Expression

Gaius Octavius (63 BC-AD 14), Julius Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted heir, became, as Augustus, the most consequential ruler in Roman history. He learned from his great-uncle's fate: where Caesar grasped openly at kingship and was killed for it, Augustus held supreme power while carefully wearing the mask of the Republic, calling himself merely princeps, 'first citizen.' He ended a century of civil war, reorganized the provinces and the army, reformed taxation and building, and boasted (on a monument called the Res Gestae, his own account of his deeds) that he 'found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.' Above all, he gave the Roman world the Pax Romana, the long peace into which Christ was born. The Gospel of Luke names him directly: 'In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled' (Luke 2:1), the very census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. So the most powerful man on earth, without knowing it, played a part in the birth of the King of Kings in a stable. Augustus was a brilliant, calculating statesman, and his reign reminds us how God can use even the plans of emperors to accomplish his own. Yet his story also shows the limits of earthly power: he secured an empire that would one day fall, while the child born during his census founded a kingdom that 'will have no end.'

When the first Christians gathered in their house churches across the Roman world, they sang. Their music did not come from the trumpets of the legions or the water organ of the arena, but from the synagogue and the Psalms. The earliest Christian song was psalmody, the singing or chanting of the Psalms of the Old Testament, the same prayers Jesus himself had prayed, often in a simple, unaccompanied style that let the sacred words shine. St. Paul urged the early believers to address one another 'in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart' (Ephesians 5:19). This vocal, word-centered, unaccompanied singing was very different from the loud, instrumental music of pagan Roman entertainment, which Christians generally avoided as tied to the games and idol worship. From these humble beginnings, sung in homes and catacombs, would grow over the next centuries one of the glories of Western civilization: Gregorian chant, the pure, flowing, unaccompanied sacred song of the Latin Church. We will study its full flowering later in the year. For now, notice the pattern of the whole unit repeating in music: the Greco-Roman world provided the soil and the language, but the seed, sung prayer rooted in Scripture, came from the faith, and it grew into something entirely new and beautiful.

This week's writing assignment is introduced today and may carry over as homework. Your task: write an accurate, fair summary of how the Roman Empire became the 'fullness of time' for the coming of Christ (see the full assignment and rubric). Summary writing is a vital skill, you will use it in every subject, and it is harder than it looks. The goal is to capture the main ideas of a longer story briefly, in your own words, without distortion or opinion. Today's work session: (1) From your Day 1 notes, list the 4-5 main points of the story (Augustus ends civil war and founds the Empire; the Pax Romana brings peace; the Empire is united by roads, languages, and law; Christ is born within it; the Gospel then spreads along those roads). (2) Cross out any minor detail that is not essential. (3) Put the main points in a sensible order. (4) Begin writing them as your own sentences, do not copy phrases from your reading or this lesson; close the book and say each point in your own words first. Remember the rubric: accurate, condensed, in your own words, fair and neutral, with clean grammar and correct end punctuation.

Return to Peter and Paul. They carried the Gospel to the very heart of the empire we studied all unit, and there, in Rome itself, they gave their lives. Consider the whole journey of these eight weeks: from the first cities of Mesopotamia, through Egypt and Israel, India and China, the genius of Greece, and the power of Rome, all of it, the Church teaches, was leading toward one moment, the 'fullness of time,' when God sent his Son. The roads Rome built, the Greek tongue Alexander spread, the longing for truth in the philosophers and even in the pagan altars, were like a world holding its breath. Peter and Paul are the bridge from that ancient world into the age of the Church, which we begin next week. They model the peace of those who have found what all of history was searching for. Close by recalling your peacemaker challenge from Day 2.