{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1200", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1200, "subject": "Severus, too", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-10-16T14:51:28+00:00", "last": "1998-10-16T14:51:28+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1998-10-16T14:51:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Severus, too", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this article, also just sent in, might possibly be more relevant to our\nSeverian. Our Sev. definitely is an \"Emperor\" (I think the symbolic links\nbetween Autarchs and Roman Emperors are fairly evident). And the syncretic\nreligious ideas, with a clear learning towards Christianity also seem to tie in\nnicely. Codification of the justice system, etc.--if he'd abolished some kind\nof torture, I'd say this was the mother lode...\n\nSeverus, ALEXANDER, Roman emperor, b. at Acco in Palestine, 208; murdered by\nhis mutinous soldiers at Sicula on the Rhine, 235 (Sicklingen near Mainz). He\nwas the son of Genessius Marcianus and Julia Mammaea, and was known in youth as\nAlexianus. When Elagabalus, his cousin and father by adoption, was murdered in\n222, Alexander succeeded to the imperial throne. His education had been\ncarefully conducted by Mammaea at Antioch, whither she invited, some time\nbetween 218 and 228, the great Christian teacher, Origen. Eusebius relates\n(Hist. eccl., VI, xxi, XXviii) that she was \"a very religious woman\", and that\nOrigen remained some time with her, instructing her in all that could serve to\nglorify the Lord and confirm His Divine teachings. It does not, however,\nfollow that she was a Christian. Her son Alexander was certainly very\nfavorable to the Christians. His historian, Lampridius, tells us several\ninteresting details concerning the emperor's respect for the new religion. He\nplaced in his private oratory (lararium) images of Abraham and Christ before\nthose of other renowned persons, like Orpheus and Apollonius of Tyana (Vita.\nAlex., xxix); he tolerated the free exercise of the Christian faith\n(\"Christianos esse passus est\", ibid., xxii); he recommended in the\nappointement of imperial governors the prudence and solicitude of the\nChristians in the selection of their bishops (ibid., xlv); he caused to be\nadjudged to them (ibid., xlix) a building site at Rome that the tavern-keepers\n(cauponarii) claimed, on the principle that it was better that God should be in\nsome way honoured there than that the site should revert to such uses; he\ncaused the famous words of Christ (Luke, vi, 31): \"And as you would that men\nshould to to you, do you also to them in like manner\" to be engraved on the\nwalls of the palace of the Caesars; he even cherished the idea of building a\ntemple to Our Lord, but refrained when it was said to him that very soon all\nthe other divinities would cease to be honoured (ibid., xliii).\n\tIn spite of these signs of imperial goodwill, the Christians continued\nto suffer, even in this mild reign. Some writers think that it was then that\nSt. Cecilia died for the Christian faith. His principal jurisconsult, Ulpian,\nis said by Lactantius (Inst. Div., V, ii) to have codified, in his work on the\nduties of a proconsul (De officio proconsulis), all anti-Christian imperial\nlegislation (rescripta principum), in order that the magistrates might more\neasily apply the common law (ut doceret quibus oportet eos paenis affici qui se\ncultores Dei confiterentur). Fragments of this cruel code, from the seventh of\nthe (ten) lost books of Ulpian on the proconsular office may yet be seen in the\n\"Digests\" (I, tit. xvi; xvii, tit. II 3; xvliii, tit. IV, 1, and tit. xiii, 6).\nThe surname \"Severus\", no less than the manner in which both he and Mammaea met\ntheir death, indicate the temper of his administration. He sought to establish\nat Rome good order and moral decency in public and private life, and made some\nuse of his power as censor morum by nominating twelve officials (curatores\nurbis) for the execution of his wise dispositions. He seems to have been a\ndisciple of the prevailing religious \"syncretism\" or eclecticism, established\nat Rome by his predecessor Elagabalus as the peculiar contribution of this\nremarkable Syro-Roman family to the slow but certain transformation of the\ngreat pagan Empire into a mighty instrument of Divine Providence for the\nhealing of the moral ills that were then reaching fullness. All historians\nagree as to his life, and the moral elevation of his public and private\nprinciples; Christian historians are usually of opinion that these elements of\nvirtue were owing to the education he received under the direction of Origen.\nLAMPRIDIUS, Vita Alexandri in Script. Hist. Aug.; TILLEMONT, His. des empereurs\nromains, III (Paris, 174), 475; GIBBON, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,\nI; SCHILLER, Gesch. d. rom. Kaiserzeit (stuttgart, 1880); SMITH, Dict. of Greek\nand Roman Biogr., s. v.; REVILLE, Religion a Rome sous les Severes (Paris,\n1886); ALLARD, Hist. des persecutions pendant le premiere moitie du III siecle\n(Paris, 1886); TROPLONG, De l'influence du Christianisme sur le droit civil des\nromains (Pais, 1842; 1902).\n\nTHOMAS J. SHAHAN" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce" } ] } ] }