I

JUSTINIAN

 

THE Emperor Justinian (483-565) marks an epoch in the history of the Empire and the Church. He was a nephew of the Macedonian peasant Justin, who became commander-in­chief of the imperial guard and in 518 was placed upon the imperial throne. The uncle needed the help of his well-educated and capable nephew, and Justinian really governed in the name of Justin until he succeeded him in 527. And he ruled so well that he has been fitly called “the last great Roman emperor”. Constantinople was torn with factions and distressed with religious schisms, but remained the centre of a unique art and a far-spreading civilization. Justinian determined to make it the undisputed heiress of ancient Rome and supreme over the barbarous kingdoms of the West. His abilities were hardly inferior to his ambitions, and his industry was so unceasing that a contemporary called him “the Emperor that never sleeps”.

The Empire was beset by enemies on every side, but with the aid of two singularly capable generals, Belisarius and Narses, Justinian was able to rehabilitate imperial authority in the West. In 533 Belisarius crushed the Vandal kingdom in North Africa. Barely ten years later the south-east of Spain was wrested from the Visigoths, and in 553 Narses broke the resistance of the Ostrogoths in central Italy. The Mediterranean was nearly a Roman sea once more. Unfortunately these successes in the West were gained at the expense of grave difficulties in the East. The power of the Persians became a serious menace under the leadership of King Khusrau (Chosroes) Nushirvan, who pillaged Antioch in 540, and Justinian had not only to sign truces, but finally, in 562, had to make a treaty undertaking to pay tribute to the 'Great King'. On the whole, however, Justinian established his Empire firmly and proudly in the midst of vassal tribes from Armenia and Thebes to Venice and Tangiers. He effected the reform and consolidation of Roman law, infusing into it a more Christian spirit; he reorganized the administration of justice; and he built roads, aqueducts, and hundreds of fortresses to defend the frontiers.

With heathenism he dealt severely. It was now the religion of the 'pagani', the village folk of the remoter districts, but often cherished in secret by others, even among the best educated classes. At Athens, in particular, Platonism still survived, though it was of an eclectic kind, absorbing Christian morality and popular magic. The Athenian school closed in 529, and the professors went to breathe a freer atmosphere at the court of Persia. Here they learned what paganism was when unabashed, and they returned to Europe in disgust. For the more ignorant heathen people of Asia Minor Justinian found a most capable missionary in the person of a monk of Amida, John, who won the title of 'John of Asia'. He founded a monastery in an abandoned pagan temple near Tralles, and induced thousands of peasants to break their idols, cut down their sacred trees and receive Christian baptism. Though a cultivated speaker and writer, he fanatically aided the Emperor’s policy of suppressing heresy, and he boasted that he had set fire to Montanist temples and thrown into the flames the bones of the false prophets of the second century, Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla. He was really a Monophysite, but the Government would not permit any converts to Christianity to learn anything which contradicted orthodoxy. And in fact to keep the balance between orthodoxy and Monophysitism was the great problem which beset the Emperor in his ecclesiastical policy.

STATE OF THE ORIENTAL CHURCH IN THE SIXTH CENTURY

Without some knowledge of that problem it is as impossible to understand the history of the sixth century as it is impossible to understand the history of the sixteenth century without a knowledge of Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.

Eastern Christianity in the time of Justinian was divided into three great sections, the Orthodox Catholic, the Nestorian, and the Monophysite. All three sections worshipped Jesus Christ as an essentially divine Person. But they were divided with regard to His human nature. The Orthodox held that He was perfectly human as well as perfectly divine. They formed the largest body of the Christians who spoke Greek, and they had the support of Rome. The Nestorians followed the doctrine of Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was excommunicated by the Council of Ephesus in 431. They insisted upon the complete humanity of Christ in such a way as to threaten the reality of His Deity.

The Monophysites followed in the steps of the Abbot Eutyches, who was excommunicated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and they taught the antithesis of Nestorianism. Relying upon some ambiguous words of St. Cyril, the great opponent of Nestorius, they held that the humanity of Christ was changed by or changed into His Deity, so as to become in some degree non-human. Nestorianism drew most of its supporters from the Syrians and Persians, Monophysitism was popular in Egypt, Syria, and Armenia: It was advocated by two opposing but singularly dexterous writers, Severus and Julian of Halicarnassus. Severus held that the flesh of Christ was capable of corruption until the Resurrection. Julian held that His flesh throughout His life was incorruptible. The opponents of Julian's view nicknamed it Aphthartodocetism, the doctrine of an incorruptible illusion. All the above views were held with passionate conviction, and advocated not only with self-sacrificing zeal, but also with ingenuity and learning.

Now, Justinian was an ardent theologian, and he saw, like Constantine, that if the Empire was to be one, the Church of the Empire must be one. And if his predominance over the West was to be secure, the religion of the Church must be the orthodox religion of the Pope. So a reunion was quickly effected between East and West, and in 519 a schism which had lasted thirty-five years was healed. Pope Hormisdas sent legates to Constantinople with a carefully prepared formulary in which Nestorius, Eutyches, and all their partisans were anathematized, and the apostolic See was declared to have always preserved the faith inviolate. The patriarch signed the document, and the names of the erring Monophysite Emperors, Zeno and Anastasius, were erased from the diptychs, or tablets from which were recited the names of persons to be prayed for in the liturgy.

On becoming Emperor, in 527, Justinian acted as the tutor of the Church. He not only protected it, he instructed it by edicts sent to the five patriarchs, the Patriarch of Rome being inevitably brought within the sphere of his influence. In the East the patriarchs, like modern English bishops, were elected by the Church, but not until they had been nominated by the Government.

