made these extremely temperate propositions, his moderation being universally admired, Jovius, and the other ministers of the emperor, declared that his demands could not possibly be acceded to, since all persons, who held any l172 commission, had sworn not to make peace with Alaric. For if their oath had been made to the deity, they might indeed probably have dispensed with it, and have relied on the divine goodness for pardon; but since they had sworn by the head of the emperor, it was by no means lawful for them to infringe so great a vow.
Quote ID: 8245
Time Periods: 5
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 99
Section: 4B
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.Early in the third century...Christianity was not illegal, and was tending to become fashionable.
Quote ID: 6420
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 137
Section: 3A1,4B
Lecture V: Clergy and Laity.Civil order was conceived to be almost as divine as physical order is conceived to be in our own day. In the State, the head of the State seemed as such by virtue of his elevation to have some of the attributes of a divinity: and in the Church the same Apostolical Constitutions which give as the reason why a layman may not celebrate the Eucharist that he has not the necessary dignity (Greek word here), call the officer who has that dignity a ‘god upon earth{58}.’ When in the decay of the Empire, the ecclesiastical organization was left as the only stable institution, it was almost inevitable that those who preserved the tradition of imperial rule should, by the mere fact of their status, seem to stand upon a platform which was inaccessible to ordinary men.
Quote ID: 6427
Time Periods: 67
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 146/147
Section: 3A1,4B
Lecture VI: The Clergy as a Separate Class.At first the rule that all causes in which officers of the Churches were concerned should be decided by the Churches themselves was permissive{16}. But at last it became compulsory{17}.
. . . .
...and so began that long struggle between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Church officers, which forms so important an element in mediaeval history, and which has not altogether ceased in our own times{19}.
The joint effect of these exemptions from public burdens, and from ordinary courts, was the creation of a class civilly distinct from the rest of the community. This is the first element in the change which we are investigating : the clergy came to have a distinct civil status.
Quote ID: 6430
Time Periods: 47
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 149/151
Section: 3C,3A3,4B
Lecture VI: The Clergy as a Separate Class.Into this primitive state of things the State introduced a change.
I. It allowed the Churches to hold property{25}. And hardly had the holding of property become possible before the Church became a kind of universal legatee. The merit of bequeathing property to the Church was preached with so much success that restraining enactments became necessary. Just as the State did not abolish, though it found it necessary to limit, its concession of exemption to Church officers, so it pursued the policy of limiting rather than of abolishing the right to acquire property{26}. ‘I do not complain of the law,’ says Jerome, writing on this point, ‘but of the causes which have rendered the law necessary{27}.’
2. The enthusiasm, or the policy, of Constantine went considerably beyond this. He ordered that not only the clergy but also the widows and orphans who were on the Church-roll should receive fixed annual allowances{28} : he endowed some Churches with fixed revenues chargeable upon the lands of the municipalities{29} : in some cases, he gave to churches the rich revenues or the splendid buildings of heathen temples{30}.
This is the second element in the change : the clergy became not only independent, but in some cases wealthy. In an age of social decay and struggling poverty they had not only enough but to spare.
. . . .
The effect of the recognition of Christianity by the State was thus not only to create a class civilly distinct from the rest of the community, but also to give that class social independence. In other words, the Christian clergy, in addition to their original prestige as office-bearers, had the privileges of a favoured class, and the power of a moneyed class.
Quote ID: 6431
Time Periods: 45
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 208
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
Lecture VIIIAnd here the examination which I proposed at starting comes to an end.
The main propositions in which the results of that examination may be summed up are two-
(1) That the development of the organization of the Christian Churches was gradual:
(2) That the elements of which that organization were composed were already existing in human society.
These propositions are not new: they are so old as to have been, in greater or less degree, accepted by all ecclesiastical historians.
. . . .
But in dealing with them I have arrived at and set forth the view, in regard to the first of them, that the development was slower than has sometimes been supposed, and, in regard to the second, that not only some but all the elements of the organization can be traced to external sources. The difference between this view and the common view is one of degree and not of kind.
Quote ID: 6453
Time Periods: 4567
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 9
Section: 2D3B,4B
5. In giving an account of the attitude to idolatry as characteristic of Christians he even supports that view, saying: Because of this they would not regard as gods those that are made with hands, since it is irrational that things should be gods which are made by craftsmen of the lowest kind who are morally wicked. For often they have been made by bad men. Later, when he wants to make out that the idea is commonplace and that it was not discovered first by Christianity, he quotes the saying of Heraclitus which says: ‘Those who approach lifeless things as gods act like a man who holds conversation with houses.’ I would reply in this instance also, as in that of the other ethical principles, that moral ideas have been implanted in men, and that it was from these that Heraclitus and any other Greek or barbarian conceived the notion of maintaining this doctrine. He also quotes the Persians as holding this view, adducing Herodotus as authority for this. We will also add that Zeno of Citium says in his Republic: ‘There will be no need to build temples; for nothing ought to be thought sacred, or of great value, and holy, which is the work of builders and artisans.’ Obviously therefore, in respect of this doctrine also, the knowledge of what is right conduct was written by God in the hearts of men.
Quote ID: 3433
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 9
Section: 2D3B,4B
6. After this, impelled by some unknown power, Celsus says: Christians get the power which they seem to possess by pronouncing the names of certain daemons and incantations, hinting I suppose at those who subdue daemons by enchantments and drive them out. But he seems blatantly to misrepresent the gospel. For they do not get the power which they seem to possess by any incantations but by the name of Jesus with the recital of the histories about him. For when these are pronounced they have often made daemons to be driven out of men, and especially when those who utter them speak with real sincerity and genuine belief.
Quote ID: 3434
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 195
Section: 4B
But no sick or mad man is God’s friend,
Quote ID: 3439
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 198
Section: 4B
He thinks, however, that Moses who wrote about the tower and the confusion of languages corrupted the story about the sons of Aloeus when he composed the narrative about the tower. I reply that no one before Homer, I think, tells the story of the sons of Aloeus; whereas I am convinced that the story about the tower recorded by Moses is much earlier than Homer, and even than the invention of the Greek alphabet.
Quote ID: 3440
Time Periods: 023
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 206
Section: 4B
After this, from a desire to argue that Jews and Christians are no better than the animals which he mentioned above, he says: The Jews were runaway slaves who escaped from Egypt; they never did anything important, nor have they ever been of any significance or prominence whatever.....
nothing about their history is to be found among the Greeks
Quote ID: 3442
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 213
Section: 4B
Then, as it was his purpose to attack the Bible, he also ridicules the words’ God brought a trance upon Adam and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place; and He made the rib which He took from Adam into a woman, and so on. But he does not quote the passage which one has only to hear to understand that it is to be interpreted allegorically. In fact, he wanted to pretend that such stories are not allegories, although in what follows he says that the more reasonable Jews and Christians are ashamed of these things and try somehow to allegorize them.
Quote ID: 3444
Time Periods: 023
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 217
Section: 4B
He next speaks as follows: Then they tell of a flood and a prodigious ark holding everything inside it, and that a dove and a crow were messengers. This a debased and unscrupulous version of the story of Deucalion, I suppose they did not expect that this would come to light, but simply recounted the myth to small children. Here also see the unphilosophical hatred of the man towards the very ancient scripture of the Jews.
Quote ID: 3445
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 397
Section: 2D3B,4B
Its character must be like that of the race of daemons which many Christians drive out of people who suffer from them, without any curious magical art or sorcerer’s device, but with prayer alone and very simple adjurations and formulas such as the simplest person could use. For generally speaking it is uneducated people who do this kind of work.
Quote ID: 3456
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 398
Section: 2E6,4B
5. Moreover, not only Christians and Jews, but also many other Greeks and barbarians have believed that the human soul lives and exists after separation from the body, and show this by the doctrine that the pure soul, which is not weighed down by the leaden weights of evil, is carried on high to the regions of the purer and ethereal bodies, forsaking the gross bodies on earth and the pollutions attaching to them; whereas the bad soul, that is dragged down to earth by its sins and has not even the power to make a recovery, is carried here and roams about, in some cases at tombs where also apparitions of shadowy souls have been seen, in other cases simply round about the earth. What sort of spirits must we think them to be which for whole ages, so to speak, are bound to buildings and places, whether by some magical incantations or even because of their own wickedness? Reason demands that we should think such spirits to be wicked, for they use their power to know the future, which is morally neither good nor bad, to deceive men and to distract them from God and pure piety towards Him. That this is the character of the daemons is also made clear by the fact that their bodies, nourished by the smoke from sacrifices and by the portions taken from the blood and burnt-offerings in which they delight, find in this, as it were, their heart’s desire, like vicious men who do not welcome the prospect of living a pure life without their bodies, but only enjoy life in the earthly body because of its physical pleasures.
Quote ID: 3457
Time Periods: 23
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 493
Section: 3A2A,4B
After this Celsus says: Reason demands one of two alternatives. If they refuse to worship in the proper way the lords in charge of the following activities, then they ought neither to come to marriageable age, nor to marry a wife, nor to beget children, nor to do anything else in life. But they should depart from this world leaving no descendants at all behind them, so that such a race would entirely cease to exist on earth. But if they are going to marry wives, and beget children, and taste of the fruits, and partake of the joys of this life, and endure the appointed evils (by nature’s law all men must have experience of evils; evil is necessary and has nowhere else to exist), then they ought to render the due honours to the beings who have been entrusted with these things. And they ought to offer the due rites of worship in this life until they are set free from their bonds, lest they even appear ungrateful to them. It is wrong for people who partake of what is their property to offer them nothing in return.
Quote ID: 3462
Time Periods: 2
Origen: Contra Celsum
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 164 Page: 496
Section: 4B
58. After this Celsus says: That in these matters, even including the very least, there is a being to whom authority has been given, one may learn from the teaching of the Egyptians. They say that the body of man has been put under the charge of thirty-six daemons, or ethereal gods of some sort, who divide it between them, that being the number of parts into which it is divided (though some say far more). Each daemon is in charge of a different part. And they know the names of the daemons in the local dialect, such as Chnoumen, Chnachoumen, Knat, Sikat, Biou, Erou, Erebiou, Rhamanoor, and Rheianoor, and all the other names which they use in their language. And by invoking these they heal the sufferings of the various parts. What is there to prevent anyone from paying honour both to these and to the others if he wishes, so that we can be in good health rather than be ill, and have good rather than bad luck, and be delivered from tortures and punishment?
Quote ID: 3463
Time Periods: 2
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 3
Section: 1A,4B
Western civilization is derived from Western Europe which was Latin Christendom, and this begins in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. with the amalgamation and the fusion of the classical culture of the declining Roman Empire, the Germanic customs, habits and attitudes of the invading ‘barbarian’ races, and Christianity, subsequently Latin Christianity. These are literally the elements, . . .
Quote ID: 6456
Time Periods: 56
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 18
Section: 4B
Yet it must also be added, again by anticipation, that the ideal of unity imposed and achieved by Rome took a millennium to wear off even in the West, and was given a perhaps inadequate expression by the ‘Roman Empire’ of Charlemagne and Otto the Great, and a much more adequate expression by the Papacy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, claiming supreme political as well as spiritual authority. It is in this latter sense that, in the words of R.W. Southern, ’It is not absurd to say that the Roman Empire achieved its fullest development in the thirteenth century’, and the same writer points out the Hobbes’ gibe in the seventeenth century about the Papacy being the ghost of the Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof ‘has greater truth than he realized’.{1}
Quote ID: 6463
Time Periods: 017
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 53
Section: 4B
The pattern of the future thus comes more sharply into focus, and what had once been the single world of imperial Rome is now formally two, with Islam a third world de facto.
Quote ID: 6484
Time Periods: 7
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 55
Section: 4B
. . . the medieval Church had a near monopoly of literacy. . .
Quote ID: 6486
Time Periods: 7
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 63
Section: 2C,4B
We know, but they did not, that the last visit of a Roman Emperor to Rome took place in 663, and that the last Pope to visit Constantinople was Constantine I in 710. For centuries the Popes (who began to appropriate the title papa, pope, once applicable to any bishop, . . .
Quote ID: 6490
Time Periods: 7
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 7/8
Section: 4B
For a moment in Book 2 it appears that he may subscribe to the cyclical theory of history and that Rome will, in her turn, succumb to the passing of time. {133} But it is only a moment. We are also told that God has ordained the Roman Empire for the end of this epoch and so it seems clear that for Orosius the empire will only end when time itself comes to an end at the end of days. {134} Orosius’s self-characterisation as a ‘Christian and a Roman’ is correct; his work is not merely Christian polemic, it is patriotic Christian polemic.
Quote ID: 3469
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 11
Section: 4B
Orosius writes well and uses the full repertoire of the rhetorical techniques available to late antique writers. Recusatio is deployed on occasions, {68}and Orosius has a particular love of contrast, chiasmus, and verbal puns. He has had a good classical education and the deployment of his learning shows that he is writing for those of a similar background. To understand the Histories, it is important to bear in mind that Orosius’s career had been that of an ecclesiastical polemicist. His work is not a mere list or chronicle, but a work of polemical history with a specific target-- the pagan intellectuals of the day and their argument that Christianity had ruined Rome {69} --and it is designed to face down his opponents in the most effective way possible.
Quote ID: 3470
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 17
Section: 4B
Orosius’s interpretation of history is more subtle than this. His strategy is to persuade his reader that Rome’s history is from the beginning a Christian history and so it is paganism, not Christianity, that is alien and damaging to Rome......
Orosius’s Romanisation of the Christian faith is also a clever counter-attack against his opponents who wished, particularly after the sack of Rome, to portray Christianity as alien to Rome. Roman history for Orosius is both universal history and Christian history; the three are inseparable from one another: as he says at the beginning of Book 5, everywhere he goes, he will ‘encounter my country, religion, and laws.’{100}
.....
He is happy to style himself as a ‘Roman and Christian’ {102} and to refer to Rome as ‘our country’. {103} In short, he agrees with his contemporary Rutilius Namatianus that Rome had ‘made a single fatherland from far-flung nations’. {104}
Quote ID: 3472
Time Periods: 5
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 208
Section: 1B,4B
The enormous difference between past and present can be seen in the fact that what Rome once extorted from us at sword-point to satisfy her own extravagance, now she contributes with us for the good of the state we share.. . . .
If at that time someone, overcome by the burden of his sufferings, abandoned his country along with its enemies, to what strange land could he, a stranger, go? What people, who, in the main, were his enemies, could he, an enemy, ask for pity? Whom could he, a man who had not been invited in as an ally, nor attracted by a commonality of laws, nor feeling secure in religion’s communion, trust on first meeting them?
Quote ID: 3476
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 209/210
Section: 1B,4B
However, when I flee at the first sign of any sort of trouble, I do this secure in the knowledge that I have a place to which I can flee, for I encounter my country, religion, and laws everywhere......
Because I come as a Roman and Christian to Christians and Romans, I find my laws and nation in the broad sweep of the east, in the north’s expanses, in the southern reaches, and in the safe refuges of the great islands. {16} I do not fear my host’s gods, I do not fear that his religion will bring my death, I have no land to dread where the resident is allowed to do what he will and the rover not allowed to ask for what he needs: a place where my host’s law is not my own. The One God, who is loved and feared by all, has ordained in these times when He wished to be acknowledged, this united kingdom. Everywhere the same laws, subject to the One God, hold sway. Wherever I should a arrive as a stranger, I have no fear of being suddenly attacked like a friendless man. For, as I have said, as a Roman among Romans, as a Christian among Christians, and as a man among men, I can call on the state’s laws, a common knowledge of religion, and our common nature. For the short time that I am here.
Quote ID: 3477
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 261
Section: 2B,4B
For their philosophers, to pass over our saints, when inquiring into and observing everything with all their mental energy, have found that One God is the Author of all and that all things ought to be traced back to This One. So now even the pagans, whom the manifest truth now convicts of insolence rather than ignorance, when they debate with us, say that they do not follow many gods, but rather venerate many agents who are ruled by one great god {2}. There remains a confused discrepancy about the apprehension of the True God because of the many theories about how to apprehend Him, nevertheless one opinion is held by almost everyone--namely that there is One God. This is the point, albeit with difficulty, to which man’s investigations have been able to bring him. {3}Pastor John’s note: early 400’s
Quote ID: 3478
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 262
Section: 3A1,4B
After this empire had prospered for a long time under its kings and consuls and come into possession of Asia, Africa, and Europe, by His ordinances He gathered everything into the hands of one emperor who was both the bravest and most merciful of men. Under this emperor whom almost every people justly honoured with a mixture of fear and love, the True God Who was worshipped through unsettling superstitions by those in ignorance, revealed the great fountain of coming to know Him.{7}
Quote ID: 3479
Time Periods: 45
Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans
A. T. Fear
Book ID: 165 Page: 316
Section: 3A3A,4B
So in the same year when Caesar, whom God in His deep mysteries had marked out for this task, ordered that the first census be taken in each and every province and that every man be recorded, God deemed it right to be seen as, and become a man. {352} Christ was therefore born at this time and His birth was immediately recorded on the Roman census. This census in which He Who made all men wished to be listed as a man and numbered among men was the first and clearest statement which marked out Caesar as the lord of all the Romans as masters of the world, {353} both individually and as a people. Never since the beginning of the world or the human race had anyone been granted to do this, not even Babylon or Macedon, not to mention any of the lesser kingdoms. {354} Nor can there be any doubt since it is clear to all from thought, faith, and observations that Our Lord Jesus Christ brought to the apogee of power this city which had grown and been defended by His will, vehemently wishing to belong to it when He came and to be called a Roman citizen by decree of the Roman census. {355}
Quote ID: 3480
Time Periods: 12
Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, The
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Book ID: 258 Page: 16
Section: 3A2,3A4C,4B
The standard position, which became associated with Augustine and was refined in later centuries, was that the moral rectitude of an act could not be judged simply by examining the physical event in isolation: violence was validated to a greater or lesser degree by the state of mind of those responsible, the ends sought, and the competence of the individual or body which authorized the act.
Quote ID: 6504
Time Periods: 57
Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, The
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Book ID: 258 Page: 16
Section: 3A4C,4B
Thus allowed considerable ideological flexibility, the Church was able to take an active interest in warfare on a number of fronts, including those areas where Latin Christendom came into direct contact with the Muslim world. The second half of the eleventh century was a period of Latin expansion.
Quote ID: 6505
Time Periods: 57
Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, The
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Book ID: 258 Page: 18
Section: 3H,4B
What, then, was it about late eleventh-century Europe which made the First Crusade possible? One basic feature was the thorough militarization of society, a characteristic rooted in long centuries of development.
Quote ID: 6508
Time Periods: 7
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 37
Section: 4B
For the present chapter I shall take as my text that passage in the Symposium where Plato defines the daemonic. ‘Everything that is daemonic’, says Diotima to Socrates, ‘is intermediate between God and mortal. Interpreting and conveying the wishes of men to gods and the will of gods to men, it stands between the two and fills the gap. . . God has no contact with man; only through the daemonic is there intercourse and conversation between men and gods, whether in the waking state or during sleep. And the man who is expert in such intercourse is a daemonic man, compared with whom the experts in the arts or handicrafts are but journeymen.’ {1} This precise definition of the vague terms ‘daemon’ and ‘daemonios’ was something of a novelty in Plato’s day, but the in second century after Christ it was the expression of a truism. Virtually every one, pagan, Jewish, Christian or Gnostic , believed in the existence of these beings and in their function as mediators, whether he called the daemons or angels or aions of simply ‘spirits’ Greek word: pnuemata. In the eyes of many pious pagans even the gods of Greek mythology were by this time no more than mediating daemon, satraps of an invisible supramundane King. {1} And the ‘daemonic man’, who knew how to establish contact with them, was correspondingly esteemed.
Quote ID: 3503
Time Periods: 02
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 74
Section: 4B
In popular Greek tradition a god differed from a man chiefly in being exempt from death and in the supernatural power which this exemption conferred on him. Hence the favourite saying that ‘Man is a mortal god, and a god an immortal man’; hence also the possibility of mistaking a man for a god if he appears to display supernatural powers, as is said to have happened to Paul and Barnabas to Lystra and on several occasions to Apollonius of Tyana. {1}
Quote ID: 3507
Time Periods: 01
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 107
Section: 4B
On the pagan side there are signs at this time of a desire to absorb Christ into the Establishment, as so many earlier gods had been absorbed, or at any rate to state the terms on which peaceful coexistence could be considered. It may well have been with some such purpose in mind that Julia Mamaea, the Empress Mother, invited Origen to her court; we are told that her son, the Emperor Alexander Severus, kept in his private chapel statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Christ and Apollonius of Tyana, four mighty phophetai to all of whom he paid the same reverence. {1}
Quote ID: 3511
Time Periods: 3
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 107/108
Section: 4B
To the same period probably belong the two oracles of Hecate quoted by Porphyry in his early work On the Philosophy of Oracles. In answer to the question whether Christ were a god, Hecate replied in substance, that Christ was a man of outstanding piety but that in mistaking him for a god his followers had fallen into grave error. From which Porphyry concluded that ‘we should not speak ill of Christ but should pity the folly of mankind’. {1}
Quote ID: 3512
Time Periods: 34
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 110
Section: 4B
All our authorities, from Tacitus to Origen, testify to the bitter feelings of hostility which Christianity aroused in the pagan masses. The Christians, say Tacitus, were ‘hated for their vices’; they were considered enemies of the human race: that was why the story of their responsibility for the Great Fire was so readily accepted. {1} ‘The people of Christ’, says Origen with a touch of pride, ‘are hated by all nations, even by those who dwell in the remotest parts of the world.’ {2} At Lyons in 177 the entire Christian community would have been dragged from their houses and beaten to death by the mob if the authorities had not intervened and substituted legal torture for lynching. It seems likely that many of the local persecutions in the second century were forced on reluctant Provincial Governors by popular feeling.
Quote ID: 3514
Time Periods: 123
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 111
Section: 4B
it seems that their first appearance in pagan records was as a dissident Jewish sect who at the instigation of one ‘Chrestos’ had engaged in faction-fights with their fellow Jews in the streets of Rome. {1} Like the Jews, they appeared to be ‘godless’ people who paid no proper respect to images and temples. But whereas the Jews were an ancient nation, and as such legally entitled to follow their ancestral custom in matters of religion, the Christians as an upstart set of mixed nationality could claim no such privilege.
Quote ID: 3515
Time Periods: 1
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 133
Section: 4B
The religious tolerance which was the normal Greek and Roman practice had resulted by accumulation in a bewildering mass of alternatives. They were too many cults, too many mysteries, too many philosophies of life to choose from: you could pile one religious insurance on another, you not feel safe. {2} Christianity made a clean sweep.
Quote ID: 3518
Time Periods: 234
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 117
Section: 1A,4B
For these reasons, the Christians saw Constantine’s rise to Emperor as an act of God. Here was God’s instrument that had come to their rescue. Christianity and Roman culture were now melded together. {144}The Christian building demonstrates that the church, whether she wanted it or not, had entered into a close alliance with pagan culture. {145}
Quote ID: 3570
Time Periods: 14
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 253
Section: 1A,4B
Martin Luther had it right when he said, “What else are the universities than places for training youth in Greek glory.” {38}
Quote ID: 3599
Time Periods: 7
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Ulpianus, On the Duty of Proconsuls, Bk. VIII.: “(1) Persons of low rank who designedly cause a fire in a town shall be thrown to wild beasts and those of superior station shall suffer death, or else be banished to some island.” E.T.: S.P. Scott, Corpus Juris Civilis. The Civil Law, vol. 5 (1932; reprint ed. New York: AMS Press, 1973).
Quote ID: 3633
Time Periods: 23
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 29
Section: 4B
Footnoe 62 Plutarch (A.D. 50-120) eloquently expressed how an intellectual of the early second century viewed superstition in his essay De superstitione (Loeb, Moralia, 2:452-95): Plutarch thought that superstition was worse than atheism because it produces fear, for the superstitious man believes there are gods “but that they are the cause of pain and injury.”
