This is the essay for the 13th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. In this blog post, I will be answering the question what was Christian life like between the famous letter of Pliny until the reign of Constantine?
Pliny the Younger was the royal magistrate of Ancient Rome when Trajan was emperor. He wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan about the persecution of Christians. Pliny noted that Christians didn’t seem to be committing any of the crimes they were accused of. What Pliny saw was that they got together and sang hymns, read the bible and praised God. Pliny didn’t see anything explicitly wrong with any of these things.
Pliny wrote about these things to the emperor in 112. Trajan replied saying that the laws regarding Christianity would be changed. The laws that replaced the old ones were known as don’t ask, don’t tell. Before this change, there were delegated people that would be persecuting Christians. With the new law, these people would still be persecuting Christians but in a different way. The first part of the law stated that the persecutors wouldn’t ask you outright if were a Christian. The catch was that if they found out you were a Christian, you would be persecuted. The second part of the law stated that you shouldn’t tell anybody if you’re a Christian in the first place.
For a few decades after the law was implemented, Christians could live in relative peacefulness. They didn’t need to worry about being hunted or about getting caught at any minute. Of course, Christians still needed to be careful about telling the wrong person who they believed in. There were still some exceptions to this law though. There were some sporadic persecutions on a local level, for example under Hadrian in 125. The more time passed after the law was implemented, the more persecuted the Christians became. In 250 there was an edict against nonconformists, which hit Christians pretty hard and in 257-258 there were persecutions by the emperor Valerian. He forced bishops to sacrifice to Roman gods and if they refused they would be executed. Christian worship in public was also made illegal. In 304, there was an edict, which said that Christians were no longer allowed to assemble and all Churches and Christian books would be destroyed.
In 313 the edict of Milan was made a law. The edict of Milan was an edict that would remove and change many laws against Christians. Christians were given back the property that was taken from them and it gave them a legal status. By this point, the public was tired of persecutions and they were stopped entirely for a while.
This is the essay for the 45th lesson in the Autobiographies course from the Ronpaul curriculum. In this blog post, I will be covering the question of which were the key incidents that led her out of her ‘prison’?
This is a question that is directed to the autobiography “Story of My Life”. It is a famous autobiography written by Hellen Keller. The autobiography was so famous that it has been turned into 3 movies.
Keller didn’t actually go to prison, what I mean is a figurative “prison”. Something made Keller feel like she was in a prison. This thing was a disease. When Keller was 19 months old, she contracted a disease that made her deaf and blind. After this, she forgot how to talk. All the words she had learned up to that point she forgot, except one. This word was “water”.
These disabilities made it very difficult for her to communicate. Keller could only communicate using very simple hand gestures. When people didn’t understand what she was trying to say she would have tantrums. On most days she would have multiple tantrums per day. Her parents couldn’t do anything to fix this, but everything changed when Anne Sullivan started teaching Keller in 1887.
Anne Sullivan at first was “writing” words on Keller’s forehead using her hands. The problem was that Keller didn’t know the connection between words and objects. Neither did she understand that two separate objects were actually the same thing. For example Keller didn’t know that two dolls were actually related by being dolls. One day when Sullivan was teaching Keller, she wrote the word “water” on Keller’s forehead. Then, she put Keller’s hand in cold water. Then Keller realized that the word “water” was the same thing that she was feeling on her hand. She realized this because “water” was the only word she could remember. After this Keller started making connections with words and the objects she touched every day.
Abstract ideas were still a problem though. These ideas couldn’t be conveyed by touching something. The breakthrough to this problem was the word “think”. Keller was able to connect the process in her brain and the word. After the breakthrough, Keller kept learning more words connected to abstract ideas. She did this by discussing it with Sullivan over and over. They had to do this for several years until Keller understood all the connections between words and ideas. This slowly, but gradually made it possible to make it able for her to leave her “prison”. The next step Keller and Sullivan took was learning to read. They did this by having cardboard with raised letters in it. Later they also used a book with raised letters.
