Fluent Essays

Read the Blackboard selections on the “Fall” of the Roman Empire. What are the chief theories? Do you agree with Peter Brown that the end of the Roman Empire should be considered a “change and continuity rather than a “decline and fall”? After posting you should respond to at least two of your peers with a comment that is substantial and constructive (do not simply simply say I like your post) to debate the question. (I'll send you two of my peer's discussions) PAGE 20 Chapter Eight: The Late Roman Empire: Decline or Transformation? Rome had influenced Mediterranean civilization for almost 700 years. Then, in the later fifth century CE, the Roman emperor was removed from power in Italy. Traditionally, we refer to this period as the “Fall” of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. However, there is debate today about the nature and speed of that transition. Was there a decline in Roman power, followed by a “fall”, or was it a gradual transition, marked by a few dramatic episodes, from the collapse of western Imperial government to new European societies? It is difficult to define, let alone understand, ‘late antiquity”. As recently as fifty years ago there was little disagreement that Rome’s fall brought on centuries of darkness. The classical description of Rome’s final years was given by Gibbon in the eighteenth century. _____________________________________________________________________________ …the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay: the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long…The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered [the army] alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians… The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious and turbulent; bold in arms and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse of war…the endless column of Barbarians pressed on the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new assailants. (Edward Gibbon, . Ed. J. B. Bury, 7 vols. (1896-1902), vol. IV, pp. 160-169) The Question: What is the traditional view concerning Rome’s “decline and fall”? ______________________________________________________________________________ Gibbon would be one of the first to look at the history of late Rome. He saw several reasons for Rome’s fall, most importantly a weakening of what had made Rome great. Gibbon and others saw Rome as having been fatally wounded by factors like the degradation of older Roman values, ethnic dilution, Christian interference and barbarian invasions. In the end, Gibbon claimed, Rome declined in greatness, resulting in dramatic collapse. This view would hold into the twentieth century. The counter-argument was initiated by Peter Brown in the mid-twentieth century: ______________________________________________________________________________ To study such a period one must be constantly aware of the tension between change and continuity in the exceptionally ancient and well-rooted world round the Mediterranean. On the one hand, this is notoriously the time when certain ancient institutions, whose absence would have seemed quite unimaginable to a man of about AD 250, irrevocably disappeared. By 476, the Roman empire had vanished from western Europe; by 655, the Persian empire had vanished from the Near East. It is only too easy to write about the Late Antique world as if it were merely a melancholy tale of “Decline and Fall”… On the other hand, we are increasingly aware of the astounding new beginnings associated with this period… Looking at the Late Antique world, we are caught between the regretful contemplation of ancient ruins and the excited acclamation of new growth. What we often lack is a sense of what it was like to live in that world. Like many contemporaries of the changes… we become either extreme conservatives or hysterical radicals. A Roman senator could write as if he still lived in the days of Augustus, and wake up, as many did at the end of the fifth century AD, to realize there was no longer a Roman emperor in Italy… …Perhaps the most basic reason for the failure of the imperial government, in the years between 380 and 410, was that the two main groups in the Latin world – the senatorial aristocracy and the Catholic Church – disassociated themselves from the fate of the Roman army that defended them…having hamstrung their protectors, they found, somewhat to their surprise, that they could do without them… The barbarian invasions did not destroy western Roman society, but they drastically altered the scale of life in the western Roman provinces… In western Europe, the fifth century was a time of narrowing horizons, of the strengthening of local roots, and the consolidating of old loyalties. (Peter Brown, . 1971 pp. 7-8, 119, 126) The Question: In the opinion of Brown, why should we be looking at “change and continuity”, rather than “decline and fall”? _____________________________________________________________________________ Brown and others talk of transition from ancient Rome to medieval Europe, arguing that older values were slowly replaced by more expedient values guided by Church, local interests and the new barbarian rulers. While there was tension and disruption, people got on with their lives and society adjusted. Gibbon’s history sees a break between a grand ancient world and a grim Germanic dark age. Instead of outright decline, Brown envisioned a period where antiquity shaded into medieval. Today, “”late antiquity” is used to describe the period from the reign of Constantine to the disappearance of Romanity,, a heritage that lingered in many places well after the western Roman empire had disappeared. This chapter will address the question of when and how Rome “ended”. Section One will ask what role if any Christianity and the institution of the Church had in the transformation or collapse of Rome. Section Two will look at the popular belief that the barbarians brought Rome down. The final section will look at what we mean by “Decline and Fall” and the immediate consequences of the collapse of the western government. The backdrop to late antiquity in some ways begins with Constantine the Great, who established a new capital city at the old Greek town of Byzantium. Constantine had recognized that power, wealth and military concerns now lay to the East, where a reinvigorated Persian