by Ross Laidlaw
‘I have several tongues, Serenity. Apart from my native Mandarin, I speak Hindustani, Urdu, Persian, even Greek, as you were kind enough to mention. You see, in a past life, before I became a wandering monk, a Seeker after Enlightenment, I was a wealthy merchant who travelled the Silk Road many times.’
‘Enlightenment — what is that?’
‘It is not easy to define, Serenity. True Enlightenment can only be experienced rather than expressed in words. We who seek to find it, think of it as a mystic vision of the Truth, the All, the Infinite, the Transcendental — there are different words. It is to be attained through meditation and self-discipline, involving ultimately the annihilation of the Self in identification with the Soul of the Universe. The state of mind when this is achieved is called Nirvana. The Saddhus — the holy men of India — seek Enlightenment via a particularly ferocious form of ascetisism. Lord Gautama,* who lived a thousand years ago, prescribed a gentler way, one based on meditation and inner holiness through correct behaviour. His is the Path that I myself attempt to follow.’
‘This is all most interesting,’ said Justinian, who had indeed found the other’s discourse fascinating. ‘Your words remind me of our own Desert Fathers — Antony, Jerome et al. — who sought through abstinence and contemplation to find communion with God. However — ,’ he smiled at the sage and shook his head in mild puzzlement, ‘I can’t quite see how any of this applies to myself.’
‘I am about to embark on a pilgrimage, Serenity. To the Church of Saint Michael, at Germia near Ancyra** in Galatia. You see, the Path does not require you to be an adherent of any particular religion or philosophy over another. The priest at Germia, Father Eutropus, a most remarkable man, has gathered about him a dedicated following of. . seekers after Truth, I suppose you could call them, who engage in contemplation and religious discussion. It’s not officially a monastery; there’s no formal organization as such. Basically, it’s a loose community where minds can stimulate and react with other minds, perhaps thereby to reach a deeper understanding of the Nature of God. I confess to having a great curiosity to experience for a time the way of life at Germia.’ Tan-Shing paused and regarded Justinian earnestly. ‘Why not come with me, Serenity?’ he urged. ‘Germia may not provide an answer to your problems, but at least it could perhaps enable you to see things from a fresh perspective — which could only be a good thing, surely.’
One month later, having travelled three hundred miles due east from Constantinople, Justinian and Tan-Shing — the former on muleback, the latter, aided by a sturdy pilgrim’s staff, on foot — forded the Sangarius river and climbed up into a beautiful plateau of rolling grassland, stippled with flocks of sheep and herds of goats. Two further days of easy travel brought the pair to Saint Michael’s Church, an imposing multi-domed edifice in the midst of outbuildings surrounded by cultivated plots.
As they approached the complex, Justinian reflected on the journey (in the course of which, as ‘Brother Martin’ — a wandering monk, clad in a simple habit, he had never once been recognized). Tan-Shing had proved an ideal travelling-companion: silent when Justinian wished to be alone with his own thoughts, cheerful and talkative at other times, well-informed on a multitude of subjects, including the religious and philosophical systems as well as the literature of China, India, Persia and Rome. He was also endlessly resourceful when it came to finding lodgings for the night, supplementing their diet from Nature’s bounty, or haggling for foodstuffs in local markets. From the sage Justinian learned more about the Way suggested by Lord Gautama (the goal of which seemed to be the transcending of Self, linked to ultimate escape from an endless cycle of rebirth), and the ‘noble eightfold path’ which its disciples sought to cultivate: right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, and — most importantly — right rapture. Whether it was the Chinese sage’s stimulating company, the healthful open-air lifestyle (so different from the sedentary Palace routine of receptions, ceremony, and administration), or the changing landscapes that each day’s travel brought, or by a combination of all of these, by the time the journey neared its end, Justinian was — he acknowledged to himself — in a calmer and happier frame of mind.
