Podcasts about odoacer

No grand battle. No final blaze of glory. In 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire collapsed not with a roar, but with a quiet abdication. A boy emperor - Romulus Augustulus - handed over the regalia of power in Ravenna, signalling the end of an empire that had once ruled the known world. But how did it come to this?In this episode, the finale of our Fall of Rome miniseries, Tristan Hughes is joined by historian and bestselling author Adrian Goldsworthy to chart the chaotic final decades of the Western Roman Empire. From puppet emperors and ruthless kingmakers like Ricimer to the meteoric rise of Odoacer, discover how political infighting, military mutiny, and foreign ambition brought the Roman West to its knees - and ushered in the age of kings.MORE: Roman Emperors with Mary Beard: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7C7wRHjSPeif9pLD2UZJyY?si=5226c8e7f9584336Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveMana Afsari is a writer and sometime contributor to Wisdom of Crowds, whose career has taken her from the RAND Corporation, to a job as an assistant to a great American poet, to the position of Research Associate at the Aspen Institute's Philosophy and Society Initiative. In January, Mana published an essay titled, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History,” a fascinating reported piece about the young men with intellectual ambitions who joined the National Conservative movement and voted for Donald Trump. The essay went viral and earned praise from both liberals and conservatives. Damon Linker of Notes from the Middleground called it “a remarkable essay that's generated considerable (and well-justified) buzz.”Mana joins Santiago Ramos and Shadi Hamid to discuss the essay and the general question of why ambitious, inquisitive and searching young men are attracted to the MAGA movement. “I am not a right wing zoologist,” Mana says, but it is important to understand where these men are coming form. These young intellectuals are not your average Trump voter. They are not the “DOGE boys,” either. But they are becoming a significant part of the GOP leadership class. Shadi wants to know why an interest in culture and ideas has led these men toward right wing spaces. Mana responds that right wing spaces, at least until recently, had a less politicized approach to culture. Many of these young men are interested in things, like history or cartography, which some suggest are “right-coded.” “Most things that are supposedly right-coded should not be right-coded,” Mana says.And what do they think of Trump? “They don't think of Trump as Odoacer, they see him as Julius Caesar. They don't see him as a barbarian, but as a restorer of the republic.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Shadi talks about going to a recent right wing party and says it was “a safe space, it was inclusive”; Santiago asks Shadi if he ever went to right wing parties during the War on Terror; Mana distinguishes the desire for free and open discussion versus the desire to “say whatever you want,” i.e., slurs; and Santiago argues that the Israel-Palestine conflict has made all political sides rediscover the importance of freedom of speech.Required Reading and Listening:* Mana Afsari, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” (The Point).* Santiago Ramos, “Let Us Now Praise the Supermen” (WoC).* Santiago Ramos, “Do You Know What Time It Is?” (WoC).* Damir Marusic, “Barbarians at the Gate” (WoC).* Shadi Hamid, “Why Half of America is Cheering for Chaos” (Washington Post). * Wisdom of Crowds podcast episode, “The Masculine World is Adrift” (WoC).* Henry Kissinger quote about Trump (Financial Times).* Vittoria Elliot, “The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover” (Wired).* Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt and Norman Mailer (Amazon). * C. P. Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians” (Poetry Foundation). * Odoacer (Britannica).* Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, What are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice (Amazon). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

In Rome, you worshipped your gods and Caesar, and in fact, this worship was inseparable from Rome's official deities. It was seen as a treasonous action if you didn't partake in the Imperial Cult. It was essential to Roman living and the continual prosperity of the Empire. There was even a formal saying that you were often “encouraged” to say: “Caesar is Lord”! Did the Imperial Cult die in 476 AD when the German warlord Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor of the West, and Rome crumbled? Evidence shows that actually, no, it didn't. And it is alive and well today!

The fall of Rome was completed in 476, when the German chieftain Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus. The East, always richer and stronger, continued as the Byzantine Empire through the European Middle Ages. But here we will tell the story of the fall of the west and the rise of the east Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- On September 4, 476 the barbarian general Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor in the West and proclaimed himself king of Italy. After 500 years of existence, the Western Roman Empire was gone. But if you were living there at the time, would you have even noticed anything had changed? Liam and Russian Sam return to one of their favorite historical subjects, an area that has energized and terrified generations of scholars for 1500 years: the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. Considered to mark the end of classical antiquity and the start of the middle ages, this event was traditionally understood to be the fundamental cataclysm of the history of Europe, perhaps even the history of the world. But on the eve of the Second World War, aging Belgian historian Henri Pirenne proposed an alternative view: that the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the barbarian kingdoms only amounted to a change in management. The real transformation of the Roman world into the medieval world would not happen until centuries later, when the empires of the Muslims and the Carolingian Franks built new political and economic systems that replaced what had been left by Rome. This is the key argument of Mohammed and Charlemagne, Pirenne's most famous work published posthumously in 1937 and one of the most revolutionary texts in medieval history. Still hotly debated today, Pirenne's thesis upended a seemingly adamantine tradition of scholarship established by the Italian humanist Petrarch in the 14th century, and elaborated by later historians such a Edward Gibbon, which viewed the medieval period as a detestable Dark Age that had to be redeemed by the discovery of Roman glory. While not rejecting outright the notion of an early-medieval Dark Age, Pirenne put forward a strong argument for continuity across the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries, interrupted not by the invasions of barbarian peoples but instead by the later rise of the Muslim caliphate. New religious divisions severed the arteries of trade and communication that united the Mediterranean world. And when a new Roman Empire emerged in the west the following century, Pirenne argues that this realm of Charlemagne did not restore Roman civilization as once was believed, but instead created a new imperial system just like their Arab contemporaries. Listen to this week's Gladio Free Europe to decide for yourself if the end of the Western Roman Empire did or did not mark the end of the Roman world. Further Listening: E13 Migration and Memory E15 The Last Kingdom E33 Late Roman Empire E36 The Franks ft. Natasha E49 The Arab-Norman Civilization (Part 1) E50 The Arab-Norman Civilization (Part 2) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gladiofreeeurope/support

The Western Roman Empire was conquered by Odoacer, who styled himself as the "King of Italy." But the leader of the Ostrogoths, a warrior named Theodoric, would challenge Odoacer for supremacy. But were both men just playing into the hands of the Eastern Roman Emperor? Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Noble Blood merch — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Romulus' overthrow facilitated Odoacer's rise and the transition to the Ostrogothic ...

This is part 22 of the Early Church History class. This episode aims to wrap up our early church history class. We'll cover relics and pilgrimage, emperors Zeno and Justinian, as well as the theological battles that continued to rage in the 5th and 6th centuries. Unsurprisingly the christological controversy of the 5th century did not come to an end when the emperor endorsed the Council of Chalcedon of 451 that declared Jesus to have two natures "unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably." In addition to covering the Second Council of Constantinople of 553, we'll also briefly consider how the dual natures doctrine continued to foment division resulting in the Third Council of Constantinople in 681 and the Second Council of Nicea in 787. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59zyj9dMH4k&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2lk3B0I7Pa77hfwKJm1SRI&index=22 —— Links —— More Restitutio resources on Christian history See other classes here Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Notes —— Byzantine Beginnings 293 Diocletian initiated the division between east and west with his tetrarchy. 330 Constantine built a “New Rome” on the cite of old Byzantium, naming it Constantinople. Constantine's mother, Helena, initiated the pilgrimage movement. 381 Egeria wrote a travelogue to her friends that influenced later pilgrimages. Helena also sent Constantine relics of the true cross. 397 Martin of Tours died, leaving behind his cloak, which became a famous relic. Fifth Century Developments Theodosius I (r. 379-392) had outlawed pagan sacrifices and endorsed Trinitarian Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Arian Germanic tribes moved into the western Roman Empire and began taking territory. 378 Visigoths win at Adrianople. 410 Alaric sacked Rome. 455 Vandals sacked Rome. 476 Odoacer deposes the last Roman Augustus. 493 Theodoric and the Ostrogoths took Italy. Zeno's Henotikon 451 Chalcedon affirmed the dyophysite position (two natures in one person). 488 Byzantine Emperor Zeno attempted to reconcile monophysites and dyophysites by condemning Eutyches and Nestorius and approving Cyril's 12 anathemas (Henotikon). Chalcedon remained controversial with Christianity now split into several groups: Arian Germanic kingdoms, monophysites (Egypt and Ethiopia), Chalcedonian dyophysites (Rome & Constantinople), and Nestorian dyophysites (Syria and Persia). Justinian (482-565) 525 Justinian married Theodora and became co-emperor with Justin. 527 Justinian became the sole emperor. 528 He initiated legal reforms under John the Cappadocian and Tribonian. 532 Nika riots 537 He finished Hagia Sophia, whispering, “O Solomon, I have surpassed you!” 555 He had retaken much of the Roman Empire, including Italy, North Africa, and part of Spain. More Christology Councils 553 Justinian called for the Second Council of Constantinople. Condemned the 3 chapters Condemned Nestorius Condemned Origen of Alexandria 681 Third Council of Constantinople Condemned monotheletism, concluding that Jesus had 2 wills that never conflict. 787 Second Council of Nicaea Iconoclasts were fighting with iconodules. Some considered icons Nestorian while others called them Monophysite. Affirmed veneration of icons. 843 Iconaclasm controversy broke out. Empress Theodora upheld the ruling of Nicaea II. Review In 293, Diocletian split the administration of the Roman Empire into east and west, appointing an Augustus in each. In 330, Constantine founded Constantinople in the old town of Byzantium, making it his administrative capital. While the west fell to Germanic Arians and the Huns, the Roman Empire in the east continued until 1453. Byzantine emperors played barbarian warlords off each other in an attempt to keep them from taking Constantinople. From the fourth century onwards, Byzantines embraced relics and pilgrimages to holy places. Byzantine emperor Justinian made a lasting impact on law via the work of Tribonian to identify, harmonize, and codify Roman law. Justinian succeeded, mostly due to the military genius of Belisarius, to retake northern Africa, Italy, and part of Spain. Justinian built and improved several churches, the most notable of which was his renovation of the Hagia Sophia. In 553, the Second Council of Constantinople condemned three writings critical of Cyril of Alexandria to reunite with the Egyptian and Syrian churches, but ultimately failed. In 681, the Third Council of Constantinople condemned monothelitism, affirming that Christ had two wills. In 787, the Second Council of Nicaea affirmed the veneration of icons, denying icons either were too monophysite or Nestorian.

This is part 19 of the Early Church History class. Even though the Roman Empire chose Nicene Christianity as it's "orthodoxy," subordinationist Christianity continued to exist, especially outside among the Germanic tribes. In this episode, you'll learn about Ulfilas the Missionary to the Goths who not only brought Christianity to these "barbarians," but also made them an alphabet and translated most of the bible into Gothic. Next, we'll briefly survey the major Germanic tribes, including the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, and finally the Franks. This little known chapter of history when the Arian kingdoms took over the Roman Empire had a massive effects on Europe and North Africa for centuries to come. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP9T3V1AWIs&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2lk3B0I7Pa77hfwKJm1SRI&index=19&t=27s&pp=iAQB —— Links —— See also 494 Early Church History 12: Arius and Alexander of Alexandria and 423 One God 13: The Fourth Century More Restitutio resources on Christian history See other classes here Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Notes —— Ulfilas, Missionary to the Goths 340 Subordinationist bishops ordained Ulfilas bishop to the Visigoths 341-347 lived with the Goths and preached to them Ulfilas translated the Bible into Gothic. Rule of Faith: “I believe in one God the Father, alone ingenerate and invisible, and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, artificer and maker of the whole creation, who has nobody like him–therefore there is one God the Father of all who is also God of our God–and in one Holy Spirit, the power which illuminates and sanctifies, as Christ said after the resurrection to his apostles, and he (i.e. the Spirit) is not God nor our God, but the minister of Christ ... subordinate and obedient in all things to the Son, and the Son subordinate and obedient in all things to his God and Father…”[1] Huns The Huns were a nomadic confederation of Mongolian tribes who began entering Europe in the fourth century. Ammianus Marcellinus described them as utter savages who never bathed or changed their clothes and lived on their horses. Atilla the Hun (r. 434-453) attacked Persia, the Balkans, Constantinople, Gaul, and Italy, terrifying many within the Roman Empire (both East and West). Visigoths Eudoxius, Bishop of Constantinople (r. 360-370) succeeding in establishing communion with Visigoths Eudoxius was an Anomean (Heteroousian) like Eunomius 376 Visigoths petitioned the emperor to enter the Roman Empire. Permission was granted, but local Roman leaders badly mistreated the Visigoths. 377 Visigoths rebelled. 378 Visigoths defeated and killed Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople. 410 Alaric sacked and looted Rome. 418 Visigoths settled in Gaul, then Spain 589 Visigoths converted to Catholicism at the Council of Toledo. Ostrogoths 453 Atilla the Hun died, resulting in rebellion against the Huns. 476 Odoacer removed the last western Roman Augustus from power (Romulus Augustulus). 488-493 Byzantine Emperor Zeno asked Theodoric and Ostrogoths to conquer Italy and rule as his client. 493 Theodoric and Ostrogoths began ruling Italy as Arians over Roman Catholics. 535 Byzantine Emperor Justinian conquered Ostrogoths and retook Italy. Vandals 406 The Vandals crossed into Gaul, then into Spain in 409. Rome instigated the Visigoths (also in Spain) to attack the Vandals. 419 More Vandals came into Spain. 426 Vandals began raiding North Africa. 428 Under Gaiseric, 80,000 Vandals crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. 430 They conquered most of North Africa (Mauretania). Gaiseric was a devoted Arian who pillaged Catholic churches. The Vandals ruled North Africa for a century over the Roman Catholics. 455 They reinvaded Spain and Italy, sacking Rome. 533 Byzantine Emperor Justinian conquered the Vandals and retook North Africa. Burgundians 451 Arian Burgundians fought Atilla the Hun on behalf of Rome. 470 Migrated to Gaul and took Lyons 532 Franks defeated Burgundians, absorbing them. Lombards 568 Audoin the Lombard recruited a massive army made up of several barbarian tribes and invaded Italy. 574 Lombards split Italy into 30+ regions under the command of dukes (duces). Lombard kings were Arian from 6th century until Adaloald in 615 By late 7th century, the Lombards became Roman Catholics. Franks Childeric I (r. 457-481) began uniting Frankish tribes. Clovis I (r. 481-511) killed his rivals and became sole king of the Franks, establishing the Merovingian dynasty, which lasted until 751. Chlotild, the wife of Clovis I, was a Roman Catholic who tried to convince Clovis to become a Christian. 496 In a war with the Alamanni, he was losing and prayed to Christ for military victory. After he won, he and 3,000 from his army converted. Joseph Lynch: “The Franks turned out to be the toughest barbarians.”[2] The Franks flourished until the eighth century and were the ancestors of modern France, Germany, Italy, Holland, and Belgium. Review Subordinationist Bishop Ulfilas went on a mission to preach Christ to the Goths in the middle of the fourth century. Ulfilas invented a Gothic alphabet and translated the Bible into their language, sparking a movement that eventually led to the conversion of most of the Germanic tribes to Arian Christianity. When hordes of fierce Huns migrated West into Europe, Gothic tribes began migrating into the Roman Empire. Under Alaric, the Arian Visigoths conquered much of the Italian peninsula and even sacked Rome in 410 before migrating to Gaul and Spain. In the fifth century, Arian Ostrogoths under Theodoric conquered Italy and established themselves as a ruling class over the Trinitarian Romans there. In the fifth century, Arian Vandals conquered Spain then migrated to North Africa where they ruled for a century until the time of Justinian. In the fifth century, Arian Burgundians conquered and occupied Gaul until the Franks absorbed them in the sixth century. In the sixth century, Arian and Pagan Lombards conquered much of Italy, but converted to Trinitarian Catholicism in the seventh century. In the late fifth century, Clovis I, king of the Franks, converted from paganism to Trinitarian Christianity, eventually extending influence over surrounding Germanic tribes. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, Germanic tribes who held to Arian Christianity invaded and conquered much of the western Roman Empire, but either faced defeat by Justinian or else converted to Roman Catholicism. [1] Auxentius, Letter of Auxentius in R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for a Christian Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2007), 105. [2] Joseph Lynch, Early Christianity (New York: Oxford, 2010), 234.

Throughout history, whenever there has been a major shift in the world, it has usually been accompanied by a single iconic event that is associated with that change. For example, historians often point to 476 AD as the year that the Western Roman Empire fell, when Odoacer and his barbarians forced the abdication of the Emperor Romulus Augustus— even though it was obvious that Rome was in decline way before 476. People also often associate the start of the Great Depression with the stock market crash of 1929 (even though there were many signs of economic distress well in advance of that). But these clean, precise dates are only chosen in retrospect. People experiencing the events at the time rarely understand their significance. I think it's possible that future historians may look back at Silicon Valley Bank's collapse as one of those iconic events that signals a major shift... potentially the end of American geopolitical and economic dominance. I'm not making this assertion to be dramatic; rather I think that anyone who takes an objective look at the facts— the appalling $31+ trillion national debt the government's addiction to spending and multi-trillion dollar deficits social dysfunction and “mostly peaceful” protests the decline in military strength rampant inflation and central bank folly extreme government incompetence insolvency in major programs like Social Security — will reach the same conclusion that the United States is past its peak and in decline. Now on top of everything else we can add a loss of confidence in the US banking system. Obviously I take no pleasure in acknowledging the US is in decline. But that doesn't make it any less true. And this has been Sovereign Man's core ethos since inception back in 2009. Back when I started this company it was considered extremely controversial when I said the US was in decline, or that there would be larger problems in the banking system, or that the breakdown of social cohesion would only get worse. But today these challenges are so obvious that they're impossible to deny. You can never solve a problem until you first admit you have one. And most of the corrupt sycophants masquerading as political leadership are incapable of admitting problems, nor discussing them rationally, let alone solving them. But you and I do not have that disability. We are free to exercise the full range of human ingenuity and creativity with which we have been fortunately endowed. So while the people in charge continue to never miss an opportunity to demonstrate their uselessness, we have a whole world of freedom and opportunity at our disposal. This is the topic of today's podcast. First I review the huge issues with the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Honestly when you look at it from a big picture perspective, it's littered with mind-numbing incompetence. The politicians who received donations from SVB's Political Action Committee missed it. The Wall Street hot shots missed it. The credit ratings agencies missed it. The regulators missed it. The Federal Reserve missed it. But now the Federal Reserve has launched a new program that exposes the US dollar— and everyone who uses it— to significant risk. Think about this from the perspective of foreign governments and central banks. Foreigners bought boatloads of US government debt over the past few years, especially in the early days of the pandemic. In fact foreign ownership of US government debt has increased by $1 trillion since the start of the pandemic, and now amounts to more than $7.6 trillion. But thanks to Fed policy, these foreign institutions are in the same boat as Silicon Valley Bank— they're sitting on huge losses in their bond portfolios. They've also suffered from pitiful returns, high inflation, AND exchange rate losses. In short, any foreign institution that bought US government bonds over the past few years is sitting on huge losses....

Throughout history, whenever there has been a major shift in the world, it has usually been accompanied by a single iconic event that is associated with that change. For example, historians often point to 476 AD as the year that the Western Roman Empire fell, when Odoacer and his barbarians forced the abdication of the Emperor Romulus Augustus— even though it was obvious that Rome was in decline way before 476. People also often associate the start of the Great Depression with the stock market crash of 1929 (even though there were many signs of economic distress well in advance of that). But these clean, precise dates are only chosen in retrospect. People experiencing the events at the time rarely understand their significance. I think it's possible that future historians may look back at Silicon Valley Bank's collapse as one of those iconic events that signals a major shift... potentially the end of American geopolitical and economic dominance. I'm not making this assertion to be dramatic; rather I think that anyone who takes an objective look at the facts— the appalling $31+ trillion national debt the government's addiction to spending and multi-trillion dollar deficits social dysfunction and “mostly peaceful” protests the decline in military strength rampant inflation and central bank folly extreme government incompetence insolvency in major programs like Social Security — will reach the same conclusion that the United States is past its peak and in decline. Now on top of everything else we can add a loss of confidence in the US banking system. Obviously I take no pleasure in acknowledging the US is in decline. But that doesn't make it any less true. And this has been Sovereign Man's core ethos since inception back in 2009. Back when I started this company it was considered extremely controversial when I said the US was in decline, or that there would be larger problems in the banking system, or that the breakdown of social cohesion would only get worse. But today these challenges are so obvious that they're impossible to deny. You can never solve a problem until you first admit you have one. And most of the corrupt sycophants masquerading as political leadership are incapable of admitting problems, nor discussing them rationally, let alone solving them. But you and I do not have that disability. We are free to exercise the full range of human ingenuity and creativity with which we have been fortunately endowed. So while the people in charge continue to never miss an opportunity to demonstrate their uselessness, we have a whole world of freedom and opportunity at our disposal. This is the topic of today's podcast. First I review the huge issues with the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Honestly when you look at it from a big picture perspective, it's littered with mind-numbing incompetence. The politicians who received donations from SVB's Political Action Committee missed it. The Wall Street hot shots missed it. The credit ratings agencies missed it. The regulators missed it. The Federal Reserve missed it. But now the Federal Reserve has launched a new program that exposes the US dollar— and everyone who uses it— to significant risk. Think about this from the perspective of foreign governments and central banks. Foreigners bought boatloads of US government debt over the past few years, especially in the early days of the pandemic. In fact foreign ownership of US government debt has increased by $1 trillion since the start of the pandemic, and now amounts to more than $7.6 trillion. But thanks to Fed policy, these foreign institutions are in the same boat as Silicon Valley Bank— they're sitting on huge losses in their bond portfolios. They've also suffered from pitiful returns, high inflation, AND exchange rate losses. In short, any foreign institution that bought US government bonds over the past few years is sitting on huge losses....

