CHAPTER XIV

RELIGION IN THE SIXTH CENTURY: JUSTINIAN AS A THEOLOGIAN

The reign of Justinian in its theological aspect was a long contest between the Dyophysites, that is, the Orthodox Christians according to the creed of the dominant hierarchy, and the Monophysites. Although the Emperor was devotedly attached to Orthodoxy, he was above all things desirous of finding some common ground on which the conflicting sects could meet and be reconciled. From the opposite side Theodora was animated by a similar policy; she warmly espoused the Monophysite doctrine, but was equally anxious with her husband to promote a general union of the Christian Church. The Monophysites at this time were divided into two parties, viz., the uncompromising Acephali, who would concede nothing, and those who accepted the Henoticon of Zeno (482). The former, almost all Egyptians, anathematized the Council of Chalcedon; the latter, chiefly Asiatics, pretended to tolerate that synod with the reservations expressed by the Henoticon.[625] Thus, in the East there was a partial agreement between the Orthodox and Monophysites; but the Christians in the West were as uncompromisingly Orthodox as the Acephali in Egypt were dissident: the Patriarch Acacius, the author of the Henoticon, had been excommunicated for that piece of work by the contemporary Pope, Felix.[626]

After the death of Anastasius, the hierarchies of Rome and Constantinople had resumed friendly relations, owing to the policy adopted by Justin and Justinian of persecuting the Monophysites;[627] but under the influence of Theodora, or because of the Emperor's discouragement at the results of these harsh measures, the opening of the new reign wore a much more benign aspect toward the heretics. Amicable discussion of the points of controversy and mutual concession became the prevalent sentiment of the Court; and soon Monophysites of every grade in the priestly office began to crowd into the capital. Justinian received them with condescension and Theodora afforded them material hospitality, finding them quarters according to their rank in the house of Hormisdas and even in the Imperial palace.[628] The Emperor argued questions of doctrine with them as a prelate might do with his inferior clergy, and convened representative meetings of both parties with a view to the resolution of differences.[629] His success, however, was limited to the addition of one of the less contestable formulas of the Monophysites to the Catholic theology, viz., that "God was crucified for us,"[630] but this step did not meet with universal or permanent approbation.[631] Yet Theodora was able to push her influence to such an extent that she procured the translation of Anthimus, Bishop of Trebizond, who was known to have heretical leanings, to the Patriarchate of Constantinople (535).[632] This appointment was such a triumph for the dissident sect that they assumed their advent to power to be actually realized; and the recognized leader of the Monophysites, Severus, the deposed Bishop of Antioch, who had previously repulsed Justinian's advances as being illusory, now issued from his retreat and appeared among the dependents of the Byzantine Court.[633]

This ascendancy, however, rested on no solid ecclesiastical foundation, but was sustained merely by the breath of Court favour, as directed by Theodora. At the moment when the prospects of the Monophysites seemed brightest it is probable that disaster from some quarter was imminent and inevitable, but the immediate cause of their ruin was a fortuitous circumstance arising in connection with Justinian's foreign policy. In the beginning of 536 Pope Agapetus arrived at Constantinople, commissioned by Theodahad to effect some favourable accommodation for him with the Emperor.[634] Among the more intimate members of his suite were two deacons of noble family, Vigilius and Pelagius. The Catholic prelates, who were indignant at the elevation of Anthimus, immediately surrounded the Pope and induced him to refuse communion with the new Patriarch unless he should prove his Orthodoxy.[635] Agapetus, therefore, challenged Anthimus to a debate on the articles of the faith in the presence of Justinian, and easily convicted him of flagrant error. Excommunication, notwithstanding the menaces of Theodora, at once followed, and the Emperor could not resist the Pope's demand that he should be expelled from his see.[636] The Empress at once took him under her personal protection, and gave him private apartments in the Palace.[637] At the same time she began to intrigue for his restoration, and the course of events seemed to shape itself very fortunately in her favour. The Pope died in the spring of the same year before he could set out on his return journey; and concomitantly Belisarius was making brilliant progress in his invasion of Italy. Vigilius was a recognized candidate for the see of Rome, and had, in fact, been irregularly nominated before the consecration of Agapetus.[638] Theodora approached him with bribes and threats; he should be Pope, and receive also a large pecuniary grant, if he agreed to adopt the policy she defined for him. Vigilius gave her all the assurances she required; he would condemn the Council of Chalcedon and communicate with the three leaders of the Monophysites, Anthimus, Severus, and Theodosius of Alexandria, the only one who was in occupation of a see. At her dictation he at once wrote a letter to these prelates, confessing the same faith as themselves;[639] and then he departed for Italy with a mandate for Belisarius directing that he should be installed in the Papal seat.[640] He joined the Master of Soldiers at Naples, and, after the capture of that city, accompanied him to Rome.[641]

In the meantime, however, Theodahad had filled the vacancy, and caused Silverius to be created Pope in due form. When the Byzantine army entered the Western capital after the flight of the Goths, as already related, Belisarius took up his abode in a palace on the Pincian Hill;[642] and, in concert with his wife, who was better versed than himself in such matters, endeavoured to carry out the ecclesiastical policy of the Empress. At first, persuasion was tried, in order to induce Silverius to adapt himself to altered circumstances, but he was a strenuous upholder of Orthodoxy and would make no concession. It was decided, therefore, to find a pretext for deposing him, and with that view libels were circulated, insinuating that he was now acting in collusion with the Goths. His residence was in the Lateran palace near the Asinarian gate, and he was accused of plotting to admit the enemy through that portal. He repudiated the charge and removed his habitation to an interior part of the city.[643] A letter was then forged, in which his treasonable relations with Vitigis were set forth in precise terms;[644] whereupon he was summoned to the presence of the general on the Pincian. He found Belisarius sitting at the feet of his wife, who was reclining on a couch; and the moment he entered, Antonina addressed him with: "My Lord Pope, what have we done to you and the Romans that you should wish to betray us to the Goths?" She had scarcely finished speaking, when a pair of subservient deacons stripped him of his pallium, and hastily enveloped him in a monkish habit. He was then hurried away to exile, while the information was spread among the populace that the Pope had been made a monk.[645] After his deposition, Vigilius was consecrated without delay or difficulty, little or nothing being known at Rome of the pledges he had given at the Byzantine Court to apostatize from the Catholic faith. Theodora soon claimed the fulfilment of his promises, but in the West he found himself in an atmosphere where no departure from Orthodoxy would be tolerated, whilst in the East the tide was running so strongly against the Monophysites that no neutral ecclesiastic could be so indiscreet as to espouse their cause. He, therefore, put her off with professions of inability and evasive replies, so that the heretics were as far off as ever from being countenanced by the Papal chair.[646] Vigilius even thought it prudent to purge himself of any suspicion of heresy by writing to Justinian and the Patriarch Menna, who had succeeded Anthimus, in terms which left no doubt of his orthodoxy.[647] As for Silverius, his first place of exile was Lycia, and from thence reports were sent up to the Court representing that he had been wrongfully accused. Justinian was thus influenced to issue a mandate for him to return to Italy, and clear himself, but, as he drew near to Rome, he was again arrested and deported to the isle of Palmaria, where he died within the year.[648] It was generally believed that he perished gradually through inanition, the result of his being kept on a very meagre diet by Vigilius;[649] but the definite statement of Procopius that he was made away with by one Eugenius, an assassin suborned by Antonina at the instance of Theodora, has the strongest claims on our credence.[650]