Father Eutropus proved to be nothing like the saintly scholar Justinian had vaguely imagined. Diminutive, rotund, with a bright indignant eye, and clad in a brown cassock, he put the emperor in mind of nothing so much as a fierce little robin. ‘Visitors are welcome, provided they’re prepared to work, and forego their former status,’ declared the priest, glaring at the two arrivals, as if they were pedlars proffering goods of suspect workmanship. Justinian was duly assigned to helping in the kitchens, Tan-Shing to maintenance and cleaning duties.
At mealtimes, held in common in a refectory, talk flowed freely among the guests whose backgrounds varied widely: artisans, senators, clerics, a retired general, a pair of Indian Brahmans, a Persian noble. . No subject was off limits. Passionate discussions about the Nature of the Trinity, the relationship of Christ to the Father, the doctrine of reincarnation — namely ‘varna’, the Indian theory of rebirth from a lower to a higher caste through leading an unblemished life — all took place in an atmosphere which, though often charged, was always one of mutual respect. (Anyone tending to express their views too hotly could expect to be chastened by a bellowed reproof from Father Eutropus.)
For the first time, Justinian found himself unable to impose his views by the fiat of imperial decree. Initially, he found this disconcerting, but soon, as ‘Brother Martin’, he began to relish the cut-and-thrust of debate, of having to defend his ideas by argument alone. In the process, he became — unconsciously and imperceptibly — more tolerant of views that differed from his own, less certain of ones previously held by him with unshakeable conviction. Gradually, the differences between Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and Monophysitism, which once he’d seen as irreconcilable, began to seem less absolute, almost like different facets of a single canon.
Especially was this the case, Justinian thought, when viewed from the standpoint of Aphthartodocetism — the doctrine that held Christ’s body to be incorruptible and which, in recent years, had begun to interest the emperor profoundly. Here, perhaps, lay hopes of finding a via media between the two opposing creeds, which might lead eventually to resolution.
‘Read De Rerum Natura,’* suggested Tan-Shing, when Justinian broached the matter with the sage. ‘By Lucretius — one of your Roman poets from the time of the late Republic.’
In the commune’s well-stocked library, Justinian located a copy of the work in question — a poem in six books, each consisting of a separate scroll. A long read. Settling himself in a comfortable chair, the emperor unscrolled a section of the first volumen. .
‘It’s bleak — bleak and terrible!’ cried Justinian to Tan-Shing some hours later. ‘He postulates that all we are consists of an infinite number of tiny particles — each called atomos. The whole disintegrates when we die, leaving nothing of ourselves but the dispersed atoms — not even a soul!’
‘You are distressed, Martin,’ the sage responded calmly. ‘You have glimpsed the Truth, and it has frightened you. That is only natural, to be expected.’
‘But if Lucretius is right, it means I will not see Theodora again!’
‘Not in the sense, perhaps, that you and she will meet as individuals in some afterlife,’ replied the other gently. ‘She is already part of the Infinite, as you yourself will be eventually — both of you absorbed and re-united in God, the Universe, the All — in Heaven, if you like. Is not that an infinitely greater and more liberating prospect than one that only sees the limited, imperfect Self?’
‘I’ll have Father Eutropus excommunicated, anathematized!’ exclaimed Justinian. ‘His community will be broken up, his Church of Saint Martin deconsecrated!’
‘I do not believe that,’ said Tan-Shing with a patient smile. ‘There speaks Justinianus Augustus only. But already, as “Brother Martin”, you have moved o
n, experienced a tiny transformation — if you like, a foretaste of the Infinite. As Epicurus says, “We can never step into the same river twice”. Today, I leave Saint Michael’s to resume my pilgrimage. Meanwhile, dear friend, I offer a farewell suggestion: meditate on these wise words of Lucretius, “Nothing is lost”.’
Saddened by the departure of Tan-Shing, whom he had come to regard as a cherished comrade, and oppressed by a nameless sense of bewilderment and dread, Justinian set off from the commune into the countryside later that same day, in an attempt to clear his mind. Scarcely aware of his surroundings, he walked for miles, confused thoughts whirling in his brain, until, coming to a cliff edge, he was forced to stop. Exhausted, he sat down and contemplated the view.
