“Rome is an empire, so it was built and maintained by force.” Critics of empire, although acknowledging its benefits, also often bring up this point. Such judgement is, however, erroneous because it fails to take into account the reality of history, that people understand a situation ... More
Will Durant, in his History of Civilization, remarked that when Luther and the other Protestant groups broke from Rome, it was as if the German peoples had thrown off Rome’s hegemony a second time–the first being the taking over of the Western Roman Empire. This remark is ... More
These developments in the relationship between basileia and hierosyne are reflected in imperial iconography – i.e., in the way in which emperors are depicted. Down to the time of the iconoclastic controversy, emperors most often were depicted in ways that emphasized their power – crowned ... More
“Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?” This is the question Charles Taylor posits and (brilliantly) attempts to answer in the following 776 pages. Taylor rejects ... More
It is remarkable to consider how much has been written on the notion of the early Christian and Byzantine attitudes to political theory relying on the singularly useless concept of caesaro-papism. It illuminates nothing, apart from the standing-point of the user. It was, in origin, a term of ... More
