§ 1. Flattery diminishes honors by increasing them; for it makes moderate honors contemptible and the greatest honors commonplace. It proceeds so far that ingenuity fails it, and it finds nothing new except what is empty and ridiculous. Honors were bestowed upon Kings either by titles alone, or by ceremonies, or by statues and temples.
§ 2. Some titles of Kings and Emperors were lawful, others unlawful. Among shameful and impious titles I reckon the appellations “Divine” and “Divinity” in their ancient sense. For they actually decreed divine honors to men, and Kings wished to be believed Gods. “Should I doubt that I am a God, when I make Gods?” For those whom the Latins called Divi, the Greeks call Gods. Thus Justin Martyr says: καὶ τῶν παρ’ ὑμῖν ἀποιχομένων αὐτοκρατόρων εἰκόνας ἐν τούτῳ τῷ σχήματι ἀνατίθετε, καὶ θεοὺς διὰ γραμμάτων ἐπονομάζετε. And you set up images of deceased Emperors in this guise and call them Gods in writing.
Tertullian says in the Apology, chapter 13:
But it is fitting that you ascribe the honor of divinity to deceased Emperors, since you also assign it to them while living. Your Gods will accept it as credited to them; indeed, they will congratulate themselves that their masters are made their equals. But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute—I wish it were at least a Lais or Phryne—among the Junos, Cereses, and Dianas; when you inaugurate Simon Magus with a statue and the inscription “Holy God”; when you make into a God some pathic from among the court pages whose identity I do not know: although the ancient Gods were not more noble, they will nevertheless reckon it an insult from you that this was permitted to that man and to others, a thing which antiquity conferred upon them.
They established altars, flamens, and temples so that they might plainly appear to be Gods. Oaths were sworn by them, and at times the common people believed it. Wise men laughed at those fictions; powerful men commanded them in earnest. Seneca mocks them in his Apocolocyntosis:
Yet if it should be necessary to produce an authority, inquire of the man who saw Drusilla going to heaven. He will likewise say that he saw Claudius making the journey with unequal steps. Whether he wishes it or not, it is necessary for him to see everything that is done in heaven. He is the curator of the Appian Way, by which, as you know, both the Divine Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to the Gods. If you question him, he will tell it only when alone; before many he will never say a word. For since, after he swore in the Senate that he had seen Drusilla ascending to heaven, no one believed him in return for so good a report concerning what he had seen, he affirmed in a set form of words that he would not disclose it even if he had seen a man killed in the middle of the Forum. Whatever I heard from this man, I report as certainly clear—so may I have him safe and prosperous.
The Arians impiously usurped those titles. Eusebius says in book 4 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 46:
When all these matters had now been completed and accomplished, and the fame of the greatest Emperor’s virtue was flying through every mouth, one of the Priests dared to call him blessed to his face, since in this life he was worthy to possess supreme power over all things, and in the life to come to reign together with the Son of God. But when the Emperor signified that he heard these things with displeasure, he also exhorted the man never again to dare to employ a word of that kind, but rather to strive with God in prayer that in this life and in the future he might be deemed worthy of God’s service.
That man was an Arian, and he proclaimed Constantine worthy to reign with the Son of God as though equal to him. Thus the Arian presbyter Colluthus wrote:
At the petition of Ischyras the presbyter, supplication having been made to the piety of my lords the Augusti and Caesars that a Church might be built for him in the place of peace called Secontaururus, their Divinity decreed that this should be done as soon as possible. Take care, therefore, after the copies of this divine diploma which was placed first, and the records of our holiness, have been read and briefly examined, that the business proceed and that those things divinely established may be brought to effect.
Behold: those who denied divinity to the Son of God, who is God from God, asserted it of Emperors.
§ 3. The expression “our divinity” is frequent in the laws of Justinian, as are “divine enactments,” “the oracle of the divine voice,” and others; for almost everything
pertaining to the Emperors was called divine. Indeed, it was also customary for them to write, “Our eternity has decreed,” an expression which Marcellinus mocks in Constantine and which nevertheless the others, and even Justinian, imitated, in the final law of the Code, title On Bishops and Clerics, and in other places.
