Cities of Earth & Heaven: Week 2
Christendom:
City of Heaven on Earth
Julian of Norwich:
Shewings of Divine Love (ca. 1372)
• In this same time our Lord shewed me …. a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in
the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I … thought: What may this be?
– It is all that is made.
– It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it..
• In this Little Thing I saw three properties.
– The first is that God made it….
– The second is that God loveth it….
– The third, that God keepeth it….
• Often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was
not [prevented]: for then, methought, all should have been well….
• But Jesus … answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; but all
shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Quiz question 2:
• During the 2nd and 3rd centuries after Christ, persecution of
Christians by the Roman emperors was …
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Massive and relentless.
Sporadic and localized.
Triggered by subversive activities planned by the churches.
Ineffective, since virtually no Christians renounced their
faith under threat
Did persecution ever work?
A Certificate for Having
Sacrificed to Idols
To the Commissioners of Sacrifice...:
From Aurelius Diogenes, … aged 72 years: ---scar on his right eyebrow.
I have always sacrificed regularly to the gods, and now, in your presence, in accordance with the edict, I
have done sacrifice, and poured the drink offering, and tasted of the sacrifices, and I request you to certify
the same. Farewell.
-- Handed in by me, Aurelius Diogenes.
--I certify that I saw him sacrificing [signature obliterated].
Done in the first year of the Emperor, Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius Pius Felix Augustus …
[June 26, 250 A.D.]
Were Christians subversive?
• 2nd Century: Bishop Justin writes an Apology to the Romans:
– When you hear we seek a kingdom, you suppose … that we speak of a
human kingdom;
– whereas we speak of that which is with God….
– We, more readily than all men, endeavor to pay taxes to those appointed by you, …
as we have been taught….
• Some asked [Jesus] if one ought to pay tribute to Caesar. He answered, …
• “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
– Whence to God alone we render worship,
– but in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you [ruler] of men.
• Note: from Jesus to Justin Martyr, the Christian viewpoint was continuously
disempowered. Obedience was a survival strategy!
Early Christians: dual citizenship
• Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven:
– Spiritual, not political:
– “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword
will die by the sword” (Matthew 26.52).
– Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord
Jesus Christ (Philippians 3.20).
• Roman Empire:
– Members of church called to obedience:
– Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except
that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by
God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what
God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves
(Romans 13.1-2).
Christianity and Secular Government
Who ever thought of connecting the two?
Well, of course,
Constantine did!
Christianity & Empire:
• Any natural affinity?
• “Therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28.19)
• How is this different from paganism?
– Pagans accepted pluralism.
– Christians sought global unity.
• Constantine saw in Christianity a basis
for unifying a vast empire.
• Legal Code of Theodosius (380-391):
– All people under the rule of our clemency
should live by that religion which divine
Peter the apostle is said to have given to
the Romans … that is that we should
believe in the one deity of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit with equal majesty and in the
Holy Trinity according to the apostolic
teaching and the authority of the gospel.
– Note: given to whom?
• Church weds Empire.
What happened to bishops?
• Episcopal role in the early church?
– Elder, leader of often small, house churches.
– Often tested by persecution:
– e.g. Eusebius in time of Emperor Diocletian.
• What does the word Diocese mean?
– Region of jurisdiction for a bishop.
– Generally centered in the area’s major city or town.
• Imperial meaning?
– Local area of imperial jurisdiction.
– The church becomes a shadow empire.
• Discipline is strictly hierarchical.
• Bishops become shadow governors.
Imperial Bishops:
Constantine: those men who give
their services with due sanctity …
to the worship of the divine
religion, should receive
recompense for their labors….
For ... when they show greatest
reverence to the Deity, the greatest
benefits accrue to the state
(Eusebius History X.vii).
Council of Nicea: Wrap Party
• Eusebius:
– The emperor himself invited and feasted with those ministers of God whom he had
reconciled.
– Not one of the bishops was wanting at the imperial banquet, the circumstances of
which were splendid beyond description.
– Detachments of the body-guard and other troops surrounded the entrance of the
palace with drawn swords, and through the midst of these the men of God
proceeded without fear into the innermost of the imperial apartments.
– One might have thought that a picture of Christ's kingdom was thus
shadowed forth, and a dream rather than reality.
• What might Eusebius’ attitude toward Constantine be?
Imperial Church Militant
• Eusebius links imperial aggression to God’s Kingdom:
– Thus, like a faithful and good servant, did [Constantine] act and testify, …
confessing himself the obedient minister of the supreme King.
– And God ... rewarded him, by making him ruler and sovereign, and
victorious … [in] a continual course of conquest….
– So dear was he to God, and so blessed; so pious and so fortunate in all that he
undertook, that …
– He obtained the authority over more nations than any who had preceded him….
