Attended Philip’s class for the last time. Only one
class period remaining – next week, when I’ll be off hugging Andrew. At the beginning
of class I discovered that the course will continue on into the new year – no
wonder the student, Phil, told me that he had no exams before leaving for the
holidays. I asked the students if they had any objection to my taking their
picture – they didn’t. The student makeup is a mixed bag – with the majority of
them Caucasian, as might be expected in a predominantly Caucasian country, then
Asian (what we would term, East Indian, Pakistani, etc., while persons we would
call Asian are identified by their individual country of origin – like Chinese,
Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, etc.), also many Afro-Caribbean, as well, most
born in this country.
The subject of today’s lecture regarded growing persecution
from the Roman state and its conse-quences for Christians, as taken from
accounts recorded during the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Learned a lot of things I’d never been aware of before – maybe not so very odd
as I learn pretty much something new EVERY day! One matter evolved around an
ancient text known as the Alexamenos graffito (‘graffito’ meaning ‘little scratch’
in Latin), an
inscription carved into plaster
on a wall near the Palatine Hill in Rome. Unearthed in a house near the
imperial palace that had been owned by the emperor Caligula, later used as a
boarding school for the imperial page boys, it is the image of a young man,
apparently intended to represent Alexamenos, a Roman soldier/guard,
standing as in the mode of worship, before a human-like figure attached to a
cross and possessing the head of a donkey. Beneath the cross the caption
written in crude Greek translates to say:
Alexamenos worships [his] God. It is interpreted as a mocking depiction
of a Christian in the act of
worship. Both the portrayal of Jesus as having a donkey's head and the
depiction of him being crucified would have been considered insulting by
contemporary Roman society.
Based on the misconception of Jews worshiping a
God in the form of a donkey - the source of the prejudice not clear, the accusation that Christians practiced onolatry (donkey-worship) seems to have been
common at the time. Tertullian reports
that it had been alleged that Christians, along with Jews, had been worshipping
a deity with the head of an ass. That a Greek or Roman person might be led to
believe that this accusation was based in truth is not so farfetched when you
consider the various forms of ‘gods’ to which Greeks and Romans supposedly paid
homage. Regardless of the various possible interpretations, the intent to
ridicule Christian beliefs seems apparent. The most likely date for the
inscription is believed to have been towards the beginning of the 3rd century.
A common form of accusation raised against Christians
was atheism – meaning they refused to continue to worship the gods or supreme leaders
of the state. The inscription of one trial reads thusly, according to the
accusers anyway: they (the Christians) asserted that the sum and substance of
their fault had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before
dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves
by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not
falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.
When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to
partake of food – but ordinary and innocent food (this probably a result of
misinterpretations associated with animal sacrifice and other Jewish dietary
strictures). Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by
which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political
associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what
the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses, but I
discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. Endquote.
A similar misconception surrounding Christian
practices, also in evidence during this period of time, was the conjecture that
part of their rites revolved around cannibalism (specifically involving
children) and incestuous practices. ‘They falsely accused us of Thyestean
feasts (cannibalism) and Oedipodean practices and other crimes which it is
unlawful for us either to mention or think of.’ Said one good woman under
trial, ‘How can children be eaten by those who do not think it lawful to partake
of the blood of even brutal beasts?’ Pretty crazy, huh?!
Considering these early Christian persecutions put
me very much in mind of accusations directed towards the church in this
dispensation. A number of their practices were viewed with the eye of a sinful
generation as being amiss – and that from a group of worldly persons who often themselves
were involved in evil and wicked practices, similar to the psychological
phenomenon where one perceives or ‘projects’ his own blemishes into his view of
others.
After class Philip and I finally got around to sharing
that lunch we’ve been talking about for weeks (it seemed like every Tuesday one
or the other of us ended up having alternate plans), in the faculty facility
known as Staff House. The place we ate was ‘a cafeteria,’ when it comes right
down to it; I had expected more – good, but nothing to write home about. We had
a nice lively conversation. I asked him in particular to tell me his ‘love
story.’ Seems that his future wife was just finishing up her coarse work to
become a librarian when they met, in their mutual church, and that it was her
mother that kept inviting him over for dinner, hoping something would result
from it. Philip still had a ways to go before he would finish his doctorate.
Eventually, the young couple moved up to Scotland where he had obtained a
teaching position. In the meantime, several sons came along, now 7 and 10. He
loved it there, she didn’t – they moved to Cambridge, where she is a librarian
at Cambridge University, while he has been a teacher here at The University of
Birmingham for some number of years now. He leaves on the train for Birmingham every
Monday morning and arrives back home by Thursday evening after the kids have
been tucked in bed. Sounds like it is
hard especially for his youngest son to say goodbye to his dad each week – I’ll
bet.
He had remarked to me on an earlier occasion that he no longer was
attending church on a regular basis any longer, as had been his practice in the
past – the Anglican Church. I asked him about that: seems it is the
consequence of his wife having become a follower of the tenants of world-renowned
physicist, Stephen Hawking, also a confirmed atheist, who stated that philosophical problems can be answered by
science, ‘leading us to a new and very different picture of the universe and
our place in it.’ Hawking does not believe in formal religion, rather finds the
notion ‘a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’ Eventually, when Philip’s
wife chose to no longer attend church services, it became more and more
difficult, and conflictual, for him to leave the family (of course, she did not
want the boys attending) and take himself off to worship. Now, in the spirit of
peace, he chooses to just stay home - kind of sad really.
Photos_
1- half a classroom full
2- Staff House
3- Stephen Hawking