Quote ID: 3634
Time Periods: 2
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 58
Section: 4B
Caecilius treats all the beliefs and the practices that he imputes to the Christians as matters for them to decide freely for themselves, however foolish and depraved they may be. The almost unbelievable religious tolerance of the Romans is well demonstrated here.
Quote ID: 3656
Time Periods: 1
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 58
Section: 4B
The real objection against Christianity for the pagans was not that the Christians were montheists, or that they worshipped the head of the ass, or that they refused to use perfumes, but that they made doctrinal statements concerning divine matters.
Quote ID: 3657
Time Periods: 23
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 59
Section: 4B
The Romans believed that when Christians claimed exclusive possession of divine knowledge, they were capable of anything. This attitude encouraged the Romans to give credence to the most outrageous rumors about Christians.
Quote ID: 3658
Time Periods: 23
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 61
Section: 2A3,4B
The Senate prohibited human sacrifices in 97 B.C. {16}, and Emperor Hadrian later renewed this law for the whole empire, {17} yet references to such sacrifices are found still later.
Quote ID: 3659
Time Periods: 02
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 155
Section: 4B
(Celsus) He was appalled by the Christians’ lack of unity; the multitude of quarrelsome sects, which slandered each other, refused to make concessions to one another, and more often than not detested each other. {62} Together with the Jews, they were like “a cluster of bats or ants coming out of a nest, as frogs holding council around a marsh or worms assembling in some filthy corner, disagreeing with one another about which of them are the worse sinners.” {63}
Quote ID: 3672
Time Periods: 2
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 3
Section: 4A,4B
pagans thinking only of other pagans affirm exactly similar views. “Such is the chief fruit of piety,” says Porphyry, “to honor the divinity according to one’s ancestral custom.” {12}
Porphyry indicates one reason anyway for saying what he does: the impious man wrongs his own forebears as well as the deity. {13}
Quote ID: 3693
Time Periods: 34
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 8
Section: 4B
What is likely first to attract notice are the blunt words of contempt and disapproval with which the lettered aristocracy, in talking about religious views, belabor the simple, unthinking, ordinary folk, the unlearned. {33} It is a pagan, but it could almost equally well be a Christian, who deplores any sort of theological speculation by the “crude untaught raw yokels, to whom it is not even granted to understand citizen affairs, let alone to discuss the divine,” {34}Pastor John’s Notes: Same reasoning of Xns later
Quote ID: 3699
Time Periods: 237
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 17/18
Section: 4B
Menander indicates elsewhere the freedom he would allow to speeches of praise – here, however, praising men, not gods: “You should invent dreams and pretend to have heard certain voices and wish to proclaim them to your listeners, or of dreams, for example, that Hermes stood by your bed at night, commanding you to announce who was the best of the magistrates: ‘Obedient to his commands, I will repeat from the very center of theaters what I heard him say…”
Quote ID: 3703
Time Periods: 3
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 57
Section: 4B
It was certainly recognized throughout antiquity, at least by people able to look at their world with any detachment, that religion served to strengthen the existing social order.
Quote ID: 3716
Time Periods: 014
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 73
Section: 4B
It is not till the third century that the very emperors are acclaimed in open ceremonies as winning bountiful harvests for their farmers and calm seas for their sailors, by their piety.{43} The change is not abrupt, a matter of emphasis rather than of innovation; but is assumes in the gods accessibility to direct and specific appeal, it assumes their willingness to make their favor felt by visible tinkering in the natural world. Earlier, by contrast, when a panegyrist credited Trajan with averting famine, it was not the emperor’s prayers that had brought supernatural aid, but his shrewd administration that had mobilized quite human forces.{44}
Quote ID: 3722
Time Periods: 3
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 89
Section: 4B
The later empire loved hyperbole. It loved shouted phrases of clarion superlatives: “the very best!” “unique!” “savior!”, offered to the mayor or governor as enthusiastically as to the god above.{54}
Quote ID: 3743
Time Periods: 34
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 96
Section: 4B
And many extremely emphatic statements about exorcism by Christians should not be forgotten. Some have been reported, earlier. Their point in common was the simplest: announcement of supernatural powers new in the world it would be quite irrational to credit, without proof of their efficacy before one’s own eyes. That was what produced converts. Nothing else is attested.
Quote ID: 3753
Time Periods: 234
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 96
Section: 4B
By the same logic Marcus Aurelius was reduced, or raised, to his own faith: “If anyone should ask where have you seen the gods or how have you persuaded yourself of their existence, so that you are so devout, I answer.., from the continual proofs of their power I am convinced that they exist, and I revere them.”
Quote ID: 3754
Time Periods: 2
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 102
Section: 4B
It is, of course, conventional to talk about “state cults.” I cite a few illustrations of that, about (chapter 2, section 3, n.42). Beyond that, modern accounts commonly attribute to one or another emperor the advocating or imposing of one or another cult. If such a phenomenon could really be discerned, it would present us with just the force most logical for the attaining of uniformity in religious beliefs. None, however, can be found.
Quote ID: 3760
Time Periods: 1234
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 103
Section: 4B
we are bound to ask where the very idea of “official” or “state” cults comes from. Surely they have been attributed to the Roman world by reasoning from alien, generally modern and Christian, times. Search for them therefore proceeds with tell-tale indirection, effort, and paucity of proof. In paganism uninterpreted, at any level lower than the throne, zealots were hard to find.
Quote ID: 3761
Time Periods: 12347
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 104
Section: 4B
Though the whole family of the Severi have been portrayed as “Orientalizers,” there is no evidence that any but the mad boy Elagabalus wanted or tried to change anyone’s religion.{40} From his reign we pass to others in which Sol and Oriens were advertised or favored. The sequence of events was sketched above (pp. 84-85). Until after 312, however, there is no sign of imperial pressure for uniformity in cult. The independence, not to say license and shapelessness, of paganism had suffered no disturbance from above.
Quote ID: 3763
Time Periods: 34
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 132
Section: 4B
Much of the epigraphic record on which we depend for an estimate of paganism reflects not only what people believed but whether or not their belief was likely to raise them in others’ eyes. For the same reason, then, that few Christians declared their faith during the third century, few pagans can have cared to do so, once the emperor, and with him, those who sought his favor, changed allegiance.
Quote ID: 3772
Time Periods: 34
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 132
Section: 4B
At the very towering peak of their appalling rage and cruelty against Christians, pagans had never sought to make converts to any cult – only away from atheism, as they saw it.
Quote ID: 3774
Time Periods: 123
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 133
Section: 4B
The Danube lands suffered such destruction in the third century from barbarians and so much more, from Christian ardor, in the forth and fifth, that idols and temples of the late Empire are hard to find in one piece.
Quote ID: 3776
Time Periods: 345
Paganism in the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 171 Page: 133
Section: 2B2,4B
In Egypt of the mid-forth century, an army commander had plenty of Christians, including priests, who were in courteous correspondence with him; but in his headquarters’ chapel an image of the goddess Nemesis presided, and his personal servant took oath by the gods, plural. Perhaps that meant nothing. A deacon of the Church toward the same date “swears by the divine and holy Tyche of our all-conquering Lords,” the emperors.{11}
Quote ID: 3777
Time Periods: 4
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 184
Section: 4B
Their secret meetings were illegal, but the Church had become the largest secret society in the Empire where secret religious assemblies, hetaeriae, as Trajan called them in his letter to Pliny (X:43, 1), were banned on political grounds. Pliny said “their worst crime was their meeting at stated times for religious service,” merely because such meetings were secret. Curiously, the Roman Church has inherited this characteristic from the Empire, for it still frowns on all secret societies.
Quote ID: 3781
Time Periods: 23
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 185
Section: 1A,3C,4B
The Spanish Christian poet Prudentius in the second half of the fourth century said:"God willed peoples of discord and tongues, kingdoms of conflicting laws, to be brought together under an empire, because concord alone knows God. Hence He taught all nations to bow their necks under the same laws and to become Romans. Common rights made all men equal and bound the vanquished with the bonds of fraternity. The City is the fatherland of all humanity, our very blood is mingled, and one stock is woven out of many races. This is the fruit of the triumphs of Rome; they opened the doors for Christ to enter." {82}
Quote ID: 3782
Time Periods: 4
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 197
Section: 3C,3A1,4B
By aligning itself with the imperial trend, the Church caused essential changes in its inner life. As soon as a mere profession of Christianity was enough to lead to political and social preferment, the pristine virtues of simplicity and sincerity yielded to hypocrisy. Many professed Christians were pagans at heart.
Quote ID: 3788
Time Periods: 45
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 12
Section: 4B
Aurelius Longinus had been a high priest in the cult of the Emperor “with piety and honourable generosity” and during office he had won favor by making gifts to the councillors and citizens. He had paid for civic shows “with great munificence” during his priesthood. He had served “with dignity” as an official of the “festival known as the Apolline,” and then, too, he had given generously to the council and citizenry.
Quote ID: 3821
Time Periods: 3
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 13
Section: 4B
This inscription belongs in the earlier third century, although its exact date is not certain. The games called Apolline are probably the “Pythian Gordianic games” which Gordian approved for the city, and if so, they place Longinus’s career in the years from c. 230 to 250, where his three “escorts of the sacred grain” belong neatly with the Roman campaigns which end in 244.{8}
Quote ID: 3822
Time Periods: 3
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 14
Section: 4B
While these traditional benefactors still led their cities, another man, of similar culture and property, had abandoned the natural ambitions of his class and was rising to fame in a different community. Thascius Cyprianus, Cyprian in Christian tradition, had practised in Carthage as a public speaker, teaching Latin rhetoric and pleading as an advocate in the courts of law. In the mid-240s, he gave up his profession, sold the greater part of his property and gave the proceeds and most of his remaining income to help the Christian poor.
Quote ID: 3823
Time Periods: 3
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 15/16
Section: 4B
Longinus and his class professed a “love of honour” in the many gifts which they made to their cities; Cyprian, by contrast, praised giving because it could buy forgiveness of sins.
Quote ID: 3824
Time Periods: 3
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 21
Section: 1A,4B
Christianity had never preached an outright social revolution. There was no “liberation theology,” no sanction for a direct assault on the forms of social dependence and slavery. In the Christian empire, the army still fought, and the soldiery did not intervene for one religion against the other. Distinctions of rank and degree multiplied and the inequalities of property widened.
Quote ID: 3828
Time Periods: 1234
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 27
Section: 4B
These arguments did not exclude change: new gods were accepted; old gods were welcomed in new manifestations; details of worship and ritual were added or forgotten. Although the last new pagan god, Mithras, was introduced to the Latin West by the late first century A.D., the pagan cults did not become static: even the old state priesthoods at Rome, the Arval Brothers and the Vestal Virgins, show lively changes of detail during the first half of the third century. {2}
Quote ID: 3829
Time Periods: 013
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 31
Section: 4B
By modern historians, pagan religion has been defined as essentially a matter of cult acts.{12} The definition has an obvious aptness. Pagans performed rites but professed no creed or doctrine.
Quote ID: 3831
Time Periods: 014
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 31
Section: 4B
There was also no pagan concept of heresy. To pagans, the Greek word hairesis meant a school of thought, not a false and pernicious doctrine. It applied to the teaching of different philosophical schools and sometimes to the medical schools too. Significantly, some pagans denied it to the Sceptics because they doubted everything and held no positive doctrine themselves: Sceptics, in turn, opposed them, wanting to be a hairesis, like other schools. Among pagans, the opposite of “heterodoxy” was not “orthodoxy,” but “homodoxy,” meaning agreement. {15}
Quote ID: 3832
Time Periods: 0123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 43
Section: 4B
….in the Italian countryside, farmers offered daisy chains on plain turf altars to gods of the fields. These gods were not dignified by the traditions of classical art or a place in Greek mythology. There were the forces with which country people lived: these rural gods were “simpletons,” said urban authors, when compared with the gods of the towns.{57}
Quote ID: 3834
Time Periods: 0123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 55/56
Section: 4B
In most cities the number of capable givers was very small indeed, perhaps three or four main families.. . . .
Style was the man, a mirror of his moral worth, and top people cultivated it keenly.
. . . .
As a result, the upper classes of the second and third centuries are modern sightseer’s best friends. They liked to hear their city’s buildings praised in speeches, and the Emperor and his governors shared the same concern: governors were encouraged to see to the restoration of collapsing buildings.
. . . .
One very aristocratic donor in Ephesus, the orator and sophistic speaker Damianus, built a mile-long colonnade of marble from the city to the temple of “Diana of the Ephesians” so that visitors could attend in rainy weather: he gave the temple a banqueting hall of rare Phrygian marble; …..
Quote ID: 3838
Time Periods: 23
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 75
Section: 4B
In the second century flamboyant building for the gods succeeded an age of relative quiescence; it then slowed to a virtual halt in the mid-third century.At a general level, reasons for this new flamboyance are not hard to find. It belongs which the “love of honour” and the “love of the home town” which we traced among the cities’ benefactors.
. . . .
The home town was still a greater focus for these notables’ “love of honour” than a career in Roman service.
Quote ID: 3843
Time Periods: 23
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 79
Section: 4B
In Ephesus (in 145) we see the problem: one Vedius had donated an impressive monument, but was then assailed for not having given games instead, and his munificence had to be commended by the Emperor. The stadium and the theatre were the major sources of instant popular honour.{35}
Quote ID: 3844
Time Periods: 2
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 79/80
Section: 4B
Of the more practical gifts, harbours, aqueducts and new agoras were enormous projects, requiring space and joint subscriptions. For all but the very richest giver, the gods were an easier alternative. Temples could be large or small, and there were never too many for another to be unwelcome. They also allowed self-advertisement. “Who builds a Church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name. . .” Not so the builders of pagan civic temples. In the classical democratic city, there had been firm restraints on inscribed dedications in the donor’s own name. In the Imperial period, by contrast, Emperors were required to rule that only the donors’ names, and no others, should stand on temples and civic buildings. Those who paid, therefore, were assured of an advertisement. {36}
Quote ID: 3845
Time Periods: 0123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 80
Section: 4B,3B
In a famous text, Aristotle had once advised oligarchies to urge the holders of civic office to meet expensive undertakings as part and parcel of their job. {38} They should offer splendid sacrifices, he suggested, and prepare public monuments so that the people should enjoy the feasting and admire their city’s adornment. Then they would gladly “see the constitution persist.” In Aristotle’s own day, few cities, he complained, observed this advice: the notables of the Antonine age were wiser.
Quote ID: 3846
Time Periods: 02
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 84
Section: 4B
In the West, too, societies in honour of a particular god, or gods, grew like extended families beneath the presidency of the master or mistress of a household, like the four hundred worshippers of Dionysus who had grouped themselves beneath the patronage of one Agripponilla in second-century Tuscany. In the Latin-speaking towns, there were also groups of workers, associated by a common trade, who would meet and dine in honour of a divinity. They, too, were grouped beneath a richer patron’s care.In the West, religious associations tended to assume the character of extended families and hence, like the Roman family, they sometimes included slaves and freedmen among their membership. In the Greek East, slaves were rarely members beside free men: the sexes too, were almost always segregated. Women are sometimes found in a male club, but essentially as priestesses of a god who required female servants. Sometimes, too, they were honoured as benefactresses, but they were not therefore members of the club beside the men. Like men, they had religious clubs of their own.
Pastor John notes: used 2 phrases in 1st para dealing with kinds of clubs that existed.
Quote ID: 3850
Time Periods: 123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 85
Section: 4B
In these clubs, the patron, like the civic benefactor, exerted influence and earned praise in return. Roman law, therefore, was concerned to control the clubs’ orderliness, and in the Empire it attempted to rule that a person could not belong to more than one club at a time.
Quote ID: 3851
Time Periods: 123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 88/89
Section: 4B
In a passage of remarkable vehemence, the ageing Plato had denounced all private cults and proposed the death penalty for anyone in his ideal city who established a shrine on private ground or sacrificed to gods outside the city’s list. Private cults, he believed, would weaken a city’s cohesion and give individuals the means of pursuing success for their own selfish ends.. . . .
Yet, as often, Plato was out of tune with practice. In the Hellenistic period, cult societies had proliferated in many cities, giving citizens and non-citizens a focus for their loyalties and a non-political sense of community. By the early Empire, the household cults in cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum had confirmed Plato’s worst fears.
. . . .
Plato’s severity had found few supporters. Private associations flourished far and wide, from Gaul to Syria: ….
. . . .
Yet, in another sense, Plato was right, for these cult societies did represent a separate area of religious activity to which people turned specifically for religious ends. Some continued to turn to the Jew’s synagogues; rather more began to turn to the Christian community. It was through the household and the house church that Christianity and its otherworldly “assembly” first put down its roots then grew to undermine the old civic values and the very shape of the pagan city.
Quote ID: 3853
Time Periods: 012
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 95
Section: 4A,4B
To “follow pagan religion” was generally to accept this tradition of the gods’ apeasable anger. A few philosophers argued against it, but the vast majority ignored them, and it was precisely this fear which impelled people to persecute Christian “atheists,” dangerous groups who refused to honour the gods.
Quote ID: 3856
Time Periods: 123
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 428
Section: 4B
Jews, however, could not be brought to trial for their atheism, or their “name,” a fact whose explanation begins where Gibbon sought it, in the antiquity of the Jews’ worship. Romans respected the old and venerable in religion, and nothing was older or more venerable than Jewish cult: “the Jews were a people which followed, the Christians a sect which deserted, the religion of their fathers.”{24}
Quote ID: 3873
Time Periods: 0123
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 3
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
When we speak of the Middle Ages we mean this second, spiritual and Christian Rome…the mother of civilisation, the source to Western peoples of religion, law, and order, of learning, art, and civic institutions. It became to them what Delphi had been to the Greeks…PJ: Look for a quote on Delphi to show what the last part of this quote is saying. Ordered the book on Delphi.
Quote ID: 7906
Time Periods: 167
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 4
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
It is in this way that the medieval Popes take their place in the Story of the Nations; they continue the Roman history….
Quote ID: 7907
Time Periods: 167
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 16/17
Section: 4B
It was the boast of Cicero, and Virgil’s almost hieratic poem of the Ǣneid bears him out, that the Romans were a deeply religious people.….
…they observed ritual which left untouched no act of their public or private existence. The gods had no concern with virtue…
….
they were pledged to the prosperity of the State.
Quote ID: 7915
Time Periods: 01
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 17
Section: 4B
Rome, as it extended its conquests, brought home the vanquished deities; it became “the temple and the shrine of all gods,”
Quote ID: 7916
Time Periods: 0123
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: 43
Section: 1A,4B
But it is doubtless true that the wildest of Barbarian chiefs felt a superstitious reverence for the name of Rome.
Quote ID: 7930
Time Periods: 1
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 49
Section: 1A,3A1,3G,4B
At this hour of deepest eclipse, Gregory ascended the Papal Chair, and the Middle Ages began.In this noble and attractive person we may affirm that all which the ancient world could now bequeath to the modern was to be found. He sprang from the most conspicuous of late Roman Houses, the Anicii, who had long been Christian. The grandson of Pope Felix and son of Gordianus, at one time he was Prӕtor, if not Perfect, of the City. Then, in obedience to the strongest current of his age, he had become a monk. He turned his fine mansion on the Cӕlian into a monastery.
Quote ID: 7932
Time Periods: 167
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 19
Section: 4B
1. The practice of patronage was not forbidden; in fact, it can be seen to underlie the mission of Jesus and to be practiced by him, both as patron and as friend. The God called Father is the Supreme Patron. The benefaction of the Kingdom flows from him in both substance and method.
Quote ID: 8421
Time Periods: 1
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 19
Section: 4B
2. The way in which patronage operates is redefined in a radical way. The intentional pursuit of honor,…is not a part of the new Kingdom. Neither public recognition nor the granting of honorifics is in order.
Quote ID: 8422
Time Periods: 1
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 83
Section: 4B
Some of the language used by Irenaeus and the community at Lyons may have unwittingly been contradictory to the ideals we have just described. Irenaeus used some rather traditional honorific language to describe both the church at Rome and its putative founders, Peter and Paul. That church was “very great” and “very ancient’ and its founders were “most glorious.” In that very same context, the bishops of Rome were denoted as the successors of those “blessed apostles” (III,3,2-3).
Quote ID: 8423
Time Periods: 12
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 99
Section: 4B
1. A growing use of honorific language with regard to the leaders within the church can be seen in the words of Polycrates, Dionysius of Corinth, and especially in the martyrdom account of the death of Polycarp.
Quote ID: 8425
Time Periods: 2
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 100
Section: 4B,2D3A
6. The Montanist phenomenon points strongly to a reaction increasing clerical dominance….
Quote ID: 8426
Time Periods: 2
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 150
Section: 2C,4B
Origen clearly saw a problem developing in his own day and addressed it in his last work (Com.Matt.XI,15). He identified leaders at several levels in the church as working with the hope of praise and both expecting and responding to flattery.
Quote ID: 8432
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 155
Section: 4B
On July 17, 180, a group of twelve Christians were examined and executed in Carthage. From Scilli, whose location is uncertain, the accused found a spokesperson in Speratus.….
…Speratus referred to the Christian way as the “mystery of simplicity,” and the anonymous editor confirmed that description by applying no rhetorical or honorific language in the composition of the narrative obviously connected to the record.
Quote ID: 8434
Time Periods: 2
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 168
Section: 4B
…Cyprian well understood both the benefits and shortcomings of the traditional paradigm. He strongly emphasized its shortcomings and recognized that he did so (Don. 11). He insisted that even at its best, though profitable both financially and socially, it was based on abuse and contempt and granted no peace at any point in the process.
Quote ID: 8442
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 168
Section: 4B
He abandoned his estates and gave them to the church, reserving only his residence and a garden. Apparently, they were returned to him as bishop, for he seems to have had enormous resources available for that office.
Quote ID: 8443
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 175
Section: 3A1,4B
He had been a significant person, as he reminded his readers several times, and he continued to be one. It is not an accident that the Roman clergy, without a bishop for a while, addressed him as “honored papa Cyprian” (Letters 8: 30; 31; 36). His clergy received their monthly allotments from him and he could interrupt them at any point (34; 39).{20} In all these ways, Cyprian shaped the church of North Africa in a very traditional Roman way, with himself as the patron.
Quote ID: 8448
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 176/177
Section: 2C,3A1,4B
More serious still is the way in which Cyprian condemned the cursus honorum, yet in his language about the Episcopal office and in his manner of dealing with subordinates, he reinstated it in practical terms. The bishops owned the church and all its benefits, allegiance and honor from the dispensing of goods and spiritual benefits. The people performed essentially the same functions in this community as they did in the general Roman community. They were his clients and his clients’ clients.When Cyprian was gone, the African church continued with great tensions between those who wished to follow the revised paradigm and those who saw Cyprian’s reinstatement of the tradition one as the true model. It was a critical time when Cyprian, a man not steeped in the new paradigm, was forced to deal with the pressures of persecution, apostasy and opposition. He simply was not thoroughly prepared, so he returned to the default position, the traditional paradigm of greatness and leadership.
Quote ID: 8449
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 178
Section: 4B
PATRONAGE WAS A VERY WELL ESTABLISHED PRACTICE AND ONE THAT had enormous influence on the shape of Roman society. Jesus and his followers critiqued that practice and challenged it with an alternative, a revised paradigm of greatness and benefaction. In its main lines, this revision placed God and Christ in the place of the class of “great men” who functioned as patrons. As the supreme patrons, they gave gifts to all and required two primary responses in gratitude, accompanying praise given verbally to them.
Quote ID: 8450
Time Periods: 014
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 179
Section: 3A1,4B
His defense of the order of leaders, based on an analogy from the Roman military and from the function of the Hebrew priesthood, is striking because it did not emerge from Christian roots. His letter was very influential in the future, alongside the writings which would become the New Testament, and his arguments for the authority of leaders would be used repeatedly.
Quote ID: 8451
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 184
Section: 3A1,3B,4B
The Revised Paradigm in a World of Confusion 220-290 CEAs the Severan dynasty struggled and fell, the empire entered a period with much political turmoil, economic decline and environmental difficulties such as plague and crop failure. Christian communities flourished in this period, however, in part because their benevolence made many friends. As it grew and garnered approval, the church became more visible and a more attractive place for a career. Origen complained about a growing ambition for offices within the community. That is indeed the major story of this period.
