Greeks Value:
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Virtue
Arete
Service to the Polis
Courage
Honor
Glory
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Intelligence
Reason
Balance
Harmony
Nothing in excess
Man is the measure of all things
Family and tradition
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Justice
Pride
The individual
Retribution
Fate
Devotion to the gods
Control of emotions
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Beauty
Wealth
Compassion
Taking an interest in public affairs
Democracy
Excellence
Drama
ROMAN EMPIRE
30 BCE – 476 CE
Characteristics
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Borrowers
Realists – Stoics
Idealists – Neoplatonists
Twelve Tables of Law (450 B.C.E.)
Stoics
• Ethical view of life
• Goal: bring individual will into harmony with
nature
• Impersonal intelligence governed nature—
Providence or Divine Reason
• Rejected emotional attachments
• Reason over emotions
• Detachment allowed them to accept the worst of
life’s circumstances—true happiness
Consul of
Rome
Bust of Julius
Caesar
Corinthian order
Metopes
• Frieze
• Pediment
Neoplatonists
• Plotinus = 3rd C (neoplatonist)
– Union with One: ascent through series of
levels of spiritual purification (Dante)
– Soul is eternal and divine
– Universe is layered in ascending degrees of
perfection
Egyptian and Southwest Asian
influence
• Roman emperors were theocratic monarchs
• 2nd C: imperial cult; living emperor is
divine
• Growing social, political, economic unrest
• Distrust of reason
• Growing impulse toward mysticism
• Zoroaster
– Persian prophet 628-551 BCE
– Life is cosmic battle between light and darkness
(people ae free to choose good or evil
– Ahura-Mazda is sole god (Wise Lord)
– Last judgment (good works, good thoughts,
good deeds)
• Evil to darkness
• Good to pairidaeza (or paradise) (beauty and light)
Mystery Cults
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Greece, Egypt, Southwest Asia
Less intellectual than neoplatonism
More personal than religious philosophy
Promise of personal immortality
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Cult of Isis – Egypt
Cybele in Phrygia
Dionysus in Greece
Mithra in Persia
Isis and Horus
Enthroned
• Heritage back to Neolithic times
• Agricultural
• Birth, death, rebirth of gods and goddesses
associated with regeneration of crops
• Initiates acted out symbolic rituals
– Spiritual death and rebirth
– Ritual baptism
– Communal meal of flesh or blood of deity in
spring
– Cult of Isis: Queen of Heaven and Earth
Mother
Cult of Mithra (Persia)
• Associated with sun and forces of Light and
Goodness
• Man-god Mithra released forces of cosmic
life and energy by slaughtering Bull of
Fertility
• Mithra’s followers
– Sought regeneration and personal attachment to
this hero-god
• Celebrated Mithra’s virgin birth on December 25
(after sun’s rebirth at winter solstice)
• Mithraism excluded participation of women
• Strict initiation rites, periods of fasting, ritual
baptism, death and resurrection, communal meal
of bread and wine, deliverance from evil
• Favorite religion of Roman soldiers
Roman Empire
• Octavian tried to restore old Roman values
of duty and civic pride
• Germanic tribes invaded
• Oppression and poverty
• Constantine 313 CE
• Edict of Milan (by end of 4th C. Christianity
is official religion).
Christianity
• 36 books in Hebrew Bible
• Sadducees – Jewish aristocrats; cultural and
religious solidarity; denied that soul survived
• Pharisees – more influential Jewish teachers;
interpreters of Hebrew law; believed in advent of
messianic redeemer (a shepherd); human soul is
imperishable; wicked will suffer eternal
punishment
Essenes
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Monastic communities near Dead Sea
Renounced worldly goods
Practiced asceticism
Believed in immortality of the soul
Anticipated coming of teacher of truth
Dead Sea Scrolls (Essenes lived near Dead Sea)
forecast final apocalyptic age
Jesus 0-33 CE
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Gospels – 40 years after his death
No biography, no writings
Jewish rabbi
Ethical concerns; moral lessons
Pacifistic message
Antimaterialistic message
Temptations of temporal world distract
Cimabue
Madonna
Enthroned
• Evils of material wealth (classical world
was materialistic)
• Faith over ritual
• Spirit of Hebrew law, not the letter
• Love of God and neighbor
• God was stern, but loving
• Taught cultivation of compassion,
righteousness, trust in God
Sermon on the Mount
• Blessed are the poor, the gentle, the mourners, the
seekers of goodness, the merciful, the pure in
heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted because of
their belief in Jesus.
• His followers are the light of the world
• Jesus came to fulfill the laws
• Believers should follow his commandments
• Followers should not judge others
• The golden rule
• Rewards in heaven
• Moral intention is more important than
outward behavior
Paul
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Best known of apostles (d. 65)
Jewish tentmaker from Tarsus in Asia Minor
Greek and Hebrew language
Never met Jesus
Wrote 10-14 of 27 books of New Testament
Universalized Jesus’s message
• Jesus taught Jews; Paul wrote to people of
Greece, Asia Minor, Rome
• Apostle to the Gentiles
• Laid basis for Jesus as New Adam
Paul’s Teachings
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Salvation by faith
Jesus: son of God
Jesus, sacrifice for human sin
Sin had entered world through Adam and
Eve’s defiance of God
• Jesus’s death was act of atonement
• Jesus was New Adam
The Bible
• Old Testament
– 39 books in the King James Version)
– written in Hebrew (with a little Aramaic) from
11th to 2nd century BCE.
• The New Testament
– 27 books in the King James Version)
– written in Greek from 40 AD to as late as 150
AD)
Faith vs. Reason