Throughout history, whenever there has been a major shift in the world, it has usually been accompanied by a single iconic event that is associated with that change. For example, historians often point to 476 AD as the year that the Western Roman Empire fell, when Odoacer and his barbarians forced the abdication of the Emperor Romulus Augustus— even though it was obvious that Rome was in decline way before 476. People also often associate the start of the Great Depression with the stock market crash of 1929 (even though there were many signs of economic distress well in advance of that). But these clean, precise dates are only chosen in retrospect. People experiencing the events at the time rarely understand their significance. I think it's possible that future historians may look back at Silicon Valley Bank's collapse as one of those iconic events that signals a major shift... potentially the end of American geopolitical and economic dominance. I'm not making this assertion to be dramatic; rather I think that anyone who takes an objective look at the facts— the appalling $31+ trillion national debt the government's addiction to spending and multi-trillion dollar deficits social dysfunction and “mostly peaceful” protests the decline in military strength rampant inflation and central bank folly extreme government incompetence insolvency in major programs like Social Security — will reach the same conclusion that the United States is past its peak and in decline. Now on top of everything else we can add a loss of confidence in the US banking system. Obviously I take no pleasure in acknowledging the US is in decline. But that doesn't make it any less true. And this has been Sovereign Man's core ethos since inception back in 2009. Back when I started this company it was considered extremely controversial when I said the US was in decline, or that there would be larger problems in the banking system, or that the breakdown of social cohesion would only get worse. But today these challenges are so obvious that they're impossible to deny. You can never solve a problem until you first admit you have one. And most of the corrupt sycophants masquerading as political leadership are incapable of admitting problems, nor discussing them rationally, let alone solving them. But you and I do not have that disability. We are free to exercise the full range of human ingenuity and creativity with which we have been fortunately endowed. So while the people in charge continue to never miss an opportunity to demonstrate their uselessness, we have a whole world of freedom and opportunity at our disposal. This is the topic of today's podcast. First I review the huge issues with the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Honestly when you look at it from a big picture perspective, it's littered with mind-numbing incompetence. The politicians who received donations from SVB's Political Action Committee missed it. The Wall Street hot shots missed it. The credit ratings agencies missed it. The regulators missed it. The Federal Reserve missed it. But now the Federal Reserve has launched a new program that exposes the US dollar— and everyone who uses it— to significant risk. Think about this from the perspective of foreign governments and central banks. Foreigners bought boatloads of US government debt over the past few years, especially in the early days of the pandemic. In fact foreign ownership of US government debt has increased by $1 trillion since the start of the pandemic, and now amounts to more than $7.6 trillion. But thanks to Fed policy, these foreign institutions are in the same boat as Silicon Valley Bank— they're sitting on huge losses in their bond portfolios. They've also suffered from pitiful returns, high inflation, AND exchange rate losses. In short, any foreign institution that bought US government bonds over the past few years is sitting on huge losses....

https://www.patreon.com/GnosticInformant Please Consider joining my Patreon to help finding scholars to bring on. Any amount helps me. Thank you existing Patrons. Prof. Ed Watts Channel: @romeseternaldecline2386 Moses Course: Dr. Bart D. Ehrman https://gnosticinformant--ehrman.thri... Mystery Cults Course: Dr. M David Litwa https://gnosticinformant--pursuit4kno... The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading barbarians outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease drove many of these immediate factors. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure. In 376, unmanageable numbers of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Empire. In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died, leaving a collapsing field army, and the Empire, still plagued by Goths, divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers and, like the Goths, were not exterminated, expelled or subjugated. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never effectively consolidated. By 476, the position of Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power, and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, survived and, although lessened in strength, remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean. While the loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the Fall is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as late antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse. The fall of Constantinople, also known as the conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453[13][14] as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April. The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II (later nicknamed "the Conqueror"), while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople. The conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire was a watershed of the Late Middle Ages, marking the effective end of the last remains of the Roman Empire, a state which began in roughly 27 BC and had lasted nearly 1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gnosticinformant/message

488 to 493  Theodoric leads his people to Italy, to make war on Odoacer and win for himself a permanent kingdom. Transcript and Maps Here Just Maps Here Support the show Here Title Music: "The Britons" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Sources: Heather, Peter J. The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014. Martindale, J.R. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. II. vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980. 3 vols. The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/prosopography-later-roman-empire/PLRE-II/mode/1up. Wolfram, Herwig. History of the Goths. Translated by Thomas Dunlap, University of California Press, 1990.  

Mike Isaacson: Rome gets sacked ONE TIME, and that's all these people can talk about! [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome to another episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast. Today we're talking with Edward Watts, professor of history and Alkaviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair in Byzantine Greek History at the University of California San Diego. He's here to talk to us about his book, The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea. The book is an extraordinary scholarly endeavor that managed to give a detailed and engaging history of 1700 years of Roman history in under 300 pages. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Watts. Edward Watts: Thanks so much for having me. It's exciting to be here. Mike: All right. Now, you are one of the rare guests on our show whose book was actually directed at debunking Nazi lies. Tell us what you had in mind when you were writing this book. Edward: So the thing that prompted me to write this book was a recognition that the history of Rome, and in particular the legacy of Rome as it relates to the end of Roman history, was something that was being repeatedly misused across thousands of years to justify doing all sorts of violence and horrible things to people who really in the Roman context had very little to do with the decline of Rome, and in a post-Roman context, had nothing really to do with the challenges that people using the legacy of Rome wanted to try to address. And in particular, what prompted this was the recognition after 2016 of how stories about the classical past and the Roman past were being used on the far right and the sort of fascist fringe as a way of pointing to where they saw to be challenging dynamics and changes, critical changes, in the way that society was functioning. What was happening was people were doing things like using the story of the Gothic migrations in the 4th century AD to talk about the need to do radical things in our society related to immigration. And the discussions were just misusing the Roman past in really aggressive ways as kind of proof for radical ideas that didn't really relate to anything that happened in the past and I think are generally not things that people would be willing to accept in the present. And Rome provides a kind of argument when it's misunderstood,when Roman history is misunderstood, it provides a kind of argument that people are not familiar enough with to be able to refute, that might get people who think that a certain policy is aggressive or inhumane or unnecessary to think twice about whether that policy is something that is a response to a problem that people need to consider. And that's just wrong. It's a wrong way to use Roman history. It's a wrong way to use history altogether. And it's a rhetoric that really needs to be highlighted and pointed to so that people can see how insidious these kinds of comparisons can be. Mike: Okay, so your book discusses the idea of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which you say started before any such decline or fall in the late Republic. What was politics like in the Roman Empire before the myth of Rome's decline popped up? Edward: So this is an interesting question because the story of Roman decline actually shows up in some of the very earliest Roman literature that we have. So the very first sort of intact Latin texts that we have from the Roman period are things like the plays of Plautus. In one of the earlier plays of Plautus, he is already making fun of people for saying that Rome is in decline. And he's saying this at a time right after the Roman victory over Hannibal when there is no evidence that Rome is in decline at all. And yet we know that there are politicians who are pushing this idea that the victory over Hannibal has unleashed a kind of moral decline in Rome that is leading to the degeneration of Roman morals and Roman behaviors and Roman social structures in such a fashion that will disrupt the ability of Rome to continue. This is just not something that most people recognized to be true, but what we see when politicians in the third century and second century BC are saying things like this, they aren't particularly interested in describing an objective reality. What they're looking to do is insert ideas into popular discourse, so that people in the context of their society begin to think it might be possible that decline exists. So I think that when we look at Roman history before Roman literature, or before these pieces of Roman literature exist, we really are looking at much later reconstructions. But I think that it's fair to say that even in those reconstructions of stories about things like say, the sixth king of Rome, those stories too focus on how that particular regime was inducing a decline from the proper behaviors of Romans. So I think we could say that there is no before decline. Rome seems always to have been talking about these ideas of decline and worrying about the fact that their society was in decline, even when objectively you would look around and say there is no reason whatsoever that you should be thinking this. Mike: Okay. Now your book argues that this political framing helped politicians shape the politics of the Roman Empire in particular ways. So how did those who pushed this declensionist narrative change the Roman republic? Edward: So in the Roman republic, there are a few things that this narrative is used to do. In the second century, early second century BC, this narrative is used to attack opponents of a politician named Cato. What Cato tried to do was single out people who had been getting particularly wealthy because of the aftermath of Rome's victory in the Second Punic War over Hannibal and then its victories in the eastern Mediterranean against the Greek King, Philip V. And what Cato saw was that this wealth was something that profoundly destabilized society because now there were winners who were doing well economically in a way that the old money establishment couldn't match. And so what he's looking to do is to say that when you look around and you see prosperity of that level in the Roman state, this is a sign that things are actually bad. It's not a sign of things are good. It's a sign that things are deteriorating, and we need to take radical steps to prevent this. And the radical steps that Cato takes, and that he initially gets support for, involves very onerous taxes directed specifically against groups of people that he opposed. He also serves as the person who decides who gets to be in the Roman Senate, and he uses that position to kick out a lot of people on the basis simply of him deciding that they embody some kind of negative trajectory of the Roman State. And there's a reaction to this and Cato eventually is forced to kind of back away from this. As you move later in the second century, the narrative of decline becomes something that first is used to again justify financial policies, and then later, actual violence against officials who are seen as pushing too radical an agenda. And so this becomes a narrative that you can use to destabilize things. It doesn't matter if you're coming from what we would say is the right or the left, the kind of equal opportunity narrative that can be used to get people to question whether the structures in their society are legitimately in keeping with the way the society is supposed to function. Mike: Okay. So a lot of people have this misconception that Rome kind of snapped from being a republic to being governed by an emperor, but that's not really so. What was the imperial administration like and how did it change? Edward: The Roman republic was in many ways a very strong constitutional system that had a lot of things built into it to prevent one individual from taking over. Not only did it have a structure that was based on a kind of balance of power–and the description of that structure was something that influenced the Founding Fathers in the US to create the balances of power that we have–but in Rome, the administrative office that correlated to the presidency actually was a paired magistracy. So there were two consuls who governed together and could in theory check one another. What the decline narrative happened or allows to happen is that these structures begin to be questioned as illegitimate. And you get, starting in the later part of the second century and going all the way through the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, a long set of discussions about how the Constitution is not functioning as it's supposed to, how the interests of everybody are not being represented by the representatives in the Senate and by the sorts of laws that are being put forward in assemblies. And you have a greater sense that there's an emergency, and an emergency that requires people to assent to an individual exercising more power than the structure really permits. And so this idea of decline heightens this sense of emergency and you have cycles every generation or so, where the sense of emergency gets greater and another constitutional structure snaps. Until eventually what you have is an individual in Julius Caesar, who is able to exercise complete and effective control over the direction of politics in the state. Mike: Okay. So for whatever reason, the assassination of Julius Caesar sticks strong in our cultural psyche, but reading your book it seems like assassinating emperors was kind of commonplace? Edward: It depends on the period. Yeah, there are definitely periods where the violent overthrow of emperors are somewhat common. I think with Caesar, what we have is the assassination. We're still when Caesar was assassinated in the final death throes of the Roman republic. And so it takes a while and a really brutal nearly 15-year-long sprawling Civil War for Rome to finally just accept that the republic as a governing structure is not really going to function in the way it had before. And the first emperor is Augustus. The first assassination actually occurs about 75 years after Augustus takes over. The first emperor that's assassinated is Caligula. Then you have moments of really profound peace and stability that are punctuated by these upheavals where, you know, in the year 68 the Emperor Nero commits suicide and this leads to a sprawling civil war in which four emperors take power in the course of a single year. Then things kind of calmed down. There's an assassination in 96, and no more assassinations for almost 100 years. And so you have these moments where the structures of the empire are very stable, but when they break, it breaks very seriously. It's very rare when an emperor is assassinated, that there's only one assassination and things kind of work out after that. And so generally, I think what this suggests is, if you have faith that the Imperial structure is working predictably, it's very, very hard to disrupt that. But if you have a sense that an emperor is not legitimate or is not in power or has taken power violently, there's a very serious risk that that emperor will in turn be overthrown violently, and something very serious could happen, even going so far as resulting in a civil war. Mike: Okay so one of the biggest myths surrounding the Roman Empire is that it fell in 476 AD, and that plunged Europe into the Dark Ages, but this isn't really so. What happened in 476 AD, and how did it become the legendary fall of Rome? Edward: Yes, so 476 AD is one of the greatest non-events in history. Because when we look at our history and our timeline for the fall of Rome, this is the date that stands out to us. But actually in 476, there's not a single person who seems to think that Rome fell on that day. What happens is in the middle part of the fifth century, the eastern empire and the western empire separated in 395. And in the middle part of the fifth century, the western empire has a very serious loss of territory and then a loss of stability within Italy. So that there are, in a sense, kingmakers who run the army and decide whether an emperor should be in power or not. And so you have a number of figurehead emperors, starting really in the 450s and going through 476, who are there, in a couple of cases at certain moments they do exercise real power, but much of the time they're subordinate to military commanders who don't want to be emperor, or in many cases are of barbarian descent and don't think they can make imperial power actually stick, and in 476, Odoacer who was one of these barbarian commanders overthrows an emperor in Italy and says, "We are not going to have an emperor in Italy anymore. Instead, I'm just going to serve as the agent of the eastern emperor in Italy." And for the next 50 years, there are barbarian agents–first Odoacer and then Theodoric–who serve in this constitutional way where they acknowledge the superiority and the authority of the emperor in Constantinople over Italy. And in practice, they're running Italy. But in principle, they are still affirming that they're part of the Roman Empire, the Roman senate is still meeting, Roman law is still used. It's a situation where only when the eastern empire decides that it wants to take Italy back, do you start getting these stories about well, Rome fell in 476 when these barbarians got rid of the last emperor and now it's our obligation to liberate Italians from this occupation by these barbarians. In 476, though, this is not what anyone in Constantinople or in Italy actually thought was going on. Mike: Okay. So both the east and the west of the Roman Empire eventually became Christian. How did this alter the myth of the declining Rome? Edward: So for much of Roman history, there is very much this idea that any problem that you have is a potential sign of the decline of Rome, and if you are particularly motivated, you can say that the problem requires radical solutions to prevent Rome from falling into crisis. But with Christianity, when the Roman Empire becomes Christian, there is no past that you can look back to say, "Well, we were better as a Christian empire in this time." When Constantine converts to Christianity, he's the first Christian emperor. And so it's very natural for opponents to be able to say, "Look, he made everything Christian and now things are going to hell ,and so Christianity is the problem." So what Christians instead say is what actually is going on here is we are creating a new and better Rome, a Rome where the approach to the divine is more sophisticated, it's more likely to work. And so for about 100 years, you have instead of a narrative decline, a narrative of progress where Christians are pushing a notion that by becoming Christian, the Empire is embarking on a new path that is better than it has ever been before. Not everybody accepts this. At the time of Constantine's conversion, probably 90% of the Emperor's still pagan so this would be a very strange argument to them. And by the time you get into the fifth century, you probably are in a majority Christian empire, but like a 50% majority, not like 90% majority. So there is a significant pushback against this. And in moments of crisis, and in particular after the Sack of Rome in 410, there is a very strong pagan reaction to this idea of Christian Roman progress. And Christians have to come up with evermore elaborate explanations for how what looks like decline in any kind of tangible sense that you would look at in the western empire is actually a form of progress. And the most notable production of that line of argument is Augustine's City of God, which says effectively, “Don't worry about this world. There's a better world, a Christian world that really you should be focusing on, and you're getting closer there. So the effect of what's going on in the Roman world doesn't really matter too much for you.” Mike: Okay. Now at one point, there were actually three different polities across Europe and Asia Minor all claiming the inheritance of the Roman Empire. How did this happen? Edward: There are different moments where you see different groups claiming the inheritance of Rome. In the Middle Ages, you have the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a construction of Charlemagne and the papacy around the year 800. And the claim that they make is simply that there is the first empress of the Roman state who takes power all by herself in 797–this is the Empress Irene–and the claim Charlemagne makes as well that eliminates the legitimacy of the Roman Empire and Constantinople because there's no emperor. Therefore because there's no emperor, there's no empire and therefore we can just claim it. Another moment where you see this really become a source of significant conflict is during the Fourth Crusade when the Crusaders attack Constantinople and destroy the central administration of the eastern Roman Empire. After that point, you have the crusaders in Constantinople who claim that they are a Roman state. You have the remains of the Roman state that had been in Constantinople sort of re-consolidating around the city of Nicaea. You have a couple of other people who claim the inheritance of the Roman state inEpirus and Trebizond, and they all kind of fight with each other. And so ultimately, what you see is that the Roman Empire has this tremendous resonance across all of the space that was once Roman. So their empire at its greatest extent went from the Persian Gulf all the way to Scotland. And it went from Spain and the Atlantic coast of Morocco all the way down to the Red Sea. It's massive. And in a lot of those territories after Rome recedes, the legacy of Rome remains. So a lot of people who felt that they could claim the Roman legacy tried to do that, because it gave a kind of added seriousness and a more, a greater echo to these little places that are far away from the center of the world now, places like Britain or places like France or places like Northern Germany. And so you, in a sense, look like you're more important than you are if you can make a claim on the Roman imperial legacy. Mike: Okay. And so how do these would-be empires finally end up collapsing? Edward: So, each in their own way. In the case of the Holy Roman Empire, it actually lasts for very long time. It's created under Charlemagne in 800, and it lasts really until the time of Napoleon. And it collapses because it's sort of dissolved because in Germany there was a fear that Napoleon might actually use the hulk of the Holy Roman Empire and the title of Holy Roman Emperor to claim a kind of ecumenical authority that would go beyond just what he had as emperor of France. The crusader regime in Constantinople is actually reconquered by the Nicene regime in 1261. So the Crusaders take Constantinople in 1204, and then these Roman exiles who set up a kind of Roman Empire in exile in Nicaea reconquer in 1261. And they hold Constantinople for another 200 years until the Ottomans take it in 1453. The other sort of small Roman states are absorbed either by the state in Constantinople or by the Ottomans, but ultimately by the end of the 1460s, everything that had once been part of the Eastern Empire in the Middle Ages is under Ottoman control. Mike: Okay. And so despite all of the polities that could have contended for the inheritance of Rome collapsing, Rome's decline still played a large part in political considerations across what was formerly the Roman Empire but now as an instructive metaphor. How was the decline of the Roman Empire leveraged to influence politics leading into the modern era, and who were the big myth makers? Edward: Yeah, there's a couple of really important thinkers in this light. One is Montesquieu, the French thinker who uses a discussion of Roman history to launch into a much more wide and expansive and influential discussion of political philosophy that centers really on notions of representation and sets some of the groundwork for what actors in the American Revolution and French Revolution believed they were doing. Montesquieu is really, really important in understanding 18th-century political developments. And I think it's impossible really to understand what the American Revolution and the French Revolution thought they were doing without also looking at Montesquieu. But now I think the more influential figure in terms of shaping our ideas about what Roman history looked like and what Roman decline meant is Edward Gibbon. Gibbon is also an 18th-century thinker. When he started writing a history of Rome, he started writing in the 1770s when he believed that there was a firm and stable European political structure of monarchies that could work together and kind of peacefully move the continent forward. And while Gibbon is working on this, of course, you know, the American Revolution happens, and the French Revolution happens, and his whole structure that he was looking to defend and celebrate with his Roman history disappears. And so his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire becomes a book that is extracted from its historical context. And it seems like it is an objective narrative of what happens. It's not objective at all. What Gibbon is trying to do is compare the failings of one large single imperial structure and the advantages of this kind of multipolar world where everyone is balanced and cooperative. But everybody forgets that that multipolar world even existed because the book comes out after it's gone. So what you have with Gibbon is a narrative that seems to be just an account of Roman history, and a very, very evocative one. I think most of the people now who have Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on their shelf don't read it. But they know the title. They know the concept. This means that you have a ready-made metaphor for anything that's bothering you. You know, you can talk about the decline and fall of Rome. Just about everybody in the entire world knows that Rome declined and fell. And very few of them know much about why it happened or how it happened or how long it took. And so evoking the decline and fall of Rome allows you to kind of plug in anything, as my friend Hal Drake says, anything that's bothering you at a particular moment, you can plug in and say Rome fell because of X. And if you look at the last 50 years you can see lots and lots and lots of examples of X, lots of different things that bothered people that got plugged into the story of Rome fell because of whatever's bothering me that day. Mike: I am certainly guilty of having a copy of Gibbon on my bookshelf and not having read it. [laughs] So in talking about the modern appropriation of the memory of Rome, you of course talk about Fascist Italy. You reference Claudio Fogu, whom I absolutely love, check out his book The Historic Imaginary. How did Fascists wield the memory of the Roman Empire to justify their regime? Edward: Yeah, it's so, so seductive what is done in the city of Rome in particular. And there's a sense that I think is a very real sense that creating and uncovering and memorializing the imperial center of the Roman Empire makes real the experience of walking through it, and with the right kind of curation can make it feel like you're in a contemporary environment that's linked to that ancient past. And what Mussolini and his architects tried very very hard to do was create this, in a sense, almost Roman imperial Disneyland in the area between the Colosseum and the Capital line. So when we walk there, we see a kind of disembodied and excavated giant park with a large street down the middle running from the Colosseum along the length of the Roman Forum. But that was actually neighborhoods.  Before Mussolini, there were actual houses and shops and restaurants and people living there, and very, very long-standing communities that he removed with this idea that you were in a sense restoring the past and creating a future by removing the present. And I think that's a very good metaphor for what they were up to. What they were trying to do was create an affinity for the fascist present by uncovering this Roman past and getting rid of what they saw as disorder. And the disorder, of course, was real people living their lives in their houses. But the other thing that people, you know, when tourists visit this now, they don't know that history. They don't know that when they walk on the street alongside the Forum, they're actually walking on a street that is a 20th-century street created for Fascist military parades on the ruins of modern, early modern, and medieval houses. They just see this as a way to kind of commune with this Roman past. And the Fascists very much understood that aesthetic and how seductive that aesthetic was. Mike: Okay, so let's circle back to where we started with your motivation for the book. How are people invoking the fall of Rome now, and what are they getting wrong? Edward: I think that we see, again, this temptation to take what's bothering you and attaching it to Rome. And I think even if you just look over the last 50 years, you can almost trace the sorts of things people are anxious about in a modern context based on the things that are advanced for what possibly made Rome fall. So in the 70s and early 80s, there's lots of concern about environmental contamination and the effect that this is going to have on people's lives. And we get the story of Rome fell because of lead poisoning. I mean, it didn't. It's just ridiculous that you would think Rome fell because of lead poisoning when there is no moment that it fell, the place was active and survived for well over 1500 years when it was using lead pipes. There's no evidence whatsoever that this is true. In the 70s, Phyllis Schlafly would go around and say that Rome fell because of liberated women. I think that would be a very big surprise to a lot of Roman women that they were actually liberated, definitely in the 1970's way. In the 80s, and even into the 2010s, you have people like Ben Carson talking about Rome declining because of homosexuality or gay marriage. Again, that has nothing to do with the reality of Rome. There are other places where I think people come a little bit closer to at least talking about things that Romans might acknowledge existed in their society. So when you have Colin Murphy and others in the lead up to the Iraq War talking about the overextension of military power as a factor that can lead to the decline of Rome, yeah, I mean, Rome did have at various moments problems because it was overextended militarily. But most of the time it didn't. To say that the Romans were overextended militarily because they had a large empire ignores the fact that they had that large empire for almost 400 years without losing significant amounts of territory. So comparing Roman military overextension and US military overextension could be a useful exercise, but you have to adjust the comparison for scale. And you have to adjust the comparison to understand that there are political dynamics that mean that places that in the first century BC required military garrisons, in the third century did not. And so you're not overextended because you're in the same place for 400 years. At the beginning, you might need to have an extensive military presence in a place that later you won't. So I think that what we need to do when we think about the use of the legacy of Rome, is think very critically about the kinds of things that Rome can and can't teach us, and think very clearly about the difference between history repeating itself–which I think it doesn't–and history providing us with ideas that can help us understand the present. I think that's where history is particularly useful, and Roman history in particular is useful. Because it's so long, there are so many things that that society deals with, and there are so many things that it deals with successfully as well as fails to deal with capably. All of those things offer us lessons to think with, even if they don't offer us exact parallels. Mike: Okay, so we've talked a bunch about the fabricated history of Rome and the popular memory of Rome. What does the actual history of Rome and fears of Roman decline have to teach us about the present? Edward: I think the biggest thing that we can see is if somebody is claiming that a society is in profound decline and the normal structures of that society need to be suspended so the decline can be fixed, that is a big caution flag. What that means is somebody wants to do something that you otherwise would not agree to let them do. And the justification that they provide should be looked at quite critically, but it also should be considered that, even if they identify something that might or might not be true, the solution they're proposing is not something that you absolutely need to accept. Systems are very robust. Political systems and social systems are very robust and they can deal with crises and they can deal with changes. If someone is saying that our system needs to be suspended or ignored or cast to the side because of a crisis, the first step should be considering whether the crisis is real, and then considering whether it is in fact possible to deal with that crisis and not suspend the constitutional order, and not trample on people's rights, and not take away people's property, and not imprison people. Because in all of these cases that we see Roman politicians introduced this idea of decline to justify something radical, there are other ways to deal with the problem. And sometimes they incite such panic that Romans refuse or forget or just don't consider any alternative. That has really profound and dangerous consequences because the society that suspends normal orders and rights very likely is going to lose those rights and those normal procedures. Mike: All right. Well, Dr. Watts, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast to talk about the myth of the Roman Empire. The book, again, is The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome out from Oxford University Press. Thanks again, Dr. Watts. Edward: Thanks a lot. This was great. Mike: If you enjoyed what you heard and want to help pay our guests and transcriptionist, consider subscribing to our Patreon at patreon.com/nazilies or donating to our PayPal at paypal.me/nazilies or CashApp at $nazilies [Theme song]

Tread Perilously begins a month of backdoor pilots with The Golden Girls episode "Empty Nests" -- the first attempt to launch Empty Nest. When Renee, the girls' neighbor, begins to lean on them more and more after her daughter moves away to college, Rose suggests she has empty nest syndrome and Dorothy suggests Renee should tell her husband, George, that she's lonely. Back at their house, we discover George is a particularly busy general practitioner and Renee has a brother with Dissociative Identity Disorder. We also learn they have a pesky neighbor named Oliver who is too obnoxious to live. But will it all spell a series we want to watch? Erik and Justin note a certain "first draft" element to the writing. They also agree on the film Go. Justin takes a strong stance on backdoor pilots. Erik offers a hot take on Cowboy Bebop. The pair stump for Cobb Vanth yet again. Rita Moreno continues to be a show all-star while David Leisure proves to be the opposite. Erik's attempt at a Robert Redford impression ends up decidedly Shatnerian. Favorite Golden Girls lines are referenced. Bea Arthur's neutral expression provides some much-needed laughs. Erik tries to recall the actual Empty Nest and blames Odoacer for the disappearance of the pixie cut.

