Epistle to the Romans

“ A fouler brotherhood than they the lords of Heaven, Rome does not contain. Am I to be called upon to worship a set of wretches chargeable with all the crimes and vices to be found on earth? It is this accursed idolatry, O Romans, that has sunk you so low in sin! They are your lewd, and drunken, and savage deities, who have taught you all your refinement in wickedness ”

“ Thus the sacrileges of the Romans are as numerous as their trophies. They boast as many triumphs over the gods as over the nations; as many spoils of battle they have still, as there remain images of captive deities. ”

“ No true remission or peace is, or can be given, but by direct and personal transaction with Christ Himself.
I am perfectly convinced that the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians are the answer to all the pretences of the Church of Rome, and that a man who will not read and follow them deserves to be misled. God is perfectly justified and clear on this point. ”

“ No tidings I have heard for a great while past sounded so good and fair as the news that presently we shall have strife with Rome. These Romans are a people whom I neither love with my heart, nor esteem in my mind, but hate because they are very orgulous and proud. Upright folk should avoid their fellowship, for they are an evil and a covetous race, caring for no other matter but to heap treasure together, and add to their store. The emperor of this people, by fraud and deceit, has fastened this quarrel upon us, sending you letters with an embassy. ”

“ As the Greek is great through the idea of Art, the Hebrew through the idea of one most holy God; so the Romans are great through the idea of their eternal Rome; great, wheresoever they have fought, written or builded in the inspiration of this idea. The greater Rome grew, the more this idea dilated: the individual lost himself in it: the great men who remain eminent are borne up by this idea, and it makes the littleness of the little men more pronounced. ”

“ The Roman is a coarse form of humanity, Curtius, compared with either the Greek or the Palmyrene. Romans will best conquer the world, or defend it; but its adorning should be left to others. Their hands are rude, and they but spoil what they touch. Since the days of Cicero, and the death of the Republic, what has Rome done to advance any cause, save that of slavery and licentiousness? A moral Hercules is needed to sweep it clean of corruptions, which it is amazing have not ere this drawn down the thunder of the gods. Julia would say that Christ is that Hercules. ”

“ They would have easily found a way, as all people do, to conform their religious doctrine and offerings to their feelings and instincts. But the Romans, by nature and long training, lovers of blood, their country built upon the ruins of others, and cemented with blood—the taste for it is not easily eradicated. ”

“ Rome’s story is less startling, must perforce be, since like ours, it was subsequent. One does not discover the North Pole or Betelgeuse twice. When the Romans reached the stage of self-consciousness, when they felt the desire to express themselves they found in well-nigh perfect mold the natural forms of expression, developed with sure taste by the Greeks out of song, dance, march-hymn, devotional prayer, dirge, entertaining narrative, or mimic representation. ”

“ One of the most fascinating and tantalizing problems of literary history concerns the origin of prose fiction among the Romans. We can trace the growth of the epic from its infancy in the third century before Christ as it develops in strength in the poems of Nævius, Ennius, and Cicero until it reaches its full stature in the Æneid, and then we can see the decline of its vigor in the Pharsalia, the Punica, the Thebais, and Achilleis, until it practically dies a natural death in the mythological and historical poems of Claudian. ”

“ These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety, and also in the greatness of their number. But since those Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as the end of all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom, not in heaven, but in earth,—not in the sphere of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded by the dying,—what else but glory should they love, by which they wished even after death to live in the mouths of their admirers? ”

“ Under the latter head we consider the Roman as a citizen, and we examine the several classes of citizens, their obligations and their privileges; we study the form of their government, its officers and machinery, its legislative, judicial, and executive procedure, its revenues and expenditures, etc. It is evident that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the two branches of the subject: they cross each other at every turn. One scarcely knows, for example, under which head to put the religion of the Romans or their games in the circus. ”

“ The former, as we have seen, had been introduced to Rome by Panaetius, whose teaching was continued by Posidonius. It appealed to the Romans as offering a practical rule of life for men engaged in public affairs. On the other hand, the doctrine of Epicurus that men should withdraw from the annoyances of political life and seek happiness in the pursuit of pleasure, that is, intellectual pleasure, was interpreted by the Roman as sanctioning sensual indulgence and became the creed of those who gave themselves up to a life of ease and indolence. ”

“ The noblest product of the Latin mind is the Roman law, which is the foundation of almost all modern codes. With all their discernment of justice and love of order, the Romans, however, were too often hard and cruel. Their history is stained here and there with acts of unexampled atrocity. In private life, too, when the rigor of self-control gave way, they sunk into extremes of vulgar sensuality. ”

“ The Bible, therefore, it might now be said, had entered and taken peaceable possession of the city, and was distributed among the citizens.
I had always admired the Roman people, so ready to receive the truth when it was pointed out to them. Whoever asserts that they are a prejudiced race, does not sufficiently reflect on their shackled condition; it is to their teachers we must look.
The Romans are papists through necessity, since they are never permitted to listen to any others than their popish priests, or to open a book which is not of papistic tendency. ”

“ Much evidence in the language, the religion, the institutions and, the civilization of early Rome points to the same conclusion. The speech of the Romans is from the first Latin, [8] though showing many traces of contact with the neighbouring dialects of the Sabines and Volscians and also of Etruscans; the oldest gods of Rome—Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, Diana—are all Latin; “rex,” “praetor,”, “dictator,” “curia,” are Latin titles and institutions. ”

