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Towards a Spiritual Empire: Christian Exegesis of the Universal Census at the Time of Jesus's Birth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2018

Tiziana Faitini
Tiziana Faitini*
Affiliation:
Trento
*
*School of International Studies, via T. Gar 14, 38122 Trento, Italy. E-mail: tizianafaitini@yahoo.it.
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Abstract

This article focuses on the exegetical interpretation of Luke's narrative of the census (or registration) carried out at the time of Jesus's birth (Luke 2: 1–5). After some brief remarks on the juridical institution of the census (the so-called professio census) in ancient Rome, a selection of the exegetical interpretations of this pericope developed by various ancient and medieval authors is presented. Origen, Ambrose, Orosius, Bede and Bonaventure are discussed, among others. A number of medieval authors, including Dante Alighieri and Bartolus of Saxoferrato, are also considered. The analysis argues, on the one hand, that a spiritualization of the institution of the census occurred and led to the spiritual empire of Christ being seen as replacing the temporal empire of Augustus; on the other, that reference to this institution was used to legitimize political authority in the eyes of believers. This interpretative tradition is thus shown to offer a vivid example of the close intertwining of theological and juridical concepts and practices which has characterized the relationship between the Church and empire from the former's very beginning.

Keywords

Roman censusLuke 2:1-5history of political theologyAmbroseBede

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Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 54: THE CHURCH AND EMPIRE , June 2018 , pp. 16 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2018 

This article analyses from a theologico-political perspective a selection of the ancient and medieval exegetical interpretations of Luke's description of the census carried out at the time of Jesus's birth (Luke 2: 1–5). A clear understanding of this interpretative tradition can best be gained by careful consideration of certain formal and juridical aspects of the Roman census, the so-called professio census, upon which these authors elaborate, and the article begins with a brief description of these.Footnote 1 It then considers the spiritualization of the census: as the spiritual empire of Christ replaced the temporal empire of Augustus, the Roman census was Christianized and imbued with redemptive meaning by Christian exegetes. This development has previously been observed, but only incidentally; the process is here explored in greater depth.Footnote 2 Alongside this spiritualization, however, from the time of Orosius on, many commentators understood Jesus's participation in the census as a legitimation of believers’ obedience to political authority. This political reading of Luke's pericope can also be discerned in medieval political and juridical texts. The analysis offered here thus provides us with a vivid example of the close, reciprocal intertwining of theological and juridical concepts and practices which has characterized the relationship between the Church and empire since the foundation of the Church.Footnote 3

The Professio Census and its Presence in Luke's Gospel

The biblical account of the universal census, or registration, ordered by Caesar Augustus and held at the time of Christ's birth, is well known. The first lines of the second chapter of Luke's Gospel read as follows:

And it came to pass, that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled (ut describeretur universus orbis). This enrolling (descriptio) was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled (ut pro-fiterentur), every one into their own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: because he was of the house and family of David. He went to be enrolled (ut profiteretur) with Mary his espoused wife, who was expecting a child.Footnote 4

In the Vulgate version of this passage, given in brackets, the words describo / descriptio and profiteor are all used to translate the Greek apographesthai / apographē, a technical term rendering the Latin censum profiteri or professio census, the institution of the census under Roman law.Footnote 5

According to tradition, the census was introduced in Rome by Servius Tullius in the sixth century BCE. Held regularly during the Roman Republic, it consisted of an official declaration by the pater familias of his family and property, made on oath before designated officials, roughly every five years. From the middle of the fifth century BCE, oversight over the procedure was assigned to the magistracy of the censores. Their task was to count all citizens and divide them, according to their rank and wealth, into the various classes of the Centuriate order. From the end of the following century, the process involved identifying citizens as members of a particular tribe, which replaced both the curiae and family membership in the definition of citizenship. This designation served as the framework for the collection of taxes, for military conscription and for eligibility to vote in the assembly of the comitia tributa.Footnote 6

As scholars have clarified, the census focused on the valuation of property, but as a consequence it was also crucial to the definition of citizenship, and thus key to the political, military and fiscal organization of the Roman res publica.Footnote 7 Moreover, the census had a moral and religious significance. It was associated with the so-called regimen morum (intended to ensure that citizens behaved in accordance with their dignitas), and ended in a purification ceremony (lustrum). This ceremony served as a ritual refounding of the city, attesting to the fact that citizen rolls did not include anyone unworthy and so providing the city with divine protection.Footnote 8 The act of declaration made in front of censors implied submission to, and inclusion within, a political, moral, military and fiscal order: the definition of each person's civic and social identity and their holding of citizenship were contingent upon this act.

