Staurogram The
Staurogram (meaning monogram of the cross, from the Greek σταυρός, i.e. cross),
or Monogrammatic Cross or Tau-Rho symbol, is composed by a tau (Τ) superimposed
on a rho (Ρ). The Staurogram was first used to abbreviate the Greek word for
cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, almost
like a nomen sacrum, and may visually have represented Jesus on the cross. Ephrem the
Syrian in the 4th-century explained these two united letters stating that the
tau refers to the cross, and the rho refers to the Greek word "help"
which has the numerological value in Greek of 100 as the letter rho has. In
such a way the symbol expresses the idea that the Cross saves. The two letters
tau and rho can also be found separately as symbols on early Christian
ossuaries.
The tau
was considered a symbol of salvation due to the identification of the tau with
the sign which in Ezekiel 9:4 was marked on the forehead of the saved ones, or
due to the tau-shaped outstretched hands of Moses in Exodus 17:11. The rho by
itself can refer to Christ as Messiah because Abraham, taken as symbol of the
Messiah, generated Isaac according to a promise made by God when he was one
hundred years old, and 100 is the value of rho.:158 The
Monogrammatic Cross was later seen also as a variation of the Chi Rho symbol,
and it spread over Western Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries.
In ancient
Roman religion, Victoria or Victory was the personified goddess of victory. She
is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike, and was associated with
Bellona. She was adapted from the Sabine agricultural goddess Vacuna and had a
temple on the Palatine Hill. The goddess Vica Pota was also sometimes
identified with Victoria. Unlike the
Greek Nike, the goddess Victoria (Latin for "victory") was a major
part of Roman society. Multiple temples were erected in her honor. When her
statue was removed in 382 CE by Emperor Gratianus there was much anger in Rome.
She was normally worshiped by triumphant generals returning from war. Also
unlike the Greek Nike, who was known for success in athletic games such as
chariot races, Victoria was a symbol of victory over death and determined who
would be successful during war.
Victoria
appears widely on Roman coins, jewelry, architecture, and other arts. She is
often seen with or in a chariot, as in the late 18th-century sculpture
representing Victory in a quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany;
"Il Vittoriano" in Rome has two. Winged
figures, very often in pairs, representing victory and referred to as
"victories", were common in Roman official iconography, typically
hovering high in a composition, and often filling spaces in spandrels or other
gaps in architecture. These represent the spirit of victory rather than the
goddess herself. They continued to appear after Christianization of the Empire,
and slowly mutated into Christian angels. The
symbolism of angels has been adopted from the ancient Roman goddess of victory
by the early Christians. The goddess transformed into what is known by the
Christians as angels via the Christianization of the Roman empire. This is
evidenced by many coins still depicting victory, yet of the time period where
Christianity was already the official religion of the Roman empire. She appears
along with symbols such as a Christogram (also known as a Chi-Rho which is a
monogram of Jesus Christ), Staurogram, and the cross, attributing to it's
Christian symbolism. An angel
is a purely spiritual being found in various religions and mythologies. In
Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent
celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth, or
as guardian spirits or a guiding influence. Other roles of angels include
protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks. The term
"angel" has also been diversified to various notions of spirits or
figures found in many other religious traditions. The theological study of
angels is known as "angelology". In art, angels are often depicted
with bird-like wings on their back, a halo, robes and various forms of glowing
light.
Theodosius
I 'the Great' - Roman Emperor: 379-395
A.D. 379-383
A.D. Sole Reign
383-395
A.D. Senior Augustus with Arcadius
Ruling in
the West: Gratian (367-383 A.D.), Valentinian II (375-392 A.D.), Magnus Maximus
(383-388 A.D.), Flavius Victor (387-388 A.D.), Eugenius (392-394 A.D.) and
Honorius (393-423 A.D.) |
Son-in-law of Valentinian I | Brother-in-law of Valentinian II | Husband of
Aelia Flacilla and Galla (sister of Valentinian II) | Father of Arcadius and
Honorius (by Aelia Flacilla), and of Galla Placidia (by Galla) | Father-in-law
of Constantius III and Aelia Eudoxia | Grandfather of Honoria, Valentinian III,
Aelia Pulcheria and Theodosius II | Great-grandfather of Licinia Eudoxia | Flavius
Theodosius ( 11 January 347 - 17 January 395), also called Theodosius I and
Theodosius the Great (Greek: Θεοδόσιος Α΄ and Θεοδόσιος ο Μέγας), was Roman
Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the
empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman
Empire. After his death, the two parts split permanently. He is also known for
making Nicene Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire.
