The Late Empire, Christianity, and the Germanic Invasions

This is Unit Eight of Western Civilization One, part two of two: the Church in Latin and Greek, the monks, Augustine, the Germanic invasions that ended the West in four seventy-six, and the four procedures the exam tests on this period. Part one ended at Nicaea, with the Church growing inside the imperial frame. Carry the same idea through this part, because now the frame weakens. Rome had leaned on federati and Germanic soldiers, treaties died with each emperor, and lost land meant lost revenue, underfunded armies and more loss. The Goths, mistreated as refugees, killed an emperor at Adrianople. Alaric sacked Rome, the Rhine froze, the Vandals took Africa, and Odoacer sent the last western emperor away. The West became Germanic kingdoms over Roman populations, most of them Arian, one of them Nicene. And the Church stood: its monasteries copied what survived of learning, and Augustine had already explained why a Christian empire could fall without the faith falling with it. By the end you will be able to describe the two languages, the monks and the relics. To state Tertullian's question, Augustine's answer, and four readings with no verdict. To tell the invasions to Clovis. To sequence, map, classify and read a passage. And to state the story of the unit.

Three entries on two languages and the monks: Jerome's Latin Bible, the desert and the pillar, and Benedict's Rule with the relics every altar needed.

Universal in name, divided by language.

WC1 0716 Latin West, Greek East: Jerome's Vulgate

The New Testament was written in Greek, the East's language of state and church. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate, about four hundred, read in the West until the sixteenth century, and the Western Old Testament canon was fixed in fourteen forty-two. The Vulgate is witnessed; Jerome's name and the anchor's four ten are not. Universal in name, the Church was divided by language.

Flight from the Church's worldliness.

WC1 0717 Antony, the Stylites, and the Monastery

About two eighty Antony sold his goods for the Egyptian desert to imitate Christ's poverty, and Athanasius's Life of Antony drew thousands. Anchorites lived as hermits, Simeon stood thirty years on a Syrian pillar, the extreme case of the Stylites, and then communities formed, monasteries, adding useful work to prayer. Monasticism began as flight from the Church's worldliness, not as its arm.

Prayer, study, work, and a relic for every altar.

WC1 0718 Benedict's Rule, the Monastery as Library, and Relics

Benedict of Nursia, a monk, wrote his Rule about five twenty-nine at Monte Cassino, a witness name: a daily schedule of prayer, study and work. Monasteries became economic powerhouses and, after the West fell, centers of learning that hand-copied theology and some classics. Every altar needed a relic, a trade plagued by counterfeits, and pilgrimage followed. Where the anchor calls Benedict a bishop, he was an abbot.

Two entries on Athens and Jerusalem, and on why Rome fell: Tertullian's question and Augustine's two cities, and the anchor's four readings with no verdict.

Two cities, and an Empire irrelevant to salvation.

WC1 0719 Tertullian's Question and Augustine's City of God

Tertullian asked what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, a question the anchor misquotes as Rome. Augustine of Hippo, writing as Vandals besieged his city, answered: the City of God is perfect, the earthly city flawed, the Empire irrelevant to salvation, and the Church became the sole patron of scholarship afterward. Tertullian rests on the anchor; Augustine and the City of God are witnessed.

Four readings, and none endorsed.

WC1 0720 Why Rome Fell: Four Readings, No Verdict

Conventionally the West fell in four seventy-six. The anchor offers four readings, corruption and weakness, barbarian infiltration, overwhelming odds, and transformation rather than destruction, and endorses none. Political unity ended by the late fifth century, resources having concentrated in the East a century before, and the East lasted a thousand years more. Give no verdict; the exam asks what each reading claims.

Five entries on the invasions: the federati and the fiscal spiral, Goths as refugees at Adrianople and Alaric at Rome, the frozen Rhine and the Vandals, Odoacer and Theodoric, and Clovis.

Lost land, lost revenue, more loss.

WC1 0721 Federati, Germanic Soldiers, and the Fiscal Spiral

Rome relied on federati, treaty tribes paying in kind and sending troops, and by the late fourth century many western soldiers were Germanic, Stilicho, half-Vandal, among the greatest late generals. Treaties died with the emperor who made them. Lost land meant lost revenue, underfunded armies and more loss: the spiral. The East's intact taxes paid for its defense, and the West's did not.

Refugees before invaders.

