Lundi, 9 Février, 2015
Verse of the Day: « Frères et sœurs,
nous devons constamment dire à Dieu toute notre reconnaissance a votre
sujet, et cela est juste, parce que votre foi fait de grand progrès et que l’amour
mutuel que vous vous portez tous augmente de plus en plus. »—2
Thessaloniciens 1:3
Quote of the Day: “Simplicity is supreme sophistication.”—Leonardo Da Vinci
« La
simplicité est la sophistication suprême. »—Léonard De Vinci
Information About
France: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html
What’s Really
Happening Over Here: http://www.lemonde.fr/
A Day In the Life:
This weekend went by fast! Saturday was literally completely
spent doing homework, besides the break I took at around 9pm to eat my pizza
and catch up The Flash and Arrow episodes from this week (Dr. Wells is totally
the “Reverse Flash aka Professor Zoom”, no doubt about it. And I’m still mad
that Laurel is dressing up and fighting like she knows how to fight. She doesn’t
know how to fight. How about you get trained by Oliver, like everyone else on
the team, and then you can honor your sister by not getting beat up every
single time you go out to fight big men with big guns. And Felicity needs to
suck it up, seriously. This is Oliver Queen we’re talking about here, he can do
whatever he wants.)
Sunday morning I packed up my things and got dropped off at
church by my (former) host mom. It was time to move on to the next family! The
service was informative, although the man who spoke this time was from Russia
or something, so if you can imagine a Russian speaking French…most of the other
people there told me they couldn’t understand him either. But, I was able to
understand a few of the references he brought up, so I just went to those and
took notes on them. They all spoke about perseverance and how big of a deal it
is for us as Christians.
Afterwards, we had a “repas fraternelle” (“~brotherly meal”)
which they have every two months or so, and it was SO good. Maybe too good. My
favorite part though was listening to everyone sing the prayer at the
beginning.
Cicero
Cicero was a great orator, but in fact he is more renown for
his impact on language – literally for anyone who would either speak or write
during and after his life, until the return of Christ. Great public speaking
requires mastery of many techniques – volume and pitch, audience analysis,
preparedness, ability to adapt, but the foundation of it all is language.
Language encompasses
Who He Was
Marcus Tullius Cicero (/ˈsɪsɨroʊ/;
Classical Latin: [maːrkʊs tʊlliʊs ˈkɪkɛroː]; Ancient Greek: Κικέρων Kikerōn; 3
January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully /ˈtʌli/), was
a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and
constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman
equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and
prose stylists.
His influence on the Latin language
was so immense that the subsequent history of prose in not only Latin but
European languages up to the 19th century was said to be either a reaction against
or a return to his style. According to Michael Grant, "the influence of
Cicero upon the history of European literature and ideas greatly exceeds that
of any other prose writer in any language". Cicero introduced the Romans
to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical
vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia)
distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's
letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public
affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture. According to Polish historian
Tadeusz Zieliński, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero,
and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity."
The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John
Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the
most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the
most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman
history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.
Legacy
Cicero has been traditionally
considered the master of Latin prose, with Quintilian declaring that Cicero was
"not the name of a man, but of eloquence itself." He is credited with
transforming Latin from a modest utilitarian language into a versatile literary
medium capable of expressing abstract and complicated thoughts with clarity.
Julius Caesar praised Cicero's achievement by saying "it is more important
to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit (ingenium) than the
frontiers of the Roman empire" According to John William Mackail,
"Cicero's unique and imperishable glory is that he created the language of
the civilized world, and used that language to create a style which nineteen
centuries have not replaced, and in some respects have hardly altered."
Cicero was also an energetic writer with an interest in a wide variety of
subjects, in keeping with the Hellenistic philosophical and rhetorical
traditions in which he was trained. The quality and ready accessibility of
Ciceronian texts favored very wide distribution and inclusion in teaching
curricula, as suggested by an amusing graffito at Pompeii, admonishing:
"You will like Cicero, or you will be whipped".
Cicero was greatly
admired by influential Latin Church Fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, who
credited Cicero's lost Hortensius for his eventual conversion to
Christianity and St Jerome, who had a feverish vision in which he was
accused of being "follower of Cicero and not of Christ" before the
judgment seat. This influence further increased after the Dark Ages in Europe,
which more of his writings survived than any other Latin author. Medieval
philosophers were influenced by Cicero's writings on natural law and innate
rights. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters provided impetus for
searches for ancient Greek and Latin writings scattered throughout European
monasteries, and the subsequent rediscovery of Classical Antiquity led to the
Renaissance. Subsequently, Cicero came to be synonymous with classical Latin to
such an extent that humanist scholars began to assert that no Latin word or phrase
was to be used unless it could be found in Cicero's works, a stance criticized
by Erasmus. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend
Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter
writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st century BC biographer of
Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters contained such a wealth of detail
"concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals,
and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need
for a history of the period. Among Cicero's admirers were Desiderius Erasmus, Martin
Luther, and John Locke. Following the invention of the printing press, De
Officiis was the second book to be printed – second only to the Gutenberg
Bible. Scholars note Cicero's influence on the rebirth of religious toleration
in the 17th century.
While Cicero the humanist deeply
influenced the culture of the Renaissance, Cicero the republican inspired the
Founding Fathers of the United States and the revolutionaries of the French
Revolution. John Adams said of him "As all the ages of the world have not
produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority
should have great weight." Jefferson names Cicero as one of a handful of
major figures who contributed to a tradition “of public right” that informed
his draft of the Declaration of Independence and shaped American understandings
of "the common sense" basis for the right of revolution. Camille
Desmoulins said of the French republicans in 1789 that they were "mostly
young people who, nourished by the reading of Cicero at school, had become
passionate enthusiasts for liberty". Jim Powell starts his book on the
history of liberty with the sentence: "Marcus Tullius Cicero expressed
principles that became the bedrock of liberty in the modern world."
Legitimate government protects liberty and justice according to "natural
law." "Murray N. Rothbard praised Cicero as 'the great transmitter of
Stoic ideas from Greece to Rome. ... Stoic natural law doctrines... helped
shape the great structures of Roman law which became pervasive in Western
Civilization." Government's purpose was the protection of private
property.
Likewise, no other ancient personality
has inspired as much venomous dislike as Cicero, especially in more modern
times. His commitment to the values of the Republic accommodated a hatred of
the poor and persistent opposition to the advocates and mechanisms of popular
representation. Friedrich Engels referred to him as "the most contemptible
scoundrel in history" for upholding republican "democracy" while
at the same time denouncing land and class reforms. Cicero has faced criticism
for exaggerating the democratic qualities of republican Rome, and for defending
the Roman oligarchy against the popular reforms of Caesar. Michael Parenti
admits Cicero's abilities as an orator, but finds him a vain, pompous and
hypocritical personality who, when it suited him, could show public support for
popular causes that he privately despised. Parenti presents Cicero's
prosecution of the Catiline conspiracy as legally flawed at least, and possibly
unlawful.
Cicero also had an influence on
modern astronomy. Nicolaus Copernicus, searching for ancient views on earth
motion, said that he "first ... found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the
earth to move."
Clearly this man left his mark on the world. May we do the
same, in a way that honors Christ.
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