UnitIV.pdf

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Course Learning Outcomes for Unit IV Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Describe the causes and effects of major historical events. 2.1 Discuss the longevity of the Eastern Empire. 2.2 Discuss the fall of the Western Empire.

3. Discuss key individuals in Western culture

3.5 Identify major figures and events in relation to the fall of the Western Empire. Required Unit Resources Chapter 7: Late Antiquity, 250–600 Unit Lesson

Did Rome’s Fall Send Western Societies into the Dark Ages? More than perhaps any other unit in this course, the study of what historians call Late Antiquity (250–600 C.E.) proves how much written history changes as historians learn more about their own biases and examine new evidence. Late Antiquity marks one of the most famous turning points in history, the pivot of the West from the Roman Empire to the medieval world. How did the most powerful human force on earth by 600 C.E. become something else—not a remnant or memory nor a completely bygone era, yet something distinct and new? Why did the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, live on for 1,000 years after the Western Roman Empire disintegrated? Rejecting the older view that Western Rome fell into the Dark Ages, historians now study how Rome was transformed and how Late Antiquity marks a time of great innovation in society and thought (Ward-Perkins, 2005). Where our first modern 18th century historians saw corruption and weakness, current 20th century historians, such as Peter Brown (1982), see creation of new ideas about worship, society, and the purpose of the individual as well as the persistence of some Roman administrative structures and law, particularly through the expansion of the Catholic Church (Bowersock et al., 2012). Consider the questions below, which drive studies into this period.

• What was transformed, preserved, infused from outside, or created anew? • How did the meaning of citizenship and personhood change? • To what degree were Rome Christianized and Christianity Romanized?

Preserving or Recreating the Empire: Diocletian and Constantine

We left the empire in Unit III as chaos broke over Western Rome with Septimus Severus’ death in 211. One emperor after another, including Severus’ descendants, failed to take control. The names assigned to the Crisis of the Third Century, which is also called the Military Crisis or the Imperial Crisis (234–84 A.D.), indicate the degree of strife. Civil war emptied coffers, and the inflation caused by making coins with less silver worsened the economic pain. Without resources for their entertainment, advancement, protection, or care, the

UNIT IV STUDY GUIDE Rome: Fall or Transformation?

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populace near the frontiers became rebellious and the prey of migrating tribes. The famous power of Rome—through the threat of force and promise of citizenship—began to wane. Diocletian (244–305 C.E.) entered his reign in 284 C.E. and was determined to reinforce control through tetrarchy, the division of the empire into four parts with two emperors in the West and two in the East. He halved his power in 286 when he named his comrade in arms Maximian co-emperor and then quartered that power by adding Galeriaus and Constantius in 293. Diocletian rebuilt authority by strengthening the borders, creating a top-down administration based on units called dioceses, enacting ornate ritualized displays of power, and suppressing change. While he was unable to achieve the peaceful succession of power from one generation to the next, his administrative rebuilding of the empire remained through millennia, with his diocese component becoming the basic unit of the Christian Church. Diocletian tried to enforce unity by suppressing Christianity as a dangerous cult. He openly blamed Christian neglect of the gods for Roman military defeats and biting inflation. He was not the first emperor to persecute the Christians. In the 1st century, Nero tried to blame them for the fire he might have caused himself. In the 2nd century, Marcus Aurelius, among those political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli would dub the “Five Good Emperors,” rejected Christianity as incompatible with Roman ideals of public service and reverence for their law. Christians could never have the pietas, or loyalty, of the true Roman citizen. Historians, such as Stephen Mitchell (2014), see the persecution of Christians as the consequence of Diocletian’s true belief in the spurned gods and their vengeance. Other historians see a political calculation—to unify Romans against a Christian scapegoat (Pohlsander, 1996). Diocletian expelled Christians from the army and stripped Christians of legal rights starting in 303 C.E. In three of the four regions of the empire, Christians were forced to worship the Roman gods. In the fourth, Constanius refused to enforce this and allowed Christians to follow their own worship practices. Within 3 years, his son Constantine reversed the anti-Christian policies in 306 C.E. With the Edict of Milan in 313 C.E., tolerance of Christianity became law.

