Augustus

Without entering into a minute description of his sufferings, which are particularized by Eusebius and Lactantius, it is perfectly right to observe that he who delighted so long to make men feel the most exquisite misery might say at last with Adonai Bezek, As I have done, so God hath requited me.

Maximin attempted to succeed him in all his eastern dominions, but was prevented by Licinius, whom Galerius had nominated Augustus, who took possession of Asia Minor.

But Syria and Egypt, with their dependencies, remained still under Maximin.

Here he renewed the persecution with much malevolence and artifice.

There, from the beginning of his reign, Gracchus the prefect, as yet only a catechumen, labored earnestly to subdue idolatry.

The mind of this young prince being strongly fixed on divine things and being conscious of ignorance, he wrote to Ambrose of Milan to this effect.

Quote, Gratian Augustus to Ambrose the religious priest of Almighty God.

I much desire to be present in body with him whom I remember absent and with whom I am united in mind.

And then followed the memorable act which is a turning point in the history of Europe.

At the close of the solemn service in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, the pope advanced to the king as he knelt before the high altar and placed a crown upon his head, while the multitude broke forth into a shout, To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor, be life and victory.

Charles, the king of the Franks, the conqueror of the Lombards, the Saxons, and the Avars, the protector of Christendom against the Saracens and the Northmen, rose from his knees on that wonderful day, bearing a title greater than all others, a title laden with mighty memories of the past and charged with mighty consequences for the future.

End of section 1.

And then followed the memorable act which is a turning point in the history of Europe.

At the close of the solemn service in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, the Pope advanced to the king as he knelt before the high altar and placed a crown upon his head, while the multitude broke forth into a shout, To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor, be life and victory.

Charles, the king of the Franks, the conqueror of the Lombards, the Saxons and the Avars, the protector of Christendom against the Saracens and the Northmen, rose from his knees on that wonderful day bearing a title greater than all others, a title laden with mighty memories of the past and charged with mighty consequences for the future.

End of section 1.

In religious affairs above all, they found themselves always face to face with men to whom the city by the Tiber was still Roma caput mundi.

Hence, in all these new barbarian kingdoms that arose on the ruins of the empire, there was a certain feeling of precariousness and unrest, a secret fear that the power which had come into being so strangely and so unexpectedly would in a moment vanish away, and that the Roman Augustus would assert himself once more as supreme over the nations To borrow a phrase from the controversies of a much later date, the Visigothic and Burgundian and Lombard kings were obviously kings de facto.

But there was a latent consciousness in the minds of their subjects, perhaps in their own also, that they were not kings de jure.

Had the Italian peninsula been less easily accessible by way of the Julian Alps, or had Rome been situated in as strong a position as Constantinople, it is possible that this secret belief in her rightful predominance might have won back for a Roman emperor the dominion over Europe which was in fact wielded for a time by the Roman popes.

But the virtual transference of the seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus, which was the result of the foundation of the new Rome and the frequent successful sieges of the old Rome, prevented the Roman emperor from thus reasserting himself.

There were jealousies between Rome and Constantinople already before the end of the 4th century, and when under Justinian the empire made its wonderful efforts to recover the ground which it had lost in Africa, in Italy, and in Spain, though these reconquests were affected in the name of a Roman Augustus, it was felt, and often loudly asserted, that the armies which fought under the imperial standards were Greek rather than Roman.

Thus through all the kingdoms of the West, even while the emperor enthroned at Constantinople was looked upon as in some sense the legitimate monarch of the world, the old deep-rooted hostility between East and West also made itself felt, and it was becoming every day more improbable that the Western lands should ever be brought under the rule of a Byzantine Caesar.

Ere the long slow agony which I have called the death of Rome was completed, the world was startled by that outbreak of fierce Semitic monotheism which is associated with the name of Mohammed.

Two.

For know, O most religious Augustus, that these things have been preached from the beginning, and that this faith was confessed by the fathers who assembled at Nicaea, and that it has the assent of all the churches in every place, those in Spain and Britain, and those of Gaul and of all Italy and Dalmatia and Dacia and Mysia, Macedonia and all Greece, and those in all Africa and Sardinia and Cyprus and Crete and Pamphylia and Lycia and Isauria, and those in Egypt and the Libyas and Pontus and Cappadocia and the churches near us, and those in the East, except a few who hold Arianism.

For we know by experience the minds of all the above-named, and we also possess letters of theirs, and you know, most religious Augustus, that even if some few persons contradict this faith, they cannot prejudice it, when all the world is holding the apostolic faith.

For those men, having long been infected with the Arian heresy, are now more contentious in their resistance to true religion.

And that your piety may know it, although you do know it, we have still taken care to subjoin the faith confessed by the bishops at Nicaea.

But those who say, quote, once he was not, unquote, and, quote, before he was begotten he was not, unquote, and that, quote, he was made out of nothing, unquote, or say that the Son of God is from another substance or essence, or is created or changeable or alterable, are anathematized by the Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Four.

In this faith, O Augustus, it is necessary that all should abide, since it is divine and apostolic, and that no one should disturb it by subtleties and logomaches, as the Arian fanatics have done, who say that the Son of God is from nothing, and that once he was not, and that he is created and made and changeable.