Quote ID: 8452
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 184
Section: 2C,3A1,4B
…ambition continued to play a role. Some reasons can be seen in the Apostolic Tradition, a Roman church order document attributed to Hippolytus. In it, a full hierarchy of church officers is apparent, and the workplace terms which once downplayed position now have distinct levels of honor and privilege. The people have once again become clients of a great man, the bishop. Benevolence continues, but it is clearly in the mold of the traditional patronage paradigm.
Quote ID: 8453
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 185
Section: 2C,3A1,4B
Meanwhile, the two major figures of Cappadocia and Pontus, Firmilian and Gregory Thaumaturgos, were of aristocratic families and continued to be aristocratic in their Episcopal offices.….
When the qualifications for a bishop in Pontus included a choice from “those who appeared to be outstanding in eloquence and family,{1} that then would not have been a surprise. These developments make the case of Paul of Samosata quite understandable.
Paul simply took to its logical conclusion what had become the standard model among urban clergy: he was a “great man.” That was now standard for bishops, especially in a major urban center like Antioch. As for becoming a procurator ducenarius by the patronage of the Palmyrene dynasty—why not? Other Christians held high imperial positions,{2} why not combine two great positions: bishop of Antioch and procurator of Syria?
Quote ID: 8454
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 186
Section: 3A1,4B
All of this third-century development demonstrates that the common understanding of the community and its leaders had moved, in the major centers of the empire, back toward the traditional Roman paradigm.
Quote ID: 8455
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 186
Section: 2C,4B
The movement of “significant people” into episcopal positions in this period [PJ: 3rd], in addition to the gathering of power and honor around the same led to increasing numbers of members from those classes. The same language which those classes would expect to be used of them in civil positions became normal for ecclesiastical positions as well.
Quote ID: 8456
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 186/187
Section: 4B
Jesus and his earliest followers posed a profound challenge to the practice of traditional patron/client relations, connected so deeply to honor and ambition. For the changes implied by that challenge to have succeeded would have required constant reaffirmation and thorough practice. That simply did not happen in the early Christian communities.Universal honor for all humanity was the first to go.
Quote ID: 8457
Time Periods: 1
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 187
Section: 3A1,4B
Finally the weight of the great urban centers prevailed over the great bulk of Christians. Cyprian enunciated the rights and privileges of the clergy in ways which became the norm for leaders and people.
Quote ID: 8458
Time Periods: 3
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 187
Section: 4B
By the year 290, the paradigm of patronage which operated in the churches was largely a religious form of the traditional Roman one. By claiming ownership of the gifts of God and of his people, the clergy operated as patrons of spiritual benefits, as well as material. By concentrating spiritual benefits in their positions and material resources in institutional chests, they restricted or eliminated individual initiative in doing good. Broad-scale benevolence, gratitude and honor became phenomena of the past. In an important sense, the community ceased to be Christian.
Quote ID: 8459
Time Periods: 3
Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods
(Archaeological Record, Literary Description) Helmut Koester (editor)
Book ID: 176 Page: 255
Section: 4B
More important, however, was his contribution to the renewed of the city’s Asklepios cult. Apparently Domitian’s young male favorite, Earinus, was born in Pergamon and seems to have been a devotee of the god. Indeed, in their court poetry both Martial and Statius include references to the dedication of a lock of Earinus’s hair to Asklepios of Pergamon. Statius even speaks with poetic hyperbole of Venus having snatched the youth while he was playing before the altar of Asklepios, and having brought him in her winged chariot to Domitian’s palace. Probably as a result of Earinus’s widely publicized attachment to the Asklepieion of Pergamon (whether apparent or real) and the emperor’s attachment to Earinus, the sanctuary began an extended period of prominence and renown among those in provincial and imperial high society. As Christian Habicht notes, it was during Domitian’s reign, after an interlude of nearly a century, that city coins again began to feature the image of Asklepios.
Quote ID: 3899
Time Periods: 34
Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods
(Archaeological Record, Literary Description) Helmut Koester (editor)
Book ID: 176 Page: 332
Section: 4B
Love of honor, when not taken to excess, {7} was generally placed alongside love of homeland among the virtues of nobility, the expectation of aristocracy. Benefaction was synonymous with both. The cities of the Greek East under Roman rule were built on such strivings for status.
Quote ID: 3902
Time Periods: 0123
Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods
(Archaeological Record, Literary Description) Helmut Koester (editor)
Book ID: 176 Page: 332
Section: 4B
Footnote 7 Notably in Plutarch, when seen as self-serving, Greek word means greedy for honors and is synonymous with obstinate ambition Greek word, a passion and disease of the soul (so Mor. 502A). In his treatise “On Tranquility of Mind” Plutarch similarly decries the excessive striving for status that produces discontentment. The passage also gives a thumbnail sketch of the status ladder for those from the Greek East, whether “Chians, Galatians, Bithynians,” that runs “those who are not content with whatever portion of either repute or power among their own fellow countrymen has fallen to their lot, but weep because they do not wear the patrician shoe; yet if they do so, they weep because they are not yet Roman praetors; if they are praetors, because they are not consuls; and if consuls, because they were not the first announced, but later” (Mor. 470C)
Quote ID: 3903
Time Periods: 12
Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods
(Archaeological Record, Literary Description) Helmut Koester (editor)
Book ID: 176 Page: 333
Section: 4B
200 AD- Thus the higher classes of Roman society, now enormously increased in numbers, represented, not the aristocracy of Rome or of Italy, but the aristocracy of the Empire, the wealthiest and the best educated sections of the city population throughout the Roman world.”
Quote ID: 3904
Time Periods: 23
Petrarch, Canzoniere
Petrarch, Canzoniere, translated by Mark Musa
Book ID: 326 Page: 1
Section: 2B2,4B
John’s summary of the book:In the introduction to his translation of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, Mark Musa wrote, “It would be difficult to calculate the limits of Petrarch’s influence [on Western literature]…. For readers of the fourteenth century, Petrarch was best known as the Christian Cicero.” Dante and, after him, Petrarch served as stepping stone for Western civilization to exit the Dark Ages and begin its trek to the Enlightenment.
The Canzoniereis packed with references, obscure and overt, to mythological figures and events as well as to historical figures and events from both the Bible and the world at large. Not only are there, throughout that work, references to the major gods of the ancient world, but personifications also of such as Love (5.2), Death (14.5), Fortune (53.85), Reason (73.25), and so forth, just as Greek and Roman writers would have done, that is, as minor deities. As with Homer, Virgil, and other ancient poets, the real and the mythological are treated as one by Petrarch.
Even granting poetic license to allow for his blending of the historical with the mythical, Petrarch cannot be excused for his blending of the holy and the unholy. His obvious reverence for the gods of the Classical world (condemned as demons by true men of God) is blended with reverence for Christ and other righteous biblical characters, and that is a sacrilege. He honors Christ along with Jove, Mary with Apollo, Peter with Mars, contradicting Peter’s famous assertion that, “We did not follow cunningly fabricated myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2Pet. 1:16). Petrarch’s writings would throw that clear assertion into doubt. He states that David fought Goliath and that the goddess Minerva created the olive tree, thus promoting, with no obvious distinction, a biblical story and an ancient Greek myth.
Petrarch could not have written the Canzoniere without Greek and Roman mythology, and what would Dante have done without the pagan poet Virgil, his “master” who led him through the underworld? They both were devout Christians, and in preserving the ancient world’s respect for Classical gods and goddesses, they were not denigrating their religion, but promoting it, for Christianity was the product of a blending of faith in Jesus with the paganism of the Roman Empire.
The following are just a few examples of Petrarch’s view toward the gods and Christ:
creator
In Canzoniere #4.4, Petrarch mentions Jove and Mars as creations of the same God who called Peter and John by the Sea of Galilee.
In Canzoniere #24.8, Petrarch gives the goddess Minerva credit for the creation of the olive tree, in accord with an ancient myth.
In Canzoniere #28.64–65, Petrarch gives the god Apollo credit for granting men the gift of poetry.
In Canzoniere #190.11, Petrarch calls God Caesar.
fear
In Canzoniere #137.1–4, Petrarch says that the papacy is corrupt because it has exchanged its reverence for Jove and Athena for that of Venus and Bacchus.
In Canzoniere #5.12, Petrarch expresses fear of Apollo’s displeasure.
In Canzoniere #10.3, 24.2, Petrarch describes stormy weather as an expression of Jove’s wrath, exactly as Homer would have done.
In Canzoniere #138.8, Petrarch refers to the wrath of Christ.
immorality
In Canzoniere #23.161–163, Petrarch refers to Jove’s adulterous fathering of Perseus as if it were a historical event.
In Canzoniere #28.79, Petrarch promulgates the long-standing Roman tradition, that Romulus (Rome’s legendary founder and first king) was the bastard son of the war-god, Mars.
In Canzoniere #266., Petrarch describes his bondage to lust, which overrides his love for Jesus.
In Canzoniere #323.4–5, Petrarch refers to human beauty inflaming Jove’s lust [as it does his own].
real and mythological figures
In Canzoniere #53.26, Petrarch mentions Mars along with the historical figures of Scipio, Brutus, Fabricius, and Hannibal (#53.36, 41, 65).
In Canzoniere #105.16, 20, Petrarch mentions both Saint Peter and Phaeton as real persons.
In Canzoniere #128.7, 13, 49 Petrarch mentions Jesus, Mars, and Caesar as if they we’re all real persons.
In Canzoniere #155.1, Petrarch mentions Jove and Caesar together, as if they are real persons.
In Canzoniere #166.13, Petrarch calls Jove eternal.
In Canzoniere #232.1–11, Petrarch mentions Alexander, Philip his father, Tydeus and Melanippus (from The Iliad), Sulla, Valentinianus, Ajax (from The Iliad), and others as real persons. Some were; some were not.
In Canzoniere #186.6, Petrarch gives credit to Greek mythological demigods such as Achilles and Ulysses.
In Canzoniere #41, Petrarch refers to nine of the gods as if they were real beings: Phoebus (Apollo), Vulcan, Jove, Janus, Mars, Saturn, Aeolus, Neptune, Juno.
In Canzoniere #52, Petrarch refers to the goddess Diana, from a myth by Ovid.
In Canzoniere #225.13–14, Petrarch mentions Automedon (Achilles’ charioteer) and Tiphys (the Argo pilot) as real persons.
Mythological events
In Canzoniere #34.1–2, Petrarch refers to Daphne’s transformation from a woman to a laurel tree as a historical fact.
In Canzoniere #43.1, Petrarch refers to Leto and her son (the god Apollo), and his longing for Daphne.
In Canzoniere #166.1–4, Petrarch includes the cave where Apollo became a prophet in a list of real places.
In Canzoniere #179.10–11 and #197.5–6, Petrarch refers to the myth of Medusa’s face turning people to stone.
In Canzoniere #332.50–51, Petrarch wishes he could get a certain beautiful woman back from death “as Orpheus did Eurydice”.
biblical characters
In Canzoniere #44, Petrarch refers to David and Goliath.
In Canzoniere #62, Petrarch refers to the “Father of Heaven” as being crucified.
In Canzoniere #95.12, Petrarch mentions Mary and Peter.
In Canzoniere #206.27, Petrarch refers to Pharaoh pursuing the Jews.
miscellaneous
In Canzoniere #68.1, Petrarch calls seeing Rome a “sacred sight”.
Quote ID: 7780
Time Periods: 7
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 118/119
Section: 4B
Aside from the glitter of gold on Celtic women—amply verified by archaeology—Posidonius was struck by the women’s size. The average Greek or Roman man was well short of six feet, while the average woman was barely five feet tall. But Posidonius had the unnerving experience time and time again of looking Celtic women in the eye or even gazing up to them. He was also impressed by their beauty, but he claims that it was wasted on Celtic men: “The Gaulish men prefer to have sex with each other. They often sleep on top of animal skins surrounded by other males and roll around together on the ground. The young men are unconcerned about proper behavior and will offer their bodies to anyone—and they are highly offended when anyone turns them down.” We might like to know what particular experiences of Posidonius prompted that observation, but suffice it to say, he witnessed homosexual behavior among the Gauls, just as Aristotle had claimed over two centuries earlier. How this affected relationships with women is hard to say. Many ancient Greeks managed to combine open homosexual relationships with marriage, so perhaps the same is true in Gaul.
Quote ID: 6661
Time Periods: 0
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 120
Section: 4B
The idea that a Gaulish man had absolute power over the lives of his family need not have been as harsh as it sounds. Roman men also held this right as paterfamilias over their whole households. But for a Roman to kill his wife or child was extremely rare.
Quote ID: 6662
Time Periods: 0
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 138
Section: 4B
In the ancient Celtic world, a poet was the modern equivalent of rock star, academic historian, and political commentator all rolled into one. The range and power of a poet in such a traditional society may be hard for us to imagine, but we have to remember that the ancient Gaul of Posidonius was primarily an oral culture.. . . .
The praise of a bard was the measure and means of respect in a world where honor was everything. Without the songs of a bard, there was no way to achieve what the Greek heroes of Homer’s epics also most craved—everlasting glory.
But praise did not come cheap. A Celtic bard was a professional who expected to be well-paid for his services. Woe be to the Gaulish king who was miserly in compensating a poet for his song, for the verses of praise could quickly turn to biting satire.
Quote ID: 6663
Time Periods: 01
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 152
Section: 4B
After Caesar describes the main gods of Gaul, he mentions a certain teaching of the Druids concerning Celtic origins: “The Gauls say that they are all descended from a single father, Dis— for this is the tradition handed down by the Druids. For this reason they counted time by nights, not by days. In counting birthdays, months, and years, night always comes first.” The Roman god Dis— also known as Pluto or Hades—was the ruler of the dim underworld, the land of the dead. As Dis was the Gaulish god of the dark netherworld, the Druids reckoned time beginning at nightfall rather than sunrise—just as Jewish tradition begins the day at sunset. Many ancient peoples believed that they were descended from a god—the Romans, for example, claimed they were descendants of Venus, while the Germans thought they were born of a god named Tuisto.
Quote ID: 6671
Time Periods: 0
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 160
Section: 4B
The civilized people of the Mediterranean could shake their heads in fascinated horror at the reports of Gaulish human sacrifice, but they had plenty of skeletons in their own closets. Homer speaks of human sacrifice in the Iliad, and the archaeological record suggests it was at least occasionally practiced in the Greek Bronze Age. The Phoenicians, master explorers that they were, regularly sacrificed children to their gods. Even the Romans practiced human sacrifice in extraordinary circumstances until the third century B.C. In a Greek and Roman world where infanticide was practiced on an enormous scale, where women and children were regularly slaughtered in war, and where the Romans saw death in the gladiatorial games as entertainment, the occasional practice of human sacrifice among the Celts was a relatively minor event.
Quote ID: 6675
Time Periods: 01
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 189
Section: 4B
AFTER THE SURRENDER of Vercingetorix, Gaul slowly settled into life as part of the Roman world. It was Roman policy to change as little as possible in newly conquered territories. The Gaulish tribal hill forts often became Roman towns and centers of local administration. Gaulish nobles who were deemed loyal to Rome were encouraged to become part of the local government. Beginning with the emperor Claudius, the Celtic nobility was even allowed to serve in the Roman Senate, though few achieved this lofty role in practice. Children of wealthy Gaulish kings, warriors, and Druids were taught Latin and given a classical education equal to that found in any city of the empire. The nobility kept the lands it had controlled before the conquest and still dominated the free peasant farmers, who noticed little change with the shift from Gaulish to Roman control.. . . .
Quote ID: 6679
Time Periods: 0
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 190
Section: 1A,2B2,4B
2B2Although human sacrifice ended with the conquests, the religion taught by the Druids flourished in Gaul for centuries. Celtic sanctuaries continued to be used and often incorporated Roman deities into their worship. The Gauls still prayed to Lugus, Epona, and all the other gods of the Celtic pantheon—and in their own language.
4B
The Romans never tried to impose Latin on any of their conquered lands. If the inhabitants wanted to speak their native tongue—be it Aramaic, Punic, Greek, or Gaulish—the Romans couldn’t care less, as long as they paid their taxes on time.
Quote ID: 6680
Time Periods: 01
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 49
Section: 4B
Ol. 1.23-26
(bisexuality of Poseidon)
... Fame shines for him
in the colony of brave men founded by Lydian Pelops,
with whom mighty Earthshaker Poseidon
fell in love....
Quote ID: 3148
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 51
Section: 4B
Ol. 1.37-45
(bisexuality of Zeus)
Son of Tantalos, of you I shall say, contrary to my
predecessors,
that when your father invited the gods
to his most orderly feast and to his friendly Sipylos
giving them a banquet in return for theirs,
then it was that the lord of the Splendid Trident seized
you,
his mind overcome by desire, and with golden steeds
conveyed you to the highest home of widely honored
Zeus,
where at a later time
Ganymede came as well
for the same service of Zeus.{13}
Quote ID: 3149
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 55
Section: 4B
Ol. 1.82-84
(the importance of lasting fame)
But since men must die, why would anyone sit
in darkness and coddle a nameless old age to no use,
deprived of all noble deeds? No!
Quote ID: 3150
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 75
Section: 4B
Ol. 2.93-98a
(the cultural pressure on the wealthy to benefit the city or state)
...no city within a century has produced
a man more beneficent to his friends
in spirit and more generous of hand than
Theron. But enough; upon praise comes tedious
excess,
which does not keep to just limits, but at the instigation
of greedy men is eager to prattle on
and obscure noble men’s good
deeds...
Quote ID: 3151
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 95
Section: 4B
Ol. 2. footnote
{5} Or his. The herald at the games announced the victor’s father and city.
Quote ID: 3152
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 137
Section: 4B
Ol. 6.8
but men’s prayers are fulfilled in return for piety.
Quote ID: 3155
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 145
Section: 4B
Ol. 8.72.73
Truly, a man forgets about Hades
when he has done fitting things.
Quote ID: 3157
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 205
Section: 4B
Ol. 13.98.100
As for their victories at the Isthmos and Nemea, in a brief
word I shall reveal their sum, and my true witness
under oath shall be the noble herald’s sweet-tongued
shout heard full sixty times from both those places.
Pastor John notes: John’s note - Pindar is not excessive in his praise, even though he depends on popular genealogist and heroic myths.
Quote ID: 3158
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 231
Section: 4B
Pyth. 1.89.94
Abide in flourishing high spirits,
and if indeed you love always to hear pleasant things said
about you, do not grow too tired of spending,
but let out the sail, like a helmsman,
to the wind. Do not be deceived,
O my friend, by shameful gains,
for the posthumous acclaim of fame
alone reveals the life of men who are dead and gone
to both chroniclers and poets.
Quote ID: 3159
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 263
Section: 4B
Pyth. 3.110.111
And if a god should grant me luxurious wealth,
I hope that I may win lofty fame hereafter.
Quote ID: 3162
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 309
Section: 4B
Pyth. 5.5.8
O Arkesilas, favored by heaven,
truly have you, from the very first steps
of your glorious life,
been seeking it along with fame,
Pastor John’s note - Proverbs - The rich have many friends.
Quote ID: 3163
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 056: Pindar I
Pindar
Book ID: 145 Page: 386
Section: 4B
Pyth. 11.41.42
Muse, it is your duty, since you have contracted to hire
your voice for silver, to keep it moving this way and that,
OTHER abbreviations
Pythian Odes: Pyth. (with number and lines, as above)
Nemean Odes: Nem. (with number and lines, as above)
Isthmian Odes: Isth. (with number and lines, as above)
Fragments
For the section on Fragments: Frag. (with the number, as “Frag. 146”)
(unless a separate category of fragments is designated, as below)
Hymns: Hymn. (with the number, as “Hymn Fr. 36”)
Encomia: Encom. (with the number, such as Encom. 123)
Threnos: Thren. (with the number, as Thren. Fr. 133)
Quote ID: 3164
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 7
Section: 4B
Nemean 1 For Chromios of Aitna, Line 19
from Olympic festivals.{2} I have embarked on an occasion
for many topics without casting any falsehood.
Pastor John’s Note: Pindar repeatedly stressed that he was not telling lies.
Quote ID: 3165
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 9
Section: 4B
Nemean 1, Line 31-32
I do not desire to keep great wealth
hidden away in a palace,
but to succeed with what I have and be praised for
helping friends, because to all alike come the hopes
Quote ID: 3166
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 23
Section: 4B
1. For Aristokleidas of Aigina
Winner, Pancratium, Lines 6-8
Different deeds thirst for different rewards,
but victory in the games loves song most of all,
the fittest companion for crowned achievements.
Quote ID: 3167
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 63
Section: 4B
Nemean 6, Lines 28-30
Come, Muse, direct to that house
a glorious wind
of verses, because when men are dead and gone,
songs and words preserve for them their noble deeds,
Quote ID: 3169
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 71
Section: 4B
Nemean 7 For Sogenes of Aigina
Winner, Boys’ Pentathlon, Lines 11-13
If a man succeeds in an exploit, he casts a honey-minded
cause{3} into the Muses’ streams, for great deeds of valor
remain in deep darkness when they lack hymns.
Quote ID: 3170
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 73
Section: 4B
Nemean 7, Lines 20-24
...I believe that Odysseus’ story
has become greater than his actual suffering
because of Homer’s sweet verse.
for upon his fictions and soaring craft
rests great majesty, and his skill
and deceives with misleading tales.(?)
Quote ID: 3171
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 77
Section: 4B
Nemean 7, Lines 62-63
like streams of water I shall bring genuine fame
with my praises to the man who is my friend,
for that is the proper reward for good men.
Quote ID: 3172
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 147
Section: 4B
Isthmian 2
For Xenokrates of Akragas
Winner, Chariot Race, Lines 9 and the footnote
But now she bids us heed the Argive’s adage,{3}
which comes. . . closest to the truth:
“Money, money makes the man,”
{3} The scholion attributes it to Aristodemos the Spartan and quotes Alkaios (fr. 360) (GREEK) “money is the man, and no poor man is noble or honorable”
Quote ID: 3173
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 353
Section: 4B
Encomia Fr. 122, Lines 123 For Theoxenos of TenedosThe same. “And what does Pindar say when he mentions
Theoxenos of Tenedos, who was his beloved?”
One should cull love, my heart,
as appropriate during youth,
but whoever has seen those rays
flashing from Theosxenos’ eyes
and is not flooded with desire
has a black heart forged from adamant or steel
with a cold flame, and is dishonored
by bright-eyed Aphrodite,
or toils compulsively for money,
or with womanly courage
is carried in service to an utterly cold path.{1}
But I, because of her,{2} melt like the wax
of holy bees bitten by the sun’s heat, whenever I look
upon the new-limbed youth of boys.
So, after all, in Tenedos
Persuasion and Grace dwell
in the son of Hagesilas.
Pastor John notes: sick!
Quote ID: 8166
Time Periods: 0
Pindar, LCL 485: Pindar II
Several
Book ID: 146 Page: 369
Section: 4B
Threnoi Fr. 131b, Line 133
Plato, Meno. “Among others Pindar says . . . that the
soul of man is immortal . . . that therefore it is indeed
necessary to live one’s entire life as piously as possible.”
Quote ID: 3175
Time Periods: 0
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 104
Section: 4B
Definite population estimates are possible only for the Roman world and for Han China. Beloch’s guess of 54 million for the Roman empire at the time of Augustus’ death . . .
Quote ID: 3922
Time Periods: 1
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 107
Section: 4B
movement by sea could, with favoring winds, attain an average of well over 100 miles per day.
Quote ID: 3924
Time Periods: 01
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 113
Section: 4B
The development of this vast, if loosely reticulated, trade net across the southern seas was signalized by the arrival in China of “Roman” merchants in A.D. 166. They styled themselves ambassadors from Marcus Aurelius, . . .
Quote ID: 3925
Time Periods: 2
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 114
Section: 4B
Roman merchants established a trade base there in the age of Augustus (d. A.D. 14), and seem to have occupied the site until about A.D. 200.