The Exegetical Tradition: From Origen to Bede

The lengthy exegetical elaboration on Luke's pericope, to which we now turn, sheds light on what may be called a theological translation of this specific juridical institution, and, from a general point of view, on the intertwining between theological and juridical conceptualizations.Footnote 9

The first noteworthy explanation of this passage was provided by Origen of Alexandria in his Homilies on Luke, and has survived only in Jerome's translation. In most early Christian texts, with the partial exception of Hippolytus of Rome,Footnote 10 the census ordered by Augustus is mentioned to give historical, objective evidence of the time and the place of Jesus's nativity,Footnote 11 but Origen elaborated on Luke's passage, drawing out its spiritual meaning. He defined the first universal census – that is, that during which Jesus was born – as a sacrament (sacramentum), that is, in terms of the military oath taken by men enlisting as soldiers in Rome.Footnote 12 Origen also observed that it was theologically necessary for Christ to be ‘recorded in the census of the whole world’ (in totius orbis professione), so that he in turn ‘could enrol those from the whole world with himself “in the book of the living”’ described in Revelation.Footnote 13 Here, Origen drew an implicit parallel between the census and the last judgement, and this would become a topos from Gregory the Great onwards.Footnote 14 The formal act of the census is being interpreted in a spiritual sense, and the census is Christianized and imbued with sacred and redemptive meaning; nevertheless, Origen's reference to eternal life and to the heavenly citizenry reveals his understanding of the legal significance of the census in Roman law.

No relevant comments on this passage can be found in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea.Footnote 15 However, towards the end of the fourth century Ambrose of Milan wrote extensively on it in his Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, which would have considerable later influence. The Exposition was in fact one of the main sources for the readings of these verses from the gospel in the Glossa ordinaria, where Ambrose's reading was combined with Bede's Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, which will be touched upon later.Footnote 16 Moreover, the commentary of the bishop of Milan is widely used in Thomas Aquinas's Catena aurea on this pericope.Footnote 17

Notwithstanding Ambrose's reliance on Origen's reading,Footnote 18 the originality of his contribution is undoubted. His experience as a iudex before becoming a bishop may well explain the freshness of his interpretation, which takes into account the juridical aspects of the census and translates them into spiritual terms. This also exemplifies the fact that his juridical knowledge makes him a key figure in any historical attempt to probe the constant interchange between theological and juridical conceptualizations in the Western tradition.Footnote 19

Ambrose here shifts the legal, earthly connotation of the census onto a spiritual plane, making of it a ‘spiritual census’ (professio spiritalis). Indeed, he writes:

. . . while the secular census is appointed, the spiritual is fulfilled, to be told, not to the king of the lands, but to the king of heaven. The profession of faith is a census of minds; for when the old census of the synagogue was abolished, a new census of the Church was prepared which did not require torments, but abolished them.Footnote 20

Through the profession of faith, souls are registered, and the secular census, whether Roman or Jewish, is replaced with that of the religious community. This census is to be declared to the king of heaven; it is not material or social circumstances that are to be accounted for, but the deepest corners of the mind. In this registration ‘dimensions, not of lands, but of minds and spirits are assessed’, because ‘faith alone seals each’.Footnote 21

What Ambrose described was a more universal census than that imposed by Augustus. Everybody, notwithstanding their nationality or their age, was involved:

None is exempt from this census, because every age is liable to serve Christ . . . . Then, that ye may know that the census is not of Augustus, but of Christ, the whole world is bidden to enrol. When Christ is born, all confess Him; when the world is included, all are tested.Footnote 22

A census with such universal reach (professione totius orbis), concluded Ambrose, could be mandated only by a lord who has ‘power (imperium) over the whole world’.Footnote 23 In his reading, the birth of Christ heralded the beginning of a movement of spiritualization and universalization, which led from the secular census to the spiritual one, and which substituted the power of Augustus with that of Christ. The analogy between the king of heaven (rex caeli) and the king of the lands (rex terrarum) recalls the relationship between what Augustine will call the two cities, although Ambrose does not make this explicit;Footnote 24 Augustine, however, did not comment on the universal census mentioned by Luke, either in City of God or elsewhere.

An in-depth discussion of this analogy with regard to the verses in question – and thus an explicitly political interpretation of them, implicitly aimed at the justification of Roman authority – can be found in the work of Augustine's student Orosius, who is key to understanding the developing relationship between Church and empire. In the History against the Pagans, Orosius highlighted the synchronicity of Christ's birth and Augustus's peaceful reign, developing a ‘theology of Augustus’ and associating the Christianization of the figure of the emperor with the Romanization of the figure of Christ.Footnote 25 In arguing this, Orosius suggested that the coincidence of Jesus's birth with the census demonstrated that he had chosen to be a Roman citizen: ‘of this city [i.e. Rome], when he came, he especially wished to be entitled to be called a Roman citizen by the declaration made in the Roman census list’.Footnote 26 For Orosius, the unification of the orbis Romanum under Augustus was part of God's plan for the propagation of the gospel, and he presented the emperor as the forerunner of Christ, who in turn endorsed Rome as his fatherland, thus offering a justification of imperial power.

