English 430

Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Trans. P. G. Walsh Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Augustine. Confessions. Trans. F. J. Sheed. Rev. ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A. D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

he literature of Rome has influenced every subsequent philosophical, political, religious, and artistic movement in the Western world. In this course we will visit the fount of this influence, studying by chronology and genre those works which have cast their long shadows. The subtitle of this course is taken from Charles Norris Cochrane’s seminal work Christianity and Classical Culture, a study of the Christianization of Greco-Roman culture. Our guiding focus will be the literary expression of faith during the Roman Imperial period. The course material is roughly divided into four unequal sections which examine the major spiritual impulses of high and late Roman antiquity: paganism, imperial cults, mystery religions, and Christianity. With Virgil’s Aeneid, we will examine the state sponsored paganism which served the Age of Augustus so well; with Ovid, however, we may hear the voice of a skeptic. We will explore the cult of the emperors, and Apuleuis will introduce us to the mystery religions and savior cults of the East which were to prove so popular during the second and third centuries A.D.—the period coinciding with what Peter Brown calls the “New Mood” in late antiquity. Some contemporary writers confused Christianity with these mystery cults; we, on the other hand, will examine what Christianity might owe to these traditions, as well as what makes it distinctive. Of course, Christianity was not without its critics and persecutors. Through primary documents, as well as through Tertullian’s Apology, we will see the first Christians as the Romans saw them, and we will hear from Christianity’s most aggressive defender. Finally, with St. Augustine as our guide, we will examine Christianity as a force which can be said to both herald the end of the classical age as well as preserve some of its most prominent elements. About the year 200 A.D. the Christian apologist Tertullian asked, “Quid Athenae Hierosolymis?” (“What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?”), suggesting that sacred culture (symbolically represented by Jerusalem) has little to do with classical secular culture (symbolically represented by Athens). Indeed, what has Jerusalem to do with Athens, or in our case, Rome? This semester will be dedicated to exploring answers to this question.

If you are absent while representing Union in an official capacity, you may have this absence excused with a written statement from an appropriate authority. If you are absent due to illness, I will excuse the absence provided that a physician or nurse provides a statement saying that you were too ill to attend class. Even excessive excused absences may prevent you from fulfilling basic requirements of this course, so please stay healthy!

Critical Essay 1..................................................................................................15%

Critical Essay 2..................................................................................................25%

Exam 1................................................................................................................15%

Exam 2 ..............................................................................................................15%

Exam 3(Final)....................................................................................................20%

Attendance, participation, and study questions..................................................10%

The grading scale for this course is detailed in the Union University Undergraduate Catalogue (A 95-100; B 85-94; C 75-84; D 65-74; F 64 and below). All assignments are due at the beginning of class. Late assignments are penalized 1/3 letter for each school (not class) day late. You are responsible for getting me your papers regardless of unfavorable circumstances such as computer glitches. All work must be submitted in order to pass the course. Notify me if accommodations need to be made for disabilities of any kind.

Plagiarism can be broadly defined as using the ideas or words of others in your paper without proper acknowledgment. Using information from other term papers, websites, or even standard research tools without source citation is a serious breach of academic integrity, and ignorance of what constitutes plagiarism is no excuse. When in doubt, please consult your instructor about the appropriate use of quotation marks, paraphrase, and parenthetical citation. Flagrant acts of plagiarism (e.g., downloading all or portions of a paper from the Internet without proper citation, handing in the work of another as your own, repeated instances of plagiarism, etc.) shall result in a failing grade for the course and possible further disciplinary action taken by the University. Punishment for other forms of plagiarism may range from failing the assignment to failing the course. Union University “upholds the highest standards of honesty” (2002-2003 Undergraduate Catalogue 22), and the English department's policy regarding plagiarism is an attempt to preserve these standards.

You will write one 5-7 pp., typed and double-spaced critical essay, and one 7-10 pp. researched critical essay in this course. Details on these assignments are to follow. A special option for students interested in study abroad will be to join me in Italy in January 2004 and write the longer term paper after walking the streets of Rome. For details, see: http://www.uu.edu/personal/grichard/Study%20Abroad%20Italy/Italy_2004.htm

There will two semester exams and a final in this course; the exams will likely consist of objective short-answer questions, passages to identify and comment upon, and a take-home essay. There will be no alternates given for these exams. If you anticipate that an excused absence will conflict with an exam, please speak with me well ahead of time. You are responsible for furnishing your own bluebooks (exam booklets), which can be purchased at Lifeway.