Quote ID: 3926
Time Periods: 1
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 116
Section: 4B
Another epidemic struck the city of Rome in A.D. 65, {54} but these experiences paled before the disease that began spreading through the Roman empire in A.D. 165. It was brought to the Mediterranean initially by troops that had been campaigning in Mesopotamia . . .What mattered even more was the fact that this episode inaugurated a process of continued decay of the population of Mediterranean lands that lasted, despite some local recoveries, for more than half a millennium. {57}
[Footnote 54] Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, “Nero” 39:1, says 30,000 persons died in the city of Rome in the autumn of that year.
[Footnote 57] Scholarly opinion is now pretty well agreed that decay of Roman population began under the Antonine emperors. Cf. A. E. R. Boak, Manpower Shortage and the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West (Ann Arbor, 1955), pp. 15-21; J. F. Gilliam, “The Plague under Marcus Aurelius,” American Journal of Philology, 82 (1961), 225-51.
Quote ID: 3927
Time Periods: 12345
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 119
Section: 4B
The Roman imperial system collected tax moneys from lands close to the sea and transferred spare cash to the armies stationed at the frontiers. This remained a viable arrangement (though Augustus and other emperors often found it difficult to meet the military payroll) until the heavy blow of unfamiliar disease seriously eroded the wealth of the Mediterranean heartlands between A.D. 165 and 266. Thereupon, rapid die-off of large proportions of the urban populations at the most active centers of Mediterranean commerce diminished the flow of cash to the imperial fisc. As a result, pay for the soldiers at accustomed rates could no longer be found, and mutinous troops turned upon civil society to extract what they could by main force from the undefended landscapes which the Roman peace had created throughout the empire’s Mediterranean heartlands. Further economic decay, depopulation, and human disaster resulted.Military uprisings and civil wars of the third century A.D. quickly destroyed one set of landlords - the curiales - whose rents had sustained the outward trappings of Greco-Roman high culture in the empire’s provincial towns.
Quote ID: 3929
Time Periods: 123
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 127
Section: 4B
Precision is, of course, quite impossible; but Procopius reports that at the peak of its first visitation the plague killed 10,000 persons daily in Constantinople, where it raged for four months. {72}(The plagues of the sixth and seventh centuries had an importance for Mediterranean peoples fully analogues to that of the more famous Black Death of the fourteenth century.)
As in the case of the earlier great pestilences of 165-180 and of 251-266, the political effects of this plague were far-reaching. Indeed, the failure of Justinian’s efforts to restore imperial unity to the Mediterranean can be attributed in good part to the diminution of imperial resources stemming from the plague. Equally, the failure of Roman and Persian forces to offer more than token resistance to the Moslem armies that swarmed out of Arabia so suddenly in 634 becomes easier to understand in the light of the demographic disasters that repeatedly visited the Mediterranean coastlands from 542 onward . . .
[Footnote 72] Procopius, Persian Wars, 23:1.
Quote ID: 3934
Time Periods: 236
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 136
Section: 4B
Religious history also offers another striking parallel between Rome and China. The Buddhist faith began to penetrate the Han empire in the first century A.D., and soon won converts in high places. Its period of official dominance in court circles extended from the third to the ninth centuries A.D. This obviously parallels the success that came to Christianity in the Roman empire during the same period. Like Christianity, Buddhism explained suffering.
Quote ID: 3935
Time Periods: 47
Plagues and Peoples
William McNeill
Book ID: 178 Page: 142
Section: 4B
As for Great Britain, comparable estimates are only available for England {89}:Period Millions
1086 1.1
1348 3.7
1377 2.2
1430 2.1
1603 3.8
1690 4.1
[In this book on page 167, you wanted to make a copy of the map of the spread of Black Death in Europe.]
[Footnote 89] Josiah Cox Russell, British Medieval Population (Albuquerque, 1948), pp. 54, 146, 246, 269, 270.
Quote ID: 3936
Time Periods: 7
Plato, Timaeus, LCL 234: Plato IX
Translated by R. G. Bury
Book ID: 421 Page: 49
Section: 4B
SOC. Bounteous and magnificent, methinks, is the feast of speech with which I am to be requited. So then, Timaeus, it will be your task, it seems, to speak next, when you have duly invoked the gods.TIM. Nay, as to that, Socrates, all men who possess even a small share of good sense call upon God always at the outset of every undertaking, be it small or great; we therefore who are purposing to deliver a discourse concerning the Universe, how it was created or haply is uncreate, must needs invoke Gods and Goddesses (if so be that we are not utterly demented)….
Quote ID: 8615
Time Periods: 0
Plato, Timaeus, LCL 234: Plato IX
Translated by R. G. Bury
Book ID: 421 Page: 61
Section: 4B
Now of the four elements the construction of the Cosmos had taken up the whole of everyone. For its Constructor had constructed it of all the fire and water and air and earth….
Quote ID: 8618
Time Periods: 0
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 201/203
Section: 4B
XXIX, PLINY TO THE EMPEROR TRAJANSEMPRONIUS CAELIANUS, who is an excellent young man, has discovered two slaves among his recruits and has sent them to me.{3} I have postponed judgement on them until I could ask your advice on what would be a suitable sentence, knowing that you are the founder and upholder of military discipline. My chief reason for hesitating is the fact that the men had already taken the oath of allegiance but had not yet been enrolled in a unit.{1} I therefore pray you, Sir, to tell me what course to follow, especially as the decision is likely to provide a precedent.
{1} It is uncertain whether these recruits are for legions or auxilia.
{3} No slave could serve in the army in any capacity; the offence was one of seeking citizenship by illegal means and punishable by death.
Quote ID: 7974
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 203
Section: 4B
XXX, TRAJAN TO PLINYSEMPRONIUS CAELIANUS was carrying out my instructions in sending you the slaves.{2} Whether they deserve capital punishment will need investigation; it is important to know if they were volunteers or conscripts, or possibly offered as substitutes. If they are conscripts, then the blame falls on the recruiting officer; if substitutes, then those who offered them as such are guilty; but if they volunteered for service, well aware of their status, then they will have to be executed. The fact that they were not yet enrolled in a legion makes little difference, for the truth about their origin should have come out on the actual day they were accepted for the army.
{2} Only holders of imperium could conduct a capital trail, so Caelianus could not act himself.
Quote ID: 7975
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 209
Section: 4B
XXXIV, TRAJAN TO PLINYYou may very well have had the idea that it should be possible to form a company of firemen at Nicomedia on the model of those existing elsewhere, but we must remember that it is societies like those which have been responsible for the political disturbances in your province, particularly in its towns. If people assemble for a common purpose, whatever name we give them and for whatever reason, they soon turn into a political club. It is a better policy then to provide the equipment necessary for dealing with fires, and to instruct property owners to make use of it, calling on the help of the crowds which collect if they find it necessary.
Quote ID: 7976
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 213
Section: 4B
XXXVIII, TRAJAN TO PLINYSTEPS must be taken to provide Nicomedia with a water supply, and I am sure you will apply yourself to the task in the right way. But for goodness’ sake apply yourself no less to finding out whose fault it is that Nicomedia has wasted so much money up to date. It may be that people have profited by this starting and abandoning of aqueducts. Let me know the result of your inquiry.{1}
{1} This sounds like a personal note from Trajan who has not read Pliny’s letter carefully. Its main point was the request for an engineer.
Quote ID: 7977
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 233
Section: 4B
LV, TRAJAN TO PLINYNEITHER can I see any other solution myself, my dear Pliny, to the problem of investing public funds, unless the rate of interest on loans is lowered. You can fix the rate yourself, according to the number of potential borrowers. But to force a loan on unwilling persons, who may perhaps have no means of making use of it themselves, is not in accordance with the justice of our times.
Quote ID: 7978
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 285/287/289/291
Section: 4B
XCVI, PLINY TO THE EMPEROR TRAJAN{2}{2} For this celebrated exchange of letters, see Tertullian,ApologyII. 6-10, and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. III. 33; for trails of Christians, see Eusebius, IV. 15, V. 1, etc. Note that P. first executes Christians for their contumacia, then has doubts and seeks advice; but the charge is never that of maiestas.
It is my custom to refer all my difficulties to you, Sir, for no one is better able to resolve my doubts and to inform my ignorance.
I have never been present at an examination{3} of Christians.
{3} The term cognitio indicates that this was a formal trail presided over by the holder of imperium, assisted by aconsilium; cf. the court at Centum Cellae, VI. 31.
Consequently, I do not know the nature or the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them, nor the grounds for starting an investigation and how far it should be pressed. Nor am I at all sure whether any distinction should be made between them on the grounds of age, or if young people and adults should be treated alike; whether a pardon ought to be granted to anyone retracting his beliefs, or if he has once professed Christianity, he shall gain nothing by renouncing it; and whether it is the mere name of Christian which is punishable, even if innocent of crime, or rather the crimes associated with the name.{1}
For the moment this is the line I have taken with all persons brought before me on the charge of being Christians. I have asked them in person if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished. There have been others similarly fanatical who are Roman citizens. I have entered them all on the list of persons to be sent to Rome for trail.{2}
{1} Action taken by the Romans against foreign cults was usually directed against their associated flagitia, Pliny’s concern is with what the Christian apologists called accusatio nominis, i.e. membership of the cult, approved by Trajan in his reply. See S-W. Appendix V, pp. 772 ff.
{2} It is not clear whether P. was obliged to do this, whether or not those charged had (like St. Paul) exercised their right to appeal (provocation), but it was probably the custom to do so.
Now that I have begun to deal with this problem, as so often happens, the charges are becoming more widespread and increasing in variety. An anonymous pamphlet has been circulated which contains the names of a number of accused persons. Among these I considered that I should dismiss any who denied that they were or ever had been Christians when they had repeated after me a formula of invocation to the gods and had made offerings of wine and incense to your statue (which I had ordered to be brought into court for this purpose along with the images of the gods), and furthermore had reviled the name of Christ: none of which things, I understand, and any genuine Christian can be induced to.
Others, whose names were given to me by an informer, first admitted the charge and then denied it; they said that they had ceased to be Christians two or more years previously, and some of them even twenty years ago. They all did reverence to your statue and the images of the gods in the same way as the others, and reviled the name of Christ. They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this:{1} they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon to restore it. After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind; but they had in fact given up this practice since my edict, issued on your instructions, which banned all political societies. This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths.
{1} For a full discussion on this evidence for the services of the early Church, see S-W, pp. 702 ff. The morning service seems to be one of prayer and reading, the evening one the combined Eucharist and Agape. It is the latter which comes under the ban oncollegia (cf. X. 34).
I have therefore postponed any further examination and hastened to consult you. The question seems to me to be worthy of your consideration, especially in view of the number of persons endangered; for a great many individuals of every age and class, both men and women, are being brought to trail, and this is likely to continue. It is not only the towns, but villages and rural districts too which are infected through contact with this wretched cult. I think though that it is still possible for it to be checked and directed to better ends, for there is no doubt that people have begun to throng the temples which had been almost entirely deserted for a long time; the sacred rites which had been allowed to lapse are being performed again, and flesh of sacrificial victims is on sale everywhere, though up till recently scarcely anyone could be found to buy it. It is easy to infer from this that a great many people could be reformed if they were given an opportunity to repent.
Quote ID: 7979
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 291/293
Section: 4B
XCVII, TRAJAN TO PLINYYOU have followed the right course of procedure, my dear Pliny, in your examination of the cases of persons charged with being Christians, for it is impossible to lay down a general rule to a fixed formula. These people must not be hunted out; if they are brought before you and the charge against them is proved, they must be punished,{1} but in the case of anyone who denies that he is a Christian, and makes it clear that he is not by offering prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his repentance however suspect has past conduct may be. But pamphlets circulated anonymously must play no part in any accusation. They create the worst sort of precedent and are quite out of keeping with the spirit of our age.
{1}i.e. the charges must be properly made against individuals by delatio and a trail held before the governor. There are to be no mass prosecutions. Note that Trajan never answers Pliny’s original question on the extent of punishments.
Quote ID: 7980
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, LCL 059: Pliny II, Books 8-10
Translated by Betty Radice
Book ID: 345 Page: 295
Section: 4B
CII, PLINY TO THE EMPEROR TRAJANWE have celebrated with due solemnity the day{2} on which the security of the human race was happily transferred to your care, commending our public vows and thanksgiving to the gods to whom we owe your authority.
{2} 28 January; cf. Ep.52.
Quote ID: 7981
Time Periods: 12
Pliny, Natural History, LCL 418: Pliny VIII, Books 28-32
Translated by W. H. S. Jones
Book ID: 358 Page: 11
Section: 4B
…King Tullus Hostilius used the same sacrificial ritual as Numa, which he found in Numa’s books, in an attempt to draw Jupiter down from the sky, and was struck by lightning because he made certain mistakes in the ceremony….
Quote ID: 9115
Time Periods: 0
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 34
Section: 4B
‘The poor’, moreover, as Peter Brown has recently and convincingly argued, did in fact not exist as a social category in the pagan, Greco-Roman, civic world view. It required a complete shift in the social imagination, the development of a totally new, revolutionary model of society, constructed precisely in opposition to the pagan idea of euergesia, for charity and love of the poor to become dominant themes in civic discourse. Its inspiration was Judeo-Christian, and its agents were the bishops and their flocks. Christian charity and love of the poor had in fact little if anything to do with the pagan, Greco-Roman, ideals of elite public generosity and civic munificence. {32}
Quote ID: 6682
Time Periods: 014
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 53
Section: 4B
In a Greek horoscope dating from the second century AD, we read the following, apt, summary of an ancient success-story career:"…then, later, getting an inheritance and improving his means by shrewd enterprises, he became ambitious, dominant and munificent… and he provided temples and public works, and gained perpetual remembrance." {I}
There was, as I shall try to show, nothing accidental about the link the horoscope text makes between the accumulation of wealth, political dominance and munificence.
Quote ID: 6683
Time Periods: 0
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 121
Section: 4B
Not all rich men were good, but all good men were - usually - rich.{30} Possession of abundant quantities of traditional virtues, as exemplified by their public benefactions, thus legitimated the rule of the - munificent- rich.With reference to the third criterion of Beetham’s model, that there [should be] evidence of consent by the subordinate to the particular power relation’, I would argue that the honours awarded to benefactors, involving public acclamations in the assembly, crowning ceremonies, statues, inscriptions and so forth, can be interpreted as actions showing the consent of the subordinates (demos) to the rule of the rich but generous elite.
{30} See Finley (1985) 35-6: ‘The judgement of antiquity about wealth was fundamentally unequivocal and uncomplicated. Wealth was necessary and it was good; it was an absolute requisite for the good life. . .’
Quote ID: 8477
Time Periods: 012
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 124/125
Section: 4B
As a final example I cite a long post-mortem honorific inscription from Kaunos in Caria.{38} Dating to the second century AD, the text probably formed part of the funerary monument of its honorand, a certain Agreophon. I quote:Ever since he was a boy and ephebe, Agreophon himself has shown his love of honour….
Quote ID: 8478
Time Periods: 012
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 126
Section: 4B
Consider the following decree of the council and people of Kyme, which forms part of a long inscription in honour of the benefactor L. Vaccius Labeo that was set up somewhere between 2BC and AD 14:. . .therefore, with good fortune, the council and the people will decide: Labeo, who is worthy of all honours, should further be praised for his dignified way of life [GREEK WORDS], his love of fame [GREEK WORD] and his attitude of liberality towards the city [GREEK WORDS], and he should be held in the highest esteem and be most highly appreciated, . . .
. . . .
’The people crown Lucius Vaccius Labeo, son of Lucius, of the tribus Aemilia, friend of Kyme [GREEK WORD], benefactor [GREEK WORD], with a golden crown because of his virtue [GREEK WORDS] and his goodwill [GREEK WORD] towards the people.’ {43}
Quote ID: 6687
Time Periods: 012
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 127
Section: 4B
The most striking portrayal, however, of the honorific rituals that constituted the real-life context of our epigraphic vocabulary of praise we find, perhaps ironically, in the work of a Christian critic. St John Chrysostom, preaching on the ‘vainglory’ still so feverishly sought after by the civic notables of his day, has left us the following graphic picture of the philotimos, the ‘honor-loving man’, making his grand entrée into the theatre of his city:The theatre is filling up, and all the people are sitting aloft presenting a splendid sight and composed of numberless faces, so that many times the very rafters and roof above are hidden by human bodies. You can see neither tiles nor stones but all is men’s bodies and faces. Then, as the benefactor who has brought them together enters in the sight of all, they stand up and as from a single mouth cry out. All with one voice call him protector and ruler of the city that they share in common, and stretch out their hands in salutation. Next, they liken him to the greatest of rivers, comparing his grand and lavish munificence to the copious waters of the Nile; and they call him the Nile of gifts. Others, flattering him still more and thinking the simile of the Nile too mean, reject rivers and seas; and they instance the Ocean [GREEK WORD] and say that he in his lavish gifts is what the Ocean is among the waters, and they leave not a word of praise unsaid…What next? The great man bows to the crowd and in his way shows his regard for them. Then he sits down amid the congratulations of his admiring peers, each of whom prays that he himself may attain to the same eminence and then die. {46}
In the passages such as these, Christian writers like St John Crysostom were shooting their arrows at what was by their time a well-established political culture with a long and distinguished pedigree.
Quote ID: 6688
Time Periods: 45
Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Book ID: 264 Page: 156
Section: 4B
Commenting on the role of public benefactors in the pagan, civic, model of society, Brown writes:[T]he community these civic benefactors, the euergetai, addressed and helped to define through their generosity was, first and foremost, thought of as a ‘civic’ community. It was always the city that was, in the first instance, the recipient of gifts, or, if not the city, the civic community, the demos or the populus, of the city. It was never the poor. What one can call a ‘civic’ model of society prevailed. The rich thought of themselves as the ‘fellow citizens’ of a distinctive community- their city. It was their city they were expected to love…
. . . .
As we saw, Brown dates this shift from a pagan model of society focused on citizens to a Christian all-embracing one with special emphasis on the destitute poor to the period 300-600 AD. As we saw in Fig. 1.2, however, the demise of euergetism in Asia Minor started already from the 220s AD onwards.
Quote ID: 6689
Time Periods: 012
Polybius, The Histories, LCL 128: Polybius 1, Books 1-2
Translated by W. R. Paton
Book ID: 422 Page: 17
Section: 1B,4B
The Romans had ere this reduced the Etruscans and Samnites and had vanquished the Italian Celts in many battles, and they now for the first time attacked the rest of Italy not as if it were a foreign country, but as if it rightfully belonged to them.
Quote ID: 8619
Time Periods: 0
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 17
Section: 4B
They are winged Victories,
Quote ID: 3940
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 28
Section: 4B
The Tychae, city goddesses, that hover so uneasily above Porphyrius’ head on the upper registers of three out of four faces, are absent from the old base, perhaps beneficially so.
Quote ID: 3941
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 43
Section: 4B
there is a much restored statue in the Vatican of a charioteer of the early Empire holding a palm. {1}
Quote ID: 3942
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 150
Section: 4B
Malalas then describes how Porphyrius led his fellow Greens in an attack on a synagogue in the suburb of Daphne, killing many worshippers. {1}
Quote ID: 3944
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 158
Section: 4B
Actors, dancers, and charioteers were all members of the entertainment profession, and (in the eyes of the Church, if not the public at large) all equally undesirable, refused baptism, and in peril of their immortal souls.
Quote ID: 3945
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
We do not know what sort of achievements were deemed to merit a statue for charioteers—and Porphyrius’ honours were in any case exceptional, as the epigrams proclaim time and again.
Quote ID: 3946
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
It looks as if Porphyrius’ poetic admirers somewhat extended the period of his first down—notoriously a peculiarly attractive time of life to ancient eyes {2} – but even so, the first four monuments must surely have been erected within about half-a-dozen years. The first, that is, when Porphyrius was about 17, the fourth when he was, at the latest, about 22.[……this is the footnote with the Greek writing in it.]
Quote ID: 3947
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
2 Elagabalus once fell in love with a charioteer at the ‘beardless’ stage (???????????? , Dio lxxx, 15, 2). )
Quote ID: 3948
Time Periods: 3
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 228
Section: 4B
Gladiatorial games had of course long been gone by Porphyrius’ day {1} –though less perhaps because of imperial disapproval than simply as a result of changing taste and the sheer difficulty and expense of procuring gladiators
Quote ID: 3949
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 228
Section: 4B
No doubt Christianity had some effect, but moral considerations can hardly have been to the fore, or the scarcely less brutal and bloody wild-beast hunts (venationes) would not have been allowed to continue for nearly two centuries more.
Quote ID: 3950
Time Periods: 567
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 230
Section: 4B
The other great rival to the circus was the theatre. Not indeed the legitimate stage, dead and gone for centuries, but the mime and (above all) the pantomime. Pantomimes of both sexes became popular idols, and we know the names of many of the most famous.
Quote ID: 3952
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 231
Section: 4B
The pantomime acted out in dumb show a sort of ballet, usually on a theme from Greek mythology. {1} It was normally a solo performance (to the accompaniment of music and /or singing), and each of the four factions had its own top dancer. It might not sound very exciting, yet an experienced pantomime could evidently do with his audience all that a modern pop singer does—and more. As early as the first century top pantomimes had substantial fan clubs, who often got out of hand.
Quote ID: 3953
Time Periods: 256
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 231
Section: 4B
Church Fathers tend to wax indignant about most forms of public entertainment, but it is always for the theatre that they reserve their choicest invectives.
Quote ID: 3954
Time Periods: 56
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 244
Section: 4B
The charioteer had always been a popular idol at Rome. As early as the 70’s B.C. we hear of a grief-stricken fan who threw himself on the funeral pyre of his favourite driver. {1}
Quote ID: 3955
Time Periods: 0
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 246
Section: 4B
Now the charioteer was not the only popular idol of late Roman society. There was of course the Holy Man, {7} the ascetic saint, with whom not even a Porphyrius could compete. Yet among the ordinary range of mortals the charioteer soon came to outstrip all competitors.
Quote ID: 3956
Time Periods: 23
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 254/255
Section: 4B
The truth is that few statues of any sort, whether in bronze or stone, were erected after Justinian. Indeed, it is a commonplace of Byzantine art history that ‘sculpture in the round, after the sixth century, was used only for statues of emperors and occasionally members of the imperial family’. {1}
Quote ID: 3957
Time Periods: 67
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 255
Section: 4B
But this is the sort of exception that proves the rule. Nicetas’ services to Heraclius were altogether exceptional—and he was a kinsman after all. {4} Otherwise I know of only one private citizen honoured with a statue after the death of Justinian: the great chamberlain-general Narses, under Justin II. {5}
Quote ID: 3958
Time Periods: 6
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 255
Section: 4B
And the chariot-races of the hippodrome certainly remained a key point in imperial ceremonial right down to the eleventh or twelfth century.
Quote ID: 3959
Time Periods: 7
Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Book ID: 180 Page: 257
Section: 4B
And after 541 no more consuls were appointed—largely because no one could afford the honour any more.
Quote ID: 3960
Time Periods: 6
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 6
Section: 4B
A knowledge of Roman law and an ability to speak to the great in their own Latin tongue remained a sine qua non for success at the court, and in the provinces, a command of Latin conferred priceless advantages on Greek speakers faced with the perpetual, intrusive presence of a Mediterranean-wide Roman state.
Quote ID: 4012
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 13
Section: 4B
The frank letters of Pliny, while governor of Bithynia, to the emperor Trajan have no late Roman equivalents.
Quote ID: 4014
Time Periods: 12
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 34
Section: 3A1,4B
For it is only by comparing the widely accepted codes of political behavior, linked to the paideia of the civic notables, with the emergent Christian culture of the bishops and the monks that we can measure the extent and the significance of the change in “theatrical style” that came about in the last decades of the fourth century. In that crucial generation, Christian spokesmen, representing the needs of Christian congregations in the cities, began to intervene in the politics of the empire. As we shall see, however, they frequently did so by taking on roles, in their confrontation with those in power, that had originally been elaborated by men of paideia.
Quote ID: 4022
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 44
Section: 4B
A man of paideia was a man who knew how to command respect, not be violent (as those who wielded official power might do), but through the potent “spell” of his personal eloquence.{47} He had “come to possess a magical device stronger than the resources of any mere administrator.”{48}
Quote ID: 4028
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 44/45
Section: 4B
In Athens in the late 330s, the proconsul of Achaia, a man from the Latin West, had arrested a group of students and their professors for rowdyism. At the last moment, the young Prohaeresius, a tall Armenian of striking demeanor, was allowed to come forward. “He . . . first delivered a premium. . . . It launched out and soon slid into a pitiable account of the sufferings of the students, and he inserted an encomium of their teacher. In this premium he let fall only one allusion to a grievance concerning the proconsul’s high-handed behavior. . . . At this the proconsul was overcome by the force of his arguments, his weighty style, his facility and sonorous eloquence.”. . .
“Then up jumped the proconsul, and shaking his purple edged cloak (the Roman call it a tebennos [or toga]), that austere and inexorable judge applauded Prohaeresius like a schoolboy.”{52}
Pastor John’s note: wow
Quote ID: 4029
Time Periods: 4
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 45
Section: 4B
Indeed, it helped him to recognize such friends. Paideia showed itself through philia, through a carefully nurtured art of friendship, that aimed to recapture, in the midst of the cares of public life, some of the light-hearted enthusiasm of an upper-class adolescence. Charis and hémerotés, graciousness and gentle courtesy, with their all-important accompaniment, a willingness to grant favors to men of similar background, were the hallmark of the educated person.{53}
Quote ID: 4030
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 48
Section: 4B
The measured speech of a cultivated speaker of Greek or Latin was “a small sot of coherence in a sea of noise.”{65} It carried with it a sense of quiet triumph over all that was slovenly, unformed, and rebellious in the human voice and so, by implication, in the human person. It was a fragile speck of order in a violent and discordant world.
Quote ID: 4033
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 50
Section: 4B
So much alert attention to deportment betrays a fact almost too big to be seen. We are in a world characterized by a chilling absence of legal restraints on violence in the exercise of power. This was not a situation that had begun only with the later empire. For centuries philosophers and teachers had grappled with the intensely personal nature of power in ancient society.
Quote ID: 4034
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 52
Section: 4B
Thus, a tide of horror lapped close to the feet of all educated persons. Not surprisingly, legal exemption from corporal punishment was a tenaciously defended mark of special status for even the most humble member of the class of notables.
Quote ID: 4035
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 58
Section: 4B
Throughout these centuries, emperors drawn from a wide variety of social backgrounds maintained a high level of decorum. To become an emperor was to assume, in public, a mask of upper-class dignity and self-restraint.{117}
Quote ID: 4037
Time Periods: ?
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 67
Section: 4B
In reality, of course, not all interventions involved the imperial wrath. The normal business of the court concerned the workings of a vast patronage system.
Quote ID: 4046
Time Periods: 56
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 95
Section: 4B
Yet the taint of private wealth remained. One had only to enter a church in fourth-century northern Italy and elsewhere to see the manner in which private persons displayed their wealth within the Christian community. The shimmering mosaic floors of the new basilicas were divided up into sections, each one of which bore the name of a donor, of his family, or even portraits of donors.{131} The civic ideal of euergesia, the ancient search for personal fame through well-publicized giving, had entered the church in a peculiarly blatant form.
Quote ID: 4055
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 96
Section: 4B
By being taken into the hands of the bishop, as the “wealth of the poor,” the wealth of the church became public wealth. It would be displayed by the bishop in a manner calculated to put all other groups to shame.
Quote ID: 4056
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 96
Section: 4B
We do not know, region by region, what the Christian church actually did for the poor in the cities of the later empire.{134} What we do know, from our evidence, is how the care of the poor became a dramatic component of the Christian representation of the bishop’s authority in the community.
Quote ID: 4057
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 97
Section: 3A3A,4B
On the great feasts of the year, the poor were put on view, through processions and solemn banquets: “This word have we spoken concerning the poor: God hath established the bishop because of the feasts, that he may refresh them at the feasts.”{138}These occasions may not, in fact, have significantly alleviated the state of the poor, but they carried a clear ceremonial message that was closely watched by contemporaries. Ambrose was accused by his enemies of having scattered gold pieces to the poor.{139} His gesture of almsgiving was presented by his enemies as the usurpation of an imperial prerogative. Only the emperor, a man raised by fortune above all concern for wealth, could shower gold, the most precious of all metals, on the populace.{140}
It is significant that ceremonial rivalry of this kind came to be tolerated in the fourth century. By being made visible, the poor were also made amenable to control.
Quote ID: 4058
Time Periods: 4
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 97/98
Section: 4B
A potentially disruptive element on the margins of the great cities, the poor were enlisted to acclaim the bishop and the Christian rich with the same deferential fervor as that with which the démos acclaimed the civic notables. Their hands upraised in thanks in the courtyards of great churches now echoed in miniature the solemn scenes in the theater that bound the city to its benefactors.{141}Compared with the “Nile of gifts” expected of a civic notable, the sums involved on such occasions were minute.
. . . .
But these outlays happened on a regular basis, and in a more frankly face-to-face manner than was the case with the high ceremonials of a notable’s euergesia. They offered a means of fostering goodwill, broken down into smaller units and displayed more frequently, for a trifle of the cost of civic munificence.
Quote ID: 4059
Time Periods: 45
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 98
Section: 3A1A,3A3B,4B
The traditional solution, favored by the upperclass residents, was the all able-bodied beggars should become the slaves or the serfs (depending on their previous status) of those who denounced them to the authorities.{143} The Christian church offered a less-drastic way of stabilizing the population. It bore the cost of keeping the poor in one place. They were enrolled on the matricula, on poor rolls kept by the bishop and clergy. These rolls are referred to in cities as far apart as Hippo in North Africa and Edessa in eastern Syria.{144} In becoming the “poor of the church,” the poor were stabilized: they could not move to other cities. Begging itself came to require a permit that bore the bishop’s signature.{145}. . . .
It was perhaps for that reason (and not only to increase the appeal of Christianity) that Constantine ostentatiously fostered the expansion of poor relief in major cities. He assigned supplies of food and clothing to the poor of the churches, to be administered by the bishop alone.{146}
Pastor John’s note: Wow!!
Quote ID: 4060
Time Periods: 47
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 122/123
Section: 4B
Paideia continued to provide the bishops of the fifth century with what they needed most—the means of living at peace with their neighbors. The newly edited letters of Firmus, bishop of Caesarea, Basil’s former see (who died in 439), make this plain. Their interest lies in the fact that they are so uninteresting. They show how a bishop, whom we know to have been an active participant in the ecclesiastical maneuvering associated with the Council of Ephesus, maintained his alliances in the old manner.. . . .
Bishops such as Firmus cast the spell of paideia over what had remained a potentially faction-ridden community.
A subtle shift occurred by which the rhetorical antithesis between non-Christian paideia and “true” Christianity was defused. Paideia was no longer treated as the all-embracing and supreme ideal of a gentleman’s life. It was seen, instead, as the necessary first stage in the life cycle of the Christian public man. A traditional ornament, paideia was also a preparatory school of Christian character.
Quote ID: 4075
Time Periods: 5
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 149
Section: 4B,3A1
In a study of newly discovered inscriptions that record public acclamations at Aphrodisias in Caria, Charlotte Roueché has drawn attention to the increased tendency in the fifth century to use chanted slogans as a form of political and theological decision-making.{150} Such acclamations carried with them an aura of divinely inspired unanimity. In them, the crowd expressed a group parrhésia, tinged with supernatural certainty.
Quote ID: 4088
Time Periods: 5
Prince, The
Nicolo Machiavelli
Book ID: 361 Page: 73
Section: 4B
For the old Roman valour is not dead, Nor in th’ Italians’ brests extinguished.
Quote ID: 8184
Time Periods: 07
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 2
Section: 4B
Christians should not eat with Jews {50}, a community numerous in Spain by 300, and must not ask the rabbi to bless their fields which would nullify the blessing pronounced by the bishop {49}.*John’s note: From the Council of Elvira*
Quote ID: 8251
Time Periods: 4
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 3
Section: 4B
A five-year excommunication is imposed on parents who marry their daughters to Jews or to heretics unwilling to become catholics {16}. Marriage to a pagan husband is discouraged but carries no penalty unless he is a priest.…*John’s note: See note on page 2.*
Quote ID: 8252
Time Periods: 4
Procopius, History of the Wars, LCL 107: Procopius III, Books 5-6.15
Translated by H. B. Dewing
Book ID: 333 Page: 11
Section: 3D2,4B
…in governing his own subjects, he invested himself with all the qualities which appropriately belong to one who is by birth an emperor. For he was exceedingly careful to observe justice, he preserved the laws on a sure basis, he protected the land and kept it safe from the barbarians dwelling round about, and attained the highest possible degree of wisdom and manliness. And he himself committed scarcely a single act of injustice against his subject, nor would he brook such conduct on the part of anyone else who attempted it....PJ: the last five words are on page 13.
Quote ID: 7826
Time Periods: 6
Prudentius, A Reply to Address of Symmachus, LCL 398: Prudentius II
Translated by Jeffrey Henderson
Book ID: 552 Page: 71
Section: 4B
Yet what is Roman and what is barbarian are as different from each other as the four-footed creature is distinct from the two-footed or the dumb from the speaking; and no less apart are they who loyally obey God’s commands from senseless cults and their superstitions.
Quote ID: 9216
Time Periods: 45
Purgatorio
Dante Alighieri (A New Verse Translation by W. S. Merwin)
Book ID: 185 Page: xxiv
Section: 4B
“Now I pray you to tell us who you are. Be no harder than one has been toward you, so may your name advance still through the world.”Pastor John’s note: Fame
Quote ID: 4099
Time Periods: 7
Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, The
Edited by J. A. North and S. R. F. Price
Book ID: 166 Page: 11
Section: 1A,2B2,4B
conquered nations were allowed to keep their gods in the same way as they were allowed to keep their institutions and constitutions, as long as they did not impede Roman dominance.....(Hartung 1836: i. 231).
Quote ID: 3491
Time Periods: 047
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 15
Section: 3A2,4B
Whereas the intolerance of the Middle Ages was religious, that is, based directly on the pretensions of the Church or of the State to regulate the religious conscience of the individuals, the intolerance of the Roman State was political and practical.
Quote ID: 4116
Time Periods: 234
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 15
Section: 3A2A,4B
Minucius Felix express the difference between the ancient and the medieval view when he said to pagans: “You punish crimes actually committed; among us even a thought may be a sin.”{11}
Quote ID: 4117
Time Periods: 3
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 25
Section: 4B
To speak of the gods was to speak of “the gods of Rome, a sort of highest class of Roman citizens. As such they had, one might almost say, their duties toward the state while the state, for its part, was obliged to provide them with their proper offerings and honours. There is a total lack in the early Roman cult of that often unmanly humility in the presence of objects of adoration which meets us in Semitic worship; the Romans and their gods are rather in the position of free contracting parties.”{30} It is little wonder that the Romans up to the latest times ascribed their success as a people to the fidelity with which they observed the conditions of this contract with the gods.{31}
Quote ID: 4118
Time Periods: 123
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 29/30
Section: 4B
Was the Roman citizen permitted to worship gods other than those approved by the state, provided that this worship was carried on in private?. . . .
A passage of Cicero seems to establish that it was no more permitted to raise an altar to them on one’s own home than to dedicate to them a temple on a street or a public place. Livy, on the other hand, confines the interdict to sacred or public lands; it was there only, according to him, that the citizen was forbidden to sacrifice according to foreign rites.
Quote ID: 4122
Time Periods: 01
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 31
Section: 3A2A,4B
Quite definite on this question are the words Dio puts into the mouth of Maecenas. The latter was haranguing Augustus on his duties, in the year 29 B.C.. . . .
Those who introduce strange ideas about it you should both hate and punish, not only for the sake of the gods, but because such persons, by bringing in new divinities persuade many to adopt foreign principles of law from which spring up conspiracies . . . “{62}
Quote ID: 4123
Time Periods: 01
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 43
Section: 4B
The words of the governor, Gallio, at one of Paul’s hearings probably reflect the Roman government’s attitude, “I am here to execute Roman law, settle for yourselves points of doctrine.”{123}
Quote ID: 4125
Time Periods: 1
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 48
Section: 3A2A,4B
It must be remembered, however, that the criminal law was comparatively jejeune in Rome until the time of Augustus and that as a consequence the religious offence might not have been penalized as a crime in the proper sense of the word.
Quote ID: 4126
Time Periods: 01
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 75
Section: 3A1,4B
A good deal of misunderstanding has come from regarding Judaism exclusively as a religion. {1} It was more than a religion in Judaea. It was, as students have described it, a “way of life.” It comprehended not only a fundamental law but a collection of regulations and practices that could only express themselves in a political sphere.
Quote ID: 4130
Time Periods: 01
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 76
Section: 3A1,4B
Not that the Jews did not retain part of their national system in the Greek cities of Asia Minor and in Egypt, for several of the Hellenistic monarchs guaranteed them an extensive autonomy in community affairs. {4} Even this, however, was impossible when the Diaspora reached Italy. For though Rome consented to maintain the status quo in the East,{5} she, nevertheless, demanded that the Judaism practiced by Roman citizens in Italy be shorn of national features.
Quote ID: 4131
Time Periods: 01
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 149
Section: 3A1,4B
It was probably because the synagogues had become illicita in the sense of disorderly that Tiberius and Claudius adopted restrictive measures against them. In the case of Tiberius, the measure reveals itself clearly as an administrative or police matter when taken together with other measures of a similar nature. Riots and agitation among the colleges led Tiberius to suppress the collegia.
Quote ID: 4134
Time Periods: 1
Religious Toleration And Persecution In Ancient Rome
Simeon L. Guterman
Book ID: 187 Page: 158/159
Section: 3A1,4B
The end of the ancient state coincides with the triumph of Christianity. The triumph of Christianity marks the close of the political and religious development of the classical civilization. The dichotomy between church and state which characterizes society since the fourth century makes its appearance in the last age of the Roman Empire. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” is a rule which the ancient state knew not and could hardly acknowledge.. . . .
The close integration of the ancient gods with the classical community was of the essence of the life of the ancient civilization. When this link disappeared the vital part of the classical culture went with it.
Quote ID: 4135
Time Periods: 45
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 6
Section: 4B
The “Rise of Western Christendom” amounted to little more than a salvage operation - the preservation, within Christian monasteries, of what little remained of the culture of Rome and the slow renewal of a sense of community around a “Roman” Catholic Church. And in the period between 400 and 1000, this salvage operation had been, at best, a messy business, unredeemed by flashes of genius, and frequently thwarted by outbursts of “barbarism.”
Quote ID: 6691
Time Periods: 47
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 8
Section: 4B
Not only did Christian intellectuals bring the skills of writing to previously non-literate societies. They brought ways of writing historical narratives which derived from the Old Testament and from the historical traditions of the Roman world which Christians had already adapted to their own needs in earlier centuries. We owe almost all that we know of the history and literature of pre-Christian northern Europe to learned clergymen who set to work with urgency and with great intelligence to make their own, for their own needs, large sections of the pre-Christian past. As a result, the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, which saw the triumph of Christianity, can also be seen as the last great age of myth-making in northern Europe.
Quote ID: 6692
Time Periods: 567
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 12
Section: 4B
As we will see in Chapter 5, the total reversion of the economy of post-imperial Britain to a condition more crude, in many aspects, than in pre-Roman times, was not due to the inroads of barbarian invaders. Barbarian raiding was secondary. The truly chilling discontinuity in Britain wascaused by the withdrawal of the late Roman state. The fate of post-imperial Britain is a reminder that the long-term cost of having created an entire social order geared to supporting a world empire may have been more destructive for the inhabitants of a Roman province, once the empire which supported this social order had withdrawn, than were the imagined ravages of barbarian invaders.
Quote ID: 6693
Time Periods: ?
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 57
Section: 4B
The same process of centralization took place in each province. A metropolis, a “mother city”, emerged as the permanent capital of each region, leaving other cities in the shade. The provinces themselves became smaller.Pastor John’s note: During Diocletian
Quote ID: 6695
Time Periods: ?
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 66
Section: 4B
Exorcism was a common practice in the ancient world. Martyrdom, however, was not. In order to enter into the full shock of the phenomenon in the cities of the Roman Empire, we have to think away later Christian teachings, which has made us take for granted the idea that men and women should die for their beliefs.
Quote ID: 6701
Time Periods: 237
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 75
Section: 3D,4B
When early medieval Christians looked back to Rome, what they saw, first and foremost, was not the “Golden Age” of classical Rome (as we would tend to do). The pagan empire did not impress them. It was the Theodosian Code which held their attention and esteem. It was the official voice of the Roman Empire at its greatest, that is, when it was the Roman Empire as God had always intended it to be – a Christian Empire. The Code ended with a book On Religion. This book, in itself, signaled the arrival of a new attitude to religion. Religious belief as such was now treated as a subject for legislation.
Quote ID: 6703
Time Periods: 47
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 84
Section: 3A1,4B
The splendid late Roman villas, which dominated the countryside in every province of the western empire, spoke of a world restored. Their occupants – part landowners and part government servants – embraced the new order with enthusiasm. For them, conversion to Christianity was a conversion, above all, to the almost numinous majesty of a Roman Empire, now restored and protected by the One God of the Christians.
Quote ID: 6704
Time Periods: 67
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 146
Section: 4B
The history of rural church man is often the last act in the long history of the Roman villa. As with the Roman villa, the implantation of a church had economic and social effects. Local markets had always taken place at pagan country shrines on the estates of landowners. Now these shrines were placed by a church.
Quote ID: 6710
Time Periods: 456
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 205
Section: 3A1,4B
In 590, Gregory’s fate was sealed: he was made pope. “Under the pretext of becoming a bishop, I have been led back into the world.”….
Quote ID: 6713
Time Periods: 6
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 261
Section: 2A3,4B
Heightened interest in the fate of the souls of average Christians after death caused western Christianity to become, for the first time, an “otherworldly” religion in the true sense. Religious imagination and religious practice came to concentrate more intently on death and the fate of the dead. This happened because leading exponents of the new “culture of wisdom,” such as Gregory and Columbanus, had caught the entirety of human experience in the strands of a single net. All aspects of human life could be explained in the light of two universal principles – sin and repentance. Sin explained everything. Secular rulers exercised their power (so Gregory had said) so as to suppress sin and to encourage repentance. History happened according to the same rhythm. Disaster struck and kingdoms fell because the sins of the people had provoked the anger of God. Prosperity came when the people repented of their sins and regained the favor of God. Even the early medieval economy worked to the rhythm of sin. Massive transfers of wealth to monasteries and great shrines occurred for the “remission” of the sins of their donors. Above all, the human person was seen, with unprecedented sharpness, as made up of sin and merit – and nothing else. And death and the afterlife were where sin and merit would be definitively revealed by the judgment of God.
Quote ID: 6721
Time Periods: 67
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 329
Section: 3A1,4B
Adomnan’s Life of Columba marked the culmination of an age in which great monasteries and ambitious bishops had carved out for themselves extensive ecclesiastical “empires” in Ireland. In the process of empire-building, the monasteries had a distinct advantage. In a world without Roman towns, whose solid walls and long-established populations guaranteed the status of their bishops, great monasteries, such as Iona, were the few fixed points in an ever-changing landscape.
Quote ID: 6727
Time Periods: 67
Roman Empire, The
Colin Wells
Book ID: 266 Page: 249
Section: 4B
‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,’ said Christ, and the converse is also true: by how a society invests its resources you can tell where its real priorities are. In most towns and cities, the amphitheatre was the biggest building (its only rival would normally be the circus, if there was one, or the public baths).
Quote ID: 6732
Time Periods: 0147
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
Roman Empire, The
Colin Wells
Book ID: 266 Page: 270
Section: 3D,4B
As for Byzantium itself, though the rulers worked and thought in Greek, they thought of themselves as ‘Romaioi’, and are so remembered: ‘Banish then, O Grecian eyes, the passion of the waiting West! / Shall God’s holy monks not enter on a day God knoweth best / To crown the Roman king again, and hang a cross upon his breast?’ We find still stronger testimony to Rome’s cross upon his breast?’ We find still stronger testimony to Rome’s power over the imagination in Y Gododdin, when Celtic warriors rode out from Edinburgh to confront Germanic invaders in Yorkshire at a time when there was no longer any Roman authority in the whole island, and felt and called themselves Roman. Charlemagne had himself crowned emperor of Rome on Christmas Day 800 to found what was to become the Holy Roman Empire. Rome inspired awe: ‘What wert thou, Rome, unbroken, when thy ruin / Is greater than the whole world else beside?’ (Hildebert of Lavardin 1056-1133, trans. Helen Waddell, More Latin Lyrics, 263). By the early twentieth century, the German Kaiser and the Tsar of Russia still rejoiced in the title of Caesar, though ruling from capitals which had never been part of the Roman Empire, so strong was the imprint of Rome’s authority and the magic of her name.Latin remained for centuries the common tongue of Europe, and for several more the language of the Catholic Church. From Roman law flowed both canon and secular law codes,
Quote ID: 6736
Time Periods: 7
Roman Empire, The
Colin Wells
Book ID: 266 Page: 271
Section: 1A,4B
Paradoxically, it was the once persecuted Christians who absorbed, preserved and transmitted what remained of Rome’s heritage in the West.It was the Church that continued to teach the classics, and but for the Church, to quote Helen Waddell again, ‘the memory of them would have vanished from Europe’.
Quote ID: 6737
Time Periods: 47
Roman Oration of Aristides, N. S. 43. 4
Aelius Aristides, Edited by James H. Oliver
Book ID: 549 Page: 898/907
Section: 4B
Paragraph #29.“For the eternal duration of this empire the whole civilized world prays all together.”
36.
“Of all who have ever gained empire, you alone rule over men who are free.”
51.
“The knowledge of how to rule did not yet exist before your time. . . . This knowledge is both a discovery of your own and to other men, an importation from you.”
58.
“[The knowledge of how to rule] escaped all previous men and was reserved for you alone to discover and perfect. . . . On account of the knowledge of how to rule with justice and with reason the empire flourished and increased.”
63.
“You have caused the word Roman to be the label, not of membership in a city, but of some common nationality.”
64.
“There is no need of garrisons to hold their citadels, but the men of greatest standing and influence in every city guard their own fatherlands for you.”
66.
There has developed in your constitution a single harmonious, all-embracing union, and what formerly seemed impossible has come to pass in your time: [maintenance] of control over an empire over a vast one at that, and at the same time firmness of rule [without] unkindness.”
67b.
“All send their tribute to you with more pleasure than some would actually receive it from others. They have good reason.”
91.
“You alone made these distinctions and discoveries [as to] how to govern both in the world and in the city [of Rome] itself. For you alone are rulers, so to speak, according to nature. . . . You equipped yourselves with all that was helpful for the position of rulers, and you inveneted a new constitution such as no one ever had before.”
99.
“Thus it is right to pity only those outside your hegemony, if indeed there are any, because they lose such blessings.”
103.
“When you assumed the presidency, confusion and strife ceased, and universal order entered as a brilliant light over the private and public affairs of man.”
109.“Let all the gods and children of the gods be invoked to grant that this empire and this city flourish forever and never cease until stones float upon the sea and trees cease to put forth shoots in spring, and that the great governor and his sons be preserved and obtain blessings for all.”
Quote ID: 9208
Time Periods: 2
Roman Oration of Aristides, N. S. 43. 4
Aelius Aristides, Edited by James H. Oliver
Book ID: 549 Page: 898/907
Section: 4B
90.
“It appears to me that in this state you have established a constitution not at all like any of those among the rest of mankind.”
98.
“One can say that the civilized world, which had been sick from the beginning, as it were, has been brought by the right knowledge to a state of health.”
109.“Let all the gods and children of the gods be invoked to grant that this empire and this city flourish forever and never cease until stones float upon the sea and trees cease to put forth shoots in spring, and that the great governor and his sons be preserved and obtain blessings for all.”