In 1890 Keller was able to communicate much better with people, than before Sullivan arrived. There was still one thing that was frustrating Keller. This was that the process of people writing one her forehead was very tedious. When she learned to talk, this last frustration went away. She could communicate much better with people that she knew. The speaking was still rudimentary, so she couldn’t talk to somebody she passed by, but talking was still a great accomplishment.
This is the essay for the 12th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. In this blog post, I will be comparing the teachings of Christianity to values cherished by previous Civilizations and ancient thinkers.
What are some differences between the teachings of Christianity, as described in the New Testament, to the values cherished by earlier civilizations?
There is one clear difference between Christianity and the religions that were served by earlier civilizations. The civilizations I’m referring to are the ancient Greeks and Romans. In Greece and Rome, the gods supported obedience. You just had to follow the rules and then you would be fine. All you had to do was to give them an offering at a temple. The offerings mostly consisted of animals. Due to this type of religion, a lot of people could be passed off as good and loyal people towards the gods, while in their heart they could be completely unloyal.
Christianity was more balanced in a sense. The religion wasn’t completely focused on religious practice like the Greek and Roman religion was. In Christianity, religious practice was still important but the mental devotion to god was even more important. This can also be seen in the New Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus disapproved of a group of people called the Pharisees. Who are the Pharisees? The Pharisees were a group of about 6 000 people. (Around the time Jesus was alive) They created a whole tradition so nobody would break the rules of God. They made sure that everybody followed these rules and told everybody that the rules must be obeyed at all costs. This all seems a little familiar, right? There was also another example of the Jews straying away from the spiritual loyalty to god. After Jesus was revealed to be the Messiah, a large section of the Jewish community were happy but for the wrong reason. These Jews wanted the Messiah to be a strong and capable military leader, able to free the Jews from Roman captivity. When these Jews found out that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah they had hoped for but instead was a religious preacher, they were mad. They got so mad that these Jews told the Romans in Israel that Jesus was the king of the Jews. (This claim was a false spin on the prophecies of the Messiah) The Romans didn’t like that somebody other than the Emperor was the king of the Jews, so they crucified Jesus.
The reason I keep saying “these Jews” is because there were two types of Jews. There was the Jewry of the Dispersion, who were the Jews that didn’t return to Israel after they were released from Babylonian captivity. The Jewry of the Dispersion were supporting Jesus as a preacher and also that Judaism should be spread around the world for everybody to enjoy. The Jewry of Palestine were the Jews who came back to Israel after the Babylonian captivity. The Jewry of Palestine wanted Jesus to be a military leader and also that Judaism should stay in Israel.
Is there anything in common between Christianity and some great ancient thinkers?
Ancient thinkers from Greece shared similar ideas with Christians. Both were focused on how to make people better human beings. They taught this by telling people that following rituals and prayers were less important than what they thought about the world in their heads. They had this in common but the way both groups went about doing this, was completely different. Greek thinkers used philosophy to make people better human beings. The Christians used alliance and loyalty to God as a way of doing this.
This is a review of an autobiography called Raven of Zurich by Felix Somary. Felix Somary was born in Vienna on November 20, 1881. He lived his early years in the former Austria-Hungary. He was a universal man; and had extensive knowledge of the arts, history, ancient culture, economics, science, history, and politics. By profession he was a banker. He was able to predict several important events in modern history, like WW1, the Great Depression, WW2 and so on. I will look at some of the most important events that Felix Somary predicted and explain how he was able to predict them.
- World War 1
The war started, even though it would have been easy to prevent. During that time there were heavy tensions in Europe between Austria, England, and Germany. Somary knew this and tried to eliminate these tensions. He did this by making an alliance between the three countries. Somary had succeeded in forging an alliance between the countries related to a joint railroad project. Due to the alliance, the tension was defusing. The problem was that the situation didn’t defuse enough before the assassination of the heir presumptive of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There were only 14 days between the success of the alliance and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Due to the death of the heir to the Austrian throne, the tensions between England and Germany came to a boiling point. - The Great Depression
The cause of the Great Depression started right after the end of the first world war. The banks couldn’t afford to pay off the money they borrowed during the war. They acquired all of the debt by giving out too many war bonds. These banks had two choices. Either they went bankrupt or they would have to start inflating. Most banks chose the latter option, even though Felix Somary thought that the former option was better in the long run. The inflation made prices to start rising and most people thought that this was a sign of an economic upturn. Somary thought of it as a sign of an upcoming depression and he was right. The reason that the depression went outside of the US was that other countries and people outside the US were relying on the US for credit.