Empire made its presence known on the eastern frontier. The West was simply not as important economically, and the city of Rome too far removed from the frontiers. Constantine moved his court to the newly named Constantinople, making it clear that he was building a new and religiously purer Rome on the Bosporus Straits. With him went the most powerful and most ambitious elites and churchmen. Those who stayed in Rome were generally the older or more conservative families. The city of Rome quickly lost political relevance. The political division between east and west had cultural consequences as well. The Hellenistic world had remained Greek in character and language under the Empire. When Rome had been the imperial capital, the East had looked west to Rome. However, with the establishment of Constantinople, the Greek East now looked no further west than the Balkans. By the death of Emperor Theodosius in 395 there were signs of economic hardship. The decline was certainly not consistent across the empire, and some places continued to prosper, but monies for government and armies had already begun to dwindle in the reign of Diocletian, who tried to bring the economy under state control. By then, the middle class and cities had become overburdened with taxes, with diminishing benefits. At the height of the Roman Empire, elected city offices held coveted status, but the appeal declined as elites increasingly found themselves mandated to run for office and make up the tax shortfalls out of their own pockets. As no one wanted to volunteer the family fortune for the good of the state, elites abandoned city life for their villas in the countryside, away from imperial reach. The old civic centers of Roman life eroded in the west, except where bishops maintained some imperial representation. Cities endured, especially in the east, but politics became increasingly more regional. On the other hand, some areas of the empire continued to prosper, and we can detect a new urban landscape as physical centers shifted from the forum to the churches. The military was also affected. Military service had once been part of the elite Roman’s training for future leadership. Now, few aristocratic families sent sons to the frontiers. The best officers came from the periphery and were increasingly of partial barbarian descent. The emperors came to prefer such men as military officers. Loyal to those who promoted their advance, they would have a more difficult time leading any sort of usurpation because of their ancestry. Thus, there is a period after Constantine when there are noticeable social and economic changes. In some places there was certainly upheaval. In other places life went on in ways that would still be seen as quite Roman. Two other factors have been examined in great detail for their contribution to late antiquity and the collapse versus change question: the influence of the Church and the activities of the barbarians. Section One: Christianity in Many Forms Constantine waited until days before his death to become a baptized Christian. This was not uncommon in a world that believed that baptism wiped away prior sins. However, no matter what his actual perceived state of grace, he had significant impact on the Church in his lifetime. There is agreement among historians that the Church played an enormous role in politics from Constantine on. However, did the Church weaken the late Roman state or help prolong it? Again, the classic view was forwarded by Gibbon: ______________________________________________________________________________ As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. (Edward Gibbon, . Ed. J. B. Bury, 7 vols. (1896-1902), vol. IV, pp. 160-169 The Question: Why does Gibbon believe Christianity weakened the Roman Empire? ______________________________________________________________________________ Gibbon suggests that Christian values of pacifism and charity sapped Roman strengths, and that religious struggles led to too much preoccupation with church affairs, to the detriment of the armies. Heather, on the other hand, suggests that the impact was limited: ______________________________________________________________________________ But while the rise of Christianity was certainly a cultural revolution, Gibbon and others are much less convincing in claiming that the new religion had a seriously deleterious effect upon the functioning of the Empire. Christian institutions did…acquire large financial endowments. On the other hand, the non-Christian religious institutions that they replaced had also been wealthy, and their wealth was being progressively confiscated at the same time as Christianity waxed strong. It is unclear whether endowing Christianity involved an overall transfer of assets from secular to religious coffers. Likewise, while some manpower was certainly lost to the cloister, this was no more than a few thousand individuals at most, hardly a significant figure in a world that was maintaining, even increasing, population levels. Similarly, the number of upper-class individuals who renounced their wealth and lifestyle for a life of Christian devotion pales into insignificance beside the 6,000 or so who by AD 400 were actively participating in the state as top bureaucrats… Nor was there any pressing reason why Christianity should have generated such a crisis, since religion and Empire rapidly reached an ideological rapprochement. Roman imperialism had claimed…that the presiding divinities had destined Rome to conquer and civilize the world… After Constantine’s public adoption of Christianity, the long-standing claims about the relation of the state to the deity were quickly, and surprisingly easily, reworked. The presiding divinity was recast as the Christian God… The claim that the Empire was God’s vehicle…changed little: only the nomenclature was different. (Peter Heather, . 