Lecture - The Penitentials: Remedies for sin and the regulation of sexuality (I): Penance in early Christian traditions, East and West (MDST2613 Sex and Sin in the Middle Ages, 2013)
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Sunday, January 30, 2022
Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire, 250-450 C.E.
Mark Humphries
Forthcoming in Nicholas Baker-Brian and Josef Lössl (eds),
A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity
(Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell)
CHAPTER 3
Introduction
Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished. For if any man in violation of the law of the deified Emperor, Our Father [i.e. Constantine I], and in violation of this command of Our Clemency, should dare to perform sacrifices, he shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence (Codex Theodosianus16.10.2).
In 341, with these apparently uncompromising words, the Christian emperor Constans (337-350) commanded his official Madalianus to restrict the worship of the ancient gods. This lawis preserved in a fifth-century compilation of imperial legislation that speaks loudly of its hostility toward traditional cults (Hunt 1993; Salzman 1993) and offers a window onto a world that seems utterly at odds with the religious dynamics of earlier Roman history. One of the most striking features of that earlier world was its capacity to absorb new cultures and, with them, new gods. It is no exaggeration to say that much of what we know about the pantheons of Iron Age Europe arises from their assimilation into Roman religious habits in the Empire’s provinces.
Mark Humphries
Forthcoming in Nicholas Baker-Brian and Josef Lössl (eds),
A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity
(Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell)
CHAPTER 3
Introduction
Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished. For if any man in violation of the law of the deified Emperor, Our Father [i.e. Constantine I], and in violation of this command of Our Clemency, should dare to perform sacrifices, he shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence (Codex Theodosianus16.10.2).
In 341, with these apparently uncompromising words, the Christian emperor Constans (337-350) commanded his official Madalianus to restrict the worship of the ancient gods. This lawis preserved in a fifth-century compilation of imperial legislation that speaks loudly of its hostility toward traditional cults (Hunt 1993; Salzman 1993) and offers a window onto a world that seems utterly at odds with the religious dynamics of earlier Roman history. One of the most striking features of that earlier world was its capacity to absorb new cultures and, with them, new gods. It is no exaggeration to say that much of what we know about the pantheons of Iron Age Europe arises from their assimilation into Roman religious habits in the Empire’s provinces.
As native gods were adopted by the Romans, so they became subject to Roman forms of worship: this included the setting up of votive inscriptions from which we know the names of a range of deities, such as Antenociticus on the northern frontier of Britain (RIB1327-29). Some of these local cults spread far beyond their homelands, such as the mother deities of the Pannonians (Matres Pannoniarum) attested at Lyons in Gaul in the190s (Mócsy 1974: 232-4, 250). A similar adaptability can be seen in the East, this time building on Hellenistic foundations (see chapters 3 and 6).
IN THE REIGN OF SAINT EMPEROR CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
Dr. Adrian BOLD
University of Craiova, Faculty of Theology
Introduction
The relation between Christianity and paganism represented, especially in the early Christian centuries, the main concern of both the Fathers and Writers of the Church and the pagan Greco-Latin authors. The way that the new religion was understood and interpreted was for along time, one of the major concerns in the Roman Empire, regardless of the social position of those involved in the dispute. This situation lasted until the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), and even after his reign (306-337), its analysis being of great interest in knowing how Christianity defeated Greco-Roman paganism and spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. St. Constantine the Great remained a controversial figure in the history of the Church of all confessions. „He is one of those people who seem by their personality, their acumen, and their ability both to take the opportunities offered and to leave the world markedly changed by their presence in it. He bequeaths a series of paradoxes: an autocrat who never ruled alone; a firm legislator for the Roman family, yet who slew his wife and eldest son and was himself, illegitimate; a dynastic puppet-master, who left no clear successor; a soldier whose legacy was far more spiritual than temporal”.
According to some researchers, the king helped the Christian Church in order to use it: he kept the title of pontifexmaximus, he tolerated paganism, he was baptized only on his deathbed by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, he oscillated between Christianity and paganism and between Orthodoxy and Arianism. His policy was unfavorable to Christianity frequently.