WC1 0722 The Huns, Adrianople, 378, and Alaric's Sack, 410

In three seventy-six the Huns drove the Goths across the Danube; extorted by Roman officials, the Goths rose and killed the emperor Valens at Adrianople in three seventy-eight, a witness name. Hired under their own commanders, they looted the Balkans, the court moved to Ravenna, and Alaric sacked Rome in four ten. The Goths were refugees before they were invaders.

Vandals to Africa, Visigoths to Spain.

WC1 0723 The Frozen Rhine, 406, the Vandals, Attila, and 455

In four oh six tribes crossed the frozen Rhine and the Vandals reached Spain, then North Africa; Britain's army left in four oh seven. Goths in Gaul and Spain became Visigoths. Attila reached Rome in four fifty-one, with Pope Leo appealing to him, and the Vandals sacked Rome in four fifty-five. Learn the end points: Vandals to Africa, Visigoths to Spain.

Kings over Romans, officially Roman officials.

WC1 0724 476: Odoacer, Theodoric, and the Kingdoms

In four seventy-six Odoacer deposed the last western emperor and ruled Italy as king with Constantinople's approval. Theodoric killed him in four ninety-three and ruled to five twenty-six with dual Gothic and Roman governments. Germanic kings over Roman populations replaced the West, kings who were officially Roman officials under treaty. That the Gothic West would have been stable but for Justinian is some historians' view, attributed.

The one kingdom that converted to Nicaea.

WC1 0725 Clovis and the Franks

The Franks kept their homeland while taking Gaul. Clovis, king from four eighty-one, united the tribes, deposed the last Roman governor, drove the Visigoths into Spain and absorbed the Burgundians, ruling most of Gaul until five eleven, with laws recorded in Latin and Frankish giving way to early French. The Franks alone converted to Nicene Christianity, not Arianism, and unit ten returns to why.

Four procedures: the late empire on three anchors, the invasion map by four end points, a belief classified by two questions, and Augustine read for what he assumes.

Crisis, recovery, Christian empire, kingdoms.

WC1 0726 Sequencing the Late Empire, 235 to 493

Fix three anchors: two eighty-four, Diocletian; three twelve, Constantine; four seventy-six, Odoacer. Before two eighty-four is crisis, between the first two is recovery, between three twelve and four seventy-six is the Christian empire under pressure, and after is the kingdoms. Aurelian's walls in two seventy are crisis. The price edict in three oh one and the persecution in three oh three are recovery. Nicaea in three twenty-five and Constantinople's dedication in three thirty are Christian empire, early; Adrianople in three seventy-eight and Theodosius in three eighty are late. Alaric in four ten and the Vandals in four fifty-five are pressure becoming collapse, and Theodoric in four ninety-three is kingdoms. The trap is that persecution and conversion are nine years apart under different emperors, the Edict of Milan follows the vision rather than the council, and Nicaea comes after all three.

Four end points, read backward.

WC1 0727 Reading a Map of the Invasions

Fix four end points and read the arrows backward: Vandals end in North Africa, Visigoths in Spain, Ostrogoths in Italy, Franks in Gaul, and the Huns are the arrow with no kingdom, vanishing after four fifty-three. An arrow from beyond the Danube through the Balkans to Rome and on to Spain is the Visigoths, Adrianople to Alaric to Spain. An arrow across the Rhine in four oh six through Gaul and Spain into Africa is the Vandals. An arrow from the east that stops at Rome's gates in four fifty-one and turns back is Attila. A people on the map's northern edge expanding into Gaul without leaving home is the Franks. The arrow into Italy ending at Ravenna after four ninety-three is Theodoric's Ostrogoths, approved from Constantinople off the eastern edge. Britain has no arrow: the army leaves in four oh seven and the map goes blank. The East stays Roman on every correct map.

Is there one God, and what is Christ.

WC1 0728 Classifying a Belief: Nicene, Arian, Gnostic, Pagan, Mystery Cult

Ask two questions: is there one God, and what is Christ. One God and Christ fully divine, consubstantial: Nicene. One God and Christ created and lesser: Arian. One God and Christ a teller of secret knowledge with no wish to convert: Gnostic. Many gods and public rites: pagan, the Christians' word for polytheism. Salvation through secret rites to one god among many, memberships stackable: mystery cult. A Germanic king who holds Christ beneath the Father is Arian. A soldier initiated into rites of a sun god of rebirth while honoring Jupiter is in a mystery cult, Mithras. A bishop reciting one substance with the Father is Nicene. A senator sacrificing at a temple in three seventy-nine is pagan. A sect teaching hidden formulas for the few is Gnostic. Clovis is the exception the exam likes: the Franks converted to Nicene Christianity while the other kingdoms were Arian, which is why the Church backed them, and Arian has nothing to do with the later racial term.

