Christ and the Census

If the Historiae achieves the ‗Christianisation‘ of Augustus through the adoption or rejection of titles, Christ is similarly ‗Romanized‘ through a similarly formal designation of status in the Roman census:571

So at that time, that is, in that year in which, by the ordination of God, Caesar achieved the strongest and truest peace, Christ was born...Also in this same year, when God deigned to be seen as man and actually to be man, Caesar, whom God had predestined for this great mystery, ordered that a census be taken of each province everywhere and that all men be enrolled. So at that time, Christ was born and was entered on the Roman census list as soon as he was born. This is the earliest and most famous public

acknowledgement which marked Caesar as the first of all men and the Romans as lords of the world, a published list of all men entered individually, on which He Himself, who made all men, wished Himself to be found as man and enrolled among men.572 (6.22.5- 8)

Orosius either deliberately or mistakenly ignores that the decree of universal citizenship, the constitutio Antoniniana, was not made until AD 212 by the Emperor Caracalla, and that prior to this Christ would not have been recognised as a Roman citizen.573 Whereas up to this point the text echoes the Gospel of Luke which records that ‗In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered‘, Orosius elaborates on the Gospel account that Jesus was actually entered onto the

571

Echoing Peterson, (2011), p. 102: ‗he [Orosius] clearly Christianized Augustus, and Christ, in becoming a Roman citizen, has been Romanized. The political meaning of this construction is patent.‘ Orosius‘s interpretation of the census contrasts with Hippolytus‘s in his Commentary on Daniel (4.9): ‗And therefore the first census also occurred under Augustus, when the Lord was born in Bethlehem, so that the men of this world were enrolled and were named ―Romans‖, whereas those who believe in the heavenly king were named Christians, and bear the sign of the victory over death on their brows.‘

572 _{6.22.5-8, vol. 2, pp. 235-6: Igitur eo tempore, id est eo anno quo firmissimam uerisimamque pacem}

ordination Dei Caesar conposuit, natus est Christus cuius aduentui pax ista famulata est...Eodem quoque anno tunc primum idem Caesar quem his tantis mysteriis praedestinauerat Deus censum agi singularum ubique prouinciarum et censeri omnes homines iussit, quando et Deus homo uideri et esse dignatus est. Tunc igitur natus est Christus, Romano censui statim adscriptus ut natus est. Haec et prima illa clarissimaque professio quae Caesarem omnium principem Romanosque rerum dominos singillatim cunctorum hominum edita adscriptione signauit, in qua se et ipse qui cunctos homines fecit inueniri hominem adscribique inter homines uoluit...

573 _{Fear interprets Orosius‘s designation of Christ as a Roman citizen as showing how ‗Orosius has}

developed not the pessimistic thinking of his contemporaries, but rather the optimism of a previous generation of Christian writers, and sees the empire is almost the instantiation of heaven upon earth.‘ Fear, (2010), p. 21.

census record.574 It is not only Orosius‘s version of the census that begins with the Gospel of Luke, but also the Orosian version of the Nativity and visitation of the Magi. This is absent from the Historiae as it is from Luke, but is recorded in Matthew.575 Orosius‘s close following of Luke is also demonstrated by the inclusion of a biblical quotation from the Gospel when the angels sang to glorify the birth of Christ:

So at that time, that is, in that year in which, by the ordination of God, Caesar achieved the strongest and truest peace, Christ was born, upon whose coming that peace waited and at whose birth as men listened, the angels in exultation sang: ‗Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.‘576 (6.22.5, p. 281; Luke 2.14)

Just as Augustine favours one Gospel narrative over another concerning the meaning of the Epiphany so Orosius‘s exegetical interpretation involves a selection and elision of competing Biblical accounts of the life of Christ moulded within a new historical and apologetical context of Romano-Christian history.

The notion of Christ as a Roman citizen, although not widely adopted and reproduced, did not originate with Orosius, as Tertullian‘s oblique reference in his Adversus

Marcionem makes clear:

And yet how could He have been admitted into the synagogue – one so abruptly appearing, so unknown; one, of whom no one had as yet been appraised of His tribe, His nation, His family, and lastly, His enrolment in the census of August – that most faithful witness of the Lord‘s nativity, kept in the archives of Rome?577

The assertion of Christ as a citizen of Rome fulfils the same function for Tertullian and Orosius in that it provides evidence of Christ‘s birth and Incarnation as well as civil allegiance, substantiated by the physical evidence of the census records in archives in Rome.578 The political impact of this claim made by both Tertullian and Orosius, but with much greater emphasis in the Historiae, is far-reaching and significant:579

574

Luke, 2:1. The context in which Pocock discusses the birth of Christ and Augustus‘s decree is Virgilian. Pocock, (2003), p. 69

575 _{Matthew, 2:1-13.}

576 _{6.22.5, vol. 2, p. 235: Igitur eo tempore, id est eo anno quo firmissimam uerissimamque pacem}

ordinatione Dei Caesar conposuit, natus est Christus cuius aduentui pax ista famulata est, in cuius ortu audientibus hominibus exultantes angeli cecinerunt ―Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae uoluntatis‖.

577 _{Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 7.7: Et tamen quomodo in synagogam potuit admitti tam repentinus,}

tam ignotus, cuius nemo adhuc certus de tribu, de populo, de domo, de censu denique Augusti, quem testem fidelissimum dominicae nativitatis Romana archiva custodiunt?

578 _{The same notion is not found in the writings of Eusebius, which have in certain instances provided a}

link between the material in Tertullian and Orosius, like the proposal by the Emperor Tiberius to deify Jesus Christ as a pagan deity.

579 _{This is perhaps in contradistinction to Peterson‘s claim ‗the political meaning of this construction is}

From the foundation of the world and from the beginning of the human race, an honour of this nature had absolutely never been granted in this manner, not even to Babylon or to Macedonia, not to mention any lesser kingdom. It is undoubtedly clear for the understanding of all, from their faith and investigation, that our Lord Jesus Christ brought forward this City to this pinnacle of power, prosperous and protected by His will; of this City, when he came, He especially wished to be called a Roman citizen by the declaration of the Roman census list.580 (6.22.7-9, pp. 281-2)

The testimony of Christ as a Roman citizen is deliberately interpreted as evidence of the providential will of God, that Rome as a political institution and as an empire was favoured above all others in history. Here the political and religious hegemony of Rome and Christianity are tied together; it is as a Christian Roman empire that Orosius sees the past, present and future of the success of Rome. The earlier prominence of the Orosian theory of the four empires comes back into currency where the Babylonian, Macedonian, and ‗any lesser kingdom‘ are absorbed into the supremacy of the Roman Empire substantiated by the status of Christ as a Roman citizen. The theory continues to function within the apologetical structure in the perpetual demonstration of the

providential monotheism of Christianity and providential monism of Rome. The

physical, cultural, and martial superiority of the Roman empire has already been proved in the earlier books of the Historiae. Now from the Creation the entirety of human history is encompassed and subsumed within the apologetical schema of the authority of the Empire.