Thursday, April 22, 2021

The City of God and the city of men (or immanentizing the eschaton)

One of  the most significant works of European culture has to be De Civitatis Dei (The City of God) by Saint Augustine of Hippo.



The Roman Empire was at its height in 117AD. Roman culture, language, mannerisms, law, architecture, food, government, military permeated the culture so deeply that Europe remained essentially "Roman" for the next 2000 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire...

In 293 Diocletian split the Empire into four quadrants, each ruled by an Emperor. This was called the Tetrarchy and was a bureaucratic decision made to better manage the immense empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy

It didn't work, though, and the Empire eventually dissolved into an Eastern hemisphere & a Western hemisphere. The East remained strong and survived until the 1400s, but the West began to fall apart.



At the same time a movement called "The Way" began to gain great support from the lower classes of Roman society. Followers of "The Way" professed the Good News (Gospel) that all people were loved by God regardless of sex, wealth, power, class, or past sins & that all had been redeemed by the sacrifice of the blood of Christ (the anointed one). They wrote down their accounts of Christ's life sometime in the 2nd century AD but had no official creed, doctrine or churches and were deemed illegal by Roman society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

Christians suffered great persecution under Roman law, especially during the reign of Diocletian. Followers of the way were constantly insulted (called "Christians" which at the time was a put down), barred from office and denied jobs, arrested, fined, or executed in the Colosseum by gladiators or beasts. It was rumored even that Christians participated in cannibalism in their secret (mysterion) rituals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution



In 313, however, Constantine rose to power as ruler of the whole Empire & he issued the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal within the Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

Strands of Christianity professing different beliefs continued within the Empire until the need arose to define what Christians actually believed.

In 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea which clarified what Christians believed and produced the Nicen Creed which we still say today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

Romans blamed Christianity for the steady decline of Roman values in the West, invasions by barbarians, and general economic decline citing both that Christianity sought to overturn the social system and exalt the lower classes and that it angered the gods and drew down their disfavor. This was confirmed for Romans in 410 when Alaric sacked the city of Rome.

Our normal picture of the sack of Rome by Alaric is of blue painted pagan barbarians with great horned helms and forked beards slobbering their way toward a massive destruction and rape of the city.  But it seems that Alaric and his men were neither pagan NOR barbarian as they were all Roman military trained; spoke Latin, wore Latin dress, employed Latin mannerisms. They were part of the auxilii (I think it was called) = the "native" troops trained to protect and police the area under Roman command. According to worldhistory.org -

"He (Alaric) commanded the Gothic allies, fighting alongside the Romans at the Battle of River Frigidus in 394 CE, a battle waged between the eastern emperor Theodosius I and the western usurper emperor Eugenius."

So Alaric seems to have been a Romanized Arian Christian who supported Theodosius (the legit emperor) against Eugenius (the usurping emperor) and the Franks. After his service he was not recognized by the Senate in any meaningful way even though he was the only real player in the Balkans at the time.


Hilaire Belloc writes that the whole "sacking of Rome" thingummy was that they descended on the capitol to demand back pay (hadn't been paid in months) but were denied by the elitist and bureaucratic senate and told to go home. They didn't (or at least, not until they had gotten their pay in local goods stripped from the city - perhaps a few bonfires were involved, too).

 It makes for a great read:

Alaric sat patiently, waiting for Stilicho to join him. Despite his good intentions, Stilicho, however, was delayed due to problems elsewhere in the west: the Gothic king Radagaisus invaded Italy; the Vandals, Alans, and Survi invaded Gaul; and the future emperor Constantine III (a viable threat to the throne) emerged victorious from Britain. These setbacks made money scarce and negotiations impossible. Alaric's patience wore thin, and his demand for 4,000 pounds of gold (payment for his waiting) went unheard. As a result, he began to slowly move his army closer to Italy. Although Stilicho wanted to pay the demands, the Roman Senate, under the leadership of a war hawk named Olympius disagreed, and the Senate considered Alaric's actions a declaration of war.

With Olympius' urging, the emperor decided to invade the east. Stilicho warned against the emperor leading the army, choosing to lead an army himself. With Stilicho away, Honorius and Olympius traveled to Ticinum, an Italian city just south of Milan, supposedly to review the troops; however, Olympius, without the permission of the emperor, ordered the killing of thousands of Gothic allies - an action that further angered Alaric. A final fatality of this massacre was Stilicho himself, who was accused of plotting with Alaric. As a result of this treachery, over 10,000 soldiers defected and joined Alaric's army. In 408 CE the Gothic army sacked the cities of Aquilea, Concordia, Altinum, Cremona, Bononia, Ariminum, and Picenum, choosing, however, to avoid Ravenna, the capital of the western empire and home of Emperor Honorius. Instead, Alaric set his sights on Rome, surrounding all 13 gates of the city, blockading the Tiber River and forcing widespread rationing; within weeks decaying corpses littered the city streets.

As additional forces came to Alaric's side, Emperor Honorius did little to help the city and oppose Alaric. The Goths were still viewed as barbarians and no match for the armies of the empire. Although the treasury was virtually empty, the Senate finally succumbed, and wagons left the city carrying two tons of gold, 13 tons of silver, 4,000 silk tunics, 3,000 fleeces, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. 

He had tried everything, even attempting to name a sympathetic senator named Attalus appointed as a new Roman emperor failed. He took Honorius's sister Galla Placidia hostage but to no avail. An alliance asking for an annual payment of gold and grain, as well as the provinces of Venetia, Noricum, and Dalmatia, was refused. Alaric had few choices left, and on August 24, 410 CE, Alaric prepared to enter the city; Rome had not been sacked since 390 BCE. When the Salarian Gate was opened by an unnamed sympathizer, an army of “barbarians” entered Rome, and a three-day pillage began. While the homes of the wealthy were plundered, buildings burned, and pagan temples destroyed, St. Peter's and St. Paul's were left untouched. Oddly, when Honorius heard that Rome was perishing, he feared the worst - not because of his love of the city, but because he believed his beloved fighting cock named Rome had been killed.


Romans blamed Christianity for the sack of the city, however, and for a great many other things.

In response to this calumnious censure Saint Augustine wrote his great work "The City of God" in which he defined two competing visions of the world:

1. the city of men - in which power, success, wealth are the markers of a good life; but this city remains involved in an eternal rotation of power in which decline and destruction are inevitable

2. the city of God - in which love, forgiveness, and flourishing are the markers of a good life; this city is eternal and will outlast all cities of men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_God

The next 2000 years of European history (Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment & Modern eras) will essentially be a constant struggle between these two competing visions.

As Eric Voegelin would phrase this struggle in the 20th century, “We must not allow them to immanentize the eschaton”.  Most of the major events in European history can be read through this lens of the struggle between the city of God and the city of men.  To attempt to bring about (immanentize) heaven on earth (the eschaton) terrible and horrifying events have been justified.  Perhaps it is necessary to re-evaluate whether trying to make the city of men into the city of God is even a possible thing.



There be dragons!