"Civis Romanum Sum"

It can be argued from the Edict of Thessalonica that every baptised Catholic is a citizen of Rome, therefore we can all say with St Paul, 'Civis Romanum sum'. (Acts 22:25-27)

From One Peter Five

By Theo Howard

One neglected reason that Catholics cannot be nationalists (in the ideological sense of taking the modern “nation-state” as the supreme political ideal) is not only that we have a higher spiritual fidelity than the nation-state, but that we can be said to have a higher political loyalty as well. This was made apparent to me last Good Friday in London when I attended one of the few pre-55 Masses of the Pre-Sanctified in the world where the traditional collect for the Roman Emperor is still prayed:

Let us pray also for our most Christian Emperor N., that the Lord God may reduce to his obedience all barbarous nations for our perpetual peace.

Let us pray. Let us kneel. R. Arise.

Almighty and Eternal God, in Whose hands are all the power and right of kingdoms; graciously look down upon the Roman Empire, that the nations that confide in their haughtiness and strength may be reduced by the power of Thy right hand. Through the same Lord. R. Amen.

Our parish’s prayers were made specifically for the “most Christian Emperor (elect) Carolum” – Karl von Habsburg – who, like our Protestant King Charles III, could certainly benefit from our supplication for particular regnal graces from Almighty God.

Last year there was a rather metamodern social media trend of women asking men how often they think of the Roman Empire. To the consternation of many women the answer from men was often weekly or even daily.

Clearly the Roman Empire has imprinted an inescapable archetype on western (even secularised) man’s mind. Rather than the explanation given by soft “woke” classicist Mary Beard, that the Roman Empire provides a “safe space for men to be macho in” (although she is right that the fascination is masculine), reading The Iron Sceptre of the Son of Man: Romanitas as a Note of the Church by Dr Alan Fimister, the reader might be convinced that the true reason for the endurance of Rome’s mystique is supernatural.

The Church is the continuation of Rome (particularly in her temporal power), according to the Prophet Daniel, and the Church grew up under the Empire’s persecution, and then protection. Rome is the antitype of the City of God. One later custom that embodied the close union between the Empire and Church was the practice of ordaining the Holy Roman Emperor a Deacon at his coronation by the Pope – the cleric who is the true Pontifex maximus to whom this pagan title was surrendered by either the Emperor Gratian or Theodosius the Great – so that as both a layman and cleric he could preach the Gospel, be its temporal advocate and “wait at table” – serving the Pontifical Mass for the Successor of St Peter.[1]

In his new work, historian and philosopher Alan Fimister lays out a vision of Divine Providence’s grand synthesis of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin traditions in the perfection of the Holy Catholic Church. He provides one of the fullest and most timely arguments for the Church as the continuation of Rome and for Romanitas (Romanness) as a note of the Church.

The strength of the Roman Empire in subjugating its enemies – as beseeched for in the Good Friday collect – in its pre-Christian era was, St Cyril of Alexandria contends, the external manifestation of its internal “practical philosophy.” It is this genius of “practical philosophy” that gave Rome its ability to form institutions, make laws, and bring a certain tranquillity of order to the whole of of the Mediterranean world unparalleled in history. Twice in First Maccabees the Romans are described as “mighty in power”, and St Irenaeus acknowledges that, “Through their instrumentality the world is at peace, and we walk on the highways without fear, and sail where we will.”

Fimister offers an interesting discussion about the Western conception of Romanitas in comparison to the Eastern one. The West sees it as specifically fixed to the locale of Rome. The Eastern conception of Romanitas, especially after the sacking of Rome by the Goths in 410AD, sees it as a charism of jurisdictional primacy which can be exercised in different geographical locations. Fimister traces the self-identity of the Church as Roman back from the first Dogmatic Constitution of Vatican I, Dei Filius, and goes to some length to stress that the Church’s Romanitas is integral, centred on the city of Rome, but not limited to the Latin Church. He reminds the reader that the notion of “the Byzantine Empire” is an historical mirage and that the self-understanding of the empire of New Rome only strengthens the Romanness of the entire Church. 

Fimister’s expertise in political philosophy is both apparent and germane to the themes of the book. He includes a highly interesting elaboration comparing the republican constitution of Rome (much longer-enduring then people commonly think) and that of the Hasmonean kingdom. The author observes that the emperors always remained magistrates elected by their fellow citizens and removable by the same power. It was only with the Renaissance that the monarchical character of the Empire was emphasized over its republican character. Implicitly, this poses an interesting ecclesial analogue with the post-Tridentine rise of “Hyperpapalism” and the concomitant erosion of subsidiarity within the Church. Similarly, the invention of the term “Byzantine” with regard to the Eastern Roman Empire by hostile Renaissance historians serves to obscure the Romanitas of the Church. The use of the term “Roman Catholic” to solely describe Catholics of the Roman Rite as distinct from Catholics belonging to other rites has helped perpetuate this confusion.

Fimister elegantly weaves not only the prophesies of the Old Testament but the mysterious anticipations of the Roman pagan tradition in his fascinating treatment of prophesy pointing to Rome’s supernatural significance. Within twenty years of the first Roman Emperor Augustus dramatically closing the gates of the Temple of Janus in Rome – symbolising that the Roman Republic was at peace across its entire frontiers – Virgil had authored his famous Fourth Eclogue: when the primeval bliss shall be restored by a newborn son of Jove, “flocks afield Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour fourth for thee Caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die.”

Unfortunately, there are some inevitably underdeveloped areas in what is quite a slim volume. Surprisingly, Fimister omits the Emperor Justinian’s tying of baptism to Roman citizenship in his famous legal corpus which provides the legal basis for the continued existence of the Roman Empire in the Communion of the Baptised. It would also have been interesting to hear more about how the language of Latin has “practically” allowed the Church to express the Divine mysteries and doctrines of the faith through the centuries. The author only passingly mentions the contrast of the city of Rome with the city of Babylon from whence came the wicked and blasphemous Talmud and the “money magic” which have done so much harm to the Occident. A full analysis of how the Talmud, within the Rabbinic tradition, repeatedly identifies “Edom” (a cipher for Christian Rome) as its primary enemy would have further deepened Fimister’s thesis and provided the corroboration of anti-Christian tradition.

Men think about Rome every day, Fimister would reply in one voice with St John Henry Newman, because:

it is not clear that the Roman Empire is gone. Far from it: the Roman Empire in the view of prophesy, remains even to this day… the present framework of society and government, as far as it is the representative of Roman powers, is that which withholdeth, and Antichrist is that which will rise when this restraint fails.

As the African Fathers wrote some fifteen centuries ago, “To be Roman is to be Catholic, and to be Catholic is to be Roman.”[2]

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[1] For further study on the Roman Emperor’s pagan priesthood and its relationship with the Papacy, see T. S. Flanders, City of God vs. City of Man (Our Lady of Victory Press, 2021), 29, 125, 133, 143-194.

[2] Quoted by Cardinal Vaughan in a speech given at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1901 cited by Fimister, op. cit., 31.