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The Christian Basilica |
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written
by leahs2 / 09.29.2005 |
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Description |
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SETTING THE STAGE: ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE THIRD CENTURY
Philosophy in ancient Rome was not detached intellectually but took part in dealing with every day life, with human misery. “The central motivation for philosophizing is the urgency of human suffering, and. . . the goal of philosophy is human flourishing or ‘eudaimonia.’” (Miles, 14). According to Plotinus, “controlling the body was seen as the best method for creating and cultivating a carefully designed self.” (Miles, 17) Michel Foucault, a prominent historian, claims that several centuries before Plotinus and “among certain classes educated and moderately wealthy men, carefully designed ‘practices of the self’ were used to create a consciously chosen, intentionally developed, counter-cultural ‘self.’” (Miles, 17) These activities included restrictions on diet, activity, sex, and other behaviors. Thus, among the elite at least, self-identity was intentionally created and cultivated; this kind of fine-crafting would lead to greater “eudaimonia” for the individual.
As a whole, the strength of Roman civilization in the first and second centuries laid in the very elite and aristocratic. Historian Brehier claims that the revolt of Maximinus in 235 CE “marked the beginning of an endless series of civil and foreign wars, of various calamities, plagues, and famines which continued without interruption for a half-century and which depopulated and impoverished the empire, destroying the elite. . .” and caused a decline in the level of philosophy, art, literature (Brehier, 13-14). Much of the third century was marked by turn over among rulers and poverty of the masses.
Meanwhile, Christianity was a growing religion. Early Christianity gave significant attention to the poverty of the masses and the suffering of the body. “Judith Perkins’s book, ‘The suffering self: pain and narrative representation in the early Christian era,’ argues persuasively that it was not simply the body, but more particularly, the ‘suffering’ body that became the foundation of the Christian self and the Christian church.” (Miles, 19) This was reflected in the growth of the ascetic movement, which advocated the “pleasure of no pleasure.” In sum, “the superior capability of the ‘suffering-self’ model over the ‘self-mastery’ model to multiply converts to create the Christian church is due at least in part to the perennial and democratic accessibility of pain and suffering” (Miles, 20). Christianity developed in strength partly due to its acknowledgment and attention to the suffering of the human body among the Roman populace.
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