About Arx Axiom
For the past few years Franklin Classical School has gathered together area classical, Christian, and home school families, administrators, and educators for this unique conference. Our goal is to fellowship and share ideas but more than that to build community together as we seek to live out and work out our peculiar callings. Because the best teachers are continual learners who simply love what they love in front of their students, we offer this opportunity for teachers to learn more about what they live as well as what they love. Ultimately, we aim to be a wellspring of refreshment, encouragement, and growth as we walk together, shepherding the next generation, in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
Arx Axiom: The Fortress of First Principles
by George Grant
By the middle of the fifth century the vaunted Roman army was little more than a shadow of its former self. Nevertheless, it exulted in its traditional role as the caretakers of the Roman cultural heritage. Particularly along the barbarian frontier, the garrisoned troops saw their strategic role as much more than maintaining a mere military presence. They were both the guardians and the exemplars of a particular way of life. They were thus to be the very sentinels of their once-glorious civilization.
This seemingly disparate two-fold task was apparently first enunciated by Julius Caesar during the earliest days of Rome’s imperial ambition. According to the brilliant biography by Scottish historian John Buchan, it was during his campaign in Gaul that Caesar charged his men with the task of not only defining and defending Roman borders against the encroachment of neighboring barbarian tribes but also of broadcasting the essential elements of Roman civilization abroad. Buchan wrote, “Caesar believed fully that the great destiny of the Roman ideal would only be realized as her best men engaged in the propagation of her culture as well as in the extension of her administration. It was upon the principles of civilization as well as the precepts of conquest that the fate of the Republic hinged.”
In the years, and even the centuries, that followed, Caesar’s conception was institutionalized as a presuppositional attribute of Roman existence: The army was responsible for simultaneously protecting and epitomizing the integrity of the Empire. It was to stand apart as both a partisan in the enforcement of Pax Romana—Roman peace—and as a paragon in the establishment of Probitas Romana—Roman virtue—for both bespoke Imperium Romana—Roman supremacy.
Eventually the phrase Arx Axiom—literally meaning “fortress of first principles” in Latin—emerged to describe this two-fold military tradition. The citadels of valor and might the Empire established all along the frontier and out into the hinterlands were not simply to serve as a buffer against the dangers of the wider world, they were to be vanguards of its very way of life.
During the twilight years of the Empire when it seemed that the notion of Arx Axiom was losing its efficacy, the great African patriarch, Augustine, revived its popularity. But instead of applying the tradition to the task of the Empire, he applied it to the task of the Church. Instead of positing a fiercely fought culture war between Romans and barbarians that necessitated a kind of strategic military posture, he posited an even more fiercely fought spiritual war between the City of God and the City of Man.
Thus for Augustine, Arx Axiom was the essential posture of the Christian worldview. It was bearing witness to the lost as a fortress of first principles and a citadel of truth.
For us, this word-picture serves as a powerful motivation to keep us on track—not just defending the faith and the faithful from the attacks of the barbarian hoards of modern Humanism but also broadcasting the good news that there is a substantive and resplendent covenant community where any and all may find sanctuary and refuge. Arx Axiom is thus more than an epigrammatic motto for us—it is a mission statement.