Eusebius of Caesarea's writings on Constantine I have been recognized as formative to the concept of Christian
emperorship in Byzantium.
TRANSFORMATION FROM TRADITIONAL
EMPERORSHIP TO MODERN PARTY POWER
Ritually composing an imperium required sanctifying the
emperorship through obeisance to all who held the office, even "Tartars." But in generating reverence for a nation-state, only those who met the criteria of being "Chinese" would necessitate ritual respect.
As President Bush spirals into the Nixonian abyss of self-proclaimed
emperorship - admitting to illegal wiretaps on American citizens and declaring himself above the law - the real issue concerns the checks and balances of presidential power.
The villain is 10th in line to the throne expert swordsman Lord Hiss Boo Rathbone (Aiden Gillen), whose accomplice Wu Chan (Donnie Yen) has designs on the
Emperorship of China.
At the same time, however, the
emperorship can also be viewed as an ostensibly timeless institution, with each individual emperor simply replacing the emperor who had preceded him.
The Ethiopians had lost everything but their identity, of which a calendar can be quite as vital an identifier as language or kingship -- and they had already lost their ancient Christian
emperorship before Geldof questioned their very calendar.
While marching south through Italy in civil war against other claimants to the
emperorship, Constantine saw what he took to be the image of a cross over the Sun.
Heim, `Les figures du prince ideal au IVe siecle: du type au modele', in Figures de l'Ancien Testament chez les Peres, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica, 2 (Strasbourg, 1989), has demonstrated that the interpretation of Christian
emperorship was significantly `toned down' between the time of Constantine and the end of the fourth century.
Oh, my goodness, how all this reminded him of reading Napoleon's Revenge in high school, about the disgraced prisoner on the island of Elba who for a while regains his lost
emperorship of France.
"There is no reason for Iran to be after growing an empire, the Islamic Revolution's thought is against
emperorship and its only concern is the honor of the Muslims and their unity to attain this honor; we are not after
emperorship and puppets and don't want to be as such," he said, responding to Kissinger's comments.
The product of months of American planning (and a few hurried days of American drafting), the constitution was partly intended by both MacArthur and State Department officials in Washington as a means of obviating the need to abolish the monarchy or arrest Hirohito by stripping the
emperorship of its powers, and thus removing a chief domestic criticism of the throne.