At Rome the Pope was elected by the Romans, but their choice had to be ratified by the Emperor. And on the whole the patriarchs were chosen wisely and were often worthy of their high calling. Under a beneficent Caesaropapism the Church was strengthened within the Empire and spread beyond it. But the Monophysites were strong, especially in Egypt, which supplied a large amount of the corn required for the Empire; and the Monophysites had a friend in the Empress Theodora.

Theodora, like her husband, was of humble origin. Her father was a bear-keeper in the hippodrome, and she was an impudent adventuress before she became an irreproachable consort with a zeal for the good morals of the capital. She encouraged and guided her husband by her firmness and outwitted him with tactful cunning. Less Roman in her outlook than Justinian, both her policy and her religion prompted her to make concessions to the dissenters. The Emperor wished to maintain the position that the theology of St. Cyril, so much applauded by the Monophysites, was compatible with the theology of the orthodox Council of Chalcedon. But his efforts to secure peace on that reasonable basis were consistently thwarted.

The Monophysites were obstinate and smuggled into the liturgy the statement that God “was crucified for us”, an ambiguous phrase of heretical origin. After much discussion Justinian, in 533, sanctioned an orthodox modification of it to the effect that “one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh”. Having gained this qualified success Theodora proceeded to secure the patriarchal throne for the Monophysite bishop Anthemius. He was exposed by Pope Agapetus and soon deposed. Monophysite books were burnt, and in 543 an imperial edict and the canons of a synod condemned the teaching and person of the great Alexandrine theologian Origen (d. 254), some of whose works were interpreted as favoring Monophysitism.

Two Origenist bishops then persuaded Justinian that the easiest way to pacify the Monophysites would be to censure three other dead theologians, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas, who were all regarded as tainted with Nestorianism.

The Emperor fell into the trap, and in 544 issued an edict which contained three paragraphs, afterwards known as the Three Chapters, concerning (1) Theodore’s person and doctrine; (2) certain books of Theodoret; (3) a letter of Ibas to Maris. These and all who defended them were to be anathematized. On the whole the East was content to do so, but a strong opposition was manifested in the West, where such a condemnation was regarded as a reflection on the orthodoxy of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Vigilius, though he owed his throne to Theodora, protested and came in 547 to Constantinople, where he renewed his protest. Soon, however, he veered round and published his Judicatum condemning the aforesaid writings. The West was very angry, and an African council excommunicated him. He changed again and boldly defied the Emperor. The result was that he had to flee for refuge, first to the basilica of St. Peter in Hormisda, and then to a church at Chalcedon.

In the meantime Justinian made energetic preparation for the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the second of Constantinople, which met in May 553. Vigilius refused to attend, and immediately sent to the Emperor a memorandum, Constitutum, in which he refused to condemn the persons of the erring theologians. The Council, however, condemned not only their writings but also the person of Theodore, while to some extent softening this condemnation by confirming the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. The Pope was apparently exiled for six months, after which he definitely accepted the decision of the Council. He died in Sicily on his way home. The result of his surrender was that several dioceses in the West remained separated from Rome, some of them for more than a hundred years.

So far from reconciling the Monophysites, Justinian’s action aggravated the schismatic and separatist tendencies of Egypt and Syria. And, in spite of this imprudent aggravation, he himself before his death seems to have adopted the Monophysite theory that the body of Christ, though de facto corruptible and capable of weakness, because “He willed it, was de jure incorruptible and impassible”. Justinian became an Aphthartodocetist, and wrote an edict in support of his views to the patriarchs. The patriarchs and bishops, however, showed that their docility was not unlimited and in all directions voiced their disapproval; but before Justinian could visit them with his full displeasure he had been summoned to another world.

PLATONISM

Though Platonism was banned if it was combined with the worship of the gods of Greece, the later Platonism survived in a Christian form. It was fitted into a logical scheme of Christian theology and Eastern fantasy by a gifted writer who lived about 500, and is known by the fictitious name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of St. Paul. He taught that to live truly is to be united with God, and that the purifying life which flows through love from this transcendent, yet immanent, Being draws God’s manifold creation to himself. Divine love is an eternal circle, from goodness, through goodness, and to goodness. Between the Triune God and the world are ranged the three triads of the celestial hierarchy. Of these the highest consists of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. They reflect the brightness of God to the second three, who reflect it to the third, who more especially minister to mankind. Under this third celestial hierarchy is the earthly hierarchy of the Church, through which the light comes to men through the mysteries. All worship is treated as a celebration of mysteries. What the Triune Deity is to the celestial hierarchy, Christ incarnate is to the terrestrial. Through Him the union of God and man is effected. This is the most distinctively Christian element in the system, and it is described in a manner which was acceptable to both the Orthodox and the Monophysites. The influence of the writings of Dionysius was profound on East and West, on theology and poetry alike. It can be seen in Dante and in St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others who have found within their souls a “light which lights every man that comes into the world”.

What the works of Dionysius were for mystic theology, the church of St. Sophia was for art and worship. After a long series of experiments and a gradual assimilation of Oriental elements from Asia and Egypt, Byzantine art in the time of Justinian produced buildings which show a wonderful originality and an equally wonderful mastery of technical difficulties. The finest of these buildings is the cathedral church of Constantinople, now a mosque. It has been imitated, but never equaled. The long nave recalls the basilicas of an earlier date. But it is crowned by a huge dome inserted between a half-dome at the east and another at the west. The construction of the great dome is such that the four piers which support it are hardly seen, and, as an ancient writer says, it seems not so much to rest upon masonry as to be suspended from heaven. Adorned with the rarest marbles and brilliant mosaics, St. Sophia’s justified the boast of its imperial founder that he had vanquished Solomon. The architects were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus.