JUSTINIAN
In the following year, a sufficiency of bishops having gathered, the fifth-sixth synod was convened. I ordered the sessions held in a domed hall of the great palace, for which reason I have sometimes heard the synod called that held in the dome. The westerners, in whose tongue the word dome is signified by trullo, are most prone to this usage.
As the synod opened, all the assembled bishops prostrated themselves before me. They having risen, I addressed them, as my father had addressed the bishops who had come to the imperial city for the sixth ecumenical synod.
"Holy fathers," I said, and my words came echoing back from the dome that gave the hall we were using its name, "employing me as His instrument, God has given you the chance to complete and perfect the work of the previous two ecumenical synods, which concerned themselves more with dogma than with discipline."
"You are the protector of the church, Justinian," the bishops responded. "Though we live in an age of corruption and despair, you will restore the light we once knew."
I made the sign of the cross, the bishops imitating my gesture. Such formal praise as that which they had just given me is not always sincere, but I basked in it nonetheless, knowing that by summo ning the fifth-sixth synod I had become part of a chain of Emperors dating back to Constantine the Great who would be remembered forever for their association with the holy ecumenical synods. How could a Christian want a memorial better than defining the faith and its rules, rooting out error, and making the truth shine forth?
"The problems before us are many," I said. "Even now, almost seven centuries after the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, pagan practices persist among the peasants. We Christians also stand in danger of corruption by the mischievous ideas of the Jews. Our morals are appallingly lax, this holding true for both layfolk and clergymen. And further, both in the west where barbarians rule and in Armenia, certain unacceptable practices have taken root and need to be eradicated."
In mentioning the Armenians, I did not refer to the Paulician heretics but rather to the customs that had gained acceptance within the regular Christian church of Armenia. That church has never fully reconciled itself to the condemnation of the misguided doctrine of the single nature of Christ, and, being more often than not under the power of the followers of the false prophet, is not so fully susceptible to ecclesiastical discipline as I should like.
"We shall make the world new and pure and holy," the bishops chorused. "We shall correct all errors, remove all ambiguities."
And that, over the next few months, is exactly what they set about to do. With my approval, they took severest aim at suppressing worship of the demons who had fooled the folk of the days before the divine Incarnation into thinking they were gods. Even in my time, people would- people do- swear oaths by these pagan gods. The synod made those swearing such oaths liable to excommunication, as they richly deserved to be for their thoughtlessness.
Men and women trampling out the vintage remained in the habit of calling on Bacchus, the false god of wine, as they did so. They too were made liable to excommunication, as were those who celebrated Bacchus's festival, the Broumalia; the great festival of Pan (who, as every educated man knows, died shortly after the time of our Lord, as the pagan writer Plutarch acknowledges), the Bota; and the old pagan New Year's festival near the vernal equinox.
Village dances celebrating the pagan gods were also condemned, laymen participating in them being made subject to excommunication and clergymen to removal from their order. The same penalty applied to those wearing masks- whether tragic, comic, or satiric- which were connected to the false cult of Dionysos.
The assembled bishops also outlawed divination, horoscopes, ventriloquism, and fortune-telling of all sorts because of their un-Christian nature. God's will may not be influenced thus, and may not be known until He chooses to reveal it in the fullness of time. Perhaps because offenses of this nature are so common, the synod decreed six years' penance for them rather than excommunication.
As it should have done, the fifth-sixth synod also protected us Christians against the pernicious Jews, who yet persist among us, steadfastly denying with their stubborn ignorance the reality of the new dispensation decreed by Jesus Christ. The bishops ordered laymen excommunicated and clergymen deposed who ate of the Jews' unleavened bread, who accepted medicine from Jews (whose reputation for skill as physicians no doubt springs from Satanic assistance), and who bathed with them or had other similarly intimate dealings.
While condemning these errors, the synod also perfected the laws governing us Christians. It forbade picturing Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, ordaining that He be shown only as the man He was, lest the ignorant conceive from the misrepresentation that God had truly sent His Son to earth in lamb's shape. And it prohibited using the cross in a floor mosaic, to keep feet from trampling on and profaning the holy symbol.
Sensibly, the synod affirmed and strengthened previous condemnations of adultery, fornication, abortion, and maintaining a bawdy house. It banned gambling with dice, and also outlawed appearing as an actor in a theatrical show. From the time when these rules were promulgated, I vigorously enforced them.
MYAKES
That he did, Brother Elpidios, that he did. You should have heard people grumble, too. You tell your Constantinopolitan he can't have his shows, you tell him he can't throw the dice, and he won't be very happy. I'd be lying if I said I never got down on my knees in the dirt myself, matter of fact. Yes, I was at the sessions. Yes, I heard gambling with dice condemned. Why did I do it? It's fun, that's why. I'm a sinner? Now give me news I haven't heard.
Eh? What do you want to know? Did Justinian leave off his drinking and fornicating after he set his signature on all those canons? He was twenty-two years old, give or take a year, and Emperor of the Romans. What do you think he did?
You're right. That's what he did. If you already know the answers, why ask the questions?
