Eudoxia - Princess of the Vandals

The modern Basiclia in École Biblique Jerusalem 

Built on location of Aelia Eudoxia's Church of St. Stephens

Queen of the heart

The fate of the Kingdom of Vandals was to succumb to the superpower of East Roman Empire and to vanish from the surface of the earth. The Vandal branch of Arian Christianity was cut off the Wine tree of Christ and disappears with hardly a memory of it surviving in the Church.

In this momentous story there is one particularly interesting woman whose central role in the events of pruning the Vine tree is not so easy to notice. Men have written the history of Goths and Vandals, Jordanes, Procopius and others, and they tend to concentrate on manly things, theological controversies, wars and politics.

But the truth is that behind the major historical events are things that happen in secret in human hearts. And women have had some impact on the hearts of men, as we know. Jesus Christ knows this and uses skilfully family connections and webs of social relations to advance His kingdom about which He once said:

And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:20-21 ASV

Young Eudoxia
Our heroine Eudoxia (or Eudocia) was born in 439 silver spoon in her mouth. She was the eldest daughter in the royal family of Valentinian III, Emperor of Western Rome from 425 to his murder by two Scythians on 16 March 455.

Her mother Licinia Eudoxia (422-462) was also of the highest royal blood, her father being nothing less than the Emperor of East Rome, Theodosius II the Younger (401-450). This man built those amazing Theodosian Walls of Constantinople that withstood thousand years of fierce attacks and still stand in today's Istanbul. He is also remembered as an important lawmaker as Theodosian Code affected the lives of everyone in the Byzantine empire.

Her grandmother was another highly influential - and little known - woman in the Kingdom of Christ, Aelia Eudoxia (401-460) the wife and supporter of emperor Theodosius II. She was banished from the court and moved to Jerusalem on 443 and there on October 20 460. She was buried in the Church of St. Stephens. Today, the church is in the area of the famed Dominican monastery and research centre École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem (EBAF) in the eastern part of the city.

The marriage of Eudoxia's parents on 424 must have been quite an occasion: the groom was a manly four years old and the bride barely two!

So when young Eudoxia was betrothed at the age of five to become the future wife of Huneric, the son of the mighty king of Vandals Genseric, she was already quite old - relatively speaking...


Serious complications with marriage plans
Things did not always go quite as planned by men and women in high places.

Little Eudoxia was growing up as princesses do and eagerly waited in the Carthage as the future queen. Her early engagement was a tool of diplomacy with the intention to strengthen the friendship between East Roman Empire and the scary Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.

But when Eudoxia was 16 years old her father was murdered. A very smart and stupid man called Petronius Maximus (396- 31 May 455) was behind the schemes and promptly took power in Constantinople - for an amazing total of seventy five days.

This fellow did not waist time. He forced the widow of Valentinian III, Licinia Eudoxia, to marry him. That might still have been okay in the politics of the time but then he did something you do not do with Vandals - he cancelled the engagement of Eudoxia with the son of their king.

Instead of Huneric, Eudoxia would be married to Palladium, the son of Petronius Maximus.

Huh. Maximum stupidity!

It did not matter that angry mob stoned Petronius to death on May 31 455. Insulted king Genseric was already sailing with his troops and he was really on bad mood.

Soon the entire city of Rome would be sacked in such a horrific way that the world still remembers it trembling. After all, that is from where the word "vandalism" comes.

And yes, the girl was taken to Carthage and married five years later, on 460, to Huneric as had been agreed earlier on. Eudoxia was 21 years old when she became the First Lady of Carthage.


Seed of destruction
Things did not go quite as planned by men and women in high places.

Princess Eudoxia was not some weakling from corrupt Roman nobility - no! She obviously was an exceptional woman, a powerful character who could withstand the force and fanaticism of her Arian husband, King Huneric. He is remembered as the most active persecutor of Nicene Christians in Vandal Kingdom.

Eudoxia kept her faith and her son, Hilderic, wanted to be a Nicene Christian following in his heart the faith of her mother and not of his father. Such conversion was officially forbidden in Huneric's kingdom. We can only imagine what kind of tensions there were in the court and how the education of the boy - especially his Christian education - developed at these tumultuous years.

We see hear the real King of Hearts at action but quietly and secretly, behind the scenes... where it matters.

And yes, this was the seed of destruction that led eventually to the utter destruction of Vandal Kingdom.

For it was the royal messing up by Arian Christian Gelimer with the son of Eudoxia - king Hilderic (523-530), the friend of Emperor Justine the Great - that eventually was the cause of the utter destruction of the Vandal Kingdom.

To Jerusalem
The writers of the wikipedia article on Princess Eudocia say

At some time following the birth of Hilderic, Eudocia withdrew to Jerusalem due to religious differences with her Arian husband. She died there and was buried in the sepulcher of her grandmother, Aelia Eudocia.

This is not what I wrote above claiming that Eudoxia was present in the court of Carthage and influenced the Christian education of her son. Historical sources are needed to decide who is right in this matter!