I consider it very probable that Justinian—a man otherwise well deserving of the state in peace and war and of the Church—could have been deceived by Tribonian into falling into such great errors. For Justinian was wholly illiterate, and for this reason he was even called ἀναλφάβητος, as Suidas relates; Suidas also mentions his error of supposing himself immortal. Hesychius of Miletus likewise attests this when writing on the Philosophers: “Tribonian, flattering the Emperor Justinian, persuaded him that he would not die, but would be received together with his body and migrate into heaven.” I am not unaware that he is accused by many. Indeed, I wish him to be excusable; but I fear that eloquence cannot defend the man whom deeds cast down, and whom heresy and persecution disgrace at the end of his life.
§ 4. I think that these titles—“Divine Emperor,” “our divinity,” “our eternity”—can be given and admitted in such a way that they are not impious as they were among the Gentiles; nevertheless, I do not think them fitting for Christian Monarchs, both because they can easily become impious and because they offend the weak. Nor is it becoming to borrow titles from idolaters. Finally, modesty must be maintained at so great an elevation.
Moreover, care must be taken that we do not attribute Divinity to Emperors and Kings in the Gentile fashion, so that consecration, temples, and sacrifices follow from it. We see that formerly all things were full of Divinities and empty of truth. Many temples were built for Pompey; yet he himself lies on Mount Casius covered by no tomb, so that, by the great judgment of true Divinity, those fictitious divinities might be mocked from heaven. The following saying about Pompey is witty: τῷ ναοῖς βρίθοντι, πόση σπάνις ἔπλετο τύμβου; “For one abounding in temples, how great is the want of dust?”
Christian Kings, therefore, can be called Divi in the manner in which they can be called Gods, because they are the Vicars of God and judge in God’s place. The divinity of Kings is participation in divine power, by which, established under true Divinity, they govern the world. Hence laws and the oracles of their voice are divine, because they are pronounced by divine authority; and those who resist them resist the ordinance of God. For what are Kings? What are Aaron and Moses? The eternity of Kings is nothing except the will of uncreated eternity that men obey them. It is an eternal law that magistrates must be obeyed, and by that law the firmness of all laws is made solid.
Although these things are most true, nevertheless, because their beginning comes from a corrupt custom—τῶν ἡρώων, τῶν ἀποθεωθέντων, ἱερωμένων, ἡγεμονευμάτων—I should wish them to be entirely removed, together with the Indigetes, the couches of the Divi, and their temples; nor would I wish modes of speech or flattery to be restored which the Fathers and the wise men of the nations mocked. For perjuries can arise from flattery. Livia purchased perjury from Numerius Atticus, a man of praetorian rank, at the price of one million sesterces, so that he would say that he had seen Augustus ascending into heaven.
No less imprudently mendacious was Pliny in his Panegyric to Trajan when he said:
Nerva, whom you first honored with tears and soon afterward with temples, you did not imitate those who did the same thing but with another intention. Tiberius dedicated Augustus to heaven, but in order to introduce the crime of injured majesty; Nero dedicated Claudius, but in order to mock him; Titus and Domitian dedicated Vespasian, the former that he might appear the son of a God, the latter that he might appear the brother of one; you, because you so believe.
Yet neither Trajan, as he listened to Pliny, nor Pliny himself believed it, either for himself or for others; and nevertheless those things were said. If Emperors had come from the house of the Caesars for one or two hundred years, the Romans would have believed as much in the divinity of Augustus as in that of Jupiter. They would have believed it, I say; for as it was, they acted as though they believed it. Prudentius says:
Posterity worshiped Augustus with table, shrine, flamen, and altars; appeased him with calf and lamb; and pleased him by prostration at his couch.