2006, pp. 122-3). The Question: In Heather’s view, what was the impact of Christianity in the relationship between Empire and the divine? Is the idea that only a few thousand were involved believable? Why? ______________________________________________________________________________ While Heather accepts that there was a cultural change in the way Christians viewed their relationship with the Classical world, from a political and comparative standpoint there was little difference in the monies and attention given to the Church, nor did it have a measurable role in weakening the empire. This did not stop non-Christians over the next century, however, from believing that it had. During most of the fourth century, Christianity and paganism coexisted in joint legality. The formidable theologian Augustine, who served as bishop of the North African city of Hippo, for instance, was raised by mixed parents, and had a foot in both traditions. However, it became increasingly difficult to maintain pagan worship, and those who did so were subject to violence from churchmen and the Christian community. Temples could be publicly desecrated, often in humiliating ways, the stones recycled for churches. The gulf between the Christian and non-Christian view of Rome’s future grew wider. Much of the debate lies in the nature of Christianity itself by late antiquity. Before Constantine the Church had been an underground movement that advocated social justice for the oppressed. Once Constantine legalized the faith, he made Christianity a partner of a military state that emphasized victory, conquest and lordship. The language of the church changed into a militant cry for battle against the unbeliever. The Church itself became a weapon of the state. Of course, defining “the Church” was also problematical. Even 300 years after the life of Jesus of Nazareth, there were still many unresolved questions concerning the nature of Christianity, and the Christian life, especially those issues dealing with the actual life and nature of Christ before and after ascension, the nature and structure of the Trinity, and the necessary steps towards redemption and salvation. Now that the Church had an imperial stamp of approval, the Church was faced with the challenge of establishing a standard belief system. Deviations, now called heresies, were not to be allowed. Donatism was one such alternate interpretation labeled as heresy. Donatists, so-called after the views of Bishop Donatus during Diocletian’s Great Persecution of the early fourth century, believed that apostasy (turning away from the faith) should be severely punished in penitence. Moreover, clergy who had apostatized should not be allowed to take up their office again. In most Christian churches, apostates had been allowed back, but the Donatists of Africa, where Christians had suffered greatly in the Persecution, had little sympathy for the weak-spirited. Although Donatists refused to follow mainstream church guidelines on readmitting lapsed Christians, Donatist churches and liturgy otherwise looked very much like the orthodox (“correct word”) Church. The debate over Arianism presents the problem faced by Constantine as he tried to work through the vicious politics of the various bishops defending their beliefs. Many of the bishops were from the elite families that once would have produced senators and governors in an unforgiving political environment. They understood power politics, and played games with the lives of rivals in a way that reminded one scholar of a wild animal hunt. Much of the debate centered on the nature and structure of the Christian Trinity – God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, somehow all at once and yet distinct. Many Roman Christians had had difficulties seeing Jesus as having the same substance and power as God. After all, in a good Roman family sons are not equal to fathers. Named after its chief apologist, Bishop Arius, Arianism saw Jesus as Son of God but still a creation and thus not equal to God. ______________________________________________________________________________ To his very dear lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius, Arius, unjustly persecuted by Alexander the Pope, on account of that all-conquering truth of which you also are a champion, sendeth greeting in the Lord. … the bishop greatly wastes and persecutes us, and leaves no stone unturned against us. He has driven us out of the city as atheists, because we do not concur in what he publicly preaches, namely, God always, the Son always; as the Father so the Son; the Son co-exists unbegotten with God; He is everlasting; neither by thought nor by any interval does God precede the Son; always God, always Son; he is begotten of the unbegotten; the Son is of God Himself. Eusebius, your brother bishop of Cæsarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregorius, Aetius, and all the bishops of the East, have been condemned because they say that God had an existence prior to that of His Son; except Philogonius, Hellanicus, and Macarius, who are unlearned men, and who have embraced heretical opinions. Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that He is a production, others that He is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that He does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. This is the cause of our persecution, and likewise, because we say that He is of the non-existent. And this we say, because He is neither part of God, nor of any essential being. For this are we persecuted; the rest you know…. (Arius, Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.4.1-4 tr from NPNF series, earlychurchtexts.com) The Question: What did Arians believe about the Trinity? _____________________________________________________________________________ In 325 the Church leaders and Constantine gathered in council at Nicaea, in Bithynia, to discuss the controversy: ______________________________________________________________________________ We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which is in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the living and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion--all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them. (Nicene Creed, CE 325) The question: How does a universal creed change and define the late antique Church? How does this differ from Arian belief? _____________________________________________________________________________ This Nicene Creed is the ancestor of the standard belief statement still used in much of Christianity today. Although Arius was excommunicated, his followers found converts on the frontiers, especially among the barbarian tribes who also saw the unequal relationship between father and Son as sensible and obvious. The Council of Nicaea demonstrated that Christians had little