AUGUSTUS (2), Prince of Peace
In the wake of the decisive Battle of Actium, Octavian emerged as the sole master of the Roman world and ruled the Roman Empire for 45 years, until his death in A.D.14. Although his rise to power was always suspect, he succeeded in overhauling and reforming almost every Roman institution. He also established a long period of peace, tolerance and stability called the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). His fellow Romans believed they had seen the end of war and strife, and they hailed him as the “Prince of Peace” and benefactor of mankind. The reforms of Augustus as well as his long life contributed to the idea that he was something more than human -- he was certainly a hero, the Romans thought, perhaps even a god as depicted by the famous sculpture Augustus of Primaporta, which you will study in your Art History class.
Augustus’ unintentional contributions to Christianity are essential to understand the growth of the new faith, as he not only helped provide the conceptual framework for Jesus (as “Son of God”, “Savior” and “Prince of Peace”), but also provided Paul and other early Christian missionaries the physical infrastructure that enabled them to travel quickly and safely.
Augustus, “Prince of Peace”
On January 13, 27 B.C., Octavian appeared before the Roman Senate and laid down his supreme powers. It was at this time that Octavian took the name of Augustus Caesar. The Senate had been purged of its dubious members and reduced from about 1000 members to 800. The majority of these men were solid supporters of Augustus (indeed, they were handpicked by Augustus). Augustus proclaimed that he had restored the Republic. The Senate voted to allow Augustus to govern in for ten years which he gladly accepted. Despite all the pomp and circumstance which accompanied this, the plain fact was that he was now left with total control of the armed forces of the Roman State. The Senate took an oath of allegiance to Augustus as emperor (imperator). In 23 B.C., Augustus was granted the authority of tribune for life. This enabled him to have ultimate veto power and also to deal directly with the people. His system of reforms saved the Empire, but in the long run spelled the death of representative institutions. Augustus never did away with these institutions; he merely united them under one person -- himself. He was consul, tribune, chief priest of the civic religion and the public censor. He ruled by personal prestige: he was princeps (first citizen among equals; you might recognize our English word for “Prince”) and his rule is referred to as “Principate”. He was the supreme ruler, the king, the emperor and his authority (auctoritas) was absolute.
The reign of Augustus signified the end of civil war and the beginning of a long period of Peace called “Pax Romana”, allowing Christian missionaries such as Paul or Barnabas to spread the Christian message in relative safety. To prevent internal wars, Augustus strengthened his soldiers’ loyalty by assuring that veterans, on discharge, would receive substantial bonuses and land. He also organized a professional army made up mostly of volunteers loyal to him, and created the Praetorian Guard, a private army of about 9,000 men responsible for his personal security. To gain the support of both the Romans and the subjects of Rome who had been conquered, Augustus their living standards. For example, he had aqueducts, theaters and sewers built, improved the distribution of free grain and created a fire brigade to prevent large fires, especially in Rome whose houses were mainly built out of wood. He reduced corruption, military and tax abuse. Cities prospered. Also contributing to his empire wide popularity was his practice of not interfering with the traditional customs and religions of the provinces, even using local notables as Roman administrators in exchange for their loyalty in a process called “Romanization”. This official tolerance for alternative religions greatly facilitated Paul’s missionary work as Eastern religions were welcome with open arms during Augustus’ reign.
The Augustan reforms underlying the Pax Romana also envisioned a fundamental change in Roman culture itself. Augustus tried to turn Rome into a world capital and taught the Romans to identify their destiny with the destiny of all mankind. They were the chosen people who would bring peace, morals and stability to a violent and changing world. It is during this critical time that Paul started preaching a Christian message that seemed to be the very expression of these Roman ideals. The values of classical humanism were no longer seen by the Romans as exciting but boring, and they were increasingly drawn to a new vision of the divine based on mystic, magic and the afterlife. In this context, many Romans became devotees of the many Eastern religious cults that promised personal salvation, including Christianity. Instead of embracing the “here and now”, the Romans started to feel a spiritual vacuum that could only be filled with a divine presence greater than human power. As you will find out in your Art History class, Augustus had tried to fill the vacuum by introducing the practice of emperor worship. Many of the Eastern provinces were already used to the concept of divine rulers and quickly embraced the worship of Augustus. However, in Italy, where the deification of leaders was alien to the republican spirit, many Romans remained skeptical of the notion of a god-king, especially after the death of Augustus and the rise of incompetent rulers such as Caligula or Nero.
The proliferation of oriental mystery religions was a clear expression of this disenchanted view of both classical values and divine leadership. These religions had many common features. Their rites were secret and involved rites of initiation, purification through baptism, fasting, drinking from a secret vessel, a sacred meal and the promise of immortality. Of special significance was the cult of Mithras, which had certain parallels with early Christianity and was its principal competitor. Originating in Persia, Mithraism spread westward into the Roman Empire. Because it stressed respect for the masculine virtues of bravery and camaraderie, it became popular with many Roman soldiers stationed in the East. Mithras, a Persian warrior deity also associated with the sun and justice, had as his mission the rescuing of humanity from evil. His birthday was celebrated on December 25th, and was said to demand high standards of humanity, to judge souls after death, and to grant eternal life to his faithful follower. Reminds you of someone?!...
