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).
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.
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