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The Evolution of Imperial and Post-Imperial Monarchy in a Religious Context During the Transition from a Pre-Christian to a Christian Roman Empire and After

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The Evolution of Imperial and Post-Imperial Monarchy in a Religious Context During the Transition from a Pre-Christian to a Christian Roman Empire and After The evolution of Imperial and post-Imperial monarchy in a religious context during the transition from a pre-Christian to a Christian Roman Empire and after MPhil Academic year 2013/14 Glyn Bryan 001059115 DECLARATION This work has not been submitted in substance for any other degree or award at this or any other university or place of learning, nor is being submitted concurrently in candidature for any degree or other award. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 18/12/2013 STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MPhil Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 18/12/2013 STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. The views expressed are my own. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 18/12/2013 STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 18/12/2013 STATEMENT 4: PREVIOUSLY APPROVED BAR ON ACCESS I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Academic Standards & Quality Committee. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 18/12/2013 i Summary This dissertation traces the evolution of the religious context of monarchy in a Roman and post-Roman context. Beginning with the formation of the Imperial cult and progressing on to certain other aspects of the relationship between emperors and the divine it seeks to show how the religious aspect of monarchy evolved during the rise of Christianity, as well as the role the Church played in the formation of a Christian definition of monarchy. It then goes on to show how this definition was applied to the Germanic kings who ruled over the early post-Roman successor states in the West. Although emperors were largely defined by the political and military powers they held, there was also the religious aspect of their role which helped give then authority in the religious sphere of public life. Furthermore, the creation of the Imperial cult venerated deceased and divinised emperors as well as the genius of the one in office at the time, so the emperors of Rome enjoyed a very high religious status, with sacrifices and temples being dedicated to the various divi. As Christianity rose to prominence it challenged the established place of the emperor in the religious life of the Empire, and eventually supplanted the pagan ideal of an emperor with its own Christian notion of a god-appointed ruler. This idea became embedded in Christian Roman religious thought, although significant vestiges also remained of the pagan past. The migration of Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire and their growing influence on it meant that Germanic kings and other notables rose to prominence. Many were converted to Christianity along with many of their followers, and the Church applied its Christian definition of monarchy to these kings as it had done ii previously to the emperors, especially when Germanic kingdoms emerged in the 5th century on former Roman territory. This, along with the continued use or adoption of other Roman practices resulted in a certain degree of continuity between the Roman Empire and the Germanic kingdoms. iii Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The formation and evolution of the Imperial cult in the pre- 5 Christian Empire Chapter 2: The cult of the Emperor during the transformation from the 44 pre-Christian to the Christian Empire Chapter 3: The legal and theological place of the emperor in religious 79 thought in the Christian Empire Chapter 4: The transition from a Roman to a Germanic context 112 Bibliography 144 iv Introduction The purpose of this work is to study the definition of the role of the Roman emperors in a religious context in and the influences that this exercised on religious practice both in a pre-Christian and Christian context. By focusing on the Imperial cult in the earlier part of the study before shifting to the place of the emperor in Christian thought in later chapters the intention is to trace the development of the concept of the divinely-anointed ruler that would define many medieval European monarchies. One of the most prominent monarchies to emerge in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, and certainly one of the most long-lived, would be that of the Franks, and it is to here that the study will look to trace the evolution of the religious context of an early medieval Christian monarchy with comparative references made to other post-Roman kingdoms. It is during this period that we start to see a clearer divergence between religious and secular matters which in the pre-Christian empire was harder to trace. Up until the advent of Christianity religious matters were largely dealt with by people who also held secular positions. The emperor, for example, was also Pontifex Maximus or Chief Priest, and many senior politicians also held priestly office. Under the Christian empire religion became more the preserve of full-time professional priests and bishops. Although not a true separation of powers as we come to recognise it in the modern era, this increasing professionalization of religion does result in the first clear separation of certain key functions previously concentrated in the role of a monarch. With the survival of the Church into the era of post-Roman successor kingdoms this separation of functions became embedded in the constitutional makeup of many Western European countries. 1 The following work begins by focussing in the first chapter on the evolution of the definition of the place of Emperor in a religious context and also on the emergence of the Imperial cult, which was one of the primary means by which the place of the emperor in relation to the gods was defined. All societies were highly religious at this time, and the Roman Empire was no exception. As a result of his role as Pontifex Maximus of the Empire, an office Augustus first took up in 12 BC on the death o Lepidus, the Emperor of Rome had an important role in the conduct of religious policy of the Empire. He was also an important presence in ceremonies prior to and during important military campaigns and other noteworthy state occasions, as depicted on the Ara Pacis in the case of Augustus or on Trajan‘s Column in the case of Trajan, where the latter is depicted presiding over a sacrifice prior to the Roman invasion of Dacia. When it came to recognising the religious status of past and present emperors the main focus of the vast majority of population, or at least that section of the population that mattered, would have been on the Imperial cult. Starting out as an eastern ruler cult that came to be applied to prominent Romans who campaigned in and then governed the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean, the cultic practice of worshiping rulers as gods soon spread to Rome, starting with the divinising of Julius Caesar by Augustus1. By the late first and early second century, the Imperial cult had become sufficiently established to be a useful means of testing the loyalty of Imperial subjects suspected of being Christians, as borne out in Pliny the Younger‘s letters to the Emperor Trajan. Whether sacrificing to a divinised emperor or to the genius of the living one, it was clear by this point that the Emperor was above every other citizen or subject, and this was to remain the incontestable case throughout the history of the empire. 1 Suetonius, 1913edn, Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe, Divus Iulius p143 2 Even while the emperors were playing their part in the religious transformations of the 3rd and 4th centuries, the religious definition of the role of emperor did not change that much. The transition from a pagan to a Christian empire did not undermine the position of emperor since the Church, unable and unwilling to contest the existence of the emperor, had developed a definition of the place of the emperor in a Christian context partly in response to the Imperial cult. When the Empire became Christian, this definition, which was only a slight alteration of the pagan one, became established, and so the emperor retained his senior position in religious life. However, his power did not remain entirely undiminished. As a result of the separation of the religious function from the secular ones, the emperor now had to contend with an autonomous church that was able to periodically challenge him. The stand-off between Archbishop Ambrose of Milan and Theodosius was a symptom of this. The emperor had depended on the goodwill of other institutions such as the army for some time so this development was not unique, but it was rather more formal and could not be undone by later medieval rulers. The Church outlived the Western Empire, and when the latter finally disappeared in the later 5th century the Germanic kingdoms which succeeded it ended up adopting similar Christian religious principles in relation to their kings that the Roman Empire did in relation to its emperors. This was down to the teaching of the Church which was able to wield a considerable influence over a significantly less Romanised and less technically sophisticated ruling class than it was accustomed to dealing with under the Roman Empire. The following work will be divided up thus: Chapter 1 will cover the origins of the Imperial cult and the position of the emperor in pagan practice.
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