Biblical conspiracy theorists hypothesize about the identity of the "revived Roman Empire" who will host the Antichrist during end times or something like that.
I'm not getting into that.Many different currents flowed into the ideological stream of the American Founding. The Greco-Roman current is unquestionably one of them. Though much emphasis needs to be added to the Roman part, especially the Stoic philosophy of those noble ancients.
Though I haven't read the book yet, Jeffrey Rosen's new book seems like one that will shed some much needed light on this particular dynamic.
Set all of the conspiracy nonsense aside, one thing America's Founders explicitly seemed intent on was "reviving" not the evil Roman Empire of Caesar's tyranny, but rather that of the noble Stoic Roman Republicans whom those tyrannical Caesars wiped out.
But yes, understandably, for their time, what America's Founders did was "new" and thus in some meaningful way "different" than the ancient system that so inspired them.
7 comments:
"Biblical conspiracy theorists hypothesize about the identity of the "revived Roman Empire" who will host the Antichrist during end times or something like that."
There's a lot of wack stuff out there these days but I never heard this one.
I might prefer Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca to the insane garbage we have going on now. In fact, I'm sure I would. Send me their address. I'd like to have a word with them.
I was thinking the Hal Lindsey types; he argued at one point it was the EU (because its birth certificate was the "Treaty of Rome"). I think there's a guy name Chris Pinto who thinks it's America because of Freemasonry, unorthodox theology and the affinity for Greco-Roman stuff.
Though I try to stress that America had an affinity for the noble Roman Republic that was prior TO Rome becoming an ignoble Empire.
The Stoics preceded Jesus, who had to do with the tyrannical Caesars. Jesus hits the scene and the rest is history
Of course, the the influence of the Roman (Republicans) on the founders was a topic dear to my heart.
Hope all you guys are well. It's been close to a decade that I've posted comments or blog entries.
In this stage of my retirement I've moved on to other subjects. I giving away some of the books on history: Glorious Revolution (Harrington, Sydney, etc), Founding Fathers (books on Jefferson's & Adams' constitutional thought, life, etc.) If there is any interest I'd like to pass these books to those who share my passion or who can pass them on to students.
I have great memories of discussions here with everyone, without exception. If only the web was always this stimulating.
-Jason Pappas
Nice to see you back. Do you still have front page posting privileges? If not, Brad can always give you access again.
We are still doing our thing; but as you can tell, we've slowed down quite a bit!
Thanks, Jonathan, for the welcome back but I'm just visiting. You guys may be posting less but still grappling with great history and controversy. Glad to see it.
Cheers, Jason. And our posts and conversations are gone from Google. I used to be able to type in "Who were the Unitarians" Or "Franklin deist" and get multiple hits. Now nothing.
We used to be a source. Oh well.
Great to hear from you Tom. I believe it was google, during its better days, that led me here. An oasis of intelligence on the internet. Great memories.
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