A good holiday read – The Dream of Rome / Boris Johnson – Harper Perennial

If, like me, you have thought of Boris Johnson as an amiable buffoon who hasn’t been much credit to politics in the UK since he was elected MP, this book may surprise you. (If you are reading this as a non-UK citizen, it’s unlikely you would ever have heard of him). The book came as something of a revelation. Johnson obviously knows his classics, and is conversant in Greek and Latin. He also knows his classical history, and can discuss the merits of classical architecture with the technical vocabulary of an expert. (The observations on the architecture of ancient Ephesus on pp117-118 bring this out to the full).

What is interesting about the book is that the author is no ivory-tower academic, and pursues his main idea with gusto: that Rome is an abiding archetype in the European consciousness. He supports this idea with insights gleaned from his experiences as a politician moving amongst the corridors of anecdote, if not power, of the European Union. He also exposes fairly convincingly why the EU will never, on its current basis and practices, become another Roman Empire – despite its rather alarming pretensions. The plaque on the Capitoline Hill to commemorate the ‘agreement’ over the European constitution by the heads of state in 2004 illustrates these grandiose pretensions perfectly. Whether you are a conspiracy theorist or not, you should read it in full on pp 30-31.

From the point of view of this site, the most interesting part of the book will probably be Johnson’s observations on the relationship between Christianity and 1st century Rome – and the Emperor Augustus in particular. The book provides the perfect framework for viewing and understanding the political conflict between the Christian faith and Rome – and why the declaration of Jesus as Lord became such a heinous offence in the Roman Empire. The parallels (and therefore conflicts) drawn out between the language applied to Christ and the language applied to the Roman Emperor are eerie. Although these observations are not new, Johnson draws the parallels together to suggest that Christianity deliberately, and therefore provocatively, highlighted them.

In one sense, the book suggests that the Roman Empire has never gone away, and in a 101 ways, we are still living with its legacy in Europe, not least with some of its mindset and ambitions. In this sense then, the theological perspective of The Coming of the Son of Man which this website spends so much time batting around is brought right up to date. This is the Empire we are still, in one way or another, living under, and acting out (more consciously amongst our political masters than perhaps we realize) its dreams and goals.

The book moves along at a rollicking pace, and is good fun to read. It is wide-ranging in its scope and ability to bring together diverse areas of interest, and is stimulating for expert and general reader alike.