The Kingdom to Come [antikvár]

CHAPTER 1 For the Love of God When the grandsons of Charlemagne settled their differences at Verdun in 843 they swore to keep the peace 'for the love of God and for the Christian people and our mutual salvation'. The Christian Church which emerged unscathed from the ruins of the Roman Empire was able to penetrate within a few centuries the pagan nations and tribes which the great migration of peoples drove into Europe, and imposed on their consciousness the idea of an all-powerful, all-loving God to whom even emperors and kings were accountable. The concept of the two cities, a heavenly and an earthly one, formulated by St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was hammered home by the converting missionaries to the barbarian rulers as they embraced Christianity and placed their entire reign in the context of a supernatural order which demanded that they organise their kingdoms on the heavenly model provided by the Church. The princes of this world were then required to become doubles of Christ himself and to rule their subjects according to the principles of morality. The exercise of political power was thus divorced from the personal glorification of the king and the selfish ambitions of his people, and was made subject to moral principles imposed from above, the observance of which was jealously guarded by the Church. This spiritual orientation of earthly kingdoms, which was so convincingly expressed by the opening words of the famous Oath of Verdun, was a general phenomenon throughout mediaeval Europe. In his Admonitions to his son, written around 1015, St Stephen, first Christian king of Hungary, exhorts his heir to keep the Catholic faith 'if you want to value your royal crown' because 'those who embrace false beliefs or do not perfect the faith with good deeds . . . will neither reign on earth with honour nor will participate in the eternal kingdom and crown'. Performance of royal functions on earth in full compliance with Christian beliefs and morality was therefore regarded as pre- 1