In lieu of quizzes, I will assign a study question per class meeting to help guide your reading and make sure all students are keeping up. On occasion I will ask to see your responses, which will be graded on a √-,√, and √+ basis, roughly equivalent to an C, B, and A. However, the Study Question is not merely a policing measure; often the question will deal with a core concern, a critical term, or a key passage which will help you better engage the text and which you will see again on an exam or as part of a writing assignment option. Study questions also serve as springboards into class discussion. If you are absent on the day I take up these questions, you may hand in a late assignment only if your absence is excused.

This course counts towards the Major Writers requirement for majors. As per a departmental requirement, I keep all exams and papers for one year. You should also keep a copy of all out-of-class work in case I lose anything. This syllabus and first-day handout may be revised as necessary. I encourage you to call me in my office or at home (422-3609; 8:00 am-10:00 pm, please) if you need anything. If you have any concerns about this course, don’t wait until the last minute to voice them--talk to me while we can take steps to make this course a positive experience for you.

DAY	ASSIGNMENT	STUDY QUESTION
WEEK 1	A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF ROME
Thursday, Aug. 28	A very brief history of Rome.
WEEK 2	STATE SPONSORED PAGANISM
Tuesday, Sept. 2 LAST DAY TO ADD A CLASS	Virgil, Aeneid 1. R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods, Introduction and Chapter 1: The Gods. Video and Guided note-taking: Augustus: First of the Emperors. Call number: DG279 A83 1997.	Review Ogilvie, Chapter 1 and identify the “chief feature” of Roman religion. In what ways do we see this feature operative in Aeneid 1?
Thursday, Sept. 4	Virgil, Aeneid 2-3. R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods, Chapter 6: Private Religion.	Review Ogilvie, Chapter 6 and identify the penates. How do we see them functioning in Aeneid 2? What do you think this use of the penates says abut “private religion” in the Age of Augustus?
WEEK 3	STATE SPONSORED PAGANISM
Tuesday, Sept. 9	Virgil, Aeneid 4. R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods, Chapter 3: Sacrifice, and Chapter 4: Divination.	After reading Ogilvie on sacrifice and divination, discuss what Dido’s sacrifice and her role as a haruspex say about her in Aeneid 4.
Thursday, Sept. 11	Virgil, Aeneid 5-6.	Book 5 is a frequently skipped book, yet it is important for constructing Aeneas as preeminently pius. How do these commemorative games illuminate the relationship between Aeneas and his late father Anchises?
WEEK 4	STATE SPONSORED PAGANISM
Tuesday, Sept. 16	Virgil, Aeneid 7-8.	Of Book 7 Sara Mack has written, “Whatever we are to make of it, it is a fact that female characters predominate in Book 7.” Thus it is an appropriate time to address women in Virgil’s epic. Write a paragraph in which you discuss Virgil’s portrayal of women in this book or in the epic as a whole.
Thursday, Sept. 18	Virgil, Aeneid 9-10.	Book 10 is the bloodiest book of the Aeneid. Here Virgil’s technique seems a precursor to that of action film director John Woo--Virgil often finds beauty amid the bloodshed. Write a response in which you discuss Virgil’s aesthetics of blood. What’s beautiful or artistic in his depiction of battle?
WEEK 5	STATE SPONSORED PAGANISM
Tuesday, Sept. 23	Exam 1; bring a bluebook.
Thursday, Sept. 25	Virgil, Aeneid 11-12.	Jasper Griffin on the Aeneid's artistic ambiguity: “We have already seen that the parade of Roman heroes at the end of Book 6 is . . . a virtuoso intertwining of positive optimism with pathos and despair. The story of Dido is yet larger: Aeneas is right to leave her, the establishment of Rome is the overriding aim of the poem and of history, and yet neither Aeneas nor we can feel happy about her suffering and ruin, and the hasty departure of the hero from her shores is unedifying. Finally the whole poem, with its interplay of moods and directions--the story of a triumphant career which opens with the hero wishing he were dead, and ends with him forced to kill a helpless opponent in a storm of passionate rage--is itself an example of this calculated ambiguity. In mathematics the combination of a plus and a minus is a simple self-cancelling, leaving nothing; but an artist, if he is skilful enough, can find another, more mystical mathematics, in which that is not true. It is Virgil's achievement to have done that, and so to have left us a work of inexhaustible inwardness, the greatest of all achievements of the creative mind of Rome, and the truest interpretation of her history.” In your own words, explain what you think Jasper Griffin means by Virgil's “mystical mathematics.”
