I'm afraid I really didn't pose the question very well at all. Perhaps I
might nevertheless explain what I was after? Still, I don't want to
bother listmembers with my unformulated notions, so after this
indulgence, I'll shelve my question for the time being.
Paulus Orosius lays great stress on Christ's Roman citizenship, painting
for the reader a picture of Christian history as it progresses through
one empire after another. Orosius' contention is that Rome, being the
greatest of all the world's empires, is the only one fit to recieve the
Son of God. Christ therefore deliberately chose to make Himself a Roman.
This explanation is all well and good for Orosius' Roman reader reading
about a Roman Christ during the time of the ascendant Roman Empire.
But, when the glory of Rome passes, and the Germans and Franks are
blessed with the translatio imperii et studii, what are the implications
with respect to Christ's expressed Roman citizenship? (Orosius' book,
after all, was perhaps the major sourcebook in the early Middle Ages for
history.) I am suggesting that the implications are so unpalatable that
in the English translation of Orosius, any mention of Christ's Romanitas
is entirely excised. (And that means reducing all mention of Christ to a
few lines!) In fact, Anglo-Saxons generally go to great lengths to
clothe Christ in Germanic garb, to rid Him of Romanitas altogether. He
is protrayed as a Germanic warrior, a Germanic king, a Germanic lord,
etc. After all, in the age of Charlemagne and in the age of Alfred, why
would God boast of Roman citizenship?
This is the basic thrust of my inquiry."Render unto Caesar" and the
specifics of Pilate's jurisprudence are not really what I'm after. But I
do thank you for the suggestions nonetheless. I shall continue to keep
after this question for a while. And, if anyone is interested, I'll post
some of the results of my inquiry.
Thank you again,
Steve Harris
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