Presumably the torture inflicted by the Christian Emperor Maximus on a loyal centurion is historically accurate or the Andersons would not have included it in their narrative. (Torture inflicted on Gratillonius cannot be historically accurate because Gratillonius is a fictional character but we mean torture inflicted on people like Gratillonius. Also, the heretics were both tortured and executed.) It cannot be denied that something had gone very wrong in Christianity. I think that the problem was as follows. The Church, allied with the state, insisted on doctrinal orthodoxy. However, a doctrinal question like the nature of Christ cannot be settled either by reason or by evidence. Therefore, it could only be settled by physical force. Gratillonius correctly comments:
"'"Wretched" is the right word...'" (1, p. 68)
- when Bishop Martinus (Saint Martin of Tours) recounts an episcopal dispute treated seriously instead of dismissed by the secular authority.
10 comments:
The traditional Roman attitude was that you had to pay respect to the "mos Maiorum", the customs of the ancestors.
That involved some religious aspects -- making sacrifices (a pinch of incense, generally) to the spirit (the 'genius', in a religious sense) of the Emperor in the Imperial period, or to the Goddess Roma.
A soldier had to make reverence to the Eagle and the 'imagio' of the Emperor, and so on and so forth.
But you didn't actually have to -believe- in them, just publicly -do- them as a gesture of collective solidarity.
Sometimes it's said that the Romans were traditionally religious, but it's more accurate to say that they were grossly superstitious.
You did things like the above because violating custom was 'bad luck', both individually and collectively, and doing 'bad luck' things in a collective context was a threat to the State and act of rebellion.
Also, of course, some of these ceremonies had directly political/patriotic implications, much like saluting the flag here in America.
Keep in mind that pagans didn't make the distinctions we do -- between religion and politics and daily life. They lived in a perceptual universe alive with spirits good and bad, and the good ones could turn bad if you didn't please them.
If you did the 'usual', what other religious rites you practiced on your own time were your own business and usually the government didn't give a damn if you were into the Orphic mysteries or worshipped Bacchus by dancing around drunk (privately) became an Initiate of Elusinian Mysteries or worshipped Mithras or whatever.
On a personal level, most Romans did things like offering a crumb before a meal to the guardian "pentates" of the household and you'd be considered grossly rude at least if you didn't as a dinner guest.
The exception to this attitude was things considered politically subversive -- secret cults, and so forth.
If you -wouldn't- do the customary things, they felt fully justified in throwing you to the beasts in the arena or burning you alive as a garden light at a party.
Empathy wasn't a Roman 'thing'.
The advent of official Christianity screwed the above up without making Romans much more empathetic to those they considered outsiders and/or enemies.
I hadn't known that Roma was a goddess. Some of the deities do not feature in the myths.
Paul: it's fairly complex. "Roma" was more or less an embodiment of the Roman state, and later of the Empire, but not really a -personal- deity in the sense that, say, Mars was.
Eg., Hadrian built a huge temple to her in Rome as "Roma Aeterna", "Eternal Rome".
"Roma" started out as a "genius" in the 3rd century BCE -- that is, an incarnate spirit/representative -- rather than a "dea", a Goddess, which she became later. Or an aspect of the Goddess Minerva or Bellona.
By the time of Augustus she was seen as the consort of the Emperor and Great Mother of the Roman people (one of several Goddesses that filled that role).
(She was sometimes conflated in the east with the Goddess Rhome/Bia, which means "Brute Force", btw. -- the Goddess of compulsion.)
Makes sense - mythologically speaking.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
If they had thought of it, the Romans could have worked out what we see in Turtledove's GUNPOWDER EMPIRE: Christians burning incense before images of the reigning Emperor, but praying to GOD, not the Emperor, for the life and well being of the Emperor and Empire. No need to even look as tho they were worshiping the Emperor or pagan gods.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: except that the Christians weren't interested.
They wanted to destroy and supplant all other religions, which they considered demonic evil(*); that's inherent in ethical monotheism.
(*) strictly speaking they for the most part didn't -disbelieve- in the old Gods, they just considered them evil spirits sent to lead human beings astray.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Because the command of Christ in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, makes it a duty of the Church to proclaim the Gospel to all nations, so that all mankind will know of how God desires their salvation.
I certainly don't believe any of the pagan "gods" were demons, because I don't believe Odin, Jupiter, Baal, Osiris, etc., ever existed at all or were all actual beings.
Well, the blood thirsty gods of the Aztecs, with the human sacrifices and cannibalism of their worshipers, were demonic!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: but early Christians -did- believe the pagan Gods were real; they just thought that they were -bad-.
Milton went with this idea for literary purposes. Angels fell from Heaven to Hell and became demons. They ascended to Earth and became know as the gods of the Philistines, the Romans etc.
I liked the idea that I read somewhere that fairies were angels that had remained neutral. Several times, one mythology tries to explain or incorporate another.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, I'm sure most early Christians thought the pagan gods were real persons, just bad beings unworthy of being worshiped.
It took time for more sophisticated notions, that pagan gods did not exist at all, to spread.
Ad astra! Sean
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