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Empires
The Roman Empire was one of a series of empires which aspired to rule whatever at their time was thought to be the whole of the world. It is a bit simplistic to point out the prevalence of the title ‘Caesar' in one form or another, e.g. ‘Kaiser', but it does illustrate the persistence of the idea.
There was recently a television biography of Nero, no doubt a horrific example of how power corrupts – the greater the power the greater the corruption. Nero's trouble seems to have stemmed from his personal weakness. Weak people (i.e. most of us) are reluctant to bear the responsibility for the outcome of their disastrous conduct, like the small boy who breaks a window, then maintains it was one of his friends who threw the stone. When Nero's mother contrived to secure supreme power for her son (by poisoning his uncle) Nero then had his mother killed; probably to avoid any suspicion that he (Nero) had any hand in his uncle's death
Then, when a great part of Rome was destroyed by fire which Nero (with or without the aid of his unruly friends) may have started himself, Nero's scapegoats were the Christians – possibly the most powerless minority group in the city and so the least able to defend themselves. It was easy to blame the Christians and so divert blame for the disaster.
How are we to prevent our weaknesses from overcoming us and those around us? Some advocate a life of non-action; do nothing and nothing untoward can happen. Was it Macbeth who said, “Nothing can come of nothing”, which foreshadowed civil war and Macbeth's own death? It could be argued that doing nothing was one of the causes of the 1939 – 1945 war. Looking the other way is seldom the way to deal with menacing events.
We have been shown so often and, I suggest, just as often forgotten that the paradox of Christ's refusal to accept the earthly power he could so easily have taken was rejected in the knowledge that his refusal would lead to his earthly death, but also to his defeat of death. It is not power, but compassion and the truth in love which enfolds the powerless and is far beyond our comprehension.
Bob Mclean
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