Quote ID: 9748
Time Periods: 2
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 1
Section: 4B
No one’s social relations were so limited and tenuous, so close to no relation at all, as the shepherd’s in the hills. His work kept him away from people. In those he did meet he had reason to fear an enemy...
Quote ID: 4138
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 4
Section: 4B
No one should build his farmhouse near a main road “because of the depredations of passing travelers.” That was the advice of a man who knew Italy well, at the height of its peace; while the advice of a contemporary in Palestine was, if one stopped the night at a wayside inn, to make one’s will. {13} Both warnings came to the same thing. Away from centers of population, one risked being robbed or killed.
Quote ID: 4139
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 7
Section: 4B
Throughout all our evidence, scattered through it is over several centuries, the methods employed and their openness point to the existence of extralegal kinds of power to a degree quite surprising. However majestic the background of Roman law and imperial administration, behold in the foreground a group of men who could launch a miniature war on their neighbor--and expected to get away with it!
Quote ID: 4140
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 11
Section: 4B
That being the case, we expect to find women especially among the victims--widows, wives whose husbands are away, but also orphans and minors. {40} They call attention to their state as “weak,” “without resources,” “with no one to turn to” (aboethetos). And of course they (or for that matter, anyone) will be most exposed to attack when they are away from home, on the road. Inhabitants of other villages are likely to prove hostile. {41}
Quote ID: 4142
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 16
Section: 4B
Rent- or tax-collectors who come out to the country face a hostile reception and can expect attempts to cheat and resist them, even by force. They respond with their own brutality. It is just such confrontations with an external enemy--government officials, landlords’ agents, crop damage by herds, or a quarrel over land or water with people of another locality--that unite the village.
Quote ID: 4144
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 21
Section: 4B
but throughout our period it is always true to say that the bulk of real property belonged not to the peasant but to someone who did no work himself and who, more often than not, lived elsewhere. When he did appear, it was as a master; when he took up residence, local office was his natural due. {64}
Quote ID: 4145
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 30
Section: 4B
Their life, says Cicero, “clashes with more polished elegance of a man”; and when he wants to vilify his enemies, he terms them “rustics and country folk.”
Quote ID: 4147
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 31
Section: 4B
A pure Latin was the pride of the ruling race, above the provincial variations that one detected in a man from northern Italy, worse still, from Spain or Africa. One blushed to be detected in an un-Roman slip. {5} Foreign words to be sure crept in; they even gained naturalized status in the course of time; but the emperor Claudius only exaggerated a very common prejudice when he withdrew the grant of citizenship from a man who could not speak good Latin. {6} Urbanitas opposed not only rusticitas but peregrinitas as well.
Quote ID: 4148
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 31
Section: 4B
But, as inscriptions prove, away from the city each mile marked a further deviation from correctness. {8} When one looks at the documents of an Egyptian village, corruptions are clearer still. {9} In sum, “there is a difference between rustics, semi-rustics, and the inhabitants of cities,” as Strabo says; and three centuries later, “how great a distance between city-dwellers and the rural,” exclaims St. Gregory of Nazianzus. {10}Finally, a curious etymological fact, that from one single Semitic root derive (in Syriac, Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew) the words for boor, idiot, crude ignorant fellow. The root means literally “outsider,” but in fact “outside the city.” {11}
Quote ID: 4149
Time Periods: 0123
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 34
Section: 2E2,4B
But peasants were afflicted by an affliction worse than locusts, worse than drought: the man from the city, come to collect rents or taxes.“Before the grain-tax is delivered, the poll-tax falls due.” {21} “The cities are set up by the state in order . . . to extort and oppress.” {22} So say our sources for Palestine, and truly. ...
Farmers could only defend themselves by a kind of economic suicide: If your demands drive us to desperation, they said to the officials, then we will flee our fields and you will get no yield at all. {24} It was no empty threat. ...
We will defer till later the discussion of these laborers and pass over the many studies of anachoresis, meaning flight from one’s fields, village, debts, and creditors in Egypt.
Quote ID: 4150
Time Periods: 123
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 38
Section: 4B
The third and fourth centuries, however, brought a change. The hoarding of grain for a rise in price and usurious loans to those who lacked food and seed corn seem to have grown more common. {31}
Quote ID: 4151
Time Periods: 34
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 38
Section: 4B
The general background is easy to describe. Beginning at about the birth of Cicero, the tendency of the empire’s socioeconomic development over five centuries can be compressed into three words: fewer have more.
Quote ID: 4152
Time Periods: 01234
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 39
Section: 4B
Evidence for the end product, when collected, {34} dots the map of every part of the empire. The phenomenon could hardly be more widespread. And the master treated these villages as he was entitled to in law, as if the living community, its individual members, and its energies were his to do with as he wanted...
Quote ID: 4153
Time Periods: 0123
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 46
Section: 4B
Egypt offers a specially clear illustration of the cultural gulf. An edict published from the capital in 215 announces: All Egyptians who are in Alexandria, and particularly the countryfolk who have fled from other parts can easily be detected, are by all means to be expelled...
Quote ID: 4155
Time Periods: 3
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 47
Section: 4B
The burnous framing a sun-blackened face and shaggy hair; the slow tongue, heavy step, and servile stupid address; the peasant’s belief in strange gods and stranger rustic spells--all these the city man tried to keep at a distance. He divided the human race into “duly registered, and country-dwelling.” {58} ...Though explicit proof of such success stories is rare, indirect evidence suggests a quite widespread phenomenon. People with native names, or sons and daughters of natives, appear in the honor rolls of many a provincial center, risen there surely from the countryside and Romanized, or Hellenized, by nomenclature, language, aspirations, and municipal office. Many a village surely honors in its chosen patron some hometown boy who made good.
Quote ID: 4156
Time Periods: 0123
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 47
Section: 4B
Various incentives encouraged those who had lived in a city to spend a part of the year or take up permanent residence on their estates. They qualified for village office (it was common to require real property for the rank){61}, and acknowledged the honor of election by paying for a new public bath, a portico, or the like. {62}
Quote ID: 4157
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 57
Section: 4B
The area of our study held two swollen giants of cities, Alexandria and the capital itself, both containing over half a million inhabitants. It held two other near-giants, Carthage and Antioch; perhaps a half-dozen others with more than seventy-five thousand; the rest, much smaller. Pompeii’s twenty thousands were typical. One could fairly call oneself a city-dweller and still be overwhelmed by the sheer size of Rome.
Quote ID: 4159
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 58
Section: 4B
Citizens of the capital felt themselves vastly superior to men of any other origin. Tacitus lists “among so many sorrows that saddened the city” in the year 33 the marriage of a woman of the royal family to someone “whose grandfather many remembered as a gentleman outside the senate, from Tivoli” {1} ...we lay bare an almost incredible snobbery ...that originates outside the city’s bounds” {2} --while Cicero, two centuries earlier, complained, “You see how all of us are looked down on who come from country towns.” {3}Pastor John’s Note: Even Cicero
Quote ID: 4160
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 59
Section: 4B
The Nicomedians, a contemporary reports, “are very proud of their larger population” than Nicaea’s--just because it was larger. Similarly, cities asserted the claim and attached to themselves the title “Greatest”, or quarreled over whose temple to Zeus or whose amphitheater was the bigger.
Quote ID: 4161
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 61
Section: 4B
Rich and poor alike loved the object that gave them standing in the world.They could not offer their lives for it; there was no call, no war; so those who could gave their wealth, with a generosity unequaled in any other period of human history. ...Their readiness to mortgage their estates or anticipate their income for years to come can be inferred from the size of their gifts, the achievements of which survive to us only as ruins, to be sure, but ruins of extraordinary magnificence. The physical magnificence of imperial civilization rested ultimately on sheer willingness.
Quote ID: 4162
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 62
Section: 4B
“Most people,” says Plutarch, “think that to be deprived of the chance to display their wealth is to be deprived of wealth itself.” It was the thirst for honor, the contest for applause, that worked so powerfully to impoverish the rich.
Quote ID: 4163
Time Periods: 12
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 114
Section: 4B
These little sweeteners accompanying the address of a poor man to a great were made still more welcome by abject deference. “The humble man humiliates himself in a disgraceful and undignified manner, throwing himself headlong to the ground upon his knees, clothing himself in a beggar’s rags, and heaping dust upon himself.” {80} It was a posture that invited the verbal kicks delivered indiscriminately to the whole body of the vulgus by Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Seneca, Tacitus (especially Tacitus), and other Latin authors. {81} A better defined contempt struck specific targets by name: weavers, fullers, and so on. {82} Cicero, speaking, as it happens, about the eastern regions, sweeps into the waste bin half their population of “craftsmen, petty shopkeepers, and all that filth of the cities.” {83}
Quote ID: 4165
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 115/116
Section: 4B
So much for the various “craftsmen” that Cicero dismissed; but what was wrong with the “petty tradesmen”? The answer to that question lay in their dependence on falsehood. It was their business to lie about their wares, a thing that no honorable man was capable of doing. {88} The same charge could be made against a slave, that his position required deception. “No one of the servile background can develop any great pride.” “It belongs to slavery not to speak for or against anyone you wish.” “When you see someone cringing before another or fawning on him against his real opinion, you can with confidence say this fellow is no free man.” And against the poor, too, the charge could be made that their very poverty reduced them to lying, cheating, stealing. The rich frankly confessed that only themselves could afford to be honest. {90} ...The poor deserve to be held in contempt because they have no money. Poverty in and out of itself is “vile,” “dishonored,” “ugly,” {91}
Quote ID: 4166
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 117
Section: 4B
We may take it as a true reflection of late Republican upper-class Roman morality, then, that in his mind the two words “rich” and “honorable” being together and thus appear so regularly in his speeches arm in arm, like a happily married couple. {93}
Quote ID: 4167
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 118
Section: 4B
The Romans indeed acknowledged a goddess called Money (Pecunia); but some of them were blinder devotees than others, and he cult was tributary to another Status (Philotimia)
Quote ID: 4168
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 119
Section: 4B
a Pompeian’s declaration, written up on a wall, “I hate poor people. If anyone wants something for nothing, he’s a fool. Let him pay up and he’ll get it.” {101}Poor people returned the hatred. A number of passages testify to this, at any rate as it was sensed by the rich. {102}
Quote ID: 4169
Time Periods: 012
Roman Social Relations
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 188 Page: 126
Section: 4B
What could have induced the Romans to be so blind? Surely they saw that, in their gathering of wealth by conquest, they gathered a giant market. Surely someone realized that the great swelling of cities in later Republican Italy offered perfectly extraordinary economic opportunities, especially in luxury goods, services, trades, and crafts. But no; with unteachable conservatism, rich Romans turned to the land, and even those of relatively modest means could not lower themselves to the running of an arms factory or fuller’s mill. That left a vacuum, promptly filled by Greek freedmen
Quote ID: 4170
Time Periods: 0
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 5
Section: 4B
One should not think of the Romans as a single, pure race.
Quote ID: 8362
Time Periods: 01
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 9
Section: 1A,4B
Nevertheless, it will help to understand how the Romans thought if we try to recapture these feelings of anxiety, ‘alone and afraid, in a world we never made.’ For although they had made great strides in a number of practical and administrative fields, they were rarely creative thinkers. They produced no native philosophers or scientists. They were content not to ask fundamental questions about the process of nature, not to seek scientific explanations, as the Greeks had done, for natural phenomena.*John’s note: genius of Rome*
Quote ID: 8366
Time Periods: 1
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 17
Section: 4B
Roman religion was concerned with success not with sin. ‘Jupiter is called Best and Greatest,’ Cicero comments (On the nature of the gods III,87), because he does not make us just or sober or wise but healthy and rich and prosperous.’….
…the object of religion was to discover the correct procedure for securing the goodwill of the gods in making these activities successful. In this it has much in common with Christianity before it was modified by scientific discovery and Protestantism, with its preoccupation with individual conscience and salvation.
Quote ID: 8371
Time Periods: 012
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 35
Section: 4B
Roman prayers were phrased like legal documents, with repetitions, accumulated synonyms and detailed particularisations (‘the Roman people, the Quirites’; ‘me, my house and my household’) to make sure that no loop-hole should be left.….
A single slip…or a single omission would be enough to wreck the whole exercise.
….
Livy records (XL, 16, 2) that because a magistrate from the Latin town of Lanuvium accidentally omitted the words ‘the Roman people, the Quirites’ in one of the sacrifices at the great festival of all the Latins, in 176 B.C., the whole festival had to be repeated—at the expense of Lanuvium—and Cicero hoped to persuade his audience that the attempt by his enemies to consecrate his house (and so deprive him of it for ever) was null and void because the youth who performed the ritual stammered (On his house 139).
….
This concern for absolute accuracy was not confined to the Latins.
Quote ID: 8380
Time Periods: 01
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 38
Section: 4B
Over and over again we meet inscriptions which contain simply the name of a god, the name of a person and the letters v.s.l.m. (votum solvit libens merito)—‘so-and-so willingly paid his vow as was due to such-and-such a god’. Like the little thank-offering plaques set up to saints by his Catholic descendants, these dedications show the strength of the Roman’s faith in the gods.
Quote ID: 8381
Time Periods: 1234
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 51
Section: 4B
A slip, a mistake, a blunder at any stage entailed the repetition of the whole procedure (instauratio), together with an additional offering by way of apology for the previous error (piaculum).….
It was even possible to make a preliminary sacrifice (praecidanea) to atone in anticipation for some unintended slip.
….
A deliberate error was irremediable, as the learned lawyer Scaevola stated. No atonement, Horace writes (Odes I, 28, 34), will absolve a man from the sin of wittingly neglecting the rites which are due to the dead.
Quote ID: 8382
Time Periods: 01
Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus, The
R. M. Ogilvie
Book ID: 390 Page: 124
Section: 3B,4B
The ultimate test of a religion is that it works; and the Romans truly believed that their religion worked. Otherwise Roman civilisation would have collapsed with Augustus.….
Romans could, therefore, and did, claim that their religion was verified by history. True religion for them, as opposed to superstition, was ‘to honour the gods fitly in accordance with ancestral custom’ (Cornutus).
Quote ID: 8387
Time Periods: 01
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 7
Section: 4B
Alongside these natural factors were four fundamental ancient assumptions about life that are quite different from modern views. These were the deeply entrenched notions that (1) an individual’s character was established at birth; (2) society was fundamentally structured around patron-client relationships; (3) education involved a unilineal process in which rhetorical presentation was central; (4) technology was essentially static.Pastor John’s note: (2) & (3) emphasized in Christian Aristocracy
Quote ID: 4202
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 8
Section: 4B
The second of these, the ubiquity of patron-client relationships, influenced virtually all personal, governmental, and international relationships throughout the entire period under investigation.
Quote ID: 4203
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 11
Section: 4B
Under their custodianship, Rome prospered. They did so by manifesting traditional aristocratic virtues; foremost among these were manliness (virtus), respect for tradition and the gods (pietas), and clemency (clementia). At the center of each of these virtues stood the patron, that is, the father, the head of family, the head of government, acting as the defender, the link to the gods, and the stern but fair-minded judge.
Quote ID: 4204
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 56
Section: 4B
Abandoning a patron was extremely dishonorable, and so was the reverse…. . . .
The ancient gods themselves—that is, when we can catch a glimpse of them in myth—also lived in a world of patronage with much bargaining, posturing, and display before decisions were taken and, usually even then, with much effort being made not to offend another god by inappropriate conduct.
Quote ID: 4207
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 307
Section: 4B
During the Principate, most internal barbarians had become Romans, while those beyond direct Roman administration were marginal to Roman civilization, literally and figuratively existing on the fringe of Roman civilization with its great cultural and political centers nestled along the Mediterranean Sea. By 300 the periphery had become the center. It was not merely the place where emperors were made and unmade, for it was the focal point of a uniquely military culture with its own values and largely self-sufficient economies.
Quote ID: 4210
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 308
Section: 4B
When the peripheries became central, the external barbarians became insiders in a new society. They still lived beyond the direct Roman administration, both they lived in the heart of the frontier zone that nourished an emerging composite society in which the old borders were slowly dissolving. The fruits of this coexistence within the militarized zones dominate the remainder of the Roman history and the rest of this book.
Quote ID: 4211
Time Periods: 01234
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 309
Section: 4B
The main features of the late Roman Empire were already apparent by the death of Diocletian in 305, but they continued to evolve throughout the following century and beyond. Except for Christianity, the contours of the late empire were most apparent along the frontiers. These trademarks included a new civil administrative system that channeled imperial government through dioceses under vicars to a proliferation of provinces each under the supervision of a governor. Between the dioceses and the emperor stood four regional prefectures plus the urban prefectures of Rome and Constantinople. In the immediate frontier zones, both civil and military governments were merged under the district military commander, the dux, whose authority very often included troops stationed in several adjacent provinces. His forces were spread thinly along the frontier in small but highly fortified encampments, between which ran the all important limes road and in many places a line of watchtowers within sight of each other. {1}Other than the dux, the only point of convergence of civil and military governments in the late empire was the person of the emperor himself. The emperor stood at the apex, far above the fray, and progressively out of touch.
Quote ID: 4212
Time Periods: 4
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 352
Section: 3A2A,4B
Ammianus Marcellinus, in the process of narrating a Roman raid across the Rhine in 357, describes what at first seems to be a highly atypical barbarian settlement: “Upon their departure our soldiers marched on undisturbed plundering barbarian farms rich in livestock opulentas pecore villas and crops. Sparing no one, they dragged the inhabitants away and took them captive. Then they set aflame their houses, which were carefully built in the Roman way ritu Romano constructa.” {62} His assertion that some barbarians were living as Romans, perhaps some even on villa-type farms, is very gradually being confirmed along some sections of the frontier, and what better things to raise in abundance than fresh meats and vegetables.
Quote ID: 4217
Time Periods: 4
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 364
Section: 4B
Examples abound of sons getting a leg up the career ladder because of their father’s standing in the army. In that regard, as the century waned, even a vague allusion to a Germanic affiliation may have helped; there is no longer any evidence that it could have hurt one’s career.. . . .
None of these personal and group relationships undermined the vague but ubiquitous sense of being Roman. The Roman cultural paradigm was much alive and well, still capable of absorbing barbarian newcomers, but not into the old civilian world of the Mediterranean.
Quote ID: 4218
Time Periods: 45
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 365
Section: 3B,4B
In speaking derisively of Caracalla, Herodian writing in the third century had commented that the emperor sometimes wore “a blonde wig elaborately fashioned in the German style” and that the barbarians loved him, apparently taking his false hair as a sign of his respect for their traditions. {82} The standard Roman view of barbarians was that they all wore their hair long, especially the nobility, but that was not always the case. The Alamanni did, but the Goths had cut their hair and adopted the short style traditionally favored among the Romans. Nevertheless, official monuments still depicted all barbarians, including Goths, with long flowing hair.
Quote ID: 4219
Time Periods: 3
Rome and the Barbarians (100 B.C. – A.D. 400)
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 190 Page: 373
Section: 4B
All towns with bishops in 400 survived the Middle Ages, although, except in Italy, all became very small.. . . .
In late Roman legal terms, the barbarian honestiores merged with their Roman counterparts, and sooner or later the humiliores followed suit—soldiers and farmers, sometimes one and the same, sometimes not. The distinctions that lay at the heart of this book were vanishing without anyone taking notice.
Quote ID: 4222
Time Periods: 45
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 22
Section: 4B
The emperors lost sight of the republican origins of their office and with lavish oriental ceremony surrounded their persons with the mystique of divine kingship. Furthermore, the Empire itself was divided by Diocletian, since it had grown beyond the powers of government by any one man, even by a man who arrogated something of godhead to his office, and Constantine founded his city, the new Rome, at Byzantium to serve the East. Here still the model of the city on the Tiber was retained; the new Rome had its senate and its city magistrates, and some inconspicuous rises were promoted to the status of Seven Hills.
Quote ID: 4223
Time Periods: 34
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: 31
Section: 3A4C,4B
The Gothic occupation did not interrupt their traditional enjoyment of the prestigious republican offices but rather reinforced it. ’Happy man’, wrote the king’s secretary Cassiodorus to a nominee to the consulship, ’who has all the honour of supreme power and yet leaves to others the drudgery of affairs.’Pastor John’s note: Pg. 25 A Roman
NOTE: This can only be seen as a rationalization, a means for a Roman spirit to maintain its exalted self-image in the face of an irreversible change in the empire. Can anyone seriously doubt that Cassiodorus would have been disappointed to have a pure-bred Roman reigning authoritatively again as Emperor of an expansive empire, or that he would have resisted a revival of Rome’s ancient system of government led by Roman consuls and a purely Roman senate?
The Lucullanum monastery near Naples, under the abbacy of Eugippius and the patronage of Rome, became a centre for the dissemination of Augustinian theology and literature. Indeed it was familiarity with letters and the classical education in philosophy and rhetoric which for Cassiodorus distinguished the Roman from the barbarian: ’Let others bear arms, but the Romans be armed forever only with eloquence.’
PJ Note: More sour grapes
Quote ID: 4235
Time Periods: 56
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 33
Section: 4B
He did have a wider vision of the need to preserve and foster learning. In 536 he urged upon Pope Agapetus the need to found a university at Rome, equipped with libraries, to continue both ancient and Christian traditions.----
....to collect subscriptions and to have Christian rather than secular schools in the city of Rome, with professors, just as there had been for so long in Alexandria.’
Quote ID: 4240
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 36
Section: 3A1,4B
The Bishop of Rome, wielder of the authority of the princes of the apostles, and now being acknowledged as the prime pope or father of the Western Christian communities, with a vast moral authority in the East, was also head of a powerful and rich corporation, based on the endowments of emperors and the achievements of his predecessors. The senatorial class had, as it had attempted with paganism, assumed some right of patronage over the established religion. The churches of Rome had been founded by the first Christians among the senate in their private houses and named after their founders; their maintenance and that of the small domestic monasteries of the city was largely in their hands. They had also tried to place themselves squarely within the history and tradition of the dominant religion by utilizing the new legends of the saints that were now acquiring a wide popularity. So the account of the martyrdom of SS. Rufina and Secunda, and of St. Marius and his companions whose cults centred around Boccea, a few miles north of Rome, evidently appear to have been inspired by the pretensions of the family of Asterius Turcius, consul in 504; an ancestor figures as the magistrate presiding at the saints’ trials. Similarly the Anicii appear to have adopted into their family St. Melania, wife of Pinianus, .........
Quote ID: 4243
Time Periods: 167
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 77
Section: 4B
Narses, the imperial commander “under the patronage of Our Lady, marched through Dalmatia and Istria into Italy.
Quote ID: 4288
Time Periods: 56
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 85/86
Section: 1B,4B
Part of the message delivered by Gregory follows. It was from Pope Pelagius to Tiberius (reigning as emperor in Constantinople:“May God bid the Emperor come to our aid at the earliest possible moment, in the perils that are now closing in upon us, before the army of that impious nation, the Lombards, shall have seized the lands that still form part of the Empire.”
Rome was still part of the Empire, and still felt itself, although neglected, an essential if despairing element in the constitution of the entire civilized world. Something of the anguish felt at the blows inflicted against the state are seen in the inscriptions incorporated in the few works of adornment that Pelagius could afford to St. Peter’s:
“May the Roman sceptre be guided by the divine hand so that under the Empire the true faith may have liberty;”
“May the enemies of the Roman name be vanquished throughout the entire world by the virtue of St. Peter, and peace be assured to the nations and to the Catholic faith.”
Quote ID: 4292
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 88
Section: 2E2,4B
Gregory showed considerable aptitude for administration and for justice, and by 573 had risen to the highest civil post in Rome, that of prefect of the city. But that same disillusion with the continuance of normal conditions which sent so many of his relations and contemporaries into the contemplative or monastic life affected him also, and about 578 he abandoned the civil career and formed in his parents’ house a monastic community.To the Roman nobility this was nothing strange. Before the Gothic wars the monasteries of Italy were frequently under the patronage, as centres of learning, of the great men of the city. But this class was dying out, their estates had no heirs, and the last members of the families were turning themselves to the service of religion. Gregory himself described such an occasion when Galla, one of the noblest women in Rome--the daughter of the murdered Symmachus and sister of Boethius’ widow Rusticiana-- made this decision although she was the last heiress of an ancient family.
Quote ID: 4295
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 89
Section: 2E1,4B
The dioceses and the monasteries to the north of Rome, Nepi, and St. Andrew on Monte Soratte, ascribed to her [Galla’s] endowment from her vast family estates the foundation of many of the churches around Ponzano, on both sides of the Tiber Valley in the Sabine Hills, and on the Tregia.Galla’s example was followed, as we have seen, by other leading members of Roman families. Gregory’s decision to abandon his civil career and embrace the religious life was not unusual, therefore: his family estates, in Sicily and around Tivoli, were handed over to the Roman Church, and with a few companions he retired to the monastery he founded in his parent’s house on the Coelian.
Quote ID: 4296
Time Periods: 456
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 94
Section: 3G,4B
c. AD 600 the Roman church, drawing the best elements into its service, was also drawing upon their patrimonies. These were windfalls of capital. . . .
Quote ID: 4299
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 94
Section: 4B
Pelagius II, Gregory I, Boniface IV and Honorius I all turned family properties in Rome to religious or charitable uses which indicate that their families were without lay successors. One has to wait until Gregory II, in the eighth century, to find once more a pope with an established home in Rome. During the seventh century there was no great family in the city except for the familia pontificis, the household of the pope.
Quote ID: 4300
Time Periods: 67
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 98
Section: 2E2,4B
He then relates the wonders of the great upsurge of the monastic life that had overtaken Italy in the sixth century, an upsurge that embraced all walks of life from the nobles who gave estates and patronage to the religious houses to the peasants and Goths who turned to the service of God in a crumbling world - an upsurge whose dominant representative was St. Benedict.The Dialogues and the histories they present point to the changes in Roman thinking.
Quote ID: 4308
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 108
Section: 1A,3A4,4B
The resources of the papacy, material and moral, represented the sole hope of Rome’s survival and fashioned the shape of its future.
Quote ID: 4319
Time Periods: 567
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 114
Section: 2E1,4B
Here pride in a formal Latin was longest preserved. The deacon John, a leader of the ninth century resurgence of Roman pride and antiquarianism, exaggerated when he wrote in his Life of Gregory I that in the Lateran (the ’palace of Latium’ in his play on words) everyone spoke good Latin and wore the toga, but a fresco of the most articulate and stylistically flexible of the Latin Fathers. . . .
Quote ID: 4327
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 135
Section: 4B
The monasteries of Rome were originally small, independent foundations, created in the houses of those Roman families - such as that of Gregory I - whose members entered the church.
Quote ID: 4338
Time Periods: 56
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 140
Section: 4B
The active expression of Roman life during the seventh century was focused solely through the agency of the Roman Church whose institutions and functions supplied the prime and central means of civic activity and representation. The secular life of Rome continued but was muted in comparison with the growing power and splendour of the papacy; the senatorium in the church, still so called, was no longer occupied by senators but simply by the archium, the authorities. The civilian population, more localized than it had been in the sixth century, was drawn into the orbit of the Church as it forgot its original connection with the Empire and saw the papacy increasingly as the proper leader of the city. In the eighth century the nobility was to grow again, drawing strength from its association with papal offices in the city, and with the ending of formal imperial rule in the countryside. Contact with Lombard influence was to weaken the city’s hold on the countryside and to redevelop a new scheme for politics, with the papacy and papal offices as the prize. The Roman Church alone, with its corporate officials, had survived to transmit the ideas of the ancient city to the kingdoms of the north.
Quote ID: 4341
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 169
Section: 3A1,4B
But in practice and spirit Leo had cast Rome out of her Empire, and Sicily was to be a barrier rather than a channel for communication. The common tradition and continuity of the Roman towns was to survive, materially and politically, through the efforts of the papacy alone.
Quote ID: 4351
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 175
Section: 4B
But although these were visible reminders scattered throughout Europe of the loyalty and devotion owed to the new founders of Rome, they were only substitutes for a visit to the city of the apostles and to the possession if possible of some tangible association with them and their confreres, the martyrs, the new heroes of Europe’s past.
Quote ID: 4354
Time Periods: 4567
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 176
Section: 4B
But the literary record soon became contaminated; too many external influences, the love of the amazing, parallels with secular stories or names, and the pride of the great families who wished to incorporate themselves in the Christian as well as imperial past of Rome, intervened.
Quote ID: 4357
Time Periods: 45
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 314
Section: 1A,4B
But that Rome had survived through four and a half centuries was the work of the papacy.
Quote ID: 4417
Time Periods: 7
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 314
Section: 1A,4B
All Rome’s rulers, from Theodoric and Justinian to the younger Alberic and Otto, were conscious that Rome remained a capital, unique in the world, in descent from Romulus and Peter: no passive influence or inert and antiquarian reminder of the ancient world, a phantom preserving the shape without substance, but a power which had in the eight, and would again in the eleventh, reach out and refashion the world.
Quote ID: 4418
Time Periods: 17
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 319
Section: 1A,4B
I have referred to this period, to the mid-sixth century, as a ’petrine’ period, by that suggesting a Roman Church that had adapted local urban traditions to itself, and had substituted Peter (and Paul) for Romulus and Remus and the twin consulship.
Quote ID: 4419
Time Periods: 16
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 12
Section: 4B
Perhaps Minucius Felix and St. Augustine were right when they suggested that Rome fell because there had been a tradition of bloodshed and crime and pride from the beginning. According to a late tradition, Romulus, the founder of Rome, murdered his brother and his two foster-fathers, continually exalted himself, dressed in purple, saw visitors while reclining on a couch, and was at last mysteriously murdered near a place called the Goat Marsh on a day when, according to Plutarch, “sudden strange alterations took place in the air, and the face of the sun was darkened, and it was not a peaceable night, but one shot through with terrible thunderings and winds from all quarters”. There was a murder at the beginning of Roman history: this we know for certain; the echoes of the murder can be heard throughout her history.
Quote ID: 4423
Time Periods: 035
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 15
Section: 4B
In historical times the Greeks rarely, if ever, permitted themselves the luxury of formal triumphs. They speak of trophies and (GREEK WORD), but never of anything corresponding to a triumphal procession.
Quote ID: 4424
Time Periods: 0
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 15
Section: 4B
How different were the Greek and Roman triumphs! The only Athenian procession which can in any way be compared with the Roman triumph was the Panathenaea, held in honour of the virgin goddess Athene on her birthday in July.
Quote ID: 4425
Time Periods: 0
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 17
Section: 2A3,4B
The Athenians rejoiced in life, and the Panathenaea was the supreme expression of their enjoyment in living together, just as the triumph was the supreme expression of the Roman pleasure in dominating others.La mort semble ne’e a’ Rome, wrote Chateaubriand. “ It seems that death was born in Rome.” And sometimes as we look upon those stern, unpitying men, grown small through the telescope of history, but still large enough to haunt us with the memory of their fearful powers, it comes to us that the triumph was a kind of dance of death, a game played on the edge of the abyss for a stake that was never worth while. The highest honour open to a Roman was the honour of a triumph: for this men fought, intrigued, suffered and died. For the honour of a triumph immense sums of money were expended, innumerable people were needlessly killed, vast treasures were dissipated, and whole countries were laid waste. The economy of Europe, Africa and Asia was mercilessly disrupted, and a hundred cities and a hundred thousand towns were pillaged, so that the conquerors could return laden with plunder to Rome and show what they had accomplished.
Quote ID: 4426
Time Periods: 01
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 33
Section: 4B
Servius Tullius is the first authentic historical figure in the Roman history.....
His long reign came to an end when his daughter Tullia conspired with her husband, the son of Lucius Tarquinius, to murder him. He was stabbed to death and Tullia rode in her chariot over his dead body.
Quote ID: 4429
Time Periods: 0
Rome Triumphant: How The Empire Celebrated Its Victories
Robert Payne
Book ID: 192 Page: 73
Section: 4B
In the ninety-eight years between the battle of Zama and the destruction of the army of King Jugurtha, altogether sixty-eight triumphs were held. In every three years there were at least two triumphs.....
Triumph-hunting became a major occupation of Roman generals; and the records of those years are filled with the disputes of conquerors as they jockey for positions in the acta triumphorum.
Quote ID: 4431
Time Periods: 01
Sallust, The War with Catiline, LCL 116: Sallust I
Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Revised by John T. Ramsey.
Book ID: 317 Page: 21
Section: 4B
Accordingly, it seems to me more proper to seek renown with the resources of intellect than of physical strength, and since the life we enjoy is itself brief, to make the memory of ourselves as lasting as possible.John’s note: Fame
Quote ID: 7698
Time Periods: 0
Sallust, The War with Catiline, LCL 116: Sallust I
Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Revised by John T. Ramsey.
Book ID: 317 Page: 39
Section: 4B
To such men, their riches seem to me to have served as a mere plaything; for they rushed shamelessly to misuse wealth which they could have possessed honorably.John’s note: Fame
Quote ID: 7700
Time Periods: 0
Sallust, The War with Catiline, LCL 116: Sallust I
Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Revised by John T. Ramsey.
Book ID: 317 Page: 197/199
Section: 4B
“As a result of valor and the favor of the gods, you are mighty and powerful, all things are favorable and yield obedience to you.”
Quote ID: 8800
Time Periods: 01
Secret Archives of the Vatican, The
Maria Luisa Ambrosini & With Mary Willis
Book ID: 269 Page: 40
Section: 2C,4B
Here Pope Damasus, who died in 384 at the age of eighty, and who was born when the last persecutions were raging, erected a memorial stone to commemorate his father who, coming to Italy as a stranger from Spain, had advanced through the various ranks from employee to priest. The Pope says, in his own verses:Here my father, employee, reader, levite, priest,
Advanced in merit and in deeds.
Here Christ honoured me with the supreme power
Of the Apostolic Seat.
I have built new roofs for the archives,
And added columns at the left and right
That the name of Damasus may live through the
Centuries.
Quote ID: 6792
Time Periods: 4
Secret Archives of the Vatican, The
Maria Luisa Ambrosini & With Mary Willis
Book ID: 269 Page: 57
Section: 3A1,4B
The legalization of Christianity, and the fact that it had become the state religion, had brought into the church men of deep culture. The patristic writings have class; they make most of the religious writing of later periods look, in a literary sense, like trash. Cassiodorus realized that the Church was living on its intellectual capital, and that much of this capital had been inherited from the pagan world. He set his monks to copying both pagan and Christian manuscripts. (That is, the monks in the monastery of pleasant ponds and limpid baths; the ones in the ascetic monastery he left to their prayers.)PJ note: Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585),[1] commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.
Quote ID: 6794
Time Periods: 6
Sentences of Sextus, The by Richard Edwards
Translated by Richard A. Edwards and Robert A. Wild, S.J.
Book ID: 271 Page: 49
Section: 4B
(Line 286) As a reasonable person, consider it shameful to be praised in public.Pastor John’s note: FAME!
Quote ID: 6827
Time Periods: 23
Sentences of Sextus, The by Richard Edwards
Translated by Richard A. Edwards and Robert A. Wild, S.J.
Book ID: 271 Page: 57
Section: 4B
(Line 341) Whomever you serve for glory, you have served for pay.Pastor John’s note: FAME
Quote ID: 6832
Time Periods: 23
Severans: The Changed Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 350 Page: 62/63
Section: 4B
Painting was another art which was by no means inactive under the severi. {7}As for sarcophagi, they had already during the preceding period become of major artistic importance, reflecting contemporary interest in achieving victory, in the after-life and eternity. And now, such concern was intensified, stressing allegorical, mystical mythology, in various shapes. These prestigious, costly coffins or sarcophagi were made not only at Rome, but also at Athens, and close to sculptural quarries such as those at Aphrodisias and other centres of Asia Minor.
In the history of art, these sarcophagi became increasingly predominant, replacing and superseding other artistic media, and attracting the talents of the best Roman, Greek and eastern craftsmen and artist of successive generations. Indeed, these men made such burial monuments the principal vehicles for the sculptural ornament and pattern-making of the empire.
....
And so, in the history of Roman sculpture, the sarcophagi of this period play a role of major significance - even if artistic masterpieces of the first quality are rare.
Quote ID: 8063
Time Periods: 23
Severans: The Changed Roman Empire, The
Michael Grant
Book ID: 350 Page: 75/76
Section: 4B
In the early years of the Christian era, the memory of the great mystic Apollonius of Tyana moved through the known world of the time, teaching wisdom and leaving strange legends of his miracles wherever he passed. Many devotees considered him divine. G. R. S. Mead, who wrote a fine study of his life and work, says:With the exception of the Christ, no more interesting personage appears upon the stage of Western history in those early years....There is much opinion, gossip and rumour to sort out from the story of Apollonius...Alexander Severus, the son of Julia Mamaea, worshipped Apollonius.
....
I for my part bless his memory, and would gladly learn from him, as he is.{7}
Pastor John notes: John’s note: see page 109, too.
Quote ID: 8067
Time Periods: 23
Shape of the Liturgy, The
Dom Gregory Dix
Book ID: 272 Page: 394
Section: 4B
The century which had opened with the fury of Diocletian reaffirming the strength of the empire closes with the hymns of Prudentius, the last authentic poet of classical literature—at once ‘the Virgil and the Horace of the christian’, as so fastidious a scholar and critic as Bentley called him.
Quote ID: 6841
Time Periods: 45
Shape of the Liturgy, The
Dom Gregory Dix
Book ID: 272 Page: 409
Section: 4B,2E1
This review of the history of vestments, though sketchy, is sufficient to establish two main points:I. That in the fourth century, as before, the ‘domestic’ character of early christian worship asserted itself even after the transference of the eucharist to the basilicas sufficiently to prevent the adoption anywhere of special ceremonial robes, such as were a usual part of the apparatus of the pagan mysteries.
Quote ID: 6852
Time Periods: 4567
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 49
Section: 4B
20-22 A.D.…the divine Julius after the loss of his only daughter, {6} and the divine Augustus when he was bereft of his grandchildren, had thrust away their sorrow. There was no need of examples from the past, showing how often the Roman people had patiently endured the defeats of armies, the destruction of generals, the total extinction of noble families. Princes were mortal; the state was everlasting. Let them then return to their usual pursuits, and, as the shows of the festival of the Great Goddess {7} were at hand, even resume their amusements.
Quote ID: 7499
Time Periods: 1
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 58
Section: 4B
On the days of the games which interrupted the trial, Lepida went into the theater with some ladies of rank …..PJ: Which Lepida?
Quote ID: 7500
Time Periods: 1
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 74/75
Section: 4B
So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy…. . . .
Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate House used to exclaim in Greek, “How ready these men are to be slaves.” Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures.
Quote ID: 7504
Time Periods: 1
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 76
Section: 4B
His slaves too were sold by auction to the state agent to be examined by torture.
Quote ID: 7505
Time Periods: 01
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 77
Section: 4B
Lucius Ennius, a Roman knight, was accused of treason for having converted a statue of the Emperor to the common use of silver plate; but the Emperor forbad his being put upon his trial ….
Quote ID: 7506
Time Periods: 01
Tacitus, Histories, LCL 249: Tacitus III, Histories, Books 4-5
Tacitus (Translated by A.J. Church)
Book ID: 197 Page: 98
Section: 4B
Next, the people of Cyzicus {58} were accused of publicly neglecting the established worship of the divine Augustus, and also of acts of violence to Roman citizens. They were deprived of the franchise which they had earned during the war with Mithridates, …
Quote ID: 7510
Time Periods: 12
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff and Alan Menzies
Book ID: 678 Page: 22
Section: 4B
What has become of the laws representing expensive and ostentatious ways of living? which forbade more than a hundred asses to be expended on a supper, and more than one fowl to be set on the table at a time, and that not a fatted one; which expelled a patrician from the senate on the serious ground, as it was counted, of aspiring to be too great, because he had acquired ten pounds of silver….PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, Apology, VI.
Quote ID: 9720
Time Periods: 012
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 21
Section: 4B
chapter III
The wife is chaste now; but the husband has ceased to be jealous, and has turned her out. The son is now submissive; but the father, who used to bear with his ways, has disinherited him. The slave is faithful now; but the master, once so gentle, has banished him from his sight. As sure as a man is reformed by the name, he gives offence. The advantage does not balance the hatred felt for Christians.
Quote ID: 2941
Time Periods: 23
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 33
Section: 4B
chapter V
Where have those laws gone that limit luxury and obstentation? The laws that forbade more than 100 asses to be allowed for a banquet or more than one fowl to be set on the table, and that fowl not fattened either? The laws that dealt with a patrician because he had ten pounds weight of silver plate, and, on the grave indictment of aspiring too high, removed him from the Senate?
Quote ID: 2943
Time Periods: 0123
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 49
Section: 2D3B,4B
For us murder is once for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother’s blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful for us to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder. It makes no difference whether one take away the life once born or destroy it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.
Quote ID: 2944
Time Periods: 23
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 53
Section: 2A4,4B
Apology and De Spectaculis IX.Finally, when you are testing Christians, you offer them sausages full of blood; you are throughly well aware, of course, that among them it is forbidden; but you want to make them transgress.
Quote ID: 2945
Time Periods: 23
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 59
Section: 4B
chapter X
I waive the fact that men were in those days so uncivilized that they were moved by the sight of any strange person as if divine, when today civilized people will deify persons whom they have a day or two before by public mourning admitted to be dead.
Quote ID: 2949
Time Periods: 0123
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 141
Section: 1B,4B
chapter XXV
So the Romans were not “religious” before they were great; and, it follows, they are not great because they were religious.
Quote ID: 2963
Time Periods: 23
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 157
Section: 4B
chapter XXXIII
Even in the triumph, as he rides in that most exalted chariot, he is reminded that he is a man. It is whispered to him from behind: “Look behind thee; remember thou art a man.”
Quote ID: 2966
Time Periods: 0123
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 283
Section: 4B
. . . will have a reluctant gladiator hounded on with lash and rod to do murder;
Quote ID: 8081
Time Periods: 23
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 8771
Time Periods: 14
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9767
Time Periods: 14
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9773
Time Periods: 14
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9788
Time Periods: 14
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 15
Section: 3A1,4B
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need both traits and hire both kinds of men.
Quote ID: 9873
Time Periods: 14
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 8772
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9768
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9774
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9789
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 19
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians{19}
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
Quote ID: 9874
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 8773
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9769
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9775
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9790
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 20
Section: 4B,3A2B
9-773
The clever smith forged Love{20} into a cooking pan
Since both such things can badly burn a man.
Quote ID: 9875
Time Periods: 45
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 8774
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9770
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9776
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9791
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 30
Section: 4B,3A1
10-90
We Greeks{33} have been reduced to ashes—we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
Quote ID: 9876
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 8775
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9771
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9777
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9792
Time Periods: 4
The Complete Palladas
Palladas. Translated by Harold A. Lloyd
Book ID: 433 Page: 31
Section: 4B,3A1
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
Quote ID: 9877
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 20/21
Section: 4B
It was not surprising that the imperial succession was the one question which it was strictly forbidden, on pain of death for high treason, to put to diviners, oracles, seers or mediums, whom so many people consulted on every other conceivable subject.
Quote ID: 7053
Time Periods: 234
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 51
Section: 4B
By Constantine’s death two camps were solidifying, the divisions very roughly following the Latin and Greek halves of the empire (except for Egypt).
Quote ID: 7091
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 60
Section: 4B
It is not true that divinity can be approached by many routes. Christianity alone has received the truth from God, and is the only true doctrine and path to salvation. The polytheistic cults are simply deluded, and lead to eternal damnation.{49}Pastor John’s note: who said this? Ambrose?
Quote ID: 7123
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 60
Section: 4B
In these stark terms the Senate heard not just the rejection of its petition, but of all the background of Roman tradition which it had supposed still counted for something, even with Christian emperors.
Quote ID: 7124
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
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 136
Section: 4B
Male solidarity in paganism was matched by female solidarity in Christianity.{10}
Quote ID: 7166
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 136/137
Section: 3A1,4B
Equally, the conversion to polite Christianity did not alter the secular prestige and traditions of the nobility, which continued well after the end of the Western empire. When the leading pagan Praetextatus died, the court, although Christian, did not hesitate to erect public statues to him. A generation after the death of Frigidus, the court even erected a statue to the pagan rebel Flavianus, commemorating his learning and public service.
Quote ID: 7167
Time Periods: 4
Theophilus, ANF Vol. 2, Fathers of the Second Century
Ante Nicene Fathers
Book ID: 22 Page: 112
Section: 2C,4B
Chap. IV – HOW AUTOLYCUS HAD BEEN MISLED BY FALSE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS. - Book III….And to give credit to the prevalent rumor wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us, who are worshippers of God, and are called Christians, alleging that the wives of us all are held in common…
Quote ID: 408
Time Periods: 2
Theophilus, ANF Vol. 2, Fathers of the Second Century
Ante Nicene Fathers
Book ID: 22 Page: 115
Section: 4B
Chap. XV – THE INNOCENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS DEFENDED. - Book III….Especially when we are forbidden so much as to witness shows of gladiators, lest we become partakers and abettors of murders. But neither may we see the other spectacles, lest our eyes and ears be defiled, participating in the utterances there sung.
Quote ID: 411
Time Periods: 45
Tibullus, Book II, Nemesis v.23, LCL 006: Catullus, Tibullus
Translated by F. W. Cornish, Translated by J. P. Postgate, Translated by J. W. Mackail
Book ID: 302 Page: 273
Section: 4B
(23) Not yet had Romulus traced the walls of the Eternal City wherein was no abiding for his brother Remus.
Quote ID: 7533
Time Periods: 045
Twelve Tables, The, LCL 329: Remains of Old Latin III
Edited and translated by E. H. Warmington Vol. 3
Book ID: 305 Page: 505
Section: 4B
Table XI, Supplementary Laws (i)Intermarriage of patricians and plebeians:
Cicero: When the Board of Ten had put into writing, using the greatest fairness and wisdom, ten tables of laws, they caused to be elected in their stead, for the next year, another Board of Ten, whose good faith and justice have not been praised to a like extent….When they had added two tables of unfair laws, they ordained, by a very inhuman law, that intermarriage, which is usually permitted even between peoples of separate States, should not take place between our plebeians and our patricians.
Quote ID: 8540
Time Periods: 0
UK Statute Law Database: Submission of the Clergy Act 1533 (c. 19) Version 1 of 1 1533 c. 19 25_Hen_8, The
The Church Clergy
Book ID: 276 Page: 1
Section: 3A1,4B
Where the Kynges humble and obedyent subjectes the Clergy of this Realme of Englond have not only knowledged accordyng to the truthe that the Convocations of the same clergye is always hath byn and ought to be assembled only by the Kynges writt, but also submyttyng theym selfes to the Kynges Majestie hath promysed in verbo Sacerdocii that they wyll never frome hensforthe presume to attempte allege clayme or putt in ure or enacte promulge or execute any newe canons constitucions ordynaunce provynciall or other, or by what soo ever other name they shall be called in the convocacion, onles the Kynges most royall assente and licence may to theyme be had to make promulge and execute the same, and that hys Majestie doo geve hys most Ryall assente and auctorytie in that behalf: F1 . . .. . . .
I. They ne any of theym from hensforth shall presume to attempte allege clayme or put in ure any constitucions or ordynancis provynciall or Synodalles or any other canons, nor shall enacte promulge or execute any suche canons constitucions or ordynance provynciall, by what soo ever name or names they may be called in theire convocacions in tyme commyng, which alway shalbe assembled by auctorytie of the Kynges wrytte, onles the same Clergie may have the Kynges most Royal assent and lycence to make promulge and execute suche canons constitucions and ordynaunces provynciall or Synodall; uppon payne of every one of the seid Clergie doing contrary to this acte and being therof convyctte to suffer imprysonement and make fyne at the Kynges wyll.
