Justinian I

The Corpus is the basis of latin jurisprudence (including ecclesiastical Canon law: ecclesia vivit lege romana) and a unique document about the life in the remains of the Roman Empire at the time. It is a collection that gathers the many sources in which the leges (laws) and the other rules were expressed or published: proper laws, senatorial consults (senatusconsulta), imperial decrees, case law, and jurists' opinions and interpretations (responsa prudentum ).

Belisarius disagreed with Justinian over what to do with the reconquered land; Justinian wanted to let the Ostrogoths rule a tributary state, but Belisarius disagreed, wanting to make Italy an Imperial Roman territory. Justinian sent Belisarius was sent to the East to defend against renewed attacks by the Persians. A new peace was established in the East in 545, and Belisarius returned to Italy, but the Ostrogoths had recaptured Rome in his absence. Belisarius was replaced with the eunuch general Narses, and the historian Procopius, a former officer in Belisarius' army, accused the general of treason. He was briefly imprisoned, but Justinian later pardoned him and he defeated the Bulgars when they appeared on the Danube for the first time in 559. In 551, part of southern Spain was conquered from the Ostrogoths. Narses failed to defend Italy against either the Ostrogoths or the Lombards. Nevertheless, under Justinian, the empire's territory expanded greatly, if only for a short time.

But what proved of universal historic account, was the ruling whereby the emperor, in 529, abrogated philosophical and juridical instruction at the Academy of Plato of Athens, thus putting an end to this training-school for Hellenism. And the Christian propaganda went hand in hand with the suppression of paganism. In Asia Minor alone, John of Ephesus claimed to have converted 70,000 pagans (cf. F. Nau, in Revue de l'orient chretien, ii., 1897, 482). Other peoples also accepted Christianity: the Heruli (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, ii. 14; Evagrius, Hist. eccl., iv. 20), the Huns dwelling near the Don (Procopius, iv. 4; Evagrius, iv. 23), the Abasgi (Procopius, iv. 3; Evagrius, iv. 22) and the Tzani (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, i. 15) in Caucasia.

The worship of Ammon at Augila in the Libyan desert (Procopius, De Aedificiis, vi. 2) was abolished; and so were the remnants of the worship of Isis on the island of Philae, at the first cataract of the Nile (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, i. 19). The Presbyter Julian (DCB, iii. 482) and the Bishop Longinus (John of Ephesus, Hist. eccl., iv. 5 sqq.) conducted a mission among the Nabataeans, and Justinian attempted to strengthen Christianity in Yemen by despatching thither an ecclesiastic of Egypt (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, i. 20; Malalas, ed. Niebuhr, Bonn, 1831, pp. 433 sqq.).

The Jews, too, had to suffer; for not only did the authorities restrict their civil rights (Cod., I., v. 12), and threaten their religious privileges (Procopius, Historia Arcana, 28); but the emperor interfered too in the internal affairs of the synagogue (Nov., cxlvi., Feb. 8, 553), and forbade, for instance, the use of the Hebrew language in divine worship. The recalcitrant were menaced with corporal penalties, exile and loss of property. The Jews at Borium, not far from Syrtis Major, who resisted Belisarius in his Vandal campaign, had to embrace Christianity; and their synagogue became a church. (Procopius, De Aedificiis, vi. 2).

The emperor had much trouble with the Samaritans; refractory to Christianity, as they were, and repeatedly in insurrection. He opposed them with rigorous edicts, but yet could not prevent a fresh outbreak against the Christians from taking place in Samaria toward the close of his reign. The consistency of Justinian's policy meant that the Manicheans too sufferred severe persecution, experiencing both exile and threat of capital punishment (Cod., I., v. 12). At Constantinople, on one occasion, not a few Manicheans, after strict inquisition, were executed in the emperor's very presence: some by burning, others by drowning (F. Nau, in Revue de l'orient, ii., 1897, p. 481).

Justinian entered the arena of ecclesiastical statecraft shortly after his uncle's accession in 518, and put an end to the Monophysite schism that had prevailed between Rome and Byzantium since 483. The recognition of the Roman see as the highest ecclesiastical authority (cf. Novellae, cxxxi.) remained the cornerstone of his policy in relation to the West, although he thus grievously offended those of the East, and though he felt himself entirely free to show a despotic front toward the pope (witness his behavior toward Silverius and Vigilius). But the controversies in the East were alone sufficient to keep the emperor busy all through his reign; and he plainly paid much more attention to them than to the external affairs of the realm. Yet his policy bore marks of greatness, and strove with large understanding to satisfy the religious instincts of the devout in the East, a signal proof of which was his attitude in the Theopaschite controversy. At the outset he was of the opinion that the question turned on a quibble of words. By degrees, however, he came to understand that the formula at issue was not only orthodox, but might also be used as a conciliatory measure toward the Monophysites, and made a vain attempt to do this in the religious conference with the followers of Severus of Antioch, in 533.

Again, he reviewed the same approvingly in the religious edict of March 15, 533 (Cod., L, i. 6), and congratulated himself that Pope John II admitted the orthodoxy of the imperial confession (Cod., I., i. 8). The serious blunder that he had made at the beginning by abetting after Justin's accession a severe persecution of the Monophysite bishops and monks and thereby embittering the population of vast regions and provinces, he remedied eventually. His constant aim now was to win the Monophysites, yet not to surrender the Chalcedonian faith. For many at court, he did not go far enough: Theodora especially would have been glad to see the Monophysites favored unreservedly. Justinian, however, was restrained in that policy by the complications that would have ensued with the West. Neither, for that matter, could he escape these issues; for instance, the Three Chapter Controversy (see also Pope Vigilius). In the condemnation of the Three Chapters Justinian tried to satisfy both the East and the West, but succeeded in satisfying neither. Although the pope assented to the condemnation, the West believed that the emperor was acting contrary to the decrees of Chalcedon; and though many delegates were found in the East subservient to Justinian, yet there were many, especially the Monophysites, left unsatisfied. So the emperor's efforts were wasted on an impossible task; the more bitter for him because during his last years he took greater interest in theological matters.

1. the edict on Origen's heterodoxies, in 543 or 544;
2. summons to the bishops assembled at Constantinople on occasion of the council of 553, with reference to their sitting in judgment on errors in circulation among the monastic followers of Origen at Jerusalem;
3. an edict on the Three Chapters, probably framed in 551;
4. an address to the council of 553, concerning the Antiochian theology;
5. a document probably antedating 550, addressed to some unnamed defenders (perhaps Scythians) of the Three Chapters;
6. writ of excommunication against Anthimus, Severus and companions;
7. an address to some Egyptian monks, with a refutation of Monophysite errors;
8. fragment of a document, mentioned in (7), to the Patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria.

A word or two should be subjoined on the subject of Aphthartodocetism; a doctrine professed by the emperor toward the close of his life. Evagrius reports (Hist. eccl., iv. 39), and other sources confirm the point, that Justinian promulgated an edict in which he declared Christ's body to be incorruptible and not susceptible to natural suffering, and commanded bishops everywhere to accept this doctrine. The fall of the Patriarch Eutychius is associated with this final phase of the imperial policy. The sources saw a lamentable decline from the right faith in Justinian's latter conduct. The train of thought underlying Aphthartodocetism, however, is not necessarily unorthodox (see Julian of Halicarnassus); because it need not be opposed to the acceptance of the essential identity of Christ's nature with human nature. Hence it is not necessary to regard Justinian's final theological views as those of an old man, to be disregarded in surveying the aims of his full-bodied activity.

This article incorporates text from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion