Note 245 — BOOK V THE RISE AND COLLAPSE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Reading edition
“A little more needs to be said on this matter. The Greeks cited gladiatorial shows as a reason for regarding the Romans as Barbaroi, and there were riots when some Roman proconsul tried to introduce them in Corinth. Among Romans, the better people evidently disliked them, but a sort of shyness prevented them from frankly denouncing them as cruel. For instance, Cicero, when he had to attend the Circus, took his tablets and his secretary with him, and didn’t look. He expresses particular disgust at the killing of an elephant; and somebody in Tacitus (Drusus, Ann. 1. 76) was unpopular because he was too fond of gladiatorial bloodshed—“quamquam vili sanguine nimis gaudens” (“rejoicing too much in blood, worthless blood though it was”). The games were unhesitatingly condemned by Greek philosophy, and at different times two Cynics and one Christian gave their lives in the arena, protesting against them, before they were abolished.
“I do not think Christianity had any such relation to slavery as is here stated. St. Paul’s action in sending back a slave to his master, and his injunction, ‘Slaves, obey your masters,’ were regularly quoted on the pro-slavery side, down to the nineteenth century; on the other hand, both the popular philosophies and the Mystery religions were against slavery in their whole tendency, and Christianity of course in time became the chief representative of these movements. Probably the best test is the number of slaves who occupied posts of honour in the religious and philosophic systems, like Epictetus, for instance, or the many slaves who hold offices in the Mithraic Inscriptions. I do not happen to know if any slaves were made Christian bishops, but by analogy I should think it likely that some were. In all the Mystery religions, as soon as you entered the community, and had communion with God, earthly distinctions shrivelled away.”—G. M.
The Spirit of Jesus is something different from formal Christianity, which I regard as the vehicle, the largely unsympathetic vehicle, by which that spirit was carried about the world.—H. G. W.