Interesting yet dry is the ideal description for something that should help the listener sleep, and very suitable for the ancient history of tonight's bedtime ‘story.' The true history of Odoacer the ‘king' of Rome and the history of the Vandals who operated in North Africa during this period. Story (07:01) Find The Dark Ages, 476-918 by Charles Oman https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61536 Supporting Sleepy Time Tales If you would like to support my work and help keep the podcast available and for free, there are several ways you can support the show. You can support the show as a supporter on Patreon and receive a host of bonuses including Patron only episodes and special edits https://www.patreon.com/sleepytimetales If you're enjoying Sleepy Time Tales and would like to make a financial contribution, but would rather not commit to a monthly payment then check out Buy Me A Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sleepytimetales this doesn't require any account registration on your part. You can throw a tip in the jar at me/sleepytimetales Want to wear or decorate with Sleepy Time Tales? Check out the store and get yourself some sleepwear, pillows, phones cases or anything else you'd like http://sleepytimetales.redbubble.com You can sign up at BetterHelp for professional, low cost counselling services at: https://trybetterhelp.com/sleepytime Treat yourself to a free audiobook to keep from Audible's significant range, and help Sleepy Time Tales to keep the lights on and grow. Go to com/sleepytime and sign up for a free 30-day trial. BetterHelp (sponsor) We have a new sponsor partner with BetterHelp. A low cost, secure, online therapy service. Sleepy Time Tales listeners get a 10% discount on your first month. Go to https://trybetterhelp.com/sleepytime to try it out or to https://sleepytimetales.net/betterhelp-mental-health/ to learn more. Patreon $5 Patrons Jessa Wyn Nova Regan G Lacy H Jennifer D Abby F Megan W Felicity R Chris & Moya Angela M Sharon Michaela Emma Please Share If you're enjoying the show, and finding it helps you sleep despite the stresses and strains of your life, the absolute best thing you can do is share it with your friends, families, acquaintances, cellmates etc. Anyone who needs a good night's sleep might benefit. So please share it with the people in your life, whether in person or on social media. Find The Show Website: sleepytimetales.net Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sleepytimetales Twitter: https://twitter.com/sleepytimetales Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sleepytimetalespodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gG5z50RjyiJ0_YXeQJpbg Music: http://loyaltyfreakmusic.com/ Music Patreon: https://tinyurl.com/loyaltyfreak Project Gutenberg Terms of Use https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Terms_of_Use

In 476 the Germanic leader Odoacer overthrew Romulus Augustus, the last Roman Emperor in the West. Centuries passed as migrating peoples entered the previously Roman lands. Rome never disappeared, even though its political leadership, culture and language declined. New kingdoms adopted Roman laws, customs, clothing, military techniques, technologies and often spoke a hybrid language of […]

Part 2 of our Prologue to the History of the Germans kicks off with the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus handing over the insignia of his reign to his German general Odoacer. The next two centuries are dominated by hair-obsessed crime lords, some long-haired gingers, others bearded Lombards. Clovis, first "King of France" and descendant of sea monster, chooses the correct faith to be baptised in. His descendants wade through blood and incest until replaced by Charles "the Hammer" Martel whose son Pippin strikes a bargain with the devil Pope. Again, speed was of the essence so forgive me the occasional simplifications and omissions (Don't be angry Theoderic, we know you were the one good one!) As always: Homepage with maps, photos and blog: http://www.historyofthegermans.com/ (www.historyofthegermans.com) Facebook: @HOTGPod  Twitter: @germanshistory Instagram: history_of_the_germans Reddit: u/historyofthegermans Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Historyofthegermans?fan_landing=true (https://www.patreon.com/Historyofthegermans) Support this podcast

El episodio de esta semana de Communio Sanctorum se titula "Cónsul de Dios."Una de las contribuciones más importantes para el Imperio del Emperador Romano Diocleciano fue dividir el liderazgo del primer nivel para que pudiera gobernar de manera más eficiente. El Imperio había crecido demasiado para ser gobernado por un solo Emperador, por lo que seleccionó un co-Augustus y dividió sus regiones de supervisión entre el territorio Occidental y Oriental. Dado que el tema de la sucesión también había sido motivo de disturbios en generaciones anteriores, Diocleciano también trato de resolver este problema asignando a Césares secundarios tanto para él como para su co-Augusto. Cuando dejaban su puesto, había alguien esperando en las alas, pre-designado para tomar el control. La idea era que entonces cuando sus sucesores entraran en el papel de ser co-Augustus designarían nuevos Césares secundarios para seguirlos. Era un plan sólido y funciono bien mientras que Diocleciano era el Augusto mayor. Cuando se retiró para llevar una vida de reposo como agricultor retirado, los otros gobernantes decidieron que les gustaba el poder y no querían renunciar a él.A lo largo de los años siguientes, el gobierno del Imperio alternó entre tener un solo Emperador y la idea de gobierno compartido de Diocleciano. El rumbo general que tomaron con el gobierno compartido fue con el Augusto mayor haciendo su capital en el Este en Constantinopla. Esto dejó al gobernante más débil y subordinado en el Oeste con cada vez menos poder, al mismo tiempo que las tribus Germánicas lo presionaban desde el Norte.Lo que finalmente llevo a la perdición al Imperio Occidental fue que Roma había forjado tratados con algunas de esas tribus Germánicas; convirtiéndolos en mercenarios que estaban armados y entrenados en el estilo Romano de la guerra. Cuando Roma dejó de pagarles para que lucharan por Roma contra sus hermanos Germánicos y los Godos, era inevitable que se unieran a ellos para luchar en contra de un Imperio en decadencia que ya no podía enviar ejércitos contra ellos y ofrecía tesoros lisos para saquear.Hemos visto anteriormente, mientras los bárbaros presionaban en el Imperio Occidental desde el Norte y el Este, las autoridades civiles tenían una capacidad cada vez menor para hacer algo al respecto. La gente comenzó a buscar a la Iglesia para poner orden. Debido a que la Iglesia estaba dotada de algunos líderes notables que realmente se preocupaban por el bienestar del pueblo, lograron mantener unido al Imperio en decadencia por un tiempo. El Papa Leo incluso logró reunirse con el líder Huno Atila mientras que se preparaba para marchar sobre Roma. Leo persuadió a los Hunos para que se dieran la vuelta, dejando la ciudad intacta. Pero Leo no tuvo tanta suerte con los Vándalos que llegaron unos años más tarde. Logró persuadirlos de que limitaran su saqueo a solo llevarse el botín y saquear. La población se salvó de la muerte y la violación. Después de un festín de botín de 2 semanas, los Vándalos abordaron sus barcos y zarparon, dejando la ciudad sin mas molestia y destruccion.Los historiadores marcan el año 476 como la fecha en que cayó el Imperio Occidental. Fue cuando el líder Godo Odoacer depuso al último Emperador Occidental, Rómulo Augustulus. Odoacer es llamado bárbaro, pero en realidad era un líder militar en el ejército Romano; un mercenario que lideró una revuelta en contra de la misma gente por quienes una vez había luchado. Mientras que los historiadores marcan el año 476 como el año de la caída de Roma, las personas que vivían en ese momento no hubieran visto mucha diferencia entre el reinado de Augustulus y Odoacer. Las cosas continuaron tanto como lo habían hecho en las décadas anteriores. Es decir, ¡fueron un desastre!Con la Caída de Roma, el Imperio Occidental se trasladó a lo que conocemos como la Edad Media. Esta fue una época en la que la Iglesia desempeñó un rol cada vez mayor en la sociedad. La forma que la influencia tomó variaba a lo largo de los siglos; a veces siendo de una naturaleza más religiosa y espiritual, pero en otras ocasiones siendo predominantemente político. Pero no se puede negar que, en Europa durante la Edad Media, la Iglesia desempeñó un papel muy importante.Durante el 5º siglo y a principios del 6º siglo, cuando la sociedad civil se desintegró, la gente buscó alternativas. Algunos encontraron una respuesta en comunidades monásticas. Ya habían comunidades de cristianos desde el 3º siglo, pero el número de monasterios comenzó a crecer durante el 5º siglo. Algunos estaban muy estructurados, mientras que otros estaban organizados más libremente.El movimiento monástico despegó debido al liderazgo de Benedicto de Nursia del que ya hemos hablado. Los primeros intentos de Benedicto de ser el líder o abad de un monasterio no le salio tan bien; los monjes trataron de envenenarlo. Pero a medida que maduraba, Benedicto aplicó las lecciones aprendidas de sus errores anteriores y fundó un monasterio en Monte Casino en Italia que se convirtió en el prototipo para monasterios durante años.Benedicto era un genio para la administración y organización. Formuló un plan simple para la vida monástica que fue fácilmente transferido a otras comunas. Conocida como la Regla de San Benito, se convirtió en el principio de organización y gobierno de la vida monástica y bajo ella se iniciaron cientos de monasterios más. La Regla los llevaba a una rutina diaria de lectura bíblica, oración y trabajo. La hermana de Benedicto, Scholastica, adoptó una fórmula similar para los conventos.Los monasterios se convirtieron en repositorios y tesorerías del aprendizaje y la enseñanza de la antigua Grecia y Roma. A medida que el resto de Europa se sumergió en lo que algunos denominan La Edad Oscura, muchos monasterios seguían siendo lugares de enseñanza. Los monjes leían, estudiaban y pasaban mucho tiempo copiando textos antiguos tanto de las Escrituras como de la Antigüedad clásica. El Renacimiento eventualmente sería alimentado por el trabajo de esos monjes y sus cientos de años de trabajo.Lo que sabemos de Benedicto proviene de su biógrafo, Gregorio, conocido como el Papa Gregorio I, o Gregorio Magno, un título que le confiere la Iglesia poco después de su muerte.Gregory nació en una rica y antigua familia senatorial Romana alrededor del año 540. Siguiendo la tradición familiar, fue entrenado para el servicio civil. Pero el panorama político era incierto. Durante su infancia, el gobierno de Roma pasó por varios regímenes diferentes. Mientras que, en su adolescencia, el control del sur de Italia fue arrebatado de los Visigodos por la reconquista del Emperador Oriental Justiniano. Pero sólo pasaron unos pocos años hasta que los Lombardos comenzaron su campaña de terror. Quemaron iglesias, asesinaron obispos, saquearon monasterios y convirtieron los verdes campos de Italia en un desierto plagado.Cuando tenía 33 años, Justiniano nombró a Gregorio como prefecto de Roma, la posición política más alta del territorio. Gregorio era responsable de la economía, las provisiones alimentarias, el bienestar de los pobres, la reconstrucción de la infraestructura que ahora era antigua y estaba gravemente deteriorada; cosas como baños, alcantarillas y calles. Su nombramiento se produjo en el mismo año en que murieron tanto el Papa como el gobernador Imperial de Italia.Unos años más tarde Gregorio renunció a su cargo. Es raro cuando alguien que ejerce tan gran poder se aleje de él, pero eso es lo que Gregorio hizo. La muerte de su padre parece ser el momento decisivo. Uno se pregunta si no fueron los sueños de su padre para su hijo los que habían movido a Gregorio a una carrera política para empezar su vida. Una vez que el padre se había ido, no había nada que lo aferrara a su posición y Gregorio siguió su corazón, que lo llevo a convertirse en monje. Con su considerable fortuna, fundó siete monasterios y dio lo que le quedaba a los pobres. Luego convirtió la casa de su familia en un monasterio. Como dice Bruce Shelly, "Cambió la toga púrpura por la túnica gruesa de un monje". Abrazó la vida austera de un monje con plena devoción a la Regla de San Benito.Por mucho que Gregorio deseaba perderse en el anonimato y vivir una vida de humilde devoción a Dios, sus dones sobresalientes como administrador le habían fijado una reputación que no podía esquivar. En el año 579, el Papa Pelágico II lo convirtió en uno de los siete diáconos de la iglesia de Roma. Luego fue enviado como embajador del Papa a la corte Imperial en Constantinopla. Regresó a Roma en el año 585 y fue nombrado abad del convento que había sido una vez su casa.Gregorio estaba muy contento de ser un abad, y no aspiraba a ningún cargo superior, contento de terminar su tiempo en la tierra justo allí. Pero la peste arrasó a Roma, matando a miles, incluyendo al Papa. A diferencia de la mayoría de los monjes que se escondían detrás de los muros de su comuna, Gregorio fue a la ciudad para ayudar a los enfermos. Esto le ganó una gran admiración. Después de la muerte del Papa Pelágico, le tomo a los líderes de la iglesia seis meses en ponerse de acuerdo que Gregorio debía reemplazarlo. No quiso que le dieran ese honor y huyó de Roma para esconderse en el campo. Cuando finalmente fue localizado, lo persuadieron para que regresara y tomara su lugar como el Obispo de Roma.Gregorio parecía no apto para la tarea. Tenía 50 años y era frágil. 50 años sería joven para un Papa hoy en día, pero cuando la vida promedio de ese tiempo era de apenas 40 años, 50 ya era una edad avanzada. La condición física de Gregorio se había agravado por su austeridad extrema como monje. El ayuno drástico lo había envejecido y contribuyo al debilitamiento de su corazón. Pero lo que algunos podrían asumir fue la razón principal de ser descalificado fue la falta de ambición de Gregorio para tener el poder. Simplemente no quería ser Papa. Llego a la creencia de que esta era la voluntad de Dios y que él tenia que asumir la tarea, y no le tomó mucho tiempo en aprender a ejercer la influencia de su oficio. Comenzó su mandato pidiendo manifestaciones públicas de humildad a lo que quedaba de la población diezmada por la peste de Roma. Su esperanza era evitar más desastres. Y de hecho, después de un tiempo la plaga disminuyó.Gregorio no había sido Papa mucho tiempo cuando los Lombardos asediaron a Roma. Fue una época de caos en toda Europa Occidental. Muchas pensaban que era el fin de los tiempos; Gregorio era uno de ellos. En un sermón dijo,En todas partes vemos tribulación, en todas partes escuchamos lamentaciones. Las ciudades son destruidas, los castillos derribados, los campos asolados, la tierra desolada. Las aldeas están vacías, pocos habitantes permanecen en las ciudades, e incluso estos pobres restos de humanidad son cortados diariamente. El castigo de la justicia celestial no cesa, porque ningún arrepentimiento tiene lugar bajo el castigo. Vemos cómo algunos son llevados al cautiverio, otros mutilados, otros muertos. ¿Qué es, hermanos, lo que puede hacernos contentos con esta vida? Si amamos un mundo así, no amamos nuestro gozo, sino nuestras heridas.Parecía que todos los aspectos de la civilización estaban siendo sacudidas hasta la ruina. La iglesia de Roma fue una de las pocas que sobrevivieron las pruebas que se produjeron como golpes de martillo. Aunque Gregorio vio su ascenso al papado como castigo, se entregó de todo corazón a la tarea de mantener las cosas juntas mientras que todo lo demás se desmoronaba.El Papa Gregorio I era un líder incansable. Cumplió el trabajo de diez personas. Su volumen de trabajo es aún más notable porque a menudo fue confinado a la cama debido a enfermedad provocada por su fragilidad y exceso de trabajo. Al verse a sí mismo como genuinamente el primero entre iguales a los otros obispos, mantuvo una vasta correspondencia, asegurándose de que las líneas de comunicación entre las iglesias mantuvieran a todos al tanto de los asuntos de la Iglesia. Solo esto hubiera sido un trabajo de tiempo completo. Pero Gregory hizo más.El sabía tanto por su tiempo como monje y igualmente al observar a sus hermanos en el monasterio, que la calidad de la propia obra PARA Dios era directamente proporcional a la devoción del corazón HACIA El. Así que, en su libro Pastoral, Gregorio recordó a los líderes espirituales que no estuvieran tan preocupados por el trabajo que olvidaran su propia alma. Pero había un contrapunto muy necesario a esto; tampoco deberían estar tan centrados internamente que descuidaran el trabajo práctico. Este fue un punto de equilibrio rara vez vislumbrado en el Cristianismo de esa época.Gregorio también estaba preocupado por la calidad del culto en la iglesia y alentó el uso de la música. Aunque no inventó lo que se llama Canto Llano, y impulso su uso en gran medida. En honor a su patrocinio de esta forma de culto es conocido como Canto Gregoriano. Canto Llano es una sola línea melódica sin acompañamiento instrumental. Mientras que un solo cantante puede cantar, por lo general era cantado por un coro de voces al unísono.Gregorio tomó en serio su llamado de ser el abanderado de la Fe. Su contribución a la teología fue notable. Escribió más sobre teología que cualquier papa anterior y la mayoría de los papas posteriores. Sus principales influencias fueron Agustín, Ambrosio y Jerónimo. Se apoyó mucho en el trabajo de Agustín, incluso a veces inspirándose en comentarios casuales que había hecho.Recuerdan que varios episodios atrás cuando notamos cómo la iglesia creía que el bautismo lavaba todos los pecados, hasta ese momento. Bueno, ¿qué pasó con esos pecados cometidos después del bautismo que no fueron confesados antes de la muerte y no habían sido expiados por penitencia? Agustín reflexionó sobre cómo Dios podría, tal vez, posiblemente - eliminar estos pecados después de que los creyentes murieran. Fue a partir de esta reflexión especulativa que Gregorio desarrolló la idea de que Dios los purgaba en un "purga-torio;" por lo que la doctrina del purgatorio se añadió a la doctrina de la iglesia.La teología de Gregorio encapsulaba no sólo los credos de los consejos y enseñanzas de los Padres de la Iglesia, sino que también incluía algunas de las supersticiones añadidas por un paganismo Cristianizado.Entiendo que algunos Católicos Romanos se suscriben a este podcast. Ha sido muy alentador escuchar sus amables comentarios, y las sugerencias ocasionales que han hecho. Incluso en los puntos de desacuerdo, la mayoría ha sido cortés y han utilizado una fuerte dosis de tacto al hacer un diálogo. Digo esto porque en lo que sigue, sospecho que algunos pensarán que estoy ajustando innecesariamente las sensibilidades de nuestra familia Católica Romana. Espero que no, pero estoy presentando una visión precisa de la historia en este momento.Para ilustrar eso, permítanme plantear esta pregunta: ¿Cómo empezamos con la imagen de la Comunidad Cristiana y el tipo de servicio eclesiástico que encontramos en el NT y las primeras descripciones de ellos, y terminamos con los servicios elaborados, formales, altamente estructurados y estilizados de la Iglesia Medieval y posterior? Hay una discontinuidad obvia entre la dos. ¿Cuándo empezaron los pastores a usar túnicas elaboradas, coronas para la cabeza y empezaron a llevar un báculo de pastor dorado y lleno de joyas? Para decirlo sin rodeos, ¿de dónde vino todo este ritual complejo? No creo que nadie se imagina a Jesús llevando a cabo tal servicio, o incluso a Pedro. Así que es una pregunta legítima que debemos hacer, cuando estas cosas fueron adoptadas y como se convirtieron en una parte de la liturgia de la iglesia. La respuesta es que, a medida que el Imperio Romano Occidental se retiró y los líderes de las iglesias se volvieron cada vez más buscados, para proporcionar gobierno, también comenzaron a afectar algunas de las vestimentas de los cargos políticos. A medida que el cristianismo se convirtió en el favorito, y luego aprobada como la religión del Imperio, un sincretismo demasiado común comenzó a mezclar prácticas paganas y cristianas. Todo lo que hizo Gregorio fue estandarizar esta mezcla sincretista y llevarla a la Iglesia de la Edad Media.Gregorio respaldó una práctica anterior de pedir ayuda a los mártires y santos del pasado para obtener la ayuda de Dios. La idea era que un pecador penitente nunca podía saber si había hecho suficiente penitencia para expiar el pecado. Al apelar a aquellos creyentes que habían muerto y ido al cielo en busca de ayuda, podrían ser capaces, a través de su posición especial con Dios, de encontrar ayuda para que su pecado fuera dado de baja, como abogados espirituales que negociaban un mejor trato para los que vivían en la Tierra.Gregorio alentó la colección y la veneración de las reliquias; pedazos de pelo, uñas, huesos de los dedos de los pies, o piezas de ropa de santos y mártires pasados; así como la parafernalia supuestamente conectada a la Biblia; pedazos de la cruz, la lanza que perforó el lado de Jesús, una toalla utilizada para limpiar la frente de Cristo. Se suponía que estas reliquias poseían un poder especial para sanar y dar a los ejércitos que los veneraban favor en la batalla.Gregorio enseñó que el cuerpo y la sangre de Cristo estaban realmente presentes en los elementos de la Comunión, el pan y el vino. Afirmó que participar de ellos nutria y fortalecía el espíritu, así como el pan literal y el vino nutria el cuerpo físico. Pero Gregory lo llevó aun más lejos. El poder verdadero de los elementos de la Comunión, la Eucaristía, estaba en su renovación del sacrificio de la muerte de Cristo. La Eucaristía no sólo nos recordaba la expiación sustitutiva de Jesús, sino que era Cristo muriendo por nosotros otra vez. Durante la Comunión, en la Misa, ofrecida por un sacerdote, pecados eran perdonados. Lo que la muerte de Jesús en la cruz hizo potencialmente para todas las personas, la Misa lo aplicaba a personas específicas que participaron de ella. Así que celebrar la Misa reemplazó la necesidad de algunas formas de penitencia. Ciertos pecados requerían tanto asistir a la Misa como la penitencia. Pero para los pecados común y corrientes de todos los días, La misa reemplazó la penitencia. Entonces la gente razonó, si los santos muertos podían ayudarlos por intercesión con Dios, ¿por qué los creyentes vivos no podían asistir a misas adicionales para que el tiempo en purgatorio de sus seres queridos difuntos disminuyera? Enciende una vela, reza, asiste a una misa extra y podrías acortar la sentencia del tío Giacomo por una semana. Esta base teológica confeccionada por Gregorio se utilizaría cientos de años más tarde para vender indulgencias, y la cancioncita de recaudación de fondos de Tetzel – "Cuando en la caja de ofrendas suena la moneda, sale otra alma de los manantiales del purgatorio."El poder de supervisión de Gregorio no se limitó a los asuntos espirituales de la Iglesia. Durante su mandato, la Iglesia poseía enormes extensiones de tierra en el sur de Italia y Sicilia; unos 4,700 kilómetros cuadrados en total. Cuando los Lombardos invadieron, barriendo con los últimos vestigios de la autoridad civil, fueron los líderes de la iglesia y sus representantes quienes tuvieron que intervenir para proporcionar gobernabilidad. Se hicieron cargo de la infraestructura de suministro de alimentos y la recaudación necesaria de impuestos para mantener cierta apariencia de los asuntos civiles. Más tarde, los historiadores sentados a gusto en sus casas lamentan el desenfoque de la línea entre la iglesia y el estado. Pero no se dan cuenta, si no hubiera sido por los funcionarios de la iglesia que tuvieron que ayudar después de las incursiones Lombardas, decenas de miles hubieran perecido. Gregorio fue quien creó y supervisó este nuevo sistema de impuestos y asistencia pública. A medida que los Lombardos se acercaban a Roma, Gregorio se hizo cargo de la defensa del centro de Italia. Nombró al gobernador militar y organizó una paz con los líderes enemigos.Piensen en esto ahora à Gregorio fue entrenado desde la juventud para cargos políticos y había servido bien en esa capacidad hasta la muerte de su padre, cuando renunció para buscar la vida tranquila de un monje. Cuando la Peste arrazo tanto la iglesia como la esfera civil de líderes capaces, Gregorio fue reclutado para tomar las riendas de la Iglesia. Los Lombardos martillaron los últimos clavos en el ataúd del gobierno civil Romano, requiriendo por el bien del bien público, que Gregorio movilizara a los líderes de la iglesia para dar un paso adelante y seguir su liderazgo de asumir la tarea de la autoridad civil. Aunque Gregorio amplió en gran medida la influencia papal para que, a partir de su día, el Papa fuera una figura central en la política europea, su motivo para todo lo que hizo se ve en su simple preocupación por el bienestar de los necesitados, como lo demuestra que se nego a permanecer a salvo detrás de los muros de su monasterio cuando la plaga asoló Roma.La tensión entre la iglesia Oriental y Occidental que había comenzado más de cien años antes, mientras que Roma y Constantinopla luchaban por la supremacía, creció durante el mandato de Gregorio, pero no debido a la ambición personal de Gregorio para el poder. Sus críticas hacia el Patriarca Oriental se debieron a su creencia en la Primacía de Roma y su resistencia al tipo de orgullo que se exhibía plenamente en el Oriente. El Patriarca Oriental Juan IV había tomado el título de "Obispo Universal", un honorífico concedido al Patriarca por Emperadores como Leo y Justiniano. El título fue confirmado en un sínodo Oriental en el año 588. Pero Gregorio consideraba el título una usurpación de la primacía de Roma y una arrogancia flagrante que Dios no permitiría. Hizo todo lo que pudo para que revocara el título y clamo poderosas anatemas en su contra. Amenazó con romper toda conexión con el Patriarca y exigió al Emperador rescindir el título. ¡Cuando alguien le aplicó el mismo título, la reacción de Gregorio fue inmediata y vehemente - nadie debería ser llamado un “Papa Universal”! Dijo: "He dicho que ni a mí ni a nadie más deberías escribir nada de eso. ¡Aléjate de las palabras que inflan el orgullo y dan heridas a la caridad!" Prefirió ser conocido simplemente como – "el siervo de los siervos de Dios."Lo que parece una contradicción con los historiadores es que mientras Gregorio evitaba títulos pretenciosos, él reclamó y ejerció autoridad sobre toda la Iglesia. Mientras que, en su caso, ese cuidado se debía a su escrupuloso sentido del deber de servir a Dios sirviendo a su pueblo, los papas posteriores aceptarían los grandes títulos y usarían el poder del papado para fines menos altruistas.Gregorio es un nombre importante en la lista de Papas porque fue bajo su mandato que comenzó una gran ola de alcance misionero. León el Grande había tratado de expandir el poder y la influencia del oficio del Papa, y ahora Gregorio Magno expandió la influencia del Evangelio a nuevas tierras más allá de las fronteras del Imperio. Siendo el primer monje en convertirse en Papa, Gregorio se dio cuenta que los monasterios eran como cuarteles espirituales por los cuales se podían enviar un ejército de evangelistas. Si Roma no podía atacar a los bárbaros, ¿por qué no enviar legiones de misioneros para convertir a esos bárbaros y luego apelar a su fe para prevenir el ataque? Convertir a los bárbaros bélicos en audaces misioneros amantes de la paz y luego a los misioneros se extiendan esa misma paz, que en lugar de invadir Europa, llevarían la cruz al Norte y al Este.Fue un buen plan. Y Gregorio lo implementó bien.Cuando Gregory era joven, observaba cómo los barcos de esclavos eran descargados en los muelles. Los esclavos eran Anglos, de la Tierra de los Anglo, que más tarde se convertiría en Inglaterra. El nombre Anglo le sonaba como 'Ángel' al joven Gregorio y puso dentro de él la idea de que de dónde venían estos bárbaros se necesitaba el Evangelio.Además de su interés en las misiones a Gran Bretaña, Gregorio también promovió la actividad misionera entre las tribus Germánicas. Pero no fue hasta unos cien años más tarde que la obra misional entre las tribus Germánicas realmente despegaría. Cubriremos eso en un futuro episodio.Si has estado siguiendo junto con el podcast, puede haber surgido una pregunta a la que nos dirigimos ahora. ¿Cuándo se convirtió la iglesia occidental en Roma bajo el liderazgo general del obispo Romano que llegaría a ser conocido como el Papa, realmente en lo que hoy conocemos como Catolicismo Romano?No hay un fecha especifica en que la Iglesia pasara de ser la iglesia apostólica a la Iglesia Católica Romana. Fue un cambio lento y constante de acontecimientos que vieron al obispo Romano cambiar a ser visto como el líder mayoritariamente indiscutible de la iglesia Occidental. Digo "en su mayoría indiscutible" porque mientras que la iglesia Oriental se centraba en Constantinopla, Antioquía y Alejandría honraba al obispo de Roma como el primero entre iguales, y siempre había un puñado de obispos Occidentales que estimaban al pastor principal en Roma de la misma manera. Pero no veían su rol como obispos de sus ciudades como de ninguna manera bajo la autoridad de un Papa Romano.Y no olvides que el término católico; que técnicamente solamente significa "universal" llevaba nada de la carga confesional que trae hoy en día. La palabra simplemente significaba la Fe que seguía a los credos establecidos por los consejos ecuménicos – esas reuniones a las que asistieron una amplia sección de los líderes de la iglesia para que pudieran definir una posición bíblicamente fiel sobre las doctrinas que están siendo arruinadas por maestros y grupos aberrantes.Una definición ultra sencilla entonces del Catolicismo Romano es esa rama de la fe Cristiana que encarna los primeros credos de la iglesia, tal como se fusionó en Europa, dirigida por la iglesia de y Obispo de Roma. A medida que pasaban las generaciones, el Catolicismo Romano asumiría mucha doctrina adicional a la encarnada en los primeros credos. Esa doctrina fue decidida con mayor frecuencia por el Obispo Romano, cuyo poder y autoridad crecieron para que reemplazara a los Concilios.Así que si bien es difícil nombrar una fecha en la que el Catolicismo Romano se convirtió, ya sabes– Católico Romano, muchos historiadores de la iglesia sugieren que el nombramiento de Gregorio como obispo de Roma en el año 590 es un lugar tan bueno como cualquiera para poner esa marca en la línea de tiempo de la historia de la iglesia. Aunque Gregorio rechazó el título de "Papa", estableció el sistema de gobierno de la iglesia que enmarcó todo el período medieval y se llama hoy el sistema papal. Gregorio estableció una liturgia uniforme para ser utilizada en las iglesias e hizo mucho para asegurar que todas las iglesias caminaran junto con Roma.Cuando murió en el año 604, agotado después de 30 años de arduo trabajo, su epitafio lo proclamó "Cónsul de Dios". Una descripción apropiada del hombre que pasó su vida y carrera totalmente al servicio de Dios, pero ejerciendo el poder secular y espiritual como uno de los antiguos gobernantes Romanos.