After the death of Silverius, the theological peace of the West remained undisturbed for several years; but Justinian and Theodora at New Rome never flagged in their efforts to approach from opposite sides the goal of union between the two great Christian sects. After the deposition of Anthimus, however, the Emperor felt that he had been too yielding to the heretics; and he now allowed the Orthodox bishops of the East to give practical effect to their abhorrence of the Monophysites. It must be admitted, indeed, that the members of that sect who had flocked to the capital under the impression that the injunction against their teaching had been for ever rescinded, went far beyond the limits of moderation; and entered on a tireless mission which seemed to aim at no less than to proselytize the whole mass of the Constantinopolitans to their creed.[651] One of the first acts, therefore, of the new Patriarch, Menna, was to convene a Council under the Imperial sanction, at which more than three score bishops and a number of inferior clergy received protests from all parts of the Empire, and pronounced sentence of deprivation against their opponents, wherever they might be found.[652] A general flight of the sectaries, who had shown themselves to be so irrepressible in the city, ensued; and a repetition of the persecution which marked the accession of Justin was reintegrated throughout the Asiatic provinces.[653] Nevertheless, the Empress provided secure refuges for numbers of those who were pursued, and even determined by her active interference the tenure of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. That city was the stronghold of the Acephali, and when the episcopal throne became vacant in 536, an extremist named Gaianus was immediately elected to fill it by the most powerful local faction.[654] Theodosius, who accepted the Henoticon, was the nominee of the local government, as inspired by Theodora, but his confirmation was resisted by violent riots. The Empress at once despatched Narses to establish her candidate by the aid of the military; and the eunuch had to wage a civil war in the streets of the hostile city, amid showers of missiles launched from windows and from roofs of houses by infuriated women, before he could achieve his object.[655] Yet the Orthodox party had become so reinvigorated that the very next year the presence of the Egyptian primate was commanded at the Imperial capital, where he was offered the option of accepting fully the Council of Chalcedon, or of deposition from his see. He chose the latter alternative, and was banished to the Castle of Dercos in Thrace, which had been chosen for the seclusion of Monophysites who were unable, or who had not deigned to escape.[656] Shortly, however, there was a lull in the storm of Orthodox rancour; and a flourishing brotherhood of Monophysites was permitted to exist at Sycae, where a monastery had been built for them, and liberally endowed by Theodora. To this establishment Theodosius returned before a twelvemonth, and continued for more than a quarter of a century to be the head of it.[657]

Early in the fifth decade of the sixth century the great theological question which agitated the subsequent years of Justinian's reign, had its origin. Paul, the Alexandrian Patriarch who had replaced Theodosius, became involved shortly after his accession in a scandal connected with the unwarrantable execution of a deacon by Rhodo, the Augustal Praefect. The Emperor and his consort were much affected by this circumstance, and decreed that Paul should be tried for his share in it by an ecclesiastical court.[658] The Patriarch was convicted, deposed, and one Zoilus appointed in his stead, but these occurrences were merely collateral to the main event. Among the ecclesiastics in favour at the Byzantine Court were Pelagius, the Papal nuncio, and Theodore Ascidas, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.[659] Their rivalry for the Imperial patronage was keen, and they were mutually desirous of damaging one another in the estimation of the sovereign. The court which tried Paul assembled at Gaza (542), and was summoned for the purpose by Pelagius,

## acting as Imperial Commissioner. Certain monks of Jerusalem availed

themselves of his proximity and authority to forward a petition to the Emperor against an antagonistic fraternity who were earnest disseminators of the doctrines of Origen.[660] The brothers complained of emanated from the New Laura in that region;[661] and it happened that Theodore Ascidas had formerly been one of their associates. Knowing, therefore, that he would be zealous in the defence of Origen, Pelagius eagerly accepted the advocacy of the complainants as a means of injuring his rival; and on his return to Constantinople at once apprised the Emperor as to the teeming crop of error which threatened to befoul the sources of the faith in Palestine. Justinian listened with avidity, and forthwith began an assiduous study of the works of Origen with a view to the disclosure of noxious passages. As that father had lived before any definite creed of the Christian faith had been specified, and had been deeply imbued with notions derived from Egyptian and Oriental mythology, Justinian was shortly successful in unearthing a mass of glaring heresy from his writings. This material was then systematically drafted into canons, which were embodied in a formal requisition from the Emperor to the Patriarch that Origen should be anathematized in a council of bishops.[662] In the meantime Theodore, anxious to retaliate against Pelagius, and to disturb the convictions of the Orthodox in general, as well as to divert attention from Origen to a greater issue, had devised a skilful attack on the Council of Chalcedon. The action of the Roman legate had created a precedent for reviewing and censuring the opinions of ecclesiastics long since dead; and his adversary perceived that this new method could be applied effectively to damage the authority of the synod in question. Two bishops, who had incurred the charge of Nestorianism, had been expressly approved at Chalcedon; whilst a third, who was infected, had been passed over without animadversion.[663] Besides being an Origenist, Theodore was a temperate Monophysite;[664] and he now persuaded the Emperor that a qualified condemnation of the defunct prelates would purge the Council of every blemish and win for it the acceptance of all of his creed. Justinian again applied himself to his studies, and soon convinced himself that the theologians indicated had been tainted with flagrant impiety; upon which he published an edict wherein their respective errors were reprobated in three sections.[665] In the East but little commotion was occasioned by this document, as the objections were familiar to those accustomed to read the Greek Fathers, but among the Latins the Church was agitated violently because nothing was comprehended[666] except that the Council of Chalcedon, the decisions of which had been dictated by Pope Leo, was convicted of fallacy. On that side of the Empire, therefore, controversy and stubborn resistance was at once manifested against the Emperor's proscription of the "Three Chapters," the title conveniently bestowed on the matters in dispute.[667]

Justinian, as usual, was determined to carry his point; and he now concluded that the most effective means of attaining his end was to procure a Papal ordinance in confirmation of his own edict. But Vigilius at Rome was beyond the power of persuasion, and might soon not be amenable even to force. His presence at Constantinople was, therefore, an urgent necessity; and when the Emperor expressed himself to that effect he was eagerly seconded by Theodora, who was anxious to arraign the Pope for having broken faith with her. With the decision that was habitual to her she resolved that he should be compulsorily deported, and at once despatched an officer with strict injunctions to seize Vigilius wherever he should find him, with the single exception of St. Peter's Cathedral.[668] The Italian capital was not yet beset by the Goths, and the orders of the Empress were executed to the letter (545). In broad day, while celebrating the holy office in the church of St. Cecilia, the Pope was arrested by a company of guards and hurried through the streets to a ship which lay waiting in the Tiber. A concourse of people thronged after him, and, as soon as they saw him standing without restraint on the deck of the vessel, they clamoured for a benediction. He acceded to their request, and when he had finished, the ship began to put off from the shore. Only then did they realize that he was actually about to leave them, whereupon their demeanour changed suddenly, and they gave a striking proof that they were inspired by two natures. Stones, sticks, and old pots were hurled after the receding pontiff, whilst they yelled abusive epithets at the top of their voices: "Famine and death go with you! You have done badly by the Romans; may you fare ill wherever you go!"[669]