We turn now to the other important source for the Glossa ordinaria on this passage, the Venerable Bede. Both in his Exposition of the Gospel of Luke and in one of his homilies on the gospels, composed for Christmas, Bede dealt with the beginning of the second chapter of Luke and interwove all the elements analysed so far: he read the pericope in a spiritual sense (as had Origen and Ambrose) while also stressing its political and historical meaning (as did Orosius) and making the analogy between the city of God and the city of men very explicit. According to the Anglo-Saxon theologian's Exposition, the imperial decree was an earthly forerunner of the decree enforced by Christ the King, which announced universal salvation:

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled, because a decree from Christ the King (Regis Christi) was impending, thanks to which all the world was to attain salvation. And making the name of Augustus perfectly fulfilled – that is, wanting to make his [subjects] grow and being himself able to do so – he ordered the censors of his enrolment to mark the subjects, not with a monetary payment, but with their offering of faith (censoribus suae professionis non ablatione pecuniae subiectos sed fidei oblatione signare praecipit).Footnote 27

Bede's homily is even clearer. The enrolment of the world ‘recalled as having been done by an earthly king’ (a terreno rege) also designates ‘the works of the heavenly king’ (caelestis opera regis).Footnote 28 The true fatherland of the Christian is the Church, and, to an even greater extent, the heavenly Church. The census proclaimed by Augustus must thus be carried out spiritually in obedience to the king of heaven:

The fact that all were going, in response to the edict of Augustus, each to report to his own city, [betokens what] we must do spiritually as a service to our king (in nostri regis est nobis servitio spiritaliter agendum). Indeed, our city is the holy church, which is in part still journeying away from the Lord on earth, and in part already reigns with the Lord in heaven.Footnote 29

The tax (‘debitum censum’) which ‘is due to the king who has been born’ attests to a spiritual debt which has to be paid by complying ‘with divine commands in the unity of the Church now present’ and ‘by the tireless course of good works’.Footnote 30 Bede adds that as Christians, we ought to represent Christ's image ‘on the same denarius of our good way of life’ (bonae nostrae conversationis): just as, in the case of the coin of Augustus, the currency of payment is legal tender when stamped with the head of the ruler, so too, a Christian's way of life must be hallmarked by the image and name of Christ, and by obedience to his commands.Footnote 31 The evangelic exhortation to ‘render to Caesar things which are Caesar's’ is only implicitly evoked in these lines, while it is explicitly referred to (in the version given by Matthew 22: 21) in the Exposition. Footnote 32

Bede's exegesis asserts that the heavenly kingdom is based on an economy of salvation: moral conduct becomes the currency of that kingdom, and is exchanged in the circulation of credit and debt which began with the coming of the Redeemer, who gave himself for human sins. This offers a further example of the widespread use made by Christian commentators of a pre-existent economic and legal lexicon. At the same time, these readings also made a decisive contribution to the evolution of such a lexicon.Footnote 33

Bede's focus thus far had been on spiritual exegesis, and in particular the debt which has to be paid in the spiritual realm by Christians through their moral actions. At the same time, in his exploration of the historical, literal sense of the biblical text, Bede's homily also highlighted the secular debt that needs to be paid on earth, to the Roman empire:

He himself did not disdain to commit himself to servitude (inpendere servitium) to one who was unaware of true charity. Here also by his example he pointed out in advance what the prince of the apostles was afterwards to teach in words, ‘Be subject (subditi estote) to every human creature for God's sake, whether to the king as sovereign, or to the leaders as sent by him (1 Pet. 2: 13–14)’.Footnote 34

Jesus himself, in undergoing the earthly census, confirmed the legitimacy of that debt, thus confirming that Christian believers were to be subject to the authority of earthly, political institutions.

Some Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Interpretations: Exegesis and Beyond

Bede introduced a direct connection with the theme of obedience to established temporal power, which had only been hinted at by Orosius but which frequently recurred in subsequent exegeses on these verses. No significant explorations of this text have been found in any Carolingian commentaries on Luke's Gospel, but the theme appears to have been much developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a period during which commentaries on Luke's Gospel proliferated.Footnote 35 While a complete survey of these is not within the scope of this article, a few representative examples will illustrate the political reading of the pericope in medieval exegetical, political and juridical texts.

