What do the Goths have to do with the establishment of the date 538 as the begining date of the 1260 years of papal rule?
What happened is that the war with the Ostrogoths created a POLITICAL VACUUM in Rome. The Goths who held the political power were turned out of Rome. The Emperor who had reclaimed the political power in Rome was busy in the east -- absent so to speak. Thus BY DEFAULT the papacy (who already had some land and influence PRIOR to this) BEGAN to fill the VACUUM and exercise political power.
Justinian had codified a law in 534 that included a part saying the pope was the "head of all churches" and that he was to punish the heretics. But the emperor still held the perogative as to who the heretics were-- as Pope Vigilius soon found out when he was exiled and treated like a prisoner by command of the emperor, and even excommunicated by the Patriarch of Constantinople.
But all that is not the issue. The transition point is the creating of a VACUUM of political power in Rome which the Papacy than began to fill.
Even though the Goths weren't totally driven out of Italy in 538 itself, the point where Imperial Rome reasserted itself in Rome is the important point -- and that was 538. From there the history of the Ostergoths in Italy was all downhill till they faded away in 555. And the history of the papacy was to climb into a position of politcal/religious power that was to mold and influence Europe for the next 1260 years.
The Ostergoths were one of the three horns in Daniel 7's prophecy that had to be uprooted before the papacy began its 1260 years.
Uprooting the three horns were as follows: 1. Odovacar, that powerful chieftain of the Heruli, the Sciri, and the Rugii, who had conquered Italy -- 2. The Ostergoths who overthrew Odovacar and took control of Italy, and then were chased out by Justinian's general. 3. The Vandels who were to the south and would have taken over the vacuum had they not also been conquered by Justianian's general prior to his war against the Ostergoths.
Once these three horns were uprooted -- there was a political VACUUM in Rome, since the Emperor was in the east and busy there.
It was the VACUUM in political power that enabled the papacy to emerge That's why 538 marks the starting point of his 1260 years.
That's when the political vacuum was made which allowed the growth of the papacy into a powerful church state TO BEGIN.
538 A.D., if looked at in isolation seems rather hard to defend. However, when it's historical significance is studied within the context of a growing papal supremacy it can readily be seen as a key turning point in that history.
Rome wasn't built in a day (or even a year), and neither was the papacy. It was a process. But in that process there are key times that mark a transition.
We see the papacy emerging --
34-312 A.D. the bishop of Rome was basically an equal with all the other bishops of the various churches. There was NO political power invested in the bishops -- Pagan Rome ruled and often persecuted the church.
However even in those early years we see the Roman bishop grasping for greater influence. In 195 A.D. we see the Roman bishop Victor starting to use his geological position to try and force disagreeing bishops to change their time to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection. Already the existing Roman political system was influencing the evolving Roman ecclesiastical system.
312 A.D. marks a great transition point. The Roman emperor, Constantine is converted and started granting great privileges to the church and to the Roman bishop. Yet from Constantine's time to Justinian's time, emperors played an active part in shaping the church, even presiding over their important councils. By 392 pagan cults were outlawed and Christianity became the state relgion.
But now we see the Roman Empire in decline, even as the Roman bishop and church is gaining in power. 410 A.D., Rome is sacked by Alaric and his Visigoths. Though Alaric withdrew from Rome again, it was the beginning of the end for western Roman Empire.
In the years immediately following 410 A.D., Augustine writes a book called "The City of God" where he censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods.
He developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God distinct from the material City of Man. With the temporal power of the papacy bringing the world into this spiritual "city", writing that even if the earthly rule of the Empire was imperiled, it was the City of God that would ultimately triumph. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview.
At the same time we see the Roman popes claiming more and more authority. Leo I (440-461) claimed for the pope universal and supreme authority over the Church. He was the first pope to claim to be Peter's heir.
A.D. 476 saw the last Roman Emperor lose his throne. This is generally known as the "fall of Rome". Now Odoacer and later the Ostrogoths controlled most of Italy. The Ostrogoths were Christians but not papal Christians.
From 476-538 the papal church was surrounded by pagan as well as Arian Christians powers, thus limiting it's ability to wield it's power. It continued to look to the eastern Emperor for support, as well as continuing to claim more and more authority over princes and even over Emperors. But circumstances kept them from fully exercising those claims.
508 A.D. marks a real break-through for the papacy. The leader of the Franks, Clovis, "converted" to Papal Christianity. It would be the Franks, of all the German tribes, that would wield the most power during the middle ages, and it was this power that helped the papacy rise by fighting "holy wars" against "heretics" and pagans. It was the Franks that would bring some unification to Europe over which the papacy could grow and exerise it's primacy.
But prior to 538, Rome was still under the control of Arian Christian Rulers. One more step was necessary for the papacy to exercise all the claims it had made for itself. Rome had to be freed.
So we have Justinian -- his aim was to restore the Roman Empire and establish a unified christianity within that empire by abolishing all heresies. In his code of laws the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope was officially legalized, and in the same year (533) Justinian made an edict against all heretics. He then preceded to destroy the two powerful Arian Christian nations. The Vandels in Northern Africa (south of Italy) and the Ostrogoths in Italy itself.
In 538, for the first time since the end of the western Roman emperors, the city of Rome was free from the domination of an Arian kingdom.
It was the VACUUM in political power that enabled the papacy to emerge
No, there was no great sudden magical change in the papacy itself -- The war continued for many more years -- The papacy still suffered set backs as it developed and exercised its political power. Even Justinian had no intentions of giving the papacy temperal power over the west, he wanted that for himself, but circumstances kept the eastern emperors too busy in the east to pay much attention to the west.
BUT 538 -- it was a KEY TURNING POINT.
The door was open so to speak -- Everything was in place for the Roman Church to effectively exercise and further develop its ecclesiastical supremacy and fulfil the 1260 years when it ruled over kings and people.
It was a political vacuum in Italy that was necessary for the papacy to fully emerge. And for 1260 years the papacy worked hard to keep Italy free from a native political government so they could fill that vacuum.
Here is a quote from the historian, HenryMilman, who wrote in "History of Latin Christianity" Vol.1, book 3, chapter 4, from the last two paragraphs.
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The conquest of Italy by the Greeks (Justinian's armies) was, to a great extent at least the work of the Catholic clergy.Their impatience under a foreign and Arian yoke was by no means surprising….
The overthrow of the Gothic kingdom was to Italy an unmitigated evil.A monarch like Witiges or Tortila would soon have repaired the mischiefs cause by the degenerate successors of Theodoric, Athelaric, and Theodotus.In their overthrow began the fatal policy of the Roman see, fatal at least to Italy. () Which never would permit a powerful native kingdom to unite Italy, or a very large part of it, under one dominion.Whatever it may have been to Christendom, the Papacy has been the eternal, implacable foe of Italian independence and Italian unity….
On every occasion the Goths, the Lomabards, as later the Normans and the house of Aragon, found their deadliest enemies in the popes.As now from the east, then from beyond the Alps, they {the popes} summoned some more remote potentate…
Rome, jealous of all temporal sovereignty but her own, for centuries yielded up, or rather made Italy a battlefield to the transalpine and the stranger; and at the same time so secularized her own spiritual supremacy as to confound altogether the priest and the politician, to degrade absolutely and almost irrevocably the kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world.