El título de este episodio es "Bárbaros a las puertas – y en todas partes"Vivo en la costa del sur de California en uno de los lugares más bellos del planeta: el condado de Ventura. El clima es templado durante todo el año con una temperatura media de 70 grados. Las playas son prístinas y la mayoría de las veces, despobladas. El condado tiene varios lugares de surf de primera. Pero de vez en cuando, por lo general durante el invierno, las tormentas lanzan enormes olas que destrozan la playa. Algunas de estas tormentas son locales y lavan enormes montones de escombros de las colinas que luego se terminan en la playa. Otros están lejos hacia el sur, frente a la costa de México, pero vienen olas que viajan hacia el norte y erosionan toneladas de arena, alterando la costa.En el 5º y 6º siglo, oleadas de invasiones bárbaras del Norte y del Este arrasaron a Europa para alterar el paisaje político y cultural y impulsaron a la Europa hacia la Edad Media.Cuando el Obispo Agustín de Hipona murió en el año 430, los Vándalos asediaban su ciudad. Mientras que el Concilio de Calcedonia se reunía en el año 451, el Papa Leo estaba negociando con los Hunos para dejar a Roma sin ser molestada.La historia Europea del 5º y 6º siglo fue dominada por el movimiento de los pueblos principalmente Germánicos en el territorio del antiguo Imperio Romano. El desplazamiento que se dio por esto y el cambio de población tuvieron un gran impacto en el Cristianismo en Occidente. La civilización Medieval fue el resultado de esta agitación bárbara junto con los vestigios finales de la sociedad Romana y el impacto que Agustín tuvo en la teología y la práctica de la Iglesia.La incursión de tribus Germánicas en el Imperio Romano fue sólo la primera de 4 oleadas masivas de migración.Los Alemanes llegaron en el 5º siglo. Los Vars y Eslavos entraron en los Balcanes en el 6º siglo. Los Musulmanes en el 7º siglos. Y los Vikingos en el 8º al 10º siglo.Los cambios sociales resultantes creados por estas migraciones invasivas tuvieron un efecto monumental en la Iglesia. Vamos a echar un vistazo ahora a sólo el primero de estos cambios de población - las invasiones Germánicas.El 5º siglo vio el clímax de lo que era realmente un largo proceso de inmigración controlada en su mayoría por los Alemanes. Ellos se establecieron en tierras en las frontera del Imperio y sirvieron en el ejército. En verdad, mientras que los Romanos se referían a los Alemanes como bárbaros, a menudo preservaban el Imperio llenando huecos en la población en declive de las tierras Romanas y llenando las legiones. Fue la Tormenta Perfecta la que vio que las cosas en un sentido figurado se cayeran para Roma. Los factores que se combinaron para generar esta Tormenta Perfecta fueron à1) Los Alemanes fueron presionados por invasores saliendo de Asia central,2) Los tratados claves entre los Romanos y los Alemanes se rompieron,3) El clima cálido que había visto un auge demográfico en el norte de Europa fue seguido por un frío amargo por el cual los Alemanes se vieran obligados a moverse hacia el sur en busca de tierras para sostener su población numerosa. No ayudó a Roma que los Alemanes conocían ahora las tácticas militares Romanas y llevaban armas Romanas.Nota para uno mismo: Si no quieres que tu vecino se haga cargo de tu casa, no le des las llaves y el código de alarma.Ciertas fechas en la primera mitad del 5º siglo son importantes àEn el año 410, Alarico, líder de los Godos Occidentales, o Visigodos, saqueó la ciudad de Roma. Este fue un evento comprensiblemente traumático para el Imperio Occidental. Su sucesor, Ataulf, se casó con la hermana del Emperador Honorio.En el año 430, Agustín, intentó explicar la caída de Roma por los Visigodos en su obra clásica La Ciudad de Dios. Murió el año antes del Concilio de Éfeso y la caída de su ciudad, Hipona en Norte de África a los Vándalos.En el año 451, Atila y los Hunos de Asia central, arrasaron por Europa Occidental, y luego fueron derrotados por una alianza de Romanos y Alemanes liderada por Atius.En el año 455, Atius y el Emperador Valentiniano III fueron asesinados, y los Vándalos bajo Gaiseric otra vez volvieron a saquear Roma.El primer contacto que los Romanos tuvieron con los Godos llegó durante el reinado del Emperador Decio. Durante el reinado de Constantino se convirtieron en aliados y a menudo entraron en las legiones en rangos elevados. Los Visigodos estaban siendo presionados desde el Oriente por los Hunos, y en el año 376 buscaron refugio en el lado Romano del Danubio. El Emperador Valens concedió su petición, y allí comenzó una conversión masiva de los Godos al Arrianismo. Debido al maltrato por los gobernadores Romanos, se rebelaron en el año 378 y mataron al Emperador Valens en la famosa Batalla de Adrianople. Así comenzó las verdadera invasión Germánicas del Imperio. En el año 419 los Visigodos habían sometido al sur de Galia y a toda España.Como hemos señalado en episodios anteriores, cuando los Godos invadieron el Imperio Occidental en el 5º siglo, en su mayor parte, vinieron, no como paganos saqueando, sino como cristianos Arrianos. Un obispo Godo llamado Teófilo había asistido al Concilio de Nicea en el año 325.El misionero que llevó el Evangelio a los Godos fue Ulfilas a mediados o finales del 4º siglo. Ulfilas tuvo un éxito increíble de ver a los Alemanes ganados a la fe por 2 razones...1) Su religión natal estaba en declive. En pocas palabras, sus dioses parecían bastante viejos y en mal estado.2) Las muchas tribus Alemanas compartían una lengua común.Al darse cuenta de que traducir la Biblia al Alemán era una clave para el éxito del evangelismo, Ulfilas pasó un tiempo considerable en el proyecto antes de su muerte. Dejó los libros de Samuel y Reyes fuera de su traducción porque pensó que los Godos à Bueno, ya sabían lo suficiente sobre la guerra.En el año 406, cuando Roma trajo a las legiones del Rin para proteger a Italia, otra tribu Germánica llamada los Vándalos entro en Galia, y luego a España, y finalmente saltó el estrecho de Gibraltar para acosar el norte de África. Su rey Gaiseric los llevó a Cartago, la cual conquistó en el año 439 y la hizo la capital de su reino Vándalo Arriano. Gaiseric era intolerante a otras formas de la fe. En el año 455 envió barcos a través del Mediterráneo para saquear Roma.Al principio, los Donatistas en el norte de África se regocijaron por la llegada de los Vándalos. Recuerda que Roma los veía como herejes. Pero no paso mucho tiempo para que se dieran cuenta de que el enemigo de mi enemigo no siempre es mi amigo. Los Vándalos no eran amistosos. Así que en el año 484, un sínodo Donatista-Católico se reunió para tratar de arreglar sus diferencias teológicas.Los Católicos fueron perseguidos bajo algunos de los reyes Vándalos a finales del 5º  y a principios del 6º siglo. Fue esta persecución la que dio a los Vándalos un mal nombre mucho más que cualquier acto real de "vandalismo". En realidad, los vándalos no eran más bárbaros que los otros Alemanes.El famoso general de Justiniano, Belisario, repulso a los Vándalos y volvió a ocupar el Norte de África para el Imperio Bizantino en el año 534.Los Visigodos y Vándalos fueron seguidos por Suevianos, los Borgoñeses y los Francos.Los Francos eran los menos móviles de las tribus Germánicas. Se establecieron en el norte de Francia y ampliaron su gobierno desde allí. Se unieron a varias otras tribus Alemanas junto con los Romanos para evitar la amenaza común de los Hunos en el año 451.De todas las tribus Alemanas, los Francos eran los menos inclinados a escuchar el mensaje de las misiones Cristianas. Parecían inmunes a la conversión hasta la conversión de su rey Clodoveo a mediados del 5º siglo.La conversión de Clodoveo a la Fe fue un momento significativo en la historia de Europa. Dado que los Vándalos, los Godos y los Borgoñones eran Arrianos, parecía probable que el Arrianismo se apoderara del Occidente. De todos los reinos Germánicos, solo los Francos bajo Clodoveo abrazaron lo que llamamos el Cristianismo Católico o según el consejo de Nicea, la fe mayormente de sus súbditos Europeos.En el año 492, el Obispo Avitus de Viena organizó el matrimonio de una princesa Borgoña llamada Clotilde con Clodoveo. Clotilde era una cristiana comprometida de sabor a Nicea. La pareja real tuvo un hijo, que fue bautizado, pero murió mientras aún estaba en sus túnicas bautismales. Clodoveo, que en ese momento todavía era un pagano, declaró en voz alta que sus dioses no permitirían que tal cosa sucediera. Más tarde tuvieron otro hijo. Este prosperó.Entonces, en la batalla con los Alemanni y cuando las cosas no iban a su favor, el desesperado Clodoveo pidió ayuda del Dios Cristiano. La batalla se volvió a su favor. Cuando los Alemanni fueron derrotados, Clodoveo se sometió al bautismo. El Obispo Remigius de Rheims realizó el rito el día de Navidad en el año 496.La fuente de toda esta historia es una obra de Gregorio de Tours titulada Historia de los Francos. Este libro dio a los Francos su identidad y moldeó su comprensión del futuro que tendrían en forjar la historia Europea.Después de su bautismo, Clodoveo fue ungido en su rol de monarca. Esta unción del rey por un obispo se convirtió en una costumbre entre los Francos. El aura resultante de la sagrada realeza Cristiana parecía justificar el control Franco de la Iglesia. Lamentablemente, el carácter de Clodoveo siguió siendo poco cambiado por su aceptación oficial del Cristianismo. Parece que adoptó la religión como una cuestión de conveniencia política, pero no recibió al Evangelio.En el año 493, Odoacer, el general Alemán que había forzado la abdicación del último Emperador Romano Occidental un poco menos de 20 años antes, fue asesinado por el Rey Ostrogodo del este Teodoro. Junto con Clodoveo, Teodoro era el gobernante más importante de los reinos bárbaros. Teodoro hizo de Rávena en Italia su capital. Fue un Arriano que adoptó la cultura Bizantina. Aunque el era personalmente tolerante, sus súbditos católicos de Nicea, no lo eran. Su gobierno vio el último florecimiento de la cultura Romana en Occidente. El reino Ostrogodo continuó hasta el año 553, cuando el general Oriental Belisario retomó gran parte de Italia para el Imperio Bizantino.El renacimiento cultural que ocurrió durante la primera mitad del 6º siglo ha sido llamado el "Verano Indio de la Antigüedad Cristiana". En este período se establecieron varias personas influyentes que sentaron las bases de la sociedad Medieval Temprana.Beocio era de una familia destacada Romana que se convirtió en filósofo y estadista en la corte de Teodoro. Aunque leal, Beocio quedó bajo sospecha y Teodoro lo encarceló y ejecutó. Mientras que estaba en prisión, Beocio escribió su obra más famosa, La Consolación de la Filosofía. Esta obra es importante porque marca la transición de los Padres de la Iglesia o lo que se llama Patricitas a los Escolásticos, de quienes hablaremos más adelante. A través de sus traducciones, Beocio entregó a la Edad Media, la ética y la lógica de Aristóteles. Los Escolásticos consideraban a Beocio como la mayor autoridad en filosofía después de Aristóteles.Dionisio Exiguos fue un Asiático Centro que llegó a Roma hacia finales del 5º siglo. Recolecto y tradujo el canon de la Iglesia Oriental al Latín. También colecciono el canon y los decretos papales de la iglesia Occidental. Su obra tuvo una enorme autoridad eclesiástica.Pero Dionisio tuvo un significado mucho más impactante en el contexto de que el introdujo un sistema de datación basado en la era Cristiana, comenzando con la encarnación de Cristo. Es el que creó todos los marcadores de a.C. y d.C. para dividir el tiempo. Hasta ese momento, el método secular de trazar la fecha estaba determinado por el gobierno de los cónsules de Roma y el Imperio de Diocleciano. Desafortunadamente, Dionisio calculó mal la fecha del nacimiento de Jesús, de modo que según el cálculo contemporáneo Jesús nació al menos en el 4º año A.C.Este es también el tiempo de Gregorio Magno, a quien dedicaremos un episodio entero muy pronto.El último en la crónica que incluiremos en la lista de las primeras invasiones bárbaras son los Lombardos. En el año 568 esta tribu Germánica rompió los límites establecidos por el Imperio de Justiniano y entraron a Italia. Gregorio Magno les dio la vuelta en el año 593 y aseguró la paz dividiendo Italia entre tierras Lombardas e Imperiales. Los Lombardos eran un lote polémico y gobernaban desde 3 centros: el reino de Pavía, en el Norte, amenazaba a la capital Imperial de Rávena; los ducados de Spoleto y Benevento en el centro de Italia eran un peligro para Roma y Nápoles. Los Lombardos eran Arrianos. Su aceptación del cristianismo Católico no llegó hasta el 7º siglo.Mientras terminamos este episodio, echemos un vistazo al efecto de las Invasiones Bárbaras.Agustín no fue el único que intentó una respuesta literaria a las invasiones Germánicas. Mientras que el saqueo de Roma en el año 410 parecía para muchos el fin de los tiempos, Orosio, escribió 7 volúmenes en contra de los paganos para mostrar que el mundo precristiano no sufrió nada menos que el presente. La obra se convirtió en una especie de manual para entender la historia en la Edad Media. Orosio dio un lugar central al Imperio Romano en el plan de Dios. Su historia colocó en la mente occidental la idea del rol divino de la civilización Romana. Jerónimo ya había interpretado el 4º  reino del libro de Daniel como Roma y llegó a la conclusión de que debía continuar mientras la Iglesia lo hiciera. Orosio promovió esta opinión de que tanto los Hebreos como los Romanos jugaron un rol importante en la salvación del mundo.La obra de Salvian titulada Sobre el Gobierno Divino en el año 440 promovió el significado histórico de los Alemanes. Exageró sus buenas características en contra la corrupción Romana. Dijo que Dios usó a los Alemanes como espada de juicio sobre la Roma malvada.Tres actitudes prevalecieron en Europa con respecto a las invasiones bárbaras àAgustín sostuvo que ultimadamente, el éxito político o su fracaso no tenia ninguna diferencia. Su enfoque estaba en el mundo venidero. En contraste, Orosio dijo que el Cristianismo era la garantia de la prosperidad del Imperio. Salvian afirmó que el Imperio fue castigado por sus pecados.Pero algo interesante sucedió una vez que los invasores Alemanes se establecieron en las antiguas tierras Romanas. En general, dejaron a un lado su fe con sabor Arriano por el Cristianismo Niceo-Católico y adoptaron la cultura Romana, o al menos, lo que quedaba de ella. A lo largo de un par de generaciones llegaron a identificarse como Romanos en lugar de como Godos, Francos, Borgoñones y Lombardos.Pero incluso con estas adaptaciones a la cultura Romana, los antiguos pueblos Romanos y Germánicos se dividieron por su idioma. Los Romanos hablaban Latín, los Alemanes Goth. Costumbres de comida y el vestido que se llevaban en muchos lugares con los Latinos usando togas mientras que los Alemanes llevaban pantalones. Sus sistemas legales diferían y las leyes se aplicaban a las diferentes clases del mismo reino. Los 2 pueblos tardaron siglos en mezclarse y convertirse en las naciones de la Europa moderna. La civilización Grecorromana se basaba en ciudades. Las invasiones Germánicas trajeron un declive a las ciudades. Una economía rural se desarrollo en el Occidente, acelerando el paso a lo que hemos llegado a asociar como la Edad Media: el Feudalismo. Mientras que, en el este, las ciudades seguían siendo el principal elemento de la organización social, en el Occidente, las fincas y territorios subieron a la preminencia. Los gobernantes confiaban en sus propias tierras, por lo que había una descentralización del gobierno.Con el declive del gobierno centralizado en el Occidente, la Iglesia se hizo a cargo de muchos de los servicios que alguna vez proporcionaba el Estado, como la educación. Las iglesias y monasterios estaban vinculados a la economía agrícola del Occidente y se beneficiaban de una estrecha relación con los gobernantes locales. Pero una cosa que vio crecer sustancialmente la importancia y la influencia de la Iglesia fue la fractura que ocurrió en el ámbito político. Cuando Europa Occidental se dividió en cientos de regiones más pequeñas, cada una con su propio gobernante, la autoridad universal de la Iglesia bajo Roma y los obispos regionales proporcionaron una continuidad que se necesitaba desesperadamente. Ninguna autoridad secular en el Occidente fue capaz de controlar a la Iglesia como un órgano de Estado en la misma medida que los Emperadores Orientales. Así que, en el Occidente, en lugar de que los reyes gobernaran en los asuntos de la Iglesia, fue la Iglesia la que jugó cada vez más un rol importante en los asuntos políticos.Una vez más quiero dar las gracias a todos aquellos que han ido a la página de CS en FB y nos han dado un me gusta. Ver sus comentarios igual seria una gran bendición.Especialmente quiero decirles gracias a aquellos que le han dado al podcast una buena crítica en Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts es el portal principal para el podcast y las críticas positivas nos ayudan en gran manera a promover el podcast.No lo menciono a menudo, pero necesito hacerlo ocasionalmente. Si quieres hacer una donación para mantener a Communio Sanctorum en línea, puedes usar la función de donación en el sitio web. Sanctorum.us