In the thirteenth century, Hugh of St Cher defined the census as ‘the exhibition of subjection’ (subiectionis exhibitio).Footnote 36 Albert the Great, in addition to drawing the usual analogy between the earthly census (descriptio orbis) and the last judgement, i.e. the enrolment in eternal life (descriptio in aeternitate), referred to Matthew 22: 21 and the well-known exhortation to render ‘to Caesar the things that are Caesar's’, as Bede had done earlier.Footnote 37 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio also offered some very explicit remarks on this question. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke,Footnote 38 he quoted Bede, emphasizing that Jesus was included in the census in order to comply with all higher authorities, thus making clear, in Bonaventure's reading, that ‘human authority is similar to divine’ and that ‘the command of rulers is not to be contemned in any way’.Footnote 39 The power of Augustus, who mandated a universal census at a time of universal peace, prefigured the authority of Christ, whilst at the same time retaining its temporal significance. In registering themselves, Joseph and Mary obeyed this power:

[they] did the will of the king, and no one did otherwise. And thus they made themselves subject to the king in registering (subiectionem habebant ad regem in professione), in acknowledgment of his authority, and made peace with one another through tranquil and just living together, according to what Romans 13: 7–8 has: ‘Render to all whatever is their due. Tribute to whom tribute is due’ . . . . To register that they are subject to Roman rule, and this by undergoing the census. And this was just, as Matthew 22: 21 has: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's’. . . . Through her obedience she [Mary] would give us an example of how to obey all higher authority, in accordance with what we read in 1 Peter 2: 13–14.Footnote 40

The link between census and obedience could not be more explicit, and is stressed by Bonaventure's references to a number of biblical passages typically quoted by Christian authors in regard to political subjection (Matt. 22: 21, Rom 13: 7–8, 1 Pet. 2: 13–14).Footnote 41 Similarly, a canon collected in the Liber Extra, the important collection of decretals promulgated by Gregory IX in 1234, clearly defines the praestatio tributi as probatio subiectionis.Footnote 42 For these thirteenth-century authors, the census signalled subjection to a king, whether earthly or celestial: it was an act of inclusion – whether political, theological, or both – which signalled admission to an established, peaceful order. However, it was also required in order to be included among the worthy citizens and the redeemed, that is, necessary for salvation, earthly or celestial.

This observation does not apply only to exegetical scholarship. In his De monarchia, Dante Alighieri also referred to Jesus's compliance with the imperial edict concerning the census, which he saw as legitimizing the jurisdiction of the Roman empire and consequently the validity and the independence of temporal power in general.Footnote 43 Similarly, some jurists referred to Luke's narrative when requiring the fulfilment of political, and in particular fiscal, obligations: in the thirteenth century, Rolandus de Luca, for example, repeatedly mentioned this narrative when commenting on questions relating to taxation.Footnote 44 Luke's pericope was also invoked to confirm the legitimacy and supremacy of the emperor's authority over local kings and princes, as in Bartolus of Saxoferrato's commentary on the Digesta, written in the first half of the fourteenth century,Footnote 45 and in Bartolomeus of Novara's commentary on the Institutiones, published later in the fourteenth century, under the better-known name of Baldus de Ubaldi.Footnote 46 Bartolus, perhaps the most important Italian jurist of his time, dealt at length with the lex ‘Hostes’, and, in defining the concepts of enemy and empire, noted:

And if someone argues that the emperor is not the lord (dominus) and the king of all the world, they are heretics, as they speak against the decisions of the Church, against the holy Gospel which says: ‘a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered’ . . . . In this way, even Christ acknowledged the emperor as lord.Footnote 47

Bartolus's interpretation is striking for its explicit claim, argued on the basis of Luke's account of the census, that Christian doctrine demands that Christians should recognize the emperor's authority.

Conclusion

It is apparent from the exegetical tradition outlined here that the Roman juridical institution of the professio census became a theoretical tool through which Christian theologians could conceptualize the economy of salvation. It was used to describe the individual Christian's admission to eternal life, foreshadowing the last judgement, to explain why each Christian is indebted to Christ, and to show how this debt must be paid. A spiritualization of the institution of the census occurred, in which the spiritual empire of Christ was seen as replacing the temporal empire of Augustus. However, this passage and its account of Christ's involvement in the census, a juridical institution, also allowed theologians to acknowledge the authority of Roman emperors and to justify Christian acceptance of, and subjection to, political authority. Luke's pericope should indeed find its place alongside other better-known biblical references used for this purpose (e.g. Matt. 22: 21; Rom. 13: 7–8; 1 Pet. 2: 13–14). The census depicted in Luke's Gospel is therefore a perfect example of the close overlap between theological and juridical concepts and practices which has been a key feature in defining the relationship between the Church and empire in the European tradition.

Footnotes

I am very grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and valuable suggestions.

References

1 For the profound theological and juridical influence of this tradition, see Faitini, Tiziana, ‘The Latin Roots of the “Profession”: Metamorphoses of the Concept in Law and Theology from Ancient Rome to the Middle Ages’, History of Political Thought 38 (2017), 603–22Google Scholar. It is on this basis that the act which marks the beginning of a person's life as a member of a religious order is termed religious ‘profession’.

2 See Opelt, Ilona, ‘Augustustheologie und Augustustypologie’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 4 (1961), 44–57, at 46Google Scholar, who referred to a ‘Christianisierung des Römischen Census’, mentioning Origen, Ambrose, Orosius and Gregory the Great.