It is truly appropriate that Princess Eudoxia was buried in the same Church of St. Stepehens that her grandmother had built and was buried in. The two ladies were obviously cut from the same noble and upright tree and the King of Kings gave them both crucial but very different roles in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Christ and Vandals

Siliqua of Vandal king Genseric (389-477)

wikimedia

Let us work a little to understand the role of the famous Vandals during the Migration Period in connection with the Kingdom of Heaven. After all, who has not heard of vandalism?

Name and origins
It is possible that like the Gothic tribes also Vandals originally came from Sweden. Their tribal name may survive in the parish of Vendel in Uppland.  The village is on the large Vendelsjö lake and there is also a Vendel river. (Other theories about the name also exist). During the 3rd century A.D. they already had reached the borders of Rome and had at this time probably mixed with other Germanic and Slavic tribes. The two main groups were called by Roman historians and geographers  Silingi and Hasdingi.

Wikipedia tells:

According to Jordanes' Getica, the Hasdingi came into conflict with the Goths around the time of Constantine the Great. At the time, the Vandals were living in lands later inhabited by the Gepids, where they were surrounded "on the east [by] the Goths, on the west [by] the Marcomanni, on the north [by] the Hermanduri and on the south [by] the Hister (Danube)." The Vandals were attacked by the Gothic king Geberic, and their king Visimar was killed. The Vandals then migrated to Pannonia, where after Constantine the Great (about 330) granted them lands on the right bank of the Danube, they lived for the next sixty years.

Around this time, the Hasdingi had already been Christianized. During the Emperor Valens's reign (364–78) the Vandals accepted, much like the Goths earlier, Arianism, a belief that was in opposition to that of Nicene orthodoxy of the Roman Empire. Yet there were also some scattered orthodox Vandals, among whom was the famous magister militum Stilicho, the chief minister of the Emperor Honorius (384-423).
wikipedia

Christ and Vandals
How did Christ reach the Vandals so that we find them as Christians already at the time of Constantine the Great?

We apparently have no information about this but the process may have been similar to what happened with the Goths who raided Roman territory and took Christian captives, especially women.

However, there was no Wulfila. Vandal speech has never been written down, as far as I know, and they never not the New Testament in their own language. Since church historians wrote about the persecution of Nicene Christians by Arian Vandals in north-Africa we see that also in this they resembled the Goths by confessing the teaching of Arius.

Vandals had a different kind of deep impact on the Kingdom of God - for they, together with Alans, attacked Frankish tribes in Gaul. This fight was crucial for Clovis who became a Christian as a consequence of his prayer victory. (We shall return to the fundamentally important Franks later.)

In 406 the Vandals advanced from Pannonia travelling west along the Danube without much difficulty, but when they reached the Rhine, they met resistance from the Franks, who populated and controlled Romanized regions in northern Gaul. Twenty thousand Vandals, including Godigisel himself, died in the resulting battle, but then with the help of the Alans they managed to defeat the Franks, and on December 31, 406 the Vandals crossed the Rhine, probably while it was frozen, to invade Gaul, which they devastated terribly. Under Godigisel's son Gunderic, the Vandals plundered their way westward and southward through Aquitaine.
wikipedia

Hispania and North-Africa

wikimedia

Vandals continued vandalizing southern Europe and reached Spain in 409. There the Alans wanted to join them so that their army may have reached over 80.000 men (estimates vary). After they established their kingdom in Carthage the title of the ruler was Rex Wandalorum et Alanorum.

"From around 1540, the Swedish king had been styled, Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex ("King of the Suecii (Swedes), Goths (Geats) and Vandals (Wends)"). Carl XVI Gustaf, dropped the title in 1973 and now styles himself simply as King of Sweden." (wikipedia)

Death of St Augustine
With the leadership of their most powerful leader Genseric (389-477) they crossed Gibraltar in 429 and conquered North-Africa. 430 AD they laid heavy siege on Hippo Regius where St. Augustine was Bishop of a Nicene Church.

It may well be that the hardships brought by the long siege by Christian Vandals led to the death of that man of God, Saint Augustine of Hippo: "On 28 August 430, three months into the siege, St. Augustine (who was 75 years old) died".(wikipedia)

Summary

Attacked by the Romans and the Suevi, the Vandals left Galicia about 420 and settled in southern Spain, which have got its name Andalusia from the Vandals. They did not stay in Andalusia for long however, their new king Gaiseric (also called Geiseric or Genseric) led them to north Africa 429 where they created a powerful state. Carthage was seized 439 and made into their new capitol and their navy that was built shortly afterwards made the the Mediterranean unsafe and conquered all large islands in the western Mediterranean. The sacking of Rome would much later result in the term "vandalism". But the Vandal kingdom was weakened after Gaiseric's death 477 and it was easily conquered by the East Roman Empire 533-534.

• 400-428 Gunderic
• 428-477 Gaiseric
• 477-484 Huneric
• 484-496 Gunthamund
• 496-523 Thrasamund
• 523-530 Hilderic
• 530-534 Gelimer

Historical Atlas

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For a recent scholarly discussion on the subject see, for example, this on-line article
(To read the article you need a membership to library society or you can purchase 24h rights to read it)

Christianity and the Vandals in the reign of Geiseric
Peter Heather July 27 2011
Institute of Classical Studies. School of Advanced Studies, University of London