The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. On Roman History

[ 1 ] We have seen that, about eight hundred years before the beginning of our era, an empire spread out from Rome that originally arose from a kind of priest-kingship; and how this priest-kingship then evolved into a republic over the course of about two and a half centuries. We then see the Roman state expand over the course of five centuries to encompass the entire known world of that time. Thus, we see a king reigning in Rome about seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, who simultaneously held the highest priestly office of the time. This office has been preserved. The holder of this office, who in earlier times—before there were secular kings in Rome—also held the royal title, was called the Pontifex Maximus. We thus see a Pontifex Maximus standing at the head of the Roman state during its rise. We then see how the dignity of the Pontifex Maximus is gradually diminished, so that only the priestly rites remain to him. We see that the Rex, the king, still exists, though he is in fact merely a shadow of his original persona. Now we see the Republic expanding more and more, and at the time when Christianity was founded in the East, we see in Rome once again a single figure holding all authority and all power in his hands: Emperor Augustus. He deemed it appropriate and necessary at that time to have the office of Pontifex Maximus conferred upon him, in addition to other offices of the Republic. Thus, at the beginning of our era, we once again have the Pontifex Maximus in Rome wielding supreme authority. But this is a Pontifex Maximus, a high priest, whose authority is not based on the priestly office, but rests solely and exclusively on his secular power.

[ 2 ] And a few centuries—about five hundred years—later, we see this secular power of the Roman ruler completely destroyed. Instead, however, we see once again a Pontifex Maximus, a high priest, a Roman bishop—the future pope—who once again holds the title of Pontifex Maximus. And around the year 800 A.D., the prince who is most often mentioned—the one who ruled over those who had overthrown the secular Pontifex Maximus in Rome—received the secular royal crown from this Pontifex Maximus. He completely subordinated secular rule to priestly rule, to priestly authority. And now the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, begins.

[ 3 ] Thus we see a transformation taking place in history. We see that the only thing that has remained, the only thing that has endured, is “the dignity of the High Priest in Rome.” All around it, transformations of far-reaching significance in world history have taken place, which must also be viewed from a higher perspective in order to be fully understood.

[ 4 ] Above all, we must ask ourselves: How did this transformation take place at the very moment in which we now find ourselves—the moment when Christianity began, that is, at the beginning of our calendar? How did it come to be, on the one hand, that a secular ruler held complete dominion over the world of that time, and that this immense power was completely destroyed shortly thereafter; that the people upon whom this power was based ceased to play a role, to be a force? How is it that five hundred years after the beginning of our era, the Roman Empire had been destroyed, and that in Rome the Roman priest sat as a prince, wielding just as much power over souls as the Roman emperor, Caesar, had once wielded in secular matters?

[ 5 ] Two major trends are responsible for this—two trends of such importance and significance as few others in history have had. On the one hand, there is the spread of Christianity from the East, and on the other, the migratory military campaigns of the Germanic tribes. The Roman Empire is threatened from two sides: spiritually from the East and secularly from the North. Everything that had previously defined the greatness of the Roman Empire was, in a certain sense, no longer there. But something else was there. The outward forms of this Roman Empire had remained. What had remained was the very essence of the Roman Empire—that which had originally determined the greatness of the Roman world empire. Roman thought and the Roman worldview, as reflected in its outward institutions, had endured. We shall see to what extent these have been preserved. True, all of the empire’s former substance had been driven out. But the mere form, the outer shell, had remained. And poured into this form was something else, namely Christianity, which now appears in the same forms as the Roman Empire. The very foundation upon which Roman rule rested had been destroyed by the Nordic peoples. It is a peculiar story, for at least as much of the Roman Empire has survived as has perished. And what has survived is recounted by the history of the Catholic Church; what has further survived is evident in what we experience every day. Go into a courtroom and see how people are prosecuted, defended, and justice is administered. That is Roman law. This law was created in Rome and still exists today. We live within institutions that are thoroughly permeated by the ideas of that Roman Empire. Everything we still think about legal, property, and ownership relationships—what we think about family relationships and so on—traces its origins, if we trace its historical development, back to the ancient Roman Empire, even though the people from whom all this emerged lost their external power and significance in world history five hundred years after the birth of Christ.

