For he had a profound belief in his divine right and the sanctity of his person.
His views on church polity were dominated by his implicit belief in the divine right of kings (not of course the divine hereditary right of kings) which the Anglicans felt it necessary to set up against the divine right of popes.
The emperor is head of the state and the high priest, who sacrifices to Heaven on behalf of his people, but he can be deposed, and no divine right is inherent in certain families as in Japan and Turkey.
His vision of the ideal state was that of a patriarchial monarchy, surrounded and advised by the traditional estates of the realm - nobles, peasants, burghers - and cemented by the bonds of evangelical religion; but in which there should be no question of the sovereign power being vested in any other hands than those of the king by divine right.
From the end of the 2nd century the emperors encouraged Mithraism, because of the support which it afforded to the divine right of monarchs.
