Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:00:40 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:
 

On Sun, 20 Jul 2025 08:27:09 -0700, Paul S Person
<psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>

One of the commentaries (a modernist one, IIRC) actually asserted
that, when the Seven Churches read the book, they believed the results
of the various seals, trumpets, and bowls were something God Himself
was sending them right then. Most commentators, of course, believe
these are more generally applicable.
>
He never did get around to explaining what they thought the New
Jerusalem represented.=20

>
Any idea which commentator said that? Because I've never heard any
such claim of the book of Revelation was intended to come about
immediately.

 Sadly, even digging through the box containing them helped.
 I /think/ this is the same as the one who, having heard/read that the
Romans had "censors" [1], decided that John wrote in imaginative
language to get his message past them.

I've run into this comedy myself.  The office of Censor had been vacant for more than a century by 100 AD.

 [1] They had exactly two Censors (it was one of the public offices,
like Consul), but they did not censor letters. They censored public
behavior to make sure it did not get out of hand. IIRC.

Yes.  Though this could be a political weapon more than anything else.
Their principal job was to conduct the census, done in Republican Rome every five years.  They were elected in pairs, with veto power over the other censor.
It was the most prestigious office, the capstone of a political career, though not he most powerful.  It could be very profitable, though by the time a man became Censor he was undoubtedly very rich.
Technically it was an eighteen month term, though most resigned within a year, so for most of the  time there were no censors.
Rome was a stratified society, so all citizens fit into one class or the other.  Your class conferred certain rights and obligations, so it was important in a practical sense.
The censors made sure everyone had the qualifications for their class. If an Equestrian didn't have enough land to qualify for that class, he was demoted to the class below (in the very early republic, an equestrian could be demoted if his war horse was not properly cared for).  Similarly, people could be promoted to a higher class.
As you say, preservation of morality was another of the censor's duties. Cato the elder dismissed a man from the senate for kissing his wife in public, the historian Sallust was dismissed from the senate for "immorality" by Appius Claudius Pulcher, whose own brother had been by reputation one of the most immoral men in the senate.  I wonder if he'd have kicked out his brother?
In actual fact Sallust had worked on the successful prosecution of Pulcher's friend Milo for the murder of Pulcher's brother.
Though what one censor could do, another could undo, as could election to office.  Sallust was soon back in the senate.
Similarly, "immoral" plays were banned, actors requited to leave Rome (the city, not the empire) and so on.  Foreign cults, astrologers, and other purported wonder-workers were also expelled, though they always crept back in.
They also had a role in taxation, assigning government contracts, and public works, which is where the money was, and vastly more important than reading cult writings from the far east.
William Hyde