Let truly Great Kings imitate Constantine the Great. He did not admit those divine titles, as Eusebius and Juvencus attest:
Constantine, indulgent ruler of the open earth, is present; worthy thanks are due to him who deserves them, who alone of Kings shudders that the weight of the sacred name should be placed upon him, so that, worthier through righteous deeds, he may receive eternal life for divine ages.
I conclude with the opinion of Prosper: “An eternity which is temporal is assuredly a name of blasphemy, since mortal men, although Kings, are in it called Divi, and their suppliants say to them: ‘To your divine power, to your altars, to your perpetuity.’”
What then? Shall not only Poets but also serious Writers, historians, and even Theologians be condemned who suppose that by such titles they honor their Kings—and very often Princes inferior to Kings—or seek the reward of flattery? Among writers of every kind I find these titles, even among those who scruple to call the Virgin Mary Diva; yet they are not afraid repeatedly to call a royal maiden or a bride Diva. I think that their meaning is true and right, for those who speak thus do not make Gods. But I judge that the words are to be blamed.
Next, I judge it to be the duty of Kings to repress flatteries so foreign to a Christian Prince. If you call a King Divus, you offend many. If you use the word in the ancient manner, you are an idolater; if in the Christian sense, you would speak more correctly by saying God and the Vicar of God, for this is customary. “Divinity,” “eternity,” and “immortality” are understood in another sense; let Kings take care that they do not prejudice themselves. The man who admitted flatteries, so that he rejoiced for his words to be called those of a God and not of a man, was struck by an Angel and died. I do not believe that he thought himself to be an immortal God; nevertheless, delighted by a false good, he fell into a true evil, an evil to be expiated by death.
§ 5. A similar abuse was discerned in adoration, oaths, and vows.
The adoration of Kings was always exceedingly customary in the East. At 3 Kings 1:24 Nathan the Prophet adores, prostrate upon the ground, and Bathsheba does the same at verse 31. There in the Hebrew we read, ותקד בת־שבע אפים ארץ ותשתחו למלך, “and she bowed herself to the King with her face toward the ground.” The Septuagint has καὶ προσεκύνησεν τῷ βασιλεῖ ἐπὶ πρόσωπον ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. And in the same chapter Adonijah adored Solomon. This adoration was lawful; for neither Nathan the Prophet nor Bathsheba offered divine honors to David, nor would he have accepted them. Nor was the adoration of others in the East of another kind, although it later degenerated into idolatry.
Since external symbols—such as inclination
of the head, moderate bending and lowering of the knees toward the ground, prostration of the face upon the ground, offering of gifts, and a kiss—are signs both of civil and of divine honor, none of these honors can be condemned as excessive unless the mind and intention of the person who honors are known. At present, Princes other than Kings do not admit prolonged genuflection. But the προσκύνησις shown to Kings is nothing other than a civil ἀσπασμός—salutation and submission. Julius, while servitude was still raw, did not admit προσκύνησιν; indeed, it was among the causes of the conspiracy that he had not risen before the Senate.
Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, and Diocletian exacted adoration as though they were Gods. It afterward came into common use, but with a different intention; for although Constantine and others were adored, they claimed nothing beyond the distinctions of civil honor. In the life of Chrysostom even the Clergy adores the Emperor: Ἰωάννης, καὶ πᾶς ὁ κλῆρος σὺν αὐτῷ προσεκύνησαν τῷ βασιλεῖ, καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς ὑπέκλινε τὸν αὐχένα τῷ Ἰωάννῃ. John and all the clergy adored the King, and the King inclined his neck to John.
Thereafter this matter was established by law. For Belisarius, when he proceeded to adore Justinian, warned the captive Gelimer to do the same: ὅτι οὕτω νενομίσται προσκυνεῖσθαι τοὺς Ῥωμαίων βασιλεῖς. For it has been established by law that the Kings of the Romans are to be adored in this way. St. Gregory Nazianzen comes nearer to the present manner when he says, τὴν δεξιὰν προσκυνεῖν, “to adore the right hand,” which is now in use; and they say τὴν δεξιὰν προσφιλεῖν, “to kiss the right hand.”