Quando studiai sui banchi di scuola la caduta dell’impero d’occidente mi ero sempre immaginato uno scenario più o meno apocalittico, una sorta di incrocio tra Mad Max e Ken il guerriero. Ovviamente per me l’inizio di questo periodo distruttivo era sempre il regno di Odoacre, e credo lo stesso sia per molti di voi. Ma è questa un’immagine aderente alla realtà? Scopriamolo assieme.---Grazie ai miei Patreon: Livello Dante Alighieri: Paolo, David l’apostataLivello Galileo Galilei: Davide, Francesco, Jacopo Toso, Riccardo, Stefano, Roger, Anna, Vitor, Pierangelo e LuigiLivello Marco Polo: Dominik, Giacomo, Jacopo, Marco, David, Fabio, Francesco, Roberto, Stefano, Sergio, Fabrizio, Gianmarco, John, Luca, Gianluca, Michel Andre, Marco, Federico, Tony, Mariette, Luca, Andrea, Gabriele, Bruno, Gabriele Mazzon, Alex. Per sostenermi su Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/italiastoria. Altre modalità disponibili sul sito: www.italiastoria.comMusiche di Riccardo Santato

Welcome to From Complex to Queens, the podcast from Amazin’ Avenue focusing on the Mets’ minor league system. First, inspired by Odoacer and the fall of the Roman Empire, the team plays Promote, Extend, Trade with a bunch of Mets minor league players of Germanic descent. After, Steve, Lukas, and Kenny review the Mets’ first trade of the winter. Spoiler alert: the give the trade a C-. Finally, they look at a bunch of players availible in the Rule 5 Draft this upcoming Thursday and explain how these players might conceivably make the Mets a better team. As always, you can listen or subscribe to the podcast through Apple Podcasts, where we encourage you to leave a review if you enjoy the show. It really helps! And you can find us on the Stitcher app, Spotify, or listen wherever you get podcasts. Got questions? Comments? Concerns? You can email the show at fromcomplextoqueens@gmail.com, and follow us on Twitter: Steve (@stevesypa), Lukas (@lvlahos343), and Ken (@kenlavin91). Until next week, #lovethemets #lovethemets! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

476 Romulus Augustulus, last Roman Emperor in the West, abdicates the throne after forces led by Odoacer invade Rome. Flavius Odoacer becomes the first king of Italy after leading a successful rebellion against Western Rome's young emperor. The beginning of his reign will traditionally mark the end of the Ancient Roman epoch and the start of the Middle Ages. 1781 Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, is founded by Spanish decree. 1862 Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invades Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign. It will eventually result in the Battle of Antietam, 13 days later, the bloodiest battle in history on American soil at that point. 1886 Apache leader Goyalkla, or as he's known to non-Native Americans, Geronimo, formally surrenders after the US Army 4th Cavalry relentlessly pursues him and his band of warriors throughout southern Arizona. For 30 years, the mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe's homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo's surrender, making him the last Native American warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest. 1941 German submarine U-652 fires at the U.S. destroyer Greer patrolling off Iceland. At this point there was no decleration of war between Germany and USA. President Roosevelt would later cite the incident as the catalyst for the "shoot-on-sight" policy US Naval vessels would follow until the formal declaration of war in December, after Pearl Harbor. It would later be known the the Greer had chased the sub and held contact with the sub for 3 hours and 28 minutes before the sub fired its first torpedo. The definition of "attack" is "an onset, an aggressive initiation of combat, a move which is the antithesis of 'defense.'" In that definition, the USS Greer had attacked the German submarine. 1998 Google is founded. The internet company, now synonymous with the act of finding information on the world wide web was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It started as a research project when Page and Brin were doctoral students at Stanford University.

Pope Simpl*cius, besides providing excellent inspiration for 00's pop bands, was pope through a series of major turning points for papal history. He would be forced to contend with the FALL OF ROME and the rise of Odoacer, the chaos in the Empire with Zeno and Basiliscus, as well as both the Enkyklikon and the Henotikon! Much nail biting ensues.

At the start of this episode, Odoacer becomes the first King of Italy and takes multiple steps to secure his new rule. But it's all for nothing, because in less than two decades, he is attacked, tricked and killed to make way for Theodoric's Ostrogothic Kingdom. Dedicated to Carissa Zeleski. Thanks for supporting Medieval! Music – Alexander Nakarado http://www.patreon.com/medievalpodcast

At the start of this episode, Odoacer becomes the first King of Italy and takes multiple steps to secure his new rule. But it’s all for nothing, because in less than two decades, he is attacked, tricked and killed to make way for Theodoric’s Ostrogothic Kingdom. Dedicated to Carissa Zeleski. Thanks for supporting Medieval! Music […]

In the West, the Fall of Roman power in the West meant the domination of Arians in the Kingdom of the Vandals of North Africa, the Kingdom of the Visigoths in Hispania and Gaul and the Kingdom of Odoacer in Italy. In North Africa, the Nicene Romans experienced severe persecution. In Italy, there was relative […]

410-476 We go back before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 to focus on three key events and names: Alaric, Attila and Odoacer. 

476-493 The Italian kingdom of Odoacer (476 – 493) and the takeover by the Goths of Theodoric the Great

Rome didn’t fall in 476 when Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. Nor did it fall in 1453 when the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople. Depending on how you define ‘Rome,’ it didn’t fall until the Napoleonic Wars. Or the end of hostilities following World War I. If you visit Turkey, you might meet somebody who still calls himself a Roman. Listen to this episode to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

In this episode of the Ancient Warfare Magazine podcast Angus, Josho, Lindsay and Mark discuss volume 9, issue 1 "The end of empire: the fall of Rome" "On 4 September AD 476, the Western Roman Empire came to an end. No great battle was fought, no great foreign invasion force marched upon the capital, nor was there an iconic enemy in the shape of a second Hannibal who annihilated Rome's armies and broke down the emperor's gates. Odoacer of the Germanic Sciri tribe and military commander in Rome's employ, simply marched into the city of Ravenna after being proclaimed king by his troops, and dethroned the last Roman Emperor in the West."

In this episode of the Ancient Warfare Magazine podcast Angus, Josho, Lindsay and Mark discuss volume 9, issue 1 "The end of empire: the fall of Rome" "On 4 September AD 476, the Western Roman Empire came to an end. No great battle was fought, no great foreign invasion force marched upon the capital, nor was there an iconic enemy in the shape of a second Hannibal who annihilated Rome’s armies and broke down the emperor’s gates. Odoacer of the Germanic Sciri tribe and military commander in Rome’s employ, simply marched into the city of Ravenna after being proclaimed king by his troops, and dethroned the last Roman Emperor in the West."

LA ÚLTIMA LEGIÓN (The last legion) Dirección: Doug Lefler. Países: Reino Unido, USA y Francia. Año: 2007. Duración: 110 min. Género: Acción, aventuras, bélico. Interpretación: Colin Firth (Aurelius), Ben Kingsley (Ambrosinus), Aishwarya Rai (Mira), Peter Mullan (Odoacer), Thomas Sangster (Romulus Augustus), Kevin McKidd (Wulfilla), John Hannah (Nestor), Iain Glen (Orestes), Rupert Friend (Demetrius), Nonso Anozie (Batiatus), Owen Teale (Vatrenus). Guión: Tom Butterworth y Jez Butterworth; a partir de un argumento de Carlo Carlei, Peter Rader y Valerio Massimo Manfredi; basado en la novela "La última legión" de Valerio Massimo Manfredi. Producción: Martha De Laurentiis, Raffaella De Laurentiis y Tarak Ben Ammar. Música: Patrick Doyle. Fotografía: Marco Pontecorvo. Montaje: Simon Cozens. Diseño de producción: Carmelo Argate. Vestuario: Paolo Scalabrino. Estreno en USA: 17 Agosto 2007. Estreno en España: 24 Agosto 2007. Sinopsis: En el 476 después de Cristo, el Imperio Romano está amenazado por los bárbaros. En la víspera de la ceremonia de coronación que convertirá al joven de doce años Romulus Augustus en emperador, su padre Orestes (Ian Glen) se niega a aceptar las peticiones del general bárbaro Odoacer (Peter Mullan), protector de Roma. Orestes, preocupado por la seguridad de su hijo, nombra a Aurelius (Colin Firth) su guardia personal. Esa noche, Aurelius y sus legionarios se enfrentan al peligro: Odoacer y su ejército bárbaro traicionan a Roma y toman la ciudad. Con la ayuda de los valerosos hombres de Aurelius, el joven César escapa de la ciudad para pedir ayuda a la última legión que todavía es fiel a Roma: la novena legión en Bretaña.

This episode is titled – The Great Recession.I usually leave house-keeping comments for CS to the end of each episode but wanted to begin this by saying thanks to all who subscribe, listen regularly, and have turned others on to the podcast.Website stats tell us we have a lot of visitors & subscribers. Far more than you faithful ones who've checked in on the Facebook page & hit the “like” button. Can I ask those of you who haven't yet to do so?Then, if you're one of the many who accesses the podcast via iTunes, you probably know how difficult it can be to find what you're looking for there. Millions use iTunes as their podcast portal yet the search feature is clunky. So tracking down what you want can be a challenge. What helps people find content on iTunes is reviews. So, if you're an iTunes user and like CS, you could be a great asset by writing a brief review for the podcast. Thanks ahead of time.Okay, enough shameless self-promotion . . .Christianity more than proved its vitality by enduring waves of persecution prior to Constantine the Great. When persecution was withdrawn & the Faith climbed out of the catacombs to become the darling of the State, the question was whether it would survive the corruption political power inevitably brings. While many thousands of pagans professed faith because it was the politically expedient thing to do, some sincere believers marked the moral corruption that took place in the church & forsook society to practice a purer faith in monasteries, as we saw in our last episode.The institutional Church, on the other hand, organized itself in a manner that resembled the old Roman Imperial system. When the Empire crumbled under the weight of its own corruption, that fall accelerated by barbarian invasions, the question was, would Christianity fall with it?The story of Christianity in the West is a remarkable tale of survival. So often in history, when a culture is swept away, so is its religion. Christianity has proven an exception. As often as not it endured when the culture changed. Such was the case in Europe and the events that followed the Fall of Rome at the end of the 5th Century.When the Gospel first came to those urban centers which were the cultural heart of the Roman Empire in the late 1st & early 2nd Centuries, it was regarded as a Jewish reform movement. Its first converts were Jews scattered around the Empire and those Gentiles who'd attached themselves to the Jewish synagogues. But once these God-fearing Gentiles came to faith, they evangelized their Gentile friends. Following Paul's example in speaking to the philosophers on Mars Hill, these Gentile Christians recast the Gospel in Greco-Roman terms, using ideas & values familiar to the pagan mind.When I say “pagan” don't think of it as the insult it is in our modern vernacular; someone void of moral virtue. By pagan, I mean those who practiced the religion of the Greeks & Romans with its pantheon of gods. In that sense, Plato & Aristotle were pagans. Zeno, the philosopher who developed Stoicism, was a pagan. These were all men who developed the philosophical framework that shaped the worldview of Greco-Roman culture & society. They asked some penetrating questions that provided the intellectual backdrop of the 1st & 2nd Centuries. Gentile Christians picked up these questions & used them to say they'd found their answers in Christ. Many other pagans found these arguments convincing & were won to faith. Some of the Early Church Fathers even appealed to the ancient philosophers in the formal letters they wrote to the Emperors on why persecution of Christians was bad policy. They argued for a promotion of the Faith as a boon to the health of culture, not a harm to it. Their defense of the Faith was couched in terms the Emperors were familiar with because they shared the same philosophical language.My point here is that Christianity made an appeal to the Greco-Roman worldview it was growing in the midst of. So, what would happen when that society fell?Also, the Church's organizational structure increasingly came to resemble the Imperial structure. What would happen when that was dismantled? Would the Faith survive? Had Christianity grown too close to the culture?The answer is à Yes & no. The Empire's demise did pose a set-back to the Church. But we might ask if maybe that was good. The institutional Church had in many ways deviated from its purpose & calling. Not a few bishops were far more concerned for their political power than for their role as spiritual shepherds. In many minds, spiritual & earthly power had merged into the same thing.Rome's fall allowed the Faith to break away from the political attachments that had corrupted it for a century & a half.  But there's little doubt that from the 6th through 9th Centuries, Christianity suffered a kind of spiritual declension. Over that 400 years, the total number of people who claimed be Christians dropped, fresh movements of renewal declined, & moral & spiritual vigor flagged.  While there were exceptions, overall, Christianity lost ground, giving this period of time in Church history the title, as Kenneth Scott Latourette calls it, the Great Recession.Following the timeline of Church history at this point becomes difficult because so much was going on in various places. So for the balance of this episode, I want to give a quick sketch of both the many reversals & few advances Christianity saw from the 6th thru 9th Centuries.When the Goths, Visigoths, & Ostrogoths moved in to pick clean the bones of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th Century, something remarkable happened. While they helped themselves to the wealth of the Empire, they also adopted some of the Roman customs they admired. But nothing was so surprising as their embrace of Christianity. In truth, these barbarians were already what we'd have to describe as nominally Christian. Their invasion of & settling into Roman lands greatly furthered their identification with the Faith.Remember that in the ancient world, war was more than just an attempt to take land & plunder; it was a contest of faiths. The ancients believed armed conflict was a kind of spiritual tug of war. The mightiest god gave his or her people victory. This is why when one people defeated another, the loser's religion was often wiped out.But the Germanic barbarians tended to embrace Christianity rather than destroy it. There was something different in the message of Christ from their ancient folk faiths that drew and converted them. So when they took down the Roman Imperial structure, they left the churches intact. Bishops continued to exercise oversight in their flocks.Unlike other religions, Christianity was super-cultural. It wasn't just the faith of one group; it potentially embraced all. Even those who rejected the Gospel recognized it wasn't merely the spirituality of a specific ethnic group. Its message transcended culture to encompass all humanity.That was the situation on the north & northeastern borders of the Empire. The situation in the south was very different.  In the 7th Century, Islam swept out of Arabia to conquer the Middle East & North Africa. The Muslims managed to get a foothold in Spain before the armies of Charles Martel stopped them pushing any further North in 732. Where Islam conquered, it replaced native religions. Enclaves of determined Jews & Christians eked out an existence but by & large, the Crescent replaced the Cross throughout the Middle East & North Africa.While there's no specific date or event that marked the onset of the Great Recession, we'll set the year 500 as the starting point.  Here's why …In 476 the last Roman Emperor was deposed by the Goth leader Odoacer. This marks the end of the Western Roman Empire. The capital then shifted undisputedly to Constantinople in the East.20 years later, in 496, the Frank king Clovis was baptized. This marked a new era in which Germanic rulers became the standard-bearers of the Faith instead of Romans.Then in 529, the Eastern Emperor Justinian closed the Schools of Athens. These academies were the last official symbols of Greco-Roman paganism. Justinian ordered them closed to signal the final triumph of Christianity over paganism.In that same year, 529, Benedict built his monastery on Monte Cassino as we saw in our last episode. The Benedictine Rule was to have a huge impact on the course of the Faith in the West.While Christianity seemed to stumble in many of the places where it had been installed 3 & 400 years before, it continued its relentless spread into new territory. It was during the early 6th Century that the Faith went up the Nile into Sudan. In the latter part of that century, Pope Gregory sent missionaries to Britain and in the early 7th Century the Gospel reached China.But the 7th Century was when the Arab conquests began. In less than 20 years after Mohammed's death, Islam had raised its banner over, Israel, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, & Egypt. Before the end of the Century they'd conquered all North Africa, including the capital at Carthage and by 715 had taken Spain.If you've been listening from the earliest episodes, you know that these lands the Arabs conquered had a rich Christian history, especially in North Africa. Alexandria & Carthage were home to some of the most prominent Christian leaders & theologians – Athanasius & Arius, Alexander, Cyril, & Augustine, to name a few.At the same time, the Arabs were spreading Islam across Christian lands, up in the Balkan peninsula & Greece, pagan Slavs moved in. In 680, Asians called Bulgars crossed the Danube River & set up a kingdom in what had been the Eastern frontier of the Empire.Between these losses to the Arabs in the South & the Slavs & Bulgars in the East, about half the total land area that had been Christian territory was lost.The 8th Century saw large numbers of German tribes come to Faith. But the 9th & 10th Centuries were marked by repeated invasions of pagans from the distant north. These  Scandinavians raided the shores of northern Europe, Britain, and all the way to Russia. They delighted in looting the many defenseless churches & monasteries they included in their conquests.These Scandinavian raids helped shatter the fragile unity the Carolingians had pulled together in Europe. As society broke apart into minor political regions, the quality of spirituality in the churches declined.  Discipline in the monasteries grew lax. Bishops focused more on secular than spiritual matters. The clergy grew corrupt. The Roman Papacy became a political football.The Eastern church of the 8th & 9th Centuries was rent by a theological controversy over the use of images. In the 9th Century, Muslims conquered Sicily & Crete, & established a beachhead in southern Italy.In China of the mid 9th Century, Christianity experienced a wave of fierce persecution. This was due to the Faith having been too closely identified with the previous dynasty.As we come to the dawn of the 10th Century, there were several positive signs the Faith was growing again in the regions where it had declined. Churches were planted among the Slavs & Bulgars. The Faith extended its reach into Russia & there are indications the Church in India grew during this time.One sign of a positive spiritual turn took place in Eastern France in a place called Cluny. In 910, Duke William of Aquitania founded a monastery on the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbots selected to lead it were men of tremendous character & piety. They were determined to correct the lax moral attitudes that had become all too common in monastery life.The Clunaic reforms not only reinvigorated monastic life, they established a new hierarchy for monasteries. Prior to Cluny, monasteries were connected to & in a sense answerable to local bishops & nobility. Cluny and the monasteries that came from it were directly answerable to the Pope.  This became an important element of church life when during the 11th Century, the popes tried to un-tie the Church from secular powers.While the monastic life may seem strange & at the same time stereo-typical of the romanticized view of Medieval life we have today, monasteries acted as repositories of the wisdom & learning of previous generations. As wave after wave of invaders washed over Europe, and society was shattered into a thousand bits, monasteries remained cultural lighthouses.