[ 6 ] We have described Rome’s expansion across the globe; we have seen how, from this center of the world at that time, Rome extended its rule over all known lands that were relevant at the time. But we have also seen what actually made it possible for Rome to become so powerful. We have examined the Roman people step by step throughout their entire development, and we have seen that the manner in which this people established its world domination developed, as it were, out of a certain necessity arising from the entire nature and character of this people. At the same time, we have seen how it was precisely this method that ultimately led to the decline of Roman world domination, and this decline is so intimately connected with its rise that we must employ the same line of reasoning we used when discussing its rise. We have seen that Roman land ownership, acquired with boundless greed, was bound to increase wealth to immeasurable proportions and, conversely, to produce poverty that was likewise increased to immeasurable proportions, so that we see luxury and wealth on the one hand and discontent on the other.

[ 7 ] We have also seen what lay at the foundation of everything that made Rome great. We have seen what it meant to be a Roman citizen. We must put ourselves in that frame of mind. We have seen how the cives, the Roman citizens, took an interest in the state, how every Roman citizen felt called upon to have a say and to participate in deliberations, and thus how the voice of the individual was taken into account. This is reflected in how Rome was governed, in how all public offices were conceived in such a way that governing power lay in the hands of the entire citizenry. Those who administered the empire during the Roman Republic were nothing more than stewards of civic authority. The responsibilities that defined their offices were entrusted to them for a term of one year, or for other periods as well. No Roman citizen ever thought otherwise than that what the praetor did was actually for his benefit and that the praetor was merely acting on his behalf. The Romans regarded the consul, the quaestor, and the praetor as their representatives. And on what was this based? It was based on the fact that the shortest possible terms of office had been introduced, so that, in essence, no one ever held office for a long period of time. There was nothing other than trust between those who were elected and those who elected them. There could be no mistrust between a governing figure and the people. Incidents might occur during the brief term of a tribune, but on the whole, this government was built entirely on trust. It was delegated authority, and the Roman understood this. He understood what it meant that he was the master and that the other, to whom governing power was delegated, exercised it only on his behalf. This is evident from the way the Roman was a member of a community governed by law. It was only in later times that things changed somewhat. Try asking an educated person today—even someone who is highly educated—what the legal difference is between the concept of “ownership” and the concept of “possession.” These are two concepts that originate in Roman law. I am convinced that you could ask around widely, even among people who are highly educated, and they would hardly be able to explain the difference to you. If you had asked a Roman peasant, he would certainly have known the difference between possession and ownership. Just as people in the Middle Ages learned the Ten Commandments, every Roman boy learned the Twelve Tables of Law in school. The Romans were a people of law, and the law was ingrained in their very being.

[ 8 ] Roman rule, however, expanded to encompass vast territories and many provinces. You can imagine that such a state structure can only hold together in the way we have come to know it as long as it does not exceed a certain size. But once the many provinces had been conquered, this could no longer be the case. A distinction emerged between the original Roman state and the provinces. Roman citizenship was denied to the provinces. The provinces had no rights; they were subjugated. This went hand in hand with the other stages of development, with the expansion of large-scale landownership and the associated problems of inheritance. It went hand in hand with the emergence of a vast proletariat. The rise of the proletariat is linked to the fact that the old citizen army gradually transformed into an army of mercenary troops recruited by individual leaders such as Marius and others. Thus, we see that alongside the old Roman citizen, a kind of military power developed that was subservient to whoever could win the favor of that military power at any given time. We also see that men like Gracchus are striving to halt the decline of the Roman Empire by seeking to create a kind of centrist party. I have already described the Gracchi movement to you. It is also significant that the younger Gracchi sought to create a centrist party—one that was to consist of people who had been senators but had resigned. It was, in other words, a kind of knighthood. It was this knighthood that had become the enemy of the proletarians.