Dr. Adrian BOLD
University of Craiova, Faculty of Theology
Introduction
The relation between Christianity and paganism represented, especially in the early Christian centuries, the main concern of both the Fathers and Writers of the Church and the pagan Greco-Latin authors. The way that the new religion was understood and interpreted was for along time, one of the major concerns in the Roman Empire, regardless of the social position of those involved in the dispute. This situation lasted until the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), and even after his reign (306-337), its analysis being of great interest in knowing how Christianity defeated Greco-Roman paganism and spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. St. Constantine the Great remained a controversial figure in the history of the Church of all confessions. „He is one of those people who seem by their personality, their acumen, and their ability both to take the opportunities offered and to leave the world markedly changed by their presence in it. He bequeaths a series of paradoxes: an autocrat who never ruled alone; a firm legislator for the Roman family, yet who slew his wife and eldest son and was himself, illegitimate; a dynastic puppet-master, who left no clear successor; a soldier whose legacy was far more spiritual than temporal”.
Constantine the Great is considered „holy” in the Orthodox Church, in the Roman Catholic Church „great”, while the Protestant world and a large number of modern scholars consider him a political opportunist who was driven by personal and state interests to achieve his goals. „Many scholars ascribe sincere religious motives to him, while others see him as an opportunist currying favor with a vocal minority. We do know that Constantine's contemporaries and successors viewed his patronage of Christianity as a watershed: for pagans, such as Zosimus, it was the beginning of the end of a proud empire; for Christians, such as Eusebius, it was the dawning of a bright new day of Christian triumph. Constantine put a great deal of financial and political support behind Christianity, beyond the simple legalization of the movement in 313 C.E.”
THE POSTMODERN GOLDEN TRIANGLE
Laos makes big meth bust as UN warns of security breakdown
FILE -Reporters view packages of methamphetamines on a table during a press conference at Narcotics Suppression Bureau Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, July 15, 2019. Police in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos have made their second huge seizure in three months of methamphetamine, a development that a U.N. expert on the illicit drug trade said Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, reflects a breakdown of security in the region. (AP Photo, File)
GRANT PECK
Sat, January 29, 2022, 5:05 AM·2 min read
BANGKOK (AP) — Police in Laos have made their second huge seizure in three months of methamphetamine, a development that a U.N. expert on the illicit drug trade said Saturday reflects a breakdown of security in Southeast Asia.
Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said the seizure of 36.5 million methamphetamine tablets in the northwestern province of Bokeo was the region’s second largest after 55.6 million meth pills were captured in October in the same province.
He warned that the Mekong River region, where the seizure took place, was experiencing a surge of drug production and trafficking that required strong efforts to get under control.
“Organized crime treat the Mekong region like a playground — it has all the elements they look for,” he said.
Lao Security Radio, a state broadcaster, said on its website that four residents of the province were arrested Wednesday in Huay Xai district in a raid that also captured 590 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of crystal meth — also known as ice — a minor amount of heroin and a pistol.
Bokeo borders on Myanmar and Thailand, a frontier area known as the Golden Triangle that's infamous for the production of illicit drugs. Heroin and the opium from which it is derived have been joined in recent decades by methamphetamine, mostly produced in Myanmar, especially its Shan state.
“Production in Shan is off the charts, and Laos is now a favored gateway for traffickers,” Douglas said in an email. Thailand is a major market for drugs from Myanmar, which are also shipped onward to other countries. Laos is a poor, sparsely inhabited landlocked country with a reputation for corruption that can facilitate smuggling.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since February last year, when the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It now faces an armed challenge from foes of military rule, disrupting normal law enforcement operations to suppress the drug trade. The situation is further complicated because drug production is often associated with armed ethnic minority groups involved in political struggles with the government and sometimes with each other.
“Drugs and conflict in Shan have been connected for decades. But as security has broken down, especially the last eight or nine months, we’ve seen an explosion of supply hitting the Mekong and Southeast Asia,” Douglas said. “Neighbors like Thailand and Laos have been flooded with meth in recent months.”
“There are no easy fixes given the governance situation in Shan,” he said.
If the region wants to start slowing drug flows out of the Triangle, Douglas said governments need to get a grip on chemical trafficking, secure borders and make it more difficult to launder money.
---
FROM ALABAMA TO ALBERTA
Public schools staffing is on the brink of collapse
Public schools staffing is on the brink of collapse
Erin Doherty
Sat, January 29, 2022,
The public school system is hanging by a thread as staff are stressed, burned out and thinking of quitting more than ever before.
Why it matters: Staffing shortages are leading school districts to look for "bodies in a room to babysit kids" as last-ditch efforts to keep their doors open, one education researcher told Axios.
Driving the news: Districts in Texas, Idaho and Colorado are asking parents to fill in as substitute teachers, while officials in New Mexico asked the state's National Guard to step in.