Augustus’ infrastructure (roads, postal service) helps missionaries like Paul spread the Christian message
Augustus wanted to secure the northern frontiers against Barbarian attacks. Civil wars had involved the army and had led to a weakening of the frontiers of the border. First, he consolidated the frontiers. His policy was to extend the northern frontier (the Rhine and Danube Rivers) no further and to better control what remained with an extensive highway system which allowed legions to quickly move throughout the Empire. The paved roads were built to exacting specifications: straight, graded, through tunnels, and over bridges. The Roman road system comprised some 50,000 miles of first class highways, stretching from Syria in the east to Britain in the west. Rome remained the center of the highway system, and each mile of road had a cylindrical stone milepost, which told the distance between that point and the Forum Romanum in the city of Rome (also built by Augustus). The center point of this road system was the Golden Milestone, a gilded bronze monument erected by the Emperor Augustus in the central Forum of Ancient Rome. All roads were considered to begin from this monument and all distances in the Roman Empire were measured relative to that point hence the popular expression that “all roads lead to Rome”. Moreover, all the major cities in the empire and distances to them were listed on the “miliarium aureum”. Originally built to facilitate the movement of the legions, this road system was inevitably used for other purposes such as trade. Civilians would also use it, and most notably religious missionaries such as Paul of Tarsus, a Hellenized Jew who was able to travel and spread the Christian message to many Romans of the Eastern Empire.
Paul brings message to the Gentiles
In this context, the timing for Paul’s message of eternal life and compassion was perfect. Not long after Jesus reportedly rose from the dead, his disciples began to preach his message throughout Judea with mixed results. They were persecuted by a Jewish rabbi from Tarsus (a stoic center in current-day Turkey) named Saul, whose mission was to persecute the early Christians. According to legend, he saw Jesus who told him: “why do you persecute me?” After this vision, he became the most active and dynamic missionary for the new faith and became known as Paul.
In some ways, Paul is even more important to the spread of Christianity than Jesus himself was. After an unsuccessful bid to preach to his fellow Jews the idea that Jesus was Messiah, Paul decided to leave Israel and preach to the Gentiles (non-Jews) all throughout the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. His primary importance in the history of Christianity is that he took what was essentially a small fringe element within Judaism and turned it into an international religion with Churches established throughout the Roman Empire. Paul brought Christianity to the Romans and turned Jesus into a universal hero transcending boundaries and time. How did that happen? Despite Jesus’ earlier claim that he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), Paul’s decision to portray Jesus as Son of God sympathetic to the Gentiles was central to spread Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God. So was his decision to get rid of some Jewish rituals and practices (such as the circumcision) to make the new born religion more appealing to the gentiles. His work was also greatly facilitated by the use of the Septuagint (Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures redacted in the 3d and 2d centuries BCE) in a Roman world that was mostly bilingual (Greek and Latin).
Finally, the unity and stability brought about by Augustus’ Pax Romana enabled Christians like Paul or Barnabas to travel huge distances in relative safety, spreading the message of Christianity to a much wider audience than would otherwise have been possible. His travels took him to such important cities as Galatia, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus and later Rome. There, Paul helped create local Churches and after a while, he would move on to the next city to spread his message. In order to stay in touch with the local churches that he had helped create, Paul was able to send letters or epistles thanks to the postal service that Emperor Augustus had established a few years before. The service was provided with light carriages with fast horses. Additionally, there was another slower service reserved for government correspondence equipped with two-wheeled carts pulled by oxen. Another service for citizens was later added, the one Paul used to mail his epistles. Unlike the rest of the Apostles, who were simple illiterate men, Paul was highly educated, had a great command of the Greek language and a great writing style---all of which helped him greatly in his missionary activities. Because no texts had yet been written about the life and teachings of Jesus, Paul's numerous letters or epistles became a primary source of information about Christianity to men and women throughout the Empire.
In 62CE, he was arrested by Jewish authorities on the charge of blasphemy and treason. Turned over to the Roman authorities, he was taken to Rome, where for two years he awaited trial. During this time he managed to preach the Christian message to large numbers of Romans. He was put to death and became a martyr during the reign of Nero (next handout).
Imperial Cult in crisis
When Augustus died in A.D.14, a crisis of leadership made Jesus and Christianity a much better alternative than imperial worship. This crisis arose basically because the senatorial class was unsure of their political power. Indeed, they could control administration of the State, but true power lay in the hands of Augustus alone. After the death of Augustus, Tiberius (42 B.C.-A.D. 37; emperor, A.D. 14-37), the stepson of Augustus, became the leader of the state. A rather dark, vengeful, complex man and a soldier by training, Tiberius was suspicious of the Senate who were equally worried about his behavior. The reign of Tiberius eventually became a tyranny -- in the wake of his paranoia, dozens of members of the Senate and equestrians were denounced and killed. The reign of Tiberius ended the illusion that the Republic had been restored and revealed some of the future of the Principiate.
Imperial power fell to the megalomaniac, Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41; emperor, 37-41) the third child of Augustus' adopted grandson, Germanicus, and Augustus' granddaughter, Agrippina. Gaius accompanied his parents on military campaigns and was shown to the troops wearing a miniature soldier's outfit, including a sandal called caliga, hence the nickname, Caligula. According to the will of Tiberius, Caligula and his cousin Tiberius Gemellus were joint heirs. Caligula ordered Gemellus killed and with the support of the Praetorian Prefect, he declared Tiberius’ wish void on the grounds of insanity. Caligula then accepted the powers of the Principiate. His popularity was great but within four years he was assassinated by discontented members of his bodyguard. Ancient and modern sources would agree -- Caligula was insane. The stories of Caligula's insanity are well known: his excessive cruelty, incestuous relationships with his sisters (he deified Drusilla), laughable military campaigns (picking up sea shells as the "spoils of war") and the plan to make his horse a consul. Of course, we could easily argue that Caligula was merely pushing the limits of the imperial cult, something already established by Augustus. Caligula would years later be replaced by another inept Emperor, Nero, the subject of our next handout and fiercest enemy of the Early Christians.