- World War 2 Everybody thought that after World War 1 no other world war would occur. They were wrong. The United States had swayed the war in favor of the Allies in World War 1. In the peace treaty, the losers had to pay repair costs. Moreover, Austria was broken up and Germany had to cede territory. This caused an immense hatred towards America and the other allies in Germany. This hatred can last a very long time and will never go away until the citizens think it has been rectified. This rage made German citizens adopt new forms of government that would have had a more difficult time gaining traction if the hatred had not existed. This fueled fascism and allowed Hitler to become elected. Hitler, in turn, fueled the rage even more. This eventually led Germany to wage an aggressive war.
- How America helped its own enemies
During the Second World War when Germany was attacking Moscow, Russia needed to put all of its military into Moscow. If Japan had been fighting Russia in the east, then Russia would not have been able to do this. Russia would not have been able to defend both sides at the same time and would have to surrender. Lucky for Russia, Japan was focusing all of its military against America. The biggest contribution to the start of the Cold War was that all of Russias enemies were defeated. During both world wars America completely defeated Germany, Turkey, Austria, Japan and Germany again. These were all Russia’s enemies and when they were all powerless, Russia was able to dominate and get much stronger. Instead of Russia’s enemies keeping Russia in check, now America had to defend these places. The problem was that Russia’s enemies were at the location and had cheap labour. America had to transport the troops to the territories and the labour costs were high.
This is the essay for the 11th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. In the blog post, I will be summarizing the period of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors and comparing it to the period of the five good emperors.
- How would you summarize the period of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors? Were they consistently humane and competent, wicked and foolish, or is the pattern erratic? Was there a consistent system of succession from one emperor to another?
- Why do historians tend to look with favor on the period of the five good emperors? What differences do you observe between that period and the period from the death of Augustus through the death of Domitian?
How would you summarize the period of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors?
To put it shortly there was chaos, but the chaos was internal chaos, which is worse. After Augustus died nobody really knew who should become the successor, to us now this might seem obvious, your biological son of course, but you have to remember that for the Romans this a brand new system of rule. During this period they chose emperors from the praetorian guard, which were the emperor’s personal bodyguards and even sometimes one of their own sons.
All of the emperors in this period of emperors were chosen using one of these two options. The only problem with these options is that the resulting emperor was usually crazy and brutal. Not all of them were like this of course only this system of choice meant that there would be more wicked emperors than humane ones. Most of them were like Caligula completely insane and there were only one or two like Titus, who was most humane and competent of all of the emperors in this period. Some of them started out relatively humane and later became insane, a good example of this is Nero. Due to most of the emperors being consistently insane, most of them were assassinated, even by their own party. Few emperors actually died of old age.
What differences do you observe between the period of the five good emperors and the period from the death of Augustus through the death of Domitian?
After the death of Domitian from 81-96 AD, everyone was getting sick of the emperors being completely insane, even the emperor Nerva who was the emperor after Domitian was realizing the problem that was at hand. Up till that point the emperors had never been chosen in advance before the previous emperor’s death. Whenever an emperor died there was a mad dash to see who would become the next emperor. Nerva thought it would be a good idea for the current emperor to choose the next emperor in advance so that nobody else who would claim that they deserved to be emperor became one. These people were holding illegitimate claims because the emperor had been decided beforehand. It went deeper than that though. The emperor couldn’t choose any random person. They would choose a successor who they thought was smart and good in other important categories to be worthy enough to become the next emperor. There was one important rule in this process, which was that they were not allowed to choose their own sons. This new system of choosing emperors was made easier by that ⅘ emperors didn’t even have any sons. Nerva didn’t have any children at all.