Bust of Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (ca. 1600) displayed at Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, France (Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, ca. 1600)

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Creating Christendom—Constantine and the Formation of the Roman Catholic Church “The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful” (Gibbon, 1782/2008, Chapter 2, Pt. 1, para. 3). How much did Roman authority and ideas shape the new Church? How much did spiritual and political factors figure in Constantine’s decisions? Even during the persecution, and despite the suffering and death of Christians in this 3-year period, Diocletian’s actions helped to build the future strength of the Christian Church. His reorganization of the bureaucratic infrastructure of Rome became the infrastructure of the Church, contributing to its rapid spread and influence once Constantine decriminalized it. However, Constantine went further, ensuring the enduring power of the Christian Church and its control over canon, or official belief. In doing so, he transformed Rome into Christendom, the shared authority through medieval Europe of Christian leadership and rulers. The famous Donation of Constantine is a story that lives on as true, but it is a forgery. The document was supposed to have been commissioned by Constantine before his death to transfer authority over western Rome to the pope of the new Roman Catholic (meaning universal) Church. This is what historians call an apocryphal story, which means one with no foundation in fact, yet it still persists in popular thought. Other apocrypha (false stories) include Newton’s head-splitting apple, Columbus’ ignorance of the shape of the world, and the miraculous ejection of Irish snakes by St. Patrick. As we go through this course, we will revisit all of these. As early as the Renaissance, scholars unmasked The Donation of Constantine as a forgery that was written in language much more recent than the variety of Latin used during Constantine’s reign. Nor are historians sure of the timing of the conversion of Constantine to Christianity or its sincerity given his ruthlessness—including ordering the executions of his own wife and son. Nero also murdered his own mother, and historians have seen this as confirmation of his madness. Did Constantine give up worship of other gods, or was he a philosopher fascinated by all faiths but sure of the political uses of Christianity? Was he a savvy ruler who read the changes in his empire correctly and knew how to exploit them? Was he simply trying to avoid the damages of the varied cult religious practices for a more docile Christian style of worship? These questions may never be resolved, but the idea that Constantine gave Western Rome to the Church, though not literally true, is symbolically accurate. Constantine established the official Church and ensured the emergence of orthodoxy, a sanctioned, correct version of Christianity. Lending his authority to end the divisive debates over Christian belief calmed tensions among the faithful who were increasingly his subjects. Following Diocletian’s lead, Constantine had devised means for enhancing control by harnessing the support of the rising numbers of wealthy and influential Christian believers.

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The Donation of Rome, pictured above, is a fresco in the artistic style of Raphael from the 16th century that depicts a scene that shows Constantine donating vast lands and powers to Pope Sylvester I. The legend

concerning the donation began in the 5th century and was later written down by an unknown author in the 8th century in a document known as the Donation of Constantine. The legend greatly influenced politics and

religion during the Middle Ages until the Donation of Constantine document was proven to be untrue by Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla in the 15th century (Britannica Group, 1998).

(Penni, ca. 1520)

Orthodoxy and Canonicity in the East and West Diocletian’s 3-year revival of Christian persecution had another more lasting and pervasive impact by opening up a bitter and divisive contest among early Christians. People who obeyed Diocletian’s restrictions on their faith and delivered up the names of the noncompliant to authorities were branded traditores (traitors). Donatists—Christians who reviled the traditores—refused to accept them, their priests or bishops, or anyone who received sacraments from them. Christian practices included several sacraments (official rituals) that the ordained priests performed to convey special grace from God, including ordination of new priests, baptism, and marriage. This strife that rippled through communities divided them into smaller and smaller units, magnifying mistrust and slowing the growth of the Church, for how could one know the history of anyone outside of the community? Even before the installation of Christianity as the official church of Rome, acute struggles over what was true Christianity and who were true Christians divided them (Dunstan, 2010). Many debates bloomed about the nature of God, Jesus, and evil, sometimes sowing discord in Roman society. Some of the beliefs of the time are described in detail below.

• Chiliasm or Millennialism is the belief that a 1,000-year golden age would follow the resurrection for the elite in faithfulness, signaled by material gain.

• Gnosticism emphasizes the spirit and intellect and rejection of the body because true faith was the achievement of a special insight or knowledge.

