Again, from From Irenaeus to Grotius.
The O’Donovans are tracing the development of Christian political reflection after the time of Late Antiquity (post-Gregory the Great).
The Church found itself in a position of responsibility when Rome fell.
- Late Antiquity.
- Gothic warrior-rulers furnished a royal alternative to the divinizing emperor cult. It drew upon Ciceronian and senatorial conceptions of Roman Rule, and upon Augustine and Gregory.
- Post-Justinian Dark Age
- Gregory I was inspired by cataclysmic manifestations of God’s judgment and a sense of missional urgency.
- “Rule” (rector) was oversight and administration. It is conformable to the pattern of Christ. King David was a model.
- Carolignian Empire.
- Pope Stephen II (752-757) launched Western Christendom on a novel course when he appealed to Pippin of the Franks, ultimately bestowing upon him the title patricius Romanorum.
- This muted somewhat the opposition to the idea of a divinizing emperor cult, since the emperor was not invested with quasi-sacerdotal powers.
Outlaw Huguenot 