Due to these reforms to the system, all 5 next emperors were wise, good leaders and made smart decisions. Most importantly though was that they weren’t completely insane. Many of these emperors are remembered for their great contributions to the Roman empire. There is one emperor that was remembered for something a little more than this as well. Marcus Aurelius was the first of the five good emperors to have a son, Commodus. Before his death, Marcus Aurelius defied the tradition that was set by Nerva and made his own son emperor. When Commodus became emperor well …. you guessed it, he was completely insane! Commodus’s reign is what caused the decline of the Roman empire that would happen in the third century.
This is the essay for the 40th lesson in the Autobiographies course from the Ronpaul curriculum. In this blog post, I will be covering the question of what the most important thing in writing dialogue from memory?
Writing dialogue from the memory is a whole different ballpark than writing something that has just happened. Writing from memory has one thing that is very important and more important than anything else. This thing is accuracy. Accuracy while writing in the present is also very important, but it is less important.
The reason that accuracy is more important while writing from memory is that over time memories become less and less accurate and if you just write them down there could be some things that are a little bit wrong or just completely false. Dialogues even though they are very important to everyday life, certain discussions can easily be forgotten if they aren’t memorable. Due to these factors, it is very crucial to make sure that the dialogues are accurate to what actually was said.
Another important factor is that dialogue is what gives people in their personality in a story. This how you convey their wants. A person’s want through dialogue shapes their personality in the mind of the reader. If you get these dialogues wrong, then their wants, personality, and actions, will make it seem strange to the reader. Very many people wouldn’t like being portrayed wrong in their personality and actions in a book.
Of course, writing dialogues from memory isn’t all about accuracy, it is also important for the dialogues to be easy to read and lively, so the speaker doesn’t seem like a robot. There is a very big difference between these two things and accuracy though. Accuracy changes the whole story completely if the dialogues are false. Changing the stories message in a way like this can also make the reader confused about the story itself. The liveliness and easiness to read only make the reading experience for the reader less enjoyable, but it doesn’t change the message of the story in any way. To say it in a few words, it is better for a story to be unreadable, but true that a story to be easy to read, but false.
In summary, to make it short, writing dialogues have a different goal than writing a dialogue that just happened. The accuracy of dialogue from memory is more important than any other aspect because it can change the message of the story completely. This is because of somebody’s dialogues reveals to the reader their personality. Dialogues are easier to forget than most other things that happen in everyday life, even though they are very important. Make sure that when you’re writing dialogue from memory to not leave everything else out. They are also very important, just not as much.
This is the essay for the 10th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. In the blog post, I will be covering how Augustus was able to maintain balance in Rome and a summary of the life of Julius Caesar.
- What was the Augustan Settlement? How did Augustus balance his perceived need for absolute power with his concern to lend the impression that the republic had been restored and the old ways were being observed?
- Use your reading and the video lesson to summarize important events in the life of Julius Caesar.
What was the Augustan Settlement?
The Augustan Settlement was the steps that Augustus took to solve a problem he had on his hands when he came to power in 31 BC. The problem was that, if Augustus exercised his full power too aggressively, then it would be a repeat of what happened to Julius Caesar. On the other hand, if Augustus stopped being a dictator and retired to his private life, then new and upcoming men would cause another civil war in Rome, which Augustus wanted to avoid. Augustus’s solution to the problem was to maintain a balance between both sides and fool the public into thinking, that the republic was back, while in reality Augustus still held absolute power.
How did Augustus maintain the balance between both sides of the problem?
At first, Augustus was going to seem like he wanted to give up his absolute power, but because the Senate found him such a great leader they gave the power back to him. This went back and forth for a little while. One crucial difference between what Augustus and Julius Caesar did was that Julius Caesar exercised powers that no other position in the Senate could exercise, while Augustus only used powers that positions in the Senate could use. The difference between Augustus and the average Senate position holder was that Augustus held all of these positions for his entire life and he held multiple at once. He would take these positions, without actually taking them from the Senate, so the public didn’t know anything about it. Before he became emperor Augustus was called Octavian, but the Senate gave him a new name, which was Augustus. Augustus in Latin means exalted and venerable.