• Montanism embraces ecstatic experience and mysticism as means to salvation and proof of faith. • Arianism favors a remote, majestic, united God beyond human understanding and rejects the idea of

three-in-one or the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The most gripping debate was on the degree of divinity of Jesus (Dunstan, 2010). Was Jesus merely a man favored by God, or was he perhaps a prophet? Was he truly divine in a disguise of flesh, or was he truly human and divine, as many citizens already thought the emperors of Rome were? The Nestorians, who were

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followers of Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, could not accept the merging of the two natures (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020). The more difficult idea to grasp was the Trinity—that God was simultaneously one and three persons in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. Plato’s writings about an ideal reality were also still very influential among Neo-Platonists, particularly in the eastern Hellenistic cities conquered by Rome. For Plato, the divine was so perfect that it was never wholly manifested in this imperfect world. This idea shaped the beliefs of the Arian Christians who emphasized the divine Father and downplayed the Trinity. They believed that far from being God, Jesus was created by God and, therefore, was not the same as that perfect, eternal being. How could God be made or die? On the other hand, Homoousians insisted on what became the orthodox view, that Jesus and God were the same eternal being (Dunstan, 2010; KnowledgeStream, 2015). “Whence comes evil?” If the Christian God is perfect, how do we explain the existence of evil or chaos or death? Should one be a Christian or a Neo-Platonist? Should one follow the Manichaen epic battle between two opposing and equal forces, an evil God of older Hebrew scriptures and a more universal good deity? With more and more of the upper classes converting to Christianity, fractures of faith became political fractures. Constantine moved to counter this factionalism by calling a council of all bishops to settle matters of doctrine and practice once and for all. The Council of Nicaea produced the Nicene Creed (325 C.E.) outlining orthodox belief in the Holy Trinity and squelched Donatists by accepting Traditores back into the fold. By 393 C.E., the Church had also stabilized the canon, meaning the scriptures to be included in the Christian Bible. Constantine went beyond lending his authority to the council. His patronage resulted in salaries or stipends for bishops and priests. He confiscated some Roman temples, rededicated them to Christ, and decked them in Christian imagery. He branded hospitals and other buildings with the cross and other Christian symbols, recreating Rome in the Christian image just as the first Roman emperor Augustus had recreated Rome in his own image centuries before. Constantine invited Church leaders to give him counsel and began to infuse Roman bureaucracy with Christians, a development that led the Church to adopt Roman bureaucratic hierarchy and structure. This tolerance and institutional favoritism was interrupted once by Constantine’s grandson, Julian the Apostate (355–363 C.E.), who issued the Tolerance Edict (362 C.E.) to encourage all religions equally by returning confiscated temples and forcing Christians out of the administration. As a capable philosopher who studied in Athens, he tried to bar Christians from teaching because they refused to teach the Greek epics Julian thought necessary to citizenship. How brief was this moment, though, since Jovian squelched this attempt only a couple years later, in 363–64 C.E. (Dunstan, 2010). By Rome’s fall, the Church administered Roman justice and services in regions where Roman officials were sparse. The ablest thinkers and writers started entering the Church rather than the military or Roman government.

Portraits of Jesus

Why are there so many different versions of Jesus in the art of Late Antiquity? Controversy among early Christians and artistic conventions shaped the changing images of Christ—from young and unbearded to older with white hair and a beard, as mentioned by Dr. Adam Levine in his video that is a part of this discussion. Which image emerged and reflected the evolution of an official Church as well as official views of the nature of Jesus and God? View Portraits of Jesus to see an example of how to use images when learning and writing about history.

The Disappearance of the Western Empire: Fractured or Dissolved?

Historians offer many explanations for the fracture of the Western Roman Empire by 476 C.E., when barbarian commander Odoacer ousted the last emperor, Romulus Augustus (Ward-Perkins, 2005). The Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) survived for another 1,000 years through effective new administrative bureaucracies, enforced religious uniformity, and the creation of an elite class beholden to the

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emperors. Did the Western Empire slowly melt as many factors diluted its authority, or was it broken by dramatic conquests and critical decisions? Some historians agree with Diocletian that, indeed, Christianity brought the empire down. While the fusion generated by Constantine brought stability during his era, Christian values may have resulted in pacifism that devalued traditional Roman militarism. The emperors sought out barbarian mercenaries and accepted offers of barbarian aid to subdue whole regions as more Italians entered the Church and avoided the government or the military. Some historians agree with Marcus Aurelius that the pursuit of life after death, or renunciation of things of this world, made Christians untrustworthy, unreliable citizens. He felt that Rome succeeded through top-down authority and reverence for manmade (Roman-made) law. Still, others argue that the increasing luxury and spectacle of the imperial government set a tone of corruption and licentiousness that destroyed Roman discipline and obedience. Was Rome’s downfall due to poor decisions from inept emperors? Following Diocletian’s lead, Constantine also devised means for enhancing control. He moved the capitol of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, east of Greece, but did this make it more difficult to control the West? Both the economic burdens of taxes and raids by barbarians caused many farmers to flee to the cities. These evacuations left regions empty of administrative or military authority, ripe for the taking. Lastly, it is possible that Romans finally met a people they could not absorb who were neither subdued by force or law nor attracted by citizenship. What cultural bond did the barbarians have that the Romans could not break and that broke Rome instead? The answer is kinship.

From Roman Citizenship to Medieval Fealty (via Kinship) Whatever the cause of weakness, barbarians were the instrument of Rome’s demise, but that does not mean they were so very different or that they obliterated the achievements of Rome. Some barbarian tribes did want to be a part of Rome, and our work in Unit V will reveal the continuities of faith and law the barbarians preserved (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020). The term barbarian in our contemporary culture brings to mind someone violent, uncivilized, oafish, and irrational. However, civilized in this time meant that one accepted Romanization; in other words, barbarians were—by definition—uncivilized because they would not accept the Roman rules of citizenship or their allegiance to abstract laws. They brought something new to the battle: bonds of loyalty based on kinship or family relation. Greeks had insisted that citizenship was defined by place of birth; to become a citizen of another polis or city-state was unthinkable, and given the choice of exile or death, condemned philosopher Socrates drank the poison. Romans generated a new form of citizenship, a portable citizenship based on common allegiance to laws that could be shared with the conquered. However, the barbarians had also innovated a portable citizenship, which was based on sworn loyalty to a leader and a tribe, and it came without the large disparities between the elites and the poor that made Romanization so attractive to the poor living in newly conquered regions. We remember here that the victors write history, but what if they actually could not write? Rome was defeated by the barbarian tribes but not until after senator and famous historian Tacitus (56–120 A.D.) expressed the Roman view that is provided in the “Tacitus on Germanic Society” inset in our textbook (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020, p. 198). Tacitus described barbarians as ignorant, filthy, and easily beaten when drunk. He adds valuable information about how they lived, but because historians well into the 19th century used only documents and not physical artifacts as data, his views greatly colored understandings of non-Roman culture. These historians took the lack of documents as a further sign of barbarism. Recent discoveries of written materials and the use of artifacts to recreate barbarian social organization and beliefs reveal a varied and rich influence that contributed key features to Western history (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020).

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Numerous barbarians invaded the Roman Empire, ultimately bringing about its downfall. The map above shows the routes to Rome taken by Vandals, Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths during the 4th and 5th

centuries A.D. (U.S. Military Academy, n.d.)

Among these features was Christianity itself. Many Germanic tribes were already Christianized, baptized as Arians (followers of the priest Arius and distinct from Aryans) prior to the defeat of the last Roman emperor. Their conquest extended the influence of the Arian glorious and perfect God, even though Arianism was rejected by the Council of Nicaea. Once western Rome splintered into the domains of kings over small regions, Arianism spread quickly since marriages of royalty required mass conversion of their subjects. Without the overarching idea of citizenship, relationships were based on kinship or oaths of loyalty, or fealty, to people and families rather than to the state. Each social or political entity had its comitatus, or war band, sworn to fight on behalf of the leader. Roman policies further contributed to the spread of kinship-based societies (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020). Remember the Crisis of the Third Century when debt destabilized the empire. Measures taken then ultimately undermined the economy by destroying a large, thriving set of people on the rung between rich and poor. The new tax rules allowing payment with produce and animals impoverished the once-comfortable class due to the costs of transport. A law requiring tax collectors to pay their quota, even if the people in their region could not, stripped taxmen of their wealth. Ensuring the constant food supply forced food producers, sellers, and their sons to remain in their professions, and social mobility virtually ended. As the Romans could provide less and less protection, landowners gave up their lands, either fleeing to safety or trading them to a more powerful lord, bartering security for independence (Dunstan, 2010). Roman citizens entered into these ties emulating kinship, swearing fealty and service. With opportunities for mobility through the army or government gone, a once fairly fluid society with a thick slice of comfortable folk quickly became a society of fixed socioeconomic castes with a wide disparity between wealthy and poor. As barbarians migrated into Rome, they also increasingly fought alongside Romans in bands called Foederati, and by the fourth century, barbarians comprised the majority of fighters on either side. Barbarians were involved, then, in the fall of western Rome but also the fight for its preservation. Still, to what extent did their assimilation into Rome change Rome? In the great Roman epic commissioned by first emperor Augustus, the hero Aeneas brings the law, the “gift of Rome,” to humanity. By the close of Late Antiquity, this model of citizenship was transformed into a new

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society steeped in loyalty not to law or state but to specific men. The transition away from the hierarchical, administrative, and unified structure of the empire marked a new distribution of power and a social structure that would become feudalism.