The title of this episode is “Barbarians at the Gates – and Everywhere Else”I live on the coast of Southern California in one of the most beautiful places on the planet – Ventura County. The weather is temperate all year round with an average temperature of 70 degrees. The beaches are pristine and most of the time, uncrowded. The County has several prime surf spots. But every so often, usually during the Winter, storms throw up huge waves that trash the shore. Some of these storms are local and wash down huge piles of debris from the hills that then wash up on the beach. Others are far to the south, off the coast of Mexico but they roll up waves that travel North and erode tons of sand, altering the shoreline.In the 5th and 6th Centuries, waves of barbarian invasion from the North and East swept across Europe to alter the political and cultural landscape and prime Europe for the Middle Ages.When Bishop Augustine of Hippo died in 430, the Vandals were laying siege to the city. While the Council of Chalcedon was meeting in 451, Pope Leo negotiated with the Huns to leave Rome unmolested.European history of the 5th and 6th Cs was dominated by the movement of mostly Germanic peoples into the territory of the old Roman Empire. The subsequent displacement and population shifting had a major impact on Christianity in the West. Medieval civilization was a result of this barbarian upheaval coupled with the vestiges of late Roman society and the impact Augustine had on the theology and practice of the Church.The incursion of Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire was just the first of 4 massive waves of migration.The Germans came in the 5th C. The Vars and Slavs swept into the Balkans in the 6th. The Muslims in 7th. And the Vikings in the 8th to 10th Cs.The resulting societal changes created by these invasive migrations had a monumental effect on the Church. We'll take a look now at just the first of these population shifts - the Germanic invasions.The 5th C saw the climax of what was really a long process of mostly controlled immigration by the Germans. They settled land at the Empire's frontier and served in the military. In truth, while the Romans referred to the Germans as barbarians, they often preserved the Empire by filling gaps in the declining population of Roman lands and by manning the legions. It was the Perfect Storm that saw things figuratively go south for Rome. Factors combining to generate this Perfect Storm were à1) The Germans were pressed by invaders out of central Asia,2) Key treaties between the Romans and Germans were broken,3) The warm weather that had seen a population boom in Northern Europe was followed by bitter cold so that the Germans were forced to move South in search of lands to sustain their larger numbers. It didn't help Rome that the Germans now knew Roman military tactics and bore Roman arms.Note to Self: If you don't want your neighbor to take over your house, don't give him the keys and alarm code.Certain dates in the first half of the 5th C are important àIn 410, Alaric, leader of the Western Goths, or Visi-goths, sacked the city of Rome. This was an understandably traumatic event for the Western Empire. His successor, Ataulf, married the Emperor Honorius' sister.In 430, Augustine, attempted to explain Rome's Fall to the Visigoths in his classic work The City of God. He died the year before the Council of Ephesus and the fall of his city, Hippo in N Africa to the Vandals.In 451, Attila and the Huns from central Asia, swept thru Western Europe, then were defeated by an alliance of Romans and Germans led by Aëtius.In 455, Aëtius and Emperor Valentinian III were assassinated, and the Vandals under Gaiseric again sacked Rome.The first contact the Romans had with the Goths came during the reign of the Emperor Decius. During Constantine's reign they became allies and often entered the Legions at elevated ranks. The Visigoths were being pressured from the East by the Huns, and in 376 sought refuge on the Roman side of the Danube. The emperor Valens granted their request, and there began a mass conversion of the Goths to Arianism. Due to mistreatment by Roman governors, they revolted in 378 and killed the Emperor Valens in the famous Battle of Adrianople.   Thus began the real Germanic invasions of the Empire. By 419 The Visigoths had subdued Southern Gaul and all of Spain.As we've noted in previous episodes, when the Goths invaded the Western Empire in the 5th C, for the most part, they came, not as pillaging pagans but as Arian Christians. A Goth Bishop named Theophilus had attended the Council at Nicaea in 325.The missionary who carried the Gospel to the Goths was Ulfilas in the mid to late 4th C. Ulfilas had amazing success in seeing the Germans won to faith for 2 reasons . . .1) Their native religion was in decline. Simply put, their gods seemed rather old and shabby.2) The many German tribes shared a common language.Realizing translating the Bible into German was a key to successful evangelism, Ulfilas spent considerable time on the project before his death. He left the books of Samuel and Kings out of his translation because he figured the Goths à Well, they already knew enough about warfare.In 406 when Rome recalled the Legions from the Rhine to protect Italy, another Germanic tribe called the Vandals poured into Gaul, then SW into Spain, and eventually jumped the Strait of Gibraltar to harass North Africa. Their King Gaiseric led them to Carthage which he conquered in 439 and made the capital of an Arian Vandal kingdom. Gaiseric was intolerant of other forms of the faith. In 455 he sent ships across the Mediterranean to sack Rome.At first, the Donatists in North Africa rejoiced at the coming of the Vandals. Remember they'd been labeled heretics by Rome. But it didn't take long for them to realize that the enemy of my enemy isn't always my friend. The Vandals were not friendly. So in 484, a Donatist-Catholic synod met to try and patch up their theological differences.Catholics were persecuted under some of the Vandal kings in the late 5th and early 6th Cs. It was this persecution that gave the Vandals a bad name far more than any actual acts of “vandalism.” Really, the Vandals were no more barbaric than other Germans.Justinian's famous general, Belisarius, repulsed the Vandals and reoccupied North Africa for the Byzantine Empire in 534.The Visigoths and Vandals were followed up by Suevians, the Burgundians, and the Franks.The Franks were the least mobile of the Germanic tribes. They settled in northern France and expanded their rule from there. They joined several other German tribes along with the Romans to stave off the common threat of the Huns in 451.Of all the German tribes, the Franks were the least inclined to heed the work of Christian missions. They seemed immune to conversion until their king Clovis in the mid 5th C.Clovis's conversion to the Faith was a significant moment in the history of Europe. Since the Vandals, Goths and Burgundians were Arian, it seemed likely Arianism would take over the West. Alone of the Germanic kingdoms, the Franks under Clovis embraced what we call Catholic or Nicean Christianity, the majority faith of his European subjects.In 492, Bishop Avitus of Vienna arranged the marriage of a Burgundian princess named Clotilda to Clovis. Clotilda was a committed Christian of Nicean-flavor. The Royal couple had a son, who was baptized but died while still in his baptismal robes. Clovis, who at that point was still a pagan, loudly declared his gods would not allow such a thing to happen. Later they had another son. This one thrived.Then, in battle with the Alemanni and things not going in his favor, the desperate Clovis asked for the aid of the Christian God. The battle turned in his favor. When the Alemanni were defeated, Clovis submitted to baptism. Bishop Remigius of Rheims performed the rite on Christmas day in 496.The source for all this is a work by Gregory of Tours titled History of the Franks. This book gave the Franks their identity and shaped their understanding of the future they were to have in forging European history.Following his baptism, Clovis was anointed in his role as monarch. This anointing of the king by a bishop became a custom among the Franks. The resulting aura of sacred Christian kingship seemed to justify Frankish control of the Church. Sadly, Clovis's character remained little changed by his official acceptance of Christianity. It seems he adopted the religion as a matter of political expediency, but he didn't receive the Gospel.In 493, Odoacer, the German general who'd forced the abdication of the last Western Roman Emperor a little less than 20 years before, was killed by the Eastern or Ostro-goth king Theodoric. Next to Clovis, Theodoric was the most important ruler of the barbarian kingdoms. Theodoric made Ravenna in Italy his capital. He was an Arian who adopted Byzantine culture. Though he was personally tolerant, his Nicean-Catholic subjects weren't so much. His rule saw the last flowering of late Roman culture in the West. The Ostrogothic kingdom continued until 553, when the Eastern general Belisarius retook much of Italy for the Byzantine Empire.The cultural revival that occurred during the first half of the 6th C  has been called the “Indian Summer of Christian Antiquity.” This period saw a number of influential persons who laid the foundation of Early Medieval society.Boethius was a from a leading Roman family who became a philosopher and statesman in the court of Theodoric. Although loyal, Boethius came under suspicion and Theodoric had him imprisoned and executed. While in prison, Boethius wrote his most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy. This work is important because it marks the transition from the Church Fathers or what's called Patristics to the Scholastics, who we'll talk more about later.  Through his translations, Boethius handed to the Middle Ages, the ethics and logic of Aristotle. The Scholastics regarded Boethius as the greatest authority in philosophy after Aristotle.Dionysius Exiguus was a Central Asian who came to Rome toward the end of the 5th C. He collected and translated the canons of the Eastern Church into Latin. He also collected the canons and papal decrees of the Western church. His work bore tremendous ecclesiastical authority.But Dionysius had a much wider significance in that he introduced a system of dating based on the Christian era, beginning with the incarnation of Christ. He's the one who came up with the whole BC and AD markers to divide time. Until that time, the secular method of charting the date was determined by the rule of the consuls of Rome and the Empire of Diocletian. Unfortunately, Dionysius miscalculated the date of Jesus' birth, so that according to contemporary reckoning Jesus was born at least 4 BC.This is also the time of Gregory the Great, who'll we'll devote an entire episode to soon.Last in the chronicle we'll include in the list of barbarians invasions is the Lombards. In 568 this Germanic tribe broke through the northern bounds of Justinian's Empire and entered Italy. Gregory the Great turned them back in 593 and secured peace by dividing Italy between Lombard and Imperial land. The Lombards were a factious lot and ruled from 3 centers: The kingdom at Pavia in the north threatened the imperial capital at Ravenna; the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento in central Italy were a danger to Rome and Naples. The Lombards were Arian. Their acceptance of Catholic Christianity did not come until the 7th C.As we wrap up this episode, let's take a look at the effect of the Barbarian Invasions.Augustine wasn't the only one who attempted a literary response to the Germanic invasions. While the sack of Rome in 410 seemed to many the end of the ages, Orosius,  wrote 7 volumes against the Pagans to show that the pre-Christian world suffered no less than the present. The work became a kind of manual for understanding history in the Middle Ages. Orosius gave a central place to the Roman Empire in God's plan. His history placed on the Western mind the idea of the divine role of Roman civilization. Jerome had already interpreted the 4th kingdom of the book of Daniel as Rome and concluded that it was to continue as long as the Church did. Orosius promoted the view that both the Hebrews and Romans played an important part in the salvation of the world.Salvian's work titled On the Divine Government in 440 promoted the historical significance of the Germans. He exaggerated their good characteristics as set over against Roman corruption. He said God used the Germans as the sword of judgment on wicked Rome.Three attitudes prevailed in Europe regarding the barbarian invasions àAugustine held that ultimately, political success or failure make no difference. His focus was on the world to come. In contrast, Orosius said Christianity was the guarantor of the Empire's prosperity. Salvian claimed the Empire was punished for its sins.But an interesting thing happened once the German invaders settled down in the old Roman lands. By and large, they shed either their Arian-flavored faith for Nicean-Catholic Christianity and they adopted the Roman culture – or at least, what was left of it. Over a couple generations they came to identify themselves as Romans rather than as Goths, Franks, Burgundians and Lombards.But even with these adaptations to Roman culture, the old Roman and the new Germanic peoples were divided by language. The Romans spoke Latin, the Germans Goth. Customs of food and dress carried on in many places with the Latins wearing togas while the Germans wore trousers.  Their legal systems differed and laws were applied to the different classes in the same kingdom. It took centuries for the 2 peoples to blend and become the nations of modern Europe. Greco-Roman civilization was based on cities. The Germanic invasions brought a decline to cities. A rural economy developed in the West, accelerating the move to what we've come to associate so centrally with the Middle  Ages - Feudalism. While in the East, cities remained the main fixture of the social organization, in the West, landed estates rose to prominence. Rulers relied on their own lands, so there was a decentralization of government.With a decline in centralized government in the West, the Church took over many of the services once provided by the State, like education. Churches and monasteries were bound to the agricultural economy of the West and profited by a close relationship with local rulers. But one thing that saw the importance and influence of the Church grow substantially at this time was the fracturing that occurred in the political realm. When Western Europe was divided up into hundreds of smaller regions, each with its own ruler, the universal authority of the Church under Rome and the regional bishops provided a continuity that was desperately needed. No secular authority in the West was able to control the Church as an organ of state to the same extent as the Eastern emperors. So in the West, rather than kings ruling in Church affairs, it was the Church that increasingly played an role in political affairs.Once again I want to say thanks to all those who've gone to the CS FB  page and given us a like. The comments have been a blessing.I especially want to say thanks to those who've given the podcast a good review on iTunes. iTunes is the main portal for the podcast and positive reviews go a LONG way in helping promote the podcast.I don't often mention it, but need to occasionally If you'd like to make a donation to keep Communio Sanctorum online, you can use the donate feature on the website. Sanctorum.us podcast on iTunes.

This week's episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “God's Consul .”One of the Roman Emperor Diocletian's most important contributions to the Empire was to divide the top-tier leadership up so that it could rule more efficiently. The Empire had grown too large to be governed by a single Emperor, so he selected a co-Augustus & divided their regions of oversight between Western & Eastern realms. Since the issue of succession had also been a cause for unrest in previous generations, Diocletian also provided for that by assigning junior Caesars for both himself & his co-Augustus. When they stepped down, there would be someone waiting in the wings, pre-designated to take control. The idea was then that when their successors stepped into the role of being co-Augusti – they'd appoint new junior Caesars to follow after them. It was a solid plan and worked well while Diocletian was the senior Augustus. When he retired to raise prize-winning cabbages, the other rulers decided they liked power & didn't want to relinquish it.Over the years that followed, rule of the Empire alternated between a single Emperor & Diocletian's idea of shared rule. The general trend was for shared rule with the senior Augustus making his capital in the East at Constantinople. This left the weaker & subordinate ruler in the west with increasingly less power at the same time Germanic tribes pressed in from the North.What eventually spelled doom for the Western Empire was that Rome had forged treaties with some of those Germanic tribes; turning them into mercenaries who were armed & trained in the Roman style of war. When Rome stopped paying them to fight FOR Rome against their Germanic brothers & the Goths, it was inevitable they'd join them to fight against the rich pickings of the decaying Empire who could no longer field armies against them.We've seen previously, as the barbarians pressed into the Western Empire from the North & East, civil authorities had diminishing ability to do anything about them. People began looking to the Church to provide order. Because the Church was gifted with some remarkable leaders who genuinely cared about the welfare of the people, they managed to hold the decaying Empire together for a time. Pope Leo even managed to meet with the Hun leader Attila as he prepared to march on Rome. Leo persuaded the Huns to turn around, leaving the City intact. But Leo didn't have as much luck with the Vandals who arrived a few years later. He did manage to persuade them to limit their sack to plunder & pillage. The population was saved from death & rape. After a 2 week loot-fest, the Vandals boarded their ships & sailed away - leaving the city otherwise unmolested.Historians mark the year 476 as the date when the Western Empire fell. It was then that the Goth leader Odoacer deposed the last Western Emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer is called a barbarian, but he was, in fact, a military leader in the Roman army; a mercenary who led a revolt against the very people he'd once fought FOR. While historians mark 476 as the year of Rome's fall, for the people living at that time, they would not have seen much if any difference between the reign of Augustulus & Odoacer. Things carried on much as they had from the previous decades. Which is to say – it was a mess!With the Fall of Rome, the Western Empire moved into what we know as the Middle Ages. This was a time when the Church played an ever-increasing role in society. The form that influence took varied over the centuries; sometimes being more religious & spiritual in nature, at other times being predominantly political. But there's no denying that in Europe during the Middle Ages, the Church played a major role.During the 5th & early 6th Centuries, as civil society disintegrated, people looked to alternatives. Some found an answer in monastic communities.  There'd been communes of Christians since the 3rd Century, but the number of monasteries began to grow during the 5th. Some were highly structured while others were more loosely organized.The monastic movement took off due to the leadership of Benedict of Nursia whom we've already talked about. Benedict's early attempts at being the leader or abbot of a monastery didn't go so well; the monks tried to poison him. But as he matured, Benedict applied the lessons learned from his previous mistakes & founded a monastery on Monte Cassino in Italy that became the proto-typical monastery for years to come.Benedict was a genius for administration and organization. He formulated a simple plan for monastic living that was easily transferred to other communes. Known as the Rule of St. Benedict, it became the organizing & governing principle for monastic life & under it, hundreds more monasteries were begun. The Rule held forth a daily routine of Bible reading, prayer, and work. Benedict's sister Scholastica adopted a similar formula for convents.Monasteries became repositories & treasuries of the learning and scholarship of Greece and Rome. As the rest of Europe plunged into what some refer to as The Dark Ages, many monasteries remained places of scholarship. The monks read, studied and spent considerable time copying ancient texts of both scripture and classical antiquity. The Renaissance would eventually be fed by the work of those monks and their hundreds of years of work.What we know about Benedict comes from his biographer, Gregory, known to us as Pope Gregory I, or Gregory the Great, a title conferred on him by the Church shortly after his death.Gregory was born into a wealthy and ancient Roman senatorial family around 540. Following family tradition, he was trained for civil service. But the political landscape was uncertain. During his childhood, the rule of Rome passed through several different regimes. While in his mid-teens, control of Southern Italy was wrested from the Visigoths by the re-conquest of the Eastern Emperor Justinian. But it was only a few years till the Lombards began their campaign of terror. They burned churches, murdered bishops, plundered monasteries, and turned the verdant fields of Italy into a weed-strewn wilderness.When he was 33, Justinian appointed Gregory as the Prefect of Rome, the highest political position in the territory. Gregory was responsible for the economy, food provisions, welfare of the poor, reconstruction of the now ancient and badly decayed infrastructure; things like baths, sewers, and streets. His appointment came in the same year both the pope and Imperial governor of Italy died.A few years later Gregory resigned his office. It's rare when someone who wields great power walks away from it – but that's what Gregory did. The death of his father seemed to be the turning point. One wonders if it wasn't his father's dreams FOR his son that had moved Gregory into a political career to begin with. Once the father was gone, there was nothing holding him to his position and Gregory followed his heart, which was to become a monk. With his considerable fortune, he founded seven monasteries and gave what was left to the poor. He then turned his family's home into a monastery. As Bruce Shelly puts it, “He exchanged the purple toga for the coarse robe of a monk.” He embraced the austere life of a monk with full devotion to the Rule of St. Benedict.As much as Gregory desired to dissolve into obscurity and live a life of humble devotion to God, his outstanding gifts as an administrator had fixed a reputation to him he was unable to dodge. In 579, Pope Pelagius II made him one of seven deacons for the church at Rome. He was then sent as an ambassador for the Pope to the imperial court in Constantinople. He returned to Rome in 585 and was appointed abbot of the convent that had once been his house.Gregory was quite content to be an abbot and would aspire to no higher office, content to finish his sojourn on earth right there. But The Plague swept thru Rome, killing thousands, including the Pope. Unlike most monks who hid behind their commune's walls, Gregory went into the city to help the sick. This earned him great admiration. After Pope Pelagius died, it took church leaders six months to settle on Gregory to replace him. He balked and fled Rome to hide in the countryside. When he was eventually located they persuaded him to return and take up the Bishop's seat.Gregory seemed ill-suited to the task. He was 50 and frail. 50 would be young for a pope today, but when the average life span was a mere 40 years, 50 was already an advanced age. Gregory's physical condition had been made worse by his extreme austerity as a monk. Drastic fasting had enfeebled him and contributed to the weakening of his heart. But what some might assume his main disqualification, was Gregory's lack of ambition for power. He simply did not want to be Pope. Coming to the belief it was God's will that he take up the task, it didn't take long for him to learn how to wield the influence his office. He began his term by calling for public demonstrations of humility of what was left of Rome's plague-decimated populace. His hope was to avert more disaster. And indeed, after a while the plague abated.Gregory hadn't been Pope long when the Lombards laid siege to Rome. This was a time of chaos throughout Western Europe. Many otherwise cool heads thought it was the end times; Gregory was one of them. In a sermon he said,Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds.It seemed every aspect of civilization was being shaken to ruins. The church at Rome was one of a few that survived the ordeals that came like hammer blows. Though Gregory saw his promotion to the papacy as punishment, he surrendered himself whole-heartedly to the task of keeping things together while everything else fell apart.Pope Gregory I was a tireless leader. He accomplished the work of ten. His volume of work is all the more remarkable in that he was often confined to bed because of sickness brought on by his frailty and overwork. Seeing himself as genuinely the first among equals with the other bishops, he kept up a vast correspondence, making sure the lines of communication between the churches kept everyone abreast of Church affairs. That alone would have been a full-time pursuit. But Gregory did more.He knew from both his time as a monk and in watching his brothers in the monastery, that the quality of one's work FOR God, is directly proportional to the heart's devotion TO Him. So in his book Pastoral Care, Gregory reminded spiritual leaders to never be so preoccupied with work that they forgot their own soul. But there was a much-needed counterpoint to that; they must also not become so internally focused that they neglected practical work. This was a point of balance rarely glimpsed in the Christianity of that age.Gregory was also concerned for the quality of worship in the church and encouraged the use of music. Though he did not invent what is called plainsong or plainchant, he greatly encouraged its use. In honor of his patronage of this form of worship, it's known as Gregorian chant. Plainsong is a single melodic line without instrumental accompaniment. While a single singer may sing, it was usually sung by a chorus of voices in unison.Gregory took seriously his call to be the standard-bearer of the Faith. His contribution to theology was remarkable. He wrote more on theology than any previous and most subsequent popes. His main influences were Augustine, Ambrose & Jerome. He leaned heavily on Augustine's work, even at times drawing inspiration from casual comments he'd made.Remember back several episodes to when we noted how the church believed baptism washed away all sins, up to that point. Well, what happened to those sins committed after baptism that were not confessed before death and had not been expiated by penance? Augustine mused on how God might, maybe, possibly -- remove these sins after believers died. It was from this speculative musing that Gregory developed the idea God purged them in a “purge-atory;” so the doctrine of purgatory was added to church doctrine.Gregory's theology encapsulated not only the creeds of the councils and teachings of the Fathers, it also included some of the superstitious accretions of a Christianized paganism.I understand there are not a few Roman Catholics who subscribe to this podcast. I've been mightily encouraged by their kind remarks, and the occasional suggestions they've made. Even at points of disagreement, most have been courteous & used a heavy dose of tact when dialoging. I say that because in what follows, I suspect some will think I'm needlessly tweaking the sensitivities of our RC family. I hope I'm not, but am presenting an accurate view of the history here.To illustrate that, let me pose this question: How do we get from the picture of Christian Fellowship & the kind of church service we find in the NT and the earliest descriptions of them, to the elaborate, formal, highly-structured & stylized services of the Medieval & later Church? There's an obvious discontinuity between them. When did pastors begin wearing elaborate robes and head-gear and start carrying gilded & bejeweled croziers? To put it bluntly – whence all the complex ritual? I don't think anyone imagines Jesus conducting such a service, or even Peter. So it's a legitimate question to ask when these things were adopted and became a part of church liturgy. The answer is, as the Western Roman Empire folded and church leaders became increasingly looked to, to provide governance, they also began to affect some of the trappings of political office. As Christianity became the favored, and then approved religion of the Empire, an all-too-common syncretism began to blend pagan and Christian practices. All Gregory did was standardize this syncretistic blend and bequeath it to the Church of the Middle Ages.He endorsed an earlier practice of appealing to past martyrs and saints for help in securing God's aid. The idea was that a penitent sinner could never know if he/she had done enough penance to atone for sin. By appealing to those believers who'd died and gone to heaven for help, they might be able, through their special standing with God, to find assistance in having their sin discharged, kind of like spiritual brokers who negotiated a better deal for the Earth-bound.Gregory encouraged the collection and veneration of relics; strands of hair, fingernails, toe bones, or pieces of clothing from past saints and martyrs; as well as paraphernalia supposedly connected to the Bible; pieces of the cross, the spear that pierced Jesus' side, a towel used to wipe Christ's brow. It was assumed these relics possessed special power to heal and give the armies that venerated them favor in battle.Gregory taught that the body and blood of Christ were really present in the elements of Communion, the bread & wine. He claimed partaking of them nourished and strengthened one's spirit, just as literal bread and wine nourished the physical body. But Gregory took it further. The real power of the Communion elements, the Eucharist, was in its renewing of the sacrifice of Christ's death. The Eucharist didn't just remember Jesus' substitutionary atonement, it was a fresh enactment of it. During Communion, in the Mass, offered by a priest, sins were forgiven. What Jesus' death on the cross did potentially for all people, the Mass applied to specific people who partook of it. So celebrating Mass replaced the need for some forms of penance. Certain sins required both attending Mass and penance. But for the average run of the mill kind of pedantic sins, Mass replaced penance. Then people reasoned, if dead saints could assist them by intercession with God, why couldn't living believers attend extra masses for departed loved ones to lessen their time in purgatory. Light a candle, say a prayer, attend an extra Mass and you might shorten Uncle Giacomo's sentence by a week. This theological base fashioned by Gregory would be used hundreds of years later to sell indulgences, and Tetzel's clever fund-raising ditty – “When in the offering box the coin rings, another soul from purgatory springs.”Gregory's realm of oversight wasn't limited to the spiritual affairs of the Church. During his tenure, the Church owned huge tracts of land in Southern Italy & Sicily; some 1,800 square miles in all.  When the Lombards invaded, sweeping away the last vestiges of civil authority, it was church leaders & their representatives who had to step in to provide governance. They took over the infrastructure of providing food and the necessary collection of taxes to maintain some semblance of civil affairs.  Later arm-chair historians lament the blurring of the line between church and state. They fail to realize, had it not been for church officials stepping in following the Lombard incursions, tens of thousands would have perished. Gregory was the one who set up and oversaw this new tax and public assistance system. As the Lombards drew closer to Rome, Gregory took charge of the defense of central Italy. He appointed the military governor and arranged for a peace with the enemy leaders.Think of this now à Gregory was trained from youth for political office and had served well in that capacity until his father's death when he resigned to seek the quiet life of a monk. When the Plague gutted both the church and civil sphere of capable leaders, Gregory was drafted to take the reins of the Church. The Lombards hammered the last nails into the coffin of Roman civil government, requiring for the sake of public welfare, that Gregory mobilize the leadership of the church to step up and follow his lead of taking on the task of civil authority. Though Gregory greatly expanded papal influence so that from his day on, the Pope was a central figure in European politics, his motive for all he did is seen in his simple concern for the welfare of the needy, as demonstrated by his refusal to stay safely behind the walls of his monastery when the plague ravaged Rome.The tension between the Eastern & Western church that had begun over a hundred years before as Rome and Constantinople vied for supremacy, grew during Gregory's term, but certainly not because of Gregory's personal ambition for power. His criticism of the Eastern Patriarch was due to his belief in Rome's primacy and his resistance to the kind of pride on full display in the East. The Eastern Patriarch John IV had taken the title “universal bishop,” an honorific granted the Patriarch by emperors like Leo and Justinian. The title was confirmed in an Eastern synod in 588. But Gregory considered the title a usurpation of Rome's primacy and a blatant arrogance God would not allow. He did all he could to have the title revoked and called down mighty anathemas on it. He threatened to break off all connection with the Patriarch and demanded the Emperor rescind the title. When someone applied the same title to him, Gregory's reaction was immediate and vehement – no one was to be called a “universal pope”! He said, “I have said that neither to me nor to anyone else ought you to write anything of the kind. Away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!” He preferred to be known as simply – “the servant of the servants of God.”What appears a contradiction to historians is that while Gregory eschewed pretentious titles, he claimed and exercised authority over the entire Church. While in his case, that oversight was due to his scrupulous sense of duty to serve God by serving his people, later popes would accept the grand titles and use the power of the papacy to less altruistic ends.Gregory is an important name in the list of Popes because it was under his term that a great wave of missionary outreach began. If Leo the Great had sought to expand the power & influence of the office of Pope, Gregory the Great expanded the influence of the Gospel to new lands beyond the borders of the Empire. Being the first monk to become a pope, Gregory realized monasteries were like spiritual barracks that could send out an army of evangelists. If Rome couldn't field military legions to repel the barbarians, why not send out legions of missionaries to convert those barbarians, then appeal to their faith to forestall attack? Convert war-like barbarians into daring peace-loving, then peace-spreading missionaries who instead of invading Europe would carry the cross North & East.Good plan. And Gregory implemented it well.When Gregory was a youngster, he'd watched as slave ships were unloaded at the docks. The slaves were Angles, from Angle-land, which later becomes England. The name Angle sounded like ‘Angel' to the young Gregory and set within him the idea that where these barbarians came from needed the Gospel.Besides his interest in missions to Britain, Gregory also promoted missionary activity among the Germanic tribes. But it wasn't until about a hundred years later that missionary work among the Germanic tribes would really take off. We'll cover that in a future episode.If you've been following along with the podcast, a question may have risen that we turn to now. When did the western church, centered in Rome under the overall leadership of the Roman Bishop who'd come to be known as the Pope, really become what today we know as Roman Catholicism?There was no one day the Church transitioned from being the Apostolic church into the Roman Catholic Church. It was a slow, steady series of events that saw the Roman bishop be looked at as the mostly undisputed leader of the western church. I say “mostly undisputed” because while the eastern church centered in Constantinople, Antioch & Alexandria honored Rome's bishop as first among equals, there were always a handful of western bishops who esteemed the lead pastor at Rome in much the same way. They didn't see their role as the bishop of their city as in any way under a Roman pope's authority.And don't forget that the term catholic; which technically just means “universal” carried none of the denominational freight it does today. The word simply meant the Faith that followed the creeds set out by the ecumenical councils – those gatherings attended by a wide cross-section of the leaders of the church so they could define a Biblically faithful position on doctrines being mucked up by aberrant teachers & groups.An ultra-simple definition then of Roman Catholicism is that branch of the Christian Faith that embodies the early creeds of the church, as it coalesced in Europe, led by the church at & Bishop of Rome. As the generations passed, Roman Catholicism would take on much additional doctrine to that embodied in the early creeds. That doctrine was most often decided by the Roman bishop, whose power and authority grew so that he replaced the Councils.So while it's difficult to name a date when Roman Catholicism became, you know – Roman Catholic, many church historians suggest Gregory's appointment as bishop of Rome in 590 is as good a place as any to drive that stake into the church history timeline. Though Gregory refused the title “Pope,” he set up the system of church government that framed the entire medieval period & is called today the papal system. Gregory set a uniform liturgy to be used in the churches and did much to ensure all the churches walked lock-step with Rome.When he died in 604, worn out after 30 years of hard work, his epitaph proclaimed him “God's Consul.” An appropriate description of the man who' spent his life and career wholly in God's service but wielding both secular and spiritual power like one of the ancient Roman rulers.

