“[Virgil’s Aeneid and the legendary tales of early Rome] tell us something about how the Romans saw themselves: war-like by nature, as descendants of the god of war [Mars]; empowered with the strength and cunning of the wolf who nursed their founders [referring to the legend of the orphan twins, Romulus and Remus, being nursed and raised by a she-wolf]; and established by desperate men who successfully fought everyone around them for survival. Many Romans believed that just as it was the fate of the Greeks to bring culture to the world, it was the fate of the Romans to bring order [ordo] to the world …. the Romans from a very early period believed they were destined to rule. They believed that they were better suited by nature and ability for rule than were other peoples. And they believed that the gods had selected them for this task. Perhaps this way of looking at the world underlay their actions somewhat like the concepts of “manifest destiny” and the assumed superiority of Europeans underlay the movement westward by European immigrants in nineteenth century United States.”
James S. Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era, Exploring the Background of Early Christianity, (IVP Academic, 1999), pp. 295-6.
The Creator is never far removed from the creation. We go through life most of the time like sleep-walkers, barely aware of the amazing nature of the cosmos and of how the Creator has made us. This does not annul the glory of what envelops us and which we share as the sole beings who, as far as we know, actually can perceive and gain some understanding of it and experience it.
Although we are made to reflect the Maker’s glory within the creation, our lust after petty godhood has made us blind and deaf. We see this played out in plain sight and hearing every day in the way we react to hindrances, frustrations, and impediments to our progress towards whatever ambitions or fancies we have currently placed before us. We grumble and complain about how such-and-such and so-and-so has blocked us and infringed upon our rights. We denounce those who encroach on our comfort and challenge our “territory.” After all, as ‘gods’ we are born to rule, aren’t we? The only problem is all those other people who think they are gods too!
We are trapped in this conundrum whether conscious of it or not. Most of the time, we don’t think about, we just feel it. It is the resting, normal position of the rebel whose rebellion is so ingrained that it is now unconscious, subconscious—until something brings it to the surface, like a direct claim and challenge to recognize that there is a Creator who alone is God, which means I am not and I must give up my throne. Or perhaps another petty god is more powerful or well-positioned than I, and I must defer to him/her.
While all the great religions do not perceive the Creator and creation in quite the same way, all, in one way or another, recognize the fundamental flaw in human nature. We are internally broken, finding as much wickedness lurking in our souls as goodness. If we were to release it, it would consume us, and sometimes the only reason we don’t is that we fear being caught and held to account. We are bound to fail to fully keep whatever good laws we establish (we are not speaking of disobeying wicked laws), even those we privately make for ourselves to rule ourselves. No one (except Jesus, some would say) has ever succeeded in living perfectly by what his/her own conscience tells him/her. Even Buddha abandoned his young wife and child, and he must have known deep down that this was a rather callous thing to do. Even Muhammad ordered massacres, and he must have known deep down that this was hardly what a God of true compassion and mercy would command. Even Moses lashed out in anger. Even Abraham lied about his wife to save his own skin. David was a murderer and adulterer.
The great religions attempt to resolve our brokenness differently. Hinduism explains that our true nature is as errant aspects of the One Reality, the “World Soul (Brahman),” to which we must return and into which we must be reabsorbed, forsaking individuality to achieve nirvana, the bliss of total rest within the all-consciousness without struggle. Buddhism describes this quest as “non-existence,” similar to the Hindu idea but with no real consciousness adhering to any shadow of the illusion of self.
The three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, do not see humanity as parts of the One seeking reintegration through a very long cycle of life, death, and rebirth, but as beings created to honour and serve God within the creation. The ‘orthodox’ view within these three is that humans rebelled and continue to rebel, and the Creator has sought to offer restoration of the broken relationship. They differ in how this is to be done and what role is assigned to humans in the restoration. Is it by exemplarily obeying rules and performing rituals, or by accepting God’s mercy and appealing to the Creator’s gracious offer of renewal through a chosen Saviour and Redeemer? Or perhaps a combination of the two—grace and obedience?
We do not have time or space to examine these approaches and their nuances in depth in this post. That may be for another time. We are considering the West’s continuing, strange fascination with Rome, the longest-lived and most successful empire in Western history and perhaps in world history. Like all human endeavours and achievements, no matter how great, it eventually failed. But its longevity and “glory” still carry a dim lustre and a sense of nostalgia and wonder. The West cannot escape Rome’s still potent cultural, historical, and spiritual legacy. Neither can it escape its spell.
For those who admire manifest power, Rome presents a model and a standard: “If only I/we could create something that could equal what they did!” For those who long for a united world that brings everyone into order and unity with common values and symbols and similar ideals and goals, Rome’s success continually fascinates and puzzles anthropologists, sociologists, historians, psychologists, philosophers, political scientists, and even some politicians who manage to have a sense of history. For admirerers of military prowess and martial glory at its pinnacle, Rome offers endless material for study. Rome’s political and martial prowess was not the story of a one-off genius such as Alexander or Napoleon shooting like a comet across the heavens of history. It was a system honed to perfection, granting the most perfect instrument yet devised which leaders of talent and ability used to rise to the summit of power and fame. Julius Caesar did not create the Roman genius for government or the unbeatable fighting machine of the Roman army; he used and honed them to further his own rise to power. Afterward, they functioned more or less well regardless of the frequent stupidity emanating from the throne. Rome’s aura often kept its enemies at bay even when its armies were wavering or engaged in slaughtering one another in civil wars.
What is the mystique of Rome; what lies behind it? Deep beneath what we see played out we find a hunger that longs for a final answer. It is a spiritual thing—the quest for the last best realm that will endure and bring true, lasting, unbreakable peace and harmony into the life of humanity, giving everyone a fair shake, a fair chance to be the best they can possibly be. It is more than a hunger, it is the most basic need all—to know who and what we really are and are really made for. We know it cannot be found in our endless wars and destructive, competitive behaviour—our addiction to assert ourselves above others which brings only more of the same in return as we seek to “get even, get back.”
The Orientals say we must finally quell this hunger as illusion, drive it out by emptying ourselves of self and ceasing to identify ourselves primarily as individuals, ultimately denying any individual personhood and slipping into the anonymous bliss of nirvana. That is what the Bhagavad Gita is really about; that is what the Upanishads reveal; that is what Buddha’s Three Baskets disclose, in a somewhat different way. That is what underlies yoga at its heart, and Zen.
Jesus said that it was all about entering “the Kingdom of God,” and this was the core of his teaching. He spoke of losing our lives in order to find them. He spoke of taking up one’s cross to follow him and not doing things the old way, the imperial way, the way of pursuing the glories of “this age.”
When he taught and exampled what he meant, he was speaking of the way of Rome on the one hand and of compromised religion on the other, both ways of glory achieved at the expense of others, in all the ways that this is done—by economic, social, military, political, cultural, and even religious manipulation and brinkmanship. In the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of the Creator, there is no room for any of this. All of these methods are the “way of the flesh,” the way of our brokenness and rebellion against how the Maker originally made us and what He/She originally made us to be and do. They are all ways of serving ourselves first, of maintaining and asserting our ‘right’ to be little gods.
TO BE CONTINUED
World.V.You 