Tag: Pliny the Elder

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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

While basing itself on consensus scholarship, the hypothesis of Creating Christ has some interesting local effects on mainstream scholarship. For one thing, the dating of the “later” so-called “pastoral” epistles: the elaborate bureaucratic system of deacons, bishops, orders of consecrated virgins, and so on seems to indicate a later stage of the cult; but if Christianity was a top-top movement imposed by the Romans, the Romanesque bureaucracy could have been nearly original, as with the Mafia. (more…)

J. M. W. Turner, Vesuvius in Eruption, 1817-20

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It was the summer of 79 AD. The celebrated naturalist and Roman navy admiral Pliny the Elder sat on an outcrop and looked toward the western sea, lit with the fires of a setting Sun as if he was taking stock of a life well-lived, and the once-and-future prospects of his beloved country. To the east, also set briefly ablaze like a torch in the purpling sky, he could see Vesuvius: reliable, peaceful Vesuvius. (more…)