El episodio de esta semana de Communio Sanctorum se titula "Cónsul de Dios."Una de las contribuciones más importantes para el Imperio del Emperador Romano Diocleciano fue dividir el liderazgo del primer nivel para que pudiera gobernar de manera más eficiente. El Imperio había crecido demasiado para ser gobernado por un solo Emperador, por lo que seleccionó un co-Augustus y dividió sus regiones de supervisión entre el territorio Occidental y Oriental. Dado que el tema de la sucesión también había sido motivo de disturbios en generaciones anteriores, Diocleciano también trato de resolver este problema asignando a Césares secundarios tanto para él como para su co-Augusto. Cuando dejaban su puesto, había alguien esperando en las alas, pre-designado para tomar el control. La idea era que entonces cuando sus sucesores entraran en el papel de ser co-Augustus designarían nuevos Césares secundarios para seguirlos. Era un plan sólido y funciono bien mientras que Diocleciano era el Augusto mayor. Cuando se retiró para llevar una vida de reposo como agricultor retirado, los otros gobernantes decidieron que les gustaba el poder y no querían renunciar a él.A lo largo de los años siguientes, el gobierno del Imperio alternó entre tener un solo Emperador y la idea de gobierno compartido de Diocleciano. El rumbo general que tomaron con el gobierno compartido fue con el Augusto mayor haciendo su capital en el Este en Constantinopla. Esto dejó al gobernante más débil y subordinado en el Oeste con cada vez menos poder, al mismo tiempo que las tribus Germánicas lo presionaban desde el Norte.Lo que finalmente llevo a la perdición al Imperio Occidental fue que Roma había forjado tratados con algunas de esas tribus Germánicas; convirtiéndolos en mercenarios que estaban armados y entrenados en el estilo Romano de la guerra. Cuando Roma dejó de pagarles para que lucharan por Roma contra sus hermanos Germánicos y los Godos, era inevitable que se unieran a ellos para luchar en contra de un Imperio en decadencia que ya no podía enviar ejércitos contra ellos y ofrecía tesoros lisos para saquear.Hemos visto anteriormente, mientras los bárbaros presionaban en el Imperio Occidental desde el Norte y el Este, las autoridades civiles tenían una capacidad cada vez menor para hacer algo al respecto. La gente comenzó a buscar a la Iglesia para poner orden. Debido a que la Iglesia estaba dotada de algunos líderes notables que realmente se preocupaban por el bienestar del pueblo, lograron mantener unido al Imperio en decadencia por un tiempo. El Papa Leo incluso logró reunirse con el líder Huno Atila mientras que se preparaba para marchar sobre Roma. Leo persuadió a los Hunos para que se dieran la vuelta, dejando la ciudad intacta. Pero Leo no tuvo tanta suerte con los Vándalos que llegaron unos años más tarde. Logró persuadirlos de que limitaran su saqueo a solo llevarse el botín y saquear. La población se salvó de la muerte y la violación. Después de un festín de botín de 2 semanas, los Vándalos abordaron sus barcos y zarparon, dejando la ciudad sin mas molestia y destruccion.Los historiadores marcan el año 476 como la fecha en que cayó el Imperio Occidental. Fue cuando el líder Godo Odoacer depuso al último Emperador Occidental, Rómulo Augustulus. Odoacer es llamado bárbaro, pero en realidad era un líder militar en el ejército Romano; un mercenario que lideró una revuelta en contra de la misma gente por quienes una vez había luchado. Mientras que los historiadores marcan el año 476 como el año de la caída de Roma, las personas que vivían en ese momento no hubieran visto mucha diferencia entre el reinado de Augustulus y Odoacer. Las cosas continuaron tanto como lo habían hecho en las décadas anteriores. Es decir, ¡fueron un desastre!Con la Caída de Roma, el Imperio Occidental se trasladó a lo que conocemos como la Edad Media. Esta fue una época en la que la Iglesia desempeñó un rol cada vez mayor en la sociedad. La forma que la influencia tomó variaba a lo largo de los siglos; a veces siendo de una naturaleza más religiosa y espiritual, pero en otras ocasiones siendo predominantemente político. Pero no se puede negar que, en Europa durante la Edad Media, la Iglesia desempeñó un papel muy importante.Durante el 5º siglo y a principios del 6º siglo, cuando la sociedad civil se desintegró, la gente buscó alternativas. Algunos encontraron una respuesta en comunidades monásticas. Ya habían comunidades de cristianos desde el 3º siglo, pero el número de monasterios comenzó a crecer durante el 5º siglo. Algunos estaban muy estructurados, mientras que otros estaban organizados más libremente.El movimiento monástico despegó debido al liderazgo de Benedicto de Nursia del que ya hemos hablado. Los primeros intentos de Benedicto de ser el líder o abad de un monasterio no le salio tan bien; los monjes trataron de envenenarlo. Pero a medida que maduraba, Benedicto aplicó las lecciones aprendidas de sus errores anteriores y fundó un monasterio en Monte Casino en Italia que se convirtió en el prototipo para monasterios durante años.Benedicto era un genio para la administración y organización. Formuló un plan simple para la vida monástica que fue fácilmente transferido a otras comunas. Conocida como la Regla de San Benito, se convirtió en el principio de organización y gobierno de la vida monástica y bajo ella se iniciaron cientos de monasterios más. La Regla los llevaba a una rutina diaria de lectura bíblica, oración y trabajo. La hermana de Benedicto, Scholastica, adoptó una fórmula similar para los conventos.Los monasterios se convirtieron en repositorios y tesorerías del aprendizaje y la enseñanza de la antigua Grecia y Roma. A medida que el resto de Europa se sumergió en lo que algunos denominan La Edad Oscura, muchos monasterios seguían siendo lugares de enseñanza. Los monjes leían, estudiaban y pasaban mucho tiempo copiando textos antiguos tanto de las Escrituras como de la Antigüedad clásica. El Renacimiento eventualmente sería alimentado por el trabajo de esos monjes y sus cientos de años de trabajo.Lo que sabemos de Benedicto proviene de su biógrafo, Gregorio, conocido como el Papa Gregorio I, o Gregorio Magno, un título que le confiere la Iglesia poco después de su muerte.Gregory nació en una rica y antigua familia senatorial Romana alrededor del año 540. Siguiendo la tradición familiar, fue entrenado para el servicio civil. Pero el panorama político era incierto. Durante su infancia, el gobierno de Roma pasó por varios regímenes diferentes. Mientras que, en su adolescencia, el control del sur de Italia fue arrebatado de los Visigodos por la reconquista del Emperador Oriental Justiniano. Pero sólo pasaron unos pocos años hasta que los Lombardos comenzaron su campaña de terror. Quemaron iglesias, asesinaron obispos, saquearon monasterios y convirtieron los verdes campos de Italia en un desierto plagado.Cuando tenía 33 años, Justiniano nombró a Gregorio como prefecto de Roma, la posición política más alta del territorio. Gregorio era responsable de la economía, las provisiones alimentarias, el bienestar de los pobres, la reconstrucción de la infraestructura que ahora era antigua y estaba gravemente deteriorada; cosas como baños, alcantarillas y calles. Su nombramiento se produjo en el mismo año en que murieron tanto el Papa como el gobernador Imperial de Italia.Unos años más tarde Gregorio renunció a su cargo. Es raro cuando alguien que ejerce tan gran poder se aleje de él, pero eso es lo que Gregorio hizo. La muerte de su padre parece ser el momento decisivo. Uno se pregunta si no fueron los sueños de su padre para su hijo los que habían movido a Gregorio a una carrera política para empezar su vida. Una vez que el padre se había ido, no había nada que lo aferrara a su posición y Gregorio siguió su corazón, que lo llevo a convertirse en monje. Con su considerable fortuna, fundó siete monasterios y dio lo que le quedaba a los pobres. Luego convirtió la casa de su familia en un monasterio. Como dice Bruce Shelly, "Cambió la toga púrpura por la túnica gruesa de un monje". Abrazó la vida austera de un monje con plena devoción a la Regla de San Benito.Por mucho que Gregorio deseaba perderse en el anonimato y vivir una vida de humilde devoción a Dios, sus dones sobresalientes como administrador le habían fijado una reputación que no podía esquivar. En el año 579, el Papa Pelágico II lo convirtió en uno de los siete diáconos de la iglesia de Roma. Luego fue enviado como embajador del Papa a la corte Imperial en Constantinopla. Regresó a Roma en el año 585 y fue nombrado abad del convento que había sido una vez su casa.Gregorio estaba muy contento de ser un abad, y no aspiraba a ningún cargo superior, contento de terminar su tiempo en la tierra justo allí. Pero la peste arrasó a Roma, matando a miles, incluyendo al Papa. A diferencia de la mayoría de los monjes que se escondían detrás de los muros de su comuna, Gregorio fue a la ciudad para ayudar a los enfermos. Esto le ganó una gran admiración. Después de la muerte del Papa Pelágico, le tomo a los líderes de la iglesia seis meses en ponerse de acuerdo que Gregorio debía reemplazarlo. No quiso que le dieran ese honor y huyó de Roma para esconderse en el campo. Cuando finalmente fue localizado, lo persuadieron para que regresara y tomara su lugar como el Obispo de Roma.Gregorio parecía no apto para la tarea. Tenía 50 años y era frágil. 50 años sería joven para un Papa hoy en día, pero cuando la vida promedio de ese tiempo era de apenas 40 años, 50 ya era una edad avanzada. La condición física de Gregorio se había agravado por su austeridad extrema como monje. El ayuno drástico lo había envejecido y contribuyo al debilitamiento de su corazón. Pero lo que algunos podrían asumir fue la razón principal de ser descalificado fue la falta de ambición de Gregorio para tener el poder. Simplemente no quería ser Papa. Llego a la creencia de que esta era la voluntad de Dios y que él tenia que asumir la tarea, y no le tomó mucho tiempo en aprender a ejercer la influencia de su oficio. Comenzó su mandato pidiendo manifestaciones públicas de humildad a lo que quedaba de la población diezmada por la peste de Roma. Su esperanza era evitar más desastres. Y de hecho, después de un tiempo la plaga disminuyó.Gregorio no había sido Papa mucho tiempo cuando los Lombardos asediaron a Roma. Fue una época de caos en toda Europa Occidental. Muchas pensaban que era el fin de los tiempos; Gregorio era uno de ellos. En un sermón dijo,En todas partes vemos tribulación, en todas partes escuchamos lamentaciones. Las ciudades son destruidas, los castillos derribados, los campos asolados, la tierra desolada. Las aldeas están vacías, pocos habitantes permanecen en las ciudades, e incluso estos pobres restos de humanidad son cortados diariamente. El castigo de la justicia celestial no cesa, porque ningún arrepentimiento tiene lugar bajo el castigo. Vemos cómo algunos son llevados al cautiverio, otros mutilados, otros muertos. ¿Qué es, hermanos, lo que puede hacernos contentos con esta vida? Si amamos un mundo así, no amamos nuestro gozo, sino nuestras heridas.Parecía que todos los aspectos de la civilización estaban siendo sacudidas hasta la ruina. La iglesia de Roma fue una de las pocas que sobrevivieron las pruebas que se produjeron como golpes de martillo. Aunque Gregorio vio su ascenso al papado como castigo, se entregó de todo corazón a la tarea de mantener las cosas juntas mientras que todo lo demás se desmoronaba.El Papa Gregorio I era un líder incansable. Cumplió el trabajo de diez personas. Su volumen de trabajo es aún más notable porque a menudo fue confinado a la cama debido a enfermedad provocada por su fragilidad y exceso de trabajo. Al verse a sí mismo como genuinamente el primero entre iguales a los otros obispos, mantuvo una vasta correspondencia, asegurándose de que las líneas de comunicación entre las iglesias mantuvieran a todos al tanto de los asuntos de la Iglesia. Solo esto hubiera sido un trabajo de tiempo completo. Pero Gregory hizo más.El sabía tanto por su tiempo como monje y igualmente al observar a sus hermanos en el monasterio, que la calidad de la propia obra PARA Dios era directamente proporcional a la devoción del corazón HACIA El. Así que, en su libro Pastoral, Gregorio recordó a los líderes espirituales que no estuvieran tan preocupados por el trabajo que olvidaran su propia alma. Pero había un contrapunto muy necesario a esto; tampoco deberían estar tan centrados internamente que descuidaran el trabajo práctico. Este fue un punto de equilibrio rara vez vislumbrado en el Cristianismo de esa época.Gregorio también estaba preocupado por la calidad del culto en la iglesia y alentó el uso de la música. Aunque no inventó lo que se llama Canto Llano, y impulso su uso en gran medida. En honor a su patrocinio de esta forma de culto es conocido como Canto Gregoriano. Canto Llano es una sola línea melódica sin acompañamiento instrumental. Mientras que un solo cantante puede cantar, por lo general era cantado por un coro de voces al unísono.Gregorio tomó en serio su llamado de ser el abanderado de la Fe. Su contribución a la teología fue notable. Escribió más sobre teología que cualquier papa anterior y la mayoría de los papas posteriores. Sus principales influencias fueron Agustín, Ambrosio y Jerónimo. Se apoyó mucho en el trabajo de Agustín, incluso a veces inspirándose en comentarios casuales que había hecho.Recuerdan que varios episodios atrás cuando notamos cómo la iglesia creía que el bautismo lavaba todos los pecados, hasta ese momento. Bueno, ¿qué pasó con esos pecados cometidos después del bautismo que no fueron confesados antes de la muerte y no habían sido expiados por penitencia? Agustín reflexionó sobre cómo Dios podría, tal vez, posiblemente - eliminar estos pecados después de que los creyentes murieran. Fue a partir de esta reflexión especulativa que Gregorio desarrolló la idea de que Dios los purgaba en un "purga-torio;" por lo que la doctrina del purgatorio se añadió a la doctrina de la iglesia.La teología de Gregorio encapsulaba no sólo los credos de los consejos y enseñanzas de los Padres de la Iglesia, sino que también incluía algunas de las supersticiones añadidas por un paganismo Cristianizado.Entiendo que algunos Católicos Romanos se suscriben a este podcast. Ha sido muy alentador escuchar sus amables comentarios, y las sugerencias ocasionales que han hecho. Incluso en los puntos de desacuerdo, la mayoría ha sido cortés y han utilizado una fuerte dosis de tacto al hacer un diálogo. Digo esto porque en lo que sigue, sospecho que algunos pensarán que estoy ajustando innecesariamente las sensibilidades de nuestra familia Católica Romana. Espero que no, pero estoy presentando una visión precisa de la historia en este momento.Para ilustrar eso, permítanme plantear esta pregunta: ¿Cómo empezamos con la imagen de la Comunidad Cristiana y el tipo de servicio eclesiástico que encontramos en el NT y las primeras descripciones de ellos, y terminamos con los servicios elaborados, formales, altamente estructurados y estilizados de la Iglesia Medieval y posterior? Hay una discontinuidad obvia entre la dos. ¿Cuándo empezaron los pastores a usar túnicas elaboradas, coronas para la cabeza y empezaron a llevar un báculo de pastor dorado y lleno de joyas? Para decirlo sin rodeos, ¿de dónde vino todo este ritual complejo? No creo que nadie se imagina a Jesús llevando a cabo tal servicio, o incluso a Pedro. Así que es una pregunta legítima que debemos hacer, cuando estas cosas fueron adoptadas y como se convirtieron en una parte de la liturgia de la iglesia. La respuesta es que, a medida que el Imperio Romano Occidental se retiró y los líderes de las iglesias se volvieron cada vez más buscados, para proporcionar gobierno, también comenzaron a afectar algunas de las vestimentas de los cargos políticos. A medida que el cristianismo se convirtió en el favorito, y luego aprobada como la religión del Imperio, un sincretismo demasiado común comenzó a mezclar prácticas paganas y cristianas. Todo lo que hizo Gregorio fue estandarizar esta mezcla sincretista y llevarla a la Iglesia de la Edad Media.Gregorio respaldó una práctica anterior de pedir ayuda a los mártires y santos del pasado para obtener la ayuda de Dios. La idea era que un pecador penitente nunca podía saber si había hecho suficiente penitencia para expiar el pecado. Al apelar a aquellos creyentes que habían muerto y ido al cielo en busca de ayuda, podrían ser capaces, a través de su posición especial con Dios, de encontrar ayuda para que su pecado fuera dado de baja, como abogados espirituales que negociaban un mejor trato para los que vivían en la Tierra.Gregorio alentó la colección y la veneración de las reliquias; pedazos de pelo, uñas, huesos de los dedos de los pies, o piezas de ropa de santos y mártires pasados; así como la parafernalia supuestamente conectada a la Biblia; pedazos de la cruz, la lanza que perforó el lado de Jesús, una toalla utilizada para limpiar la frente de Cristo. Se suponía que estas reliquias poseían un poder especial para sanar y dar a los ejércitos que los veneraban favor en la batalla.Gregorio enseñó que el cuerpo y la sangre de Cristo estaban realmente presentes en los elementos de la Comunión, el pan y el vino. Afirmó que participar de ellos nutria y fortalecía el espíritu, así como el pan literal y el vino nutria el cuerpo físico. Pero Gregory lo llevó aun más lejos. El poder verdadero de los elementos de la Comunión, la Eucaristía, estaba en su renovación del sacrificio de la muerte de Cristo. La Eucaristía no sólo nos recordaba la expiación sustitutiva de Jesús, sino que era Cristo muriendo por nosotros otra vez. Durante la Comunión, en la Misa, ofrecida por un sacerdote, pecados eran perdonados. Lo que la muerte de Jesús en la cruz hizo potencialmente para todas las personas, la Misa lo aplicaba a personas específicas que participaron de ella. Así que celebrar la Misa reemplazó la necesidad de algunas formas de penitencia. Ciertos pecados requerían tanto asistir a la Misa como la penitencia. Pero para los pecados común y corrientes de todos los días, La misa reemplazó la penitencia. Entonces la gente razonó, si los santos muertos podían ayudarlos por intercesión con Dios, ¿por qué los creyentes vivos no podían asistir a misas adicionales para que el tiempo en purgatorio de sus seres queridos difuntos disminuyera? Enciende una vela, reza, asiste a una misa extra y podrías acortar la sentencia del tío Giacomo por una semana. Esta base teológica confeccionada por Gregorio se utilizaría cientos de años más tarde para vender indulgencias, y la cancioncita de recaudación de fondos de Tetzel – "Cuando en la caja de ofrendas suena la moneda, sale otra alma de los manantiales del purgatorio."El poder de supervisión de Gregorio no se limitó a los asuntos espirituales de la Iglesia. Durante su mandato, la Iglesia poseía enormes extensiones de tierra en el sur de Italia y Sicilia; unos 4,700 kilómetros cuadrados en total. Cuando los Lombardos invadieron, barriendo con los últimos vestigios de la autoridad civil, fueron los líderes de la iglesia y sus representantes quienes tuvieron que intervenir para proporcionar gobernabilidad. Se hicieron cargo de la infraestructura de suministro de alimentos y la recaudación necesaria de impuestos para mantener cierta apariencia de los asuntos civiles. Más tarde, los historiadores sentados a gusto en sus casas lamentan el desenfoque de la línea entre la iglesia y el estado. Pero no se dan cuenta, si no hubiera sido por los funcionarios de la iglesia que tuvieron que ayudar después de las incursiones Lombardas, decenas de miles hubieran perecido. Gregorio fue quien creó y supervisó este nuevo sistema de impuestos y asistencia pública. A medida que los Lombardos se acercaban a Roma, Gregorio se hizo cargo de la defensa del centro de Italia. Nombró al gobernador militar y organizó una paz con los líderes enemigos.Piensen en esto ahora à Gregorio fue entrenado desde la juventud para cargos políticos y había servido bien en esa capacidad hasta la muerte de su padre, cuando renunció para buscar la vida tranquila de un monje. Cuando la Peste arrazo tanto la iglesia como la esfera civil de líderes capaces, Gregorio fue reclutado para tomar las riendas de la Iglesia. Los Lombardos martillaron los últimos clavos en el ataúd del gobierno civil Romano, requiriendo por el bien del bien público, que Gregorio movilizara a los líderes de la iglesia para dar un paso adelante y seguir su liderazgo de asumir la tarea de la autoridad civil. Aunque Gregorio amplió en gran medida la influencia papal para que, a partir de su día, el Papa fuera una figura central en la política europea, su motivo para todo lo que hizo se ve en su simple preocupación por el bienestar de los necesitados, como lo demuestra que se nego a permanecer a salvo detrás de los muros de su monasterio cuando la plaga asoló Roma.La tensión entre la iglesia Oriental y Occidental que había comenzado más de cien años antes, mientras que Roma y Constantinopla luchaban por la supremacía, creció durante el mandato de Gregorio, pero no debido a la ambición personal de Gregorio para el poder. Sus críticas hacia el Patriarca Oriental se debieron a su creencia en la Primacía de Roma y su resistencia al tipo de orgullo que se exhibía plenamente en el Oriente. El Patriarca Oriental Juan IV había tomado el título de "Obispo Universal", un honorífico concedido al Patriarca por Emperadores como Leo y Justiniano. El título fue confirmado en un sínodo Oriental en el año 588. Pero Gregorio consideraba el título una usurpación de la primacía de Roma y una arrogancia flagrante que Dios no permitiría. Hizo todo lo que pudo para que revocara el título y clamo poderosas anatemas en su contra. Amenazó con romper toda conexión con el Patriarca y exigió al Emperador rescindir el título. ¡Cuando alguien le aplicó el mismo título, la reacción de Gregorio fue inmediata y vehemente - nadie debería ser llamado un “Papa Universal”! Dijo: "He dicho que ni a mí ni a nadie más deberías escribir nada de eso. ¡Aléjate de las palabras que inflan el orgullo y dan heridas a la caridad!" Prefirió ser conocido simplemente como – "el siervo de los siervos de Dios."Lo que parece una contradicción con los historiadores es que mientras Gregorio evitaba títulos pretenciosos, él reclamó y ejerció autoridad sobre toda la Iglesia. Mientras que, en su caso, ese cuidado se debía a su escrupuloso sentido del deber de servir a Dios sirviendo a su pueblo, los papas posteriores aceptarían los grandes títulos y usarían el poder del papado para fines menos altruistas.Gregorio es un nombre importante en la lista de Papas porque fue bajo su mandato que comenzó una gran ola de alcance misionero. León el Grande había tratado de expandir el poder y la influencia del oficio del Papa, y ahora Gregorio Magno expandió la influencia del Evangelio a nuevas tierras más allá de las fronteras del Imperio. Siendo el primer monje en convertirse en Papa, Gregorio se dio cuenta que los monasterios eran como cuarteles espirituales por los cuales se podían enviar un ejército de evangelistas. Si Roma no podía atacar a los bárbaros, ¿por qué no enviar legiones de misioneros para convertir a esos bárbaros y luego apelar a su fe para prevenir el ataque? Convertir a los bárbaros bélicos en audaces misioneros amantes de la paz y luego a los misioneros se extiendan esa misma paz, que en lugar de invadir Europa, llevarían la cruz al Norte y al Este.Fue un buen plan. Y Gregorio lo implementó bien.Cuando Gregory era joven, observaba cómo los barcos de esclavos eran descargados en los muelles. Los esclavos eran Anglos, de la Tierra de los Anglo, que más tarde se convertiría en Inglaterra. El nombre Anglo le sonaba como 'Ángel' al joven Gregorio y puso dentro de él la idea de que de dónde venían estos bárbaros se necesitaba el Evangelio.Además de su interés en las misiones a Gran Bretaña, Gregorio también promovió la actividad misionera entre las tribus Germánicas. Pero no fue hasta unos cien años más tarde que la obra misional entre las tribus Germánicas realmente despegaría. Cubriremos eso en un futuro episodio.Si has estado siguiendo junto con el podcast, puede haber surgido una pregunta a la que nos dirigimos ahora. ¿Cuándo se convirtió la iglesia occidental en Roma bajo el liderazgo general del obispo Romano que llegaría a ser conocido como el Papa, realmente en lo que hoy conocemos como Catolicismo Romano?No hay un fecha especifica en que la Iglesia pasara de ser la iglesia apostólica a la Iglesia Católica Romana. Fue un cambio lento y constante de acontecimientos que vieron al obispo Romano cambiar a ser visto como el líder mayoritariamente indiscutible de la iglesia Occidental. Digo "en su mayoría indiscutible" porque mientras que la iglesia Oriental se centraba en Constantinopla, Antioquía y Alejandría honraba al obispo de Roma como el primero entre iguales, y siempre había un puñado de obispos Occidentales que estimaban al pastor principal en Roma de la misma manera. Pero no veían su rol como obispos de sus ciudades como de ninguna manera bajo la autoridad de un Papa Romano.Y no olvides que el término católico; que técnicamente solamente significa "universal" llevaba nada de la carga confesional que trae hoy en día. La palabra simplemente significaba la Fe que seguía a los credos establecidos por los consejos ecuménicos – esas reuniones a las que asistieron una amplia sección de los líderes de la iglesia para que pudieran definir una posición bíblicamente fiel sobre las doctrinas que están siendo arruinadas por maestros y grupos aberrantes.Una definición ultra sencilla entonces del Catolicismo Romano es esa rama de la fe Cristiana que encarna los primeros credos de la iglesia, tal como se fusionó en Europa, dirigida por la iglesia de y Obispo de Roma. A medida que pasaban las generaciones, el Catolicismo Romano asumiría mucha doctrina adicional a la encarnada en los primeros credos. Esa doctrina fue decidida con mayor frecuencia por el Obispo Romano, cuyo poder y autoridad crecieron para que reemplazara a los Concilios.Así que si bien es difícil nombrar una fecha en la que el Catolicismo Romano se convirtió, ya sabes– Católico Romano, muchos historiadores de la iglesia sugieren que el nombramiento de Gregorio como obispo de Roma en el año 590 es un lugar tan bueno como cualquiera para poner esa marca en la línea de tiempo de la historia de la iglesia. Aunque Gregorio rechazó el título de "Papa", estableció el sistema de gobierno de la iglesia que enmarcó todo el período medieval y se llama hoy el sistema papal. Gregorio estableció una liturgia uniforme para ser utilizada en las iglesias e hizo mucho para asegurar que todas las iglesias caminaran junto con Roma.Cuando murió en el año 604, agotado después de 30 años de arduo trabajo, su epitafio lo proclamó "Cónsul de Dios". Una descripción apropiada del hombre que pasó su vida y carrera totalmente al servicio de Dios, pero ejerciendo el poder secular y espiritual como uno de los antiguos gobernantes Romanos.

