Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

by Judith Herrin

  This decision did not prevent further debate over the human and divine elements in Christ, whose dual nature was always a matter of concern. Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria (412–44) elaborated the theology of their union in the person of Christ (using the term hypostasis for person). In later developments this hypostatic union, ‘the one incarnate nature of God the Word’, became confused with definitions of Christ’s being (ousia) and nature (physis). Support for belief in the ‘union in one nature’ gave rise to a distinct group of Christians later named Monophysite, from the Greek terms for one (monos) and nature (physis). But at the Fourth Oecumenical Council called to Chalcedon by Emperor Marcian and his wife Pulcheria in 451 to settle the matter, Christ was acknowledged ‘in two natures… perfect in Godhead, perfect in humanity’. Pope Leo I lent his support to this definition in a letter often called the Tome, tomus, of Leo. Monophysite refusal to accept it made Chalcedon a permanent symbol of division and led to the growth of separate churches, particularly in Syria and Egypt, where the Coptic Church still sustains belief in the ‘union in one nature’.

  Because most of this institutional history of Christianity had taken place in the eastern half of the empire and was recorded in Greek, it was directly available to the Byzantines. In contrast, the West had inadequate translations of Greek theological definitions, which did not reflect the subtlety of eastern debate about the divine and human in Christ’s nature. In addition to official pronouncements, popular enthusiasm for Christian belief produced unofficial stories and cult activities, often focused on particularly holy people. Belief in the miraculous was widespread – miracles had been an essential feature of Jesus’ preaching – and people seeking a cure made special journeys to the shrines of Christian healers. The bones of St Menas, for instance, who died in a Roman arena, became known for their cures, and pilgrims to his tomb to the west of Alexandria often carried home little jars of dust from his shrine. These flasks were decorated with a picture of the saint standing between his two camels with his hands raised (plate 9). They circulated throughout the Christian world and spread the story of his healing powers. While such centres were not confined to the East, many of the stories associated with the early Christian saints were written first in Greek and later translated into Latin.

  The most famous example of this new literature was the Life of Antony, written by Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria (328–73), who was also one of the most outspoken opponents of Arius. On several occasions when emperors promoted pro-Arian theology, he was exiled and sought refuge in the desert. There he met Antony. Using oral sources transmitted in the Egyptian spoken by the saint’s companions, who had followed him into the desert to learn about his solitary ascetic life, Athanasius wrote the first Christian biography in Greek. It recorded the very long life of a young man who renounced his family and fortune to practise spiritual exercises, night-long vigils, intense prayer and contemplation of God, alone in the desert. This Life of Antony established a model of hagiography, writing about saints, which had a dominant influence not only in Byzantine literature but also in the West. Within a few years it was translated into Latin and was read by Augustine, who later became Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. As the author of a very unusual autobiographical work, the Confessions, St Augustine’s interest in personal formation may well have been influenced by Antony’s Life. It certainly inspired his self-transformation from a master of ancient rhetoric into an ascetic Christian bishop, who was known throughout the Middle Ages as the founding father of the western Church.

  Similar traditions also developed in Syria and Palestine, as holy men left the cities of the Mediterranean world to face the challenge of living in the desert. In the fourth century, St Chariton set up the first lavra (a group of cells for individual monks), in the Judaean desert south of Jerusalem; it was a centre for ascetics who came together for their Sunday liturgy but spent the week in their cells, scattered in caves, ancient tombs and remote mountains. At about the same time Pachom, an Egyptian soldier who died in about 346, wrote down regulations for his followers, which became much-copied monastic rules. Communal living coexisted with isolated hermits and both types of asceticism inspired followers and pilgrims. For Byzantium, St Basil of Caesarea (c. 329–79) was perhaps the most influential author. He visited the monastic communities in Syria and Egypt before establishing his own near Caesarea in Cappadocia, central Asia Minor, and wrote Long and Short Rules for monks and nuns, which stressed the importance of life in common, koinobion. This Greek term became the word used for monastery, and its derivative, ‘coenobite’, is often used to mean a monk. Basil also stressed the need to look after the weaker members of society – widows, orphans, the sick, elderly and lepers – in pious foundations devoted to philanthropy.

  Some individual holy men stood on the top of columns and were thus known as ‘stylites’ (from Greek, stylos, column), notably St Symeon the Elder and his follower St Symeon the Younger, whose shrines near Antioch attracted numerous pilgrims and performed miraculous cures. Few holy women attained leading positions in desert communities. Susannah, a Desert Mother, was an exception, but stories of holy women like St Mary of Egypt, a reformed prostitute, perpetuated the idea that females could also survive in the desert. Often they had to disguise themselves as eunuchs, which led to some very popular stories. When Marina cut off her hair and put on a man’s tunic, she became Marinos and joined a monastery, where she was accused of fathering a child. Excluded from the community, she raised the child without complaint and only when she died did the monks realize that she could never have committed the crime they attributed to her.

  Among the earliest monastic centres, the settlement established by the end of the fourth century in the remotest part of the Sinai peninsula became one of the most celebrated. It was built to protect the Burning Bush through which God had spoken to Moses, at the foot of the Holy Mountain where he later received the tablets of the law. These crucial stages in the flight of the Children of Israel out of Egypt on their long journey to the promised land were celebrated by a group of Christian ascetics who constructed a tower near the Burning Bush. When the western pilgrim Egeria visited them in the early 380s, she read aloud the relevant parts of the Book of Exodus recording the story of Moses. In the sixth century, these monks appealed to Emperor Justinian to protect them against local Bedouin raids and he ordered a fortress to be built around the Bush in the rocky wilderness. The historian Procopius describes the region as ‘uninhabited… a barren land, unwatered and producing neither crops nor any useful thing’.

  The garrison sent to guard the monks against attacks by the desert tribes erected enormous fortification walls which have been maintained to this day (plate 2). Using local volcanic rock, an architect named Stephen who came from Aqaba (Eilat) designed the basilica church dedicated to the Mother of God, and on its roof beams recorded the generosity of the emperor and empress (Theodora had recently died in 548), as well as his own name. The original form of the church remains unchanged and the original wooden doors also survive. Some years after the church’s dedication, Abbot Longinos commissioned a magnificent mosaic of the Transfiguration to decorate the apse of the church. It commemorates the light which surrounded Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as Moses and Elijah, the prophets who had witnessed the presence of God on Mount Sinai. Numerous pilgrims had followed Egeria, bringing gifts to the monastery: icons, liturgical objects and donations which enabled the monks to survive in a most inclement environment. Gradually, the community built up the most extraordinary collection of manuscripts in many languages and painted religious images, including the celebrated icons of Christ, the Virgin with the Christ Child and Saints, and St Peter (plate 21).

  After the Arab conquests of the seventh century, Sinai passed under Muslim control and became increasingly isolated from other Christians. The monks ensured their independence by forging mutually beneficial relations with local Bedouin tribes, which were enhanced by a document ‘signed’ by the Prophet Muhammad, who is alle
ged to have granted the monks permission to remain in Sinai. Whenever Muslim rulers threatened to take over the community, the monks displayed the ‘Hand of the Prophet’. A later copy with the image of Muhammad’s hand (since he could not write his name) is preserved in the monastery. Throughout the Middle Ages, both the monks and the Arabs of Sinai survived together, assisted by Christian and Muslim pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, and by the association of St Catherine of Alexandria and her relics. Now dedicated to her name, the monastery on Mount Sinai represents the earliest traditions of Christian monasticism, a living link with the fourth century AD and beyond that to the Old Testament story of Moses. In 2006, its icons were exhibited in Los Angeles and would later be displayed in London, before returning to their arid fortress.

  While the famous desert monasteries of Egypt, Palestine and Syria continued to inspire ascetic practices, hostile invasions, culminating in the Arab conquest of the Near East in the 640s, forced many to seek refuge farther north. Several found their way to Constantinople or Rome and adapted their activity to a more philanthropic role in urban society. At first emperors had banned monks from Constantinople, considering them unsuited to city life, since the ascetic movement was founded on a rejection of the civilized world and flight into desert places. But by the middle of the fifth century, numerous monasteries had been established in cities. Before 454, a senator named Stoudios constructed a basilica church on his property in the southwest corner of Constantinople, where a monastic community cherished its relic, the head of St John the Baptist. This monastery remained a leading one in the capital into the fourteenth century. Other urban monasteries were set up in houses, founded by their owners, such as the two saints Melania. The elder Melania travelled around the Mediterranean and endowed communities in Jerusalem, followed by her granddaughter, the younger, who moved from Italy to the Mount of Olives.

  The secular church of bishops and the monastic church of spiritual communities form two branches of Greek Orthodoxy, the Christian world of correct belief as defined in Greek by the oecumenical councils. They were linked by their shared devotion to daily routines of prayer. They also possessed a code of church law, which included all the canons of oecumenical and local councils and additional monastic regulations derived from St Basil and the Cappadocian Church Fathers. By the sixth century, this had been summarized in a distinct system of ecclesiastical law used to regulate spiritual matters, such as the age of entry into monasteries and of ordination to church offices. It coexisted with the civil law and drew on imperial edicts devoted to issues related to Christianity. Although it was not taught in the same systematic way as civil law, canon law provoked commentaries, compendia, treatises on specific problems and collections of judicial decisions which made it practical and useful. In the early thirteenth century, the acts of Archbishop Chomatenos of Ohrid reveal a sophisticated application of Justinianic as well as canon law to resolve problems such as the abduction of a virgin by a married man (as a fornicator he had to pay the girl a monetary compensation or give her half of his property, and the local prelate had to exclude him from communion for seven years).

  Similarly, patriarchs of Constantinople presided over a synod or court, which heard cases involving churchmen and gave definitive judgments on issues such as marriage within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. In 1316, for instance, Patriarch John XIII judged a quarrel over inheritance between the children of a man’s first marriage and the daughter from his second union. The following year the synod had to decide who owned an icon of the Virgin and a plot of land, originally given to the Metropolitan of Lakedaimonia by Euphrosyne Marinia, a nun. The property had come into the possession of another bishop and Euphrosyne appealed to have it returned. While many cases concern the wealth of the Church, others reveal clerical misdemeanours, incestuous relations, improper use of magic charms and other superstitious practices, providing fascinating hints about daily life in Byzantium.