Immediately before him, a precipice dropped hundreds of feet to an expanse of undulating pastureland. Peering over the edge, he spotted on a ledge far below, a large untidy nest in which two downy chicks were stirring. Moments later, an eagle, a tiny lamb gripped in its talons, alighted at the eyrie. Repelled yet fascinated, conscious of the mother ewe’s distress at the loss of her offspring, Justinian watched the eagle’s young tear at the offering with hooked and greedy beaks. For creatures to live, other creatures must die. Like Tan-Shing’s endless cycle of rebirth, transformation was the order of the Universe — if Lucretius was right, that is. Nothing was lost, the poet had affirmed. Could a practical example illustrate that? the emperor wondered. Take a river — its volume lessened as it flowed into the sea. But the surface of the sea evaporated in the sun, to form clouds which, blowing from the sea back over the land cooled as they rose, turning to rain, which restored the river’s volume. Therefore nothing was lost. The cycle was complete.
Was there a parallel here with Aphthartodocetism? as Tan-Shing had suggested. If, as Lucretius proposed, the individual atoms of which the body was made up dispersed after death yet remained constant — in quantity, then nothing, after all, was lost. In this sense, Christ’s body could indeed be held to be incorruptible. ‘If Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain,’ said Paul. But, even if one accepted Lucretius, the Ascension into Heaven could still be said to have occurred, only in a way not previously conceived. Justinian found the thought strangely comforting. In a state of mental excitement akin to an epiphany, he returned to Saint Michael’s, determined to think through the enormous implications of this most challenging of revelations, and to try to form from it some coherent doctrine. It would, he realized, have to be framed in language which, in order to be acceptable to Christians throughout the Roman Empire, must not offend or affright traditional believers. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, he felt as though the scales had dropped from his eyes, enlarging his perception to a terrifying yet exhilarating degree. As that same Paul had said in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’
Back in Constantinople, Justinian lost no time in promulgating the new doctrine of Aphthartodocetism. Even if his subjects might not fully comprehend its meaning (as he himself did but ‘in part’), he felt it was important that, at least on trust, they should accept it; complete understanding could follow later. Throughout that thirty-ninth year of his reign,* Justinian wrestled with refining and clarifying the new dogma, studying and comparing texts, taking endless notes. Night after night, lights burning in the Great Palace testified to the Sleepless One’s unceasing efforts for the spiritual welfare of his people. They were still burning when, on the night of the fourteenth of November, Callinicus, Praepositus of the Sacred Bedchamber, entered the emperor’s tablinum and found him dead, sitting upright at his desk. On his face was an expression partly startled, part enraptured — as though he had suddenly grasped the meaning of some tremendous yet elusive truth.
* Whose poem extolling the glories of Hagia Sophia had recently been recited at the re-dedication of that church.
* Buddha.
** Yerma, near Ankara.
* On the Nature of Things.
* 565.
AFTERWORD
Occupying much of what has been called ‘the last Roman century’, Justinian’s reign, in terms of the chief aims he set himself (restoration of the West Roman Empire in parallel with the establishment of religious unity), has to be adjudged a failure, though a failure of heroic dimensions. For within a few generations of his death, the mighty realm which he had inherited and, with the conquest of Africa, Italy and southern Spain, greatly expanded, had, under the onslaught of Lombards, Avars, and militant Islam, shrunk to an Anatolian rump with a scattered archipelago of minor outposts in the West. And his mission to create religious unity by attempting to resolve the differences between the Monophysite East and the Chalcedonian West (through the Edict condemning the Three Chapters, and the later one regarding Aphthartodocetism), merely resulted in driving the two sides even further apart. Anyway, the epic struggle between the two opposing creeds (which had given rise to so much angst and persecution during the fifth and sixth centuries), suddenly became — with the Arab conquest of Roman Africa, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria — an obsolete irrelevance, as did, due also to Islamic occupation (of the Great King’s realm this time), the eternal tug-of-war between Rome and Persia.