Vigilius did not now complete the voyage to the Imperial city, but, being landed at Syracuse, remained there about a year,[670] as Justinian was not yet prepared to push the question to a crisis. In 547, however, Emperor and Pope met at Constantinople, and embraced each other with the greatest seeming cordiality.[671] For some time they worked together in perfect concord, while Justinian entirely won over the head of the Western Church to his views; and in the next year a papal decree was promulgated, under the title of the "Judicatum," in which the Three Chapters were anathematized in the terms dictated by the Imperial theologian.[672] But this decisive act was the signal for Western indignation to rise to its height; and Vigilius was stricken with awe at finding that he could scarcely count on a single adherent in the Roman half of the Empire.[673] Latin ecclesiastics at once began to compose and circulate elaborate treatises in which they contravened the Imperial and Papal pronouncements and maintained that the proceedings at Chalcedon had been infallible in every detail.[674] Vigilius, therefore, withdrew his Judicatum without reserve, a measure which caused the tension of opinion between Emperor, Pope, and Patriarch to become acute. The arch-priests excommunicated each other,[675] and Justinian became desperate at finding himself defied at the moment when he believed himself to be in touch with the goal. He issued a new edict (551), condemning the Three Chapters, and insisted that the Pope should sign it.[676] But Vigilius had now been joined by some Western bishops and clerics, and especially by the resolute Pelagius, who thought the contest demanded his presence in the East. With the support of these coadjutors, Vigilius persisted in his refusal to sign, while the attitude of the Emperor became more and more threatening from day to day. At length, fearing that personal violence would be resorted to, he fled from his residence in the palace of Placidia to take sanctuary in the adjacent church of St. Peter in Hormisdas; and here the Pope with some of his supporters sought to save themselves by clinging to the columns of the altar. As soon as this flight was announced to Justinian, he commanded a praetor with an armed guard to arrest the fugitives in the sanctuary, and drag them to his presence. The military entered the church, followed by a popular concourse, and proceeded to execute their orders. The lesser clerics were soon detached, but Vigilius embraced the pillars of the altar with all his might. The soldiers laid hold of him, some by the feet, some by the hair and beard, and strove to bear him off by main force, but the massive structure gave way and would have crushed the pontiff in its fall had its collapse not been prevented by some of the deacons standing by.[677] A groan of horror arose from the crowd of onlookers; the assailants then desisted from the struggle and released their victim. Fearing that he might have gone too far, the praetor now called off his men, and retired to inform the Emperor of what had occurred. On hearing his report Justinian decided to proceed no further by compulsion, and sent a deputation to give the Pope assurances that he might return to the Placidian palace without fear of being again subjected to physical coercion.[678] Vigilius acted according to these representations and left the sanctuary; but a few months afterwards his apprehensions were renewed and he again determined to vacate his secular residence. One night, just before Christmas (551) he crept out at the back of the premises, scaled a half-built wall, and made his way to the water's edge. A boat was in waiting which carried him across to Chalcedon, and there he took refuge in the Church of St. Euphemia. Within the same walls a century previously had been held the famous Council, of which he had involuntarily become the champion. In this retreat a body of delegates, headed by Belisarius, soon arrived, bearing protests from the Emperor as to his pacific intentions, and offering every inducement for the Pope to return to the capital. Vigilius, however, would listen to no entreaties, but drew up a history of his sufferings in the cause of orthodoxy, which he embodied in an Encyclical and published to the whole Christian world.[679] Justinian now decided that perseverance in violent hostilities would be futile, and that a personal reconciliation with the Pope on any terms would best serve his Church policy. He, therefore, sent Menna and Theodore to offer ample apologies for all that had passed, and to promise Vigilius that he should in future be free to follow his own course with respect to theological doctrine. The Pope accepted their professions, and, after a mutual withdrawal of anathemas, returned to his quarters in the palace of Placidia.[680]

Justinian now resolved that his reign should be distinguished by an Œcumenical Council, at which the Catholic faith should be postulated in accordance with his own theological bias. Almost all the Bishops of the East were willing to confirm his edicts relating to Christian doctrine in a general synod; and those who acted in opposition to him did so at the peril of being ejected from their sees. In the spring of 553, therefore, the assenting prelates poured into Constantinople from diverse regions to the number of one hundred and sixty-five; and the great assembly was held in one of the collateral halls of St. Sophia in the month of May of that year.[681] The clerical concourse were extremely anxious that Vigilius should take his seat with them at the Council, but he was immutable in his resolution to uphold the Three Chapters. Several deputations waited on him, with whom he held colloquies, but to their invitations he replied invariably that the Oriental bishops were many, whilst in his own following there were but few.[682] In vain they urged that a very small number of Occidental prelates had attended the previous Councils, for he had, in fact, prepared a document, which he denominated his "Constitutum,"[683] to be published before the meeting of the synod, in contravention of its decrees. The Pope had now about him seventeen Latin bishops, as well as Pelagius and other clerics, who inspired his determination and appended their signatures to the Constitutum. That decretal was a lengthy composition which included the responses of Vigilius to sixty propositions of Theodore Ascidas, but the tenor of it was summed up in a single sentence: "That it was not lawful to subvert anything constituted by the Holy Council of Chalcedon."[684] The Fifth Œcumenical Council, therefore, was held without the presence of the Pope, although he was for the moment resident at its gates; and the discussion of his hostile Constitutum formed an important part of its transactions. The Emperor quoted passages from his Judicatum,[685] whereby he demonstrated that Vigilius was in contradiction with himself; and ultimately the Council decided that he had associated himself with impiety and voted that his name should be erased from the sacred diptychs. At the same time they asserted that their union with the Apostolical See of Rome remained intact, notwithstanding that they dissociated themselves from the person of the occupying pontiff.[686] Fourteen canons against the Three Chapters were then proposed and ratified,[687] and a further rule of credence was thus established for the Christian Church, which Justinian at once proceeded to enforce with all the resources of his sovereignty. A number of recalcitrant ecclesiastics were deprived and banished, or placed in durance, among the latter being Pelagius.[688] As for Vigilius, since Rome and Italy had now been brought permanently under the dominion of the Emperor by the victories of Narses, he was anxious to return to his see with the Imperial countenance; and within a year after the sitting of the Council he effected a reconciliation with Justinian by the issue of a second Constitutum, by which he retracted the first, and again advocated the views he had professed in his Judicatum.[689] Being thus restored to Court favour he was entrusted with the Pragmatic Sanction and set out for Rome, as related above; but he was now broken by years, and illness compelled him to interrupt his voyage at Syracuse, where he died in the spring of 555.[690] The Emperor now judged sagaciously that the vacant Popedom was an allurement which would dissipate the most assured theological convictions; and he determined to test its potency on the man who above all others was best fitted for the Papal seat. When an intimation was conveyed to the redoubtable champion of Chalcedon, Pelagius, that the pontificate was the prize of his recantation, the weapons with which he had so long defended the Three Chapters escaped from his nerveless grasp; and, while he accepted the tiara of the West with one hand, he signed with the other a convention that his faith was assimilated in all respects to that of the princely donor.[691] The report of his defection preceded him to Rome, and on his arrival there the influence of Narses scarcely availed to induce three ecclesiastics of sufficient rank to perform the ceremony of his consecration. He had covenanted with Justinian to enforce the decrees of the Fifth General Council in the West with the authority which attached to the occupant of St. Peter's chair; but the hostility of the Latin bishops was so positive that he was obliged to shelter himself behind ambiguous utterances and pronouncements as to his unfaltering allegiance to the Council of Chalcedon. He organized a solemn procession to St. Peter's, and, standing before the high altar with the Cross and Gospels held above his head, and the Imperial vicegerent at his side, affirmed his innocence of all the charges which had been made against him.[692] He also addressed an Encyclical "To All the People of God," in which he expressed his reverence in detail for everything held sacred in the West, and his especial veneration for the memory of "the Orthodox bishops, Theodoret and Ibas."[693] By these asseverations he won over the Italian people and hierarchs in general to his side, but the sees of Milan and Aquileia for long maintained a schismatic attitude to the pontificate, and the Church of Gaul declined communion with Rome for more than half a century.[694]

