"Pontifex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit of the people, and the original character of the gods of Latium was modified after the new mythology. Notwithstanding this, however, the worship of the Romans retained its political and practical character. The priests (sacerdotes) Flamines, Salii, Feciales, the Pontifices with the Pontifex Maximus at their head, the Augurs, were likewise officers of the state, and did not form a hierarchy apart from the state and ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... has ever been strengthened but some pope has stamped it with his arms, not a ruin has been restored, not a palace repaired, not a fountain cleaned, but the reigning pope has signed the work with his Roman and pagan title of "Pontifex Maximus." It is a haunting passion, a form of involuntary debauchery, the fated florescence of that compost of ruins, that dust of edifices whence new edifices are ever arising. And given the perversion with which the old Roman soil ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that Caesar attempted to win was that of Pontifex Maximus—that is, the High Priest and leader in all of the religious ceremonies of the Romans, an office with great power and prestige and the stepping stone ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Pontifex, however, we do not care to respond to the challenge at all. The experiment is faked and proves nothing. It is mere humbug to declare that a man has been thrown into the waters of life to sink or swim, when there is an anxious but cool-headed friend on the bank with a L70,000 life-belt ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... the Gospel, si pontifex evangelium admitteret." A. Osiander remarked: "That is, if the devil would become an apostle." In the Jena edition of Luther's works Melanchthon's phrase is commented upon as follows: "And yet the Pope with his wolves, the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... mean necessarily eminent ecclesiastics; several famous ecclesiastics with whom circumstances have brought me into contact have not been priestly persons at all; they have been vigorous, wise, energetic, statesmanlike men, such as I suppose the Pontifex Maximus at Rome might have been, with a kind of formal, almost hereditary, priesthood. And, on the other hand, I have known more than one layman of distinctly priestly character, priestly after the order of Melchizedek, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... practice as a bridge-builder led his friend Southey to designate him "Pontifex Maximus." Besides the numerous bridges erected by him in the West of England, we have found him furnishing designs for about twelve hundred in the Highlands, of various dimensions, some of stone and others of iron. His practice in bridge-building had, therefore, been of an unusually extensive ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... a patribus ... transisset. When Cicero refused to throw in his lot with the Triumvirs, Publius Clodius was (by the aid of Caesar as Pontifex Maximus) hurriedly transferred from a patrician to a plebeian gens, and then chosen a tribune of the people for the year 58 B.C. Clodius was thus enabled to satisfy his private hatred of Cicero, and Caesar was ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... was able to stay and he was spared to us. The consequence was that I committed to memory many disquisitions of his, as well as many short pointed apophthegms, and, in short, took as much advantage of his wisdom as I could. When he died, I attached myself to Scaevola the Pontifex, whom I may venture to call quite the most distinguished of our countrymen for ability and uprightness. But of this latter I shall take other occasions to speak. To return to Scaevola the augur. Among many other occasions ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of Venusia was flamen of the emperor Tiberius, pontifex, and praefectus fabrum, and three times duovir quinquennalis, which seems to show a deference to a man who was the priest of the emperor, and seems to preclude an election by the citizens after a regular term of ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... thrown open to them. First they gained that of Dictator, then those of Censor and of Praetor, and finally, in 286, by the law of HORTENSIUS, the plebiscita became binding upon all the people without the sanction of the Senate and Comitia Centuriata. After 200 the sacred offices of PONTIFEX and AUGUR also ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... learned in the law, a D.D. Mohammed did his best to abolish the priest and his craft by making each Moslem paterfamilias a pontifex in his own household and he severely condemned monkery and celibacy. But human nature was too much for him: even before his death ascetic associations began to crop up. Presently the Olema in Al-Islam formed themselves into a kind of clergy; with the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 10 Is Crassas a Sempronio Asellione et plerisque aliis historiae Romanae scriptoribus traditur habuisse quinque rerum bonarum maxima et praecipua: quod esset ditissimus, quod nobilissimus, quod eloquentissimus, quod jurisconsultissimus, quod pontifex maximus. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... and sane," all the high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another. So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he would have accepted them from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... (d. at Fulham, 1306) made his will at his Manor House of Haringay, in 1302. It is written with his own hand, and the opening words are: "Imprimis, Tibi, o pie Redemptor, et potens Salvator animarum, Domine Jesu Christe, animam meam commendo; Tibi etiam, o summe Sacerdos et vere Pontifex animarum, commendo universam plebem Londonensis civitatis et diocaesis; obsecrans te, per medicinam vulnerum tuorum, qui in cruce pependisti, ut mihi et ipsis, concessa perfecta venia peccatorum, concedas nos ad tuam misericordiam pervenire, et frui beatitudine, ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... a dictator was chosen merely to fulfil an omen, by driving a nail into the head of the great statue of Jupiter in the Capitol. Besides these, all the priests had to be patricians; the chief of all was called Pontifex Maximus. Some say this was because he was the fax (maker) of pontes (bridges), as he blessed them and decided by omens where they should be; but others think the word was Pompifex, and that he was the maker of pomps or ceremonies. There were many priests as well as augurs, who had ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
