I think taking certain Germanic tribes and equating them with modern-day countries is pretty anachronistic, and doing so ignores the enormous genealogical shifts and ethnic migrations that occurred in Europe between the 5th Century and today.
Also, the Lombards did not have a kingdom within the Roman Empire when it fell in 476AD.
Whatever decree you are referring to, none of them touched on the papacys temporal power. Justinian did not make the papacy into a political power, and he certainly did not do it in 538AD. Can you site any portion of Justinians legislation that discusses the papacy as a political entity?
What contemporary source told you that the papacy influenced the Roman armies to destroy three of the Arian tribes?
The Vandals, I agree, were destroyed completely by the Byzantines, no question about that.
The Ostrogoths, however, were most certainly not destroyed in 538AD. Simply read Procopius fifth book of History of the Wars and Thomas Hodgkins 6th Volume of Italy and Her Invaders; after the failed siege of Rome, the Ostrogoths forces in Italy still numbered around 45,000 men; the Byzantine forces, on the other hand, never exceeded more than 20,000. How do 45,000 Gothic soldiers somehow equal destroyed completely? And again, none of Justinians decrees dealing with the papacy went into effect in 538AD.
Now the Heruli under King Odovacer may have been destroyed in 493AD, but the mercenaries under him did not constitute the Heruli tribe. The actual Heruli kingdom lay beyond the Danube River, and it was only destroyed after the insurrection of the Arian Lombards around 511AD. The remaining Heruli were granted a confederate kingdom by Emperor Anastasius a few years later, and the Heruli began to convert to Catholicism after their king, Gretes, was baptized in Constantinople under Justinians supervision around 527AD. So the Heruli were converted, not destroyed.
Now Vittigis with the remainder of his army marched toward Ravenna; and he strengthened the fortified places with a great number of guards, leaving in Clusium, the city of Tuscany, one thousand men and Gibimer as commander, and in Urviventus an equal number, over whom he set Albilas, a Goth, as commander. And he left Uligisalus in Tudera with four hundred men. And in the land of Picenum he left in the fortress of Petra four hundred men who had lived there previously, and in Auximus, which is the largest of all the cities of that country, he left four thousand Goths selected for their valour and a very energetic commander, Visandus by name, and two thousand men with Moras in the city of Urbinus. There are also two other fortresses, Caesena and Monteferetran, in each of which he established a garrison of not less than five hundred men. Then he himself with the rest of the army moved straight for Ariminum with the purpose of laying siege to it.
(The Gothic War, Procopius, Book V, ch.XI)
The enemy, in his (Belisarius) view, were still essentially stronger than their own forces. By dexterity and good-luck the Goths had hitherto been successfully outgeneraled; but, let them only redeem their fortunes by one happy stroke, the opportunity for which might be offered them by the over-confidence of the Imperial officers, and, passing from despair to the enthusiasm of success, they would become dangerous, perhaps irresistible. To the mind of Belisarius the present aspect of the theatre of war brought grave anxiety. With Witigis and thirty or forty thousand Goths at Ravenna, with his nephew besieging Milan and dominating Liguria, with Osimo held by numerous and gallant Gothic garrison, with even Orviento, so near to Rome, still in the possession of the enemy, and with the Franks, of old so formidable to the Romans, hanging like a thunder-cloud upon the Alps, ready at any moment to sweep down on Upper Italy, there was danger the Imperial army might soon find itself surrounded by foes.
(Italy and Her Invaders, Thomas Hodgkin, Vol. VI, pg. 321)
Another new phenomenon in the sixth century is the arrival in Constantinople of individual barbarians, or of groups of barbarians, asking of their own accord to be baptized. A certain Gretes, king of the Germanic Heruls, came to the capital with his retinue and twelve kinsmen and asked to become a Christian. They were all welcomed by Justinian and were baptized.
(Romans and Barbarians, E.A. Thompson, pg. 242)
At about the same time (537AD), as the same Procopius records, the Heruls, who had already crossed the river Danube while Anastasius was steering the Roman realm, after receiving generous treatment from Justinian, who granted them large sums of money, became Christians en masse and changed to a milder lifestyle.
(The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, Michael Whitby, pg. 220)
Where exactly does that figure come from?
Wasnt the Roman Caesar a religio-political entity?
You need to establish that the papacy received primary power in 538AD. What are you basing this claim on? Again, I know of no legislation from Justinian that transferred any such power to the papacy. Justinian issued a Pragmatic Sanction in 554AD that empowered General Narses with temporal authority over all of Italy, not the papacy.
Also, you do realize that there were many popes between 538-1798 who were deposed and carried into exile, right? Some died while in jail, while others didnt. My favorite example is Pope Martin I, who was arrested by the emperors general in 653AD; he was thrown into prison, humiliated, made to stand trial for treason, was convicted, stripped of his clothes, flogged, and led through the streets loaded with chains. Martin was again imprisoned for around 3 months, then exiled to an island where he died a while later. The Roman See was left empty for about a year and two months.
If Pope Pius had experienced even half of those hardships in 1798, I believe historicists and Adventists would not hesitate for a moment to call that a fulfillment of bible prophecy; but because it happened in the 7th Century, Martins plight is rarely given any consideration. It seems to me that if deposition, exile, and death mark the end of the popes' primary power, then the papacy lost it a lot during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.
In Christ,
Acts6:5
