I'm Not Good at Goodbyes
“Et non dixerunt qui praeteribant: Benedictio Domini super vos. Benediximus vobis in nomine Domini.” Psalm 128:8
One of the great pleasures of my life has been to study the ancient Romans. Getting to know their culture and how they differed in terms of morality and religion paradoxically makes modern people more intelligible. The Roman's relationship to the many gods and geniuses (e.g. the spirit of a certain river) was not necessarily loving or personal. Their morality was based more around a collective sense of honor and power. That’s not to say that the Romans didn’t have a robust framework of virtues and an understanding of “the good” (largely drawn from Greek philosophy), but their morality was far more subjective due to the number of deities and the primacy of public mores. When I look at the difference between pre- and post-Christian Rome, I see a shift from this public morality to morality directed at objective standards. This thought came to me as I contemplated that in Latin, the word for farewell is “vale”, literally “be strong” while in English we say “goodbye”, a contraction of “God be with ye” or in French “adieu”, “(I commend you) to God”. I think the development of these goodbyes shows what ancient Rome and Medieval Europe respectively valued. When I consider Christian morality against today’s public morality, I fear that I see the same shift of Late Antiquity reversing. My contention is that having been exposed to the truth of Christian principles, we will suffer much more than we already have by turning back to a more ‘Roman’ morality based on personal power and desire, chiefly in the spaces of human rights and sexual relations.
The Christian revolution throughout Late Antiquity slowly wrested social and legal power from domination and converted to a sense of goodness and right. This is evident in the widespread disappearance of slavery and the expansion of codified law, particularly in the Byzantine Empire. The concept of unalienable rights did not exist in the ancient world. Rights were conferred in small states to select few based on birth or legal status. Take Rome or Sparta for example: a small population of male citizens controlled the state, society, women and large populations of slaves. Slavery and submission was the natural state of the weak, female, or conquered in the ancient world. The Christian revolution introduced the idea of humans’ equal nature before God and their possession of rights due to that fact. Few cultures, if any, have built around that principle. The feminist movement owes its fundamental premise that women are equal to men to this principle. The global effort to facilitate international diplomacy and lift millions from poverty through human rights initiatives owes its legacy to those Christian principles. Today, we run the risk of undermining the basis of unalienable human rights; without foundations in Christian morality, there is little argument why one would not enslave others or subjugate the weak as the Romans did.
The Roman sense of political and social domination extended into sexuality as well. To a Roman, sexuality was much more ordered to dominance than a concept of gender or love. A perhaps apocryphal anecdote was spread by opponents of Julius Caesar alleging that he had allowed King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia to sodomize him. Caesar's opponents used the epithet “Bithynica regina”. The modern viewer would assume that the rumor was aimed at citing an abhorrent sexual act or that the act was committed with another man, whereas the Roman would probably not find those details as shocking as Caesar’s non-dominant position in the relationship. The concept of ‘homosexuality’ did not land in the Roman mind; that is a fully modern innovation which applies Christian marital principles to same-sex relationships. To the Roman, a taste for men was simply another appetite, so long as he was in the dominant position. The name “Queen of Bithynia” was intended to stress Caesar’s lack of dominance, calling into question his true auctoritas, the Roman virtue of power and authority. Roman men, especially public leaders, were expected to be as dominant with their sexuality as they were in public life.
Accordingly, Roman men wielded their sexual dominance in the nuclear family also. Auctoritas and dignitas represented public power and reputation, while Patria potestas, literally “Father power”, ruled in the home. A Roman’s wife, children, and slaves were totally under his power. Roman marriage was oriented to defining families, having children, and service of household gods (lares). The Roman man was functionally free to sexually venture outside his marriage. He was not forbidden sexual access from his wife or his slaves. Part of their servitude was submission to his domination in all respects. While something resembling Christian chastity was valued in Roman women to ensure paternity, the same was not expected in Roman men. Conversely, the Christian view of marriage and sexuality is far stricter and built on service and love rather than domination. Marriages are consensual, sexual activity is treated with due gravity and relegated to intimate spousal relations between one man and woman. The Christian family’s structure ensures the good of each of the members in service to one other. Our culture is experiencing a sexual quandary between these paradigms, entertaining the more libertine aspects of Rome’s but unwilling yet to abandon the boundaries of Christian relationships defined by love and service.
Who looks kindly upon a culture which acquiesces to slavery, non-consensual sex, and the rule of all women and a good portion of enslaved people by a handful of men? The American Civil War was arguably fought to expunge a microcosm which had resuscitated all three. I hope that this piece on pre-Christian culture enumerates potential costs of de-Christianizing our own culture. The cost will disproportionately fall on the vulnerable. I’m hopeful that the world isn’t ready for that goodbye, that many are realizing we stand to lose much to secularization. Those who intend to remain Christian need to get used to living in the Old Testament, as the Hebrews did when surrounded and frequently ruled by Gentiles. Become familiar with what Psalm 128 warns in the subtitle: “Those passersby by didn’t say ‘The Lord’s blessing upon you, we blessed you in the name of the Lord.’” Others may do what the Romans did: at best, think us fools, at worst, hate us and even persecute us. The price of undermining Christian principles in society may indeed be to return to the much darker ‘might is right’ world of the Romans, where the poor and the weak were used economically and sexually, where men said “be strong” and not “God be with you”. Let us hope this isn’t the ‘progress’ promised by modernity.
P.S.
I would recommend the book Dominion by Tom Holland on this thread. The author makes an admirable account of Christianity’s contribution to European history from ancient Rome to the modern day.