[ 9 ] Now, something quite extraordinary had taken place in Rome during the rise of imperial power. This class of knights was intended to form a counterforce against the large landowners, against the so-called Optimates. The old agrarian laws were to be renewed. No one was to own more than five hundred acres of land, with an additional two hundred fifty acres at most for adult sons—in any case, no more than one thousand acres. The remaining land was to be distributed as smaller holdings to this middle class. It was believed that this would create a middle class between the large landowners and the proletariat. However, this failed because the proletariat had become suspicious and because it would not tolerate a party standing between itself and the actual landowners. The moderate party ultimately sided with the Optimates as well. As a result, we now have the proletariat on one side and, on the other, a sort of party of order. This has developed in recent times. Republican power has very gradually, almost imperceptibly, given way to Caesarian power. Octavius, the Roman Emperor, was himself a sort of republican ruler, and he gradually rose to—one cannot say—dignity, for this peculiar concentration of power in Octavius-Augustus arose quite necessarily from Roman circumstances. He simply continued the old Roman system, having all the offices gradually transferred to him. And the fact that he was able to fill these offices as a sort of sole ruler stemmed from the fact that the difference between conditions in Rome and those in the provinces had become so great. In the provinces, governance had long been carried out in a sort of aristocratic manner. This had not at all bothered the Roman citizens. They identified as Roman citizens, and they were not at all concerned that those out in the provinces should have the same rights as they did. Thus, people were content to see a kind of absolute governmental authority develop from Rome over the provinces. In particular, the Roman autocratic rulers had all the so-called proconsular powers transferred to them in the provinces. This is how it came to be that the first consuls were rulers of a very distinct kind and power. In Rome, they were able to maintain the authority entrusted to them as in earlier times, and in the provinces, they exercised it in a manner designed to keep the provinces under the control of the state. Thus, Roman authority developed—one might say with the consent of the Roman citizenry.

[ 10 ] And then, during the Caesarian era, the following occurred. It was in fact the case that, through their absolute power in the provinces, the Caesars had appropriated the entire tax system and all military power. Consequently, they were able to draw enormous revenues from the provinces. Thus, alongside the Roman state treasury, a kind of imperial treasury developed. And with Octavian’s rise to power, Roman-Caesarian autocracy then developed in the following manner: It was the Roman citizens who agreed to no longer finance, through the Roman state treasury, everything that needed to be done in the provinces. These were often things that had become necessary. But even these were no longer to be paid for out of the state treasury. For the revenues did not flow into the state treasury, but into the treasury of the Caesars. And so it came to pass that the Caesars were able to present themselves as a kind of benefactor. As a result, Caesar’s authority and power grew, and all other offices were reduced to mere shadow positions. From within, the power of the Roman Caesars seized control of the state. And so we also come to understand that, fundamentally, only the first emperors were true Romans. We realize that later on, essentially, it was no longer true Romans who sat on the throne of the Caesars, but rather people who had been elected in the provinces and who, like Hadrian and Caracalla, were able to seize power. From the periphery, Rome was led toward absolutism. Thus, through a kind of internal necessity of development, what had been distributed among the Roman citizens passed into the hands of a single ruler. It now becomes entirely natural that the entire Roman legal and conceptual system is transferred to this single central point. What the Roman citizens used to handle is now handled by individual officials, and not only in the provinces but also in Rome itself.

[ 11 ] There is something at work here that one must understand if one is to grasp this era correctly. Let us look back for a moment to Greece and Rome during the era of the ancient monarchies; there we will see that everywhere there is a direct relationship between the rulers and the ruled. Whether this relationship of trust was formed in one way or another, it was, from the earliest times—from which we began our last historical examination—a natural relationship, because the rulers were recognized in one way or another by the ruled, so that people believed in them. In principle, this was the case. The one who ruled had to acquire certain qualities, particularly in the ancient priestly states. No one believed in divine powers floating beyond the world. But people believed in a kind of deification of the human being, because they sought the principle of development within the human being. The priest-king in Rome was recognized only if he had acquired the spiritual and moral qualities of the gods, if he had developed himself inwardly to that point. One could acquire these qualities; one could become a kind of deified person who deserved veneration. It was not a relationship of subservience; it was trust. Anyone who understands these matters must acknowledge this. It was based on something that had always been present in the heart, and it continued to take root even in the Republic.