A Summary of the life of Julius Caesar:
Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC, to the Julian family. As Caesar started growing older two other powerful military leaders came into view. These two were Crassus and Pompey. Pompey was the better leader of the two, while Crassus was mostly known for his amount of wealth. When the slave rebellion of Spartacus happened both of these men proved the military power to Rome. There were checks in the Roman republic to prevent one person from becoming a dictator. To bypass this Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus created the first Triumvirate. This relationship was only strengthened more when Pompey married Caesar’s daughter Julia. They all benefited each other. Caesar become consul and was allowed to conquer Gaul, Pompey was allowed to conquer Hispania and lastly, Crassus was allowed to conquer Syria. The Triumvirate soon reached some tough times. Caesar’s daughter Julia died and Crassus also died fighting in Syria.
This caused Caesar and Pompey to build increasing tension between each other. After Caesar had conquered Gaul, then the Senate told him that he had to disband his army before returning to Rome. Caesar asked if Pompey could do the same, but the Senate rejected this idea. This was because the Senate was more and more suspicious that a dictatorship would be created by Caesar and they decided Pompey to be the lesser threat of the two. Caesar ignored the Senate’s orders and marched into Rome with his army. He was able to defeat and kill Pompey. After that Caesar took control of Rome. The Optimates was a group who wanted for the Senate to stay the way it was and to upkeep old Roman traditions. The Populares were the opposite of this. Several members of the Optimates, including Caesar’s close friend Brutus, wouldn’t let this stand and they killed Caesar.
This is the essay for the 9th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. It’s an answer to one question, what are the changes caused by the Struggle of the Orders in Rome.
What specific changes occurred in Roman society as a result of the Struggle of the Orders?
For those who don’t know the Struggle of the Orders is a period from Rome, which took place from 494 BC to 287 BC. It was a conflict between the two classes in ancient Rome, which were the plebeians and the patricians. The plebeians were the common folk they did own some land, which they farmed on. A lot of the work done in Rome was done by slaves, but a few of the jobs that Plebeians did was, farmer, soldier, manufacturer, baker and etc. The Patricians were the wealthy upper class in Rome and they had a lot of privileges that the Plebeians didn’t have. The Patricians held most of the titles in the Senate, exclusively for them and the only exception to this rule is the title of Tribune, which was also allowed for the Plebeians. The other work the Patricians had required very little manual labor.
The Patricians had a lot of privileges that the Plebeians didn’t have so I will try to list all of them as fast as possible. As I said earlier the Patricians had every office in the Senate except the Tribunes exclusively for themselves. Tribunes didn’t have that much power though, because most of the offices were held by Patricians. The Plebeians could also be made into slaves if they failed to pay off their debt in time.
The Struggle of the Orders was an attempt by the Plebeians to get rid of these privileges and over time they did succeed. It started in 494 BC when the Plebeians were starting to get very tired of these privileges that the Patricians had. This was also escalated because they were living in poverty, while the Patricians were getting richer and richer. The Plebeians needed a way to have the Patricians make some changes and removed some of the privileges they had. The problem was on how to do this, luckily they figured it out. The majority of the Roman population was a Plebeian, the Patricians still needed the Plebeians physical bodies to defend Rome. The Plebeians seceded from Rome and said they wouldn’t come back unless the Patricians made some changes to the system. The Patricians agreed and the changes were made.
These very first changes were that now that anybody that holding the title of Tribune is now sacrosanct. This meant that harming this person would be a big crime and could be punished by death. Another change is that the Tribune was now allowed to veto laws that some of the other offices had created. The small conflicts happened every once in a while. Some of these changes were that the 12 tablets, which held the laws of Rome were readily available to everybody. This meant that everybody in Rome knew what the law was and couldn’t get arrested for a crime they didn’t know existed. Other changes that were made were that, intermarriage between the two groups was allowed, that if a Plebeian defaulted on debt he wouldn’t become a slave, that a Roman didn’t need land to be able to join the army and most importantly of all was that all the other positions started opening up to the Plebeians as well and in some of them a part of the positions must be held by a Plebeian. These changes slowly piled up and after two centuries of this, the Patricians and the Plebeians were relatively equal. The key word is relative. The two groups weren’t completely equal, but it was much better than before the struggle of the orders started.
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