Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman ...: Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus. 11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere f...

Linked in here as this mentions the namesake of the blog.

Saturday, September 4, 476. The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Coin with the image of Emperor Romulus Augustulus.

11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere figurehead, was forced to advocate by Flavius Odoacer, a German commander of the Roman Guard who declared himself King of Italy and a vassal of the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Coin with the image of Flavius Odoacer.

The event is marked as the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages.

Romulus went on to live in exile with a pension and seems to have lived to at least 60 years of age.  He was a Catholic (orthodox) Christian  and may have founded a monastery while in exile.*

Odoacer, while regarding himself as a vassal of Constantinople, had a falling out with with the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno who in turn sent Theodoric the Great to depose him, resulting in a war which cost Odoacer his life in 493.  Theodoric did not stop there, but killed many of Odoacer's followers, including his wife Sunigilda, who was stoned to death, and his brother Onoulphus.  In spite of his short reign and violent death, he's regarded as an important post Empire figure.  Odoacer was an Arian Chrisitan.

Theodoric coin.

Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, who became king, was a hugely significant figure, expanding his reign over a fair amount of what had been the Western Roman Empire.  He was an Arian Christian whose rule mimicked forms adopted from Constantinople.  He was King of Italy, the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths.

Theodoric was a patron of the orthodox Catholic philosopher Boethius for quite some time, but as his rule progressed, Theodoric began to turn from neutral in the dispute between orthodoxy and Arianism and he had Boethius arrested and ultimately executed in 524.

Boethius' magnum opus, De consolatione philosophiae, was written while imprisoned and awaiting execution.  He is regarded as a martyr in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Footnotes:

*This era was marked by a major conflict between orthodox Christianity and Arianism.  To clarify things here, the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church was very much in the future so the use of orthodoxy here does not mean to imply the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council of Nicea.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council...: 

Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council of Nicea.

Well, at least probably.  

It seems fairly clear that the Council convened on this day, and that Emperor Constantine arrived to observe, not to participate, fourteen days later.  He had sought the council, however, given the Arian Heresy, which had an extremely widespread following in the Church. 

The president of the council seems to have been Hosius of Cordova, assisted by the pope’s legates, Victor and Vincentius.

The creed:

I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,

he suffered death and was buried,

and rose again on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

A Saint for our times. St. Agnes of Rome

We linked this in from our companion blog the other day:

Cellmate of Boethius: Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome: 

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome: 

St. Agnes of Rome

 A saint, in many ways, for our times.  Her feast day was yesterday.

Martyred on January 21, 304.

It struck me at the time that I should have posted more on St. Agnes and how she's become so contemporary.

It's hard to know all the details of her martyrdom give as it happened in 304, but what seems clear is that she voluntarily declared herself a Christian at a time that meant death, and that she steadfastly refused to yield her virginity. She seems to have had many suitors, which at that time exposed a young woman to being turned over to the authorities if they felt sufficiently jilted.  It is clear that she was tortured. She may have actually been turned over, as part of that, to a house of prostitution where, according to one account, she not only did not yield, a desirous patron of the house actually fell dead upon propositioning her.

She seems to have been executed by the sword.

Her relics, including a skull that is visible through a window, remain in Rome.

What makes her so relevant today is her steadfast refusal to yield to the spirit of her age, choosing to go to her death rather than surrender her virtue.  She's a patron saint of chastity.

In an age, in the West, which almost has no other interest other than the carnal, and the individual carnal at that, she speaks to us through her example as loudly as she did in 304.  Likewise for her example to refusing to yield to the false and convenient, no mater what it meant.

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome: 

St. Agnes of Rome

 A saint, in many ways, for our times.  Her feast day was yesterday.

Martyred on January 21, 304.