WEEK 6	THE CULT OF THE EMPERORS
Tuesday, Sept. 30 LAST DAY TO DROP A CLASS	Ovid, Metamorphoses, pp. 1, 314-17; 327-32; 338-53; 374-79. R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods, Chapter 8: Religion in the Time of Augustus.	Compare Ovid's “mini-Aeneid” with Virgil's epic. Would you characterize Ovid as simply a redactor of Virgil, or does he significantly depart from the great Roman master?
Thursday, Oct. 2	The Dionysian Mysteries; Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 3.	What social values, or lack thereof, does Dionysius/Bacchus seem to represent?
WEEK 7	THE MYSTERY CULTS
Tuesday, Oct. 7	Euripides, The Bacchae (supplied).	Of The Bacchae, William Arrowsmith has written, “Like a number of Euripidean plays, The Bacchae tends to converge about a single central controlling moral term whose meaning is constantly invoked by the action and at the same time altered by it, modified and refreshed under dramatic pressure. This key term is the concept of sophia . . . Constantly thrown up by the action, informing it and guiding it, sophia is crucial to the play . . . . At its broadest, sophia is roughly translatable by the English concept of ‘wisdom’; sophia, that is, is primarily a moral rather than an intellectual skill, based upon experience and expressed in significant judgment. But in the Greek—and nowhere more strongly than in the choruses of this play—it implies a firm awareness of one’s own nature and therefore of one’s place in the scheme of things.” Write a response to this assertion.
Thursday, Oct. 9	Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries; Ovid & the gods, Metamorphoses, Books 5 & 6.	Ovid is famous for writing, “It is convenient that there be gods, and as it is convenient, let us believe there are.” Indeed, some believe that his treatment of the gods in the Metamorphoses earned him the scorn of the Emperor and his subsequent banishment. How would you characterize Ovid's attitude towards the gods? Is he a true believer or a cynic?
WEEK 8	THE MYSTERY CULTS
Tuesday, Oct. 14 YESTERDAY PROGRESS REPORTS DUE	Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Books 1-4. Critical essay 1 due.	Lucius' troubles stem from his curious nature. Just as Adam and Eve are punished for seeking forbidden knowledge, so too is The Golden Ass a cautionary tale about what happens when human beings exceed the boundaries of what they are permitted to know. After reading the opening books of this tale, discuss the ways in which Apuleius constructs Lucius as a dangerously inquisitive character.
Thursday, Oct. 16	FALL HOLIDAY; NO CLASS.
WEEK 9	THE MYSTERY CULTS
Tuesday, Oct. 21	Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Book 11.	Book 11 of the Golden Ass is a crucial document in the history of religions because it chronicles first-hand the experience of an initiate of the Eastern mystery cults which were to prove so popular in the later Imperial period. The noted Roman historian Michael Grant observes that Apuleius' experience “is based on an ecstatic empathy with the Mystery faiths and Savior cults that marked, in a sense, the transition between decaying state paganism and rising Christianity.” Write a response in which you detail the spiritual needs met by the Isis cult as portrayed by Apuleius. How does Isis differ from, say, the gods of Virgil and Ovid? What features does her cult share in common with Christianity?
Thursday, Oct. 23	Exam 2; bring a bluebook.
WEEK 10	THE CHRISTIANS AS THE ROMANS SAW THEM
Tuesday, Oct. 28	Video and Guided note-taking: Trials and Triumphs in Rome: Christianity in the 3^rd and 4^th Centuries. Call number: DD90 .T7. Peter Brown, “Religion” pp. 49-69 of The World of Late Antiquity, (supplied).	Review the selections from Peter Brown and write a response in which you summarize what the “new mood” was in the Roman world of the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries.
