On Obligations: De Officiis (Oxford World’s Classics)
Top amazon review from other countries
Brazil
Pedro
I’m always fascinated by how much the classical authors continue to influence our interpretations of reality. This book provides a neat summary of this. It becomes quite obvious the massive influence of Cicero on Christian values.
Steefen
“It becomes quite obvious the massive influence of Cicero on Christian values.”
Is that so?
Pedro
I’m always fascinated by how much the classical authors continue to influence our interpretations of reality. This book provides a neat summary of this. It becomes quite obvious the massive influence of Cicero on Christian values.
Steefen
“It becomes quite obvious the massive influence of Cicero on Christian values.”
Is that so?
= = = Response
Yes, it is. See Ambrose of Milan and his work De officiis
The De officiis of Ambrose of Milan (c. 339–397) represents a significant landmark in early Christian ethics for its self-conscious adaptation of Cicero’s De officiis. This chapter considers what Ambrose was seeking to do in evoking Roman moral philosophy, and the relationship between continuity and change in his reconstruction of Ciceronian-Stoic ideals. Ambrose was a natural admirer of Cicero, deeply formed by his legacy. He also aspired to represent Christian virtue as not only matching but exceeding classical standards. In picking up the structure, style, themes, and reasoning of Cicero’s text while suffusing his own approach with biblical and Christian idiom, Ambrose ventured strategic imitation by way of a sustained contrast, seeking to annex but also to replace Ciceronian-Stoic ethics as a practical guide for public figures in a different cultural world. The attempt to supersede was mixed in its results; Roman philosophy inevitably endured in and beyond its creative Christian reception.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Scipio’s Dream is modelled on the “Myth of Er” in Plato’s Republic. Although the story of Er records a near-death experience, while the journey of Scipio’s “disembodied soul” takes place in a dream, both give examples of belief in astral projection.
Steefen
Both give examples of belief in astral projection.
Cicero
and Christian Virtue in the NT
9/17/2014 The Master’s Community Church
While many of the virtues in Cicero’s writings parallel those of the New Testament (he even proposes that love for one’s neighbor is a universal law), Cicero proposed that it was within human ability to love, do justice, and practice benevolence; for him these were not the fruit of the Spirit of God, but within the ability of every man. Cicero was thus not in agreement with the Apostle Paul concerning matters of human inability.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Cicero
On the Good Life translated by Michael Grant
Of particular interest, for its influence in the Middle Ages and later, is The Dream of Scipio,
Cicero’s vision of the after-life:
this gave currency to the notion of celestial harmony and the “nine enfolded Sphears,” which
appear in the poetry of Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser.
Francesco Carotta asked his readers to look at Julius Caesar
Steefen/Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy:
Okaaayyyyyy.
YouTube Channel: MythVision Podcast
YouTube Video:
One of the Greatest Roman Historians Alive Explains the REAL Julius Caesar | Adrian Goldsworthy
Steefen:
I’m very happy to watch a video of scholar Adrian Goldsworthy being interviewed.
His book Caesar: The Life of a Colossus (2007) has 2,398 ratings averaging 4.6 stars, 94% 4 stars or better
Adrian Goldsworthy talks at length about Roman morality (ending at about 43:47) without talking at length about the Saturnalia.
Oh, Lord, this video is 2 hours and 24 minutes.
Derek Lambert (55:50):
Some modern scholars would say Caesar committed a genocide, killing about a million people in Gaul and another million enslaved.
Adrian Goldsworthy:
There are some tribes of Gaul who never fought Rome.
Some joined the Romans.
Some joined the Romans and then quit the Romans.
… Cicero has ambiguous feelings toward Caesar.
Pick up at 1:03.28
1 hr 15 min.s
Things weren’t working long before Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
= = =
Caesar is notoriously charming.
= = =
The Jewish population of Rome came to say goodbye and lament Caesar because he looked after the wider interests of Rome.
Caesar had a very broad appeal beyond the elite.
Adrian Goldsworthy:
Once Caesar is murdered there is no prospect of restoring the Republic.
Derek Lambert:
There is a thread that connects Caesar’s deification to Christian ideas of divine figures.
Octavian became son of the Divine.
That same language appears in the New Testament applied to Jesus.
How is knowing Roman imperial theology important to someone crafting legends about Jesus?
Adrian Goldsworthy:
It’s not just theology. It’s broader than that.
…Josephus wound up living around the imperial household. (1 hr 55 minutes)
Derek Lambert
There are Greco-Roman tropes (a recognized conventions, devices in storytelling) in the gospels.
Steefen
So there are Julius Caesar and Son of the Divine (Augustus) tropes/propaganda in the gospels about Jesus.
Adrian:
Yes, Caesar made an impression
Steefen
and he initiated tropes
Adrian:
Augustus even more so than Julius Caesar. / When Jesus says look at this coin, Render to Caesar the coins that have his face on it. That wasn’t Tiberius’ face it was Augustus’ face more probably. // Someone from rural Galilee does not have trope/propaganda power.
pick up at 2:07.07
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)