United States or Seychelles ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit; miserable jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union was destruction, and division strength, have been a canker at their root of nationality, and have barbarized their language; but the good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may be, one day, raised up from these ashes.
The circumstance that the term -urbanitas-, and the idea of a polished national culture which it expressed, arose during this period, proves, not that it was prevalent, but that it was on the wane, and that people were keenly alive to the absence of this -urbanitas- in the language and the habits of the Latinized barbarians or barbarized Latins.
Harnack also regards Gnosticism as an embodiment of the genuinely Greek view of revelation, forgetting that orthodox Platonism was as hostile to Gnosticism as the Church itself. In rejecting Gnosticism, the Church in fact decided for genuine Hellenism against a corrupted and barbarized development of it.
But my character as a reformer, in the particular instances which the Duke of Bedford refers to, is so connected in principle with my opinions on the hideous changes which have since barbarized France, and, spreading thence, threaten the political and moral order of the whole world, that it seems to demand something of a more detailed discussion.
It seemed for a few years as if the process of assimilation between Germans and Romans was going to make rapid progress without involving any considerable period of disorder and retrogression. But no such good fortune was in store for Europe, which was now only at the beginning of the turmoil from which it was to emerge almost completely barbarized.
The people were fearfully barbarized by privation and suffering and by the atrocities of the soldiers of all the various nations. Until the end of the eighteenth century Germany was too exhausted and impoverished to make any considerable contribution to the culture of Europe. Only one hopeful circumstance may be noted as we leave this dreary subject.
The natural capacity of all the children was good, although, from self-will and indolence, they had grown up in a degree of ignorance which could not have been tolerated except in a family living an isolated plantation life in the midst of barbarized dependents. Savage and untaught and passionate as they were, the work of teaching them was not without its interest to me.
At this time, also, when the rupture of the Lombard League had left other Italian cities to fall back into incessant local wars, and barbarized their customs, the people of Venice dressed richly and delicately, after the Greek fashion.
We Americans who have both traditions in our blood, with many modifications, are as much concerned in this world decision as the combatants themselves. So much has become involved in the titanic struggle, so many subordinate issues have risen to cloud the one cardinal spiritual issue at stake, that we are likely to forget it or deny that there is any. Is the world to be barbarized again or not?
So far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan teachers, it became barbarized itself, and sank into deep superstition and manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learnt ferocity.
Word Of The Day