Quote ID: 6949
Time Periods: 7
Varro, On the Latin Language, LCL 333: Varro 1, Books 5-7
Translated by Roland G. Kent
Book ID: 424 Page: 203
Section: 4B
The opposite of these are called dies nefasti ‘unrighteous days,’ on which it is nefas ‘unrighteousness’ for the praetor to say do ‘I give,’ dico ‘I pronounce,’ addico ‘I assign’; therefore no action can be taken, for it is necessary to use some one of these words, when anything is settled in due legal form.But if at that time he has inadvertently uttered such a word and set somebody free, the person is none the less free, but with a bad omen{a} in the proceeding, just as a magistrate elected in spite of an unfavourable omen is a magistrate just the same.
The praetor who has made a legal decision at such a time, is freed of his sin by the sacrifice of an atonement victim, if he did it unintentionally; but if he made the pronouncement with a realization of what he was doing, Quintus Mucius{b} said that he could not in any way atone for his sin, as one who had failed in his duty to God and country.
Quote ID: 8636
Time Periods: 0
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: x
Section: 4B
Supposing that capitalism did produce Europe’s great leap forward, it remains to be explained why it developed only in Europe.. . . .
But if one digs deeper, it becomes clear that the truly fundamental basis not only for capitalism but for the rise of the West was an extraordinary faith in reason.
Quote ID: 6952
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 12
Section: 4B
The so-called Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century has been misinterpreted by those wishing to assert an inherent conflict between religion and science. Some wonderful things were achieved in this era, but they were not produced by an eruption of secular thinking. Rather, these achievements were the culmination of many centuries of systematic progress by medieval Scholastics, sustained by that uniquely Christian twelfth-century invention, the university. Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable—the rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars.{32}
Quote ID: 6958
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 24
Section: 4B
Compare Shakespeare’s tragedies with those of the ancient Greeks. As Colin Morris pointed out, Oedipus did nothing to earn his sad end. His “personal character ...is really irrelevant to his misfortunes, which were decreed by fate irrespective of his own desires.”{64}. . . .
In contrast, Othello, Brutus, and the Macbeths were not captives of blind fate. As Cassius pointed out to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”{65}
Quote ID: 6959
Time Periods: 07
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 28
Section: 4B
But enough! Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition.
Quote ID: 6960
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 29
Section: 4B
So long as the Roman empire stood, the church continued to affirm the legitimacy of slavery.
Quote ID: 6961
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 85
Section: 4B
Copy map
Quote ID: 6962
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: ix
Section: 4B
When Europeans first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Mayan, Aztec, and the Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders; so were the fabled civilizations of the East: China, India, and even Islam were backward by comparison with sixteenth-century Europe.. . . .
Why was it that, for centuries, Europeans were the only ones possessed of eyeglasses, chimneys, reliable clocks, heavy cavalry, or a system of music notation?
Quote ID: 6950
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: ix
Section: 4B
The most convincing answer to these questions attributes Western dominance to the rise of the capitalism, which also took place only in Europe.
Quote ID: 6951
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: xi
Section: 4B
Rather, the West is said to have surged ahead precisely as it overcame religious barriers to progress, especially those impeding science. Nonsense. The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.. . . .
Such academic anti-Catholicism inspired the most famous book ever written on the origins of capitalism.
Quote ID: 6953
Time Periods: 7
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, The
Rodney Stark
Book ID: 277 Page: 226
Section: 4B
A major point of contention during the Reformation had to do with reading the Bible. For centuries the church had thought the best way to avoid endless bickering and disagreement about God’s word was to encourage only well-trained theologians to actually read the Bible. To this end, the church opposed all translations of the bible into contemporary languages, thus limiting its readers to those proficient in Latin or Greek, which even most of the clergy were not. Moreover, in the days before the printing press there were so very few copies of the bible that even most bishops did not have access to one. Consequently, the clergy learned about the Bible from secondary sources written to edify them and to provide them with suitable quotations for preaching. What the public knew about the Bible was only what their priests told them.….
As had been feared, a great deal of disagreement and conflict quickly arose as one reformer after another denounced various church teachings and activities as unbiblical.
Quote ID: 6963
Time Periods: 7
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 11
Section: 4B
The piazza flanking the church was designed by Michelangelo in 1536 for the visit of an emperor who claimed a link with Augustus but added a Christian sanction: the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was granted, for defeating infidels in North Africa, a triumph modelled on those of ancient Rome. Charles’s title harked back to the first Christian emperor, Constantine. The equestrian statue in the centre of the piazza was believed to be that of Constantine, which accounts for its preservation through the Middle Ages. In fact, it is of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor-philosopher whose tolerance did not extend to Christians. The melding of pagan and Christian is not untypical of Rome.Pastor John’s note: pagan + apostasy = christian
Quote ID: 6966
Time Periods: 7
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 110
Section: 4B
In the second half of the second century in Rome, Latin gradually replaced Greek as the Church’s language. Previously Christians had spoken Latin but had prayed (and written) in Greek.
Quote ID: 6984
Time Periods: 2
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 111
Section: 4B
He then made a violent attack on Christians’ behaviour: they feed on human flesh and blood, kill newborn children, indulge in love-feast orgies, encourage incest, and worship a crucified malefactor. Christians must practice obscene rites – or otherwise, he asked, why would they operate in secrecy, without temples, altars or recognizable images?
Quote ID: 8406
Time Periods: 123
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 179
Section: 1A,3A1,4B
Forceful bishops such as Julius I (337-352), Damascus I (366-384), Innocent I (401-417), and Leo the Great (440-461) managed to take advantage of the new situation and prestige which still attached to Rome, [used this part] for you could take the capital out of Rome but not Rome out of the empire it had created. Not only did the church in Rome absorb some imperial administrative practices and terminology, such as “diocese”, but also, as the civil power dissolved, it took over functions such as relief work for the poor. However, it directed aid not only to Roman citizens, as had the pagans, but to all the needy. When the empire crumbled, Rome still provided a vestige of order for the invaders through the Church, which, on the whole and with a struggle, managed to avoid Caesaropapism.
Quote ID: 6998
Time Periods: 45
Vigilantius and His Times
William Stephen Gilly
Book ID: 284 Page: 165/166
Section: 2E2,4B
In the fourth century, intercourse by letters was not usually carried on by public means of conveyance, as it is now; but epistles were conveyed privately, at such opportunities as the occasional journeys of friends or domestics might offer. The same traveller was frequently the bearer of oral messages, and of written communications to many persons on the whole line of his route; and this gave him admission to houses, and the advantage of an hospitable reception from the beginning to the end of his journey. It was necessarily a confidential trust, and none were likely to be so employed, but those who were in every degree worthy of being admitted to the intimacy of the parties in correspondence.. . . .
It is in this character that Vigilantius next appears before us, in the year 394. He was sent by Sulpicius with a companion into Campania to Paulinus of Nola,...
Pastor John notes:
Quote ID: 7209
Time Periods: 4
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 14
Section: 4B
After the civilities, next the demands. These easily took on a sharper, noisier quality as they were reiterated.Kratos which could prevail even against the emperor in his capital, western or eastern, could certainly prevail against one of his servants, mighty though they all were. As his agents they could claim his absolute authority as their own. They generally did so without challenge. In Antioch, however, the assembled citizens chanted their demands rhythmically and got their way; in Alexandria the governor yielded to them in disregard of he law; in western cities as well as eastern, unspecified by the jurist Ulpian, a governor might yield to shouts when he knew he should not properly do so.{10} It is a short step to the best known moment in Jerusalem (Mk. 15.8ff.; Mt.27.15ff.) where “the crowd began their demands as they usually did,” for a prisoner to be released, and he governor wanted to give them one man but agreed to release another, just to keep them quiet. It was a moment with its rules: the crowd spoke and he listened.
Quote ID: 7259
Time Periods: 047
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 17
Section: 2C,3A1,4B
The numbers of repetitions has been doubted, but the doubts removed by looking at accounts of other, only slightly less awe-full moments signalized by a 60-times repeated acclamation (this, for an emperor, naturally) or 23, 16, 26 . . . to a total of 159 times for successive salutes and hopes expressed in support of a mere priest. He was being appointed co-adjutor to his bishop in AD 426.
Quote ID: 7261
Time Periods: 5
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 69
Section: 3A1,4B
Wherever there were two minds about a theological question, those two could talk it out between them. If the conversation didn’t degenerate into a shouting match, the course of it would follow reason. ...When, however, two minds explained themselves to a huge audience whom they could reach only by catch-words, slogans, and name-calling, then a merely social element could determine the winner. The winner won by insisting that “everyone” believed this or that--everyone who was someone.
It was accordingly sought out all the time. To my knowledge, no one has studied the flow of ecclesiastical business into court circles. . .
Quote ID: 7281
Time Periods: 456
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 76
Section: 4B
Handbooks of rhetoric recommended that one should not hold back one’s tears as one spoke if it suited one’s words, or should at least let one’s emotions freely rise to the pathos of the subject. Celebrity performers set the style. {29}
Quote ID: 7284
Time Periods: 0147
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 78
Section: 4B
Architecture, like most other arts of Roman civilization, had always been in the hands of the very rich. They wanted show for their money and favored grandeur, whether by their gift to their cities or to themselves...
Quote ID: 7285
Time Periods: 0147
Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 285 Page: 79
Section: 4B
Clergy who were not bishops were not supposed to play an active part; but occasionally they did speak out or even subscribed to a decision in their own name. They joined in shouts which amounted to votes. {3}
Quote ID: 7286
Time Periods: 47
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 15/16
Section: 3A1,4B
The chief aim of this book is to understand the connection between the religious organizations and the social environment of the medieval church.. . . .
Church and society were one, and neither could be changed without the other undergoing a similar transformation.
Quote ID: 7288
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 17
Section: 3A2A,3A4C,4B
Heresy[?], again the words are those of Thomas Aquinas, is a sin which merits not only excommunication but also death, for it is worse to corrupt the Faith which is the life of the soul than to issue counterfeit coins which minister to the secular life. Since counterfeiters are justly killed by princes as enemies to the common good, so heretics also deserve the same punishment.{2}PJ note: Summa Theologiae, 2, 2, qu. xi, art. 3.
In a word, the church was a compulsory society in precisely the same way as the modern state is a compulsory society.
Quote ID: 7289
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 18
Section: 3A1,4B
In this extensive sense the medieval church was a state. It had all the apparatus of the state; laws and law courts, taxes and tax-collectors, a great administrative machine, power of life and death over the citizens of Christendom and their enemies within and without. It was the state at its highest power.
Quote ID: 7291
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 22
Section: 3A1,4B
Not only all political activity, but all learning and thought were functions of the church.
Quote ID: 7294
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 24
Section: 3A1,4B
The Middle Ages may be defined as the period in western European history when the church could reasonably claim to be the one true state, and when men (however much they might differ about the nature of ecclesiastical and secular power) acted on the assumption that the church had an overriding political authority.
Quote ID: 7295
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 24
Section: 3A1,4B
The dominating ideal in the rebuilding was that the unitary authority of the Empire should be replaced by the unitary authority of the papacy. Hobbes’s gibe about the papacy being the ghost of the Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof has a greater truth than he realized.
Quote ID: 7296
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 50
Section: 3A1,4B
The greatest strength of papal government in the fourteenth century was that it had lost most of its teeth. It threatened no one. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical hierarchy could not be seriously attacked without a threat to the whole social order.
Quote ID: 7303
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 169
Section: 4B
the existence of the papacy still gave an assurance of salvation to millions of people who knew nothing about its failures. It was as much part of life as the seasons or the succession of day and night.
Quote ID: 7317
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 213
Section: 4B
Archbishops and bishops were, after all, the wealthiest ecclesiastical class in Europe. Many of them were men of high ability who came to their office already experienced in the use of authority. That their previous experience and authority had often been more secular than ecclesiastical was an advantage rather than a drawback.
Quote ID: 7318
Time Periods: 7
Western Society And The Church In The Middle Ages
R. W. Southern
Book ID: 286 Page: 342
Section: 2A6,4B
If people could form associations without authorization, choose a superior in some unknown manner, adopt a monastic type of life without the sanction of a monastic Rule, read the Scriptures together in the common tongue, confess their sins to one another and receive counsel and correction from no one knew whom, there could be an end to all order in the church.
Quote ID: 7319
Time Periods: 27
Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?
Larry W. Hurtado
Book ID: 393 Page: 21
Section: 3B,4B
From our earliest sources, it is clear that at a very early point the movement that became “Christianity” practically exploded trans-locally, and continued this geographical spread all through the early centuries.
Quote ID: 8391
Time Periods: 123
Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?
Larry W. Hurtado
Book ID: 393 Page: 31
Section: 3B,4B
…Hopkins held that throughout most of the first two centuries CE “Christians were statistically insignificant,” and that it was only in the third century that Christianity gained “the prominence that made it worthwhile persecuting on an empire-wide scale.”{34}
Quote ID: 8392
Time Periods: 123
Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?
Larry W. Hurtado
Book ID: 393 Page: 46/47
Section: 4B
As Bremmer observed with particular reference to initiation into the cults of Isis or Mithras, “initiation required investments of time and money,” and so the mystery cults were “not something for the poor and needy.”{53}….
{53} Bremmer, Initiation, 138.
Quote ID: 8393
Time Periods: 123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 170
Section: 3A4C,4B
The Tatars under Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane could win battles and campaigns, and did. They expressed their joy after victories by pinioning prisoners, burying them up to the neck, and then bashing out their brains by bowling stone balls or spheroidal rocks at these living ninepins. Also they erected huge cairns of newly severed heads of sculls.The Assyrians won battles and campaigns. Their delight was to peg out their warrior prisoners, stripped naked and face down, each ankle and wrist lashed to a tent pin, and when they had them fast and helpless, to split their skins down the spine from nape to crotch and flay them at leisure, as hunters with us take the pelt off a dead deer. A strong man flayed, except head, hands, and feet, might be two days and nights before death released him ….
….
The Carthaginians won battles and campaigns and gloated at rows of stakes or crosses, each supporting an impaled or crucified prisoner.
There never existed conquerors more efficient than the Turks from 1365 to 1665. They won battle after battle, campaign after campaign, war after war. Resistance they overwhelmed. All surviving non-Mohammedan inhabitants of subjugated regions they, as had the Saracens before them, dubbed “ra’iyah,” which Arabic word means “flock,” “herd,” “human cattle”; and they reduced them to the condition of peasant serfs.
Quote ID: 7937
Time Periods: 07
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 171
Section: 3A4C,4B
Far otherwise was it with the Romans. After genuine submission they treated subject populations not merely fairly, but with sedulous care for their material and social welfare.….
Probably no soldiery on earth was ever so acutely dreaded by adversaries as were the Romans. They did not paint their faces, nor stick feathers in their hair, nor jump up and down and whoop, nor chant what they meant to do with their victims.
….
Campaigning was a nuisance to be gotten through with so as to get back home. Winning battles was the visible means of getting back home. Finding and killing enemies was their vocation. When they found the enemy they went out to kill with the impersonal efficiency of a modern mowing machine harvesting alfalfa.
Quote ID: 7938
Time Periods: 07
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 172/173
Section: 3A2A,3A4C,4B
The Romans, not only the Senators and nobles, but the commonalty, the townsfolk, the rustics, the legionaries, had an hereditary inborn feeling that there were universal principles of equity applicable to all men of all races. They dealt with beaten foemen according to their innate instincts of equity and, in general, won the respect and esteem of subject peoples everywhere at all periods of their domination.Virgil, in setting forth the high destiny of Romans in line 853 of the Sixth Book of the Ǣneid, uses the words, “Parcere subjectis et debellare superbis” (To spare those made subjects and to war down the haughty”).
….
Any people felt to be potentially dangerous to the Roman Commonwealth and its Empire was ruthlessly annihilated.
….
But such cases were rare and few in comparison with the many instances of Roman clemency.
…conquered populations mostly developed a heartfelt and abiding loyalty to the Roman Commonwealth.
….
Creating such a state of mind among populations long their foemen, beaten only after hard fighting, and instilling it into them and their descendants, was perhaps Rome’s greatest achievement.
Quote ID: 7939
Time Periods: 07
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 174/175
Section: 4B
Government did not exist in Spain before the Romans introduced it. There was nothing there before them except internecine strife. And never, since the Roman power collapsed, has the Iberian Peninsula been so populous, and well governed as it was under Roman rule.Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, and the other lands which Rome wrested from the descendants of Alexander’s successors were never, while independent communities or while kingdoms under Greek dynasties, as prosperous, populous, happy, and well governed as they became under the Romans, especially from 27 B.C. to A.D. 193. Nor have they ever been as well governed since.
Quote ID: 7940
Time Periods: 0
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 175
Section: 3A1,4B
In 133 B.C. Attalus III, King of Pergamum in western Asia Minor, died, leaving no heirs. He bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman Commonwealth on the ground that his people would be better off as subjects of Rome than if independent, and were certain to be better governed than they could hope to be by any native of his realm.Thirty-seven years later, in 96 B.C., Ptolemy Apion. King of Cyrene in north Africa, on the coast of the Mediterranean west of Egypt, made a will of like tenure.
And in 74 B.C., fifty-nine years after the death of Attalus and twenty-two after the death of Ptolemy Apion, Nicomedes Philopator, King of Bithynia in northwestern Asia Minor, did precisely what Attalus and Ptolemy had done, and for like reasons.
Quote ID: 7941
Time Periods: 0
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 175/176
Section: 3A1,4B
In fact, in general, A Roman provincial governor was a marvel and prodigy to alien races and peoples. They were used to government by caprice of an individual despot or of the leaders of a dominant oligarchy. A Roman proconsul or proprætor was a novelty, was a ruler of a kind of which they could not have conceived, was a portent.
Quote ID: 7942
Time Periods: 012
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 177
Section: 3A1,4B
Throughout the more than three and a quarter centuries between A.D. 43 and A.D. 375 the Romans maintained peace and created and conserved prosperity from the Euphrates to Anglesea, from the Rhine, Danube, and Caucasus to the Cataracts of the Nile.They had brought about peace over most of this vast expanse of territory as early as 61 B.C. and they protected much of it until as late as A.D. 442, when the Vandal’s war fleet swept the Mediterranean and ended maritime traffic.
Quote ID: 7943
Time Periods: 01234
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 180
Section: 4B
In some form, every city, every town, and many districts and villages had genuine local self-government, and there existed in the Empire at its acme an amazing diversity of local religious cults, customs, usages, and laws, with which the Romans never interfered or thought of interfering. They respected and even deferred to local religious peculiarities and national traditions….
Quote ID: 7944
Time Periods: 0123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 181
Section: 3A1,4B
…much has been written about the despotism of the Roman Emperors and little about the genuine freedom of most of their subjects.During the six hundred years of its domination, the Roman Senate enacted fewer than two hundred laws affecting personal conduct and behavior.
Quote ID: 7945
Time Periods: 0123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 181/182
Section: 4B
Mating was a matter largely ignored by the government and mostly left to the individuals or families concerned.Everyone was free to worship according to any racial tradition, national custom, family habit, just as each had been brought up, following the usages of any cult.
Any inhabitant of any part of the Empire might go anywhere, and anywhere had the right to buy and sell, lease or buy a house or piece of land or estate, settle, and marry.
Persons who aroused no suspicion of being dangerous to the government were never interfered with if they did not misbehave according to local expectations as to conduct.
Quote ID: 7946
Time Periods: 0123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 202
Section: 4B
The Romans, from the earliest times until the forcible suppression of paganism, thought and spoke of the “genius loci,” the spirit of a place….….
The words “genius loci” are found in many Latin inscriptions of all periods. Native tablets, altars, shrines, and chapels were dedicated “genio hujus loci” (“to the genius of this place”).
….
…the genius of a place was sometimes depicted in stone carvings and bas-reliefs’ in the semblance of a serpent.
Quote ID: 7949
Time Periods: 01234
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 203
Section: 4B
…for any polytheistic city, or other organized community, the favor of its gods was its most valued asset, and that the definition of a Greek city-state, “A religious and military confraternity encamped round a church,” applied more or less aptly to any city-state of the Mediterranean world….
Quote ID: 7950
Time Periods: 01
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 205/206
Section: 4B
…no polytheistic city-state, least of all Rome, ever had any inkling of the possibility of government apart from religion or of religion apart from government.For all of them, for the Romans, for Rome, religion was government and government was religion.
Quote ID: 7951
Time Periods: 0123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 235
Section: 4B
As a slave might become a free man, as a freeman might become a citizen, as an ordinary free-born man might become a noble, even a Senator, so it was believed that a mere human being might become a god by manifestly deserving such exaltation.
Quote ID: 7958
Time Periods: 0123
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 247
Section: 4B
The gods of any community were sedulous and responsive partners of men while properly reverenced, invoked, propitiated, and thanked. But any infraction of ritual, any dereliction by the priesthood, any indifference among the commonalty might incur their unmeasured wrath. What was more, the impiety of any one citizen or denizen of any country, of any member of or visitor to any community, might bring down upon the entire nation of people the disastrous indignation of its gods.
Quote ID: 7959
Time Periods: 012
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 255
Section: 4B
The pagan conception of right and wrong was definite and intelligible. Any action which conduced to the good of the state was right, and, in its degree, commendable, praiseworthy, or mandatory. As, at need, to die for one’s fatherland. Any action harmful to the state was wrong and to be frowned upon, decried, and refrained from by any self-respecting person.….
Pagans conceived of right and wrong conduct on the part of any individual as being approximate conformity or nonconformity with what was expected of that person by the general opinion of the community of which he or she was a member.
Quote ID: 7961
Time Periods: 012
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 257
Section: 4B
Being remembered by the living was mostly achieved by deserving it, usually by earning the respect and gratitude of one’s family, associates, fellow citizens, and of the community at large. In earlier times the community was one’s city; for Romans, the Commonwealth, and that, in later days, included all Rome’s Empire and all beings therein.….
Paganism impelled its votaries not to concern for life after death, but to concern for esteem among mankind, specifically for service to the state.
Quote ID: 7962
Time Periods: 017
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 275/276
Section: 4B
On the other hand, they did not possess the qualities which went with Roman stamina, Roman level headedness, Roman self-reliance, Roman directness, and Roman courage; nor the Italic and Roman instinct for the Appreciation of the value of the Commonwealth, of the community at large, its welfare, its peace, and its Empire; nor the Roman instinct for even-handed justice to all men, Romans and aliens alike.
Quote ID: 7965
Time Periods: 7
Witch Hunts in the Western World
Brian A. Pavlac
Book ID: 287 Page: 4
Section: 4B
Even the leaders of the Christian Church taught for many centuries that people claiming to be witches were deluding themselves. This teaching changed by 1400, beginning the witch hunts in western Europe. For most Christians, it changed back again by 1800, helping to end such hunts.
Quote ID: 7321
Time Periods: 7
Witch Hunts in the Western World
Brian A. Pavlac
Book ID: 287 Page: x
Section: 3A2A,4B
*John’s Note: A common accusation against believers in post-apostolic times: (p.12)cannibalism
incest
eating blood
secret meetings
haters of mankind b/c refusal to sac. to gods/emperors
Christians made those accusations against believers through the centuries: p. 35 top, p. 58 middle, p. 92 top*
Quote ID: 7320
Time Periods: 2347
Witch Hunts in the Western World
Brian A. Pavlac
Book ID: 287 Page: 34
Section: 3A2A,4B
One medieval explanation for the sudden rise in heretics was to blame the Devil. The Christian hierarchy denounced heretics with the classic accusations of secret meetings involving human sacrifice, cannibalism, and unnatural sex orgies.
Quote ID: 7325
Time Periods: 2347
Witch Hunts in the Western World
Brian A. Pavlac
Book ID: 287 Page: 34/35
Section: 3A2A,4B
Heresy quickly became associated with supernatural, even magical, properties. One of the first mentions of heresy took place in France in 1022. In the town of Orleans, King Robert II “the Pious” of France tried a group of heretics who allegedly met in secret, conjured demons, held orgies, killed babies that were thereby conceived, and then burned their bodies into blasphemous food. To punish the heretics, the king had them burned alive in a cottage.Pastor John’s note: Look Up
Quote ID: 7326
Time Periods: 2347
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