[ 12 ] But the way Roman law developed was such that it was capable of completely eradicating this personal, living relationship between rulers and the ruled. It was suited to replacing the personal relationship with an abstract, conceptual one. If you could go back to those times in Rome, you would see that the praetor presiding over a court in Rome, even though he had the Twelve Tables before him, could still, through personal insight, do something based on trust. Something still depended on the individual’s character. That changed completely later on. Later, the entire legal system gradually became a purely abstract system of thought. The only thing that mattered was interpreting the law according to its provisions with logical rigor. The jurist was to be a mere thinker, a man trained solely in logic. Thinking alone was what mattered. Nothing from immediate life was to be allowed to influence it—nothing from the heart and nothing from personal influence. One was to adhere only to the letter of the law. And the law was interpreted more and more strictly according to the letter. It was only civil servants who had to apply the letter of the law out in the provinces and later also in Rome. There, the task was to study the provisions and, detached from any direct experience of life, to decide solely through thought—and this extended all the way to sophistical reasoning. The entire way of thinking, as expressed in administration and government, had taken on a character that treated the entire institutional framework as if it were a mathematical problem. You must bear this in mind; then you will understand what is meant when it is said that the whole of Roman life had been transformed into a system of dogma. The Roman state, which had created law out of free will, from the very soul of its citizens, had gradually transformed it into dogma. By the time Christianity emerged, personal rule was no longer an option; only written law remained. It was a true legal system based on dogma. The Caesars could be set aside here and there; all that mattered to them was to force the entire state into a legal system that could be tightly controlled from a central point. The entire Roman state was gradually dogmatized. We see it divided into smaller territories, each headed by administrative officials of a legal nature. These areas were in turn grouped into dioceses. Thus we see the Roman state gradually taking on a form that we later recognize again in the organizational structure adopted by the Catholic Church. It was not Christianity that created these forms; they were modeled entirely on the Roman state as it had been dogmatized.

[ 13 ] Christianity spread from the East into this state, with all the characteristics you are now familiar with. Of course, we must discuss specific figures here. However, we cannot go into detail about individual Roman emperors. After all, this history is actually quite boring. Perhaps it suffices to mention Caligula—Little Commissioner Boots. But one thing is important. We must understand what became of Roman culture. This Roman culture had something that will remind you of the culture of another era. I would like to describe a figure who is typical, representative, and who can be cited here for comparison: Lucian. He came from Asia and is introduced as a truly exceptional figure. He tells us about himself in a remarkable work, The Dream. I mention this not because it is a significant literary work, but because it can be seen as a characteristic sign of the mindset of the Roman Empire at that time. Two female figures appeared to him in a dream: one was Art, the other was Education. Art demanded that he strive for hard work. Education demanded nothing of the sort. He only needed to master a few tricks of the trade—how to persuade people as effectively as possible. And in ancient Rome, public speaking was much like writing for a newspaper today. He therefore asked himself, why should I follow in the footsteps of Phidias, or of Homer? I’d just end up a poor fellow. He followed the second female figure and became an itinerant orator—an orator of a very peculiar sort, an orator without any educational foundation. In those days, “education” meant speaking to people—without knowing anything, without having studied seriously—just as one writes in the newspaper today.

[ 14 ] And so he went out into the world. And now we see how he speaks about religion and politics, how he presents himself as a figure of whom history makes no mention, but who was able to elevate discourse—whether in conversation or in an editorial—to the heavens. He was active in this way everywhere. He made it all the way to France; he was a figure without substance, without inner depth or substance. Such was the nature of education in the great Roman Empire of that time. These were the educated classes. Anyone who had substance, like Apollonius, a contemporary of Lucian, could not achieve any significant prominence. That was entirely impossible back then. But the entire vast empire was sighing. It was discontent and moral decay that people suffered from. I cannot describe to you the nature of the entertainments, which were gruesome and immoral. A third of the year was spent on gladiatorial games, bullfights, or spectacles of the most riotous kind. And this spread more and more. On the one hand, we have extreme luxury, and alongside it, poverty and misery that are simply indescribable.

[ 15 ] Now you can see how it came to be that, throughout the entire Roman Empire, a certain element gained ground more and more—one that differed from all others in that it was more serious and had a deeper substance. That was Judaism. At that time, Jews could be found everywhere in the Roman Empire. It would be completely ahistorical to believe that the Jews were confined solely to Palestine back then. Throughout North Africa, in Rome, and in France—everywhere, you can see that the Jews were already widespread at that time. Their religion was far more substantial than what the education of the Roman era had to offer. It existed alongside currents of a lower spiritual nature. As the Romans spread throughout the world, they also disseminated the religious rites, sacrificial ceremonies, and sacred practices of the various provinces. In Rome, one could witness Persian, Arabic, and Egyptian religious services being held. This resulted in an immense externalization.

