In a New Yorker review of several books on the legacy of Rome in the West, Adam Kirsch says the following: "In general, the lot of the ordinary Roman was no different from that of the vast majority of human beings before the modern age: powerlessness, bitterly hard work, and the constant presence of death. The thing that strikes Knapp [author of Invisible Romans, a book under review] most about Roman popular wisdom is its deep passivity in the face of these afflictions, which feels so alien to moderns and especially to Americans. The Romans, he writes, had no concept of progress: 'The implication is that the order of the universe is static, that social perspectives do not change; they must be the way they are. The "is" and "ought to be" of the world are the same.' (January 9, 2012, p. 74).
Hart argues brilliantly in his book that this despairing passivity in the face of a fixed world order was a persistent feature of ancient paganism; and that it took Christianity, with its "ought to be," to challenge it and bring to pass much of the positive change we take for granted in the modern era.
2 comments:
Hart's argument about ancient paganism's passive posture towards the determined "way of things" is confirmed by the dominant ancient philosophy of cyclical history. Very few of the ancients considered that history could be anything other than an endless series of rises and declines of civilization. On top of this, it was often thought that the declines were always growing while rises were lasting for shorter and shorter periods. What a sad view of life! It was the Judeo-Christian view that first introduced the idea of history progressing towards an end. Hart is correct in saying that this affirmation of existence would have been baffling and attractive to the vast majority of the Graeco-Roman world.
Totally. Hart also brings out the fixed hierarchical nature of the ancient world order that was supported by all of the dominant religions and philosophies of the day. Human kings and emperors at the top were divinized, while the masses at the bottom were seen and treated as something less than human. He talks about how the scene in the gospels of Peter weeping after his betrayal of Christ would have been regarded as comical by educated pagans of the empire, since no one could possibly take seriously the feelings of a peasant fisherman. That the gospels take time to focus on such a figure, and even single him out for sympathy, is part of the revolution in consciousness the gospel brought to the West.
Post a Comment