“ Forget not to assure Gracchus and Calpurnius of my affection. Farewell. [Pg 63]
LETTER III. FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.
You are right, Fausta, in your unfavorable judgment of the Roman populace. The Romans are not a people one would select to whom to propose a religion like this of Christianity. All causes seem to combine to injure and corrupt them. They are too rich. The wealth of subject kingdoms and provinces finds its way to Rome ”

“ The ancient and primitive Romans, therefore, though their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods, and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have nevertheless this commendation bestowed on them by their historian, that they were "greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous of great glory, and content with a moderate fortune." ”

“ They seem to us as grotesque as Orcagna's Day of Judgment in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, and the Dantesque Hell of the Campo Santo of Pisa, whereas the Latin Pantheon reflects for ever the image of a well-organised society. The gods of the Romans were like themselves, industrious and good citizens. They were useful deities, each one having its proper function. The very nymphs held civil and political offices.
"Look at Juturna, whose altar at the foot of the Palatine we have so frequently contemplated. ”

“ The scholastic theology, filled with gloomy ideas sifted through stern Romish minds from teachings of pagan Romans has come down to us, until the representations of death that exist in the literature of Rome are more abominable and cruel than all the vices of all the Neros, or any other of the corrupt emperors. ”

“ According to his chronology this brings us to the founding of the Capitoline temple in which the Etruscan triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva were worshipped. In general we may say that his statement is true, for the Romans were in the aniconic stage until they learned from their neighbors to represent their divinities by images in human form. In this primitive period the Roman thought of his gods not as individuals but as powers (numina) , resident in and associated with departments. This is an idea extremely difficult for us to grasp with our sophisticated minds. ”

“ What Pater did for the novel of Roman life was to show the possibility of portraying not merely the material existence of the Romans, but the whole life of Rome considered from a religious and esthetic standpoint. Marius the Epicurean has been said to stand without fiction; but the highest hope of any fiction might well be to rise to the level of Pater’s work. It took five or six years to write, and shows Pater’s thorough scholarship, and his appreciation of the beautiful in Latin and Greek literature. ”

“ Many days without a king - Hitherto this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. Since the destruction of the temple by the Romans they have neither had king nor prince, nor any civil government of their own, but have lived in different nations of the earth as mere exiles. They have neither priests nor sacrifices nor urim nor thummim; no prophet, no oracle, no communication of any kind from God. ”

“ And the Romans—the true Romans—of the Regola and the Popolo, of the Monti district and the Trevi district, who add the adjective Roman to their name like a title of nobility, who eat dumplings on Thursdays, tripe on Sundays, and lamb at all times, who like white wine and the fireworks at Sant' Angelo, who are proud of their March water, and calmly allow the beetles to swarm in their old houses, the sceptical, clever, impassive, and industrious Romans, who are good husbands and kind lovers, they certainly are not asleep. ”

“ JEneas is too plain for any Roman to mistake. The divinity which protects Rome is the Lord of heaven and earth and all that is therein. There is no God or Lord like unto Him. Blessed are the Romans who have this Lord for their God. The majesty of the Roman empire, now at the crowning summit of its progress, is the immediate efflux of this sovereign power, and the one ia for ever bound up with the other. If such was the doctrine sung by Virgil, surely none could be more grateful to Augustus, the sovereign ruler of an empire so guided and protected. ”

“ Ever have I found you loyal and true, in business and counsel. Because of your prowess I hold the heritage of divers neighbouring princes in subjection. Lords, you have hearkened to the letters carried by the ambassadors of Rome, and to the malice they threaten if we do not after their commandment. Very despiteful are they against us, and purpose to work us bitter mischief. But if God be gracious to His people, we shall yet be delivered from their hand. Now these Romans are a strong nation, passing rich and of great power. ”

“ In Mucius Scaevola, in Regulus, in Marcus Curtius, and many others the fine qualities of the old Roman temper, pride, courage, will, devotion, a love of their country that went beyond all other feelings, even unto death, stand out. One can see the main lines of the character that made the Romans what they afterwards became—the conquerors and law-givers first of a single city, Rome, then of the whole plain of Latium in which that city stood: then, after driving back barbarian invaders from the north and Greek invaders from the south, of all Italy: later of the known world. ”

“ This self-devotion was in consequence of a vow made by these brave old men, which Fa'bius, the Pontifex Maximus, pronounced in their names. The Romans believed that, by thus devoting themselves to the internal gods, disorder and confusion were brought among the enemy. ”

“ Bernard, composed at his disciple's request, his famous book "de Consideratione;" in which the subject handled is, on the duties of a pope; and in which is given such a graphic description of the degenerate character of the Romans, as also of the Roman clergy in that age. The following extract will not be out of place here:
"What is so well known to the world as the license and pride of the Romans? They are a people opposed to peace, and ever given to sedition; wild and hard to deal with from all time; who only know how to obey when they can no longer resist ”

“ In conclusion, without denying all those whom antiquity willed and posterity has believed to be gods, to be the guardians of your religion, there yet remains for our consideration that very large assumption of the Roman superstitions which we have to meet in opposition to you, O heathen, viz. that the Romans have become the lords and masters of the whole world, because by their religious offices they have merited this dominion to such an extent that they are within a very little of excelling even their own gods in power. ”