The Fifth Oecumenical Council was totally ineffective in procuring a union between the Monophysites and the Catholic world. For more than a decade before that synod the heretics of the One-Nature had been a spreading sect, and they ultimately established themselves as one of the permanent Churches of the East. This result is, perhaps, to be attributed to the steady patronage bestowed on them by Theodora. From the monastery at Sycae, with which she zealously associated herself, emanated several prelates, whose missional activities brought over whole districts and even nationalities to their creed; and especially that extraordinary man, Jacob Baradaeus, in recognition of whose prodigious efforts, sustained for more than thirty years, the title of Monophysites was abrogated in favour of that of Jacobites. After an ascetic seclusion of fifteen years at Constantinople he was (in 543) ordained Bishop of Edessa by Theodosius, the exiled Patriarch of Alexandria; and thereafter he pursued his labours untiringly throughout the Asiatic provinces, returning continually from his round to the Imperial or Egyptian capital, where the centres of the sect were maintained. Concealed under a variety of disguises and penetrating the most inaccessible regions, he walked thirty or forty miles daily to win over converts. During all this time he eluded the vigilance of those who were eager to capture him, either to obtain the reward offered by the Emperor, or to satiate the rancour of the Orthodox. The ordination of two Patriarchs, twenty-seven bishops, and one hundred thousand lesser clergy is recorded as the fruit of his activities.[695] About the same time, Theodora, in conjunction with Theodosius, despatched a missionary to Nubia, who was successful in gaining the favour of King Silco of that country, and even caused a rival, who was acting in the interests of Justinian, to be dismissed with a rebuff.[696] At the petition of Arethas, prince of the Ghassanides, the Empress also procured the ordination of a bishop for Bostra, a populous town in the north of Arabia.[697] Thus, before her death in 548, she had the satisfaction of seeing her favourite sect dividing the allegiance of the population with the Catholics throughout Asia and Africa.[698] Thenceforward, the Orthodox in the East were called Melchites ("Royalists"), in contradistinction to the Jacobites, as representing the Imperial party in religion.

In his relations with religion, Justinian is presented to us in no less than six different aspects. We have seen him as a builder of churches, and as an ecclesiastical statesman; it still remains for us to consider him as a hierarch or clerical legislator, as a persecutor of heretics, as a missionary or converter of the heathen, and as a theologian or Christian metaphysician.

1. In the first department the Emperor enacted Constitutions dealing with clerical life and authority in every relationship, his maxim being that the salvation of the State and the individual depended on the Church being maintained in its integrity.[699] In the case of a bishopric becoming vacant, three candidates were to be nominated, and the most fit elected by the votes of the ecclesiastics and the principal citizens of the locality; but, if obtained by bribery, the election was annulled. Essential qualifications of a bishop were that he should be above thirty years of age and have no children or grandchildren, whereby his attention might be distracted from his sacred duties. It was necessary also that he should not be addicted to a curia, unless he had gained his freedom from the same, through having spent fifteen years in a monastery.[700] In the exercise of his office he was authorized to supervise almost all the activities of civil life. He could demand an account of expenditure from all persons charged with public works, such as baths, roads, bridges, statues, aqueducts, harbours, and fortifications, selecting three experts to assist him with their experience; and he could call on the Rector with his cohort to help him in dealing with recalcitrants.[701] He was enjoined to prohibit gambling,[702] and to visit the prisons every Sunday in order to inquire into the cases of those under detention.[703] It was his duty to see that legacies left to the Church or to charities were properly applied by the heirs or trustees;[704] and at one time Justinian allowed such bequests to be exacted even after the lapse of a century, but he subsequently reduced the limit to forty years.[705] Litigants could choose him as a judge of first instance, or they could appeal to him from the Rector; but they could also, if dissatisfied with his decision, appeal to the provincial governor.[706] A bishop was immune from charges which were incumbent on ordinary citizens, that is, trusteeships of all kinds. He need not accept the post of tutor or curator to young relations, nor the care of those who were demented;[707] nor could he be compelled to attend in court as a witness.[708] The ethics of a bishop's life were scrupulously regulated by law. No woman could be resident in his house, except a wife, a sister, a daughter, or a first cousin.[709] He was not permitted to indulge in any gambling game, nor to attend the spectacles of the circus or the theatre.[710] He also laboured under the disability of being unable to make a will or execute a deed of gift, so that his mind should be wholly free from worldly concern.[711] The lesser clergy, that is, presbyters, deacons, and sub-deacons, were obliged to live under the same stringent rules as far as applicable to their rank; and only for the lowest grades of the ministry, viz., chanters and readers, was marriage lawful.[712] But even to them second nuptials were forbidden, under the penalty of forfeiting all claim to promotion in the service of the Church.[713] The children of illicit marriages contracted by clerics were ignored by the State so far that they were not even entitled to the privileges of bastards.[714] Nor would the Emperor tolerate idle ecclesiastics, but enacted that all should perform a part methodically in prayers and psalmody for the benefit of the laity.[715] Women of fifty could be ordained as deaconesses in the Church, but after some time Justinian reduced the age to forty.[716] The constitution of monasteries was also minutely regulated by legislation. Not the senior, but the most suitable person, was to be elected as abbot or abbess. The segregation of males and females was to be rigidly carried out, and only one old male servitor was to be employed in a nunnery.[717] Husband or wife might elect to lead a religious life without incurring any of the penalties for the neglect of family duties to which an ordinary citizen was exposed.[718] By entering a monastery the individual divested himself of all his worldly goods in favour of the religious community, but not to the prejudice of wife or children, who were still entitled to their legal share of the estate.[719] Abduction of a nun, even with her own consent, rendered not only the ravisher liable to capital punishment, but also any persons who harboured or aided him in the crime.[720] Alienation of Church property, as well as of that of monasteries and charitable foundations, was carefully guarded against, and leases were to be granted only to the rich.[721] Ruins, however, and surplus treasure in the form of vessels and vestments might be sold to allow of the funds being applied to some more useful purpose.[722] But an exception was made in the case of money being required for the redemption of captives, "since it was only reasonable to prefer human souls to material valuables."[723] Some relief with respect to the incidence of the taxes was also granted to religious bodies in recognition of "the distinction existing between things divine and human."[724] Clerical criminals were punished by expulsion from the cloth and surrendered to be dealt with by the secular arm; in minor cases by relegation to a monastery for three years, there to be subjected to a stringent discipline.[725]

2. The attitude of Justinian towards those of his subjects who did not profess the Orthodox faith was one of the most complete intolerance. A heretic[726] was scarcely fit to live, and it was only strict justice for him to be "deprived of all earthly advantages, so that he might languish in misery."[727] Hence the legal enactments against such religious dissidents subjected them to civil and sometimes to physical death. They were accordingly excluded from all offices of dignity in the State, as well as from holding any magistracy "lest they should be constituted as judges of Christians and bishops."[728] Similarly, the liberal professions were barred to them, "for fear of their imparting to others their fatal errors."[729] Wills made by them were not recognized in law unless in favour of Orthodox children or relatives, and, if they had none such, then the Treasury instituted itself as their successor.[730] The testimony of heretics was not received in court against the Orthodox,[731] and they were forbidden to hold Christian slaves.[732] Hence, the slaves of heretics possessed the power of self-emancipation by professing themselves converts to the Orthodox faith. There were, however, degrees in heresy, and the proscriptive laws were not pressed with equal force against all. Manichaeans, Pagans, Montanists and the various sects of Gnostics were the most odious,[733] whilst Arians, Nestorians, and Monophysites were not pronounced against by name in the first decade of Justinian's reign.[734] The disciples of Mani were frankly condemned to death wherever found, "so that their very name might perish from among the nations."[735] It was a crime to possess their books and not hand them over to a public official in order that they should be burnt.[736]

