Today I finished Caesar and Christ, Volume III of Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization.
The last 150 pages or so of this volume deal with the birth and rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. We read of Christ, the Apostles, the struggles of the early Church over whether gentiles could become Christians, the reactions of various officials to the Christians, reactions including persecution, torture, and death, the various heresies, until finally we reach the reign of Constantine the Great, whose edicts and sympathy for Christianity ended these persecutions and gave the followers of Christ a place in the Empire. We read, too, of the fall of the Empire, the long decline and some reasons for that decline, a downfall, as Durant reminds us, that took 300 years. “Some nations,” he writes, “have not lasted as long as Rome fell.”
The last 150 pages or so of this volume deal with the birth and rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. We read of Christ, the Apostles, the struggles of the early Church over whether gentiles could become Christians, the reactions of various officials to the Christians, reactions including persecution, torture, and death, the various heresies, until finally we reach the reign of Constantine the Great, whose edicts and sympathy for Christianity ended these persecutions and gave the followers of Christ a place in the Empire. We read, too, of the fall of the Empire, the long decline and some reasons for that decline, a downfall, as Durant reminds us, that took 300 years. “Some nations,” he writes, “have not lasted as long as Rome fell.”
Most impressive in Durant’s account of Christianity at the end of this volume is his balanced approach. We live in an age in which academics and commentators frequently revile Christianity. Durant rejects this position. Despite his own doubts and lost faith, Durant presents a broad, fair-minded view of Christianity, its founder, and why his teachings so strongly appealed to the pagans and unbelievers of that era. Of Christ, for example, he writes:
If he could cleanse the human heart of selfish desire, cruelty, and lust, utopia would come of itself, and all those institutions that rise out of human greed and violence, and the consequent need for law, would disappear. Since this would be the profoundest of all revolutions, beside which others would be mere coups d’état of class ousting class and exploiting in its turn, Christ was in this spiritual sense the greatest revolutionist in history.
In the epilogue of Caesar And Christ, Durant lists the reasons why the Roman Empire fell apart: a much diminished birthrate among the Romans, endless wars, immigration, class warfare, increasing despotism, moral decline. But Durant ends this volume of his history not with this catalogue of deficiencies, but with “The Roman Achievement,” citing that civilization’s accomplishments in government, law, culture, education, building, and engineering. Not least of these gifts was the influence of Latin on the languages of Western Europe. “Our Roman heritage,” Durant writes, “works in our lives a thousand times a day.”
Some among us deny or loathe the heritage of our Western Culture, but Durant is right. The philosophy of Greeks, the genius for law and government of Romans, and the ethics of Christianity live on today, influential and often invisible so accustomed have we become to their presence.
Next up: Volume IV “The Age of Faith.”
If he could cleanse the human heart of selfish desire, cruelty, and lust, utopia would come of itself, and all those institutions that rise out of human greed and violence, and the consequent need for law, would disappear. Since this would be the profoundest of all revolutions, beside which others would be mere coups d’état of class ousting class and exploiting in its turn, Christ was in this spiritual sense the greatest revolutionist in history.
In the epilogue of Caesar And Christ, Durant lists the reasons why the Roman Empire fell apart: a much diminished birthrate among the Romans, endless wars, immigration, class warfare, increasing despotism, moral decline. But Durant ends this volume of his history not with this catalogue of deficiencies, but with “The Roman Achievement,” citing that civilization’s accomplishments in government, law, culture, education, building, and engineering. Not least of these gifts was the influence of Latin on the languages of Western Europe. “Our Roman heritage,” Durant writes, “works in our lives a thousand times a day.”
Some among us deny or loathe the heritage of our Western Culture, but Durant is right. The philosophy of Greeks, the genius for law and government of Romans, and the ethics of Christianity live on today, influential and often invisible so accustomed have we become to their presence.
Next up: Volume IV “The Age of Faith.”