In Kansas, an emergency declaration eliminated college credit hours as a requirement for substitute teachers.
Staffing shortages are made worse by a waning substitute teacher force, many of whom left the profession during the pandemic.
"Substitute teaching is not a profession for the faint of heart," said Julia Kaufman, an education policy researcher at RAND corporation.
Plus, low pay, minimal benefits and the overall view of substitute teachers contribute to the sub shortages, Myrtle Washington, a veteran substitute teacher in D.C. Public Schools, said.
"A lot of substitute teachers did not think it was worth it, risking their lives, in this city, for $15 an hour."
The big picture: Principals are stressed, too. "This has been one of the toughest years for educators ever," one principal said.
"Regardless of how we categorized principals, about 75% to almost 90% of principals ... reported that they experienced frequent job-related stress," according to a RAND Corporation report out this week.
Between the lines: The stress levels among female principals and principals of color were especially stark.
Sat, January 29, 2022,
The public school system is hanging by a thread as staff are stressed, burned out and thinking of quitting more than ever before.
Why it matters: Staffing shortages are leading school districts to look for "bodies in a room to babysit kids" as last-ditch efforts to keep their doors open, one education researcher told Axios.
Driving the news: Districts in Texas, Idaho and Colorado are asking parents to fill in as substitute teachers, while officials in New Mexico asked the state's National Guard to step in.
In Kansas, an emergency declaration eliminated college credit hours as a requirement for substitute teachers.
Staffing shortages are made worse by a waning substitute teacher force, many of whom left the profession during the pandemic.
"Substitute teaching is not a profession for the faint of heart," said Julia Kaufman, an education policy researcher at RAND corporation.
Plus, low pay, minimal benefits and the overall view of substitute teachers contribute to the sub shortages, Myrtle Washington, a veteran substitute teacher in D.C. Public Schools, said.
"A lot of substitute teachers did not think it was worth it, risking their lives, in this city, for $15 an hour."
The big picture: Principals are stressed, too. "This has been one of the toughest years for educators ever," one principal said.
"Regardless of how we categorized principals, about 75% to almost 90% of principals ... reported that they experienced frequent job-related stress," according to a RAND Corporation report out this week.
Between the lines: The stress levels among female principals and principals of color were especially stark.
SEE
Nature: Rare red wolf sighting drives home plight of endangered creature
Jim McCormac
Sat, January 29, 2022
A female Red Wolf approaches Jim McCormac in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.
Jan. 11 was an unforgettable day. I was in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina, a sprawling 152,000-acre mosaic of habitats. Mostly I was after waterfowl: thousands of northern pintail and tundra swans use the area, along with other species of fowl. My camera was my weapon.
Near day’s end, I was slowly cruising a seldom-used dirt track. I spotted an object nearly a half-mile down the lane and glassed it with 10-power binoculars. A canid! Either a coyote, or something much more special.
I pulled the Jeep off the track, exited with my big telephoto lens and hid behind the vehicle. Amazingly, the animal kept heading my way, periodically stopping to look about. Occasionally, it would make brief forays into the vegetation but then return to the road.
As it got nearer, I saw it was an animal that I had no expectations of seeing: a red wolf!
Songbird: Nature: For tiny creatures, ruby-crowned kinglets are bodacious songbirds
Fortunately, I was downwind and the wolf apparently was unaware of me. It surely saw the vehicle but apparently wasn’t put off by that. I kept clicking off shots, with the majestic mammal eventually approaching to about 75 feet.
At that point, the wolf fixed my lens with a glare (it still couldn’t see much of me), paused, then trotted into nearby woods and melted away. I suspect it had been hunting rabbits, which often come to road edges near dusk.
The federally endangered red wolf is among the rarest of the rare, with all remaining wild animals on the Alligator River refuge.
It wasn’t always so. Prior to European settlement, red wolves were common and ranged throughout the southeastern U.S., possibly including southern Ohio. As settlers poured into the wilderness, wolf persecution began in earnest. Eventually, governments and farming coalitions offered bounties for their carcasses, and the massacres were successful. In 1978, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild.
Wooly-bears: Nature: Wandering woolly-bears well-known, but can they predict the winter weather?
Wolves, possibly including both gray and red wolves, vanished from Ohio much earlier, by the mid-1800’s, victims of relentless persecution.