Such were the principles which were laid down in the Byzantine state for dealing with heretics, but in practice the penalties were not always strictly enforced, and the law often slumbered unless some special stimulus set it in motion. A couple of years after Justinian's accession his zeal for Orthodoxy inflamed him with a desire to encompass a general conformity in religion throughout the Empire. He issued a decree, therefore, that all heretics of the flagrant type would lie under the extreme penalties of the statutes unless they accepted Christianity within three months.[737] As a result, many votaries of polytheism were discovered in the capital, and several high officials were dismissed from their posts.[738] At the same time, a numerous body of inquisitors pervaded the provinces in order to enforce the edict, whereupon many conformed through fear, whilst others who were fanatically attached to their belief fled to distant regions or even committed suicide.[739] Among the most insensate devotees of the latter class were the Montanists of Phrygia, who shut themselves up in their churches and then set fire to the buildings, so that all perished together.[740] Prior to this decree Jews and Samaritans had enjoyed the ordinary protection of the law in their own communities, and only suffered the disabilities of heretics when legally opposed by Catholics; but now the latter sect was included among those upon whom the State religion was to be enforced. In their case the measure was carried out with the greatest harshness, and their synagogues were closed, emptied of their contents, or altogether ruined.[741] As the Samaritans were very numerous in Palestine, they soon congregated together, and broke into open revolt. A brigand chief named Julian was chosen as their King, and under his leadership more than twenty thousand of the rebels assembled. Doubtless they were very inefficiently armed and equipped, but they proceeded at once to retaliate on the Christians by pillaging their property, massacring those who came in their way, and setting fire to the churches. Scythopolis and Neapolis were the chief scenes of their depredations. At the first news of the riots the Emperor became very irate and ordered the immediate execution of the local governor, but when subsequent accounts indicated that the movement had attained to the magnitude of a rebellion, he commanded the military Duke of the province to attack Julian with all the forces he could muster. After some preliminary skirmishes a considerable battle was fought, in which the Samaritan King was slain, and his army routed. The head of Julian, encircled with the diadem, was sent as a trophy to Constantinople; and the wretched sectaries were exterminated wherever they could be found among the mountains in which they had taken refuge. Altogether, twenty thousand are said to have perished by the sword; the young of both sexes to an equal number were captured by Arethas, and sold into slavery among the Persians and Indians; but the majority escaped by abandoning their homes and offering themselves as subjects to the Shahinshah.[742]

The devastation and depopulation of Palestine, which resulted from this civil war, had reduced a great part of the country to a desert, but, nevertheless, Justinian made no sign that the fiscal precept, for which the province was assessed, would be remitted. Thus the Christians, who had been despoiled by the rebels, were now presented with demand notes for a greatly increased amount.[743] Extreme destitution was induced, and an appeal to the Emperor became a matter of urgent necessity. The Patriarch of Jerusalem headed the movement, and it was decided that Saba, an anchorite whose reputation for sanctity was greatest in that age, should be the bearer of the petition. He was the founder of the Great Laura in a wilderness near the Jordan, and was now upwards of ninety years of age. He undertook the mission with alacrity and departed for the capital (530), where the rumour of his approach preceded him, and occasioned a great commotion. A fleet of war-vessels, having the Patriarch Epiphanius and several Illustrious officials on board, sailed down the Propontis to meet him; and on his arrival at Court Justinian embraced him with joy and tears. Yet the Emperor was alarmed at the prospect of a reduction of the revenue, and attempted a diversion by offering the saint a large sum for the monasteries in which he was interested. But Saba was immovable and imperturbably pressed his petition for five concessions, remission of taxes, rebuilding and subsidies for ruined churches, the foundation of a hospital at Jerusalem, the completion of a church to the Virgin in that city, and the erection of a fort in the desert to protect his monasteries from the Saracens. Finally Justinian yielded at every point, and the Holy City was enriched with an infirmary to receive two hundred sick and a magnificent church to the Theotokos, which it took twelve years to build, as a part of the tangible outcome of the mission. Saba was also brought into the presence of the Empress, who saluted him with the deepest reverence and solicited him to pray for her that she might have a son. But to this request he replied simply, "God save the glory of your Empire," and left her in a very tristful mood. Her depression being noticed, some of the ecclesiastics questioned him, to whom he explained, "Believe me, Fathers, God does not will that there should be any issue of her womb, lest he should vex the Church worse than Anastasius."[744]

As for the Samaritans, those who survived the blast of persecution, either by pretended conformity or temporary seclusion, formed a considerable multitude. As soon as the penal laws became dormant, they crept out of their hiding places and gradually settled down in their old haunts, so that after the lapse of a decade they again appeared as a conspicuous section of the Palestinian population. In 542 Justinian thought it wise to conciliate them by a formal amnesty, and he published an Act by which they were virtually restored to all their civic privileges.[745] Yet fourteen years later, they fomented an insurrection at Caesarea in conjunction with some Jews, murdered the Proconsul, and the same scenes of violence against the Christians and their churches were repeated.[746] A similar wave of oppression, though probably only of local origin, was doubtless the cause of this uprising, but the sedition was soon quelled by a special commissioner, who was sent down from the capital and punished the ringleaders by impalement, decapitation, mutilation, or confiscation of property, according to the degrees of guilt.[747] Early in the next reign, however, their turbulence appeared to be so incurable as to call for a re-enactment of almost all the disabilities under which they lay after Justinian's first decree against them.[748]

It was, of course, a foregone conclusion that in Africa and Italy after the conquest the Arians should be a proscribed sect. No sooner had the Vandal Kingdom passed under the Byzantine rule than the same measure was meted out to the previously dominant religionists, as the African Catholics had generally received at their hands under Genseric and most of his successors. Dispossessed of all their churches and divested of civil rights, they were directed by the Emperor's edict to "consider themselves as humanely treated in being suffered to live at all."[749] In Italy the revulsion was less decided as, owing to the tolerant policy of Theodoric, the Orthodox Church in that country had not been disturbed. No special legislation, therefore, is extant, and it appears that the Italian Arians were only despoiled on occasion under some specious pretence in order that their riches might go to swell the treasury, as frequently happened in the case of their conquerors of the East.[750] Although Jews were held in abhorrence by the Emperor and his Catholic subjects, they were allowed to adhere to their traditional faith within certain limits.[751] Thus such a blasphemous departure from the creed of the State as denial of resurrection and judgment, or the creation of angels, was not permitted to them; and they were compelled to use a version of the Old Testament according to the Septuagint in Greek or Latin, and not any Hebrew text of their own.[752] In one instance, however, a community of Jews at Borium in North Africa were forced to become Christians; and their synagogue, which they declared to have been built by Solomon, was accordingly transformed into a church.[753]