Career Theodosius
was born in Cauca, in Hispania (modern day Coca, Spain) or, more probably, in
or near Italica (Seville), to a senior military officer, Theodosius the Elder.
He accompanied his father to Britannia to help quell the Great Conspiracy in
368. He was military commander (dux) of Moesia, a Roman province on the lower
Danube, in 374. However, shortly thereafter, and at about the same time as the
sudden disgrace and execution of his father, Theodosius retired to Spain. The
reason for his retirement, and the relationship (if any) between it and his
father's death is unclear. It is possible that he was dismissed from his
command by the emperor Valentinian I after the loss of two of Theodosius'
legions to the Sarmatians in late 374. The death
of Valentinian I in 375 created political pandemonium. Fearing further
persecution on account of his family ties, Theodosius abruptly retired to his
family estates where he adapted to the life of a provincial aristocrat. From 364
to 375, the Roman Empire was governed by two co-emperors, the brothers
Valentinian I and Valens; when Valentinian died in 375, his sons, Valentinian
II and Gratian, succeeded him as rulers of the Western Roman Empire. In 378,
after Valens was killed in the Battle of Adrianople, Gratian appointed
Theodosius to replace the fallen emperor as co-augustus for the East. Gratian
was killed in a rebellion in 383, then Theodosius appointed his elder son,
Arcadius, his co-ruler for the East. After the death in 392 of Valentinian II,
whom Theodosius had supported against a variety of usurpations, Theodosius
ruled as sole emperor, appointing his younger son Honorius Augustus as his
co-ruler for the West (Milan, on 23 January 393) and defeating the usurper
Eugenius on 6 September 394, at the Battle of the Frigidus (Vipava river,
modern Slovenia) he restored peace.
Family By his
first wife, the probably Spanish Aelia Flaccilla Augusta, he had two sons,
Arcadius and Honorius and a daughter, Aelia Pulcheria; Arcadius was his heir in
the East and Honorius in the West. Both Aelia Flaccilla and Pulcheria died in
385. His second
wife (but never declared Augusta) was Galla, daughter of the emperor
Valentinian I and his second wife Justina. Theodosius and Galla had a son
Gratian, born in 388 who died young and a daughter Aelia Galla Placidia
(392-450). Placidia was the only child who survived to adulthood and later
became an Empress; a third child, John, died with his mother in childbirth in
394.
Diplomatic policy with the Goths The Goths
and their allies (Vandali, Taifalae, Bastarnae and the native Carpi) entrenched
in the provinces of Dacia and eastern Pannonia Inferior consumed Theodosious'
attention. The Gothic crisis was so dire that his co-Emperor Gratian
relinquished control of the Illyrian provinces and retired to Trier in Gaul to
let Theodosius operate without hindrance. A major weakness in the Roman
position after the defeat at Adrianople was the recruiting of barbarians to
fight against other barbarians. In order to reconstruct the Roman Army of the
West, Theodosius needed to find able bodied soldiers and so he turned to the
most capable men readily to hand: the barbarians recently settled in the
Empire. This caused many difficulties in the battle against barbarians since
the newly recruited fighters had little or no loyalty to Theodosius.
Theodosius
was reduced to the costly expedient of shipping his recruits to Egypt and
replacing them with more seasoned Romans, but there were still switches of
allegiance that resulted in military setbacks. Gratian sent generals to clear
the dioceses of Illyria (Pannonia and Dalmatia) of Goths, and Theodosius was
able finally to enter Constantinople on 24 November 380, after two seasons in
the field. The final treaties with the remaining Gothic forces, signed 3
October 382, permitted large contingents of primarily Thervingian Goths to settle
along the southern Danube frontier in the province of Thrace and largely govern
themselves. The Goths
now settled within the Empire had, as a result of the treaties, military
obligations to fight for the Romans as a national contingent, as opposed to being
fully integrated into the Roman forces. However, many Goths would serve in
Roman legions and others, as foederati, for a single campaign, while bands of
Goths switching loyalties became a destabilizing factor in the internal
struggles for control of the Empire.
