Roman Mythology [antikvár]

Introduction The words Rome and religion are inseparable, because Rome is today and has been for close on two thousand years, the earthly fountain-head of a faith which is universal. This faith was brought to Rome from the east, from Jewish Palestine by way of the Greek orient, and implanted in Italy within a generation of the ministry of its founder. When in the year ad 61 the apostle Paul, himself a Greek-speaking Jew, arrived in Italy the Roman Christian community was well established. Many of its members were Jews, including relatives of his; but the majority, as we know from those named in the letter which Paul had written to them from Corinth four years earlier, were Gentile converts. The arrival of Paul in Rome is generally taken to mark the beginning of an organised Roman Church, and thus of a new era. So in a sense it does; but the event raises two questions. The first is, from what were these Gentiles converted. The second is, why did they find in the unknown Christian faith, a Graeco-Semitic importation at that, something which the religion of their fathers did not supply. It is to give an answer to these two questions that this study is designed. It will attempt to show first what were the origins of Roman religion, next how that religion developed as the Roman state developed, third how it failed to satisfy the individual Roman soul, fourth how two men of genius, one an emperor the other a poet, tried to turn the history of Rome into a religion and nearly succeeded, and finally how monotheism eventually prevailed, initially in its pagan form and then after a fierce struggle, in its Christian form. When we apply our mind's eye more closely to the scrutiny of the subject, we find that the focus is blurred by the golden mist of the Graeco-Roman concept. In the three centuries between the death of Alexander and the birth of Augustus the literature and arts - architecture most