3. Having the power of compulsion in his hands, the efforts of Justinian to convert heathens to Christianity are not easily to be distinguished from persecution. As a rule his chief argument was the sword or the stake, but, as difficulties sometimes stood in the way of applying that mode of persuasion, he was obliged occasionally to have recourse to milder methods. The only notable instance, however, is that in which he appointed John, the Monophysite Bishop of Ephesus, to preach the Gospel in the wilds of Caria, Asia, Phrygia, and Lydia. It seems that in those provinces there were many small communities interspersed among rugged and barely accessible mountain tracts, who were still addicted to some primitive form of idolatry. Some peculiar fitness recommended the heretic prelate to the Emperor for this arduous task; and doubtless it was not intended that the rude proselytes should imbibe any nice theological distinctions. According to the account of the missionary himself his success was very great, and seventy thousand persons were baptized, for whom a sufficient number of churches and monasteries were built in the sequestered districts which they inhabited.[754] It is probable that this mission conduced to the spread of civilization, and that the regions dealt with were opened by various public works to a freer intercourse with the more advanced dwellers in the plains. Two other examples of Justinian's propagation of the Gospel are rather to be classed as military subjugation and enforced conversion. On the outskirts of the Empire between Armenia and the Caucasus lived a number of predacious tribes, offshoots of a common stock, called the Tzani. Their homes were situated in mountain fastnesses hemmed in by dense forests, and at an elevation which rendered agriculture impossible. Their sustenance was derived from cattle, and from incursions for the sake of rapine into the surrounding districts. A punitive expedition, however, was undertaken by the Byzantine soldiery, who penetrated to their retreats, and reduced them to submission. The permanency of the conquest was then assured by the clearing of avenues for facile access and by the building of forts. Instruction in Christianity naturally followed, and the wild men, who had previously deified groves and birds, were taught to resort to churches which were erected for their accommodation.[755] Near the eastern extremity of the new Praefecture of Africa a numerous people existed who maintained a magnificent temple served by a throng of hierodules, in which the divinity claimed by Alexander was still adored in conjunction with that of Jupiter Ammon. By a mandate of the Emperor this obsolete religion was abolished, and Christian worship in a church dedicated to the Virgin was substituted for the Pagan rites previously held in honour there.[756]

It is uncertain whether the arrival of barbarian princes at Constantinople, petitioning to be baptized under Imperial patronage, is to be attributed to missionary activity, to the prestige of the Empire, or to accidental persuasion by Christian devotees.[757] From whatever cause, however, such occurrences were not uncommon, and two further instances may be noticed.[758] In 527 a king of the Herules presented himself at the Court, with a numerous retinue, and begged to be made a Christian. All were baptized, Justinian himself acting as godfather to the King, whom he dismissed with handsome presents, and an intimation that, for the future, he should rely on him as an ally.[759] A similar case happened shortly afterwards, which was attended with unfortunate consequences for the royal neophyte, who was a Hunnish chief reigning in the vicinity of Bosporus. On his return, assuming too hastily that all his subjects were ready to follow his example, he seized on the idols of the tribe, which were cast in silver and electron,[760] and transmuted them into coined money. The native priests, however, were indignant at this act, and, having transferred their allegiance to his brother, quickly procured his assassination. The new ruler then marched against Bosporus, and massacred a small Byzantine force which was habitually stationed there in order to guard the interests of trade with the Huns. This outrage necessitated the despatch of a punitive force across the Euxine, but the barbarians contrived a hasty disappearance without risking a battle, and thereafter the peace of the region remained unmolested.[761] With these cases may be classed that of the Abasgi, who dwelt beyond Lazica on the north-east of the Euxine. They worshipped woods and groves, but under Justinian received an impulse which caused them to embrace Christianity. They were ruled by a dual kingship, the associates in which made a practice of seizing and castrating all handsome boys, whom they sold in great numbers within the Empire. They lived in dread, however, of the Roman power, and hence slew the fathers of such boys, lest they should be moved to appeal to the Emperor against their tyranny. But when a deputation of the Abasgi appeared at the Byzantine Court to solicit that a bishop should be sent to them, Justinian not only granted their petition, but published and enforced an edict that no more eunuchs should be made in that country. He also built a church to the Virgin among them, so that they should be permanently retained in their attachment to the rites of their new faith.[762]

4. As a doctor of theology Justinian believed himself to be the superior of any of the prelates of the Church who lived in his time.[763] He pored over the ponderous tomes of the Fathers whose subtle disquisitions on the divine nature had inspired the decrees of the four great Councils, and assumed the rôle of a priestly expositor of the Catholic faith. As his age advanced, his pious ardour increased, and he pursued his studies far into the night, closeted with venerable ecclesiastics in his library, a circumstance which caused him to incur some contempt among the more active political and military spirits.[764] Thus, when the plot, in which Artabanes was involved, was organized, the conspirators based their hopes of success chiefly on the facility with which he might be surprised during such nocturnal vigils, bereft of guards, who had been dismissed lest they should disturb his devout researches.[765] Several of his theological treatises have come down to us, which, though not voluminous, might have sufficed to give him a respectable rank among ecclesiastical authors, had not his royal position rendered him independent of such distinction. As a specimen of the intellectual activities of an age, in which philosophy and science had been abandoned as worthless pursuits, it may be interesting to quote two passages from Justinian's writings, wherein damnable heresy may be seen opposed to the inestimable conceptions of orthodoxy. In the first he exposes the pernicious errors of Origen, in order that they may be anathematized by an episcopal council; and in the second he defines the true views which must be held as to the ineffable conjunction of the two natures in the Saviour. The Palestinian monks, who cherished the Alexandrian Father, he urges, were engaged in ruining souls by infusing into them ideas assimilated to those of Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus, thus perverting them towards the tenets of Paganism and Manichaeanism.[766]

"... They say," expounds Justinian, "that there were originally an innumerable host of minds united in contemplation and love of God. But, being subdued by satiety, their devotion cooled, and hence they became associated with bodies and names of a higher or lower nature in proportion to the degree of their falling off. Those who were least deteriorated passed into the sun, moon, and stars; a lower class into gross bodies like our own; whilst those affected with the greatest perversity coalesced with the frigid and fuliginous matter of which demons are constituted. One only remained unchanged in love and contemplation of the Deity, and that one was Christ. But all bodies are liable to perish utterly; and he, becoming at once God and man, first threw off his body; and all bodies will ultimately do likewise, returning into unity and again becoming minds. Hence impious men and demons will at last attain to the same celestial state as the divine and saintly. Thus Christ differs in no manner from other living beings. But Pythagoras said that unity was the beginning of all things; and Plato taught similarly, and asserted that souls were sent into bodies as a punishment. Wherefore he called the body a sepulchre and a chain, as being that wherein the soul was buried and bound. And the soul of a philosopher which pollutes itself with paederasty and iniquity performs a triple circuit of chastisement in a millennium, and in the thousandth year becomes winged and takes its flight.... Therefore I exhort you, holy fathers, to examine and condemn in general synod all who think like Origen."

The next extract I draw from his lengthy exposition of the principles of Catholicism with a view to the condemnation of the Three Chapters. In this document he relies mainly on the interpretation of Scripture by Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa[767]:

"... And when we say that Christ is God, we do not deny him to be man; and when we say that he is man we do not deny him to be God. For should he be only God, how should he suffer, be crucified, and die? For such is alien to God. Wherefore when we say that Christ is composed of both natures, divine and human, we introduce no confusion in the union, but in the two natures we confess Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word. When we say that there is a composition, we must allow there to be parts in the whole, and the whole to consist in its parts. The divine nature is not transmuted into the human, nor the human into the divine. Rather is it to be understood that, each nature abiding within its own limits and faculties, a union has been made according to the substance. The union according to the substance signifies that God the Word, that is, one substance of the three substances of the Deity, was not united to a previously formed human body, but created for Himself in the womb of the Holy Virgin from her substance the living flesh, which is human nature."

