^ Gibbon, Constantine
http://christianism.com again I think
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To compare...Seneca with Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero"; Maximus with Arnobius; Epictetus with Tertullian; the admirable <b>Marcus [Marcus Aurelius], and his ideal of the "dear city of Zeus,"</b> with the shrill polemic of Augustine's City of God and the hysteria of the Confessions--is to prove a rapid descent in magnanimity, sanity, self-command, sweetness of spirit, and tolerance. What figures as religious intolerance in the Caesars was, as we have seen, always a political, never a religious animosity. Any prosecution of Christians under the Antonines was certainly on the score of breach of law, turbulence, or real or supposed malpractices, not on that of heresy--a crime created only by the Christians themselves, in their own conflicts.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> Did Aurelius himself say "City of Zeus" (with respect to Rome I presume)? And Augustine turned it into Cidade De Deus? Favela! <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <- Accidental wit (Cidade De Deus - Portuguese for "City of God" - is a S American movie about a favela=slum of the same name. Hence the "Augustine turned Rome, City of Zeus into a slum". Ok that was only funny until I explicated the obvious...)
Edited: corrected spelling error in "Cidade".
http://christianism.com again I think
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To compare...Seneca with Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero"; Maximus with Arnobius; Epictetus with Tertullian; the admirable <b>Marcus [Marcus Aurelius], and his ideal of the "dear city of Zeus,"</b> with the shrill polemic of Augustine's City of God and the hysteria of the Confessions--is to prove a rapid descent in magnanimity, sanity, self-command, sweetness of spirit, and tolerance. What figures as religious intolerance in the Caesars was, as we have seen, always a political, never a religious animosity. Any prosecution of Christians under the Antonines was certainly on the score of breach of law, turbulence, or real or supposed malpractices, not on that of heresy--a crime created only by the Christians themselves, in their own conflicts.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> Did Aurelius himself say "City of Zeus" (with respect to Rome I presume)? And Augustine turned it into Cidade De Deus? Favela! <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <- Accidental wit (Cidade De Deus - Portuguese for "City of God" - is a S American movie about a favela=slum of the same name. Hence the "Augustine turned Rome, City of Zeus into a slum". Ok that was only funny until I explicated the obvious...)
Edited: corrected spelling error in "Cidade".