[ 16 ] During the Roman imperial era, religion had become so superficial that it could not be compared to anything that had come before. The priest of earlier times was a kind of initiate, having first overcome all that was base. He was then also called a deified figure. This was achieved in the various schools of the most diverse countries. To the extent that this dignity had once been exalted—it was one of the holiest of antiquity—to that extent had it now been debased. It was the case that the Roman Caesars were venerated as so-called initiates, indeed even worshipped as gods. Lucretia even attained divine veneration because, having been prepared through external actions and training, she had undergone an initiation.

[ 17 ] But that was purely external. When Augustus assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus, he had outwardly adopted all that had previously been the inner symbol of the priests. Because it had lost all connection to its origin, it had also lost all meaning and its proper context.

[ 18 ] This was the situation in Rome at the time when it underwent a complete renewal of its religious outlook from the East. A renewal of religious thought took place, the inner essence of which—since we are presenting general history rather than the history of religion—we need not describe in terms of content, but must describe in terms of its external forms. Above all, a religion of wisdom took root. The first propagators of this Christian religion were, in fact, the most learned, the most profound, and the most significant men of that time. They had looked up to the founder of Christianity from the very foundation of this scholarship. One need only read their works—Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and so on—to see what they contributed to wisdom within the scholarly tradition of their time. They placed all of this at the service of this new idea. All they sought to achieve was nothing less than a complete renewal of religious sentiment, which was simultaneously intertwined with a profound understanding of the entirety of human existence.

[ 19 ] Now imagine that, while over in Rome everything had become mere outward form, all religiosity had been draped over Caesar like a cloak, and everything was discussed with a touch of mockery, as Lucian did—that in such a context, religiosity was to be renewed by renouncing all worldly things, arising solely from the innermost depths of the human being, from the human soul. And religion was renewed in such a way that deeply committed, highly educated men were placed in the service of this idea. It was the case—and this must not be overlooked—that the people of early Christianity were not like the ordinary members of the masses, but rather the most intelligent people of that time. It spread with lightning speed, precisely because the entire religion had nothing of asceticism, nothing of otherworldliness about it. People embraced it in their immediate, everyday lives. Everything that had been perceived as “Roman,” everything that had led to luxury and a life of ease in Rome, was fundamentally alien to the very core of this religion. You can see what aspects of the whole human being—of the person living everyday life—were embraced and encompassed by this creed, which spread with great speed, when you read Tertullian’s description of the Christian principle, in which he says: “We Christians know of nothing that is foreign to human life.” We do not withdraw from everyday life; we want to offer something to people as they are in their daily lives; we want to represent the world; we want to enjoy what is in the world. We simply want nothing to do with the debauchery of Rome.

[ 20 ] And to show how these Christians lived together—at a time when the Roman Empire had not yet destroyed the local authorities—I need only quote the words from the Acts of the Apostles, not as a sermon or an exhortation: “The community of believers was of one heart and one soul. Nor did anyone claim that any of his possessions were his own, but they had everything in common . . . There was also no one among them who was in need, for as many as owned fields or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds from the sale, and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and each was given whatever he needed. But Joseph, who was surnamed Barnabas by the apostles, a Levite by birth from Cyprus, owned a field; he sold it, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” This is not a sermon; it is a description of what they intended to do—and what they often put into practice. That was what they set against Roman public life. That was one reason why Christianity took hold so quickly. That is why Christianity so quickly found its way into the hearts of those who had nothing to hope for. It was not merely that they heard at that time that there was no dogma; it was the living Word, the living work, that they experienced.

[ 21 ] The one who spoke said what he knew and had recognized as the truth. He might express this in one way today and in another way tomorrow. There was no established Christian dogma. It was the spirit, the inner life, that held this Christian community together. And that was also what the first Christians preached. That was also why, in the early years of Christianity, people freely debated the truth back and forth. There is no freer exchange of views, no freer discussion, than existed in the early days of Christianity. Talk of coercion only emerged gradually. The crucial factor to consider here—which later led to oppression and ultimately to the emergence of Christian dogmatism—is the fact that the Roman Empire was dogmatized. The entire Roman Empire had been transformed into a system of dogma. One could comprehend nothing but matters of the intellect, nothing but rigid, abstract dogma. Thus it came to pass that the early Christians were persecuted, yet they grew ever more significant, and that the Caesars—following Constantine’s example—and the Constantinian faction itself were finally compelled to recognize the Christians. But how did they recognize them? They allowed them to become integrated into the Roman state—into that very state which was imbued with the dogma and secular power that were rooted in the Roman state. In return, Christianity had to place all its influence at the disposal of the Roman rulers; and the original division was transformed into bishoprics and dioceses.