Monasteries, the Church, and the Eternal Rome Christendom referred to that large region where Christian and political authority merged, suggesting a common purpose and unity across Christian regions. In the West, this unity was partial and easily forgotten in fights among rulers. In the East, however, in the Byzantine Empire, that unity was enforced with the Code of Justinian that rationalized and organized the law and standardized the training of lawyers. The Code merged secular and Church law, directing the expulsion of those holding to Roman gods, which included some of the emperor’s closest advisors. Justinian’s enforced uniformity of belief provided unity and stability for centuries by placing himself as the head of both church and state. The Eastern emperors consolidated their hold through centralized administrative bureaucracies headed by an elite class who were beholden to the emperors for their position. Trade and the technical arts, learning, and the expansion of knowledge flourished in the East, which even succeeded in retaking and holding Italy for two centuries before it was lost again. Clearly, Rome survived in the still massive and powerful East. Yet the administrative remnant of the defeated West still structured life in a couple of ways. First, the barbarian rulers relied on Romans with education and government experience to help them adapt and administer Roman law for their new regions. Second, barbarian rulers also accepted the authority of the Church, and like the Romans, they relied on the priests and monks for administrative help, education, and even diplomacy. While the political architecture of Rome lost its pinnacle, that architecture did preserve varieties of Roman law and political organization that continued to influence Western society. Some arts disappeared from the West for centuries, yet this was not a dark time since innovations in thought and the preservation of knowledge were ensured by the monasteries, which were communities of men and women who chose to live apart from society. Monks followed specific ways of living called rules that were designed to increase godliness or service or other spiritual goals, depending on the particular order. The first such order was that of Saint Benedict of Nursia, who founded Monte Cassino in Italy (529 C.E.). By the close of Late Antiquity, there arose two varieties of monastic life, eremitical (hermitical) and cenobitic (communal). Cenobitic monasteries spread throughout Europe and around the Mediterranean, often by adopting the way of life or rule of an existing monastery. The Rule of St. Benedict required a life punctuated with regular prayer, tasks, and duties overseen by an abbot. These came to be known as Benedictine, and many still exist. Benedictine monks promised to prize stability, fidelity or faithfulness, and obedience. Other promises could include vows of chastity or poverty, but these varied in importance depending on the order. Monasteries often became the centers of towns and regions, sometimes acting as landlords and sometimes as servants to the community—and often as both (Benedict of Nursia, 1948).

The Body Mirrors the Soul: The Flight From Greco-Roman to the Christian Ideals of Body and Self Representations of the body vary through time, suggesting unique understandings of the self, community, and world. In Unit III, we saw how Romans and Greeks viewed training of the body differently. For Romans, the physique and the skill of the body were trophies marking nobility or discipline. The beautiful body was an adornment or even a fashion statement earning cultural capital, meaning respect and influence (Newby, 2005). The Roman body was a means of power; if disciplined, but when not restrained, it unleashed desire dangerous to the state. For the Greeks, the body and soul were united as the instrument of the citizen male’s function in the polis. The right ordering of the parts of this Greek body-soul was at the heart of justice and order. In Late Antiquity, possibly due to the sustained influence of the preference for the spirit or mind as the gateway to salvation, the body came to be seen as the source of sin and entwinement in worldly corruption. The practice of asceticism—the extreme renunciation of comfort or pleasures—became the mark of holiness (Brown, 1982). A clear mistrust of the body and desire flooded the ascetic practices of monks and priests, devaluing to some extent even the lives of married Christians and women. Influential theologian St. Augustine famously wrote,