In 390 the
population of Thessalonica rioted in complaint against the presence of the
local Gothic garrison. The garrison commander was killed in the violence, so
Theodosius ordered the Goths to kill all the spectators in the circus as
retaliation; Theodoret, a contemporary witness to these events, reports: the anger of the Emperor rose to the
highest pitch, and he gratified his vindictive desire for vengeance by
unsheathing the sword most unjustly and tyrannically against all, slaying the
innocent and guilty alike. It is said seven thousand perished without any forms
of law, and without even having judicial sentence passed upon them; but that,
like ears of wheat in the time of harvest, they were alike cut down.
In the
last years of Theodosius' reign, one of the emerging leaders of the Goths,
named Alaric, participated in Theodosius' campaign against Eugenius in 394,
only to resume his rebellious behavior against Theodosius' son and eastern
successor, Arcadius, shortly after Theodosius' death.
Civil wars in the Empire The
administrative divisions of the Roman Empire in 395, under Theodosius I. After the
death of Gratian in 383, Theodosius' interests turned to the Western Roman
Empire, for the usurper Magnus Maximus had taken all the provinces of the West
except for Italy. This self-proclaimed threat was hostile to Theodosius'
interests, since the reigning emperor Valentinian II, Maximus' enemy, was his
ally. Theodosius, however, was unable to do much about Maximus due to his still
inadequate military capability and he was forced to keep his attention on local
matters. However when Maximus began an invasion of Italy in 387, Theodosius was
forced to take action. The armies of Theodosius and Maximus met in 388 at
Poetovio and Maximus was defeated. On 28 August 388 Maximus was executed. Trouble
arose again, after Valentinian was found hanging in his room. It was claimed to
be a suicide by the magister militum, Arbogast. Arbogast, unable to assume the
role of emperor, elected Eugenius, a former teacher of rhetoric. Eugenius
started a program of restoration of the Pagan faith, and sought, in vain,
Theodosius' recognition. In January 393, Theodosius gave his son Honorius the
full rank of Augustus in the West, citing Eugenius' illegitimacy.
Theodosius
campaigned against Eugenius. The two armies faced at the Battle of Frigidus in
September 394. The battle began on 5 September 394 with Theodosius' full
frontal assault on Eugenius' forces. Theodosius was repulsed and Eugenius
thought the battle to be all but over. In Theodosius' camp the loss of the day
decreased morale. It is said that Theodosius was visited by two "heavenly
riders all in white" who gave him courage. The next day, the battle began
again and Theodosius' forces were aided by a natural phenomenon known as the
Bora, which produces cyclonic winds. The Bora blew directly against the forces
of Eugenius and disrupted the line. Eugenius'
camp was stormed and Eugenius was captured and soon after executed. Thus
Theodosius became the only emperor.
Art patronage Theodosius
oversaw the removal in 390 of an Egyptian obelisk from Alexandria to
Constantinople. It is now known as the obelisk of Theodosius and still stands
in the Hippodrome, the long racetrack that was the center of Constantinople's
public life and scene of political turmoil. Re-erecting the monolith was a
challenge for the technology that had been honed in the construction of siege
engines. The obelisk, still recognizably a solar symbol, had been moved from
Karnak to Alexandria with what is now the Lateran obelisk by Constantius II).
The Lateran obelisk was shipped to Rome soon afterwards, but the other one then
spent a generation lying at the docks due to the difficulty involved in
attempting to ship it to Constantinople. Eventually, the obelisk was cracked in
transit. The white marble base is entirely covered with bas-reliefs documenting
the Imperial household and the engineering feat of removing it to
Constantinople. Theodosius and the imperial family are separated from the
nobles among the spectators in the Imperial box with a cover over them as a
mark of their status. The naturalism of traditional Roman art in such scenes
gave way in these reliefs to conceptual art: the idea of order, decorum and
respective ranking, expressed in serried ranks of faces. This is seen as
evidence of formal themes beginning to oust the transitory details of mundane
life, celebrated in Pagan portraiture. Christianity had only just been adopted
as the new state religion. The Forum
Tauri in Constantinople was renamed and redecorated as the Forum of Theodosius,
including a column and a triumphal arch in his honour.
