Civilization

CONTROLLED MEANING: The advanced state of society when men are educated, industrious, and refined. Also, those areas of the Earth occupied by "civilized" people.

ACTUAL MEANING: The assimilation of the Common Law over to the Civil Law, and the change of status from natural to legal. Originally "civilization" referred to lands or people brought under Roman Civil Law; also that "civil-izing" process. (civil: of or belonging to citizens. —Oxford Dict.). The process of "civil-ization" brought nations under the jurisdiction of Roman Civil Courts and lowered natural man to the status of "citizen."

Governments that favored Roman law eventually came to use the term "civilized" as synonymous with "blessed" and "advanced." However, some lands rejected Roman government because they believed it was oppressive and ungodly. These lands were "un-civil-ized."

As Roman idioms were adopted by the "Western World," the spirit of old Rome lived on in Western law and Western government. Today, Western Civilization is the modern parallel of the old anti-Christ Roman Civilization.