THE GREEKS

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THE GREEKS
5TH CENTURY BCE
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Greeks Value

• Virtue
• Arete
• Service to the Polis
• Courage
• Honor
• Glory

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• Intelligence
• Reason
• Balance
• Harmony
• Nothing in excess
• Man is the measure of all things
• Family and tradition

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• Justice
• Pride
• The individual
• Retribution
• Fate
• Devotion to the gods
• Control of emotions

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• Beauty
• Wealth
• Compassion
• Taking an interest in public affairs
• Democracy
• Excellence
• Drama

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THE ROMANS

• ROMAN EMPIRE
• 30 BCE 476 CE

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Characteristics

• Borrowers
• Realists Stoics
• Idealists Neoplatonists
• Twelve Tables of Law (450 B.C.E.)

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Stoics

• Ethical view of life
• Goal bring individual will into harmony with
  nature
• Impersonal intelligence governed
  natureProvidence or Divine Reason
• Rejected emotional attachments
• Reason over emotions
• Detachment allowed them to accept the worst of
  lifes circumstancestrue happiness

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Consul of Rome
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Bust of Julius Caesar
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Corinthian order
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Metopes

• Frieze

• Pediment

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Neoplatonists

• Plotinus 3rd C (neoplatonist)
• Union with One ascent through series of levels
  of spiritual purification (Dante)
• Soul is eternal and divine
• Universe is layered in ascending degrees of
  perfection

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Egyptian and Southwest Asian influence

• Roman emperors were theocratic monarchs
• 2nd C imperial cult living emperor is divine
• Growing social, political, economic unrest
• Distrust of reason
• Growing impulse toward mysticism

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• Zoroaster
• Persian prophet 628-551 BCE
• Life is cosmic battle between light and darkness
  (people ae free to choose good or evil
• Ahura-Mazda is sole god (Wise Lord)
• Last judgment (good works, good thoughts, good
  deeds)
• Evil to darkness
• Good to pairidaeza (or paradise) (beauty and
  light)

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Mystery Cults

• Greece, Egypt, Southwest Asia
• Less intellectual than neoplatonism
• More personal than religious philosophy
• Promise of personal immortality
• Cult of Isis Egypt
• Cybele in Phrygia
• Dionysus in Greece
• Mithra in Persia

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Isis and Horus Enthroned
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• Heritage back to Neolithic times
• Agricultural
• Birth, death, rebirth of gods and goddesses
  associated with regeneration of crops
• Initiates acted out symbolic rituals
• Spiritual death and rebirth
• Ritual baptism
• Communal meal of flesh or blood of deity in
  spring
• Cult of Isis Queen of Heaven and Earth Mother

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Cult of Mithra (Persia)

• Associated with sun and forces of Light and
  Goodness
• Man-god Mithra released forces of cosmic life and
  energy by slaughtering Bull of Fertility
• Mithras followers
• Sought regeneration and personal attachment to
  this hero-god

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• Celebrated Mithras virgin birth on December 25
  (after suns rebirth at winter solstice)
• Mithraism excluded participation of women
• Strict initiation rites, periods of fasting,
  ritual baptism, death and resurrection, communal
  meal of bread and wine, deliverance from evil
• Favorite religion of Roman soldiers

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Roman Empire

• Octavian tried to restore old Roman values of
  duty and civic pride
• Germanic tribes invaded
• Oppression and poverty
• Constantine 313 CE
• Edict of Milan (by end of 4th C. Christianity is
  official religion).

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Christianity

• 36 books in Hebrew Bible
• Sadducees Jewish aristocrats cultural and
  religious solidarity denied that soul survived
• Pharisees more influential Jewish teachers
  interpreters of Hebrew law believed in advent of
  messianic redeemer (a shepherd) human soul is
  imperishable wicked will suffer eternal
  punishment

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Essenes

• Monastic communities near Dead Sea
• Renounced worldly goods
• Practiced asceticism
• Believed in immortality of the soul
• Anticipated coming of teacher of truth
• Dead Sea Scrolls (Essenes lived near Dead Sea)
• forecast final apocalyptic age

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Jesus 0-33 CE

• Gospels 40 years after his death
• No biography, no writings
• Jewish rabbi
• Ethical concerns moral lessons
• Pacifistic message
• Antimaterialistic message
• Temptations of temporal world distract

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Cimabue Madonna Enthroned
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• Evils of material wealth (classical world was
  materialistic)
• Faith over ritual
• Spirit of Hebrew law, not the letter
• Love of God and neighbor
• God was stern, but loving
• Taught cultivation of compassion, righteousness,
  trust in God

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Sermon on the Mount

• Blessed are the poor, the gentle, the mourners,
  the seekers of goodness, the merciful, the pure
  in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted because
  of their belief in Jesus.
• His followers are the light of the world
• Jesus came to fulfill the laws
• Believers should follow his commandments
• Followers should not judge others
• The golden rule

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• Rewards in heaven
• Moral intention is more important than outward
  behavior

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Paul

• Best known of apostles (d. 65)
• Jewish tentmaker from Tarsus in Asia Minor
• Greek and Hebrew language
• Never met Jesus
• Wrote 10-14 of 27 books of New Testament
• Universalized Jesuss message

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• Jesus taught Jews Paul wrote to people of
  Greece, Asia Minor, Rome
• Apostle to the Gentiles
• Laid basis for Jesus as New Adam

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Pauls Teachings

• Salvation by faith
• Jesus son of God
• Jesus, sacrifice for human sin
• Sin had entered world through Adam and Eves
  defiance of God
• Jesuss death was act of atonement
• Jesus was New Adam

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The Bible

• Old Testament
• 39 books in the King James Version)
• written in Hebrew (with a little Aramaic) from
  11th to 2nd century BCE.
• The New Testament
• 27 books in the King James Version)
• written in Greek from 40 AD to as late as 150 AD)

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Faith vs. Reason