tolerance for variant beliefs. The role of an annoyed Constantine in calling the council was equally important. When the Church accepted the protection and patronage of the empire, it tacitly acknowledged that the Emperor had a great deal of influence on the official theology of the Church. Constantine’s son, for example, was an Arian who recalled the Arian bishops to the court. His short-lived successor, Julian, renounced his Christian upbringing and tried to stem the tide of Christian influence in the Empire. After Julian, the eastern emperors at least tended to be surrounded by the sternly orthodox. The Church remained embroiled in controversy by the time Theodosius made public paganism illegal in 391. Christians still did not agree on the nature of Christ or the Christian life, and confrontations between Christians and pagans had gotten, if anything, more violent since Julian. Those views deemed heresies were given short shrift. By the time of Julian in the mid-fourth century, the Empire had split into two, with the eastern court in Constantinople and the west ostensibly in the city of Rome. In the east, the emperor’s court had remained strong. Some of the best administrators remained in imperial service. The Church was more easily regulated by the court, and the Eastern Roman Emperors continued to control the direction of the church, a system we call Caesaropapism. In the West, on the other hand, the Church grew increasingly self-reliant, in part because of the weakness of the western imperial court. Ambitious and competent Romans of good western families often found the Church to be a better institution for advancement than the court or increasingly powerless local administration. Moreover, the Church was an effective tax shelter. Wealthy Romans could take on a Church career and so save the family fortune. Bishops, being members of a class born to be governors, leaders and ambassadors, could not help but take over local administrations as well. Increasingly, the Bishop of Rome administered the city of Rome as well as the church, and was called the Little Father or “Papa” -“Pope”. The Pope saw himself as uniquely positioned above all other bishops in spiritual authority, based on a text from the Book of Matthew which was subsequently call the Petrine Doctrine. By tradition Peter was the first bishop of Rome, and had been buried in the cemetery on the Vaticanus hill across the Tiber River from the city. ______________________________________________________________________________ 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[ and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[ will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[ bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Matthew 16:18-19, New International Version) 3. The covenant of the truth therefore abides and the blessed Peter, persevering in the strength of the Rock, which he received, has not abandoned the helm of the Church which he accepted. For he was ordained before the rest in such a manner that as he was called the Rock, as he was declared the foundation, as he was constituted doorkeeper of the kingdom of Heaven, as he was appointed judge to bind and loose, whose judgments will retain their validity in Heaven, by all these mystical titles we might perceive the nature of his relationship to Christ. And today he still more fully and effectually performs the office entrusted to him and carries out every part of his duty and his charge in Him and with Him by whom he was glorified. So if any act or decree of ours is righteous, if we obtain anything by our daily supplications from God's mercy, it is his work and his merits, whose power lives in his see and whose authority is so high…. 4. And so, dearly beloved, with reasonable obedience, we celebrate today's festival in such a way that in my humble person he may be recognized and honored, on whom rests the care of all the shepherds, as well as the charge of the sheep commended to him. His dignity is not diminished by even so unworthy an heir. Hence the presence of my venerable brethren and fellow priests, as much desired and valued by me, will be still more sacred and precious if they will transfer the chief honor of this service, in which they have deigned to take part, to him whom they know to be not only the patron of this see but also the primate of all bishops. When therefore we utter our exhortations in your ears, holy brethren, believe that he is speaking whose representative we are, because it is his warning that we give and nothing but his teaching that we preach. (Matthew 16:18-19. Pope Leo,” Sermon 3”). The Question: How did the Pope justify the primacy of Rome in Christianity? How does this impact Rome’s relevance in the years to come? ______________________________________________________________________________ The popes saw themselves as spiritual successors of Peter. Thus, if Jesus had given the powers of decision-making for the Church to his “rock” (Greek Petros), then that power had been spiritually passed down through the succeeding bishops. Leo argued that the Church at Rome – the Roman Catholic Church – thus held primacy among all Christian churches. This would also perpetuate the idea that Rome was eternal, no matter what happened politically. Not surprisingly, Constantinople did not see it that way. The massive, wealthy and glittering New Rome gave short shrift to the claim of a bishop in old Rome that his word topped those of the sophisticated and powerful bishops of the East. On the other hand, while the west was far from agreeing with the Pope’s claim to primacy, westerners preferred the authority of the ancient city of Rome to a seemingly trumped up claim by an eastern city with no saints and practically no portfolio. The Church was by now an urban institution, often dominated by the politics of bishops and local leaders. However, some Christians withdrew into reclusive communities or into solitude so as to be less distracted. The third century Antony and others after him fled into the quiet of the Egyptian desert to hear the commands of God, surviving on donations from pilgrims. Such hermit recluses became known as monks (Greek monachorum for singular). They were noted and revered for their ascetism, an almost total surrender of self and the needs of the body. Note this selection from “Life” of Antony: …