JUSTINIAN
As I urged it to do, the synod condemned certain practices followed by the Armenians and by the barbarians in the west. The Armenian bishops raised no objection to the four canons that sought to regulate affairs in their church, nor, at the time, did the few clerics who had come from the west complain about the forbidding of fasting on Saturdays during the Lenten season, about prohibiting the eating of meat from strangled animals, or about other small-souled, exotic, and newfangled usages prevailing in that part of the world.
And so the synod moved on to consider canons pertaining to marriage. It affirmed that men previously married who were ordained as deacons or priests could, and indeed were required to, keep the wives with whom they had exchanged the holy and sacred vows of matrimony.
Here Basil, the bishop of Gortyna on the island of Crete, who, being under the jurisdiction of the pope of Rome, had also helped represent Rome at the sixth ecumenical synod, protested, saying, "The custom in the west is different, and requires complete celibacy of priests and deacons. Those there who have wives must put them aside to be ordained."
"This is but another barbarous error on the part of western clerics," the ecumenical patriarch said. "Have they forgotten the words of the book of Matthew: 'What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder'? For your reference," he added slightingly, as if Basil could not be expected to know, "this is the sixth verse of the nineteenth chapter."
Paul spoke as if explaining proper doctrine to a child, not to a fellow churchman. The bishops under the jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople made only the slightest efforts to conceal their amusement, having long since wearied of the arrogant pretensions of the popes, who, dwelling in the ruins of what was once a great city, think to dictate doctrine to the entire civilized world.
Basil of Gortyna held his temper. He said, "Practice in the west differs, and the differences are of long enough establishment to be tolerated under the principle of economy."
George and Daniel, Pope Sergios's regular legates in Constantinople, nodded in agreem
ent. But Paul shook his head, saying, "The principle of economy covers differences of ritual without doctrinal importance. That cannot be said of rules pertaining to the proper ordination of priests and deacons."
Basil looked mournful. "The holy pope will not care to set his signature on canons going dead against the custom in his patriarchate."
He and the papal legates wrangled on with the ecumenical patriarch and the bishops from within the Roman Empire for some time over this matter and others, such as the canon that- only reconfirming the acts of the second and fourth ecumenical synods- placed Constantinople with Rome in patriarchal privilege, ranking after it only in the listing of the patriarchates.
I heard much of this later, for I did not attend all these sessions of the fifth-sixth synod, having other matters to occupy my attention. Chief among these was the return of the Cypriots, who again petitioned me to let them leave their island and settle within territory under the sole rule of the Roman Empire.
Where I had refused them before, I now accepted their pleas, resettling a good many of them in Bithynia, not far from the imperial city. Thanks to Abimelekh's insolent provocations with his coins and papyrus sheets, I was more inclined toward war than I had been previously, and, thanks to the exertions of Neboulos, who to my amazement was building his army to the size he had promised, more confident of the outcome.
In my honor, the Cypriots renamed the town in which I resettled them New Justinianopolis. This touched me even more than it might have otherwise, for their luck during the resettlement was not good: a storm sank some of the ships carrying them to their new home, while a pestilence raged among them after the transfer. But they sent John, whose acquaintance I had already made, to the fifth-sixth synod. Despite his previous foolishness, I was glad to see him there, as a sign of their making themselves at home.
Not long after the Cypriots had been moved to New Justinianopolis, Cyril the engraver asked for an audience with me. "Emperor, I have it!" he cried upon rising after prostrating himself.
"Splendid," I said agreeably, pleased to see one of my subjects so diligent in his service to me. I have it! being imperfectly informative, though, I asked, "What do you have?"
"The way you were seeking, Emperor; to show the deniers of Christ the folly of the ways and the glory of the true and holy faith," he answered.
I leaned forward on the throne; he had indeed engaged my interest. "Show me what you have," I said, and beckoned him to me, a rare privilege for an artisan, even one so skilled as Cyril.
As he approached, he reached down to a pouch he wore on his belt. A couple of the excubitores who stood nearest the throne stepped between him and me, pointing their spears at him with warning growls. But he had not come with assassination in mind; all he drew from the leather pouch was a sheet of papyrus on which he had been sketching in charcoal.
The papyrus, I saw, was one of the new sheets from Egypt, one on which the customary cross had been replaced by verses from the work of the Arabs' false prophet. That made Cyril's sketches all the more glorious, for they could have been taken to symbolize Christianity's triumph over the wicked doctrines Mouamet preached.
One sketch showed a Roman Emperor recognizably resembling me standing by and holding a step-mounted cross, a cross such as had been commonplace on the reverse of Roman nomismata for centuries. Cyril had lettered an inscription around the rim of the circular sketch: D. IUSTINIANUS SERVUS CHRISTI. Most of the letters were Latin, only a few Greek. "Lord Justinian, servant of Christ," he said, translating it into the tongue that had replaced Latin for most purposes in the Empire.
I nodded, but absently, for I was looking at the other sketch, which was of our Lord. Cyril had portrayed Him as Christ Pantokrator; the Ruler of All, His right hand flexed in a gesture of benediction, His left holding a book. The cross on which He was crucified appeared behind His head. Here the inscription read, again in a mixture of Latin and Greek letters, IES. CRISTOS REX REGNANTIUM. "Jesus Christ, King of Rulers," Cyril translated. He looked up at me. "Emperor, a nomisma with this on it will tell the followers of the false prophet what we think of him and of them."
