Did Romans have any kind of “morality” as we understand it
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 10:50 AM Author: coiffed laser beams
As we understand it -- no of course not.
Their morality placed ancestors, family, citizens, and nation first.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47627864) |
Date: May 2nd, 2024 11:04 AM Author: bipolar new version box office
Of course not. Christ was revolutionary with the inherent value of human beings and treating people well because it’s the right thing to do and all that
Edit: they certainly had their own morality and it was 180 as fuck
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47627932) |
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 11:33 AM Author: rose locus hissy fit
i know youre flaming, but the infusion of Christian ethics into roman morality is something i think a lot about.
Whether what Im calling "christian ethics" is a faithful reading of the NT, or the true message of Christ etc, is a debate Im not addressing.
I think its fair to say the main gist of Christian ethics is to moderate and to universalize.
It was seen as a moral good to punish criminals. Christian ethic is to moderate that punishment. Visit prisoners, etc. Important to note Christ did not seek to abolish prisons, but only that people visit prisoners. It was a moral good to adjudicate in courts. Christian ethics call judges to listen to plaintiffs who lacked social standing, like widows. Don't overthrow courts, but just have fair judges. It's seen as a moral good to abolish prostitution. Christians ethics: make the prostitute stop, but don't actually kill her, etc.
In a sense, Christian ethics don't have - or didnt have - their own content. It was just a moderating influence on Jewish and Roman ethics.
And it was always moderating towards leniency.
The other big push was universalizing obligations to family and tribe beyond bloodlines. The samaritan is your brother as much as the jew.
This is also, kind of, content-free. Its just an expansion of already formulated duties, often exaggeratedly so. "Loving your enemy" is on its face incoherent, because it undermines the meaning of the word enemy.
So, in effect, the Christian contribution was to moderate and to universalize.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47627996) |
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 2:28 PM Author: Irradiated chestnut principal's office hominid
this is completely crazy
Romans thought the Christians were wild flame-branded zealots. think St Simeon Stylites
you're mixing up milquetoast 20th century suburban catholicism with Christianity as the late empire Romans would've experienced it
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628564) |
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 3:08 PM Author: rose locus hissy fit
couple things: there were wild outliers, like ascetic saints. but I dont think theyre representative of the larger ethic
if i were to make the argument the other direction, I think it would go like this. There were core christian ethical tenets that wildly shocked romans and jews, in turn, and were definitely new content.
on the roman side, christians absolutely refused to venerate gods, even when most sophisticated romans thought it meant nothing, cost nothing, but was crucial to be a part of society. romans couldnt believe someone would die over this. they also rightly saw that if it spread, it would undermine everything
on the jewish side, christian ethics was based in the foulest blasphemy, besmirching the God whose name was inutterable by talking about the incarnation. They were also disgusted by the cannibalistic elements of the eucharist. And, perhaps most egregious, they were threatened by christians out-piousing them on things like divorce.
but a lot of this is more theological than ethical, and i still think the main push of christian ethics was to moderate and universalize pre-existing ethical codes. They were reformers more than revolutionaries
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628747) |
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 3:26 PM Author: rose locus hissy fit
a revolutionary ethic would have called for a new moral order. the liberation of slaves. the overthrow of the moral leaders. a different set of different moral obligations. etc.
NT ethics were explicitly about two things:
1. upholding the current moral order of the jews, but moderating their harshest consequences. Jesus did not reject the notion that the crippled man was being punished for sin, but he forgave that sin. Jesus did not seek to empower the adulteress woman, but he instructed her to stop sinning while sparing her the death penalty. Jesus did not reject the ethics of the jewish covenant or the commandments, he said it all should be followed with exactitude, but with mercy.
What makes the pharisees so contemptible in the gospels is that they used sophistry and trickery to ensnare jesus and portray him as scandalous, when a straight reading indicates that he was posing no direct threat to their ethics, only their hypocrisy.
2. Jesus universalized tribal moral duties beyond the tribe. This was novel and probably shocking. But in essence, when you expand moral obligations to include others, you are reforming, not revolutionizing. It was an instruction like this: "You already know your obligations to group X. You owe the same to groups Y and Z."
You can call that revolutionary and make an argument I guess. But I think its a losing argument
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628807) |
Date: May 2nd, 2024 11:12 AM Author: Galvanic hyperactive piazza selfie
They did. There is a good passage on it from one of my rome books maybe i will find it online and post.
The cult of the family was the framework which was kind of replicated in the state religion. They were very legalistic and obsessed with “rules” at least on the face of things. Their treatment of slaves until the latter part of the empire when legal SCHOLARS and philosophers started to ascribe them basic human rights was the big departure from our modern notions of morality
Ask me more
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47627950)
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 11:57 AM Author: Slimy water buffalo
as the empire was falling, its aristocrats fled and became aristocrats elsewhere
the germans and northern europeans are probably descendants of those aristocrats
italy was left with mostly bottomfeeders
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628057) |
Date: May 2nd, 2024 12:13 PM Author: appetizing shimmering library preventive strike
“Pietas was the Roman attitude of dutiful respect towards the gods, homeland, parents and family, which required the maintenance of relationships in a moral and dutiful manner.[21] Cicero defined pietas as "justice towards the gods.”[22] It went beyond sacrifice and correct ritual performance to inner devotion and righteousness of the individual, and it was the cardinal virtue of the Roman hero Aeneas in Vergil's Aeneid. The use of the adjectival form Pius as a cognomen reflects its importance as an identifying trait. Like Fides, Pietas was cultivated as a goddess, with a temple vowed to her in 191 BC[23] and dedicated ten years later.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_maiorum
Lol at sewer skunk millennial white women, just lol.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628104)
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Date: May 2nd, 2024 2:29 PM Author: Irradiated chestnut principal's office hominid
"o tempora o mores" is perhaps *the* most famous line in Roman rhetoric
I assume he was referring to something
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47628571)
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Date: May 4th, 2024 7:30 PM Author: Bateful Abode Personal Credit Line
I remember a few things sticking out to me. I was interested in what a roman prison would be like. Basically they didn't have them. If it was a moderately bad offense you were a slave. If it was worse, you were a slave in a literal salt mine where everyone died within three years of hard labor. Any worse than that and it was death.
The other thing was an account of Christians that stuck out to me. Deformed babies were tossed in the river and they kicked the early Christians that would go in and fish the babies out to care for them. I figure early Christians were the shit libs of the day.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47635586) |
Date: May 4th, 2024 10:52 PM Author: Galvanic hyperactive piazza selfie
In theory they had high if narrow minded notions of justice and due process. If you read trajans letters to pliny he gives all kinds of examples and instructions about how to govern the province in a very pedantic and detail oriented, legalistic way. Even when describing how to handle cases of alleged christians he basically tells him that anonymous accusations are not evidence and that any accusee christian who repents or venerates the roman gods will just be given the benefit of the doubt
They were also obsessed with legalistic and political formalities even if on the surface. Caesar and Augustus both went through all kinds of lengths to take on offices or assume what appeared to be constitutional grants of power when in reality they just controlled the army and had power by the sword. But it was important to appear dedicated to the civic customs to the extent possible
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5523976&forum_id=2#47636034) |
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