3 For an introduction to the extensive bibliography on political theology and the historical intertwining of theology and politics, see Ottmann, Henning, ‘Politische Theologie als Begriffsgeschichte’, in Gerhardt, Volker, ed., Der Begriff der Politik. Bedingungen und Gründe politischen Handelns (Stuttgart, 1990), 169–88Google Scholar; Nicoletti, Michele and Sartori, Luigi, Teologia politica (Bologna, 1991)Google Scholar; Hepp, Robert, ‘Theologie, politische’, in Ritter, Joachim, ed., Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 13 vols (Basel, 1998), 10: 1105–12Google Scholar; Meier, Christian, ‘Was ist politische Theologie?’, in Assmann, Jan, ed., Politische Theologie zwischen Ägypten und Israel (Munich, 1995), 3–18Google Scholar; Scott, Peter and Cavanaugh, William T., eds, The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Malden, MA, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Luke 2: 1–5 (Douay-Rheims version, slightly modified). For the Vulgate, the Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber and Roger Gryson (Stuttgart, 2007), is used. There are a number of problems with the historical identification of the census spoken of by Luke; for useful references, see Barnett, Paul W., ‘Apographe and apographesthai in Luke 2, 1–5’, Expository Times 85 (1973–4), 377–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For the Greek text, see Novum Testamentum Graece, ed. Eberhard Nestle, Kurt Aland et al., 28th edn (Stuttgart, 2012). In the New Testament the Greek term apographēs also appears in Acts 5: 37, which speaks of the prophet Judas the Galilean and emphasizes that he was born during the census (probably also that mentioned by Luke), and in Heb. 12: 23, which the Vulgate translates as ecclesiam primitivorum qui conscripti sunt in caelis. Apographesthai / apographē generally means ‘to enter in a list / list or register’, and often refers to the declaration of property or persons liable to taxation, and to the Roman census in particular. For the use of these terms in the New Testament and in early Christian literature and further details of the technical, fiscal meaning of apographē, see Blass, F. and Debrunner, A., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, transl. Funk, Robert W. (Chicago, IL, and London, 1961), s.v. ‘apographē’, §5.3, 5Google Scholar; Lampe, Geoffrey W. H., ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1976), 190Google Scholar, s.vv. ‘apographē / apographomai’; Fitzmyer, Joseph A., The Gospel according to Luke, 2 vols, Bible, Anchor 28–28A (New York, 1981), 1: 405Google Scholar.

6 See Cascio, Elio Lo, ‘Il census a Roma e la sua evoluzione dall'età «serviane» alla prima età imperiale’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome 113 (2001), 565–603Google Scholar. With important modifications, the census was to last throughout the imperial era, as attested by article 50.15 (De censibus) of the Digesta, a compendium of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of Justinian in the sixth century, and by some provisions collected on the initiative of the same emperor in the Codex Iustiniani (e.g. C. 4.47.3, C. 8.53.7–8). On the tasks of the censores, see Humm, Michel, ‘I fondamenti della Repubblica romana. Istituzioni, diritto, religione’, in Barbero, Alessandro, ed., Storia d'Europa e del Mediterraneo, 15 vols (Rome, 2008), 5: 467–520, at 489–91.Google Scholar

7 See Humm, Michel, ‘Il regimen morum dei censori e le identità dei cittadini’, in Corbino, Alessandro, Humbert, Michel and Negri, Giovanni, eds, Homo, caput, persona. La costruzione giuridica dell'identità nell'esperienza romana (Pavia, 2010), 283–314, at 311–12.Google Scholar

8 See Humm, ‘I fondamenti della Repubblica romana’, 491.

9 For the broader historical perspective of this analysis, see Politica e religione. Annuario di teologia politica / Yearbook of Political Theology: Censo, ceto, professione. Il censimento come problema teologico-politico (Brescia, 2015); Faitini, Tiziana, Il lavoro come professione. Una storia della professionalità tra etica e politica (Rome, 2016).Google Scholar

10 In his Commentary on Daniel 4.9.2–3, Hippolytus contrasts the Roman empire and the heavenly kingdom, thus giving the census a significantly different interpretation from that of the tradition I outline. He observes that when the Romans flourished, Jesus, through the apostles, summoned all nations and made a nation of Christians with a new name in their hearts. His kingdom ‘is counterfeited by that which rules according to the operation of Satan, but similarly this kingdom also collects those born from all nations and prepares those who are called Romans for war. And on account of this also the first census happened under Augustus . . . so that the men of this world, being registered in the earthly kingdom, were called Romans, but those who believe in the heavenly kingdom were named Christians’: Schmidt, ET Thomas C., Hippolytus of Rome: Commentary on Daniel (2010), 125–6Google Scholar, online at: <https://web.archive.org/web/20101207125246/ http://www.chronicon.net/chroniconfiles/Hippolytus%20Commentary%20on%20Daniel%20by%20TC%20Schmidt.pdf>, accessed 2 May 2017.