  While the Church had its own independent administration, the emperor often tried to appoint a particular ally as patriarch. Theoretically, he was limited to choosing one of three candidates whose names were put forward by the clergy of the cathedral church of Constantinople. But on many occasions an outside candidate, the emperor’s youngest son, or a favourite monk, might be imposed. Conflicts over these and more serious issues often led to a breakdown in cooperation, and patriarchs might be deposed by imperial power. St John Chrysostom, elected in 398, was one of the first and most famous casualties of this practice. He was exiled to Armenia in 404 because he had denounced Empress Eudoxia for erecting a statue of herself with time-honoured and noisy pagan ceremonies, and died three years later, protesting his innocence in letters to his supporters. In 907, when Leo VI married his fourth wife, the patriarch denied him entry to the church for ten months. Despite such instances of conflict, the cooperation of Empire and Church was one of the great strengths of Christian culture in Byzantium.

  It also distinguished Byzantium from the situation in the medieval West, where the leading bishop, the Bishop of Rome, had much less secular support and regularly had to negotiate with invaders. Although Rome was restored to imperial control in the sixth century and remained under nominal Byzantine administration until the eighth, imperial officials and troops often failed to protect the city from attack. The heirs of St Peter, as bishops of Rome considered themselves, stressed their superior moral authority to balance the reality of their political weakness. During the fifth century the term papa, which means father, was adopted, and although all Christian priests are regularly addressed as father, bishops of Rome have become distinguished by the title pope. Whether Roman claims to a moral superiority were recognized or not, it became the custom for disaffected eastern clerics or monks, who had been condemned by the emperor or patriarch, to appeal to Rome. In this way they hoped to attract support from Christian authorities outside the empire.

  This practice, which set Old Rome against New Rome, can be observed in the appeals by dissidents for support, for example, during the iconoclast controversy (see chapter 10) and when Leo VI was excommunicated by his patriarch for marrying for the fourth time. The emperor appealed to the pope and was pleased to learn that Rome had no objection to his marriage. In 907, this opened a rift between Constantinople and Rome, which was only patched up thirteen years later. Such appeals to the see of St Peter, whether by those in the East who had been condemned and exiled, or by patriarchs who felt they had been unjustly deposed, enhanced the pope’s position as the ultimate arbiter of Christian quarrels. In the eyes of eastern Church leaders, who felt uneasy about recognizing papal primacy, they also created a dangerous precedent.

  During the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55), this latent hostility flared into mutual condemnation. Contacts between Old and New Rome had drawn attention to differences between eastern and western Church practice. Some were fundamental, such as the wording of the creed; what bread to use in the eucharist (leavened with yeast, zymos, in the East, unleavened, azyme, in the West); whether priests should marry (celibacy was imposed on all clerics in the West but priests and those in lesser orders were permitted to marry in the East); and the primacy of bishops of Rome. Others were relatively insignificant and had developed over centuries: for instance, in the East cheese (but not meat) was eaten during the week preceding Lent and in the West it was not eaten on certain fast days. But against the background of heightened awareness generated by reformers like Pope Leo IX (1049–54), the West asserted the purity of its traditions. In turn, Byzantium emphasized that the West had added a phrase to the wording of the creed.

  The essential theological difference concerned the origin of the Holy Spirit, ‘which proceeds from the Father’, according to the definition adopted at the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon in 325 and 451. Orthodox teaching on the Trinity was clear: the three manifestations of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit shared in its uncreated essence and pre-existing substance – in a word they are consubstantial. But
each had its own hypostasis, a term difficult to translate, which had been rendered in Latin by natura (nature) or substantia (substance). This was not the same as that pre-existing power which the orthodox identified as the nature or substance, ousia, of the Godhead. The complex relationships defined in Greek by early Christian theologians had never been fully reflected in Latin translation, a fact recognized as early as the fifth century by St Augustine.

  The relationship of the Son (or Logos, the Word) and the Holy Spirit (Pneuma) to the Father was not the same, since the Son is generated and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Son participates in this process, holding the position of mediator, which gives rise to the formula: ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son’ (dia tou Hyiou). This was how Maximos Confessor understood the relationship in the seventh century. Nonetheless, at about this time the clause and from the Son (filioque in Latin) had been added to the creed in Spain, and with the authority of St Isidore of Seville behind it this wording gradually spread to other churches. Rome did not accept it immediately: in the early ninth century, Pope Leo III erected shields with the traditional wording of the creed in both Greek and Latin at the entrance to St Peter’s. In 879/80 at the Council of Constantinople, the western formulation ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son’ was condemned as heretical, an unauthorized addition to the creed as defined by the Oecumenical Councils of 325 and 451. In the eleventh century, however, Rome adopted the clause and thus endorsed a new interpretation of the Holy Spirit, which was never recognized in the East.