§ 6. They were also accustomed to swear by the names of the Emperors:
We set up altars upon which men must swear by your name.
Thus there was also a twofold oath by the name of the Emperor. The first was idolatrous, when the Emperor was employed as a witness of the truth as though he were God or all-knowing. The second was to swear by the Emperor as a creature, while nevertheless testimony was sought from God. For it is lawful to swear by creatures insofar as the divine majesty and truth shine forth in them. Thus even the Jews swore by the temple, Matthew 23:16. So Christians swore by the safety of the Emperors. Tertullian says in the Apology, chapter 33:
But we also swear, just as we do not swear by the guardian spirits of the Caesars, so we swear by their safety, which is more august than all guardian spirits. Do you not know that guardian spirits are called demons, and from that, by a diminutive word, little demons? In the Emperors we revere the judgment of God, who placed them over the nations. We know that to be in them which God willed. Therefore we also will that what God willed should be safe, and we hold this to be a great oath. But demons—that is, guardian spirits—we are accustomed to adjure, in order to drive them out of men, not to swear by them, so that we should confer upon them the honor of divinity.
This was nevertheless prohibited by the Kings of the Franks, according to the authority of Pammelius, who affirms that the laws of Clovis, Childebert, and Chlothar, which he possesses in manuscript, read thus in chapter 6: “Let no one presume to swear by the life of the King and of his sons.”
§ 7. Vows were made to Princes and for Princes. To make vows to Kings as to Divinities was idolatrous. “You too will condemn us by your vows,” says the ingenious flatterer. To make vows to God for Princes is Christian. Tertullian says in the Apology, chapter 31:
We have now flattered the Emperor and lied about the vows which we said we made, namely, in order to escape violence. Plainly this deceit is profitable. For you permit us to prove whatever we defend. You, therefore, who think that we care nothing for the safety of the Caesars, inspect the words of God, our writings, which we ourselves do not suppress and which many chances transfer into the hands of strangers. Know from them that we are commanded, unto a superabundance of kindness, to pray to God even for our enemies and to ask good things for our persecutors. Who are more the enemies and persecutors of Christians than those against whose majesty we are charged with crime? But it is also said expressly and by name: Pray, he says, for Kings and for Princes and powers, that all things may be tranquil. For the Empire is shaken together with you, and when its other members too have been shaken, certainly we also—although we are thought strangers to the disturbances—are found in some place of the fall.
The public making of vows was an act of great honor, for they were made for Princes and for others who had deserved well. When Pompey was ill, all Italy made vows. Tiberius denied that they ought to be made for the safety of his grandsons. By this he indicated that their health was not so much provided for by that public making of vows as their honors were increased.
In another manner vows are undertaken for Christian Princes, when their safety is commended to the Divine Majesty. This beginning, from the precept of Paul, was thereafter handed down by Constantine in a set form of words. Eusebius says in the Life of Constantine:
He—Constantine—was the instructor of all the soldiers in the prayer that was to be made, commanding them all to say thus in the Roman tongue: You alone we know as God; you we acknowledge as King; you we invoke as helper. Through you we have conquered; through you we have been superior to our enemies. To you we give thanks for the good things which we enjoy; from you we expect the good things to come. We are all your suppliants. We ask you to preserve our Emperor Constantine and his sons, who love God, safe and victorious for many years.
And hence every day in the Church the Princes are mentioned by name in the public prayer.
Excellent Princes, proposed for imitation to all later ages, are surely very far from that flattery. Following the example of Constantine the Great, they published little books of most holy prayers for their own use and that of their people, and understood that all their security in the Principate and happiness in domestic life depended upon God, not upon the force of wealth and the strength of soldiers. And indeed the divine power willed their prosperous successes and most honorable longevity to be a proof to all that those are happy, not who emulate divine honors, but who worship the Divine Majesty from the heart. Let no one at all hear unwillingly—both because Princes and the children of Princes are known for their piety, and lest anyone disparage another’s piety—that which God willingly and gladly adorns with a great reward.