He then drew up a number of canons against the Three Chapters and heretics generally, to which he appended a diffuse argument to prove the necessity for their being anathematized. These canons are virtually the same as the fourteen adopted by the Fifth Oecumenical Council.[768]

[625] The gist of the Henoticon was that all being devoted adherents of the Nicene Council, they repudiated anything which was in conflict with its decisions, whether promulgated "at Chalcedon or elsewhere"; Evagrius, iii, 14.

[626] Concil. (Labbe, Mansi, 1759, etc.), vii, 1053; Theophanes, an. 5980.

[627] The correspondence between Justin and Justinian and the Holy See of Rome (Baronius, Concil., Migne) has lately been re-edited in Script. Eccles. Lat., Vienna, 1895, xxxv, from the Avellana Collection.

[628] John Ephes. Comm. de Beat. Or. (Laud, etc.), pp. 127, 154.

[629] Concil., viii, 818 _et seq._ The _Collatio_ consisted of five or six bishops of each side. They were convened by Strategius, Count of the Sacred Largesses, who said they were called together, not under Imperial compulsion, but as in response to a "paternal and priestly exhortation." Afterwards they were met by Justinian, who invited them into Hormisdas, where he addressed them "with Davidian kindness, Mosaic patience, and Apostolic clemency."

[630] Cod. I, i, 6; cf. Facundus Defens, i, 1.

[631] Abrogated by Council of 692, can. 81. At this time (533) J. addressed several letters to the Church and the public laying down the lines of Orthodoxy (Cod. I, i, 5-8).

[632] Marcel. Com., an. 535; Theophanes, an. 6029, etc.

[633] Zachariah Myt., ix, 16, 19; letters passed between Anthimus and the Monophysite leaders, in which he accepted the Henoticon, "enacted to annul the Council of Chalcedon and the impious Tome of Leo" (_ibid._, 21-26). The latter was the document which decided the rule of faith at Chalcedon. In it Pope Leo I demonstrated the two natures of Jesus from the Gospels. Thus when he performed miracles he called upon his divine nature, but when he felt human passions, hunger, thirst, sorrow, etc., he allowed himself to be influenced by his human nature (Concil., v, 1359; Evagrius, ii, 18). The confession of Eutyches, the father of the Monophysites, was "I acknowledge that our Lord originated from two natures, but after the union I confess only one nature" (_ibid._, i. 9); cf. Liberatus, Brev., 21.

[634] Zachariah Myt.; Lib. Pontif., Agapetus, etc.

[635] Theophanes, an. 6029.

[636] Liberatus, 21; Lib. Pontif., _loc. cit._, J. also threatened at first, whereupon the Pope compared him to Diocletian. Victor Ton. (an. 540) says that Agapetus even excommunicated Theodora.

[637] John Ephes. Comm., pp. 157, 247.

[638] Lib. Pontif., Boniface II.

[639] Victor Ton., an. 536; Liberatus, 22.

[640] According to Liberatus Antonina forced him to write the aforesaid letters from Rome; but I cannot help thinking that Theodora extracted something better from him than mere professions before she despatched him to the West with such a powerful instrument in his hands.

[641] Victor Ton., an. 536; Liberatus, 22.

[642] Lib. Pontif., Silverius.

[643] Liberatus, 22; Lib. Pontif., Silverius.

[644] Liberatus, 22.

[645] Lib. Pontif., Silverius.

[646] Lib. Pontif., Vigilius. She wanted him to restore Anthimus, but he said he was idiotic when he made such promises, etc.; cf. Victor Ton., and Liberatus, _loc. cit._

[647] Concil., ix, pp. 35, 38.

[648] Lib. Pontif., Silverius; Vigilius.

[649] Liberatus, 22; Lib. Pontif., Silverius.

[650] See p. 611.

[651] Concil., viii, 885. The most determined propagandist was the monk Zooras. His life in John Eph., Com., p. 11. "What can I do with a truculent man, who fears no one?" said Justinian, when asked to restrain him.

[652] Concil., viii, 873 _et seq._; Nov. xlii.

[653] John Eph., Com., p. 157 _et seq._ Ephraim, who had been Count of the East, and had been raised to the Patriarchate by a popular vote, was the great persecutor; _ibid._, pp. 204-207; cf. Evagrius, iv. 6.

[654] When Severus was banished from Antioch and Julian from Halicarnassus, on the accession of Justin, they fled to Alexandria, and there Julian began to inculcate the heresy that the body of Jesus was incorruptible. He was opposed by Severus, and shortly the Alexandrians were divided into two parties, the Corruptibles and Incorruptibles. The latter were in a great majority, and now constituted the Gaianites. Zachariah Myt., ix, 9-13; Liberatus, 19, 20.

[655] _Ibid._ The soldiers were beaten, but Narses "won by fire where iron could not," that is, he burnt them out.

[656] John Eph., Com., pp. 14, 114 _et seq._; Victor Ton., an. 540, etc.

[657] John Eph. Com., pp. 11, 66, 154, etc. It was opposite Blachernae. She also had a refuge for proscribed Monophysites in the island of Chios; _ibid._ Zooras was at first head of the monastery at Sycae, but he ended his days at Dercos.

[658] Liberatus, 23; Procopius, Anec., 27.

[659] Liberatus, 23; Evagrius, iv, 38.

[660] Liberatus, 23.

[661] The N. L. was founded by sixty rebels against the rule of Saba; Cyril Scythop, St. Saba, 36.

[662] Concil., ix, 487, 395; Cedrenus, i, p. 660 _et seq._ (_c._ 544). After this J. wrote a bulky pamphlet against Origen (Jn. Migne, S. G., lxxxvi). Some of the notions of Origen condemned were, that human souls pre-existed as holy spirits; that at the resurrection human bodies will be globular; that the sun, moon, and stars, etc., are animated; that Jesus will be crucified again for devils; that punishment in hell will not be eternal, etc. It is scarcely certain that the council was held.

[663] Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas. An open letter of I. spoke of the "blessed Theodore," and said that Cyril, Patr. of Alex., arrived first at the Council of Ephesus (431), and "filled their ears with poison and blinded their eyes." Hence Nestorius was condemned without "judgment or question." This document was read and passed at Chalcedon; Concil., vii, 242; xi, 297; cf. Evagrius, ii, 18.

[664] Liberatus (24) says he was an Acephalus, the only authority.

[665] Facundus, Defens., ii, 3; iv, 4.

[666] Pope Vigilius himself confesses that he did not understand Greek; Concil., ix, 98.

[667] Facundus, Contr. Mocianum; Liberatus, 24, etc.

[668] Lib. Pontif., Vigilius. "If you fail," said she to the officer, "I'll flay you alive." I have no doubt she held this sort of language to her servants; but the Lib. Pontif. is a very poor authority.

[669] _Ibid._

[670] Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iii, 15; Marcel. Com., an. 547; Jn. Malala, p. 483. See p. 632.

[671] Jn. Malala, p. 483, Theophanes, an. 6039.

[672] Facundus, Contr. Moc.; extracts in Concil., ix, 181.

[673] Victor Ton., ann. 549, 550. The African bishops excommunicated the Pope.

[674] Facundus, _op. cit._ Fulgentius Fer., Epist. 6 (Migne, S. L., lxvii) etc.

[675] Jn. Malala, p. 484; Theophanes, an. 6039.

[676] Chron. Paschal., an. 552 (also Concil., etc.).

[677] Vigilius is thought to have been a very strong man as he is said to have killed a deacon, who taunted him, with a blow of a book; Lib. Pontif.

[678] Epist. Legat. Franc., Concil., ix, 151 (Baronius and Migne, also); Theophanes, an. 6039, etc.