Yet despite so much of his life’s work running into the sands, Justinian has left us an enduring legacy in one important field — that of law. His and Tribonian’s great Institutes provided the foundation for the legal systems of many countries (e.g. Scotland and Holland) at the present day. In addition, we owe to Justinian the existence of a number of magnificent churches, above all Hagia Sophia — the apogee of Roman architectural and engineering genius. If this sublime building were Justinian’s sole memento, the world would still owe him an immeasurable debt.
In a telling metaphor in his perceptive and thought-provoking The World of Late Antiquity, Peter Brown imagines a traveller by train realizing ‘at the end of a long slow journey that the landscape outside has altered — so in the crucial generations between the reign of Justinian and that of Heraclius, we can sense the definitive emergence of a medieval world’. The world into which Justinian was born was still a fully Roman one. By the year of his death, 565, the signs that Antiquity was ending (e.g. a preoccupation with religious issues at the expense of rational philosophy, of which the closing of the Schools of Athens is a marker) were beginning to appear. It is perhaps not without significance that, almost coincidentally with Justinian’s passing, was born (c. 570) the man whose legacy would bring about the passing also of Justinian’s world — Mahomet.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
By far the most valuable source of information for Justinian and his times is The Wars of Justinian by Procopius of Caesarea — a lawyer who became official war correspondent for Justinian’s great general, Belisarius. Procopius accompanied the latter on his African campaign against the Vandals, and for much of the long Gothic War in Italy, many of the incidents he describes being written from first-hand experience. Admirably detailed and objective, it is very much in the classical vein of Greek and Roman historians such as Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus and Ammianus. In glaring contrast to The Wars (which on the whole paints a favourable picture of Justinian) is Procopius’ Secret History — a savage attack on the emperor and his wife Theodora, portraying them in the most scurrilous of terms. Too biased to be helpful in describing the imperial pair, in other respects it is a useful supplement to The Wars. Some other useful contemporary sources are the ecclesiastical histories of Evagrius and John of Ephesus, and the chronicles of John Malalas, John of Antioch, and Count Marcellinus.
Regarding modern sources, Gibbon, to my mind, stands supreme when it comes to giving us a sweeping overview of the Justinianic era. His ability to fashion from a complex, often tangled, sometimes obscure mass of facts a clear, colourful, and coherent narrative, is surely unrivalled. His only fault — if such it can be called — lies in his impatient dismissal (which I’ve touched on in the Notes) of the Christo
logical controversies which occupied so much of Justinian’s time and energy. Also essential as background reading is the magisterial The Later Roman Empire by my old lecturer, the great A.H.M. Jones. I am enormously indebted to my publisher, Hugh Andrew, for lending me many of his books. Especially useful were the following: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, edited by Michael Maas, a veritable quarry of information regarding all main topics for the period; Robert Browning’s masterly Justinian and Theodora, which provides penetrating insight into what motivated Justinian and the people he was involved with; and Theodora, a marvellous little book by Antony Bridge, which paints a warmly sympathetic picture (and, one feels, a true one) of the bear-keeper’s daughter who became a Roman empress.
For the sake of drama and clarity, I have (as mentioned in the relevant sections in the Notes) gone in for some abridging and telescoping of events in places, without, hopefully, distorting essential historical truth. Anyone who has ever wrestled with the Christological subtleties of the Three Chapters controversy, or tried to form a coherent overview of the Gothic War from the endless (and frankly, often tedious) catalogue of sieges, counter-sieges, marches, counter-marches, blockades, sorties, ambuscades, ruses de guerre, et cetera of Belisarius’ and Narses’ campaigns in Italy, will understand my reasons for doing so.
The Dramatis Personae are, for the most part, real people. The majority needed little fleshing-out on my part, the records being sufficiently detailed for clear individual profiles to emerge, regarding, for example: Belisarius, Narses, John the Cappadocian, Theodora, and, of course, Justinian himself. A richly complex character, the great emperor comes over as a well-intentioned but ultimately tragic figure; someone who, by his own lights tried to do good things, but whose efforts resulted in the impoverishment of the Empire, the ruin of Italy, and a final parting of the ways between the Churches of the East and West.
