Why did Rome (753 BC - AD 476) fall? Was it due to external circumstances (barbarian invasion, famine, plague, etc), or to internal ones? We in the West ought to take notice. This podcast (30 minutes) encourages us to think critically about Rome -- her strengths and weaknesses alike -- and the many obvious parallels with our own society.
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Symptoms of a sick society:
- MOUNTING LOVE OF SHOW AND LUXURY
- WIDENING GAP BETWEEN THE VERY RICH AND THE VERY POOR
- INCREASED DESIRE TO LIVE OFF THE STATE
- FREAKISHNESS IN THE ARTS, MASQUERADING AS ORIGINALITY
- ABSORPTION IN ENTERTAINMENT
- OBSESSION WITH SEX
Note: many of these symptoms were identified by Englishman Edward Gibbon, who penned his famous The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-89).
Some scriptures referred to:
- 1 Peter 5:13
- 1 Peter 4:1-4
- Revelation 18
- Romans 2:7-8
- Proverbs 16:18; 1 Corinthians 10:11-12
Other ancient texts predict the fall of Rome on account of her immorality and luxurious lifestyle, such as Aelius Aristides, Oratio 26 [155 AD] and Sibylline Oracles 8:113-119 [175 AD]).
"The Roman Empire was faced by the same vital problem as Europe today. Its relatively high standard of material civilization had become a source of vital degeneration rather than of social progress. The life was passing out of the old City-State and its institutions, and in its place there had arisen a standardized cosmopolitan mass hedonism. The State-provided pleasures of the baths, the circus, and the amphitheater gave the majority of the luxuries that had formerly been the privilege of the few, and compensated them for the loss of civic freedom and honor. The citizen need no longer be a soldier, for he could pay the peasant and the barbarian to serve as mercenaries and he need no longer work, for that was the business of the slaves. And so the land decayed and the cities multiplied, producing everywhere from the Atlantic to the Euphrates the same pattern of social life—a leisure state in which the Mediterranean peoples gradually lost their vital energy and become sterile and senile." — Christopher Dawson
