The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

IV. Charlemagne Attempts Christian Theocracy on Augustinian Pattern

Upon the death of Pepin (768), there occurred a Lombard insurrection in Italy. Responding to the request of the pope, Pepin’s son Charlemagne (742-814) soon overthrew it, and established his rule over the Lombards. Charlemagne, probably influenced by the legendary Donation as referred to in the letter from Pope Hadrian, ⁶⁴ in 774 increased Pepin’s grant by accessions of territory, and was rewarded by the crown of the West. Charlemagne had visited Rome several times. But during the king’s fourth and last pilgrimage Leo III carried into effect a design long contemplated—his assertion of independence from the East, which had long ceased to afford him protection. ⁶⁵ PFF1 533.4

Picture 1: THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE BY LEO III
The coronation of Charlemagne at Rome, in 800, by Leo III, as emperor of the “Roman empire” laid the foundation for far-reaching developments and conflicts. In the inset is a photograph of the jeweled crown said to be that used by the Pope to crown Charlmagne.
Page 535

1. POPE ALIGNED WITH HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

On Christmas Day in 800, Pope Leo III was seated on his throne in his stately church in Rome, surrounded by his clergy. Charlemagne was kneeling before the altar. Suddenly the pope arose, anointed him, administered the coronation oath in which Charlemagne was pledged to guard the faith and privileges of the church, and placed the imperial crown upon his brow, as emperor of the Romans. ⁶⁶ This territory—Italy and those lands acknowledging the overlordship of the German monarch—later came to be known as the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne considered himself the successor of the Caesars, and styled himself Augustus. Under the weak successors of Charlemagne, however, the empire dwindled to a merely nominal existence. But it was revived by the German king Otto I, in 962, and continued, despite all the shocks and changes of time, until 1806. ⁶⁷ PFF1 535.1

2. RELENTLESS STRUGGLE FOR HIGHEST PLACE BEGINS

This attempted restoration of the Western empire was one of a series of intrigues by which the pontiffs secured support of the Western world. The act of crowning, of course, implied the right of uncrowning. ⁶⁸ Thenceforth the interests of the pope and the emperor were closely united. The effect was seen at once in the augmenting of papal power, as the pope thus obtained recognition of a spiritual empire commensurate with the secular empire of Charlemagne. ⁶⁹ King and pope now stood together at the summit of empire. And here began the increasingly relentless struggle for highest place, which continued for centuries, and climaxed in the exaltation of the Papacy over imperial power. ⁷⁰ Not until the Reformation was launched did a new era appear. PFF1 535.2

3. ATTEMPTS TO MATERIALIZE AUGUSTINE’S CITY OF GOD

Charlemagne’s great ambition was to consolidate the Teutonic and Latin races under his own Frankish temporal scepter, linking them closely with the spiritual dominion of the pope. Thus he sought to set up a sort of Christian theocracy, derived from the concept set forth in Augustine’s City of God, a book that was his delight and study. ⁷¹ This explains his great zeal for the advancement of the church. Thus in Charlemagne’s empire was to be realized the dream of Augustine—“one God, one emperor, one pope, one city of God”—the millennial reign of Christ. PFF1 536.1

“Charles looked upon his Empire as a Divine State. He felt that he had been appointed by God as the earthly head of Christians. He read and loved Augustine’s book de Civitate Dei. He believed that he had set up the Civitas Dei, in the second empirical sense, which Augustine placed beside the Civitas Dei as the spiritual union of all saints under the grace of God, as a great earthly organisation for the care of common earthly needs in a manner pleasing to God, and for the worthy preparation for the better life in the world to come. Augustine, it is true, had seen the empirical manifestation of the Civitas Dei in the universal Catholic Church. Charles saw no contradiction. For him the ecclesiastical body and the secular were one. He was the head. And while Augustine placed the Roman Empire as fourth in the order of world-empires and as Civitas Terrena in opposition to the Kingdom of God, for Charles this dualism was no more—his Imperium Romanum is no Civitas Terrena. It is identical with the earthly portion of the church founded by Christ.” ⁷² PFF1 536.2

But the popes aimed next at supremacy over emperors to effect their own supreme rule. The medieval church from its origin had absorbed into itself the Roman world empire as an idea and a force, for worldly forces forever aspire to world domination. The church soon developed aggressive characteristics following the pattern Charlemagne had given on how the Vicarius Christi on earth must rule. PFF1 536.3