– Even among these distant nations, he proclaimed the name of his God in his royal edicts
(Life 1.6-8).
Pax Romana
• Perquisite for acceptance of imperial rule:
– Protection, prosperity, and peace
– Many a conquered people embraced the empire.
• Bishops’ pact with Rome:
– Protection, prosperity, and peace.
– Ascendancy over other faiths.
– All backed by Imperial Legions!
• Why, one might not feel heaven has come to earth!
• But in what does the Church trust: God or Rome?
And then it
all fell apart.
The Empire broke its trust with nations …
And with the Roman Church:
Barbarians overran the Western Empire.
Romans and Christians struggled to understand.
Roman traditionalists blamed the
Christians who had infested the Empire.
• Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, decided to answer
the charge:
– City of God completed about 411.
– Rebuts the arguments made by pagans.
– And struggles to make sense of world history.
• Key theoretical distinction (I.1):
– City of this World (Rome)
– City of God (the Church)
• “as it exists in this world of time, a stranger among the ungodly, living by faith”
• “as it stands in the security of its everlasting seat”
Claim of those blaming the Church:
Pre-Christian Rome was both virtuous and powerful.
Augustine points out charges of corruption made by Romans
themselves.
He testifies to the brutality of its wars and its predatory
enslavement of the people.
Augustine rites to contrast Rome with God’s City.
Yet Augustine says that God decides who
will retain power:
• Augustin & Paul agree: God gives power to rulers
– We do not attribute the power of … empires to any save to the true God,
– He … gave a kingdom to the Romans … as He did also to the Assyrians, and even the Persians….
• Does this mean God endorses them?
– [God] gives … kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him,
whose good pleasure is always just….
• He who gave it to the Christian Constantine …
• gave it also to the apostate Julian….
– These things are ruled and governed by the one God according as He pleases [even] if His motives
are hid (City of God V.22).
• Augustine does not say God endorses rulers.
– He has an elaborate argument about the necessity for secular rule.
– But AUgustine does not equate Rome with the City of God!
Augustine’s theory of Just War
• God’s providence constantly uses war to correct and chasten the corrupt morals of
mankind (I.1)
• It is therefore with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take
pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in … battle….
– Pride in its perversity apes God…. It abhors … the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust peace;
– but … the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison (XIX.12)
•
The wise man will wage just wars.
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[But he will] lament the necessity of just wars….
For it is the wrongdoing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars….
Let every one, … acknowledge that this is misery.
And if any one either endures or thinks of [war] without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight
still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling (XIX.7).
• Notice Augustine’s pessimism about war!
But the Church at Rome was
addicted to imperial power:
• Latent themes from Augustine:
– God’s granting of power could be taken as endorsement.
– Just war theory could lead to Holy War.
• Gelasius I, Bishop of Rome to Byzantine Emperor Anastasius (494 CE) :
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There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is ruled:
The sacred authority of the priests and
The royal power.
Of these that of the priests is the more weighty….
Dear son, while you are permitted honorably to rule over human kind, yet in things
divine you bow your head humbly before the leaders of the clergy.
• The eternal City of God is delegated to earth:
– Roman Papacy in pure apostolic succession from Peter and Paul
– Emperors and Kings ordained by the Church.
“Christendom”
• Nostalgic dream of recovering the Christian Empire in the West:
– Baptism of Clovis is original foundation.
– Christmas Day, 800:
• Charlemagne—A Frank—ordained by Pope “Holy Roman Emperor”
• Holy Roman Empire was none of these 3 things.
• It soon split up into …
– France (more or less)
– And 100s of separate principalities in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, etc.
• But theoretically, all the kings and emperors of Europe were
unified in the project of Christianizing the world.
Pope Boniface VIII
Bull Unam Sanctum (1302)
• The Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic….
– Outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins….
– There is one body and one head, … that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ … successor of Peter….
• In the power of the Church … [are held] the spiritual and the material sword
– The former in the hands of the priest;
– the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest….
• One sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to
spiritual power:
– This authority (though ... given to man and exercised by man) is not human but rather divine,
granted to Peter by a divine word….
– Therefore whoever resists this power … resists … God (Rom 13:2)….
• Furthermore, we declare … that it is absolutely necessary for salvation
that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff (Boniface VIII).
Christendom’s
High Water Mark
The Crusade Era:
• Popes mobilize armies of Europe—
Franks, Normans, Germans—
• in projects of global conquest.
Militant Christendom: Crusades
• 1095, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I appeals to Rome for help in dealing with the Islamic
armies of the Seljuk Turks.
• Urban II calls Christendom to war … in Christ’s name:
– Your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help…. The Turks … have attacked
them, …. have occupied … the lands of those Christians, and have … killed and captured many, and
have destroyed the churches….