Nicene Christianity becomes the state religion Theodosius
promoted Nicene Trinitarianism within Christianity and Christianity within the
Empire. On 27 February 380, he declared "Catholic Christianity" the
only legitimate imperial religion, ending state support for the traditional
Roman religion.
Nicene Creed In the 4th
century, the Christian Church was wracked with controversy over the divinity of
Jesus Christ, his relationship to God the Father, and the nature of the
Trinity. In 325, Constantine I convened the Council of Nicea, which asserted
that Jesus, the Son, was equal to the Father, one with the Father, and of the
same substance (homoousios in Greek). The council condemned the teachings of
the theologian Arius: that the Son was a created being and inferior to God the
Father, and that the Father and Son were of a similar substance (homoiousios in
Greek) but not identical (see Nontrinitarian). Despite the council's ruling,
controversy continued. By the time of Theodosius' accession, there were still
several different church factions that promoted alternative Christology.
Arians
While no
mainstream churchmen within the Empire explicitly adhered to Arius (a presbyter
from Alexandria, Egypt) or his teachings, there were those who still used the
homoiousios formula, as well as those who attempted to bypass the debate by
merely saying that Jesus was like (homoios in Greek) God the Father, without
speaking of substance (ousia). All these non-Nicenes were frequently labeled as
Arians (i.e., followers of Arius) by their opponents, though they would not
have identified themselves as such.
The
Emperor Valens had favored the group who used the homoios formula; this theology
was prominent in much of the East and had under the sons of Constantine the
Great gained a foothold in the West. Theodosius, on the other hand, cleaved
closely to the Nicene Creed which was the interpretation that predominated in
the West and was held by the important Alexandrian church.
Establishment of Nicene Orthodoxy
On 26
November 380, two days after he had arrived in Constantinople, Theodosius
expelled the non-Nicene bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and appointed
Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian
Fathers from Antioch (today in Turkey), patriarch of Constantinople. Theodosius
had just been baptized, by bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a severe
illness, as was common in the early Christian world.
On 27
February 380 he, Gratian and Valentinian II published an edict in order that
all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and
Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith). The move was mainly a thrust at the
various beliefs that had arisen out of Arianism, but smaller dissident sects,
such as the Macedonians, were also prohibited. The exact text of this decree,
gathered in the Codex Theodosianus XVI.1.2, was:
It is our desire that all the various
nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to
profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle
Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now
professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of
apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the
Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of
this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others,
since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be
branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to
their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place
the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of
our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to
inflict. (Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church, Oxford University
Press, 1967, 2nd. (1st. 1943), p. 22).
In May
381, Theodosius summoned a new ecumenical council at Constantinople (see First
Council of Constantinople) to repair the schism between East and West on the
basis of Nicean orthodoxy. "The council went on to define orthodoxy,
including the mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost who,
though equal to the Father, 'proceeded' from Him, whereas the Son was
'begotten' of Him." The council also "condemned the Apollonian and
Macedonian heresies, clarified church jurisdictions according to the civil
boundaries of dioceses and ruled that Constantinople was second in precedence
to Rome."
With the
death of Valens, the Arians' protector, his defeat probably damaged the
standing of the Homoian faction.
Conflicts with Pagans during the reign of
Theodosius I
Death of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian II
On 15 May
392, Valentinian II was found hanged in his residence in the town of Vienne in
Gaul. The Frankish soldier and Pagan Arbogast, Valentinian's protector and
magister militum, maintained that it was suicide. Arbogast and Valentinian had
frequently disputed rulership over the Western Roman Empire, and Valentinian
was also noted to have complained of Arbogast's control over him to Theodosius.
