Abstract
“The law” was a potent and domineering idea of the Greco-Romans. Interestingly, the law as a concept is somehow in universal presence in curriculums, on any topic and any subject, across time and tradition. Taking socialisation as tacit form of education, the personal epistemic schemas and life scripts discussed in last chapter were all personalised functions of “the law” that was appealing to the individuals. Hence, insofar as The Epistle is responding to the lived phenomenological worlds of its recipients, it as a curriculum must somehow narrate, postulate, and present some principles or understandings of “the law”. Thus, as to unfold below, The Epistle is to construct a concept-based and enquiry-driven curriculum (Erickson and Lanning 2014, pp. 95–103), revolving around this big concept in human civilisation regarding “the law” (Ho 2010, 2013, pp. 330 & 548). Hence, it will be an oversimplification to restrict “the law” in The Epistle to mean only Jewish commandments or Jewish religious regulations and practices.
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Notes
- 1.
“While Roman education took on mostly Greek forms, education in the law had no real Greek precedents. Formal legal education is thus generally thought of as Rome’s great innovation in pedagogy” (Riggsby 2010, p. 57).
- 2.
Behind Pax Romana is the pervasive and linear input-output mode of life scripting which can be formulated as follows: “I/We do x for my master (or god) now (at t1), then I/we get y at t2 (in the future).” In short, in Roman culture it counts to be strategically strong, by blending physical, institutional, and other tacit forms of powers (Luttwak 1976). According to historian Κarl Christ (1984, pp. 61–63), Pax (as a public Roman abstraction) was first introduced by Caesar on his coins in the year 44 BC. In 29 BC, Augustus introduced Pax as a goddess to the imperium. “Pax always had two dimensions. Internally, she was closely connected with the goodwill of all [Roman] citizens to one another, concordia. Externally [in dominance over other nations], the attainment of peace was always associated with the supremacy of Roman power, the imperium.” In a nutshell, “The sober recognition of Roman achievements, the permanent military security, and the high standard of administrative, judicial and fiscal efficiency did more to identify a public with the Roman system than any manipulation of minds through panegyric, cult or ideology. The Roman Empire as a power system was not an invention of ideologues but an experience of every day. The pax Augusta was not only a propagandist slogan but a wide-ranging reality.”
- 3.
The first sentence in Pro Caelio (Cicero 1958, p. 407) reads: “If, gentlemen, anyone should happen to be present who is ignorant of our laws, our tribunals and customs, he would be, in my opinion, wonder what special gravity there is in this case…”. Rom 7:1 (DARBY) reads: “Are ye ignorant, brethren, (for I speak to those knowing law,) that law rules over a man …”. Hence, it is obvious that there is intertextuality; and that Greco-Roman dimensions of “the law” ought to be reckoned with in one’s approach to The Epistle to the Romans.
- 4.
For examples in Chinese psychohistorical context, see Du (2013).
- 5.
See Hesiod’s Works and Days, lines 275–279.
- 6.
For the “hero cult” of Greco-Roman world, see Meier (2012, pp. 90–91, 99–104).
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Ho, O.N.K. (2018). Greco-Roman Realities as Perennials: The Law, the Righteousness, and the Irrepressible Questioning. In: Rethinking the Curriculum. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8902-2_4
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