"It will," I breathed. Coins go everywhere within the Roman Empire, and, thanks to the unchanging fineness of our gold, far beyond as well. A story told by a certain Kosmas, who sailed to India during the reign of my namesake, a century and a half before my time, comes to mind. An Indian prince asked him and a Persian merchant who was also present at his court which of them had a mightier sovereign. The Persian, of course, at once claimed his king was the mightier.
But Kosmas told the Indian prince, "Both rulers are here. By their coins shall you judge them." The Persian's silver was not bad in its way, but could not stand comparison to the gleaming Roman nomismata. And so the prince rightly judged the Emperor of the Romans mightier than the Persian King of Kings.
"One thing concerns me," I told Cyril. "These drawings are large"- each was broader than the palm of my hand-"but a nomisma is small, scarcely the width of my thumb. Will you be able to reproduce them accurately in that cramped space?"
He drew himself up, the picture of affronted pride. "Emperor, my work satisfied your father, and it has always satisfied you up to now. Do you think I would do anything less than my best when making an image of our Lord?"
"I'm sorry," I said, one of the few times- in fact, thinking back, the only one I can remember- I ever apologized while sitting on the imperial throne. "How soon can you strike examples to show me?"
Cyril got a faraway look in his eye. "I would say three days, Emperor, but, like I told you, I want this to be my very finest work. Will five days do?"
"That will be fine," I said, having expected some considerably longer time. Looking back, I should have known better, for some of the coins the palace servitors threw to the crowds of Constantinople at my coronation bore my image, not my father's. The engravers could, at need, work very fast indeed.
And Cyril proved as good as his word- in fact, one day better. When he handed me the first five nomismata he had struck, I brought them close to my face and squinted at them, hardly believing he had managed to include so much in so small a compass. I could make out the individual hairs, long and flowing, on Christ's head and in His beard and mustache; I imagined I could read (though in truth I could not) the words on the book He was holding. On the reverse, my own image was also impressively detailed, down to the three jeweled pendants dangling from the fibula that held my chlamys closed.
I passed one of the nomismata to Myakes, saying, "Tell me what you think of this."
"I always think well of gold, Emperor," he answered with a smile, which I knew to be true, though he was not madly greedy for it as some men are. I had given him the coin with the side upward that showed me standing and holding the cross. He looked at it, nodded in a businesslike way, and turned the nomisma over. He studied the image of our Lord in silence for some little while, so long that I began to wonder whether he had caught some flaw I missed. Then, softly, he said, "Ahh."
My gaze went to Cyril. His expression was the one he might have worn had some beautiful woman come up to him and begged him to take her to his bed that very instant. With the possible exception of something like that, no artisan could have got higher praise than Myakes' murmur of awe had just given him.
To Myakes, I said, "Keep that coin for yourself." I gave Cyril back the other four nomismata. "And you keep these. You did everything I wanted my coinage to do, and did it better than I imagined it could be done."
"I thank you, Emperor, for letting me turn my wits loose and not ordering me to do the other," he answered, "and I thank God for letting my wits come across this idea- for putting it in my mind, you might say. He knows how to watch over His faith better than any of us does, I expect."
"You might as well be a bishop," I told him.
He held up his scarred, callused hands. "I'm better at what I do," he said. "Maybe one day, when I'm too old to use the awl and the punch and the chisel and the hammer as I should,
I'll seek the quiet of the monastery. But not yet."
"Good enough," I said. "You can make me more splendid coins, then." He nodded, almost- although not quite- as happy as he had been when Myakes' involuntary, startled praise turned him to a bowl of barley mush.
***
I looked out at the bishops, each in his finest vestments, who had come to this God-guarded and imperial city at my urging. "You are agreed, then, holy fathers, that these canons complete and perfect the work of the last two ecumenical synods?"
"Emperor, we are," they chorused as one.
"Then let my signature and yours on the canons of this synod be proof of that." And, so saying, I dipped a pen into a jar of the crimson ink reserved for Emperors alone and set my name on each of the six copies scribes had prepared of the canons: one copy for the imperial chancery, and one each for the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Paul the ecumenical patriarch affixed his signature next after mine, leaving a blank space on each parchment wherein Sergios, the pope of Rome, might set his name. After him came the three patriarchs whose sees still unfortunately groan under the heel of the Arabs' miscalled commander of the faithful.
And after them I had the pleasure of summoning John, the bishop of New Justinianopolis, who had been translated with his flock from Cyprus to Bithynia. His signature went immediately below those of the patriarchs. "Thank you for the honor you show me and my new city, Emperor," he said, bowing.
"I take great pleasure in seeing you here," I answered, and we beamed at each other. He might have been foolish, but our thoughts now ran in the same channel.
After John, the rest of the bishops who had attended my fifth-sixth synod queued up to sign the canons to which they had agreed. As more than two hundred had come to the imperial city, and as each man had to write his name half a dozen times, the ceremony took some time.
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