11 See, for instance, Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 78.4; Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.7.7, 4.19.10, 4.36.8–9. Clement of Alexandria mentions the census in his chronology of the world: Stromata 1.21.145.1. I checked all the references to Luke 2: 1–5 in texts from the first to the third century collected by the expanded Biblia patristica, most of which are only cursory; the Biblia patristica is online at: <http://www.biblindex.org>, accessed 2 May 2017.

12 The military metaphor is of Pauline origin, and had been widely used since the time of the early martyr acts: see the classic study by Harnack, Adolf, Christi, Militia: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries, transl. Grade, David Mclnnes (Philadelphia, PA, 1982)Google Scholar; and, for a broader recent overview, Smith, Katherine Allen, War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture (Woodbridge, 2011), 71–111.Google Scholar

13 Origen, Homélies sur saint Luc, ed. Henri Crouzel, François Fournier and Pierre Perichon (Paris, 1998), 196 (homily 11); ET Homilies on Luke, transl. Joseph T. Lienhard, FC 94 (Washington DC, 2009), 47.

14 ‘Why was it that the world was being enrolled (describitur) just before the Lord's birth except to show that he was coming as man to enroll his elect in eternity (quia ille veniebat in carne, qui electos suos ascriberet in aeternitate)? On the other hand, it is said of the condemned by the prophet: “May they be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be enrolled with the righteous (Ps 69: 28)”’: Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, transl. David Hurst (Kalamazoo, MI, 1990), 51; Latin text in Gregorius Magnus, Homiliae in evangelia 7.2.4–6 (CChr.SL 141, 54). Part of this passage (quia . . . aeternitate) is included in the Glossa ordinaria on Luke's verses, although it is ascribed to Bede the Venerable: see the marginal gloss ‘Exiit edictum a ce[sare] aug[usto]’, on Luke 2: 1, in Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria, ed. Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret T. Gibson (facsimile reprint of the editio princeps of Adolph Rusch of Strassburg, 1480/1; Turnhout, 1992). For similar interpretations, see Hugh of St Cher, Hugonis cardinalis opera omnia in universum Vetus, et Novum Testamentum, 8 vols (Venice, 1703), 8: fol. 143r; Albert the Great, Enarrationes in primam partem Evangelii Lucae, in Opera omnia, ed. S. Borgnet, 38 vols (Paris, 1890–9), 22: 190 (2.1).

15 Eusebius mentions the census when dealing with the context and chronological aspects of the nativity, e.g. Ecclesiastical History 1.5.2–6; Questions on the Gospel 1.12. In the surviving parts of his Commentary on Luke, no significant elements are present; the text is corrupted and never quoted by other Church Fathers: Wallace-Hadrill, David S., ‘Eusebius of Caesarea's Commentary on Luke: Its Origin and Early History’, HThR 67 (1974), 55–63.Google Scholar

16 From a theologico-political perspective, the long marginal gloss on Luke 2: 1 in Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria, ‘Exiit edictum a ce[sare] aug[usto]’, is noteworthy, particularly as far as this passage is concerned: ‘In quo nomen augusti vere impletur qui suos augere sufficiens – censoribus suae professionis non pecuniae: sed fidei oblatione signare praecepit: quia dum professio secularis obstenditur, spiritalis impletur. Abolito autem censu synagogae vetusto novus census ecclesiae paratur, qui tormenta non exigit: sed aufert; qui non uno numismate: sed una signatur fide’ (‘In it the name of Augustus, that is, he who can make his [subjects] grow, was fulfilled. The censors of this enrolment are ordered to mark the subjects not with a monetary payment, but with their offering of faith; while the secular census is appointed, the spiritual is fulfilled. When the old census of the synagogue was abolished, a new census of the Church was prepared which did not require torments, but abolished them, and is sealed not by money, but by faith alone’). The whole gloss is ascribed to Bede but, as pointed out in n. 14, this ascription must be partially corrected. The first part of the quotation (In quo . . . praecepit) summarizes a passage from Bede's Exposition (see n. 27 below); from quia to aufert, the gloss comes from Ambrose's Exposition (see n. 20 below). I have not precisely identified the last part (qui non . . . fide), which is thematically close to the subsequent lines in Ambrose's Exposition, referring to a census in which ‘faith alone seals each’ (see n. 21 below).