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“God make me chaste—but not yet.” St. Augustine did not see the body or sex as evil but as the choice of a lesser good. He saw human desire and the body as almost a prison of sin inhabited from birth, even though official doctrine insisted that human nature was good and that the body would be resurrected as a valuable part of God’s plan. Nevertheless, his life among the ascetic monks who quit civilization to avoid temptation shaped this mistrust of the body. Late Antiquity used the body in a new way—as a housing for the spirit that was necessary but could lead to sin if not controlled. Chastity and abstinence became increasingly desirable paths to godliness, and virginity became a valued symbol of piety. “Marry if you must” is a paraphrase of a letter written by early Christian St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 (Brown, 1982). In St. Augustine’s view, humanity takes on the image of God most closely in the intellect of men rather than in the body. The trace of the great intelligence of God marks the minds of men and can be recovered through prayer and reflection. Women were not evil—just less perfect due to the belief that they failed to use their intellect as much as men did. He believed that women best expressed Christianity, then, by overcoming their gender in this world. Roman culture viewed women as either good mothers or distractions, a trap for emotions that could pull men from their duty to the state. In Christianity, women could distract from the business of salvation, or they could reach their highest potential by renouncing their genders and sex (Brown, 1982). This is not a simple or complete story since some women were regarded as capable and holy, including St. Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, and abbesses leading independent monasteries or convents for women. In the East, Emperor Justinian, the champion of Christianity and the head of the Church, ruled with his wife, Theodora, who contributed to interpretations of scripture, shaped political decisions, and ensured that women had property rights. Still, the flesh that had been a proud adornment and vehicle of citizenship in the ancient world took on new meaning in Late Antiquity (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020).

Literary Masterpieces of the Church Fathers Traditional non-Christian Roman philosophy continued as a powerful force in Late Antiquity, clearly shaping Christian literature. The most famous is The Consolation of Philosophy (524 C.E.) written by Roman statesman Boethius during his imprisonment by Theodoric. Recorded as conversations with Lady Philosophy, his beautiful writings clearly show the influences of the Greek philosophers and their echoes in Christian theology on predestination and free will (Boethius, 1962/2011). The debates establishing Christian belief tended to focus attention on specific men whose speech and writing built the theological and intellectual foundations of historical Christianity. Ignatius, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Rome and Clement of Alexandria, and Ambrose: these Church Fathers stabilized the ideas of the Trinity in some of the most striking literature of Western culture, which they called apologies on the Christian faith. Apology, as used here, is in the Greek sense of rationale or explanation. Rather than a penitent or regretful confession of a wrongdoing, these apologetics explained and defended the new faith. In this admirable brotherhood, St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.) shines to this day as one of the most influential of Christian apologists and theologians, cementing the new orthodoxy by reinterpreting the wisdom of Greece and Rome. He rejected the charges of the Diocletians and Marcus Aurelius that Christians threatened Roman civilization. In his theological masterpiece, The City of God (426 C.E.), St. Augustine reevaluated the role of Christianity in human history as the fruit of Providence—God acting through the might and law of Rome to fulfill His aims for human salvation. He redrew Christianity not as the enemy of civilization but as its fruition (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020). St. Augustine retained the Platonic idea that evil is not a separate force or being but simply the absence of good or the choice of a lesser good. At the same time, though, The City of God explained original sin as a necessary attribute of all human beings that was acquired at birth and corrupted the will, preventing them from recognizing and choosing the greatest good. These ideas shaped the theologies of most Christian denominations, both Catholic and Protestant. The City of God also framed just war theory—legitimate causes for Christians to make war and ethical behaviors of Christians during war. This development alone has had tremendous influence both on the shaping of medieval life and on political and human rights theory to date (Weisner-Hanks et al., 2020). It is his autobiography, The Confessions of Saint Augustine (397–400 C.E.), though, that stands as one of the greatest works of world literature. He crafted the story of his own journey to conversion as a journey through

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worldly temptations and philosophical and spiritual yearning. Steeped in the knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophers, St. Augustine set out to appropriate the great epics for the Christian pilgrim. A master of the art of writing and self-presentation, or rhetoric, he understood that each society had infused the story of the hero’s journey with lessons and values critical to that culture (Saint Augustine, 401/2001). From the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, to the Greek Odyssey and Iliad, to the Roman Aeneid, each deliberately adapted existing versions of the same story to claim the authority of that older tradition and to infuse new meaning. The most obvious example is the revision of Homer’s great Greek epic The Odyssey in order to shape Roman citizens. Commissioned by Caesar Augustus himself, Virgil’s The Aeneid transforms the journey of Odysseus and Greek heroism—personal loyalty, captivating speech, inspiring charisma, military prowess, incisive and innovative thought, and hospitality—into the personification of the Roman ideals of pietas—loyalty to the state, discipline, courage, obedience, public service, and physical might. The Roman version by Virgil deliberately echoes the Greek journey and its encounters, monsters, and underworld epiphanies in an artful transformation of a Greek culture into Roman glory. St. Augustine sets himself an even more difficult task—fusing the epic stories of heroism with the following events:

• the journey of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis, • the life of Jesus, and • the journey of each Christian toward conversion.

