The Two Romes Doctrine is settled. The whiteboard has grown.
Beloved, the accusation is now everywhere. The President, they say, is the antichrist. The America new Rome thesis, popular this week among certain academic commentators and at least one retired Latin teacher in Bethesda, Maryland, holds that the Founders consciously designed the United States as a successor to the Roman Empire. Novus Ordo Seclorum on the dollar bill, they say, taken from the Roman poet Virgil. The Capitol named for the Capitoline Hill of Rome. The Federalist Papers signed under a Roman pseudonym. The eagle on the Great Seal lifted from the legions. A creek in Washington, D.C., named Tiber. The critics conclude from this that America is the prophesied revived Rome of Daniel 9:26, that Washington is the seat of the political beast, and that the President, with his golden statue at Doral and his ring of attending clergy, is the man of lawlessness whose coming the prophet warned us against.
This is a serious charge, beloved. I have received, by my count, three hundred and forty-seven emails on the matter since last week’s column. Two hundred and ninety-one were words of support, for which I give thanks to the Lord. The remaining fifty-six came from a small but determined group of readers who appear to have appointed themselves the New Rome Caucus.
Their leader is Mrs. Eleanor Ashworth of Bethesda, Maryland.
I addressed Mrs. Ashworth’s original letter in last week’s postscript, where I promised a fuller treatment. Beloved, I have now spent six days in my basement office, with my Bible open and my whiteboard expanded, working through the matter in full. I emerged this morning with clarity. The Lord has shown me what to say.
Mrs. Ashworth is wrong. The America new Rome thesis is, on closer inspection, the opposite of what she claims. And I will now explain why.
The Two Romes Doctrine
What Mrs. Ashworth and her associates fail to understand is a distinction any serious student of dispensational prophecy ought to grasp immediately. There are, in scripture and in history, two Romes.
There is imperial Rome. This is the Rome of Caesar and Augustus and Tiberius and Nero. The Rome that crucified our Lord. The Rome of legions and conquest and the worship of emperors as gods on coins. This is the Rome of Daniel 9:26, the Rome whose people destroyed the city and the sanctuary, the Rome whose revival the prophet warned us against.
And there is republican Rome. This is the Rome of Cincinnatus, who took dictatorial power in a crisis, saved the city, and voluntarily returned to his farm. The Rome of Brutus, who deposed the last king. The Rome of Cato the Younger, who chose death over tyranny. The Rome of public virtue, civic duty, and self-governance under law.
The Founders, beloved, quoted the republican Rome. They did not quote the imperial Rome. As the scholarly record confirms, the Founders drew their deepest inspiration not from the Caesars who exalted themselves above all that is called God, but from the citizens who tore down monarchies and went home to plow their fields.
This is the Two Romes Doctrine. I did not invent it. It is implicit in the work of Hal Lindsey. It is implicit in the work of Tim LaHaye. It was taught at Lighthouse Bible Institute, where I myself received my certificate. And it resolves the entire question Mrs. Ashworth has raised.
Yes, America is in a sense a new Rome. But it is the new republican Rome. The good Rome. The anti-imperial Rome. The Rome that opposed the Rome of prophecy.
A Faithful Answer To Mrs. Ashworth’s Specifics
I will now address Mrs. Ashworth’s items, one by one, with the patience of a man who has spent six days on the matter.
Novus Ordo Seclorum. Yes, the motto on our currency is taken from the Roman poet Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue. But here is what Mrs. Ashworth, in her years of Latin teaching, has somehow failed to mention. The Fourth Eclogue is a messianic poem. It prophesies the birth of a divine child who will usher in a golden age of peace. Christian theologians from Augustine to Constantine to Dante have read it as a pagan foreshadowing of Christ Himself. Putting Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue on the dollar bill is therefore not a celebration of imperial Rome at all. The Founders were quoting a Christian prophecy, properly understood. The math, again, works.
The Capitol. Yes, the building is named for the Capitoline Hill of Rome. But Mrs. Ashworth does not mention what happened on the Capitoline Hill. It was the seat of the Roman Senate, the deliberative body that resisted Caesar. The Founders, in naming our legislature’s home for it, were honoring the senate that opposed tyranny. To suggest otherwise is to read history backward, which I will not do.
Publius. Yes, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay signed the Federalist Papers as Publius. But Publius Valerius Publicola was the Roman who deposed the last king of Rome and helped found the Republic. He is famous in history specifically as a destroyer of tyrants. By choosing his name, the Founders were declaring themselves anti-monarchical and anti-imperial. Mrs. Ashworth has, in citing Publius, accidentally proved my point.
The eagle. Yes, the eagle on the Great Seal is a Roman symbol. But the American eagle, as you can see on any quarter, holds an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other. The Roman imperial eagle held only the lightning bolts of Jupiter and the standards of conquest. A different bird entirely, theologically speaking.