17 Aquinas, Thomas, Catena aurea in quatuor evangelia, ed. Guarienti, Angelico, 2 vols (Turin, 1953), 2: 29–30 (‘In Lucam’ 2.1).Google Scholar

18 On the close connection between the lectiones of Ambrose and Origen, see ‘Introduzione’, in Ambrose, Opera omnia / Opera esegetiche, 11–12: Esposizione del Vangelo secondo Luca, ed. Giovanni Coppa, 2 vols (Rome, 1978), 1: 9–63, at 32–5; Corsato, Celestino, La Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam di sant'Ambrogio. Ermeneutica, simbologia, fonti (Rome, 1993), 183–91.Google Scholar

19 For a description of how Ambrose uses Roman law, both in his borrowing of terminology and in his theological reinterpretation of resolutions codified in the imperial leges, see Gaudemet, Jean, ‘Droit séculier et droit de l’église chez Ambroise’, in Lazzati, Giuseppe, ed., Ambrosius episcopus. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi ambrosiani nel 16. centenario della elevazione di sant'Ambrogio alla cattedra episcopale, 2 vols (Milan, 1976), 1: 286–315, at 287–300Google Scholar; see also Moroni, Brunella, ‘Lessico teologico per un destinatario imperiale. Terminologia giuridico-amministrativa e cerimoniale di corte nel De fide di Sant'Ambrogio’, in Pizzolato, Luigi F. and Rizzi, Marco, eds, Nec timeo mori. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi ambrosiani nel XVI centenario della morte di sant'Ambrogio (Milan, 1998), 341–63, at 343–5.Google Scholar

20 Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke, transl. Theodosia Tomkinson (Etna, CA, 1998), 50 (2.36; ET slightly modified); Latin text from CChrSL 14 in Ambrose, Esposizione, 1: 176.

21 Ambrose, Exposition, 50 (2.36); see also ibid. 51 (2.38).

22 Ibid. 50 (2.37).

23 Ibid.; Latin text in Ambrose, Esposizione, 1: 178. This passage is included in the marginal gloss ‘Universus orbis’ on Luke 2: 1 in Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria.

24 For references to Ambrose's distinction between the two orders, divine and civil, and the superiority of the former, see Gaudemet, ‘Droit séculier’, 304–6.

25 On the ‘theology of Augustus’ elaborated in book 6 of the History against the Pagans, see Peterson, Erik, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig, 1935)Google Scholar; Opelt, ‘Augustustheologie’. See also Goetz, Hans-Werner, Die Geschichtstheologie des Orosius (Darmstadt, 1980), 71–88Google Scholar; and, for a recent critical reading of the Eusebianism of Orosius, Nuffelen, Peter Van, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History (Oxford, 2012), 191–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 ‘[D]icendus civis Romanus census professione Romani’: Orosius, Paulus, Seven Books of History against the Pagans, transl. Deferrari, Roy J., FC 50 (Washington DC, 1964), 281–2 (6.22)Google Scholar, ET modified; Latin text in Orosius, Le storie contro i pagani, ed. Adolf Lippold, 2 vols (Milan, 2001), 2: 234.

27 Bede, ‘In Lucae evangelium expositio’, in Bedae Opera. Pars 2: Opera exegetica, 3: In Lucae evangelium expositio. In Marci evangelium expositio, CChr.SL 120, 45–6 (my translation).

28 Bede, Homilies on the Gospel. Book One: Advent to Lent, transl. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst (Kalamazoo, MI, 1991), 54 (1.6); Latin text in Bede, ‘Homiliarum Evangelii libri II’, Bedae Opera. Pars 3/4: Opera Homiletica. Opera Rhythmica, CChr.SL 122, 37–45, at 38 (1.6).

29 Ibid. 54 (1.6); Latin text 38 (1.6).

30 Ibid. See also Bede, ‘In Lucae evangelium expositio’, CChr.SL 120, 46.

31 ‘In the act of reporting in the census one gave a denarius, which had the weight of ten nummi, and which bore the image and the name of Caesar. We also must imitate this spiritually, for we pay a denarius to our king (regi nostro) when we busy ourselves with fulfilling the ten commands of his law, and written on this denarius we bear the name of this same king of ours when we remember in all our acts that we are called “Christians” from “Christ”, and take care to keep inviolate in us the dignity of his name. We also ought to represent his image in the same denarius of our good way of life, which is what he himself taught when he said, “Be holy because I the God your Lord am holy”’: CChr.SL 122, 38–9 (1.6); Bede, Homilies, 54 (1.6).

32 See Bede, ‘In Lucae evangelium expositio’, CChr.SL 120, 46–7. The passage is also summarized in the marginal gloss ‘Cyrino’ on Luke 2: 2 in Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria.

33 For useful insights into the economy of salvation defined within Christendom, and its importance for the elaboration of economic rationality and the economic lexicon, see Todeschini, Giovanni, Il prezzo della salvezza. Lessici medievali del pensiero economico (Rome, 1994)Google Scholar; Brown, Peter, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West (Princeton, NJ, 2012)Google Scholar; Toneatto, Valentina, Les Banquiers du Seigneur (Rennes, 2012)Google Scholar; Evangelisti, Paolo, Il pensiero economico nel Medioevo (Rome, 2016)Google Scholar.

