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Handout #8 |
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The Roman empire. Preparation for the gospel |
| For our philosophy at first flourished among barbarians; but after it had appeared among your peoples during the mighty principate of your ancestor Augustus, it became an auspicious benefit, especially to your empire. For from that time on the power of the Romans increased in a great and splendid way: you have become the successor to this whom the people desired and will continue to be so, along with your son, if you protect the philosophy which was nursed in the cradle of the empire and saw the light along with Augustus, which also your ancestors honored, as they did other religions. And this is the greatest proof of its excellence, that our doctrine has flourished at the same time as the happy beginnings of the empire and that from the time of the principate of Augustus no evil has befallen it, but, on the contrary, all things have been splendid and glorious in accordance with the prayers of all ...Letter of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, c. 170,quoted in Eusebius, Church History IV, 26,7-8. |
