by
Damien F. Mackey
Part Four:
Carolingians a “new Israel”
“Therefore, once Charlemagne received the imperial title, the
concept of the Franks
as the “new Israel,” already circulating at court, began to
intensify”.
Constance B. Bouchard
So much
of French regal history, Merovingian and Carolingian, smacks of the Bible.
King
Chlodomer, for instance, smacks of the Elamite king, Chedorlaomer (Genesis
14:1):
Chedorlaomer and Chlodomer
Whilst
King Chilperic I has been likened to ‘Herod’:
King Chilperic I a 'Nero and Herod'
and, again, to the wicked Old Testament king, Ahab: “Gregory,
who as bishop of Tours had confrontations with Chilperic and Fredegund, implicitly
likens himself in books 5 and 6 to Elijah prophesying against Ahab and Jezebel …”. (Zachary S. Schiffman, The Birth of the Past, p. 123).
Along similar lines we find:
Queen Brunhild [as] the 'second Jezebel'
And, in
a supposedly later era, there is this classic:
Isabella of France, ‘iron virago’, ‘Jezebel’
To name
just a few.
Perhaps
even more apparent are the striking Davidic and Solomonic likenesses of the
Carolingian kings. See e.g. my:
“Emperor Charlemagne’s life bears some uncanny
likenesses to
that of the ancient King Solomon of Israel and his family”.
that of the ancient King Solomon of Israel and his family”.
and:
“For AD history to be fully
convincing and to be made to rest on firm foundations, it will need to undergo
a rigorous revision similar to the one that scholars have been undertaking for
BC history, with the application of a revised stratigraphy. There may be some
indications that the history of Charlemagne is yet far from having been
established on such firm stratigraphical foundations”.
No wonder that conspiracy theorists and authors, such as Dan Brown, have
had so much fun with the Merovingians and Carolingians!
To give just one intriguing example of this sort of thing, we read at:
The Carolingians were partly
of Merovingian descent, but more importantly, they represented the union of the
once divided lineage of the several families responsible for the formation of
Mithraism, mainly, the House of Herod, of Commagene, the Julio-Claudian
Emperors of Rome, and the Priest-Kings of Emesa. This lineage had survived in
two branches. Julia, the heiress of the Edomite royal bloodline, was the
daughter of Herod Phollio King of Chalcis, whose grandfather was Herod the
Great, and whose mother was the daughter of Salome. Julia married Tigranes King
of Armenia, the son of Alexander of Judea. Their son Alexander married Iotape
of Commagene, the daughter of Antiochus IV, from whom was descended St. Arnulf,
was a Frankish noble who had great influence in the Merovingian kingdoms as
Bishop of Metz, and who was later canonized as a saint, and who lived from 582
to 640 AD.[2]
Always
tracing it all back to biblical kings.
I find
it most interesting that there is a connection made here between an Antiochus
IV and the biblical king Herod the Great, since, recently, I have actually made
so bold as to identify the latter, Herod, as Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ of the
Maccabean era:
Jesus Christ born in Maccabean era
And I
suspect that the “Antiochus IV” named in the above quote is simply, as I have
written:
Antiochus IV 'Epiphanes' Doubled
Anyway,
Constance B. Bouchard has, in “Images of the Merovingians and Carolingians”, provided extra
support for the Israel-like-ness of the enigmatic Carolingians and Charlemagne:
Although historians do not denigrate the quite real
Carolingian achievements, they are now analyzing the many models, from the
kings of ancient Israel to the Caesars, to which the emperors were compared by
their publicists.
….
The Carolingians themselves appear to have been
very sensitive to the possibility that they would be considered rulers who
enjoyed divine favor only at the pleasure of the pope. Therefore, once
Charlemagne received the imperial title, the concept of the Franks as the “new
Israel,” already circulating at court, began to intensify. The choice of the
ancient Hebrew kings provided a model which would not be based on a connection to
the papacy.42 The kings of Israel had stood halfway between their people and
God, without needing the mediation of priests and certainly not of popes. As
the new David and the new Solomon, Charlemagne and his heir could take on a
similar position: one that required great responsibility, certainly, but one in
which no one stood between them and God.
Not
surprisingly, too, we find books and articles with titles like “The Franks as the New Israel?
Education for an Identity from Pippin to Charlemagne,” by M. Garrison (in Hen
and Innes (eds.), Uses of the Past).