34 CChr.SL 122, 40 (1.6); Bede, Homilies, 57 (1.6).

35 For the Carolingian era, I checked Christianus Druthmarus Stabulensis, Expositio in Lucam Evangelistam, PL 106, cols 1503–14; Walafridus Strabo Fuldensis, Expositio in Quatuor Evangelia. In Lucam, PL 114, cols 893–904; Sedulius Scotus, In argumentum secundum Lucam expositiuncula, PL 103, cols 285–90. A list of medieval commentaries on Luke's Gospel is given by Mottoni, Barbara Faes de, ‘Introduzione’, in Sancti Bonaventurae Commentarius in Evangelium S. Lucae, ed. eadem, 4 vols (Rome, 1999–2012), 1: 7–26, at 19–20Google Scholar; this includes more than twenty commentaries written in the thirteenth century.

36 Hugonis cardinalis opera omnia, 8: fol. 139v.

37 Albertus Magnus, Enarrationes, 190 (2.1); see also Alberto Colli, ‘Considerazioni sul censimento di Cesare Augusto nelle esegesi di Ugo di St. Cher e Alberto il Grande’, in Censo, ceto, professione, 121–40.

38 Bonaventure, Works, 8/1: St Bonaventure's Commentary on the Gospel of Luke: Ch. 1–8, ed. Robert J. Karris (New York, 2001); the Latin text is in Sancti Bonaventurae Commentarius, ed. Faes de Mottoni.

39 St Bonaventure's Commentary, ed. Karris, 143 (8); Bede is quoted at ibid. 138 (4).

40 Ibid. 139–40 (5; translation slightly modified); Latin text in Sancti Bonaventurae Commentarius, ed. Faes de Mottoni, 1: 168 (5).

41 On the exegesis of these passages, in the framework of a discussion of Christian thought on political subjection, see Rizzi, Marco, Cesare e Dio. Potere secolare e potere spirituale in Occidente (Bologna, 2009)Google Scholar, which, however, never mentions Luke 2: 1–5.

42 Liber Extra, 10.3.39.2. See Landau, Peter, ‘Die Verteilung kirchlicher Abgaben im klassischen kanonischen Recht’, in Roumy, Franck et al., eds, Der Einfluss der Kanonistik auf die europäische Rechtskultur. 5: Das Recht der Wirtschaft (Köln, 2016), 223–42.Google Scholar

43 ‘Christ chose to be born of the Virgin Mary under an edict authorized by Rome. . . . Christ so chose in order that the son of God, being made man, might be enrolled (conscriberetur) as a man in that unique census (descriptione) of the human race. And by this action he approved the edict. . . . Therefore Christ by his actions gave us cause to believe that the edict was just that Augustus, exercising the authority of the Romans, had issued. And since to issue an edict justly implies having the jurisdiction (iurisdictio) to do so, it is necessary that one who approves a just edict also approves the jurisdiction of the one who issued it’: Dante, Monarchia, transl. Richard Kay (Toronto, ON, 1998), 183–5 (2.10.6, 8); Latin text ibid.

44 See Sara Menzinger, Verso la costruzione di un diritto pubblico cittadino, in Emanuele Conte and Sara Menzinger, eds, La Summa Trium Librorum di Rolando da Lucca (1195–1234). Fisco, politica, scientia iuris, Ricerche dell'Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma 8 (Rome, 2012), cxxv–ccxviii, at clvi.

45 Bartolus of Saxoferrato, Super digesto novo (Basel, 1563). On the use of theological sources made by Bartolus, see Quaglioni, Diego, ‘Diritto e teologia nel «Tractatus testimoniorum» bartoliano’, in idem, ‘Civilis sapientia’. Dottrine giuridiche e dottrine politiche fra Medioevo e Età moderna (Rimini, 1989), 107–25Google Scholar. The important anonymous treatise Questiones de iuris subtilitatibus, written in the twelfth century, had mentioned the census ordered by Augustus and taken a similar position: see Ryan, Magnus, ‘Political Thought’, in Johnston, David, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Roman Law (Cambridge, 2015), 423–51, at 428–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Ubaldis, Baldus de, Commentaria ad quatuor Institutionum libros (Lyon, 1585), fol. 10v (on.1.12.5)Google Scholar. The text was probably quite well known; it was printed at the beginning of the modern era under the name of Baldus, who was Bartolus's pupil and an important scholar of his time. On the true identity of the author of this commentary, see Maffei, Domenico, ‘Bartolomeo da Novara autore della Lectura Institutionum attribuita a Baldo degli Ubaldi?’, Rivista di storia del diritto italiano 63 (1990), 5–22.Google Scholar

47 Bartolus of Saxoferrato, Super digesto novo, D.49.15.24; my translation.