h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How much of the Roman Catholic Church's history and outlook be explained by its Imperial Rome origins?

Good question I look forward to the answers. I would have thought it has developed beyond the confines of the empire. That and it circles the globe, interesting.

There are parts of the liturgy that go back to traditions and customs of the day. The greetings used, for example. The way in which the Lord is heralded is based on the way the Emperors were. What we nowadays think of as a church organ, was used, in a primitive form, at ceremonies in the Emperor's honour. In fact, I think they were prohibited for other uses and only exclusively to be used for imperial ceremonies.

The fact that Peter chose to go to Rome in the first place is no doubt due to its being the political and administrative centre of the Mediterranean world.

And, of course, the use of crucifixion as a punishment was, presumably, a Roman thing. Hard to imagine any of the Christian faiths without the symbol of the cross.

Those are the points that occur to me on the spur of the moment. Why do you ask?

As to history and outlook. As bob says - it does seem that it has always considered itself the centre of the universe. Look at the trouble Galileo got into.

Today, however, it seems that it is beginning to accept that it is one among several equally powerful, numerous, and justified philosophical movements. I'm not sure how the Romans coped with their downfall, when other forces moved in in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Will ask hubbie. Perhaps they did transfer everything to the Church, who has managed to keep going for a good while since.

We were recently visiting our son in Osnabrück and did the obligatory tour of the site of the Varus battle. Where the Teutonic army overcame the Romans, thus marking the beginning of the end of the Roman empire and putting a stop to their moving further North. One of the questions asked on the boards around the museum was "What would have happened if the Romans had won?"

Would that have meant that Berlusconi would have been President of not only Italy, but Switzerland, Austria and Germany too?

The title 'Pontifex Maximus' was a Roman religious title that was held by Emperor Augustus and became synonymous with Roman Emperors, but now is used to refer to the Pope. It loosely means 'biggest bridge builder'.

<BB<

Ah, so it's not a muscle in your backside.

I certainly hope I don't have a Pontifex Maximus in my backside.

>> Those are the points that occur to me on the spur of the moment. Why do you ask? <<

Hi I am interested in learning how much of the RC Church is structured according to Imperial Rome organisation and custom.

Thanks Bluebottle! I was going to mention Pontifex Maximus, and now I don't have to.

I think that the Roman Catholic Church [note the word "Roman" in its title] is to ancient Rome as the bird is to the dinosaur.

There's a bit of irony in the fact that Jesus was hardly an admirer of Rome, yet his teachings were coopted by Rome a few centuries after his death. Likewise the probability that 666, the sign of the Antichrist, was a code for Octavian, a.k.a., Caesar Augustus. Talk about shotgun weddings!

But if the huge and powerful Roman Empire had not thrown its muscle behind the Christians, chances are few people would even have heard of Jesus nowadays. As it was, I suspect [but can't prove] that injecting Christian morality into the social fabric of the Roman Empire made the Romans a bit less brutal, hastening the end of their military edge. Then again, they might well have been headed for a big fall anyway. Who knows?

Modern Western civilization has advanced far enough beyond the Renaissance that teaching ancient Greek and Roman classics in school is no longer the imperative it once was.

What is left of the ancient Roman Empire in the modern world? Less and less, it seems. The villa is sometimes used as an architectural design. Lawyers use Latin phrases. Aqueducts are recognized as a good thing. Some people have decorative fountains with Greco-Roman figures in their gardens. Modern composers sometimes write settings of the Latin Mass.

Then there's Ro9man Catholicism, a religion that was observed during the late part of the Roman Empire. The officially sanctioned books of the New Testament were codified during the Roman Empire's time.

Now, much of what is bad or misguided about Roman Catholicism can be traced to the backwards look that it forces on the mind. At its worst [which is pretty bad!], it stunts the growth of free inquiry, especially in the sciences. What happened to Galileo is just the tip of the iceberg! Can you find solutions to some of today's problems in the scriptures? The answer, more and more, is no. You can only solve problems with scripture if they were problems in the Roman world. And even there, the Roman lack of scientific advancement [apart form sliding glass doors and concrete] limits you.

Progress in religion? Well, there's the annual Templeton Prize, which is a good start but a drop in the bucket!

Waha is left of the Romans in the modern world, the European, US and other political systems, bit of a mixed blessing in some ways.

"I suspect [but can't prove] that injecting Christian morality into the social fabric of the Roman Empire made the Romans a bit less brutal, hastening the end of their military edge."

The Eneida, from Virgilio is clearly against wars and violence.

Virgilio also wrote beautiful poems to describe and foster the life in the countryside, Georgias, Bucolicas...

About morality, Romans knew Epicuro, Lucrecio , for instance, was inspired by him.
Estoicism, was the ethics of Cicero and many more Romans.

Horatio, Catulo, Martial... are certainly far from brutality and ordinary people knew their poems, epigrams...



"Lawyers use Latin phrases."

I speak a dialect of Latin

I certainly think the church bureaucracy carries on in spirit what the Roman imperial bureaucracy began, and became the quintessential top-down, centralized system, with all the weaknesses inherent therein.

"Horatio, Catulo, Martial... are certainly far from brutality and ordinary people knew their poems, epigrams..." [Maria]

How shall I say this delicately? The first two centuries after Christ were a time when Rome was a hotbed of assassination, particularly at the top. Octavian [Caesar Augustus] was a very fine administrator, but he was not afraid to crack a few skulls to get his way. As the Julian Emperors came and went, poisonings and other forms of killing one's rivals were fairly commonplace. Did the ordinary people stand a chance with so much evil going on at the top of the political order?

If elevating Christianity to the status of a state religion accomplished nothing else, it at least publicized the atrocious brutality of crucifixion.

Not that the Christian hierarchy lacked imagination in the arena of cruelty after they gained power. But it took centuries to develop expertise in this, and by then the last vestiges of Ancient Rome were in Constantinople, which was hanging on by a thread.

One Roman Emperor caused great consternation when he blinded all but one of the soldiers who were sent against Rome. He spared one man, so there would be someone to lead the others back top their home country.

"How shall I say this delicately? The first two centuries after Christ were a time when Rome was a hotbed of assassination"

that period is known in History as the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta ( pax means peace)Not only peace but economical and artistic development was also part of that period.



Christianity wasn´t official in the Roman Empire until the 5th century.


I´ve been delicate too.

The question is fraught with difficulty.

When the whole empire was united there was one church. As the Empire gradually divided (politically as well as culturally) then the eastern and western churches also gradually divided. When the western Empire fell this divide became more cemented as protection from the Empire from invaders meant that Italy looked to the Patriarch of Rome (aka the Pope) to protect it in the absence of imperial control. As far as the east was concerned the church of the Empire was the Easter orthodox church, this had the Emperor as the head of both church and empire and they regarded themselves as the true church centred in New Rome (Constantinople- now Istanbul). But with little cultural or political communication over the following centuries they divided more and more from the Western (what became the roman catholic church) church.
By the 11th century they had split from one another in reality and really I'm not convinced that the Roman Catholic church has much other than historical links to the old Roman Empire. It has made its own history really since the western empire fell and it had a lot of (extremely at times) poor relations with the official imperial religion (Orthodox church) for a long time. Of course it has essentially won that global battle for dominance although the Orthodoxy still holds sway in much of eastern europe but has had little impact elsewhere in the world

"How much of the Roman Catholic Church's history and outlook be explained by its Imperial Rome origins?"
It's outlook is massively independent of the old Roman Empire I would say and its interests are its own. Particularly as it had a strong effect on the fall of the eastern empire, so much for spreading christianity at the time, it helped precipitate the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
It's early history is of course strongly linked to the Roman Empire. Later history, pretty much not at all aside from tradition.

The thing is that it (the Roman Catholic Church) is an incredibly complicated and big thing. There is a much wider range of opinions within it, than there probably is among all the researchers on h2g2. On just about anything from eating meat on certain days, to contraception, to abortion, to gay marriage, to who wrote the Gospel of John, you'll find opinions running across the whole spectrum from "Outrageous! Shouldn't be allowed!" to "Yes, that sounds like a rather sensible idea."

The true depths of Roman integration into the cultures
of northern Europe is probably best reflected in James
Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man" where-in
it becomes painfully clear to a young man that his natural
cultural values and systems have been totally usurped by
the Church and an entire manifesto of Roman left-overs
from roads to commerce, religion, philosophy, education,
laws, sexuality and marriage.

~jwf~

"Christianity wasn´t official in the Roman Empire until the 5th century." [maria]

Thanks for your delicacy. I know when Christianity became official. I was trying to give an idea of a time before it became official, when Roman emperors and their kin were making the so-called barbarians look good by comparison. But, yes, there was the Pax Romana. I can't take that away from them, nor would I want to. Pre-Christian Rome was a different place with a different world view. The Roman people's personal ethics had much to recommend them. I never meant to cast them in a bad light, just express dismay at some of their leaders. If the ordinary people thought things were fantastic the way they were, I doubt that Christianity would have appealed to them so deeply.

But, I could be wrong.