Imperium Sine Fine

Pastor’s Epistle—July 2021

Why was Christianity illegal in the Roman Empire? The Romans were notoriously promiscuous when it came to religion, incorporating native and foreign gods: Sabine, Latin, Greek, Egyptian, Anatolian, Mesopotamian. Any and all gods would do in a pinch. This, they believed, was what set them apart: their ability to “care for the gods.” Thus the gods granted centuries of success to the Roman Republic and to the Empire after it.

So why single out Christianity for persecution? Monotheism wasn’t the problem, not really. Judaism was a protected religion within the Empire, largely because it was old, and Romans respected nothing so much as age. But there were Greeks too who were Platonists, Stoics, or Peripatetics—all philosophical schools that believed in one God. The Empire never seems to have had much problem with them.

The real reason for Christianity’s periodic persecution, in the centuries before Constantine legalized the faith, had to do with the fact that the Church was in many ways understood as an alternate empire, an alternate city of God, with Christ as the true Emperor. Keep in mind that many of Jesus’ titles—Son of God, King of Kings, Lord and Savior of the World—were also names by which Augustus Caesar was known. We’ve all seen bumper-stickers that claim, “Jesus Is My President.” Well, 2000 years ago, “Jesus Is My Emperor” would have been the similar sentiment.

And it’s not just that Christians preferred a different ruler; it’s that the rule of Christ threatened to turn the Empire upside-down. Look at the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry? Blessed are the peacemakers and the persecuted? This would rightly have been read as an inversion of the conservative Roman social order. Who speaks of a Kingdom into which prostitutes and tax collectors precede the pious and patrician? This Christ will rile the rabble. And that makes Him a threat.

In many ways it would’ve been simpler had Jesus been more like the other would-be warrior-messiahs of Judea. Such insurrections were straightforward enough to deal with. They weren’t all easy—the Jewish War that destroyed Jerusalem necessitated more Legions than expected—but they were simple. Live by the sword; die by the sword.

Yet the followers of Jesus speak of a life that outlives death, of a peace that outgrows violence, of a Kingdom that spreads like a weed, and of a God who serves the low. And such ideas, such talk, spread like wildfire among women and slaves and Jews and other second-class subjects of Rome. How does the state defeat the faith whose very symbol is the Cross? The more one kills the Christians, the more Christians one seems to make.

The Greek historian Plutarch, writing in the generation after Christ, records an interesting story about Romulus, the first and founding King of Rome. Romulus would have lived some 800 years before Plutarch, mind you. And Plutarch seems fairly certain that he was murdered by patricians, that is, the wealthy nobility of Rome. But these patricians spread the story that a sudden storm blotted out the sun and whisked Romulus off to heaven in a cloud. He then appeared in dazzling armor to one of these patricians, declaring that he had been a god all along, and promising the Romans an eternal city and the loftiest heights of human power—what Virgil termed imperium sine fine, empire without end.

Plutarch clearly believes that the Roman elite killed their own king, then passed off this fantastic tale to the masses to cover their own butts. But the perceptive Christian will note several familiar details: the darkened sun, the cloud of assumption, the god who descends to earth as a king only to be murdered by those whom he’s come to save. Jesus sounds like Romulus—or perhaps the other way around, since Plutarch is writing after Christ.

Yet the point here is not the similarities in the stories but the contrasts. Romulus appears in shining battle armor, promising an earthly city that cannot fall and a military empire that will not end. Jesus appears bearing the wounds of His crucifixion, promising a heavenly city not made with hands, and a Baptism of forgiveness for all peoples of the earth. Jesus doesn’t just replace the empire—He flips it upside down. Only then is the world set aright.

Back in World War I, a lot of Christian churches in the United States opposed military intervention, and received a great deal of backlash for it. How unpatriotic of our pastors! Duly chastened, the Protestant Mainline of the next generation threw its preaching behind World War II, backing our boys overseas. From D-Day through the Cold War to the Silent Majority of the 1970s and 1980s, Christianity tried to become as American as apple pie. The Commies were godless, so we would be godly. The pulpit preached patriotism—and it’s come back to bite us today.

Fairly or not, popular imagination has come to associate American Christianity with militarism, imperialism, and reactionary politics. This is all the more ironic when we consider that for the first several centuries of our faith, the Church was persecuted by the state precisely as a threat to all those things. What has the Prince of Peace to do with imperium sine fine? Early Christians wouldn’t even serve in the Roman Legions.

My point is this: July is a month of patriotic fervor. And patriotism itself—a love for one’s country—is a good thing, a natural thing. But all too often we reduce our patriotism to a sort of yay-rah militarism, to the extent that we can hardly imagine celebrating Independence Day, or Flag Day, or Constitution Day without rockets and bombs and tanks and guns. Every national holiday has become a militant holiday, and that should make anyone wary, especially Christians.

We are called to be good citizens. We are called to love our neighbors. But we must ever keep in mind the higher loyalty we hold, not to any president or party or patria, but to the Prince of Peace: the one true Lord and King and God of all, whose rule exceeds that of any nation or army, and whose love encompasses those of every country, creed, caste, and color. Our true homeland is in heaven, for which we are ambassadors here below.

In Jesus. Amen.