What event, what contrast, what becomes irrelevant.

WC1 0729 Reading Augustine: Two Cities in One Passage

For a passage from Augustine, ask three questions: what event is he answering, what two things does he contrast, and what does the contrast make irrelevant. The City of God, written after Alaric's sack of four ten and read in translation from the primary text, is the case. The event is the sack and the pagan charge that Christianity caused it. The contrast is the City of God, perfect and eternal, against the earthly city, flawed and passing. What becomes irrelevant is whether the Empire stands or falls, since salvation belongs to the other city. A passage saying the earthly city's peace is worth having but not worth loving assumes the two cities. A passage saying Rome's fall proves nothing about God assumes the contrast. Beneath both is the assumption that history's meaning lies outside history, which the anchor notes decided the fate of classical learning. Augustine was not indifferent to Rome; he argued its fall did not matter to salvation, and a distractor will say he welcomed it.

One capstone entry: the unit's three headings told as one story, crisis, structure, conversion, pressure, collapse, and the institution that lasted.

Crisis, structure, conversion, pressure, collapse, and what lasted.

WC1 0730 From Crisis to Kingdoms: How the West Fell and the Church Stood

The exam gives this unit three headings, the late empire, early Christianity and the Germanic invasions, and the anchor tells them as one story with a turn in the middle. It begins in two thirty-five with fifty years of crisis: twenty-six emperors, the throne auctioned, the Sasanians in the East and larger Germanic groups in the north. Diocletian answered with structure, a Tetrarchy to fix succession, dioceses to fix administration, a bigger army in smaller legions, and orthodoxy enforced by persecution in three oh three. Constantine kept the structure and changed the religion: the vision of three twelve, toleration in three thirteen, Nicaea in three twenty-five, a new capital in three twenty-four. The turn is here. From Constantine on, the Church grew inside the imperial frame, its dioceses copied from the map, its bishops acting as judges, its charity converting the poor, its bishop of Rome claiming Peter's keys, and Theodosius made the Empire Christian in three eighty. Meanwhile the frame weakened. Rome had leaned on federati and Germanic soldiers, treaties died with each emperor, and the Goths, mistreated as refugees, killed an emperor at Adrianople in three seventy-eight. Alaric sacked Rome in four ten, the Rhine froze in four oh six, the Vandals took Africa, Attila came and went, and in four seventy-six Odoacer sent the last western emperor away. The West became Germanic kingdoms over Roman populations, most of them Arian, one of them, the Franks, Nicene. And the Church stood. Its monasteries under Benedict's Rule copied what survived of learning, its bishops represented cities before kings, and Augustine had already explained why a Christian empire could fall without the faith falling with it. The anchor's phrase is that the Church carried Roman civilization on ideologically and spiritually. The exam does not ask why Rome fell, and the course gives no verdict; it asks what Diocletian did, what Constantine did, what Nicaea decided, what Arianism held, what a federatus was, who sacked Rome when, and who Odoacer was. The anchor's uncertainties are kept as uncertainties, Constantine's sincerity, the Gothic West, the four readings, and its errors are corrected on the record: two twenty-four for the Sasanians, sixty-four for Nero's fire, the Nicene Creed as itself, Benedict as an abbot, Jerusalem in Tertullian's question, twelve oh four for the walls.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe a Church universal in name and divided into Latin West and Greek East, Jerome's Vulgate, monasticism as flight from worldliness, Benedict's Rule of prayer, study and work, and a relic for every altar. You can state Tertullian's Athens and Jerusalem, Augustine's two cities with the Empire irrelevant to salvation, and the anchor's four readings of the fall with no verdict. You can tell the federati and the fiscal spiral, Goths as refugees at Adrianople, Alaric in four ten, the frozen Rhine, Vandals to Africa and Visigoths to Spain, Odoacer in four seventy-six, Theodoric, and Clovis converting to Nicaea. You can sequence on two eighty-four, three twelve and four seventy-six, read the invasion map backward from four end points, classify a belief by two questions, and read Augustine by three. And you can state the story, crisis, structure, conversion, pressure, collapse, and the Church that stood, which is this unit's one idea. Unit nine opens on the empire that did not fall, Byzantium, and on the faith that rose beside it, Islam.