Tiber Creek. Yes, a tributary of the Potomac was apparently called Tiber Creek by some early surveyor. This was never an official designation. It was, beloved, a surveyor’s whim. We do not interpret prophecy through the doodles of seventeenth-century mapmakers.
Cincinnatus. And here, beloved, is the strongest argument. George Washington famously modeled himself on Cincinnatus, the Roman general who took emergency power, saved the republic, and then voluntarily relinquished it. He gave up command. He went home to his farm. He refused to be king when offered the crown. Washington did the same. He stepped down after two terms. He went home to Mount Vernon.
The American model is therefore not the imperial Rome of Caesar, who seized power and kept it. The American model is the republican Rome of Cincinnatus, who gave power up. The whole purpose of the American founding, in the Founders’ own minds, was to establish the opposite of the imperial Rome that scripture warns us about. Case, once again, closed.
A Word On The America New Rome Empire Question
Now, beloved, I know what some of the more cynical members of the New Rome Caucus will say. They will point to the current President. They will note the gold. They will note the loyalty oaths. They will note the family running businesses while their patriarch holds the Oval Office. They will invoke the academic jargon of “patrimonialism,” which certain Catholic commentators have lately taken to citing. They will say: Pastor Wayne, your Two Romes Doctrine is fine, but is this the republican Rome you mean?
Beloved, yes.
The President has not declared himself emperor. He has not been deified by the Senate. He has not minted coins bearing his own image. Well, technically the statue, but the statue is not on coins. He has not been worshipped as a god. He has not formally established a hereditary succession, although his sons are involved in some matters. He has not adopted the title imperator. He simply has, for the moment, a golden statue at his privately owned resort, a faith adviser comparing him to Christ at the Easter podium, a circle of pastors blessing his likeness in a public ceremony, his name on the building where foreign delegations and PGA tournaments pay to play golf, and a tendency among his supporters to refer to him in terms that, taken in isolation, might seem to a careless reader to constitute a cult.
These are surface features only. The underlying structure remains republican. Mrs. Ashworth, in citing patrimonialism, has confused trappings with substance. The discerning believer must learn to tell the difference.
A Further Note On Mrs. Ashworth Herself
I would like, briefly, to return to the matter of Mrs. Ashworth.
Since publishing last week’s column, I have continued my study of her materials. She maintains, beloved, a YouTube channel devoted to Latin pedagogy. It has fourteen hundred subscribers, which is, I note, two hundred more than my own. I have watched, in the course of my research, approximately nineteen of her videos. Tammy has asked whether this is necessary. I have explained that it is.
Mrs. Ashworth has a cat. The cat is named Cicero. This, beloved, is a Roman name.
She dedicates several videos to a “dear friend Hortensia,” who is also a retired Latin teacher. The two women appear to have an extensive correspondence, which they discuss on camera. Whether this represents anything more than a professional friendship between two former educators, I am not in a position to say. I will only note that Mrs. Ashworth and Hortensia have recorded a joint episode titled “The Joys Of The Aeneid Reading Group.” I have watched it. Twice.
Her email signature is in Latin. “Per aspera ad astra,” which translates as “through hardship to the stars.” It is not, beloved, a scriptural phrase. It does not appear in the Bible. It is, in fact, attributed variously to Seneca and to Virgil’s contemporary Horace. None of these men were Christians. I make no specific accusation. I only note that the phrase Mrs. Ashworth has chosen to end her correspondence with is the rallying cry of pre-Christian Stoicism, which is a worldview that, while admirable in certain features, ultimately denies the resurrection.
I would encourage Mrs. Ashworth, in Christian charity, to pray on this.
A Family Note
The whiteboard, beloved, has now expanded to cover the wall.
I have purchased a second whiteboard from the office supply store on Atlanta Highway. Tammy was with me. She did not speak in the car on the way home. I attributed this to the heat.
Last evening, I came up from the basement at 9:45 p.m. for dinner. Tammy had left a plate of chicken and rice in the microwave with a note that read, “There is a plate in the microwave.” She was, at that moment, at her sister Linda’s house in Buford. The note did not specify when she would return. Kyle was in his room. The door was closed. I knocked and asked if he wanted to hear about the Two Romes Doctrine. He said, through the door, that he was streaming.
I prayed over the chicken. I returned to the basement. The work continues.
In Conclusion
So let me say this in closing, beloved. The President is not the antichrist. The Two Romes Doctrine is settled. Mrs. Ashworth has been answered, in love and with the patience of a man who has watched nineteen of her videos. The discerning believer can rest.
I came up from the basement again at 3 a.m. this morning. The light in the bedroom was on. The door was closed. I returned downstairs.
I will continue to study. I will continue to discern. I will continue to defend the President against these baseless allegations. The whiteboard has grown. The chicken in the microwave has gone cold. Tammy has not yet returned from Linda’s.
Heaven help us.
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