Fortunately, a number of red wolves had been live-trapped and these formed a captive colony housed at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Washington State. In 1987, some of these animals were released into Alligator River.
The wolves flourished in their Carolinian refuge, peaking at perhaps 120 animals in the early 2010s.
But lots of people still despise wolves, and many of the Carolina wolves have been shot or poisoned if they dared stray onto private lands. As of now, perhaps 17 wolves remain in the wild. The animal that I saw turned out to be a 12-year-old female, known to biologists as “1849.”
Sandhill cranes: Nature: Spectacular sandhill cranes still rule the roost in protected Indiana marshes
It is no longer possible for apex predators such as wolves to survive in vast swaths of the U.S. Human conflict and habitat loss are the primary reasons, and when human interests are at stake, we virtually always prevail.
If only present-day Americans had the deep connection to nature that the Cherokee people did, wolves would have far less to fear. Cherokees ranged over much of the southeast, knew the red wolf well, and held the mammal in reverence, seldom killing them.
Now, to protect the whole of our biodiversity necessitates protecting vast swaths of land, such as the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. But even that might not be enough for wide-ranging mammals such as wolves. Time will tell how the red wolf saga plays out, and I’m rooting for the wily canines.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Why did the red wolf become an endangered species?
Jim McCormac
Sat, January 29, 2022
A female Red Wolf approaches Jim McCormac in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.
Jan. 11 was an unforgettable day. I was in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina, a sprawling 152,000-acre mosaic of habitats. Mostly I was after waterfowl: thousands of northern pintail and tundra swans use the area, along with other species of fowl. My camera was my weapon.
Near day’s end, I was slowly cruising a seldom-used dirt track. I spotted an object nearly a half-mile down the lane and glassed it with 10-power binoculars. A canid! Either a coyote, or something much more special.
I pulled the Jeep off the track, exited with my big telephoto lens and hid behind the vehicle. Amazingly, the animal kept heading my way, periodically stopping to look about. Occasionally, it would make brief forays into the vegetation but then return to the road.
As it got nearer, I saw it was an animal that I had no expectations of seeing: a red wolf!
Songbird: Nature: For tiny creatures, ruby-crowned kinglets are bodacious songbirds
Fortunately, I was downwind and the wolf apparently was unaware of me. It surely saw the vehicle but apparently wasn’t put off by that. I kept clicking off shots, with the majestic mammal eventually approaching to about 75 feet.
At that point, the wolf fixed my lens with a glare (it still couldn’t see much of me), paused, then trotted into nearby woods and melted away. I suspect it had been hunting rabbits, which often come to road edges near dusk.
The federally endangered red wolf is among the rarest of the rare, with all remaining wild animals on the Alligator River refuge.
It wasn’t always so. Prior to European settlement, red wolves were common and ranged throughout the southeastern U.S., possibly including southern Ohio. As settlers poured into the wilderness, wolf persecution began in earnest. Eventually, governments and farming coalitions offered bounties for their carcasses, and the massacres were successful. In 1978, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild.
Wooly-bears: Nature: Wandering woolly-bears well-known, but can they predict the winter weather?
Wolves, possibly including both gray and red wolves, vanished from Ohio much earlier, by the mid-1800’s, victims of relentless persecution.
Fortunately, a number of red wolves had been live-trapped and these formed a captive colony housed at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Washington State. In 1987, some of these animals were released into Alligator River.
The wolves flourished in their Carolinian refuge, peaking at perhaps 120 animals in the early 2010s.
But lots of people still despise wolves, and many of the Carolina wolves have been shot or poisoned if they dared stray onto private lands. As of now, perhaps 17 wolves remain in the wild. The animal that I saw turned out to be a 12-year-old female, known to biologists as “1849.”
Sandhill cranes: Nature: Spectacular sandhill cranes still rule the roost in protected Indiana marshes
It is no longer possible for apex predators such as wolves to survive in vast swaths of the U.S. Human conflict and habitat loss are the primary reasons, and when human interests are at stake, we virtually always prevail.
If only present-day Americans had the deep connection to nature that the Cherokee people did, wolves would have far less to fear. Cherokees ranged over much of the southeast, knew the red wolf well, and held the mammal in reverence, seldom killing them.
Now, to protect the whole of our biodiversity necessitates protecting vast swaths of land, such as the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. But even that might not be enough for wide-ranging mammals such as wolves. Time will tell how the red wolf saga plays out, and I’m rooting for the wily canines.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Why did the red wolf become an endangered species?
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