Christ and the Romans

Christianity was born into a world suffused with the cultural achievements of the Greeks as those had been appropriated, altered, and extended by the Romans. Although it may seem that Christ and the Romans were simply at loggerheads, and, as the saying goes, “never the twain shall meet, it is important to consider that the Christian worldview was for 1500 years shaped by Latin-speakers reading a Latin Bible. And although it is popular to say that Rome “fell,” and that after that point there was “the Dark Ages,” in reality the Romans remained a living and vibrant cultural force for a millennium through Christians creatively adapting many of the assumptions of what they thought of as “Roman-ness.”

For a thousand years, Christians tried to restore the Roman Empire in one form or another, so a major aim of this course is to help us better understand our own heritage as Christians. And since “Roman-ness” remains a live factor in many ways today, by gaining a better understanding of how Christ used the remains of Roman culture to advance the Gospel, we may ourselves be enabled us to more robustly apply the lessons of Roman history – the records of God’s providence – to our own lives.

This 32-week course consists of four eight-week quarters. Each quarter students will be assigned a weekly pre-recorded lecture, reading appropriate for the week, relevant reading questions, a weekly 1.5 hour live recitation, one 1200-1500 word essay, and a quarterly exam. In the course of the year, the students will read all the texts listed below, listened to 32 lectures, write four essays and attended a minimum of 30 (ideally 32) live recitations to discuss the texts in Socratic fashion.

Course Objectives:

1. To develop the skill of closely reading a variety of texts, seeking to allow them to suggest and refine the interpretive questions we bring to them.
2. To synthesize themes and messages drawn from several types of writing about the same topic, so as to arrive at a more robust and considered view of the whole.
3. To engage with great characters and events of the past with a developing sense of their fundamental connectedness to and relevance for our own present and future.
4. To clarify and sharpen a distinctively Christian understanding of Ancient Roman culture, and refine awareness of the redemptive hope our Faith imparts to us as we strive to “think God’s thoughts after Him.”

Texts:

• Beard, Mary, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome - ISBN-978-1-63149-222-8
• Vergil, The Aeneid (trans. Robert Fagles) - ISBN 978-0-14-310513-8

The following sources will be provided in PDF format with the course. You may select and purchase other hardcover versions at your own discretion, though the translations and paginations may complicate live discussions:

• Early Roman legal and social documents
• Selections from Roman historians (Polybius, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, and others)
• Selections from Cicero
• Selected Plutarch’s Lives
• Selected Roman Christian writings (PDFs provided by teacher)

Note: New sections of this course will open as needed. To discuss options, contact timothy.enloe@kepler.education.