Thus when word of his death reached Constantinople Theodosius believed, or at
least suspected, that Arbogast was lying and that he had engineered
Valentinian's demise. These suspicions were further fueled by Arbogast's
elevation of a Eugenius, pagan official to the position of Western Emperor, and
the veiled accusations which Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, spoke during his
funeral oration for Valentinian.
Valentinian
II's death sparked a civil war between Eugenius and Theodosius over the
rulership of the west in the Battle of the Frigidus. The resultant eastern
victory there led to the final brief unification of the Roman Empire under
Theodosius, and the ultimate irreparable division of the empire after his
death.
Proscription of Paganism
For the
first part of his rule, Theodosius seems to have ignored the semi-official
standing of the Christian bishops; in fact he had voiced his support for the
preservation of temples or pagan statues as useful public buildings. In his
early reign, Theodosius was fairly tolerant of the pagans, for he needed the
support of the influential pagan ruling class. However he would in time stamp
out the last vestiges of paganism with great severity. His first attempt to
inhibit paganism was in 381 when he reiterated Constantine's ban on sacrifice.
In 384 he prohibited haruspicy on pain of death, and unlike earlier anti-pagan
prohibitions, he made non-enforcement of the law, by Magistrates, into a crime
itself.
In 388 he
sent a prefect to Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor with the aim of breaking up
pagan associations and the destruction of their temples. The Serapeum at
Alexandria was destroyed during this campaign. In a series of decrees called
the "Theodosian decrees" he progressively declared that those Pagan
feasts that had not yet been rendered Christian ones were now to be workdays
(in 389). In 391, he reiterated the ban of blood sacrifice and decreed "no
one is to go to the sanctuaries, walk through the temples, or raise his eyes to
statues created by the labor of man". The temples that were thus closed
could be declared "abandoned", as Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria
immediately noted in applying for permission to demolish a site and cover it
with a Christian church, an act that must have received general sanction, for
mithraea forming crypts of churches, and temples forming the foundations of 5th
century churches appear throughout the former Roman Empire. Theodosius
participated in actions by Christians against major Pagan sites: the
destruction of the gigantic Serapeum of Alexandria by soldiers and local
Christian citizens in 392, according to the Christian sources authorized by
Theodosius (extirpium malum), needs to be seen against a complicated background
of less spectacular violence in the city: Eusebius mentions street-fighting in
Alexandria between Christians and non-Christians as early as 249, and
non-Christians had participated in the struggles for and against Athanasius in 341
and 356. "In 363 they killed Bishop George for repeated acts of pointed
outrage, insult, and pillage of the most sacred treasures of the city."
Saint
Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius, Anthony van Dyck.
By decree
in 391, Theodosius ended the subsidies that had still trickled to some remnants
of Greco-Roman civic Paganism too. The eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in
the Roman Forum was extinguished, and the Vestal Virgins were disbanded. Taking
the auspices and practicing witchcraft were to be punished. Pagan members of
the Senate in Rome appealed to him to restore the Altar of Victory in the
Senate House; he refused. After the last Olympic Games in 393, it is believed
that Theodosius cancelled the games although there is no proof of that in the
official records of the Roman Empire, and the reckoning of dates by Olympiads
soon came to an end. Now Theodosius portrayed himself on his coins holding the
labarum.
The
apparent change of policy that resulted in the "Theodosian decrees"
has often been credited to the increased influence of Ambrose, bishop of Milan.
It is worth noting that in 390 Ambrose had excommunicated Theodosius, who had
recently given orders which resulted in the massacre of 7,000 inhabitants of
Thessalonica, in response to the assassination of his military governor
stationed in the city, and that Theodosius performed several months of public
penance. The specifics of the decrees were superficially limited in scope,
specific measures in response to various petitions from Christians throughout
his administration.
Some
modern historians question the consequences of the laws against pagans.
Death
Theodosius
died, after battling the vascular disease oedema, in Milan on 17 January 395.
Ambrose organized and managed Theodosius's lying in state in Milan. Ambrose
delivered a panegyric titled De Obitu Theodosii before Stilicho and Honorius in
which Ambrose detailed the suppression of heresy and paganism by Theodosius.
Theodosius was finally laid to rest in Constantinople on 8 November 395. |