El título de este episodio es "Bárbaros a las puertas – y en todas partes"Vivo en la costa del sur de California en uno de los lugares más bellos del planeta: el condado de Ventura. El clima es templado durante todo el año con una temperatura media de 70 grados. Las playas son prístinas y la mayoría de las veces, despobladas. El condado tiene varios lugares de surf de primera. Pero de vez en cuando, por lo general durante el invierno, las tormentas lanzan enormes olas que destrozan la playa. Algunas de estas tormentas son locales y lavan enormes montones de escombros de las colinas que luego se terminan en la playa. Otros están lejos hacia el sur, frente a la costa de México, pero vienen olas que viajan hacia el norte y erosionan toneladas de arena, alterando la costa.En el 5º y 6º siglo, oleadas de invasiones bárbaras del Norte y del Este arrasaron a Europa para alterar el paisaje político y cultural y impulsaron a la Europa hacia la Edad Media.Cuando el Obispo Agustín de Hipona murió en el año 430, los Vándalos asediaban su ciudad. Mientras que el Concilio de Calcedonia se reunía en el año 451, el Papa Leo estaba negociando con los Hunos para dejar a Roma sin ser molestada.La historia Europea del 5º y 6º siglo fue dominada por el movimiento de los pueblos principalmente Germánicos en el territorio del antiguo Imperio Romano. El desplazamiento que se dio por esto y el cambio de población tuvieron un gran impacto en el Cristianismo en Occidente. La civilización Medieval fue el resultado de esta agitación bárbara junto con los vestigios finales de la sociedad Romana y el impacto que Agustín tuvo en la teología y la práctica de la Iglesia.La incursión de tribus Germánicas en el Imperio Romano fue sólo la primera de 4 oleadas masivas de migración.Los Alemanes llegaron en el 5º siglo. Los Vars y Eslavos entraron en los Balcanes en el 6º siglo. Los Musulmanes en el 7º siglos. Y los Vikingos en el 8º al 10º siglo.Los cambios sociales resultantes creados por estas migraciones invasivas tuvieron un efecto monumental en la Iglesia. Vamos a echar un vistazo ahora a sólo el primero de estos cambios de población - las invasiones Germánicas.El 5º siglo vio el clímax de lo que era realmente un largo proceso de inmigración controlada en su mayoría por los Alemanes. Ellos se establecieron en tierras en las frontera del Imperio y sirvieron en el ejército. En verdad, mientras que los Romanos se referían a los Alemanes como bárbaros, a menudo preservaban el Imperio llenando huecos en la población en declive de las tierras Romanas y llenando las legiones. Fue la Tormenta Perfecta la que vio que las cosas en un sentido figurado se cayeran para Roma. Los factores que se combinaron para generar esta Tormenta Perfecta fueron à1) Los Alemanes fueron presionados por invasores saliendo de Asia central,2) Los tratados claves entre los Romanos y los Alemanes se rompieron,3) El clima cálido que había visto un auge demográfico en el norte de Europa fue seguido por un frío amargo por el cual los Alemanes se vieran obligados a moverse hacia el sur en busca de tierras para sostener su población numerosa. No ayudó a Roma que los Alemanes conocían ahora las tácticas militares Romanas y llevaban armas Romanas.Nota para uno mismo: Si no quieres que tu vecino se haga cargo de tu casa, no le des las llaves y el código de alarma.Ciertas fechas en la primera mitad del 5º siglo son importantes àEn el año 410, Alarico, líder de los Godos Occidentales, o Visigodos, saqueó la ciudad de Roma. Este fue un evento comprensiblemente traumático para el Imperio Occidental. Su sucesor, Ataulf, se casó con la hermana del Emperador Honorio.En el año 430, Agustín, intentó explicar la caída de Roma por los Visigodos en su obra clásica La Ciudad de Dios. Murió el año antes del Concilio de Éfeso y la caída de su ciudad, Hipona en Norte de África a los Vándalos.En el año 451, Atila y los Hunos de Asia central, arrasaron por Europa Occidental, y luego fueron derrotados por una alianza de Romanos y Alemanes liderada por Atius.En el año 455, Atius y el Emperador Valentiniano III fueron asesinados, y los Vándalos bajo Gaiseric otra vez volvieron a saquear Roma.El primer contacto que los Romanos tuvieron con los Godos llegó durante el reinado del Emperador Decio. Durante el reinado de Constantino se convirtieron en aliados y a menudo entraron en las legiones en rangos elevados. Los Visigodos estaban siendo presionados desde el Oriente por los Hunos, y en el año 376 buscaron refugio en el lado Romano del Danubio. El Emperador Valens concedió su petición, y allí comenzó una conversión masiva de los Godos al Arrianismo. Debido al maltrato por los gobernadores Romanos, se rebelaron en el año 378 y mataron al Emperador Valens en la famosa Batalla de Adrianople. Así comenzó las verdadera invasión Germánicas del Imperio. En el año 419 los Visigodos habían sometido al sur de Galia y a toda España.Como hemos señalado en episodios anteriores, cuando los Godos invadieron el Imperio Occidental en el 5º siglo, en su mayor parte, vinieron, no como paganos saqueando, sino como cristianos Arrianos. Un obispo Godo llamado Teófilo había asistido al Concilio de Nicea en el año 325.El misionero que llevó el Evangelio a los Godos fue Ulfilas a mediados o finales del 4º siglo. Ulfilas tuvo un éxito increíble de ver a los Alemanes ganados a la fe por 2 razones...1) Su religión natal estaba en declive. En pocas palabras, sus dioses parecían bastante viejos y en mal estado.2) Las muchas tribus Alemanas compartían una lengua común.Al darse cuenta de que traducir la Biblia al Alemán era una clave para el éxito del evangelismo, Ulfilas pasó un tiempo considerable en el proyecto antes de su muerte. Dejó los libros de Samuel y Reyes fuera de su traducción porque pensó que los Godos à Bueno, ya sabían lo suficiente sobre la guerra.En el año 406, cuando Roma trajo a las legiones del Rin para proteger a Italia, otra tribu Germánica llamada los Vándalos entro en Galia, y luego a España, y finalmente saltó el estrecho de Gibraltar para acosar el norte de África. Su rey Gaiseric los llevó a Cartago, la cual conquistó en el año 439 y la hizo la capital de su reino Vándalo Arriano. Gaiseric era intolerante a otras formas de la fe. En el año 455 envió barcos a través del Mediterráneo para saquear Roma.Al principio, los Donatistas en el norte de África se regocijaron por la llegada de los Vándalos. Recuerda que Roma los veía como herejes. Pero no paso mucho tiempo para que se dieran cuenta de que el enemigo de mi enemigo no siempre es mi amigo. Los Vándalos no eran amistosos. Así que en el año 484, un sínodo Donatista-Católico se reunió para tratar de arreglar sus diferencias teológicas.Los Católicos fueron perseguidos bajo algunos de los reyes Vándalos a finales del 5º  y a principios del 6º siglo. Fue esta persecución la que dio a los Vándalos un mal nombre mucho más que cualquier acto real de "vandalismo". En realidad, los vándalos no eran más bárbaros que los otros Alemanes.El famoso general de Justiniano, Belisario, repulso a los Vándalos y volvió a ocupar el Norte de África para el Imperio Bizantino en el año 534.Los Visigodos y Vándalos fueron seguidos por Suevianos, los Borgoñeses y los Francos.Los Francos eran los menos móviles de las tribus Germánicas. Se establecieron en el norte de Francia y ampliaron su gobierno desde allí. Se unieron a varias otras tribus Alemanas junto con los Romanos para evitar la amenaza común de los Hunos en el año 451.De todas las tribus Alemanas, los Francos eran los menos inclinados a escuchar el mensaje de las misiones Cristianas. Parecían inmunes a la conversión hasta la conversión de su rey Clodoveo a mediados del 5º siglo.La conversión de Clodoveo a la Fe fue un momento significativo en la historia de Europa. Dado que los Vándalos, los Godos y los Borgoñones eran Arrianos, parecía probable que el Arrianismo se apoderara del Occidente. De todos los reinos Germánicos, solo los Francos bajo Clodoveo abrazaron lo que llamamos el Cristianismo Católico o según el consejo de Nicea, la fe mayormente de sus súbditos Europeos.En el año 492, el Obispo Avitus de Viena organizó el matrimonio de una princesa Borgoña llamada Clotilde con Clodoveo. Clotilde era una cristiana comprometida de sabor a Nicea. La pareja real tuvo un hijo, que fue bautizado, pero murió mientras aún estaba en sus túnicas bautismales. Clodoveo, que en ese momento todavía era un pagano, declaró en voz alta que sus dioses no permitirían que tal cosa sucediera. Más tarde tuvieron otro hijo. Este prosperó.Entonces, en la batalla con los Alemanni y cuando las cosas no iban a su favor, el desesperado Clodoveo pidió ayuda del Dios Cristiano. La batalla se volvió a su favor. Cuando los Alemanni fueron derrotados, Clodoveo se sometió al bautismo. El Obispo Remigius de Rheims realizó el rito el día de Navidad en el año 496.La fuente de toda esta historia es una obra de Gregorio de Tours titulada Historia de los Francos. Este libro dio a los Francos su identidad y moldeó su comprensión del futuro que tendrían en forjar la historia Europea.Después de su bautismo, Clodoveo fue ungido en su rol de monarca. Esta unción del rey por un obispo se convirtió en una costumbre entre los Francos. El aura resultante de la sagrada realeza Cristiana parecía justificar el control Franco de la Iglesia. Lamentablemente, el carácter de Clodoveo siguió siendo poco cambiado por su aceptación oficial del Cristianismo. Parece que adoptó la religión como una cuestión de conveniencia política, pero no recibió al Evangelio.En el año 493, Odoacer, el general Alemán que había forzado la abdicación del último Emperador Romano Occidental un poco menos de 20 años antes, fue asesinado por el Rey Ostrogodo del este Teodoro. Junto con Clodoveo, Teodoro era el gobernante más importante de los reinos bárbaros. Teodoro hizo de Rávena en Italia su capital. Fue un Arriano que adoptó la cultura Bizantina. Aunque el era personalmente tolerante, sus súbditos católicos de Nicea, no lo eran. Su gobierno vio el último florecimiento de la cultura Romana en Occidente. El reino Ostrogodo continuó hasta el año 553, cuando el general Oriental Belisario retomó gran parte de Italia para el Imperio Bizantino.El renacimiento cultural que ocurrió durante la primera mitad del 6º siglo ha sido llamado el "Verano Indio de la Antigüedad Cristiana". En este período se establecieron varias personas influyentes que sentaron las bases de la sociedad Medieval Temprana.Beocio era de una familia destacada Romana que se convirtió en filósofo y estadista en la corte de Teodoro. Aunque leal, Beocio quedó bajo sospecha y Teodoro lo encarceló y ejecutó. Mientras que estaba en prisión, Beocio escribió su obra más famosa, La Consolación de la Filosofía. Esta obra es importante porque marca la transición de los Padres de la Iglesia o lo que se llama Patricitas a los Escolásticos, de quienes hablaremos más adelante. A través de sus traducciones, Beocio entregó a la Edad Media, la ética y la lógica de Aristóteles. Los Escolásticos consideraban a Beocio como la mayor autoridad en filosofía después de Aristóteles.Dionisio Exiguos fue un Asiático Centro que llegó a Roma hacia finales del 5º siglo. Recolecto y tradujo el canon de la Iglesia Oriental al Latín. También colecciono el canon y los decretos papales de la iglesia Occidental. Su obra tuvo una enorme autoridad eclesiástica.Pero Dionisio tuvo un significado mucho más impactante en el contexto de que el introdujo un sistema de datación basado en la era Cristiana, comenzando con la encarnación de Cristo. Es el que creó todos los marcadores de a.C. y d.C. para dividir el tiempo. Hasta ese momento, el método secular de trazar la fecha estaba determinado por el gobierno de los cónsules de Roma y el Imperio de Diocleciano. Desafortunadamente, Dionisio calculó mal la fecha del nacimiento de Jesús, de modo que según el cálculo contemporáneo Jesús nació al menos en el 4º año A.C.Este es también el tiempo de Gregorio Magno, a quien dedicaremos un episodio entero muy pronto.El último en la crónica que incluiremos en la lista de las primeras invasiones bárbaras son los Lombardos. En el año 568 esta tribu Germánica rompió los límites establecidos por el Imperio de Justiniano y entraron a Italia. Gregorio Magno les dio la vuelta en el año 593 y aseguró la paz dividiendo Italia entre tierras Lombardas e Imperiales. Los Lombardos eran un lote polémico y gobernaban desde 3 centros: el reino de Pavía, en el Norte, amenazaba a la capital Imperial de Rávena; los ducados de Spoleto y Benevento en el centro de Italia eran un peligro para Roma y Nápoles. Los Lombardos eran Arrianos. Su aceptación del cristianismo Católico no llegó hasta el 7º siglo.Mientras terminamos este episodio, echemos un vistazo al efecto de las Invasiones Bárbaras.Agustín no fue el único que intentó una respuesta literaria a las invasiones Germánicas. Mientras que el saqueo de Roma en el año 410 parecía para muchos el fin de los tiempos, Orosio, escribió 7 volúmenes en contra de los paganos para mostrar que el mundo precristiano no sufrió nada menos que el presente. La obra se convirtió en una especie de manual para entender la historia en la Edad Media. Orosio dio un lugar central al Imperio Romano en el plan de Dios. Su historia colocó en la mente occidental la idea del rol divino de la civilización Romana. Jerónimo ya había interpretado el 4º  reino del libro de Daniel como Roma y llegó a la conclusión de que debía continuar mientras la Iglesia lo hiciera. Orosio promovió esta opinión de que tanto los Hebreos como los Romanos jugaron un rol importante en la salvación del mundo.La obra de Salvian titulada Sobre el Gobierno Divino en el año 440 promovió el significado histórico de los Alemanes. Exageró sus buenas características en contra la corrupción Romana. Dijo que Dios usó a los Alemanes como espada de juicio sobre la Roma malvada.Tres actitudes prevalecieron en Europa con respecto a las invasiones bárbaras àAgustín sostuvo que ultimadamente, el éxito político o su fracaso no tenia ninguna diferencia. Su enfoque estaba en el mundo venidero. En contraste, Orosio dijo que el Cristianismo era la garantia de la prosperidad del Imperio. Salvian afirmó que el Imperio fue castigado por sus pecados.Pero algo interesante sucedió una vez que los invasores Alemanes se establecieron en las antiguas tierras Romanas. En general, dejaron a un lado su fe con sabor Arriano por el Cristianismo Niceo-Católico y adoptaron la cultura Romana, o al menos, lo que quedaba de ella. A lo largo de un par de generaciones llegaron a identificarse como Romanos en lugar de como Godos, Francos, Borgoñones y Lombardos.Pero incluso con estas adaptaciones a la cultura Romana, los antiguos pueblos Romanos y Germánicos se dividieron por su idioma. Los Romanos hablaban Latín, los Alemanes Goth. Costumbres de comida y el vestido que se llevaban en muchos lugares con los Latinos usando togas mientras que los Alemanes llevaban pantalones. Sus sistemas legales diferían y las leyes se aplicaban a las diferentes clases del mismo reino. Los 2 pueblos tardaron siglos en mezclarse y convertirse en las naciones de la Europa moderna. La civilización Grecorromana se basaba en ciudades. Las invasiones Germánicas trajeron un declive a las ciudades. Una economía rural se desarrollo en el Occidente, acelerando el paso a lo que hemos llegado a asociar como la Edad Media: el Feudalismo. Mientras que, en el este, las ciudades seguían siendo el principal elemento de la organización social, en el Occidente, las fincas y territorios subieron a la preminencia. Los gobernantes confiaban en sus propias tierras, por lo que había una descentralización del gobierno.Con el declive del gobierno centralizado en el Occidente, la Iglesia se hizo a cargo de muchos de los servicios que alguna vez proporcionaba el Estado, como la educación. Las iglesias y monasterios estaban vinculados a la economía agrícola del Occidente y se beneficiaban de una estrecha relación con los gobernantes locales. Pero una cosa que vio crecer sustancialmente la importancia y la influencia de la Iglesia fue la fractura que ocurrió en el ámbito político. Cuando Europa Occidental se dividió en cientos de regiones más pequeñas, cada una con su propio gobernante, la autoridad universal de la Iglesia bajo Roma y los obispos regionales proporcionaron una continuidad que se necesitaba desesperadamente. Ninguna autoridad secular en el Occidente fue capaz de controlar a la Iglesia como un órgano de Estado en la misma medida que los Emperadores Orientales. Así que, en el Occidente, en lugar de que los reyes gobernaran en los asuntos de la Iglesia, fue la Iglesia la que jugó cada vez más un rol importante en los asuntos políticos.Una vez más quiero dar las gracias a todos aquellos que han ido a la página de CS en FB y nos han dado un me gusta. Ver sus comentarios igual seria una gran bendición.Especialmente quiero decirles gracias a aquellos que le han dado al podcast una buena crítica en Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts es el portal principal para el podcast y las críticas positivas nos ayudan en gran manera a promover el podcast.No lo menciono a menudo, pero necesito hacerlo ocasionalmente. Si quieres hacer una donación para mantener a Communio Sanctorum en línea, puedes usar la función de donación en el sitio web. Sanctorum.us