Letter 6

From: Faustus, Bishop of Riez To: Gracchus, Count of Trier Date: ~476 AD Context: A letter to a high Gallic official, combining theological and political concerns in the way characteristic of late antique episcopal correspondence. Faustus, bishop, to the most distinguished Count Gracchus. Your letter found me at a moment when I was thinking precisely about the questions you raise, which I take as a sign of providential timing rather than coincidence. The question of how a Christian exercises political authority — how you do what the count of Trier must do, in a world that is increasingly chaotic and where the Christian empire seems to be dissolving around us — is not one the church has thought about as carefully as it should. We have an elaborate theology of grace and a relatively thin theology of governance. Let me offer one thought. The Roman tradition of law — the tradition you represent, insofar as the count of Trier is still a Roman official — is itself a gift to be protected. The barbarian kingdoms that are replacing Roman authority are not universally worse in every respect. In some things they are arguably better. But they lack the developed legal tradition that Rome built over centuries, and that tradition is not just a human achievement. It is one of the ways that reason — which is the image of God in the human person — has been applied to the problem of how people can live together. Preserve what you can of it. Not out of mere conservatism, but because the people under your authority need the protection of consistent, knowable law, and that protection is a form of charity. I pray for your work. Faustus of Riez