the timboucher experience

This history of Christianity and the Roman Empire are hopelessly intertwined. Constantine was the first Emperor to make Christianity a legal practice, and even claimed to have been converted himself. From a practical standpoint though, Constantine saw the need to syncretically fuse the rising tide of Christianity with the existing pagan religious practices of the Empire. Through a series of decrees, he rearranged the Christian holidays and practices to adhere to Mithraism, the cult of Sol Invictus and other sun worship practices of the time.

Constantine also held the title of “Pontifex Maximus” which meant he was the high priest and titular head of the Roman religion. The current Roman Pope today still holds this title. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity paved the way for the later conversion of the official state religion to Christianity under Theodosius. This tendency of the Romans to co-opt other people’s religions goes way beyond Constantine though. This is an interesting quote by Alice Turner on Roman religious syncretism that I found a while back:

“Romans, though pious, were not much for myth-making. Their native religion was a form of animism quite similar to Japanese Shintoism: groves, streams, even single trees had their own gods, and so did households and courtyards, and each function or aspect of daily life… For their important gods… they adopted Greek myths wholesale, efficiently filling in their own god’s names as protagonists of the stories.

Soldiering in foreign parts, they did exactly the same thing as they marched up to local shrines. A statue of a maiden thus marked the shrine as that of Diana, no matter who the resident Gauls might think she was, and she would be honored accordingly. The practice worked well: since the armies displayed respect and piety, they managed to avoid religious conflict.”

So Romans had a history of adapting their religious traditions in order to maintain social cohesion. What they did with the Christians was merely an extension of what they’d been doing all along. Constantine was smart enough to tell which way the wind was blowing, and hoisted up a very effective sail.

As mentioned above, Christianity didn’t become the official Roman religion until the reign of Theodosius - even though it was at Constantine’s behest that the First Council of Nicea was formed, which established the canon. In an older post on the rise of Christianity in the Empire, I wrote:

Between 380 and 392, Theodosius issued a series of decrees which rested religious authority in the bishoprics of Rome and Alexandria, and gradually outlawed the practice of pagan religions. Pagan feasts which were not already converted to Christian ones were now workdays. Blood sacrifices were outlawed and pagan temples were to be abandoned and in many cases destroyed. Christian churches were quickly built over most of these sites. In 391, the eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta was extinguished and the Vestal Virgins were disbanded.

Some say thet behind most of Theodosius’ decrees was the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose. There is also a story about how Theodosius slaughtered some seven thousand residents of Thessalonica in response to an assassination of one of his military governors. Ambrose promptly excommunicated him and made him do public penance for several months. Though not the Bishop of Rome, Ambrose exerting power over the Emperor became something of a precedent.

By the end of the 4th century, the Bishops of Rome had begun to officially use the title “Pope” which comes from the Latin “papa” for “father.” Pope Siricius is the first to have used the title. (Here’s a chronological list of popes.) Pope, however is an informal title; his formal one (today) is:

“Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God“

I’ll have to look more into the decline of the Emperor’s and the rise of the Popes, but another seemingly important event took place in 452 CE when Pope Leo I prevented Attila the Hun from sacking Rome.

The approaching collapse of the Western Empire gave Leo a further opportunity to appear as the representative of lawful authority. When Attila invaded Italy in 452 and threatened Rome, it was Leo who, with two high civil functionaries, went to meet him, and so impressed him that he withdrew [...]

Of course, the Vandals sacked Rome three years later. And in 476, Romulus Augustus, the last of the Western Emperor was deposed by a “barbarian” named Odoacer. I’m not going to go into all the classical explanations for why the Roman Empire fell. We could be here all night describing that. I’m also not especially clear on how the Holy Roman Empire fits into all this as well, but I do know it had to do with the popes attempting to re-establish a Christian Roman Empire.

What I’m more interested in is looking at the notion (a la Philip K. Dick) that, “The Empire never ended.” Instead, it merely changed to a form which which was more adaptable to the changing state of Europe. I’ve not read much history from this time period in many years, but I’d wager that the centralized rule of the Empire began to break down the farther they spread out. After a certain point, local chieftains could not be kept in line through military force. So they were ruled by something subtler: the influence of Roman Catholic bishops and priests. The Roman Catholic Church maintained the traditions, language and hierarchical organizations of the Empire, but in a way which allowed for more leeway and flexibility. This would also account for why Europe went through such a brutal period of Christianization from the old pagan ways. It wasn’t merely because Christianity was “popular” but that it was a psycho-spiritual means of keeping people under the control of the now Esoteric Roman Empire. As I wrote recently in an article for Story-Systems:

By training people to internalize existing rules and power structures in the shape of quasi-magical stories, religions help maintain the shape of a society while minimizing the need for external controls. In other words, if you can teach everyone in your culture to have a priest, policeman, boss and parent inside of them, it prevents you from needing as many of those in the real world. Simultaneously, it creates a truly deep level of psychological programming which can be triggered as necessary by these people in the real world to keep you in line.

Also the whole concept of Papal “infallibility” seems (to my eyes) to borrow very heavily from the Roman view that the Emperor was a god and should be worshipped as such. This, of course, is always listed as one of the reasons Christians were supposedly persecuted by the Roman Empire - for refusing to worship the Emperor (although I’ve heard it was more likely because they refused to pay taxes). Deciding that a man, even a Pope is infallible, is not at all a far cry from outright worship.

Another interesting aspect of looking at European history like this is the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Sparked and most readily adopted by the Germanic princes, Lutheranism represents another sacking of Rome just over a thousand years later. Again, at this point, nationalistic leaders were seeking to throw off the yoke of foreign intervention by the Papacy. The circumstances are actually not all that dissimilar to the original Germanic tribes which brought Rome to its knees the first time. From there, of course, many other countries broke away and established national churches of their own, outside the jurisdiction of the Popes. It also makes the exploration and conquest of the New World get thrown into a totally different light, to think of the fact that perhaps the (Esoteric) Roman Empire really did finally conquer the world.

Let’s say for a second that this scenario described here is accurate: that the Roman Empire survived destruction by morphing into Catholicism. But then it underwent a second destruction during the Reformation. If it followed the pattern as before - morph and syncretically fuse in order to adapt to new social conditions - then what shape has the Empire taken since the Reformation, the Second Fall of Rome?

Another very interesting angle is the modern history of the Catholic Church’s opposition to communism. Aside from controversy over Pope Pius XII’s relations with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (both of whom borrowed very heavily from Roman history and tradition), it even goes all the way back to the Fatima apparitions of the Virgin Mary. The second secret supposedly revealed by the Virgin Mary herself was that Communist Russia was a threat which needed to be won over to the Pope and Christianity, or else unspeakable terror would seize the world.

On a rather more outlandish tangent, certain fundamentalist Christians nowadays have been trying to interpret the Old Testament prophecies in the Book of Daniel. Someone recently emailed me to say that the European Union is the “Revived Roman Empire” and that this restored union is one of the (many) signs of the impending Apocalypse. I, for one, am more inclined to believe that the Empire never ended…

Just something to think about in the days to come as the next Pope is crowned Esoteric Roman Emperor.

[Also check out this fascinating article called What You Didn't Know About the Popes of Rome.]

• Notes: Bow Tie Sigh
• Reincarnated Pope Excommunicated
• Tarot Pope & Papess
• X-mas
• Foreign Aid