[679] Concil., ix, 50, etc.

[680] Concil., ix, 61 _et seq._ (also in Col. Avellana). According to Lib. Pontif. he was seized in St. Euphemia and dragged round CP. till evening, with a rope round his neck, by order of Theodora—four years after she was dead!

[681] Concil., ix, 157 _et seq._; Evagrius, iv, 38.

[682] Concil., ix, 191 _et seq._

[683] _Ibid._, 61 _et seq._ (and Col. Avel.).

[684] Concil., ix, 103. Seventeen bishops, Pelagius, and two others signed it.

[685] _Ibid._, 181.

[686] _Ibid._, 367.

[687] _Ibid._, 376. Origen was practically passed over; can. 16.

[688] Victor Ton., an. 553, etc. He was one of them. This chronicler is generally wrong in his dates.

[689] Concil. ix, 457. He paved the way by a letter to the new Patriarch of CP., Eutychius; _ibid._, 413.

[690] Lib. Pontif.; Marcel. Com., an. 554.

[691] Victor Ton., an. 558; Facundus, Ep. Fid. Cath.

[692] Lib. Pontif., Pelagius; Marcel. Com., an. 554. There was a popular rumour that he had murdered Vigilius.

[693] Epist. 6 (Migne, S. L., lxix, 391).

[694] See his Epistles; Hefele, Hist. Councils, iv, 343, etc., for details of the schism. According to Liberatus (24) Theodore Ascidas gave it as his confidential opinion that he and Pelagius ought to have been burnt alive for the trouble they had brought into the Church over Origen and the Three Chapters.

[695] Two lives of him in John Eph., Com., pp. 160, 206. A modern life by Kleyn, Leyd., 1882.

[696] The particulars in John Eph., Hist. (Smith), p. 250 _et seq._

[697] John Eph., Com., pp. 162, 206. In the Semitic, Arethas = Harith-ibn-Gabbala. Duchesne has treated of Christian missions to the south of the Empire at some length; Mis. chrét. au sud de l'emp. rom., 1896.

[698] She died of cancer of the breast, according to Vict. Ton. (an. 549), who regarded the disease as a penalty of her heretical impiety.

[699] Cod., I, iii, 42; Nov. vi, pf., etc.

[700] Cod., I, iii, 42; Nov. vi, 1; cxxiii, 1; cxxxvii, 2.

[701] Cod., I, iv, 26.

[702] _Ibid._, 25.

[703] _Ibid._, 22.

[704] _Ibid._, iii, 46, 49.

[705] _Ibid._, ii, 23; Nov. cxxxi, 6; v, ix; cf. Procopius, Anec., 28.

[706] Cod., I, iv, 8; Nov. cxxiii, 21.

[707] Cod., I, iii, 52; iv, 27; Nov. cxxiii, 5. He generally supervised their appointment.

[708] _Ibid._, iii, 7; Nov. cxxiii, 7.

[709] Cod., I, iii, 19; Nov. xxii, 42; v, 6.

[710] Cod., I, iii, 17; iv, 34; Nov. cxxiii, 10.

[711] Cod., I, iii, 42.

[712] _Ibid._, 45; Nov. xxii, 42, etc.

[713] Nov. xxii, 42.

[714] Cod., I, iii, 45.

[715] _Ibid._, 42.

[716] _Ibid._, 9; Nov. vi, 6; cxxiii, 13.

[717] Cod., I, iii, 44; Nov. v; cxxiii; cxxxiii.

[718] Cod., I, ii, 13; Nov. v, 5; cxxiii, 38.

[719] Nov. cxxiii, 38; Cod., I, iii, 56.

[720] _Ibid._, 54; Nov. cxxiii, 43.

[721] Cod., I, ii, 24; Nov. cxx, 6, 7, etc.

[722] Nov. cxx, 1, 10, etc.

[723] Cod., I, ii, 21.

[724] _Ibid._, 22.

[725] Nov. cxxiii, 20. As Justinian's laws relating to religion are very bulky, I merely give samples to show their general tendency.

[726] A heretic is defined as anyone not being an Orthodox churchman; Cod., I, v, 12, 18.

[727] Cod., I, xi, 10.

[728] _Ibid._, v, 12.

[729] _Ibid._

[730] _Ibid._, 13, 18, 19; Nov. cv, 3.

[731] Cod., I, v, 21.

[732] _Ibid._, iii, 56; vi, 3.

[733] _Ibid._, v, 11, 18, 21, etc.

[734] Nov. cix. By this law heretic wives are deprived of the right to recover their dowry, etc.

[735] Cod., I, v, 12, 16, etc.

[736] Cod., I, v, 12, 16, etc.

[737] Jn. Malala, p. 449; Theophanes, an. 6022; cf. Cod., I, i, 5.

[738] _Ibid._

[739] Procopius, Anecd., 11.

[740] _Ibid._

[741] Cod., I, v, 17.

[742] Jn. Malala, p. 445; Procopius, Anecd., 11.

[743] Jn. Malala, p. 445; Procopius, Anecd., 11.

[744] Cyril Scythop., St. Saba, 70-72. Saba prophesies that J. will conquer Rome and Africa, which, if the biographer can be relied on, indicates that as early as 530 the idea of recovering the Western Empire was being mooted.

[745] Nov. cxxix.

[746] Jn. Malala, p. 487.

[747] Jn. Malala, p. 487.

[748] Nov. cxliv.

[749] Nov. xxxvii; Procopius, Anecd., 18.

[750] Agnellus, Lib. Pontif., Agnellus, 2; Procopius, Anecd., 11. At Ravenna all the Gothic churches, with their contents, were handed over to the Catholics. Presumably there were very few Arian congregations left in Italy. The Exocionite Arians at CP. (Goths) were always respected; Cod., I, v, 12; Jn. Malala, p. 428.

[751] Cod., I, ix; x.

[752] Nov. cxlvi.

[753] Procopius, De Aedif., vi, 2. It is only fair to note that Justinian, for the most part, only re-enacted or confirmed laws formulated by his predecessors, beginning with Constantine; but he sometimes enforced them more zealously.

[754] John Ephes., Hist. (Smith), pp. 159, 229 _et seq._

[755] Procopius, De Aedif., iii, 6. Sittas was the general. Cf. Nov. i, pf.

[756] Procopius, De Aedif., vi, 2.

[757] As an illustration of the way in which Christianity was spread unofficially, through captives carried off by the barbarians, etc., see Zachariah Myt., xii, 7.

[758] See p. 312.

[759] Jn. Malala, p. 427; Theophanes, an. 6020.

[760] An alloy of gold and silver; Instit., ii, 1.

[761] Jn. Malala, p. 431; Theophanes, an. 6020.

[762] Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 3.

[763] John Ephes., Hist. (Com.), p. 249. In 543 he brought a party of grammarians, advocates, ship-masters, and monks from Alexandria, and held _séances_ in which he argued to convert them from the Egyptian Monophysitism; "for," says the historian, "he thought none of the bishops or others equal to him in the art of argument."

[764] Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iii, 32.

[765] See p. 622.

[766] Cedrenus, i, p. 660 _et seq._

[767] Chron. Paschal., an. 552.

[768] Three considerable monographs treat of religion in the sixth century: Duchesne, Vigile et Pelage (Rev. d. quest. hist., 1884); Knecht, Die Relig. Polit. Kais. Justin., Würz., 1896; and Hutton, The Church in the Sixth Cent., Lond., 1897. Gasquet's De l'autor. impér. en mat. relig. à Byzance, Paris, 1879, also contains matter germane to the subject.

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