The Roman Imperium: Two Divisons Today? | Page 2 | Phora Nova
I’ll try to reiterate and extend some comments on this topic that I’ve made before.
I usually start (as is my habitual method) with etymological analysis. What is Sovereignty? (Over-kingship – who or what is above the King, even the King of the World?) As a word, it is a very Western/Romance/Romantic one, and would be hard to translate into either Latin or Greek. ver
Looking back into the Roman Imperium, we see that Romanity (the set of all Roman things that is Romanitas, including all tribes loyal to Rome), has an ethnic and social structure, as I’ve mentioned before. The Romans themselves had two large divisions of Citizenry, Quirites (Sabines) and Romani themselves. Then of course they had a tribal structure, and within those tribes gens or Clan, and groupings of clans on the Aryan model which they shared with the Greek tribes — Phrateries. And then, within the Clan, a very finely organised famly structure of persons related in known fact, not just in legal theory or distant antiquity, which comprised the private, domestic side of Life lived-out within Romanity.
Finally, there was a City-State (a polis or political entity), within which there was exercised the legal notion of Imperium. That is, Patriarchy at the domestic level, Romanity at the state level, and Orthodoxy at some higher level that needs discussion but we may call Religious or Spiritual for want of more exposition.
In modern times, that higher level is the Nation-State, which emerged with their Catholic Majesties in Spain, and King Edward IV Plantagenet (?) in England, in the late 15th century of the West. Like the medieval notion of ‘sovereignty’, it is a purely Western one, though with a certain relation to the conceptual framework of Romanity as used in the (then heretical) West. In ancient times, there was likewise a notion of The Oikoumene — the ‘dwelling lands’ that were entirely conquered by Alexander the Great and his successors, including those in Palestine, which is where the connection between the Greek world (of the Hittites, Myceneans, and Kings of Tarshish, and the Sea-Peoples) mixes up with the Egypt-Mesopotamian-Iranian cauldron. It is the context within which such terms as Episcopal (over-seer, itself related to a kind of Sovereignty), and Church (Ekklesia, a call out of men-in-arms for a city-state), as well as the notion of ‘an Ecumenical Empire’ ruled by Despotai and The Great King, comes from. (The word Baliseus was the Greek translation of Agustus, and so we pray for the Two Vasilefsi in Greek, and doubtless the same in Russian, as their role of defending the borders of the Oikoumene — the Imperial Household — from the Barbarians at the Roles. That is, they are Catechons.)
We must say something proper about how the Roman Imperium — the Greek word is Politeuma, as a Res Publica — and thus Constantine founded the *Christian* Politeuma, with a universal mission to extend the Oikoumene to the Ends of the Earth (or is it the Kosmos?).
I point out this term, Respublica Christiana because it forms the legal theory for lawful action in the West. That is, the nation-states of Europe *understood* they were part of the Politeuma of Constantine (and why would the ‘Donation of Constantine’ matter to them, if they were not?) This is well-discussed by Schimitt, and other 20th century scholars on the topic of the Kings Two Swords, the notion of Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe, etc, which need not detain us. The origin and history of such notions since *derived* from the ‘Constantinian Entity’, whatever status you give that, is quite clear.
I must be clear however that I am not talking *just* about Institutions but also Peoples and The Body of Christ. These notions must be carefully related. The Latin words ‘con-stitutio’ and ‘in-stitutio’ have very specific meanings related to the sort of Legislation a Great King (basileus) or Augustus, might do. In particular, the ‘Constitutions of Justinian’ is a term of legal art. The decrees of an Augustus are for the Whole World, not just our modern notion of Federation — a treaty between severally but mutually sovereign entities.
Societies, from City-States to the religious and spiritual society of the Body of Christ, persons incorporated in a single Person having the Mind of Christ (the Church), to, coming down a bit, modern Nation-States and Empires, all have *institutions*. These institutions or arrangements are *organic*, that is they function as organs of the body, but that does not mean they don’t sometimes, die, need to be replaced by new or similarly functioning ones, or even that they are identically constituted in different parts of the same organism — one may have two kidneys, or only one, and if two they might differ in various ways, or even one can be natural, and one artificial. Yes there must *be* such institutions, and they must function ‘for the Life of the World’, in the highest case.
The Roman Imperium — the command of a magistrate, duly following the cursus honorem established and instituted in the Constitution of the Empire for such things, as Questor, Praetor, Consul, many such cases. And many other duties and offices of men. The Roman Imperium I say is the right of command of some magistrates, as has been instituted lawfully in the Res Publica Christiana, and is exercised today in the National Offices for which we pray, whether that office is filled by a heretic or an Orthodox believer, and to the extent it is not Anti-Christ, making war on God and siding with Satan, as will increasingly happen as the World (the Universe itself) Ages.
Speaking then, of which, When Augustus Ruled the World Alone…
MERRY CHRISTMAS A.D. 2025 / A.M. (Etos Kosmou, In the Year of the Kosmos) 7534
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