Regardless of one’s faith, this is a brilliant book that presents St. Augustine’s search for meaning in the philosophies and religions of his day, artfully leading to the moment of conversion for himself and his reader. As the story progresses, it moves from echoing the pagan epics to echoing scenes from scriptures his Christian readers would recognize. Whether reading as a Christian or as a lover of literature or philosophy, there are many reasons for declaring The Confessions to be one of the great works of world literature.

Conclusion The complexity of this turn of historical time teaches us to question familiar historical labels or simplified stories that may reflect older assumptions. Rome fell but not into nothingness. It broke into the medieval world, which had its own complex political and social forms.

References Bearded Christ [Painting]. [ca. 380 A.D.]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=509516 Benedict of Nursia. (1948). St Benedict’s rule for monasteries (L. J. Doyle, Trans.). Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html Boethius. (2011). The consolation of philosophy (R. H. Green, Trans.). Martino Fine Books. (Original work

published 1962) Bowersock, G. W., Brown, P., & Grabar, O. (Eds.). (2012). Late Antiquity: A guide to the postclassical world.

Belknap. Brown, P. (1982). Society and the holy in Late Antiquity. University of California. Christ as Sol Invictus [Mosaic]. [ca. 250 A.D.]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=508830 Christus Ravenna [Mosaic]. (526 A.D.). Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2069012 Britannica Group. (1998). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Donation-of-Constantine

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Dunstan, W. E. (2010). Ancient Rome. Rowman & Littlefield. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus [Marble bust]. [ca. 1600]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diocletien_Vaux1.jpg Gibbon, E. (with Milman, H. H.). (2008). History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (Vol. 1). Project

Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm (Original work published 1782)

Jesus as the good shepherd [Painting]. [ca. 250 A.D.]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=509456 KnowledgeStream. (2015). The image of Christ in Late Antiquity [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86hjoDMmQiQ Mitchell, S. (2014). A history of the later Roman Empire, AD 284-641 (2nd ed.). Wiley.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com Newby, Z. (2005). Greek athletics in the Roman world: Victory and virtue. Oxford University Press. Penni, G. [ca. 1520]. The donation of Rome [Painting]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Donazione_di_Roma.jpg Pohlsander, H. A. (1996). The emperor Constantine. Taylor & Francis. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com Saint Augustine. (2001). The confessions of St. Augustine (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm (Original work published 401 A.D.) Traditio legis [Painting]. [ca. 350]. Wikimedia Commons.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=510313 U.S. Military Academy. (n.d.). Routes of the barbarian invaders, 5th century AD [Graphic]. Wikimedia

Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Routes_of_the_barbarian_invaders,_5th_century_AD.gif#filehistory

Ward-Perkins, B. (2005). The fall of Rome and the end of civilization. OUP Oxford.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com Weisner-Hanks, M. E., Crowston, C. H., Perry, J., & McKay, J. P. (2020). A history of Western society: From

Antiquity to the Enlightenment (13th concise ed., Vol. 1). Bedford/St. Martin’s. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781319112547

Suggested Unit Resources To access the following resources, click the links below. The City of God, Volumes I and II, dive into the question of how to live in the politics of one’s day and the difference between the flesh and the spirit. Saint Augustine is the most influential Church Father of Late Antiquity, shaping the beliefs of all Christian denominations to this day. The Confessions of Saint Augustine transforms his biography and Greek and Roman hero epics into a Christian story of conversion. The following resources provide the first justification of holy or just war. Augustine, A. (2014). The City of God, Volume I (M. Dods, Ed. & Trans., G. Wilson, & J. J. Smith, Trans.).

Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45304/45304-h/45304-h.htm (Original work published 401 A.D.)

HIS 1305, Western Civilization I 12

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title

Augustine, A. (2014). The City of God, Volume II (M. Dods, Ed. & Trans. & G. Wilson, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45305/45305-h/45305-h.htm (Original work published 401 A.D.)

Saint Augustine. (2001). The confessions of St. Augustine (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm (Original work published 401 A.D.)