Lecture 2: The First Cultural Context—Greece and Rome
• Developments in Hellenistic religion and philosophy corresponded
to new social realities.
o Although the civic festivals remained central and popular and
the Olympic pantheon active, new aspects of religion emerged.
Chance (tyche) and fate (heimarmene) emerged as inexorable
forces superior to the gods themselves. Religious associations
and mystery cults offered salvation from fate and chance, as
well as a place in the world.o Philosophy turned from theory to therapy, with a focus on how
to live well in an alienating world. Philosophers no longer
wrote about the perfect state or the republic. What would be the
point in a world run by empire?o Philosophical schools, such as those of the Pythagoreans and
Epicureans, offered an organized form of life—a community
life that provided sound teaching, sound practice, and the
opportunity to live in a face-to-face community of moral
integrity in the midst of a world that made little sense.
Philosophers focused on the cultivation of virtue and the
healing of the soul.o Stoic philosophers initiated allegorical interpretation of
the classic myths to save them for moral instruction. This
interpretation would be taken over by Judaism and Christianity.The Roman Contribution
• The Roman contribution to the Mediterranean culture was more
recent and, for a time, more external and superficial.• Rome established control over the Mediterranean as a republic and
continued its rule as a principate (beginning with Caesar Augustus
[27 B.C.E.–14 C.E.]) through a system of provincial governorships
and prefects.• During the time of Christianity’s nascence, the empire was self-
consciously Greek in its cultural outlook.