– I, or rather the Lord, beseech you … to … persuade … foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to
carry aid promptly to those Christians …
– and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends…. Moreover, Christ commands it.
– All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have
immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested….
– Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go
against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those
who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights (Fulk of Chartres).
Quiz Question 4
•
Which of the following was not a target of a Christian military
Crusade called by popes?
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The Christian kingdom of Saxon England.
Islamic rule over Persia and the Arab Peninsula.
The Christian capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople.
• 4th Crusade was aimed at the Turks and Arabs.
• Venetian commercial interests hijacked it to invade Constantinople.
Christian reform sects who tried to live lifestyles modeled after the New
Testament church.
• Innocent III called crusades against Cathars and Waldensians.
• Papal legate: “Kill them all: God will know his own.”
Knights Templar
• Warrior monks!
• Bernard of Clairvoux defends the idea:
– A new knighthood has recently appeared on the earth …
[that] ceaselessly wages a twofold war both against flesh and
blood and against a spiritual army of evil in the heavens….
– A truly fearless knight … is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is
protected by armor of steel…. How blessed to die as a martyr! …
– The knights of Christ may safely fight the battles of their Lord … for the Lord freely
accepts the death of the foe who has offended him …. The knight of Christ ... is
God's minister, for the punishment of evildoers…. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a
man killer, but … a killer of evil. He is the avenger of Christ towards evildoers, … a
defender of Christians…. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because
Christ is glorified (Bernard New Knighthood).
Frederick 1 Barbarossa
•
Holy Roman Emperor (1155-1190)
– The divine power, from which is every power in Heaven and on earth, has committed to us, his
anointed, … the empire to be ruled over,
– and has ordained that the peace of the church shall be preserved by the arms of the
empire …
• Now, Frederick had some quarrels with the Church at Rome, which was trying to keep
him from establishing his authority:
– From the head of the holy church … the poison of a pestiferous disease seems to emanate…
– We fear that the whole body of the church will be tainted, the unity riven, a schism be brought about
between the kingdom and the priesthood….
– Inasmuch as … the empire, is ours by the election of the princes from God alone who …
subjected the world to the rule of the two necessary swords (Frederick I Manifesto).
Great Irony of
Christendom:
• To realize Christendom, …
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you need a strong emperor.
But no pope could ever tolerate a strong emperor.
Although each needed the other, …
Their political interests always clashed.
• Remember Bull Unam Sanctum?
– The King of France responded by sending troops to
invade the papal palace and insult the pope, who
soon died.
– Kings of France became so powerful that they
hijacked the papacy to Avignon:
– the Babylonian Captivity (1309-1378).
Key concept of Christendom:
• Sacred and secular authorities are mutually ordained by God.
– Popes and bishops ordain kings and emperors.
– Emperors and kings authorize bishops and popes.
• See a brewing problem?
– Who gets to decide who gets which post?
– Investiture Controversy (1075-1122)
• Emperor Henry IV wanted to name locals as bishops in German territories.
• Henry: “Let another ascend the throne of St. Peter, who shall not practice violence under the
cloak of religion…. I, Henry, king by the grace of God, do say unto thee ... Descend ... to be
damned through the ages.”
– Simony: every church post had a steep price!
Canterbury
Cathedral
• Marker of the Martyrdom of Thomas
Becket, Archbishop.
– He died for the Church.
– That is, the endless struggle for
precedence between the power of kings
and of bishops.
• Film clip from Becket showing Thomas
as Chancellor allying with Henry II.
The gathering storm:
• 14th Century:
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Bubonic Plague
Clashes between sacred and secular powers
Babylonian Captivity
Rampant simony and corruption
100 years War
Ruinous taxes imposed by …
• Kings
• Church (tithes collected by king’s tax collectors)
• Landlords exploiting peasant labor
• John Wycliffe: English cleric writing and preaching reform
Social Unrest + Reform Ideas = ?
• Waves of revolt and violence!
• France, 1300: The Shepherds' Revolt
– 40,000 peasants led by a monk ravaged
cities and killed Jews
– They were cut off near the Mediterranean &
starved to death.
• France, 1358: The Jacqeurie
Uprising
– Widespread killing of landlords, nobles
and bishops
– Stopped by knights on horseback: several
1,000 rebels killed
• England, 1381: Great Peasant Revolt
– People of Kent incensed over taxation …
– And Lollards preaching Wycliffe’s ideas of
reform and equality before Christ
– 200,000 peasants sack Canterbury and
much of London
– Leaders cut down by armed troops.
• Germany, 1431: the Bundschue
(Brotherhood of the Shoe)
– Cowherd Hans Böhm announces Kingdom
of Heaven.
– Communal vision of shared earth, equality
of brothers & sisters
So Christendom collapsed!
City of Heaven receded into … heaven.
In 2 weeks: Reformation and its church state heritage.