Thursday, Oct. 30	Anti-Christian Polemic and Christian Apologist Writings—primary documents (supplied).	After reading select calumnies against the Christians, discuss ways in which traditional Christian practices seem to have been (deliberately?) misunderstood by opponents of Christianity.
WEEK 11	CALUMNIES AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS: THE RESPONSE
Tuesday, Nov. 4	Tertullian, Apology, Chapters 1-24 (supplied).	From Tertullian’s Apology, construct a list of charges made against Christianity that Tertullian must dispute. In short, how did pagan Romans view Christians?
Thursday, Nov. 6	Tertullian, Apology, Chapters 25-50 (supplied).	According to Tertullian, what should be the proper attitude of the Christian toward the Roman state (or “Cæsar”)?
WEEK 12	THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
Tuesday, Nov. 11	Video and Guided note-taking: Constantine: The Christian Emperor. Call number: DG315 .C65 1997. Peter Brown, “Religion” pp. 69-112 of The World of Late Antiquity, (supplied).R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods, Conclusion.	Review the selections from Peter Brown on pp. 82 ff. What kind of man does Constantine seem to be?
Thursday, Nov. 13	Augustine, Confessions, Book 1. Augustine, “Spoils of the Egyptians,” from De Doctrina Christiana (supplied).	Compare and contrast Augustine’s attitude towards secular learning in the Confessions and in the “Spoils of the Egyptians” excerpt from De Doctrina Christiana, found at this site: http://www.uu.edu/personal/grichard/English430/Spoils_of_the_Egyptians.htm
WEEK 13	AUGUSTINE: THE CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN
Tuesday, Nov. 18	Augustine, Confessions, Books 2-3.	In Book 3 Augustine discusses his interest in Manichæism, and he will return to this subject in later books as well. See what you can find out about this philosophical sect. Why was Augustine attracted to it? Why was he repulsed by it? Perhaps check out http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ or http://www.i-cias.com/e.o/manichae.htm
Thursday, Nov. 20	Augustine, Confessions, Books 4-5.	In Book 5 we see Augustine deceive his mother Monica and go to Rome, leaving her to weep on the Carthaginian shore. Sound familiar? Are we wrong to perceive echoes of Dido and Aeneas? Do you think there is some self-fashioning going on here? Isn't Augustine aware of the dramatic parallels? What, if anything, are we to make of them?
WEEK 14	AUGUSTINE: THE CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN
Tuesday, Nov. 25	Augustine, Confessions, Books 6-7. Critical essay 2 due.	Throughout the Confessions Augustine struggles with the nature of evil; his questions on this matter lead him to various philosophies and eventually to Christianity. In Book VII he seems to come to terms with Christian theodicy. Try to summarize in your own words Augustine's definition of evil.
Thursday, Nov. 27	THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY; NO CLASS.
WEEK 15	AUGUSTINE: THE CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN
Tuesday, Dec. 2	Augustine, Confessions, Books 8-9.	Review page 53 and Augustine's comments on the chance reading of poets. Compare his comments here with his reading of Romans 13:13 in Book 8. Why does Augustine believe one random opening of a codex to be chance, while another is divinely inspired?
Thursday, Dec. 4	Augustine, Confessions, Book 10.	Augustine chooses to end the strictly autobiographical portion of his Confessions with a discussion of his present spiritual state. Some students, after reading selections of the Confessions, have asserted that Augustine seems unhealthily obsessed with his sinful nature. Does Augustine “get” grace? Are his epic confessions symptomatic of some kind of spiritual dysfunction, or does such an accusation reflect a radical misreading of the Confessions?
WEEK 16	SALVE ET VALE
Dec. 8-11	FINALS

“We are but of yesterday, and we have filled everything of yours--cities, islands, forts, towns, conciliabula, even the camps, tribes, courts, palace, senate, Forum. We have left you only the temples.”