[ 22 ] It is not surprising that the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 turned out the way it did. At that time, the two currents of Christianity were still pitted against one another in the person of the presbyter Arius and Athanasius, who had been educated entirely in the Roman spirit. Arius believed in the gradual development of humanity. He saw this process as unlimited; he called it deification. Humanity can become like God; that is true Arianism. Opposed to this was the Roman dogmatist Athanasius, who asserted: The divinity of Christ must be elevated above everything connected with humanity to the abstractness and otherworldliness of the dogmatism that was gradually developing within the Roman Empire. Thus, Arian Christianity transformed into Athanasian Christianity, and the latter prevailed. What mattered to the Roman Caesar? He himself later converted to Christianity, but not to the Athanasian form, rather to the Arian one. He knew, however, that Athanasian Christianity could, at least in appearance, prop up the old Roman Empire. Christianity was to become a pillar of the Roman Empire; that was the crucial question that was decided at the beginning of the 4th century. At the same time, however, this was the era in world history when the Germanic tribes had grown ever more powerful, and it was no longer possible to sustain the old Roman Empire through reform and restructuring; it was swept away by the Germanic tribes. Next time, we will discuss how the Germanic tribes overthrew the old Roman Empire.

[ 23 ] Let us now show how the Roman Empire, even in its final death throes, remained a power to be reckoned with. The task at hand was to reshape Christian doctrine so that it took on a political form and was capable of serving as the foundation for a political system. Powerful, indeed, was this idea, which at that time managed to extract the dominant form of Christianity from its original roots. It was power that led them to the Roman concept of the Caesars and to a transformed Christianity. It was power. The political system was so powerful that, when Germania destroyed the Roman Empire and the Germanic territories continued to expand, the so-called great ruler of the early Middle Ages, Charlemagne, received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope, the Pontifex Maximus. Such were the consequences when little remained of the old Roman Empire. You see how strangely the fates of the world are intertwined; you see that, above all, we must realize that throughout the entire Middle Ages we were dealing with a political power, precisely because the Roman concept of the state had been incorporated into early Christianity. It was not Christianity itself that was incorporated into the Roman concept of the state; and it was always the case that Christianity, in the form of monasticism, rebelled against the political structure of Christianity.

[ 24 ] There is an idea connected to this. It is an idea that is difficult to grasp because it had no basis in early Christianity. You will find no trace of monasticism in Christianity, because this kind of isolation, this withdrawal from the world, was completely foreign to it. To those who took Christianity seriously, this form—the political form—was foreign. So, in order to practice the Christian faith, they withdrew to the monastery. Everything that has asserted itself over the centuries as such associations—as monasticism—even if it degenerated because the Catholic Church sought to suppress every such attempt—was a living outcry of Christianity against political power. This, then, is the development of power.

[ 25 ] Now we must still determine what significance the Germanic element held during this period, and understand what role Christianity played within that Germanic element. We must also discern what emerged from the old Roman Empire and observe how these ancient Roman ruins collapsed—yet how something arose from them that would cause the peoples to groan for a long time to come. It begins with the call for freedom and ends with the suppression of freedom. It is the call for everyone to regard one another as equals, and it ends with everyone being oppressed. It is remarkable that, in our time, historians have emerged who defended Caracalla because he granted so-called equality to the entire Roman Empire. As one of the most insignificant and harmful Caesars, he granted those in the provinces equal rights with the Romans. But then he oppressed them all together! This is the form that original Roman freedom took.

[ 26 ] When we see that the fate of freedom can be such, then we truly gain from history what we might call a kind of education through history. Then we learn that there is a true rock, like the one Peter had—a rock founded on the original Creator—upon which human development can truly be built. This rock is, and must be, human freedom and human dignity. These can at times be suppressed—suppressed as severely as they were in the ancient Roman Empire, under circumstances that few can compare to. However, the education of human beings toward freedom is a given in history. It is an important fact that, when violence reigned in ancient Rome at its zenith, the very foundation was simultaneously being undermined, and the entire structure collapsed—so that it must be said of freedom that, no matter how deeply it is suppressed, the true words apply to it and from it:

The old is crumbling, times are changing,
And new life blossoms from the ruins.